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Judge Rules WoW Bot Violates DMCA
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that Blizzard has added another victory in their campaign against World of Warcraft bots. A federal judge has ruled that not only did the Glider bot break the EULA, it can be classified as a circumvention device under the DMCA. "As we've noted before, Blizzard's legal arguments, which Judge David G. Campbell largely accepted, could have far-reaching and troubling implications for the software industry. Donnelly is not the most sympathetic defendant, and some users may cheer the demise of a software vendor that helps users break the rules of Blizzard's wildly popular role playing game. But the sweeping language of Judge Campbell's decision, combined with his equally troubling decision last summer, creates a lot of new uncertainty for software vendors seeking to enter software markets dominated by entrenched incumbents and achieve interoperability with legacy platforms."
That will allow them to use the same thing to prosecute gold spammers and the like who keep bugging the shit out of WoW players.
This will just be appealed, this was just a judge not understanding the difference between breaking a contract (EULA) and breaking a copyright.
Judge Campbell has distinguished between the actual bits stored on the World of Warcraft disk (which he called the "literal elements" of the game) and the interface elements the user encounters as he's actually playing the game (which he dubbed "non-literal elements").
It's fun how after playing that game for a while I get called a "non-literal", good thing I stopped playing last year!
Do you D?
It seems like each and every time Blizzard has filed a suit over something related to "violating the terms of their EULA", they've been handed a victory.
I've been troubled by ALL of these rulings over the years, and this just adds to the total.
As far as I'm concerned, people who pay for a copy of their game software have *every* right to opt to use said software with other, alternate servers, if they so desire. They also have every right to run any manner of automated script or "bot" in lieu of physically sitting in front of their screen and hand-manipulating the character they've paid for the subscription to use on Blizzard's servers!
It's a really BAD precedent to set, to legally enforce the idea that a software developer can FORCE a customer to use their product only in specific ways they outline. Imagine if Microsoft or Apple came along and dictated that their operating systems could no longer legally be used as a platform running any "p2p sharing software" (since as we ALL know, torrents and other types of p2p sharing are inherently bad, right?).
Or imagine if you bought the latest edition of a "Call of Duty" game, only to find out the EULA stated it was illegal to play except on weekends? Blizzard has effectively won the legal ability for developers to state and enforce anything like this they'd like to put in the agreement!
How the fuck did this judge come to this decision?
Next up, OS security bugs found to be DMCA violation because they could control access to a copyrighted work
Maybe they can use the DMCA to outlaw abortion! And create world peace! And make me dinner!
don't install the game you're writing the bot for.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The specific gripe the bot company appeals on doesn't matter much to me, they would appeal any decision that told them they couldn't sell their product, that's what companies do.
Now if only I can win a DMCA "circumvention" case against anyone who moves pieces on the RISK board when I go to the bathroom!!
Imagine if Microsoft or Apple came along and dictated that their operating systems could no longer legally be used as a platform running any "p2p sharing software" (since as we ALL know, torrents and other types of p2p sharing are inherently bad, right?).
If both of them did it, then I'm imagining The Year of Linux on the Desktop finally coming to pass! =D
The enemies of Democracy are
if 10 million people play WoW, do you think a few of them might be judges?
More music, fewer hits
Even if they did, couldn't you vote with your wallet? You won't die if you don't have that latest "Call of Duty" game.
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
Strangely, though, those who perpetrated the recent Mortgage fiasco which resulted in the current recession are not personally responsible for the actions of their firms. I find it strange that CEOs incur personal liability for their firm's actions only when the victim is another corporation.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
They've so dumbed down the MMORPG market that it is impossible for any other company to come out with any sort of game that isn't hand holding and brain dead at its core.
Blizzard went straight for the lowest possible common denominator game play and now the MMORPG market is fucked. It is sad to think of millions of people who will have spent years of their lives wasting away in such a piece of crap game. Now matter how 'polished' it is.
I don't have a problem if you're playing on alternate servers; that's your prerogative. However, when you play on Blizzard's servers you have to play by their rules. This is no different than any other service. They can set the terms of service to whatever they want (within the law); if you violate those terms, you lose access to the service. If they say you can't run a bot while playing on their servers, then don't complain when they kick you out for running a bot on their servers. As far as I'm concerned, this is the same thing as Microsoft banning you for connecting to Xbox Live with a modded Xbox.
