General Discussion

An American judge, in a case against the maker of a WoW-bot, has decided that loading the third party software in memory violates WoW-copyright.

"The Court reaches the following conclusions on the basis of undisputed facts, construction of the EULA and TOU, and controlling Ninth Circuit law: Blizzard owns a valid copyright in the game client software, Blizzard has granted a limited license for WoW players to use the software, use of the software with Glider falls outside the scope of the license established in section 4 of the TOU, use of Glider includes copying to RAM within the meaning of section 106 of the Copyright Act, users of WoW and Glider are not entitled to a section 117 defense, and Glider users therefore infringe Blizzard’s copyright. MDY does not dispute that the other requirements for contributory and vicarious copyright infringement are met, nor has MDY established a misuse defense. The Court accordingly will grant summary judgment in favor of Blizzard with respect to liability on the contributory and vicarious copyright infringement claims in Counts II and III."

www.tssznews.com/2008/07/15/judge-glider-violates-blizzard-copyright-2/

Go Blizz!! Pretty soon there won't be any argument about whther the ToS/EULA is worthless or not. One more step toward being able to finally sue the pants off every botter and then farmers/private server operators/etc. which are all forbidden under ToS/EULA.

I'm all for it, and grats to that Judge making the right call.

Originally posted by Zorvan

Go Blizz!! Pretty soon there won't be any argument about whther the ToS/EULA is worthless or not. One more step toward being able to finally sue the pants off every botter and then farmers/private server operators/etc. which are all forbidden under ToS/EULA.

I'm all for it, and grats to that Judge making the right call.

The interesting part will now be, how much Blizzard will demand in damage compensation from Michael Donnelly, the maker of Glider.

They have yet to announce it. I hope he gets sued hard.

Originally posted by Waterlily

Originally posted by Zorvan

Go Blizz!! Pretty soon there won't be any argument about whther the ToS/EULA is worthless or not. One more step toward being able to finally sue the pants off every botter and then farmers/private server operators/etc. which are all forbidden under ToS/EULA.

I'm all for it, and grats to that Judge making the right call.

 

The interesting part will now be, how much Blizzard will demand in damage compensation from Michael Donnelly, the maker of Glider.

They have yet to announce it. I hope he gets sued hard.

He doesn't stand a chance against the lawyers Blizz can hire. Blizz will be recieving payments from his great-great-grandchildren.
 

Nod. Unless they agree on a settlement, which I doubt Blizzard will grant him, there are other claims Blizzard made in their case against Michael Donnelly that the judge has yet to make a verdict on.

I think Blizzard is waiting on the verdict of their other claims before they make a damage compensation claim.

I think the laws are ridiculous when a player is allowed to play a game he owns, but not allowed to use a software wich copies the game to RAM to run the game. Soon we'll be seeing games with EULAs wich make running them with emulator illegal. Consumers should have more rights about how to run their own games.

Blizzard is doing really good job against botters and I appreciate what they are doing, but the lawmakers should make better laws. Something that would make including any functionality to hide the program to a program wich can be used to bot illegal would be a good law. So that Blizzard, and other companies, could identify those botting programs and ban the users without problems should they wish to do so.

Originally posted by Vrika

I think the laws are ridiculous when a player is allowed to play a game he owns, but not allowed to use a software wich copies the game to RAM to run the game.

He specifically states that the use of it by players is infringing on Blizzard's copyright with his verdict, thereby making it illegal.

I think it's not hard to make a case that an emulator running WoW is at least just as much infringing on WoW's copyright, if not more so.

Originally posted by Vrika

I think the laws are ridiculous when a player is allowed to play a game he owns, but not allowed to use a software wich copies the game to RAM to run the game. Soon we'll be seeing games with EULAs wich make running them with emulator illegal. Consumers should have more rights about how to run their own games.

Blizzard is doing really good job against botters and I appreciate what they are doing, but the lawmakers should make better laws. Something that would make including any functionality to hide the program to a program wich can be used to bot illegal would be a good law. So that Blizzard, and other companies, could identify those botting programs and ban the users without problems should they wish to do so.

Buy singleplayer games and you have all the rights you need.

When you buy an mmo or online game, you are only buying the media containing the software needed to play the game. The maker of the game decides what can and cannot be used while you play on their servers, this is their right.

And running games with emulators is already illegal for singleplayer games unless you own a copy of the actual game. And private servers ( another emulator ) is illegal due to the ToS/EULA which has just gotten a little stronger backing now.

And the game itself can be run completely from memory ( if you have enough memory to form a virtual hard drive and if that virtual hard drive does not hinder Blizzards' protection programs, such as Warden ). It's the 3rd party program running in memory to circumvent detection while modifying the game outside of Blizzards design boundaries which is illegal ( as we've just seen from the ruling ).

Originally posted by Waterlily

Originally posted by Vrika

I think the laws are ridiculous when a player is allowed to play a game he owns, but not allowed to use a software wich copies the game to RAM to run the game.

He specifically states that the use of it by players is infringing on Blizzard's copyright with his verdict, thereby making it illegal.

I think it's not hard to make a case that an emulator running WoW is at least just as much infringing on WoW's copyright, if not more so.

Everyone just keep eating this shit up.... What amazes me is that gamers are to ****ing stupid to realize that with a ruling like this, the courts are and will continue, to eat away at every right you "think" you have, and eventually take them all away.

Good job Blizzard, you just opened a door for the legal system in the good ol us of A (gag) to pretty much tell me what I can have on MY computer. Something I paid in upwards of $4000.00 for but soon might as well be a paper weight, because all the courts are going to let me have on the damn thing is a copy of WoW, and pinball.... oh and Microsoft products..... yay!!!! Im so damn happy right now!

Man I wish people were smarter, I wish I could even give people the benefit of the doubt that we even deserve to exist....

Police state here we come !!! WOOHOO!