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Blizzard Wins Major Lawsuit Against Bot Developers
Captain Kirk writes "World of Warcraft owners Blizzard have won their case against the programmer who wrote Glider, Michael Donnelly. (We discussed the case here when it was filed.) Blizzard won on two arguments: first, that if a game is loaded into RAM, that can be considered an unauthorized copy of the game and as such a breach of copyright; second, that selling Glider was interfering with Blizzard's contractual relationship with its customers. The net effect? If you buy a game, you transfer rights to the game developer that they can sue you for."
The problem with this, is the game isn't 100% loaded into RAM (as far as I know) meaning that only part of it is. This could have a much larger impact by calling this small piece of the game the game itself, perhaps leading to smaller sample times of songs, etc.
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Wow.
I guess now the *AA can now start telling us what hardware we're allowed to play movies/music on, and simply loading it into RAM on a non-approved device constitutes copyright infringement, as a copy is being made in a way not granted under the license.
Lets here it for vinyl. Nothing is ever removed, just vibrations sent down the needle to the speaker. (Talking about the old phonographs.)
My thoughts exactly. the RIAA would have a FIELD DAY with this ruling. It basically says that you can't play ANY song in digital format on a PC since it's necessary to load it into RAM in order to get it to play. GAH!
Thankfully, this IS the Ninth "Circus" Court, the single most overturned federal bench in all of American Jurisprudence. I expect there will be an appeal and a smarter outcome in a smarter court.
I hope so, anyway.
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Blizzard owns a valid copyright in the game client software, Blizzard has granted a limited license for WoW players to use the software, use of the software with Glider falls outside the scope of the license established in section 4 of the TOU, use of Glider includes copying to RAM within the meaning of section 106 of the Copyright Act, users of WoW and Glider are not entitled to a section 117 defense, and Glider users therefore infringe Blizzard's copyright. MDY does not dispute that the other requirements for contributory and vicarious copyright infringement are met, nor has MDY established a misuse defense. The Court accordingly will grant summary judgment in favor of Blizzard with respect to liability on the contributory and vicarious copyright infringement claims in Counts II and III.
I think this means that TOUs/TOSs/EULAs now have the full force of copyright law, if a copyrightable portion of the media reaches your computer.
The section 117 defense is this:
that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner
If you're violating the EULA, it is "used in an other manner".
You know that tiny little link, "terms of use", at the bottom of every web page you visit? Better read that 20 page document behind that link, or you could be infringing copyright without even knowing it.
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who was being sued in not that dis-similar situation by a well known RTS series publisher. One of the things we were being accused of was direct copyright infringement. Apparently, we had a copy of a file named EXACTLY THE SAME as they had on their CD. Setup.exe Never underestimate the stupidity of the courts/lawyers in technical matters.
The RIAA? What about software companies? Ever hear of the BSA? If any of them can selectively prosecute anyone who runs their programs even if it was legally paid for, then we are all in trouble.
Though, I finally got through to the site, and it may not be quite as bad. It looks as though the court found you have to obey the EULA. I'm not sure I like that either. After all, you often don't get to see the EULA until after you buy the software and open the box. Even more so, because the stores claim some "copyright law" requires it, they won't take back opened software. Certainly sounds like they are making people sign a blank contract to me...
because if someone writes a plug-in to help gamers, they will use this case to sue them as well.
This case shows that no consumer can own a copy of a video game, the game development company still owns the copy but only gives the consumer the right to use it in a native copy of Windows, and not modify it in any way. I guess it also means you cannot sell it used, nor can you run it inside of WINE, or a virtual machine or emulator either. You can only run it in a native copy of Windows, anything else is considered modifying it and violating the EULA and could get you sued.
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What makes the copy illegal is not that it was put in ram, but the way it was put there.
Click on the WoW executable, windows sticks a copy in RAM; that's a legal copy, per the license agreement.
Click on the Glider executable, glider calls the WoW executable, that's an unlicensed copy of WoW and hence is infringing.
The specific copy of WoW in your RAM is illegal not because it's a copy, but because of how it got there.
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Thankfully, this IS the Ninth "Circus" Court, the single most overturned federal bench in all of American Jurisprudence.
Most overturned by number of cases, or by percent of cases? If by number of cases, please consider that the Ninth Circuit has jurisdiction over a far larger population than any other court of appeals in the United States. In fact, it covers over 19 percent of the U.S. population.
Glider doesn't make the copy. If the user loads the game first, then loads Glider, then the copy was authorized to make at the time it was made.
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But at the same time if a company has one program and doesn't like a different web browser (like Opera) they could ban you from using opera while their program is running.
"Your choice of software has been approved, Comrade. We'll be watching..."
How long before other major software developers start using this to stifle innovation and competition? 'specially {though I'll not name names} the "popular" OS firms...
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
Compare section 109's language "the owner of a particular copy" to 117's "the owner of a copy". It's virtually identical, and courts (not this one) have treated it as such. I don't know how you can own a physical disc but not own a copy of its contents. That seems almost nonsensical.
There goes the legality of most current Virus Scanners in the US then.