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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."
If I want to do something to my copy of the game, I can do so just as I can make any 'mods' I want to a cookbook or one of my C++ library tomes which are also copyrighted. I haven't affected anybody else's copy nor have I affected the master copy so Blizzard needs to quit bitching.
There are many programs that (programatically) do what the glidebot does. Like Spyware protection, antivirus, etc. There are "add-ons" to popular programs that make them more userfriendly by interacting with them.
I think Blizzard is approaching this case wrong. The bottom line is that they consider people using the glidebot to be cheating the system. Personally, I don't use it mainly for fear of having my account canceled. I'd much rather have something else go thru the grind for me than have me sitting in front of the game for hours on end. While such programs are prohibited by their AUP, I think they're going too far on this one.
--- http://www.keything.com
Including grossly abusing the law?
Sorry, but if we have to pick between expansion of copyrights and some people cheating at a stupid game, I'm going to side with the cheaters. Preventing cheating in an online game is not a cause worthy of limiting access to general purpose computing for.
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.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
The problem is that Blizzard (and their legal department have always been MUCH less cool than their coders, sadly) has decided to try to use the law to force people to not cheat. This is dubious at best, the way they're trying to do it, and sets frightening legal precident if they win.
If they win, then any attempt to analyze and modify a running program would constitute copyright violation. That means that programs which debug, dissassemble and tweak performance of running programs would no longer be allowed on 3rd party software. It would also bring into question the relationship between emulators and the software they run. Mame, Wine and a number of other projects might be useless if this becomes precident.
Cheating in WoW is one thing. Setting precident that hurts consumers is another.
Everyone complains about Warden, but noone knows really how it works. Heres the basic gist:
Warden uses something similiar to a HASH function to get information about the processes run on your computer. Warden sends the HASH home. The HASH is compared against a list of known hacking processes, like WoWGlider, and if theres a match, you're being very naughty!
Is that REALLY the end of the world? NO! Blizzard can NOT discern any information from a HASH.
Heres an MD5 HASH of a file on my desktop, what is it? Quick, get my personal informationz!
070A3B2AF0070DE30B1931B9F2590510
Maybe so. But copyright doesn't apply here.
Here's a thought: what if I run WoW in a VM? We should be able to do that soon, the hardware and software are certainly getting to that point. Now that would impose a whole slew of issues to WoW, since they'd have no control outside of their sandbox. They really don't have that control now, honestly, but it's more work than most are willing to put in to make it happen.
The real answer is for Blizzard to make the game enjoyable to play, instead of rewarding "face time grinding".
Disclaimer: No, I don't play WoW, and never have. It didn't interest me in the least. I did play EQ, and tired of its mindless grind. None of the other MMOs seemed any different, not even Eve. I used to play and code for a mud (pre EQ, way way pre) which was quite a bit more fun as being an imp (GM would be the closest thing in MMOs these days) allowed you quite a bit of freedom and create spontaneous changes. Usually that was in concert with players - it gave them a new challenge or two, and kept things fresh. Things like surprise trap door mobs was one of my favorites.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
I'd say that's a false dichotomy. You don't have to side with cheaters in order to oppose expansion of copyright.
There are other legal remedies for dealing with WOWGlider, including tortious contract interference for soliciting people to violate the game's TOS, which results both in lost revenue from banned players as well as lost revenue from players who quit out of disgust with rampant cheating. While the monetary damages from this may not be easily calculable, the real intent would be to get an injunction against the WOWGlider developers to force them to stop distributing the software. Then the developers are staring down the barrel of a contempt charge if they keep doing it.
If Blizzard wants to claim that reading the memory used by the application is a violation of their copyright, so be it... Then watch the mudslide of people who have written mods and go after Blizzard for their Warden application which, guess what.. reads the memory of other applications and whats more, sends it off to blizzard which is a more direct violation of copyright as they are making a copy rather than just changing some bits in memory.
No matter how the suit comes out (and I'm all for sticking to "the man") using a bot in an online game where other people are involved is cheating, and it kills the very nature of what the game should be all about for everyone: fun.
... that is, a current PC-based FPS. Xbox live? Sure. No cheating there (yet) and that's good.
