Blizzard Sues Creator of WoW Bot

Ponca City, We Love You writes "Blizzard, the makers of World of Warcraft, are suing Michael Donnelly, the creator of the MMO Glider program, which performs key tasks in the game automatically. Blizzard says the software bot infringes the company's copyright and potentially damages the game. 'Blizzard's designs expectations are frustrated, and resources are allocated unevenly, when bots are introduced into the WoW universe, because bots spend far more time in-game than an ordinary player would and consume resources the entire time,' Blizzard wrote in its legal submission to the court. More than 100,000 copies of the tool have been sold while more than 10 million people around the world play Warcraft. Donnelly says his tool does not infringe Blizzard's copyright because no 'copy' of the Warcraft game client software is ever made. The two parties are now awaiting a summary judgment in the case."

Comments

Re:Copyright? Maybe not, but maybe trademark?

[Nicholas Evans]

But I'd be a paying ass (if I played WoW). What do you mean that I'm "wasting" their CPU? I'm paying them for it, just like any other WoWer. Hell, aren't people who bot more likely to have *multiple* accounts so they can farm gold?

Waaaaa

[uassholes]

Boo hoo

Re:You Have No Idea What You Are Talking About

[poetmatt]

Hey, thanks for the ad hominem flame. Save it for someone else. Normally I wouldn't want to reply but you've shown a complete lack of maturity in addition to everything else with your response, cheese. I'll reply in your fashion.

Sometimes typing in bold just makes you look retarded

Suing for damages is an expression. It is an abbreviation for "suing for tortious punitive damages". Thanks for implying I'm stupid too, so I'll be downmodding you in future. There are other situations that Blizzard could have sued for - including some forms of theft. However, copyright? Please. Whether you are a lawyer or not, claiming copyright in this form is just frivolous at best.

You don't seem to understand about the disclaimer, I didn't say it makes him free and clear, but it does give him an additional basis for a defense whether he is convicted or not. However, I don't need to even state for you just how many times disclaimers are used in many forms as solid defenses, aka policy disclaimers. I wonder if there's any companies out there who use policy disclaimers to get them fairly in the

So Mr. Expertguy, are you a lawyer? I never said I was. However, I do read up on law. Meanwhile, I will read whatever reply you right but don't expect a response back, because you really should try taking a vicodin or something, maybe smoke a blunt and calm down, freak.

Intentional interference with contractual relation

[shentino]

Actually WoW bot doesn't need to break copyright to get sued by Blizzard.

It's against the TOS to bot, and the TOS is effectively a contract.

By publishing a bot, the bot maker is effectively a third party inducing a breach of contract.