Apple already forces you to use their hardware as it is. Microsoft also forces a lot of licenses to only be used by specific machines as well. That Vista you got on your new Dell probably wont work when you swap in a new system board or buy an HP system.
Now an undead warlock will cast a chaos bolt to all those evil bots of Arthas the Lich King! jojojo
That's why MS sells Retail licenses...
Part of the price break of the OEM license cost comes from the fact that it is non-transferable.
So Blizzard shouldn't be able to set the terms of use for a _service_ they provide?
Just think how viable xbox live would be if MS couldn't stop people from running hacks and mods.
And I'm sure everyone sitting in a queue waiting to get on their primary server will just love you and your afkave bot.
unless you've been a injected with a nanobots that kill you if you don't buy it within 24 hours of it being released.
... then I'm imagining The Year of Linux on the Desktop finally coming to pass! =D
lvl 80 Gnome, is that you?
...a fact which for the sake of a quiet life most people tend to ignore ~H2G2
In my opinion, You can Bot if you want, but do it on a private server.
This case isn't about how someone changed the game on a personal server, but how a person's actions unfairly impacted the game play experience for thousands (or millions) others.
To that extent, enforcing a EULA in a reasonable manner is a different story than enforcing an unreasonable EULA. So those of you worrying about judgments that hinder society and technology should look instead at the recent copyright awarded to apple.
So Blizzard shouldn't be able to set the terms of use for a _service_ they provide?
So it's OK for someone to be guilty of a _felony_ for violating those terms?
To me, a game programer, the aspect of preventing bots in a chess game. I start with a move, and the bot creaters make another move, I counter and so forth. I agree with what you are saying and strongly believe that they have all the right to prevent someone from using there servers weather they are botting or just because someone at blizzard doesnt like them. However bringing the law into this and thus costing tax payer money, make no since at all.
To me blizzard was getting there ass kicked in the chess game that was anti-boting, and desided to cheat and knock the chess board over.
Posted as AC because I still play SC online.
Except that you are expressly prohibited from playing on alternate servers. Your ONLY option for playing this game is with blizzards servers.
Furthermore, this situation is not akin to getting kicked off of Xbox live with a modded Xbox. If you get revoked from playing Xbox Live you may still continue to play the content you had purchased by yourself. Nothing is prohibiting you from playing the game, you just cannot play in an online environment. This is not the case with World Of Warcraft.
It's a really BAD precedent to set, to legally enforce the idea that a software developer can FORCE a customer to use their product only in specific ways they outline.
Yeah, about that. There are these things called license agreements, they're kind of like contracts, which are a sort of legal instrument, that is maybe, like, thousands of years old.
If you don't like the license, don't buy the software.
with Congress and those two quasi-private but really federally run groups called Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Better yet, all those Congressmen who got sweetheart mortgage deals suddenly no longer need to come clean because they bought off the companies adversely affected by their actions with our tax dollars.
On topic:
I really dislike the summary which wants to relate what this guy did with interoperability. Since when is promoting cheating, breaking the EULA, and profiting off of it, interoperability?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
They also have every right to run any manner of automated script or "bot" in lieu of physically sitting in front of their screen and hand-manipulating the character they've paid for the subscription to use on Blizzard's servers!
Not as long as you share a game world. Though it's not physical, whenever people meet there are rules to follow. Even if you paid membership to a sports club, they could deny you access if you came there shirtless. They could throw you out if you're breaking the rules and being an ass. You can't wave your membership card in their face and say "You can't touch me, I've paid to be here!". Client software and bots are exactly the same as dress code and club rules. With single player games you can do whatever the fuck you want, just as you can in the privacy of your own home. WoW is not your home (or if it is, seek professional help).
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Ok, now this is absurd. I can understand finding that it violates the EULA, that's pretty obvious to anyone, but the DMCA? Where exactly did they copy code? Does this judge have ANY experts assuring he understands wtf he is making a ruling about?
For anyone who was wondering whether the DMCA, or DRM, had anything to do with piracy, look here:
Glider violates the provision of the DMCA that prohibits "trafficking" in software that is "primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work" protected by copyright.
Sounds pretty open and shut for Glider...
But unless I'm missing something, that's a valid interpretation of that language -- any technological measure which controls access to a work.