This is why I will never, ever, play another FPS, online
I have admined many game servers (q1, q2, cs) and worked hard to stop cheating with all the tools (punk busters, etc.). I even ran an anti-cheating game site years ago (anyone remember slipgate central? no I didn't run that, but one of my little sites was listed).
I also did an write-up on the zbot in q2. I installed and used it. I pwned players effortlessly. It was disgusting. I ran around gathering health and power-ups and the bot did all the work while the whole server tried to kill me. It was sick fun, but it's lame.
Showeq was the first big exploit for mmorpgs. It was lame. With it, the punk could get any unique mob in a zone before anyone else. How is that fair? How was it fair for the people without a 2nd computer, or without linux knowledge to set it up?
This article may be all about the legal ins and outs of who has access to what in ram, but the bottom line is, cheaters blow. If you cheat you blow. You're feeding a primal part of the human psyche at the expense of others and undermining the entire event. When it all crumbles and dies, you are to blame.
Using a bot to lvl or farm in wow is lame. Don't do it. Let this guy's work die on the vine....
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
damn straight!
I have no issue with someone cheating/moding the heck out of a single player game - the only person it affects is the player. Once you go online though - your cheating affects me and everyone else playing online, and therefor i am completely against it.
anyway i wish i had some mod points - mod parent post UP!
The theory is that Blizzard allows the user to load World of Warcraft into his computer only if they follow the EULA, including the part about not using programs like WoWGlider. By using WoWGlider, the user is not following the EULA, so they do not have permission to run WoW. Since running the program makes a copy of it in computer memory and since the user does not have permission to do so, that copy in memory is an infringement.
In that way, it's just like the GPL: "You do not have to follow this license, but nothing else gives you permission to use the software."
The claim against MDY is of vicarious infringement -- the company isn't doing the infringing itself, but it is helping others to do so, and profiting from it.
Oh whatever. A lot of people get enjoyment out of the game already...in those terms its a great success; you'll never be able to make it so exquisitely enjoyable that no one will want to cheat.
The whole idea that cheaters are a game flaw is absurd; if a game has goals, there are people who will want to take a shortcut. They'll do it for greed, they'll do it because they're lazy, and they'll do it because they want recognition that they haven't earned.
What's the solution? To have a game with no goals? It'd be like Tetris but you couldn't have a score, because then people might want to cheat for a higher score. Couldn't even have levels, because people might want to cheat to say they got to a higher level!
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
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!"
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
If Blizzard does not want people using bots/mods, then they should put it in the EULA, and if anyone violates that, handle is accordingly. I don't see how this is in any way copyright infringement.
A good friend of mine is "addicted" to this game. He has been playing for over a year now, and has leveled up 2 characters to level 70. So he wants to make a third character, but he doesn't want to play through all the lower missions. So he uses a bot, to gather some experience. If it wasnt for the bot, he probably wouldn't be playing anymore.
If he was to be charged with this "crime", his defence would be
"Yo...wtf?"
"The defense rests"
And any real judge would say "Good point, Case dismissed"
Instead of playing, he watches his bot play...is he paying them? yes. is he interfering with other peoples play? no., so wtf?
Blizzard should stfu, and be happy they are getting his money every month. WoW is a cash cow, and they are just trying to milk it to the Max...those bastards...
-EL
Even if this is cheating, the claims of copyright infringement and DMCA circumvention are a disturbing extension of those already-disturbing areas of law. Blizzard's well within their rights to stop cheating, I think, but not like this.
You don't have to play WoW. Really. You lived without it before and you'll live without it after. Politely tell Blizzard why you are leaving them, and then leave.
If you're not willing to do that, this obviously isn't THAT important to you.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
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.
okay the chess example is better.
I think you read me as a blizzard fanboy, which is not the case. This would be my mentality for any online game, and especially online games where this form of cheating can be a way to make money. If people want to cheat in a single player game, (or in a multiplayer game where everyone has agreed to allowing the cheats) its fine with me. I always maintain that if I meet a cheater I will destroy them, and their computer. I look forward to the day that I bludgeon someone to within an inch of their life's end with their own aimbot laden PC.
disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.
