Glider is the biggest paid botting wow company developer for wow, and it is getting shut down for good. Lets hope it is forever.

Good job blizzard.

The Glider outcome and copyright law

by Mike Schramm { 1 hour ago }
Feb 4th, 2009
Well, as you may have heard, Blizzard has all but finished off Glider -- pending one more appeal (which doesn't seem likely to win), Glider is getting shut down for good next week. Good news for Blizzard, but not so good for copyfighters? Blizzard used a controversial argument for copyright in its case -- they claimed that by circumventing the ToS, the Glider folks were actually breaking copyright law, and an interest group called Public Knowledge didn't take kindly to that. They argued that a decision for Blizzard would mean that any software developer could then prevent any customer from doing anything they didn't want to do, just by calling it a copyright infrigement. Blizzard responded that "buying" your WoW software was actually "licensing" it, but of course that didn't settle anyone down.

And now, Glider has lost -- so what next?

Tim Lee over at Ars Technica does call the decision "troubling" -- the Judge in the case made a distinction between the "literal elements" of Warcraft (the actual bits on the game disc), and the "non-literal" elements (the gameplay itself), and that Blizzard didn't control access to the "literal elements" (anyone can make copies of the game disc), but that they did control access to the "non-literal elements" (as the Warden program keeps you from using apps like Glider). If it sounds confusing, that's because it is, but the bottom line is this: the decision in this case does basically confirm that Glider circumvented part of Blizzard's copyright, and thus, if taken completely literally, this precedent could mean that anyone who did anything with any software that was against anything in the Terms of Use could be sued under copyright law.

Whew. Of course, we're not done yet -- the case is still moving on to a higher court, and if by some chance it passes appeal there, we could have another outcome. And this precedent is shaky to say the least -- another case could come along and knock that part of Blizzard's argument out (that wasn't the only argument they had against Glider). But despite the fact that Blizzard and many players are cheering that the bots lost, they may have opened up a rift in copyright law that interest groups on the other side may have a little trouble closing.

Cheating is Cheating regardless. Yes Bots are a big bissness. Unfortentely lazy so called gammers would rather let the bot grind for gold or loot. then spending the countless hours of doing it themself. To me that is a cheater. Bots also and these are better known as "GOLD TROLLS" go on the trade chat and beg ppl to go to there web site and buy FAKE gold with REAL money. Anyone stupid enough to do this deserve's to get caught. Im my book they are also CHEATERS. If you are a Pally Hack and you think you are all that because you can take on the highest elite out there with ease you are not a real gammer and I laugh in your face it is like "oooooo look at me i am a Pally god you cant touch me." I would not even give you the time of day for that matter.

A REAL gammer will grind his way to the top with the help from others who have been playing longer then he or she has and are a real help to "Newbs" because they once were a "Newb" So I appluad Blizz for taking on these CHEATERS!!!!

Botting is wrong, that much I agree with.  But the way he's framing his response, though, makes me wonder whether there will be any impact on copyright law.  Thankfully I don't live in the US, where you have all those limitations on reverse-engineering and such that made even talking about the infamous Sony Rootkit illegal.

 I'm really happy of Blizzard winning the case since it means less bots. But at the same time I'm disappointed a how it came. Helping people to break rules of a game they agreed to and even earning by it remains legal and unpunishable, and copyright owners are granted even more rights as if those weren't too large already. Would it really be so hard to pass a law to make earning money by cheating in games or by helping other people to cheat in games illegal?

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Originally posted by Furor
 if taken completely literally, this precedent could mean that anyone who did anything with any software that was against anything in the Terms of Use could be sued under copyright law.

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arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/01/judges-ruling-that-wow-bot-violates-dmca-is-troubling.ars

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Copyright was never intended as an alternative mechanism for contract enforcement. If that theory is allowed to stand, it would dramatically strengthen end-user license agreements and create enormous liability for those who break them. That would eviscerate the first sale doctrine and create tremendous legal risks for firms and free software projects that reverse-engineered other firms' products for purposes of interoperability.

