Well in my over the top example that you apparently took seriously, Blizzard as a company provided a game that by its design automatically creates an uneven playing feild for someone that started out years after the game was released.  Now I don't really think they should be sued, however I think Blizzard sueing some one instead of banning them and anyone else using the bot is like taking a sledge hammer to a fly on your foot.  Totally uncalled for I am not ok with the precedent this sets.

Uh yeah and I take it you have actually surveyed the multimillion WOW users to see if they have actually even heard of this bot! My bet is the vast majority would have no clue what you are talking about if you asked them, and I would even go so far as to say few of the millions would truely care.

 

Okay, thanks for the clarification. Looks like there's more to it than I initially thought.



I'm not certain I understand this statement: "having more of the program than is needed to run it"

Can you clarify?

What IMHO has been demonstrated here is that yes, copyright law is sufficient enough to uphold a EULA. Whether you like it or not, you're not considered an "owner" of software, you're considered a "licensee."

If you would like software that is more akin to ownership, open source software may be an option. Of course it's still technically licensed, but open source licenses generally give users a lot more freedom to copy the software.

And yep I am sure WOW would cease to exist with out this over reaction.  Not that every other MMO ever created hasn't had to deal with and has maned up and dealt with it accordingly without some over the top lawsuit.

I have a problem with point #2. To the best of my knowledge, the decisions are technically correct, and in accord with existing law/precedent. Doesn't mean I necessarily agree with them, but I object to calling technically correct decisions BS.

Millions? no. But the briefs include a sampling of user complaints demonstrating knowledge of the bot and threats of (and presumably actual) account cancellation if the problem isn't addressed. While obviously they are not all included in the briefs verbatim, blizzard claims to have 400k+ customer complaints specifically referring to glider, and hundreds of thousands more that don't directly reference it.



My apologies, he is referencing an early post of mine, before I had a chance to read the entire case. Disregard it, as it doesn't actually apply.



No, but depending on how well you trust their numbers, they can claim tens of millions of dollars in direct and indirect damage. Certainly they can claim thousands of man-hours of programming on the Warden system went into combatting this bot. That doesn't count loss of income from cancelled and banned accounts, or the loss of content those man-hours could have been spent creating. Glider holds a singular place due to it's exceptional success, as well as the fact that WoW is one of (if not the) biggest MMO running.

I have a problem with the statement "the judges call was BS."



A sledge hammer? Blizzard asked for summary rulings. They don't want to drag this on any more than necessary.

And they have banned the software and users of it. Repeatedly. Problem is, the author just keeps changing it to circumvent their ban system. And they asked him out of court to stop creating the software. If the bot author had said "okay, I'll stop" a long time ago, none of this would be happening.

This is certainly no "fly." This is a determined and unrelenting cheater who is helping other cheaters.



Not myself directly, but Dr. Castronova, an expert witness in the case, claimed to have spoken to thousands of players (Filing 71, page 11). In addition, over 400,000 players petitioned complaints to Blizzard about botters (Filing 40, page 36).

In addition, it doesn't matter. Fighting bots costs money, whether the general WoW population is aware of the efforts or not.

Blizzard supplied the following as losses for the case:
-Real money trading associated with bots.

-The costs associated with Game Masters dealing with complaints about bots, and the extra burden of manually searching for bots.

-The costs associated with creating automated detection of bots. In fact, Blizzard is complaining that this particular bot creates the most work for their programmers.

I'd rather have those programmers working on improving the game. And I'm sure they'd agree. But they have to do it, otherwise the game would be unplayable.

-Normally, it would take some time to level a character in WoW. A bot makes it go faster - much faster. Blizzard did some calculations, and the difference between the times it takes to level with and without bots was calculated as lost subscription time.

as someone was saying earlier in the forum (assuming they are correct) the bot has to load the game into RAM (as any program does), and the judge apparently used this as the reason for calling it copyright infringement.

I know that's a poor explanation, but do read the last 2 pages worth of posts.

well thank you everyone for clarifying what we're arguing about.

what exactly was the judges logic for deciding that this is copyright infringement. can someone post that part of the case on the forum?