Seriously, there's no reason to get the law involved and set bad legal precedent.
"No one likes working in a hamster wheel, and your shop smells of cedar shavings from here." - TaleSpinner
At least in the USA, it is not copyright infringement to copy software for the purpose of using it. 117. Limitations on exclusive rights: Computer programs:
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
It is a really interesting theory you propose: those who cheat in a game should be subject to a different set of laws than others.
I know that in the USA it's a popular opinion in certain circles that suspects of terrorism should be stripped of all of their rights, but to extend it to cheaters is something really new.
Seriously: a groundless lawsuit is a groundless lawsuit even when the defendant is a slimeball. In the USA's precedent based-system this is even more important since the precedent set by this lawsuit will apply to non-slimeballs, too.
Real life is overrated.
"The drug test is conducted before the event and only once."
No. Many sports test before and after the event (boxing for example) and while I'm not intimately familiar with the Tour de France, I recall hearing that tests are conducted throughout the event, sometimes testing the same person multiple times.
"They don't require the athlete to reveal the detail of their bank accounts..."
Neither does Blizzard. You choose to do that as one of the conditions to play the game.
While browsing some game reviews I found a link to this. When I read it, I found it pretty shocking, basically the guy was banned because he was pressing a macro on his keyboard with his fingers while watching TV.
:)
...
I have no idea if this is true but at that time I was pretty sad for the guy. On the other hand, he lost the WoW addiction.
The most funny part is that he could have avoided the ban if he didn't say he was watching TV while pressing the keys of his G15
Don't you know it is now both immoral and criminal to think beyond the next quarterly report?
Well, although it may be your right to manipulate your own RAM however you see fit, don't forget that if you manipulate the game to show a nipple or sexually suggestive positions, it is your parent's/crusader group's right to sue Blizzard for everything they're worth. Faced with the fact that Blizzard will be held liable for everything everyone else does to their game, what choice do they have but to pursue any messed up agressive ways of getting you to stop?
One can only reasonably assume that using such software would be your right. However, one would also reasonably assume that you are responsible for any modifications you make to game. I'm just saying that legal responsibilities surrounding software and computers are really fucked up. If I was a game manufacturer, I'd be scared to death of modders now that I've found out that the company can be liable for what they do. Thank you lawyers, crusaders, and politicians!
Also, you can at least say they are taking a pro-active, even if they overstepped here, approach to cheating. Cheaters wreck the game for everyone.
(I know, it's a bit long, but give it a try.)
Okay, so here's how I see it all unfolding. Blizzard comes out with World of Warcraft, which immediately becomes a hugely successful MMORPG. And not only is it hugely successful, it happens to come into being at the same time that the real-world economy starts interfacing directly with the virtual economy of the MMO world. As a result, there are services that offer gold for cash, leveling services, etc...all of which incur unintended (and even destabilizing) economic effects on the virtual world. A rough analogy would be if people could sell their souls for sudden wealth or fame here, in a very literal sense of the world; something not of this world is being traded in return for something of this world, and giving those people a leg up over everyone else.
So, Blizzard has to figure out how to fix this. Obviously, they've done things to make it harder to goldfarm, in some respects. Fishing, which is an obvious activity that requires little input, is made harder to automate based on the requirement that you click on the fishing lure (which lands in a random location in front of you every time) when and only when it has a fish on it (which happens at a random interval after the time you cast the lure, or not at all). Combat is set so that if you're at a higher level than the thing you're killing, you get less credit for it; if there's such a difference that it's a ridiculously easy kill, you get nothing at all for your trouble.
But still, there are ways that something watching variables in memory could help a cheater. All you have to do is watch for the change in a variable, or the triggering of a function, when the fishing lure makes that splashy noise, and read (direct from RAM) the coordinates where the lure is, and you can have a piece of software click on it for you. I'm something of a WoW noob, so I'm sure there are other ways as well, including manipulation involving mining, auction house market manipulation, etc. Heck, if you had computers work together in concert, you could have a whole group of low-level characters team up on one larger-level NPC and kill it for a big bounty in both XP (for sale as a leveling service) and silver/gold (for sale as gold). The reason the maximum party size that can do quests/gain XP is 5 is just this, and it's not at all hard to imagine circumventing it by coordinating the systems to work together, where one online character is human-operated and the others just follow him automatically, attacking whatever attacks him.