Not "prevents piracy", or "prevents duplication", or even "prevents already-illegal stuff that we didn't need a new law for anyway."
No, it's all about control. It's about preventing you from using stuff you legitimately bought in new and interesting ways, so they can sell it to you again in those new and interesting ways. Or it's about preventing you from doing something that damages them in a completely unrelated way, if they can.
It's about taking control away from the consumer, and putting it back in the hands of the publisher.
If it stops piracy, great. But I don't think that they could've come up with something this devious by accident, especially when it's clear how ineffective the stuff is at its supposed purpose (preventing piracy).
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
FTA:
Siy and Pearlman also expressed skepticism at the notion that these "dynamic, non-literal elements" constitute a distinct copyrighted work.
If I'm reading the trial order correctly (IANAL), it seems to cite the following cases in support of "non-literal elements" being copyrighted:
See Atari Games Corp. v. Oman, 888 F.2d 878, 884-85 (D.C. Cir. 1989); Midway Mfg. Co. v. Arctic Int'l, Inc., 704 F.2d 1009, 1011-12 (7th Cir. 1983); Williams Elec., Inc. v. Arctic Int'l, Inc., 685 F.2d 870, 874 (3d Cir. 1982); Stern Elecs., Inc. v. Kaufman, 669 F.2d 852, 855-56 (2d Cir. 1982)
What I'd like to see from Siy and Pearlman is a description of what these cases are, and why their citation is somehow irrelevant with regards to non-literal elements and copyright enforceability. The judge certainly seemed to think they applied. (Again, if I'm reading the order correctly. I might be wrong. Who knows.)
present day... present time... hahahaha...
The problems are:
1) They sell software as well as the service. Their terms say you can only use their software with their service. The legal enforcement of this could have far reaching consequences.
2) Their enforcement of those terms is through the courts, where the arguments of their lawyers stretch laws like the DMCA or the validity of EULA's to cover more and more ground. Once there's precedent it affects everyone, not just WOW players or gold farmers.
It's nothing but crumpled porno and Ayn Rand.
They don't won't to kick people violating their TOS off their service. They want to make it harder for people to violate the TOS by shutting down an enabler as that doesn't cost them profits.
I completely agree. You have to remember that Blizzard has the entire community to worry about here, and if they find something that gives an unfair advantage they are completely within their right to ban it. I'm sure if it was a single player game, they would never dream of pressing the issue. Its the multiplayer aspect of WoW that dictates the need for such rules.
While I agree with you in principle regarding the precedents being a slippery slope, I don't agree with you in the perspective of a player trying to play the game.
When I purchase a game, I purchase an environment. It's a set of rules put forth by game designers, I abide by them and attempt to win given the limitations of the system. Anything else really isn't winning to me. Exploiting a bug to achieve an end by some other way than the designer intended circumvents the fun of it.
There are some games that market to the crowd that wants to customize the environment and make their own game/rules/limitations. That's great, and when I opt into that, I want as much control over the environment as possible.
When I don't want that type of thing, as in the case of a MMORPG, I'd rather that the system was as airtight as possible. I choose to play by the rules and see if I can win the way that the game was designed. By nature of it being multiplayer, I depend on everyone being on a level playing field. I'd expect the game designers to have a way to make sure that playing field stays level, as that's what ensures my continued enjoyment in the game as it was intended.
All is a roundabout way of saying that I like that Blizzard is protecting their game environment from being hacked/modified/manipulated into circumventing the designers' intentions. If you want a hackable game, find another one, there are quite a few on the market.
Again, I don't agree with the legal rammifications, but inside the game as a player who just wants a fair playing field, I like it.
Wow.
I've started about 3 different replies and erased them, for fear that if I continued trying to understand the judge's logic, my head would explode. Anti-liberty scum with a robe and gavel.
I did want to bring this up though. From one of the linked Ars articles:
First, it would have to be the user breaking the EULA. The bot can't break it because it never "clicked" OK. Second, their logic is that because the EULA is broken, any subsequent RAM operations are copyright violations.
So my question: Did I miss the memo that made EULAs legally binding contracts, and gives EULA "agreements" the authority to invalidate the license to copy the software into RAM? Has this been true ever since the DMCA was passed? I know that EULAs always talk shit about this, but I had no idea that this logic was valid in court. I knew it was bad, but Jesus.
Billy Brown rides on. Yolanda Green bypasses Gary White.
