Slashdot Mirror
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."
And about time, too.
Here's Tom with the weather!
This is just bullshit. If this was like, a program or something there of that was designed to say, DDoS a WoW server, then I'd understand. If it was designed to keylog people's WoW account info or auto delete their in-game characters/items yea. But since when is creating a "cheat" for a game, againist the law?
I'll admit I've only briefly heard of the WoW Glider, since I'm not a WoW player and all. But dude doesn't charge money for it does he? If not then I'm pretty sure he's in no legal trouble.
What Blizzard is saying with this statement is "using cheats is illegal in our game but also creating them is too". So when that baseball pitcher who's hitting his 40's and lost alot of speed on his fast ball starts using hair gel, ben-gay etc to get a little extra speed on his throws, does Major League Baseball punish him and the companies that make those products?
When sports players use steroids, do the major sport companies go after the steroid manufacturers? (If so then this example is null)
It's bullshit. I'm sure they'll pull something out of their ass saying his usage of the WoW client to reverse engineer some kind of program has violated their Copyrights yadda yadda yadda but in terms of fair use, assuming he wasn't making profit off of WoW Glider, I think he could get away with it. WoW Players feel free to mod me down , I don't condone cheating in such a manner but at the same time Blizzard has been real asshatery in the last two years abou cheating (Warden, anybody?).
Aw Frell this
And of course, Vivendi make excellent bedfellows for them, even more evil.
But of course you won't abandon Blizzard, because you're addicted to that stupid, cartoony, grinding game, just like you won't tell the RIAA to jump in the lake because you're addicted to Britney Spears and her ilk.
Well, you have only yourselves to blame.
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)
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!
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.