MDY may not be the world's most sympathetic defendant, but there's a lot more at stake in this case than World of Warcraft bots.

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Glider + WoW + Ebay  combined they can pay your bills buy you a car and lots of food ahh the good days.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/01/judges-ruling-that-wow-bot-violates-dmca-is-troubling.ars

Good job Blizzard? I dont think so.

Look, I understand why Blizz arent happy. But why dont Blizz ask themselves a few questions about WoW.

Why do people buy levelled characters, pay for levelling services or bot software? Because people are lazy, but also because levelling is sh1t boring and time wasting. Also, for anyone with a reasonable income, its actually cheaper to pay for someone else to level your character if your hourly wage is greater than the power levelling service cost. Basically, people time is more valuable then wasting it levelling from 1 to 80.

Why did Blizz make Character transfers between accounts available? That just enables people to glider-level and sell characters with less cost. It allows a current player to buy a new character into his current account. He doesnt need to maintain two subs. And Blizz charge a fee for the transfer. So they further enable character selling, they cash in on it, then they turn around and say oh no, botting is bad. What a load of sh1t.

And what does it matter if people bot. Does it affect your end-game? No. Does it ruin your raiding? No. In fact it probably helps, because your guild can just buy a cheap level 80 healer rather than live through the horror of levelling one. And hell, if you're levelling along, barely staying awake from boredom, and you see an enemy player botting, it atleast gives you an easy "pvp" kill.

Ask yourself this. If levelling from 1 to 80 was actually fun, how many people would buy/use botting software? How many people would buy characters? If MMOs were less timesink, more timefun.

Instead of preventing botting, they should look at removing the reasons why people bot. Or perhaps thats just too hard.

Originally posted by mutombo55

Why do people buy levelled characters, pay for levelling services or bot software? Because people are lazy...

That just about says it all.  There's also the fact that some people would only be happy if ALL games came complete with a big, shiny "I WIN" button, but they try to cover this up by spouting tired old cliches such as "they have a life" and "why shouldn't someone buy their way to success".  I could easily pay to have people level my characters, and in fact I have family members who would love to play my characters for me, free of charge, should I feel so inclined, but I prefer to do it myself. 

The three lowest forms of MMO players are gold buyers, botters and people who use power-levelling services.  I have nothing but contempt for them and the services they use, and I'd report trash like them in a heartbeat.

As an aside, I really hope that the guy who wrote Glider has to hand over records of everyone who used his piece of shitware to Blizzard. I further hope that the costs of (eventually) losing his case ensures that he spends the next few years begging for loose change outside McDonalds.  Ahhh, happy, happy thoughts...

Originally posted by Dibdabs

Originally posted by mutombo55

Why do people buy levelled characters, pay for levelling services or bot software? Because people are lazy...

That just about says it all.  There's also the fact that some people would only be happy if ALL games came complete with a big, shiny "I WIN" button, but they try to cover this up by spouting tired old cliches such as "they have a life" and "why shouldn't someone buy their way to success".  I could easily pay to have people level my characters, and in fact I have family members who would love to play my characters for me, free of charge, should I feel so inclined, but I prefer to do it myself. 

The three lowest forms of MMO players are gold buyers, botters and people who use power-levelling services.  I have nothing but contempt for them and the services they use, and I'd report trash like them in a heartbeat.

Number 4 is twinks; like the L19 muppets in WoW that hang around in Battlegrounds all day preying on legitimate low level characters who just fancied a bit of PvP fun as a break to the monotony of levelling.

I can "sort of" understand people who use powerlevelling services; after you've done it a few times the process is so dull and boring that leveling a new alt is just torturous and I can have some sympathy for wanting to avoid that .. not enough to do it myself, but still.

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

Originally posted by Dibdabs

Originally posted by mutombo55

Why do people buy levelled characters, pay for levelling services or bot software? Because people are lazy...

