The Lawbringer: Interfering with gold farmers

Welcome to the Lawbringer, your weekly tour of the intersection between law and Warcraft. I am a third year law student specializing in intellectual property law acting as your crossing guard, trying desperately not to get run over myself.

So last week we engaged in some speculation about how WoW might change if Blizzard permitted gold sales. Personally, I think that the damage to the game economy and culture would be far more damaging than any legal issues that might develop, but it's worth noting that legal issues could easily develop. As for the here and now, certain facts about gold selling remain:

• Gold selling is against the terms of both the North American and European EULA and TOU.
• Gold selling is performed by a number of companies, many of them located outside the Unites States.
• Gold sellers acquire their gold through obnoxious farming behaviors and account hacking.
• Gold sellers exist because of gold buyers.

Given all this, what can we as players do to stop these locusts? The biggest thing is obviously to NOT buy gold. I really don't think this point can be emphasized enough. Beyond that though, we may be able to take advantage of a legal theory known as tortious interference in contract.