Legal Technicality Protects Bot-Using WoW Players From Copyright Lawsuits

[Logan Westbrook]

Legal Technicality Protects Bot-Using WoW Players From Copyright Lawsuits

Using a bot in World of Warcraft does break the game's EULA, just not in the way Blizzard was hoping.

The Court of Appeal for the Ninth Circuit has ruled that World of Warcraft players who used the autopilot program Glider are not guilty of copyright violation, even though they technically don't own their copy of the game.

The ruling comes after years of legal action between Blizzard and Glider maker MDY Industries. Blizzard argued that when a player used Glider, he or she was breaking the end user license agreement, and thus didn't have the right to run the game. This meant that the player was creating an unauthorized copy of the game in his or her computer's memory, which infringed on Blizzard's copyright. This argument hinged on the court agreeing that players licensed the software, rather than owned it however, because under the law, owning the game would allow users to make copies as they saw fit.

The court accepted Blizzard's assertion that users only licensed the game, but protected them from copyright suits by saying that the clause in the EULA that prohibited the use of third-party tools like Glider was a covenant - or a promise not to do something - rather than a condition that limited the license itself. This meant that while Glider users were guilty of breaking a contract, they were not guilty of copyright infringement. Being able to sue bot-using players for copyright infringement instead of breach of contract would have been more advantageous to Blizzard, but as the court noted, it would set a precedent, giving software copyright owners greater rights than Congress had afforded to copyright holders in the past

Source: EFF [http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/12/mixed-ninth-circuit-ruling-mdy-v-blizzard-wow] via Ars Technica [http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/12/court-you-do-not-own-that-copy-of-wow-you-bought.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss]








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[Bretty]

So Botters can still be removed from WoW just not the makers of the Bots sued.

Basically no change then!

 

[Loonerinoes]

Ouch. They are right though, by the law this is in fact not copyright infringement and to give Blizzard something on that basis would really set a precedent...

...on the other hand if this shows anything, it's that there really needs to be some additional legislature written up that at least lifts the protection of bots, especially seeing how they tie into the whole goldselling business most of the times. Just goes to show, the EULA's power is not what it is often trumped up to be.

 

[Staskala]

I have just regained a little bit of faith in the American legal system.
Ban them and be done, quit your copyright infringement bullshit already, Blizzard.
It has long since passed the point of being ridiculous, nice to see that you even get rejected in the only country where something like this could work in the first place.

 

[Vanguard_Ex]

http://images.encyclopediadramatica.com/images/3/3b/ASLwhat.jpg

I understood very little of what was just told to me. Someone please help ;_;

 

[Gxas]

So now they just ban the account rather than suing the people using glider? Basically no difference.

 

[Explorator Vimes]

I understood very little of what was just told to me. Someone please help ;_;

Basically, it's a contractual breach to use a Bot. This means they can terminate your account because you have gone against the EULA and license, not committed copyright infringement. This is because copyright infringement would give them a huge legal lever against large groups and organizations who make/use/distribute these products. Effectively, having one on your computer now isn't against any code, but the moment you boot it up with WoW you are in breach of the EULA and can be removed from the game. The government wouldn't give them that lever because the gross ramifications to various industries that precedent would set. I personally still find it appalling they succeeded in the argument that we own a license for the game and not the game itself, but that disgust is best reserved for other more tired debates.

 

[Daemascus]

I have never gotten why people buy a game to play, then have a computer program do it for them. WHAT THE HELL IS THE POINT OF THAT???

 

[Explorator Vimes]

Because those people are lazy, instant gratification desiring losers? Sorry, I hate bot users and hackers in a general sense and also totally fail to understand their appeal.

 

[WanderingFool]

http://images.encyclopediadramatica.com/images/3/3b/ASLwhat.jpg

I understood very little of what was just told to me. Someone please help ;_;

Well, you see... actually I dont have a clue. Huh?

 

[Tarlane]

Because those people are lazy, instant gratification desiring losers? Sorry, I hate bot users and hackers in a general sense and also totally fail to understand their appeal.

No, Blizzard will be the one making the appeal.

Ah legal humor, how you never fail me.

 

[ionveau]

HAHAHA take that blizzard,

This is a truly great victory for freedom of the net

 

[coldfrog]

I have never gotten why people buy a game to play, then have a computer program do it for them. WHAT THE HELL IS THE POINT OF THAT???

The point is to then take all the money and materials you've earned and sell them for real money to schmoes. THAT'S the real problem, and while I bet some people do it just to get enough money to buy that expensive item they need, I guarantee most people who use it are gold farmers. Of course, it's been said before that Blizzard would stop (or at least seriously hinder) gold farmers if they offered their own gold reliably at the same price or close to it, but for some reason they're not willing to do so yet. I know that if I was the type of person to buy gold, I'd much rather buy from the creators than from someone I have no knowledge of. And furthermore, with the proliferation of Reputation based and special point based rewards, they're slowly cutting out the need for excesses of gold.

 

[Vanguard_Ex]

I understood very little of what was just told to me. Someone please help ;_;

Basically, it's a contractual breach to use a Bot. This means they can terminate your account because you have gone against the EULA and license, not committed copyright infringement. This is because copyright infringement would give them a huge legal lever against large groups and organizations who make/use/distribute these products. Effectively, having one on your computer now isn't against any code, but the moment you boot it up with WoW you are in breach of the EULA and can be removed from the game. The government wouldn't give them that lever because the gross ramifications to various industries that precedent would set. I personally still find it appalling they succeeded in the argument that we own a license for the game and not the game itself, but that disgust is best reserved for other more tired debates.