He did indeed use this as the reason. But not necessarily that the bot did the loading - it doesn't matter what loaded the game: Even if the OS loaded the game into memory, it's considered copying.



You answered your own question .



http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/arizona/azdce/2:2006cv02555/322017/82/

Page 16 especially.

here's another thought

the guy created a service to ease repetitive tasks, he invested time and effort and wants some money in return as compensation. The same every closed source software developer wants.

Of course if you bought that service you may ask yourself why do you pay for a game so a bot can play it for you. If the game is too much grind and you don't enjoy it, cancel your subscription, delete it and sell your account.
What? You may not sell your account because the MMORPG mafia says so? Well too bad I'll do it anyway.
Related if you for instance read SOE's Everquest 2 EULA, it says that everything you do inside the game is SOE property, every tell every piece of text you write is SOE's property. Your characters all items everything is SOE's property. Ingame protests are forbidden, mentioning of other games is forbidden, criticising the game is forbidden. A true dictatorship and people are paying for it.
Then there are people like BigDogBigFeet you say "Yes that's the law and everyone who dares question the law is evil and a terrorist" or something along those lines.

WIllythemailboy, you dont have any idea what you are talking abouth. Seen any lawyer-tv-shows lately which make you think you actually know something eh? or did you just copy/paste from some website? A judge dont have to abide by any other courts ruling unless its the supreme courts ruling. He is obliged to look at the law himself and see what it actually says. If you actually take the time to look into this you will see countless times where some lawyer have brough up some previous ruling and the judge have decided that it was not according to the law and ruled otherwise.

And as to your great faith in the "president" and "congress". Maybe you should take a closer look at the people who sits there before sprouting your great faith in them. Its not like bush is known for his great intellectual capacity.

And as for the bull you wrote abouth federal courts usually not beeing involved in criminal stuff, its wrong, pluss if this gets illegalized, it WILL go to a different court in the future, a court who deals with criminal charges. And thats what this is abouth. Next time you got something stupid to say keep your mouth shut, your only looking like a retard. I dont feel the need to bring lot of stupid arguments into this because i KNOW how the law works, something you obviously dont. If your thinking abouth typing more silly stuff you dont know anything abouth DROP IT.

Lets try to stay civil here and keep politics out of it.

Malanthor - unless you can show proof you hold a law degree, your authority on the legal system is no greater than mine. I do very occasionally watch police and legal shows, but mostly to laugh at the blatant, obvious errors they make. I about died laughing when one showed a cop smelling chloroform on a rag several days after use.

Precedents are not set in stone. All courts need to abide by rulings from higher courts - a circuit judge must apply precedents from his immediate appellate court as well as the supreme court. Often precedents are sought from farther afield, but in that case they are not binding. In the ruling, the judge assesses not just the law, but how previous precedents either do or do not apply.

Politics never even entered into my part of the discussion. I don't know whether this particular judge was appointed by Bush or not. It doesn't really matter. For all I know (or care) this guy was appointed by Clinton, possibly even Bush Sr. The point is that the guy got through the process without anyone objecting he was unqualified. That makes his opinion on the matter far more authoratative than yours or mine.

If you'll note, I said federal courts are involved in criminal cases only in specific circumstances. Most federal court cases involving criminals are actually appeals based on the criminal's rights being violated. And you're wrong in assuming this ruling will result in changes in criminal courts. The precedents set will only apply in civil cases of a similar nature. No part of this case actually applies to criminal law.

I'm all for civility, but the thread is political by dint of the original subject. The laws being discussed are made by elected officials and the judge in question was appointed by one and confirmed by *a majority* of 100 others.



I haven't taught civics for a few years now, but I believe WTMB is basically correct about how precedents work and that most criminal cases orginate in state and local courts. But IMO, he has put at least a toe over the civility line, unless perhaps he is a credentialed lawyer and is sparing us the lengthy legalese that might "prove" the imbecility of the judge in question.

Mind you, I'm all for hurling the bile and thunder in a truly private setting, especially if you are ranting about any US president since the early republic. We really need to adjust our expectations for the office ASAP; the framers didn't wage a long war and an even longer constitutional debate just to have us end up with a series of monarchs who can reign no more than 10 years.