So, Blizzard has a problem to fight. Since pretty much all of these techniques require a lot of manpower (which adds significantly to the labor cost of the goldfarming/leveling service and eats the profit) or reading variables from RAM, Blizzard decides to prohibit this tactic. But it's the same old situation in computer security, when it comes to things with tangible economic gain in the real world; the bad guys will evolve at least as fast as the good guys. So there needs to be a way to gather intel, to find out what the latest tricks are which are being used. And so Blizzard has Warden.
Now, a lot of people get up in arms about private corporations and privacy, and rightly so. There are numerous companies that maintain databases of our information, selling it to whoever wants it. Even worse, the organization that can harm us the most by invading privacy...our government...has been purchasing that information, conveniently skirting around the limits placed on them by law. But Blizzard isn't keeping a database of our personal information. We may happen to be doing online banking while WoW is idling in the background, but they're not culling/recording that information. And unlike the metaphor used in the article on Warden, no human being will ever see it. It's more like the person behind me at the checkout, or the cashier, being able to see my credit card when I take it out of my wallet to swipe it. I don't have a problem with that; I'm one of millions of people who d
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
So, like... did you not read the EULA they force you to agree to every time there's an update?
The one that basically says, "You're paying us a monthly fee for a license to access the game, but in reality we own your characters, all the gold they have, and all their equipment". They told you up front that you have no rights and that they'll come after you (at worst) or shut down your account (at best) if you do anything they don't like. If you don't like it, stop giving them money.
At risk of being repetitive here, the issue at hand is not that accessing WoW in RAM is a violation of copyright. The argument Blizzard is presenting is that:
- Loading WoW into RAM is creation of a copy.
- Your right as a user to create this RAM copy is pursuant to the ToS and EULA.
- Using cheating software violates the ToS/EULA.
- Therefore, a user no longer has the right to create the RAM copy of WoW while running WoWGlider.
Therefore, the DMCA/copyright slant is:
- WoWGlider is a tool that is defeating The Warden access control scheme with the sole use of creating a copy of WoW that infringes upon Blizzard's copyright.
This may or may not be a valid claim; the status of RAM copies of software is not entirely settled, but tends towards "it can be an infringing copy."
All of this would probably not have led to a lawsuit, except for the fact that WoWGlider is sold, for real money. Blizzard is trying to both destroy that particular cheating mechanism, and attach all of the profits made from it -- assuming the behavior is in fact ruled to be infringing.
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Just because you don't like cheating doesnt mean the creators of cheat software can be slapped with lawsuits based on 'copyright infringement'. If I buy a book, read it, then scribble a part out and rewrite it, can I be sued for copyright infringement?
This isn't good vs. evil or a question of "is cheating ok?", this is just another company abusing copyright law to get their way.
I think the [MS Word] paperclip is a great idea. - Miguel de Icaza
Remember all the crap the creators of the first x86 clone had to go through to prove that they hadn't reverse engineered it?
Can someone elaborate for the ignorant: aren't you supposed to prove that you *did* reverse engineer it, not that you didn't? Since the copyright only covers duplication of code, not duplication of functionality?
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
WoW allows mods, hell, it encourages them. However, any mod that makes it so you can "play the game" without being at your PC is explicitly forbidden. They've banned users of fishing bots before. You're supposed to be playing the game by sitting at your computer, and actively killing things. Yes, it's a time sink. All recreation is. If you're not having fun with it, go and do something else.
Glider bots/farmer bots do harm those who aren't using them. They consume server resources, making the game less responsive for everyone. They tag rare mobs, denying that kill and the resulting loot to "honest" players. They mine rare resources, again denying them to "honest" players. And the effects they have on the marketplace are demonstrable. For example, about a year ago, a botter discovered a speed/teleportation hack that made it possible to farm 16-slot bags (the largest bag in the game at the time). Instantly, the auction house price on those dropped from 30-40 gold to 5 gold. And there was no longer any market for any smaller size bag, which made it difficult for aspiring tailors to sell product (their bags). Similar hacks were found for other items.
