Blizzard Seeks to Block User Rights, Privacy

An anonymous reader writes "In the overlooked case between Blizzard and MDY Industries, the creator of the WoWGlider bot, Blizzard is arguing that using any programs in conjunction with the World of Warcraft constitutes copyright violation. Apparently accessing the copy of the game client in RAM using another program infringes upon their rights. Under that logic, users do not even have the right to use anti-virus software in the event that the game becomes infected. Furthermore, Blizzard's legal filings downplay the role of their Warden software, which actively scans users' RAM, CPU, and storage devices (and potentially sensitive data) and sends information back to Blizzard to be processed."

Comments

Misleading.

[SatanicPuppy]

As always, they're arguing that using another program or set of programs to circumvent the code that Blizz uses to try and stop people from using bots and other hacks violates the DMCA...And it's hard to see how they're wrong in that. The anti-virus argument is an over broad generalization; I don't know of any case where a virus actually modifies WoW binaries.

Agree with the DMCA or not, this is a "valid" use of it.

Re:Misleading.

[Relic of the Future]

Using a bot is NOT a copyright violation (how could it be? The bot is using my copy of the game, and my copy is legitimate); it may be a terms-of-use violation, but that's not the same thing. Blizzard barked up the wrong tree, and their case is just another example of how companies misunderstand and abuse the DMCA to punish just about anything they don't like.

That is where the world seems to be headed.

[aussersterne]

How long before the individual owns nothing, though everything is owned? How long before it is a legal fact that all "ownership" (even of the very air we breathe) is exercised by corporations rather than individuals or publics?

The way things are going, we will soon see legal battles between all kinds of financial interests:

"We own that story, he wrote it using our software."

"But he was using our hardware."

"Yes, but he was sitting on our chair."

"Ah, but he was sitting inside our building."

"True, but he had eaten our food that morning."

"Yes, and he was working beneath our light bulb."

"Ahhhhh, but he was breathing our air..."

Judge: "Divide the profits from its sale evenly amongst yourselves."

Writer: "But what about me? I don't even want it sold. I wrote it and I should get to control it..."

All: "Bwahahaha, you fool! Do you think you would be anything if it weren't for us? Everything you do is the result of what we have given you!"

Re:That is where the world seems to be headed.

[isaac]

How long before the individual owns nothing, though everything is owned? How long before it is a legal fact that all "ownership" (even of the very air we breathe) is exercised by corporations rather than individuals or publics?

These legal tactics are older than the hills. Books in the USA once had EULAs (until SCOTUS decided Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus establishing the doctrine of first sale). Proponents of so-called unbundled rights have had mixed results in recent years - DMCA passed, UCC Article 2B/UCITA mostly failed.

Defending common-sensical notions like "putting money down on the counter and walking out with a box constitutes a sale of a product" and "contract terms not visible at time of sale are unenforceable" is bound to be an eternal battle because some businesses will always be lobbying against them in the hopes of making money. There is no endgame where individuals win once and for all, nor where all consumer protections are finally repealed - the pendulum is bound to swing back and forth in response to competing pressures.

-Isaac

Re:That is where the world seems to be headed.

[Hausenwulf]

It's not a question of ownership at all. You are using a service. If you don't abide by the terms of the service, your service is terminated. That's how things work for the players. For the company making WoWGlider, it's a different story. I think Blizzard is probably using the wrong legal argument to go after the enabling company, but that's how lawsuits work. You shotgun everything you can think of and hope a few pellets hit the target.

Re:Why not make a policy?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they can't bot with a trial account; with a trial account you can't level above 20, and you can't trade any items or gold from it in any way.

They do spam using whispers with trial accounts, advertising the goldselling sites (WTB [Auto-Ignore Whispers From Trial Accounts Option] which would neatly solve that one), but they never bot with them. They actually have to pay for their accounts.

However, since it costs around $30 for an account, and that's the market price of about 1000 gold, the botting probably very rapidly pays for itself while the bot levels up - after which it's all gravy. Until Blizzard tracks them, figures out where the gold's being sent, and bans the goldbank accounts (which hurt far more than the bots).