Ah, I see...thanks very much

 

[gigastar]

Legal loopholes can go a long, long way to ruining alot of things in gaming. For those who were not around in the early 80's (or for those who just didnt know) heres a small history lesson and example.

Back when new games came out almost every day, and consoles almost every 2 months, also before internet and game reviewers too, there was a company called Atari.

Atari ruled the console market back then, a far cry from today as its... dead. Atari met the beggining of its end because of a legal loophole concerning the cartridge design of the Atari 2600 (console) meaning, in short, that other companys could use the design without asking Atari first.

This was because Atari wouldnt give game developers authorial credit or royalties for thier work, i.e. they couldnt put thier name in it or claim that they created or developed it. This led to developers flooding out of Atari and founding thier own gaming companies like Activision then making games for the 2600 and later the 5200.

Atari, in that finest of modern-America traditions, sued theese new developer companies to stop them from developing games without permission. In very short, they failed miserably because of the loophole.

Now this caused hell and high water with Atari because thier buisness plan was to sell as many consoles as possible then make up profits on the games for them.

Now at this point its worth mentioning that this was caused by a single legal loophole.

Because Atari had just lost the sole right to develop games for its consoles this directly impacted their income. They tried to make up for it with a new version of Pac-Man and the game adaptation of E.T. (an old kids movie that became outrageously popular with all ages, compareable today with Toy Story 3)

The results was an insult and a fatal injury for Atari. Insult because the former of the 2 became one of the worst games in all known universal history, and the latter of the 2 became THE worst game in all known universal history.

Injury came in the form of the debt spawned by the insult. In one of the worst buisness descisons I can think of Atari decided to make 12 million cartridges of each of theese two games, for a console that had only sold 10 million units thinking the games would sell the consoles. Now word on the street (remember, no nternet) stopped the sales dead in thier tracks and Atari were left with about 8 million unwanted cartridges of each game.

After paying to have them disposed of, Atari was left 500 million U.S. Dollars in debt, in the 1980's, NOT COUNTING INFLATION. And things were only going to get worse.

Now other, non gaming or gaming-related, companies were on the lookout for a new media for advertising. Learning of Activisions success alot of companies started producing shovelware like you wouldnt belive. You thought Kinect Sports was bad? How would you like a game based on promoting Christianity? How about the exact same thing rewritten for the U.S. Army?

Now theese various companies and organisations were smart enough to know that making people pay for a straight advert was asking to get sued by the end-users and the now desperate Atari. So they played around it by making games that, today, wouldnt even be considered a first-time flash game level of effort then almost literally puking alot of references to their company in it.

Now this led to alot of shit getting in the way of what was still shit. Back then there were no gamers magazines so all you would have had to go on were the covers of the games. And that was a very special kind of shit written up just to get you to buy the game.

Now all this mess came to a head in 1983 alot of gaming companies were going bankrupt (note, back then going bankrupt protected what you had left from debt collectors) then in comes, riding on a wave of a slow news month, the media. Now people were very gullable back then, the media could write up a short story about car-sized spiders and pass it off as real life in probably Russia (it WAS the Cold War then)

Anyway the media deliverd the killing blow to not just Atari, but the whole home consoles industry for the next 2 years by writing off nearly a decade of (quite) rapidly improving entertainment technology as a fad. Using the bankruptcies of game companies as proof, and distinctly not mentioning what thier local dog food factory might have contributed to causing it, they shut off the gaming industry and ALL of its interest in America for two years.

Then after those 2 years Nintendo released the NES (and the original Mario Bros.) in America and single-handedly saved an entire industry.

Moral of the story is: small things can cause immeasurable problems.
My moral is: when I say I love Nintendo, its NOT because they make good games or consoles.

Atari would go on to produce several more buisness disaster stories before finally dying in the late 90's. Its name today is used by Infogrames to sell anime-based fighting games and other games that have poor outlooks.

Note that for the sake of keeping this shor- as short as possible, some facts were left out. Please consult the Internet if youd like to find out more.

For the more on-topic part of this post, bots will always be used in MMO's whether its illegal by state laws or by game rules, and thats the end of it.

Of course, it's been said before that Blizzard would stop (or at least seriously hinder) gold farmers if they offered their own gold reliably at the same price or close to it, but for some reason they're not willing to do so yet.

Yeah i cant see why blizzard wouldn't go ahead and implement that. They could suck even more cash out of thier immense fanbase and perhaps use it to make something new i would give a second look to.

 

[Wolf Devastator]

News of this lawsuit's outcome hits the web.

Millions of people now search for Glider.

Nice job Blizzard.

 

[NLS]

I have never gotten why people buy a game to play, then have a computer program do it for them. WHAT THE HELL IS THE POINT OF THAT???

Have your computer work and make in-game gold for you, then sell that gold for real currency? Thus using Blizzard's licensed code to make money.

 

[Explorator Vimes]

No, Blizzard will be the one making the appeal.

Ah legal humor, how you never fail me.

Hahaha, Thank you, you truly made my day so much better than it was. I didn't even realize what I left myself open for there.

 

[Petromir]

HAHAHA take that blizzard,

This is a truly great victory for freedom of the net

Not really, infact the big argument of Blizzarsd was that it was a licences and not the game a player owns. The rest of the ruling pretty much just means that while they can ban you, they can't sue you for the large amounts a copyright theft would entail.

This strengthens the big anti piracy argument massively, the bit that blizzard actually lost wasnt that they could ounish you for such a thing, it was how they were allowed to in this instance.