Ban em all, find the people running them, and execute kill -9's on them. I don't mean their process, I mean them.
Fortunately, Blizzard isn't suing teenagers, they're suing a company that produces a piece of software, which it sells to permit said teenagers to cheat.
If you're going to go to war against a company like Blizzard, you should make sure you've paid your lawyers' retainer first. I have no pity for the folks that produce WoWGlider. They've brought this on themselves.
--AC
It's sad that people can't just either play and enjoy the game the way it's intended or simply not play. That they have to cheat, and then when Blizzard tries to protect the integrity of their game, come up with bullshit like this to try and justify their cheating. It's just a game. If you really feel you have to cheat at it, you should simply not play, because it defeats the purpose of the game. You destroy the experience not only for yourself, but you cheapen it for those around you.
It's one thing to cheat, but then to turn around and try to morally justify it like this, is just pathetic. This has nothing to do with software freedom. Blizzard is simply using the tools before them to try and protect the integrity of their game.
As you log in, you are given some text to read, and than you click Accept. The text includes this:
5. Consent to Monitor. WHEN RUNNING, THE GAME MAY MONITOR YOUR COMPUTER'S RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY (RAM) FOR UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAMS RUNNING CONCURRENTLY WITH THE GAME... http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/eula.html
That constitutes authorization.
to distribute the derivative work you've just created, which is why Blizzard is suing (among other reasons). The logic Blizzard is using is almost exactly the same logic that the FSF uses in the GPL when it comes to linking. WoWglider is useless without WoW. It has specific knowledge of what WoW.exe looks like in memory and feeds it input based on the state of the game. Anti-Virus software applies the same generic algorithm to wow.exe as it does to firefox.exe.
I never said I was smart, I just said I was smarter than you
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.
Let's look at it this way: Why are people cheating? Why are they using those programs? Generally, I've run across a lot of cheaters, and there are generally 3 kinds of cheaters.
First the "I wanna win" cheater. You find that kind usually in shooters, using aimbots, wallhacks and other tools to balance their lack of skill. Now, a cheat like that would be of little use in MMORPGs. Your toon hits or misses based on some mathematical probabilities, not your aim. At best, it could be used as some kind of "radar" to find some mobs faster, which is (unless we're talking PvP here) more something that I'll discuss with the third kind.
Then there's the item and money grabber. The person using bots to get money or items. Which basically is quite pointless in WoW, because any item you could farm alone is pretty much worthless in the long run. At best, this would be interesting for plat farmers, but not for "normal" players who'd actually like to play the game.
Which gets us to group 3, which is IMO also the group using glidebot mostly: The "get me outta the grind hell and let me finally play the game" players. And that is not only the player's fault. If a game only offers you interesting and sensible content after 2-3 months of mindless grinding, I wonder if it's worth playing.
So the suit of Blizzard is understandable: That bot "costs" them 20-30 bucks per toon a player levels, since that much longer they'd play without Blizzard having to offer them any new bones to chew on.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
WOW, has literally changed our society. I see so many people addicted to the game and investing hundereds and hundereds of dollars into it. I wouldn't be suprised if it dropped the national IQ by 15 points and medical expenses for people with butt blisters from playing it so much. I think its time for people to realize the extent of what WOW is doing to thier lives. I've seen it breakup relationships and even prevent them from starting. People just don't leave the damn computer. Save the people, End the WOW.
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)
Try UI addon called Spam Sentry for that. It'll block the messages automagically and record them. You can then instruct it to fill out and send a GM request with the relevant information to report the spammer. It'll also let you manually report botters.
The point isn't so much that it's a violation of copyright, but it is a direct violation of the TOU and EULA. WoW is a fantastically engineered game, but keeping the game fun and balanced means that they have to keep out all of the bots and trainer programs. The glidebot does the grind part of the game for you. But the grind is part of the game. If you don't want to sit through that part, you shouldn't be playing WoW in the first place. The bot enables users to level faster than people who actually play the game the way it was intended to be played, by actually sitting at your keyboard. To bring my rant to an end...Blizzard is trying to stop any bots that play the game for you, and for VERY good reasons. I don't care if it's copyright or not, Blizzard stated that intent in their EULA and the glidebot should be grounded.