That just about says it all.  There's also the fact that some people would only be happy if ALL games came complete with a big, shiny "I WIN" button, but they try to cover this up by spouting tired old cliches such as "they have a life" and "why shouldn't someone buy their way to success".  I could easily pay to have people level my characters, and in fact I have family members who would love to play my characters for me, free of charge, should I feel so inclined, but I prefer to do it myself. 

The three lowest forms of MMO players are gold buyers, botters and people who use power-levelling services.  I have nothing but contempt for them and the services they use, and I'd report trash like them in a heartbeat.

Number 4 is twinks; like the L19 muppets in WoW that hang around in Battlegrounds all day preying on legitimate low level characters who just fancied a bit of PvP fun as a break to the monotony of levelling.

I can "sort of" understand people who use powerlevelling services; after you've done it a few times the process is so dull and boring that leveling a new alt is just torturous and I can have some sympathy for wanting to avoid that .. not enough to do it myself, but still.

Yes, twinks who hang around like a fart in a spacesuit are a waste of space, but they're more to be laughed at than hated, at least to me.  I find the "! wanna be a BIG fish in a VERY small pond" mentality pretty funny.

If you are able to make friends, you don't NEED powerlevelling services in MMOs.  Friends can help ot with a boost here, a tough mob killed there, or maybe help out with a run of questing.  Only sadsacks without real friends have to buy their way to the top - no-one wants to help them for free!  

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Originally posted by mutombo55Ask yourself this. If levelling from 1 to 80 was actually fun, how many people would buy/use botting software? How many people would buy characters? If MMOs were less timesink, more timefun.
Instead of preventing botting, they should look at removing the reasons why people bot. Or perhaps thats just too hard.

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Amen. Games need to be about having fun, not grind.

This case, however, looks very bad for future legal implications.

i've seen some pretty ridiculous eulas, so this is kind of scary

will just be replaced by someone else and without bots the AH will be empty so thats bad i hope someone makes a new botting system soon and no i dont care if it ruins your gameplay cause il never group with random noobs anyways^_^

Originally posted by Nadia

 

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Originally posted by Furor
 if taken completely literally, this precedent could mean that anyone who did anything with any software that was against anything in the Terms of Use could be sued under copyright law.

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this could be troubling but time will tell
 
More Bad Law in WoW Glider Case
www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/02/more-bad-law-wow-glider-case

 

 
arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/01/judges-ruling-that-wow-bot-violates-dmca-is-troubling.ars
 

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Copyright was never intended as an alternative mechanism for contract enforcement. If that theory is allowed to stand, it would dramatically strengthen end-user license agreements and create enormous liability for those who break them. That would eviscerate the first sale doctrine and create tremendous legal risks for firms and free software projects that reverse-engineered other firms' products for purposes of interoperability.

 

MDY may not be the world's most sympathetic defendant, but there's a lot more at stake in this case than World of Warcraft bots.

---

 

I don't see what the issue is? Players agree to the EULA and should be held accountable if they break it. If players don't like it then don't break it or don't agree to it and don't play the game.

Originally posted by Furor

Blizzard used a controversial argument for copyright in its case -- they claimed that by circumventing the ToS, the Glider folks were actually breaking copyright law, and an interest group called Public Knowledge didn't take kindly to that. They argued that a decision for Blizzard would mean that any software developer could then prevent any customer from doing anything they didn't want to do, just by calling it a copyright infrigement.

That's a bunch of BS.  It was copyright infringement because they are minupulating the code in memory of the progarm.  So yes that is copyright infringement.  That is very much like reverse engineering.

IDK about the quality of judges,but they obviously are looking at it in a simplistic fashion.I am 100% against any TOS or FORCED license,because it basically gives the user NO rights.If you are spending money on this developer,you  SHOULD have more rights than a promised exchange on a failing CD/DVD.The laws are VERY one sided and not fair what so ever.