"Blizzard has effectively won the legal ability for developers to state and enforce anything like this they'd like to put in the agreement!"
And this is a new development? EULAs are full of insane stuff. Blizzard isn't even the worst of the bunch, they just get villified by those who want the rules to be what *THEY* want them to be.
And how does my little (49oy) brother feel when he plays WoW 'by hand', building and accumulating by the rules? He's beyond offended by those that use resources merely to profit in real $. He cranks levels and such for the sole purpose of being able to help other players accomplish what they want - usually level. Then he gives stuff away. And he gets a fair amount of wrath from the spammers and sellers who have at least twice tried to get his account deleted. Apparently not, weasels. He's not a 24x7 player. he's also a NASCAR fan. You get many weekends off from tormenting him.
I have less than no sympathy for the botters. May they lose everything in-game, and make room for players.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
You, know, this could just be a coincidence, but a couple of weeks ago I was in Northrend and I ran into an orc named "JudgeCampbell". He had some pretty sweet weapons and armor he was showing off, including a Judicial Robe of Invicibility and a Judge's Battle Gavel of The Dragon, which did an unreal amount of damage. Also, he had all these really powerful spells I'd never even heard of before, such as "Contempt of Court" and "Summon Bailiff". To top it all off, he had like 200,000 gold. I asked where he'd gotten all this stuff and he said he'd just "found it all in some dungeon". It sounded kind of fishy to me, but I didn't think anything much of it at the time.
It's a really BAD precedent to set, to legally enforce the idea that a software developer can FORCE a customer to use their product only in specific ways they outline. Imagine if Microsoft or Apple came along and dictated that their operating systems could no longer legally be used as a platform running any "p2p sharing software" (since as we ALL know, torrents and other types of p2p sharing are inherently bad, right?).
Or imagine if you bought the latest edition of a "Call of Duty" game, only to find out the EULA stated it was illegal to play except on weekends? Blizzard has effectively won the legal ability for developers to state and enforce anything like this they'd like to put in the agreement!
Or if you bought Gear of War for Windows and discovered that you could only play it before a certain date, after which it would no longer function, and that date has already passed.
There is a problem in your argument. There should be certain limitations on the use of certain software. For example, Would you use Windows to control a nuclear reactor?
Apple already forces you to use their hardware as it is.
tell that to the osx86 hacking community.
It's a really BAD precedent to set, to legally enforce the idea that a software developer can FORCE a customer to use their product only in specific ways they outline.
Yeah, about that. There are these things called license agreements, they're kind of like contracts, which are a sort of legal instrument, that is maybe, like, thousands of years old.
If you don't like the license, don't buy the software.
That makes a lot of sense. However, Blizzard can change the license agreement required to play, and you can't keep playing unless you upgrade to the latest patch and accept the new terms. Since the game is based on accumulative success, do we get reimbursed for what we paid for if the license changes to something we no longer agree with?
Or, in this hypothetical scenario, perhaps we could use the product we bought months ago on an alternate server to continue to enjoy our purchase.
Yeah, but you might die (figuratively) if their litigation ends up setting a bunch of weird-ass precedents. This case is way bigger than WoW.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Or imagine if you bought the latest edition of a "Call of Duty" game, only to find out the EULA stated it was illegal to play except on weekends?
Try playing WoW between 5am and 11am Pacific time on a Tuesday.
(For those who don't play WoW, that's typically the time when maintenance occurs, patches get deployed, etc.)
present day... present time... hahahaha...
It's a really BAD precedent to set, to legally enforce the idea that a software developer can FORCE a customer to use their product only in specific ways they outline.
Blizzard isn't really forcing anyone to play in a specific way. They are asking for the right to kick people out who are worsening the experience for everyone else. Are you saying that bars shouldn't be allowed to kick out belligerents who are being annoying, obnoxious, and possibly dangerous? Your operating system analogy is bad one (not saying mine isn't bad either, but it's better) because using "any" P2P software isn't inherently bad at all. There really isn't any evidence that having P2P software on your computer would worsen the experience of people on other computers.
Or imagine if you bought the latest edition of a "Call of Duty" game, only to find out the EULA stated it was illegal to play except on weekends? Blizzard has effectively won the legal ability for developers to state and enforce anything like this they'd like to put in the agreement!
