Blizzard Lawyers Visit Creator of WoW Glider

Rick Hamell writes "On October 25th, Blizzard/Vivendi payed a personal visit to Michael Donnelly, creator of WoW Glider and accused him of violating the DMCA. Their demands were unclear, but come in the wake of recent player bannings for using bots in the popular MMORPG. It looks like he's going to fight it, but I think it'll be an interesting case if it ever reaches the courts." From the post: "The visitors from Vivendi / Blizzard made demands of Michael and stated that if the demands were not met that they would file a complaint in court if he did not meet them. I asked Michael what the demands were. He was unable to comment at the time to the exact details. But I do know they handed him a copy to very briefly 'Look at'. He was not given a copy. I think I could make a good guess and say that they asked for Glider to be shut down and if they feel that they have been harmed they may have asked for a financial settlement."

Comments

Pwned

[Jeian]

And about time, too.

No sympathy for WoWGlider's author

[petrus4]

Personally, I hope they legally/economically bury him.

The reality is that Blizzard have had to do battle with people like Michael Donnelly since the days of the first Diablo game. Such people amount to destructive, sociopathic adolescents. They don't contribute anything positive, while in the case of Diablo 1 and 2 anyway, managing to degrade gameplay for pretty much everyone.

People can call me a shill as much as they want, but Blizzard are one company that I feel very positive about. I know there are a lot of companies where this isn't the case, but in my experience anyway with Blizz in particular it's pretty simple...be square with them, and they will be square with you. Be a subversive, anarchic 14 year old, (as in the case of bnetd, WoWGlider, and the D1/D2 hacks) and you'll get what you deserve...the proverbial legal takedown. While I normally don't condone the existence of the DMCA, I'm glad it's there in cases like this, since it gives them some legal framework to exact justice.

(Note to any of the abovementioned subversive types who may feel like responding to this and attempting to refute me; please don't bother. You don't agree with me, I don't agree with you...let's just leave it at that. I've spent more than enough time arguing with Slashdot's more anarchic (read: pro-FSF) residents in the past...I really don't want to know that you exist any more, to be honest)

Difficult Situation

[gweihir]

I don't like the DCMA one bit. I think it is something that would have had a place in the former USSR, but not in any free society. I also don't like all these bots that degrade my WoW experience.

Still, I think going after this guy is not required for Blizzard. What would be better is that Blizzard just speeds up the process of banning bot users and their customers. Maybe for people that buy bot-farmed gold, a first ban for a week and having all bought gold removed (in items if they do not have it anymore). Banning gold buyers permanently on first offense would be justified IMO, but this way they can tell their story and scare others away from buying gold, eventually collapsing the market. After all, nobody in their right mind will buy a ticking bomb.

Currently Blizzard has the problem that they have som many bot farmers, that they need to identify and ban them automatically. This leads to banning ''waves'', were first the bots are sought (keep reporting them, people!) , then characterised for automatic identification and then automatically banned. (Blizzard does not comment on their process, but it is pretty obvious what they are doing.) This leads to player dissatisfaction, since a bot may remain active for quite some time after it has been identified. I think Blizzard should hire more bright and competent people to speed this process up. They may also want to do more manual suspensions and bans. They should have enough revenue to do this.

One more thing they should do (and for reasons I do not understand have not done yet) is to very publicly state: Buying Gold will get you banned!