I thought that line would make it clear enough, but apparently not. I do not hold, and do not ever intend to hold, a legal degree. I do, however, consider myself a amateur with a better-than-average understanding of the legal system and the government in general.

And on the contrary, I am asking for proof of the imbecility of said judge, myself. I spent most of last night reading through the proceedings of that case, and didn't find any substantive errors in the rulings. The ruling against Bilzzard concerning their DMCA claim was spot-on. While I think the bot violates the spirit of DMCA, it does not violate the letter of the law.

44RS said:




And Jafo quite rightly replied:


I was out of town for a few days, so I missed this gem, but this is just appallingly sick and disturbing. I mean, I couldn't quite believe what I was reading. If I saw something like this, not only would I complain to the company, but I'd probably never play another online game for the rest of my life. Sorry for the OT.

Anyway, I agree that this is a clear violation of the ToS, and both the programmer and users of Glider are and should be subjection to account termination for this reason. I have no problem with Blizzard taking this action against anyone it detects using the software; after all, WoW is its game and it can do what it wants with it.

I also agree with kryo that this doesn't seem to make any sense as a copyright violation. If I can make a physical backup copy of a game I have a license for--legally--why can't I have a "copy" in my computer's memory? And, if I can't, what exactly is the point of buying a license? So I can rotate the shiny side of the CD in my hand and marvel at the reflected light patterns on my ceiling?

On the other hand, and I know this isn't a popular opinion in this thread, I don't see the harm this causes other players. I'm not a WoW player, but I honestly don't see how someone else using a bot hurts my enjoyment of the game. So I have a level 30 character and he has a level 60 character? I have a level 10 monk in Guild Wars, and if other people are cheating to become level 20, I'll neither know nor care.

I've seen the arguments about gold-farming and the economy being unbalanced, but this seems a bit simplistic to me. First, if you're buying fake money with real money, you're probably also violating the ToS, so why should I care about that? Second, are there really that many people using Glider that it could unbalance the economy in WoW? How many millions of players of World of Warcraft are out there?

My tuppence.

Yeah the last thing you want to say in any of these threads is that copyright is broken and that copyright holders shouldn't have the rights to stomp all over their perspective and current customers.  Thank goodness copyright for the most part covers things I can live without.

Under normal playing conditions, the copying is covered as necessary for the program to function - allowed by both EULA and general copyright. This ruling doesn't affect that.



I haven't played WoW, but I have played other MMOs and grinding pretty much all works the same. Enemies can be killed off in an area, depleting the stock of enemies in that area until the game spawns new enemies over time. One of the problems with Glider is that it allows one character to continuously kill every enemy in that area almost as soon as it spawns, denying those enemies to legitimate players. In some cases, killing specific enemies in specific areas is part of the requirement to progress in the game. Legitimate players are prevented from progressing by the actions of the bot. One of the customer complaints referenced in the case speaks of an incident where one bot-controlled character monopolized an area in this manner 24 hours a day for more than a week.

WIllythemailboy said:



Okay, but how is what Glider does different from holding a copy in RAM, as it relates to copyright law?



Hmm. Well, that certainly appears to be a legitimate complaint. However, I don't think Guild Wars works this way. It's my understanding that whenever a player/character leaves a "common" area (a town, outpost, city, et cetera), (s)he is spawned into an instanced version of the world area his/her character is travelling to or through, as the case may be, except for special quests that encourage the formation of multiplayer parties (whose slots can be filled with computer players, if, like me, you prefer soloing).

Physically, not at all.

Legally, by using Glider you've violated the EULA. Thus Blizzad has the right to terminate your ability to use the WoW program, as you are no longer in compliance with the terms necessary to avoid breaking their copyright on that program.

Guild wars has instanced world areas. WoW's world areas are persistent. A person does not need to be in your party to be in the same world area you are. In effect, all of WoW is like a Guild Wars "common area".

Who claimed that WoW would cease to exist without this lawsuit? And what makes this lawsuit an overreaction or over the top? What are you trying to say here? That Blizzard should have no right to protect its investment from people acting in bad faith to damage it?