Not that I'm saying that the judges ruling isn't cause for concern, but you are blowing things out of proportion to the point where I don't know how you got modded insightful. I'm sure the judges ruling wasn't "software developers can enforce their users to do whatever the fuck they want." In other words, I'm not worried that a developer will create some ridiculous EULA that will limit my ability to play as a gamer. I'm worried that, as a developer myself, if I write a piece of software that might enhance (not necessarily in the form of cheating) the experience of a game or a set of games in any way, that I will be at their mercy, and can only pray that they don't use this ruling to sue me.
Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
they serve stupid corporations' interests more than they serve justice in any form. what's appalling is, corporations are so stupid that they actually seek to hamper their own survivability and profits with out-of-hell-stupid lawsuits like this.
luckily that kind of shit wont fly in europe.
Read radical news here
Hi Slashdot,
Steve Ballmer here. Just wanted to my fellow Slashdotters know that I've read the summary (obviously I skipped the article) and have already mobilised the Microsoft LawyerTeam Pro(tm)*.
Target? The Samba developers of course!
* It's the only thing we've got that still works, don't tell anyone, but for Windows 7 we just copied KDE 4.2 and put a different skin on it!
Sure. So kick off the people abusing their terms of service. Suing the company making the bot is a completely different issue, and has (rather, SHOULD have) no legal grounds.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Get your facts straight. Assuming the judge's decision is valid, the guy in question would have been guilty even if he'd never touched WOW before in his life.
The guy in question didn't violate Blizzard's terms. The judge determined that the users of his product ("Glider") did.
The felony he committed was to traffic that "Glider" product.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
Allow me to cry a single tear for the bot companies that have had their customer's (aka jackasses) gold mining plans undermined by this ruling, oh wait, I won't. Just because you paid someone to enter their building, doesn't mean you can do anything you want in it or to it; the same applies for servers. If I were to pay to get into a museum, then set up a robot that is constantly flipping people off in the lobby, do you honestly think they wouldn't kick me and my flipping the bird robot out? Well setting up a bot on a company-owned server is sort of like giving a giant "fuck you" to everyone who wants to play the game within the rules that have been laid out.
As far as using WoW with "alternate" servers, that would mean Blizzard would need to release server hosting software; clearly they won't do that unless they believe they can get more money from that than hosting it themselves, so anybody who is hosting a WoW server besides Blizzard would be reverse engineering their code (which is illegal for any software that isn't open source). However, if you don't like Blizzard's policies, you are more than welcome to put your money where your mouth is; send Blizzard a letter or e-mail saying what policies you think should be changed and that you won't buy their games until those policies do change. People seem to constantly forget that capitalism is the ultimate representative democracy, you vote with your wallets people!
The problems are:
1) They sell software as well as the service. Their terms say you can only use their software with their service. The legal enforcement of this could have far reaching consequences.
Guess that's just one of the consequences of having laws and judges and procedures to follow. Sometimes you're not going to like the outcomes but you can't just set aside the ones you don't like.
2) Their enforcement of those terms is through the courts, where the arguments of their lawyers stretch laws like the DMCA or the validity of EULA's to cover more and more ground. Once there's precedent it affects everyone, not just WOW players or gold farmers.
Would you rather Blizzard enforced it themselves? Maybe sent over a couple of goons to make sure violaters understood the error of their ways and would be persuaded to not repeat their offenses
I've tried, but I have yet to find any in Stormwind.
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
WoW is not your home
How can you be certain that I'm not really a Dwarf Paladin bot posting to Slashdot from within WoW? Hmm?
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
alternate server to continue to enjoy our purchase.
You mean the alternate server running software literally stolen from Blizzard?
Well, I'll admit I didn't RTFA, but isn't Blizzard's stance basically that they don't have to _sell you a subscription_ if you aren't using it how they want? I mean, since you get the game client free with your subscription, you aren't really _buying_ anything.
Scope creep is endemic. First the drugs are illegal (copyrighted works), then the US pressures other countries to make them illegal (WTO actions), then the paraphenalia is illegal (DMCA circumvention), then they can confiscate your property if you touch the drugs (more recent acts). Then your freedoms start to get eroded in the name of the war. All of this so the pharmaceutical companies (large software publishers) can avoid competition.
The whole thing breaks down between "selling" and "licensing" a piece of software. A vendor, has every right as the creator to restrict how their works can be sold or in the case of licensing used.