Given that it's a tool specifically created to violate the EULA and terms of service of another service, I'd rather like WoWGlider to be taken down. I'd like to be on Blizzard's side, but this could set bad precedent for offline games and a whole bunch of other things like debuggers, so I can't. They should've gone with tortious contract interference, I reckon they'd have a clearer case. The DMCA doesn't really apply, as it's not really an access-control method protecting a copyrighted work that's being circumvented.

Until then, it's incredibly obvious who's botting. The little chicken-walk they to do back up, the fact that they run in circles, the turning on the spot towards the next mob, absolutely scream "glider". If they don't ban right away, it's probably because they're trying to follow the money.

Re:I have the right

[jank1887]

I would have to argue that it's not a copyright violation. If the rights holder provides a legally produced copy to an individual, and prescribes certain copy allowances to that individual (i.e., installation rights, which involves copying some/all of the copyrighted material, and execution rights, which involves additional copying of some/all of that copyrighted material to RAM, Swapdisk, etc., the details of which may slightly vary from system to system) then I don't see what additional copying happened in this case beyond what was already permitted. READING the data, especially of state objects, rather than the lines of copyrighted code, wouldn't involve copyright. Unless they intend to argue that every state produced in RAM by their copyrighted code is in itself copyrighted material, and copying that data even in part (which would have to be done in a program, at some low level, to work with/on that data) constitutes an unauthorized copy of their copyrighted work. In that case, they'd have to get the judge to agree that an active state of data constitutes a copyrightable piece of media, and that any copying of partial information from that piece of media falls outside of the already implicitly grated rights of copy (i.e., it's more than just 'reading').

I have a hard time seeing a judge thinking about things this deeply, meaning (a) he'll say, "you're full of crap. no dice.", or (b) he'll say, "wow, you're right. no program may read another program's data, whether on the harddrive, or in memory, because that implicitly involves some level of copying of information, and we must protect copyright."

Based on past events, I dread the result.

Re:I have the right

[networkBoy]

Actually given the money he's made, I'd say the game is more fun to play with the bot's help.

Really I think he's in the clear on this but like another poster I dread the case law that may result.
On a separate note, if I build a programmable keyboard that has the ability to macro complex keystrokes would that be an issue?
How bout if I could macro the mouse as well?
What if I also incorporated a capture device and pointed a video camera at the monitor, thus building an artificial player? (no process running on the machine with the game, all external). While this really is only a thought experiment, where is the line drawn?

-nB

what do the teenagers have to do with it?

[Anonymous Coward]

you obviously have no idea how many adults play wow. this may be the root of the issue, actually, as the adults get bored with the "oh, i only need to kill 2,728 more of these before i level again" grinding (this is not exaggeration, and is actually a lowball figure). with this in mind, i can understand the mentality of a botter. it's against ToS and the EULA, and i would never do it, but i can understand.

then again, you could argue that if you're bored, you should find something else to do. if your entertainment dollar is not entertaining you, take your dollar somewhere else. if you got bored at a strip club, and started beating people up, what would your life expectancy be? if you got bored at the video arcade and started walking around kicking people in the shins, how long would you anticipate being allowed on the premises? if you got bored while driving and started speeding, would you be surprised when you got a ticket?

botting is cheating. this is not in doubt. this is not a gray area.

but this is also not the issue at hand. the issue at hand is that blizzard wants to make it illegal for software to look at other software running on the same machine. the base absurdity of this is quite simple, really. if they succeed, they should immediately be hit by a class-action suit for their warden software for the exact same things they are accusing wowglider of doing. if MY software can't read YOUR software's memory space, then what is YOUR software doing looking at MY software?!

they must get that hash somewhere...

completely aside, i find that wow is the best entertainment value for my dollar. my wife and i play together instead of going to movies. $30(15/month*2 people) instead of $25 per 2-hour movie. combine the cost savings of playing wow vs. watching only 2 movies per month, and then count up the 4 hours of movie for $50 vs the staggering average of 160 hours per month that we play WoW.

each.