So you think it's perfectly fine for a guy to write and sell a program that allows people to play World of Warcraft without actually being at the keyboard, and that Blizzard's wrong for trying to put him out of business for publishing unlicensed software that drastically affects the playing experience - not just for the people who are botting, but on the in-game economy as a whole as the items and gold farmed are used in the auction house to alter that economy, with resources that no human player could accumulate.

Or better yet, to inflate prices on the auction house (by buying up everything and relisting it at a higher price) while also selling gold for cash?

It seems to me that you have no idea what's going on here, that you're objecting to this just because it's a lawsuit without also considering the effect that botting has on WoW as a whole.

Also, the uneven playing field isn't actionable - everyone has to start at first level, and Blizzard has made it easy to get to 70th level, to get access to epic gear without needing to raid for it. It's not even remotely comparable. It's humanly possible to level up to 70 in a short period of time, get good gear, get mounts, etc. What's not humanly possible is to compete with bots. It's an entirely different kind of uneven playing field. It'd be like if you were in a foot race and one guy was riding a motorcycle.



Then you don't know the game well. I would say most players are aware of gold farmers and botters and report them as soon as they see them. You can find complaint threads about them in server forums, in the customer service forum, in the general forum. If you join any active guild, you'll find guildmembers talking about them.

While it is possible (even probable) that many players are not directly aware of the bot itself, they're aware of botting in general. Many are also aware of the impact this has on WoW's economics. You're trying to appeal to the idea that most subscribers don't know about bots, and thus bots aren't really a problem - but no reasonable person would accept that as an argument even if it were true - ignorance of harm, even if the majority are ignorant of that harm, does not mean that no harm has been caused. In this case, Blizzard has access to datamining tools and Warden that can at least give an idea of how many people are using bots, what they're doing with those bots, and how much of that is going into the economy and warping it. Even if individual players don't notice, Blizzard still has hard numbers.

So why do you think it's wrong for a corporation that's been harmed to file a lawsuit? Why do you imply that the harm should potentially destroy their business before it's okay to file that lawsuit?

YOu just said the keywords, potentially destroying their business, I highly doubt that would ever happen and on top of that I have a hard time with preemptive lawsuits, just because you think it may hurt your business is not enough you have to prove that it hurts your business, and last I checked WOW has continued to add to its astronimical amount of subscribers while still increasing its cashflow from WOW by  the truckload.

I think if he wants to automate his game to play for him he should be able to.  As far as I can tell he is not breaking the game machanics so everything he is doing works within the game worlds rules.  He is still killing things as the game requires he is just doing it more efficiently, if that is not the case then it may be a different story.

I never said it should destroy their business what I did say is that I don't see Blizzard getting on less truckload of money because of this.

why would u think the law is justice or logical... its an industry the USA leads in (for now)

I'm sorry, I did not say he was potentially destroying Blizzard's business. I asked you if you believed that Blizzard could only act to defend itself when someone was taking actions that could potentially destroy their business?

Me, I can see that it's possible to cause material harm to a business without potentially destroying it. Can you? If you can, do you think it's wrong for that business to defend itself? It looks like that's exactly what you believe.



The game world's rules include "A human being must be at the computer, pressing the keys and using the mouse to make things happen." A bot circumvents that. It's already explicitly disallowed in the EULA. Botting allows him to play 24/7, to play multiple characters at once all doing different things - these are not possible for human beings.

It's also not his game, it's Blizzard's, and Blizzard wishes to maintain a game that's fun to play for as many of their 10 million customers as possible. His bot actively interferes with gameplay on multiple levels - from dominating areas in the game world, making it difficult for legitimate players to also farm those areas, to warping the in-game economy. Why should his fun take precedence over everyone else's? Why should he be allowed to do whatever he wants no matter how it affects other players?



So, you think that if botting reduces Blizzard's monthly gross from $60,000,000 for US accounts to $50,000,000, for example, then there's no reason to put a stop to botting? That's ignoring the additional costs for programming warden to deal with the bot, for GMs dealing with complaints because of the bot, and so on.

Yes, Blizzard is still making a lot of money, but the cost of having to deal with and neutralize the bot shouldn't count as damages?

It just seems to me like "As long as Blizzard's making a lot of money, anything should go" and that's pretty unreasonable.