This is not what any consumer wants, but we have no right to someone else's creation, and to use it how we like. If Apple, Microsoft, Blizzard or whoever want to restrict use through licensing to an "unfair" degree, the market will dictate whether consumers are willing to pay for it still or not.
In a market economy all you can do is make your own personal choices as a consumer, ultimately the goods you have available to you and the conditions on which they're available to you depend largely on the other consumers around you, unfortunate as that may be, but that is how it should be, the legal system should not dictate how a company can sell or license a good it created.
Am I the only one who is pretty disgusted at the trend of games where the primary skill function is just how much time your character spends doing stuff? It might as well just be an online store where you buy virtual skills and pay with your blood over firewire. Sacrifice your lives to something worthy, chumps! Develop some actual talents while you're at it!
This is just a case of big $$$ lawyers versus some little guys. The defense took the wrong angle after the other guys managed to convince the judge that copy infringement was taking place. The judges decision seems to be because of the way that glider was implemented. From what I could gather glider reads the game as it runs (screen shots or whatever) and then feeds in fake user controls. In the act of doing so it apparently violates copyright because it copy's part of the game to read in information. This is a pretty ridiculous assertion by the judge, he has pretty much said any program that reads another programs memory is guilty of copyright infringement as the data in memory is part of the copy protected program! And because blizzards crap software couldn't detect it, that apparently means it violates the DMCA because it 'avoids' (Just be existings) blizzard pathetic attempt at copy protectioning its own memory! LMAO. The whole case is a joke.
Stop doing that kids, he is right.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Apple does force customers to use their software/hardware/OS in a certain way...ah hum... the Prystar lawsuit??
You get an e-penis to show off your accomplishments, except you haven't accomplished anything. Not only are the rewards virtual, you did nothing to earn them.
At least with the iPhone "I'm Rich App", you are clearly demonstrating the truth. You spent money to tell the world that you spent money.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
"As far as I'm concerned, people who pay for a copy of their game software have *every* right to opt to use said software with other, alternate servers, if they so desire."
Yes, as far as YOU are concerned - NOT THE LAW. They don't buy a game, they pay for a license - that license is a contract specifying what you can do and what you can't do. You don't want to agree with that - then don't pay and stay away.
"They also have every right to run any manner of automated script or "bot" in lieu of physically sitting in front of their screen and hand-manipulating the character they've paid for the subscription to use on Blizzard's servers!"
Wrong. They pay for a license to use to the servers IF they follow certain rules, and cheating by running bots is specifically NOT allowed.
"Blizzard has effectively won the legal ability for developers to state and enforce anything like this they'd like to put in the agreement!"
Thank god the people have won the right to not pay for the software.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
When Spore came out, they effectively only let you only install the software three times. This is their right and shouldn't be infringed upon.
Now as a consumer, you have the right to not buy their software. If enough people do not buy their software, they are forced to do business differently or lose money, hence Spore eventually increasing the number of computers allowed and the possibility of de-authorizing computers for other reinstall's. Now, this still seems ludicrous and hence I won't buy it.
Apple attempts to force you to use their hardware as it is. (and by "attempts" I mean they try to brick anything that doesn't use their hardware)
$ make available
When people sell virtual stuff for real money, that's when it becomes an issue. Clearly the bots are designed to generate virtual wealth so that they can be sold for real wealth. The defendant didn't earn the wealth, virtual or real. Case closed, IMHO.
If both of them did it, then I'm imagining The Year of Linux on the Desktop finally coming to pass! =D
But then we'd get more than teachers saying linux is illegal.
Do you D?
But now all MS has to do to keep me from using any open-source software is to regularly scan my computer for "un-licensed" software... and if i happen to use said software the company I got the program from is in trouble!
Yeah, because a company that makes tools to violate a contract should be allowed to do so with impunity.
Right.
IANAL, but unless the older EULAs say "you have to accept the new EULAs or uninstall", how can they force you to upgrade? And if they just make the servers newly incompatible with the older games, why can't you sue them for breach of contract (they promised you a game, you fulfilled your end, suddenly the game won't work unless you do more (i.e. agree to another EULA)...). But IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and I'm too lazy to go find and read ~7 EULAs to see whether I'm right.