Telling people not to cheat because it's lame is tantamount to telling thieves not to steal because "it's wrong".
They know it harms other people and they do NOT care. No amount of words is going to change that and there is no point bothering. Cheating is a fundamental part of human nature. Maybe it's a good thing. A small amount of cheaters forces the rest of us to create protections, increase security, be more vigilant and "arm up". It makes us as a society more resilient and better prepared just as germs made us develop an immune system.
Diversity is vital to the survival of a species as anyone who's taken a biology course knows. Some of that diversity means cheaters, psychopaths, rapists and lawyers. They are a necessary evil and their contributions are vital to the very survival of the human race. They day everybody stops cheating, we should all be scared, very scared.
In conclusion, we really should be thanking cheaters for their invaluable services.
And right after we thank them, we should hang them. Afterall, if they got caught, they're weak and deserve to die.
Reverse engineering is not illegal.
It may be a violation of the terms of the EULA, but it is not illegal, and it is not a violation of copyright, or the DMCA. (Standard Disclaimer: IANAL).
Furthermore, I would argue that a computer owner cannot legally be stopped from looking at their own machine. For example, what if WoW was being used (surrepetitiously) to traffic child porn? Would the WoW EULA be a legal defense for the owner of the computer? That he was contractually prevented from looking at his own system, therefore he can't be liable for whatever the police find on his computer?
I don't think these arguments would hold sway in a court of law. While Blizzard does have a right to ensure that people don't use their computers to cheat, they don't have a right to prevent a user from looking at their own machine, or modifying the contents thereof.
Really, the problem is the manner in which Blizzard designed their game. Had it been built using a secure architecture from the outset, these drastic measures wouldn't be necessary. Yes, cheaters suck. But, had Blizzard followed the simple mantra, never trust the client, they wouldn't be in this fix and we could all get on with gameplay without the attendant invasion of privacy.
What next? Am I going to setup a special PC just for gaming, and use another one for all of my other, private business? As part of my work, I deal with my employer's private, confidential information. I cannot have a software program peeking in on me from time to time; it would be a breach of my duty to safeguard my employer's data.
Blizzard needs to understand that users expect their machines to be private. If their program invades this privacy, my only option is to refrain from buying it. I'll have to play other games, which would be a shame.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Actually, the "Do not disassemble" clauses (or reverse engineer) overstep the bounds of copyright. If I purchase a product, it is mine to do with as I please. Copyright, patents, etc. only come into effect if I in turn try to sell the same product (a copy) or a product that does the same thing and uses some of the code (patent infringement). Court rulings have revoked the power of this clause and technically they don't actually mean anything.
A good article on EULAs overstepping their legal authority is on the EFF website. #3 is the pertinent part to this discussion.
Clones are people two.
You have to admit, it's sad that this is the approach their legal team is taking. In that respect, it makes Blizzard look a bit lazy -- I mean, who actually drudges through the mid/lower levels of this game and doesn't get the idea to write a bot to do the dirty work? Isn't that what computers are for, anyway? They had to see this coming, right? And this was Blizzard's contingency plan -- to sick their lawyers on people? That's what strikes me as lame about the whole thing.
If you want to make a drug analogy, then do so the right way -- killing demand is the way to truly solve the problem. Not killing supply. A better analogy for this whole situation are bid sniping tools for eBay -- what Blizzard really wants is for things to be fair for paying patrons of their service. If there's enough demand here for a Glide bot, though, maybe they should rethink the design of the game. What are the elements in the game would create demand for such a bot? What are ways around that?
With most games, this whole concept is completely nonsensical, but their game's design does make a very compelling argument for these types of programs. It's why I stopped playing -- and not that anyone still playing WoW cares, but there are a lot of people who stopped playing for the same reason. The burden here is on Blizzard and other successful MMO game developers, and as someone who freely and openly stopped playing WoW for this very reason, I can tell you that I honestly think that Glide/farm bots are a good thing for Blizzard and MMO -- they'll force designers to come up with better games in the end.