I agree that the developer should have every right to their software,but they do not have the right to OWN the user,that is where the fine line is drawn.As far as i am concerned Blizzard does NOT have the right to imbed your system with any software outside of the purpose to witch you are buying the game.There is not one person out there that purchased WOW for the sake of getting a spyware program put onto their PC.

I think the law should be sort of simple and any judge /court should see the obvious reasoning behind certain decisions.One example is if a company tries to use ANYTHING from the game to profit for themselves,i do not believe anyone has a right to profit from the developers work.The problem that would arise is ALL the websites that make any kind of money by using a LOGO to link to their site.I believe this is ALWAYS in the copyright laws and should be,these sites need to ask for permission when using EXACT property.I saw this happen with HASBRO as they shut down many sites that did not get permission to post ANYTHING Hasbro related.

In the case of Blizzard claiming their Warden program is to safeguard their property,that is what the courts and laws are for,so they are pushing the laws to extend into the privacy of users ,and that IMO is breaking the law,this is what they should be fighting.

It is not only a victory for Blizzard, but one for this industry and the gaming community.
 
 
Well done!

One of the reasons I stopped playing WoW was because of people who thought I was a noob or noobish because I acuatlly wanted to play how I wanted to play.  I didn't want to grind the same instance all day long waiting for "the uber sword" to drop... or I played BG when I wanted to..not just for a specific piece of gear cuz that's whatever one else did.  I played a holy pally and I could heal like no one's business better than pallys who were geared better than me, but that's because I played the game.  I didn't power lvl.. or use bots. Alot of the people who use bots or pay people to power lvl end up sucking because they didn't build the character themselves.

Anytime the game becomes boring or a chore.. it's time for a break...simple as that.  I despise people who cheat their way to the top, because those are the same people who will steal from guild banks and basically some of the most undesireable people to play with.  Since they don't earn things within the game, they place little value on things that are earned by others within the game. 

Originally posted by Wizardry

IDK about the quality of judges,but they obviously are looking at it in a simplistic fashion.I am 100% against any TOS or FORCED license,because it basically gives the user NO rights.If you are spending money on this developer,you  SHOULD have more rights than a promised exchange on a failing CD/DVD.The laws are VERY one sided and not fair what so ever.

I agree that the developer should have every right to their software,but they do not have the right to OWN the user,that is where the fine line is drawn.As far as i am concerned Blizzard does NOT have the right to imbed your system with any software outside of the purpose to witch you are buying the game.There is not one person out there that purchased WOW for the sake of getting a spyware program put onto their PC.

I think the law should be sort of simple and any judge /court should see the obvious reasoning behind certain decisions.One example is if a company tries to use ANYTHING from the game to profit for themselves,i do not believe anyone has a right to profit from the developers work.The problem that would arise is ALL the websites that make any kind of money by using a LOGO to link to their site.I believe this is ALWAYS in the copyright laws and should be,these sites need to ask for permission when using EXACT property.I saw this happen with HASBRO as they shut down many sites that did not get permission to post ANYTHING Hasbro related.

In the case of Blizzard claiming their Warden program is to safeguard their property,that is what the courts and laws are for,so they are pushing the laws to extend into the privacy of users ,and that IMO is breaking the law,this is what they should be fighting.

Again, I don't see what the issue is. It's completely cut and dry.

Game Company: these are the things you can and cannot do while playing our game. Do you agree...

Player: "yes" I agree.

end of subject.

The only thing that I would say is that it players don't usually know the EULA until after they purchase the software. If something is added that seems to be repugnant to the player they really don't have a lot of recourse as open software is not returnable (usually).

Good riddance.

But Blizzard should maybe sit down and think why bots are needed for many players, that means that a lot of players are spending a lot of in game time not having fun (not just Blizz but all MMO companies should). The point about a game is having fun and the more boring time you have the bigger the chanse that you loose your players even if the fun time are really fun.

Either it should be fun to grind or you shouldnt have to grind at all.

But that is of course not an excuse to cheat.