What better way to celebrate the Fourth of July today than to sit outside with some good beer, some tasty BBQ, and a whole lot of cheaply made
fireworks? Brom and Seku on the Llane server were kind enough to send us this picture they took of a firework they found at a store in Pittsburg, Kansas -- apparently the "Behemoth," made by the Consumer Fireworks company in China, not only "emits showers of sparks," it also blows copyright law completely out of the water. Very nice.
One more gigantic pic of the Behemoth and
its Warcraft III orc cover art after the jump. If you do use fireworks (or break copyright law) today, do it safely, and have a great holiday!
Tags: art, artwork, bbq, copyright, fireworks, fourth-of-july, kansas, made-in-china, orc, warcraft-III
Filed under: Orcs, Items, Events, Odds and ends, Blizzard
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Matt Graham Jul 4th 2008 11:19AM
I want that. :D
Mcg Jul 4th 2008 11:38AM
I bought one of those for New Year's just because it had the Orc on it. It gives off an awesome display.
Kage Jul 4th 2008 12:04PM
Nothing celebrates freedom like breaking a copyright law xD
Daniel Jul 4th 2008 12:25PM
XD haha nice one
Badger Jul 4th 2008 3:15PM
Today, we celebrate ... our Independence [from all legal constraints] Day!
katsuyakaiba Jul 4th 2008 12:47PM
LOL. When I got fireworks last night, I saw one with Dante from Devil May Cry on it holding a grenade launcher with the name of 'Lawbreaker' lol
Gurluas Jul 4th 2008 12:50PM
Its Thrall, He has blue eyes.
Ametrine Jul 4th 2008 12:52PM
Why am I not surprised it's from China?
Oldbear Jul 4th 2008 1:31PM
Because if its "Made in the USA" it must be "Union Made with Pride" and costs 4x as much...
Afu Jul 4th 2008 1:20PM
Although copyright infringement might be a no-no, I wonder how many people here are smuggling fireworks into their home state illegally?
That would be places like:
IL, IA, ME, OH, VT, DE, MA, NJ, NY, RI, and good 'ole AZ
Of course, even better, I like how wowinsider thought it was cool to just copy the support paragraph from blizzard's site and paste it at the bottom of their page:
http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=20606&rhtml=true
"Phone Support
Live representatives are on hand Monday through Friday, between the hours of 8 AM and 8 PM Pacific Time to answer your questions.
For assistance please call: 1 (800) 592 5499
Users located in Australia should use 1-800-041-378 if they cannot get through with the number above.
Users located in Singapore should use 800-2549927 if they cannot get through with the number above.
International: (949) 955-0283"
Apparently, blowing "copyright law completely out of the water" is fun for everyone!
I love the taste of hypocrites in the morning...Mmmm...salty...
SgtBaker Jul 4th 2008 1:29PM
Heh, WOWInsider Pwned!
(and watch how they weasel themselves out of that, as they did with the "we respect the Wrath NDA spirit so we can get press-pass from Blizz but we still post every goddamn leak on The Internet here" discussion)
Mike Schramm Jul 4th 2008 1:47PM
Um, it is fun for everyone. Did we ever say otherwise? Posting a few support phone numbers doesn't constitute copyright infringement anyway -- our goal there, obviously, was to get people who have a problem with the game to the right place and out of our comments section. Your comment's been arrowed down.
And I don't even understand the Wrath NDA thing. You're angry that we're reporting on something readers care about? Also arrowed down. But thanks for reading! Happy Fourth of July! :)
SgtBaker Jul 4th 2008 8:01PM
Not angry at all - I like reading about Wrath leaks - just found your policy of reporting/not-reporting/then reporting again - well - quite silly and very unprofessional.
And when it comes to the little text you've copied from their site.. no, I guess posting a few phone numbers won't get in you trouble anywhere and it might not be much, but without written permission it's still a breach of their Website Terms of Use. http://www.wow-europe.com/en/legal/termsofuseweb.html
Fun or not, but since they actually have a ToU for the website, wouldn't it be "right" to respect that?
At the end of the day, your bloggers are getting paid and your site is making money - so it's not some hobbyist project, wouldn't it be better if it all was done by being Professional? (or at least in "spirit" of professionalism.. even trying counts...).
But anyway.. go arrow me down ;-)
Oseary Jul 4th 2008 1:32PM
Compared with this picture:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fb/Warcraft_3_battlechest.JPG
You can even compare the crappy PS job by the fireworks company covering the nosering and the changing of the eye color...
Classy.
John Jul 4th 2008 1:53PM
"What better way to celebrate the founding of our country than by blowing up a small portion of it?" -The Simpsons
"What better way to celebrate the founding of our country than by blowing up an orc" -me
@Afu, The Phone support thing is basically just a list, and lists (like recipes, board game rules, etc) can't be copywritten, there must be some "creative" bit for it to be copywritable, that's why you can have a phonebook put out by your local phone company, and another phonebook (with an identical listing of numbers) put out by another company without breaking copyright laws, the phone co copywrites the layout and design of thei phonebook. Furthermore, while Blizz has likely Copywritten the layout of the page that WI copy/pasted (Tho, WI's copypasta strips out the specific layout elements of Blizz's site, thus not infringing even in that area), they likely could care less that their support numbers are being disseminated to a wider audience.
Afu Jul 4th 2008 2:23PM
"Posting a few support phone numbers doesn't constitute copyright infringement anyway"
That would be fine if all you guys did was post a few numbers. But you didn't do that. You copy-pasted most of a paragraph from another website. At least the fireworks people photoshopped their work. You guys didn't even change the wording, which is exactly what brought it to my attention.
Don't get mad at me, I'm just pointing out the irony of a post on copyright infringement having pilfered text at the bottom of it.
Arrow me down all you like, Mr. Schramm, that's what it's there for. I still find it funny...
Austin Jul 4th 2008 7:13PM
Are you mental? The paragraph above it says:
WoW Insider is not owned, operated or affiliated with Blizzard's World of Warcraft game. If you have any technical or account problems, you need to contact Blizzard directly. Go to worldofwarcraft.com or wow-europe.com and look on the left hand column for their Support links.
Or contact Blizzard Customer Service directly:
And after that, it has the phone numbers...
Snuzzle Jul 4th 2008 8:10PM
Are you freaking kidding me? "At least they edited it"? Editing the picture makes it worse. That's like vandalizing another artist's work without his or her consent. Worse still is the fact that the fireworks box does not even mention the name of Blizzard or the original artist. Sorry, but copying some text from a website doesn't even compare to editing and using another artist's work without his permission. Apples and oranges, mate; not even remotely close.
Snuzzle Jul 4th 2008 8:17PM
Furthermore, I'd like to clarify what we're talking about. We're talking about a blurb for a phone number to contact for support. The blurb says all of "This is the number to call for support. This is when they're in operation to take calls." It's not as though they copy-pasted an article or some such, which would be plagiarism. I'm fairly sure you're grasping at straws here, and I'm glad to see no one's being fooled.
haircute Jul 4th 2008 2:37PM
WOOO! GOOOO KANSAS!!!