Cheating is bad, but does cheating infringe on a video game publisher’s copyright? World of Warcraft-maker Blizzard, a subsidiary of Vivendi, is trying to argue in court that it does. If this argument succeeds, it could change the way all software copyrights operate in the eyes of the law.
Blizzard is currently wrangling in court with MDY, a small company that makes a software bot called Glider that helps WoW players with tedious aspects of character leveling. While it is pretty clear that the MDY software helps users cheat, and even violates the contract Blizzard makes players accept before playing (known as the End User License Agreement), Blizzard goes a step further and says that violating the agreement violates the WoW copyright since players, after accepting the EULA, automatically create a copy of the game in their computer RAM. If the courts agree, and MDY and its customers are found guilty of copyright infringement, Blizzard could reap statutory damages at the rate of $750 per infringement. The company says about 25,000 copies of MDY’s Glider software have been sold.
A variety of organizations are chiming in with briefs to convince the courts that if they accept Blizzard’s argument, it will imply that all media companies with End User License Agreements (software companies, music labels, and movie studios) can prevent the existence of all interoperable software in court. One of these groups, called Public Knowledge, writes that if Blizzard’s argument wins in court, it would prevent any company from selling used media, such as CDs and video game discs.
Blizzard is focused on winning its case against MDY and stopping the WoW cheaters, but it is unclear if the company has fully evaluated the way its argument could change the law for all copyright-holders. The argument hinges on some unusual legal logic: Blizzard’s EULA allows users who accept the agreement to make a copy of the game in their RAM, but people who accept but violate the agreement and still make a copy of the game in their RAM are copyright infringers.
However, all software when run copy and utilize data in system memory, and buyers of any kind of software already have the implicit right to make a copy of the software in their RAM. This is an issue of a copyrights and owner’s rights. Blizzard doesn’t want to treat Wow players are game-owners, but rather as license-holders. Blizzard might have trouble in court with this part, since in past legal issues with video games, courts have treated players as owners.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge imply that rather than pursuing the argument that these cheaters are copyright infringers, they should stick to a simple contract violation suit. However, contract violations don’t come with built in statutory damages, and would win less money from Blizzard.
I think users should sue Blizzard for ruining their life with the addiction that the game causes.
Botting doesnt hurt no one IMHO. The ones abusing it are the ones raking in Blizzard all of its money. Some nerd running 5 bots at a time is a nice chunk of change.
If Blizzard is that concerned they should detect the software and ban people doing it. But they would have to ban 1000s of people. Either way banning or getting rid of botters, they are still gonna loose thousands of players if they dont leave well enough alone.
bnetd lives on: http://pvpgn.berlios.de
The only thing blizzard is upset about is the fact that this guy sold 250,000 copies of glider and they didn’t make a sent from it.
Buy the way… Glider is amazing, I don’t know if I would risk running it now, but back in the day I used to run a toon from 1-60 in 14 days, needless to say I HAD 5 maxed toons.
One day I got banned at which time Blizzard kindly threatened me with lawyers as I objected. They could not have obtained the information they were claiming without breeching my privacy. Yes I know we agree to allowing “warden” to run on our machines however I had all processes hidden, “Warden” could not have seen what I was actually doing, unless it infringed upon my privacy and went beyond what they claim Warden does. (I did deserve to be banned, I just hate the way they did it)
Free Michael Donnelly!!
gamers/parents should sue your company for releasing an addictive product, just wait and see.
however, i never played wow, not even once, it just does not interests me, doesn't make any sense pay to play, endless leveling, endless patches, endless monthly fee, pointless game play~!! getting 0 out of it.
every time i tell my friends about that, they all went flame-on, and burn me. They changed, after this many years, they realized that i was right!
blizzard, cry more, noobs. at this point, who's gonna be a tard play wow w/o botting from level 1????
I still think it's rediculous. If we -were- buying a license, then we should sue them for false advertising as we also thought we were buying the game. I mean, hey, kudos for Blizzard for trying to stop cheating, but hell, they could go about it a different way, and it's not like they really need that much money.
That is the bottom line here, this is not about the players, this is about Blizzard's bottom line.
Oh, and to Mr_Man.... they should not be able to detect a Logitech keyboard in a game. If they truly have put the programs necessary into the game to detect that...... why bother with a lawsuit, as you said.
But the way they are trying to do it is daft, and could have far reaching implications. They should stick to the contract violation angle or not open this can of worms!
Hyperbole (although I wonder)
Next we will need to take short-term memory suppressing drugs while we play a game, listen to music, or watch a movie in case we remember something about it and store those memories in our head!
/Hyperbole
1. “Blizzard doesn’t want to treat Wow players are game-owners.” It’s as game owners not are game owners. It’s grammar we’ll let you slide. A quick read would have exposed this.
2. “However, contract violations don’t come with built in statutory damages, and would win less money from Blizzard.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t you mean for Blizzard since they are the ones that are doing the suing? Of course you do. This is a pretty substantial change that would have also been exposed with a three minute read.
I wouldn’t say anything, except it appears that this sloppy work has become rampant. I assume you guys are college graduates so please act like it.