Blizzard would do well to learn from this in the future and keep their legal wolves at bay. It's getting old, people go to lawyers to help them "protect" their interests, and all the lawyers do is use scare tactics and set these confusing, logic devoid precedents to sway public opinion and create fear to do anything creative. Isn't that the exact opposite intent of a copyright?
Check yours.
MAI Systems Corp. v. Peak Computer, Inc., 991 F.2d 511 (9th Cir. 1993). This case, and the subsequent amendment of the US Code, has prompted a whole bunch of linguistic and legal fun regarding whether software users are purchasers or licensees, and what constitutes an "intended use." Regardless, a copy in RAM is considered sufficiently "fixed" to constitute a "copy" under the meaning of the term in federal law.
I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.
"Blizzard Seeks to Block User Rights, Privacy"
Now that's not a leading headline. Thanks for telling me what to think, Slashdot!
"Sufferin' succotash."
Oh please. I've yet to see any level range or class on WoW that _needs_ to grind at any point. (Outside what used to be the level 60 end-game grind. More about that one later.) Invariably there's some "but I really wanna have everything" type that's creating an imaginary grind trap for himself.
Grind... what? XP? Take it from first hand experience, there are plenty of quests and instances to get you from level 1 to 70. I can't say any of my characters ever had to start mindlessly grinding NPCs for XP.
The ones who grind there, are simply grinding because of their own "I _must_ get to level 70 _fast_" delusions. A lot of people seem to have this crazy idea that the game starts at level 70 (or previously 60), and that everything before it must be skipped as fast as possible. Guess what? That's wrong. Levels 1 to 69 are the actual game. Level 70 is where the game _ends_. That's it. You finished it. You've seen all the content. Go out, do something else, or start a new char.
So all these people who try to skip levels 1 to 69 are really skipping the whole goddamn game and content they've bought. Whether by getting power-levelled or by spending hundreds of hours mindlessly slaughtering wolves and boars, that's what it is: skipping the actual story, quests, everything that was the actual game on that DVD.
That's all that such bots do: allow you to skip the actual game. Congrats. You're now level 70, you skipped the "grind", except there's no more game for you to actually play at that point. That "grind" was the actual game, or rather a piss-poor substitute for it. You just bought a game for your bot to play. I hope you liked that bot a lot, at least, because it had the fun you were supposed to have.
And blaming it on Blizzard just takes brain-damage to whole new levels. Blizzard sure as heck didn't force them to skip 99% of the content in the game.
Grinding for money or equipment? Again, sure as heck noone forced them to. It _is_ possible to play the game without buying a new set of blue-quality equipment every 2 levels. Replacing a sword with one that does 1 DPS more won't really make you T3H UB3R-W4RR10R. Replacing a +10 int robe with a +11 int one won't make you the uber-mage.
Stick with that equipment until the upgrade is really worth the cost. Don't think in terms of "is a +11 int robe worth 10 gold." Think in terms of "do I want to pay 10 gold for a 1 point increase over what I already have?" You'll find your expenses might actually go down a helluva lot.
In fact, if you really want to, you can get to level 70 without using anything more than drops and quest rewards.
Again, people just create that illusionary trap in their own mind, and get stuck in it. They end up enacting a bad case of consumerism in an online world. They think there's some _duty_ to keep up with the Joneses, when most of the time noone will give a damn about whether your robe is 1 point weaker than the Joneses' robes. Cue farming for gold, or buying gold, just to blow it at the AH on stuff they don't even really need.
Again: not because Blizzard somehow forced them to grind, but because of something that exists only in their own head.
The exception to both, as I was saying, was the crap level 60 endgame grind. Guess what? That was after the game had actually ended. It wasn't the meat of the game, it was one last dry bone for people who didn't know when to quit. The actual game had pretty much ended, the content was over, you had already done the quests and seen the zones. All that remained was doing the same pointless raid again and again, just so you can pay Blizzard for another month.
Skipping (by grind, PL, or bot) the levels 1 to 59 just to get stuck into the MC grind was one of the most idiotic things one could do. It was akin to having a bot finish Oblivion for you, just so you can view the endgame credits again and again for 6 months straight. That stupid.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I am at a point in my WoW playing where I would welcome a ban with open arms.