$ make available
DMCA is essential to an orderly society. Without the ability of a software producer to control how his product is used to interact with others there is direct damage that can be done to the brand-name of that software.
If you have no legal right to use your camera to take pictures of child pornography or use your mega-phone to disrupt a sleeping neighborhood.
This ruling is pushing the notion of dictating the use of software after the sale. It comes down to, whether or not, a pipe wrench manufacturer can dictate that you cannot hit something with it. To have that action void the warranty is one thing, but to actually take the person to court to enforce this is another.
Then why do you need a lawsuit? Why not just ban anyone who is obviously behaving like a bot? (the EULA will obviously have a section saying "[We] [can] [ban people] for any reason or for no reason at all." (Words/phrases that I converted to common English are in brackets.) ) Sure that harms your revenue model, but if you really care about people who don't agree with the parent, you obviously don't either. Cheaters are assholes; depriving them of their bots only forces them to find another method of assholery.
I don't see why this is necessary, but: I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice.
If you are using slashdot in hopes of acquiring legal advice, you're a cheap idiot.
$ make available
Often with the most twisted legal arguments you can imagine, the sort which clearly indicate that the conclusion was reached prior to the argument being constructed.
IT IS ORDERED:
DATED this 28th day of January, 2009.
Which means the judge awarded everything to Blizzard and asked MDY for a memo explaining why they should stay in business while they fight the case. After reading the judge order it's safe to say there is little chance that the judge allows MDY to remain on business after february 13.
If you choose to do that, that's your problem. We can solve that via those "limitation of liability" statements (usually in ALL CAPS, somewhere in the EULA, even the GPL has one, and AFAIK Windows does also.). IANAL, this isn't legal advice, etc.
$ make available
Agreed with the idea of precedent set; however, I can think of multiple games that I've bought and played under the ToS, enjoyed them, and then watched that enjoyment disappear when the inevitable hackers came around and tipped the playing field to where nobody could play without the hacked software.
Feel free to go play on the Battlefield 2, Battlefield 2142, and Tribes 2 servers (even years ago) and you can see what I mean. MY enjoyment is ruined by bots that let people see and shoot through walls, with unlimited distance and automatic mouseover firing, all because they enjoy griefing others or claiming that they are the king of the hill.
So you're suggesting that your right to do whatever the hell you want trumps Blizzard's right to control what happens on property (servers) that Blizzard owns?
That's interesting. I wonder if you'd feel the same way should I decide to use my right to make an asshat of myself on your front lawn.
Your Call of Duty example is also stupid. It's totally legal for a company to do that. It'd be pretty bad for business though, who would ever buy a game from them again?
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
tell that to Psystar.
Fixed that for ya.
Your ad here.
Whoa whoa, Call of Duty isn't an EA game.
Your ad here.
The hilarious part is that this will do nothing for the hardcore botters and gold farming/char leveling firms. The WoW hacking community is quite large, and detailed information is available freely on the internet about many of its mechanisms. This has led to the creation of countless private bots that are not released for mass consumption like Glider, and hardcore firms usually end up using such bots (which, by the way, run below the radar of Blizz counter-measures like Warden). Go Google it yourself. Creating such a bot is not difficult for a good programmer.They are often not nearly as sophisticated as Glider, but they don't need to be since they're customized from the ground up for the firms on demands (and lack a lot of options that Glider has, but again this doesn't matter as these private bots aren't released for the masses). So a small victory for Blizzard in the end imo. This won't change any of WoW's messed up economy on some servers, nor will it even remotely make a dent in the farming/power-leveling community.
Now suppose I construct an alternate server (doesn't matter how, only that it behaves similarly to the real thing), install WoW under XP VirtualBox (or any emulator/virtualizer) under Linux (any type). Then I change the /etc/resolv.conf to point everything relating to WoW to the alternate server instead (I have no idea if you really need the virtualization, but it prevents M$ from getting in the way). I even pipe the packets coming from VirtualBox through a packet sniffer and replace hardcoded IP addresses. The entire thing never touches any servers owned by Blizzard (because I ensure that connecting to said servers is physically impossible until someone implements packet over air), except maybe when I agree to the EULA (and maybe I could fake that too). A few more of these rulings, and that entire process is illegal (it might already be). But even if it wasn't, shouldn't I be able to decide whether users of my server can use bots, instead of being forced to do as Blizzard says? In fact, if I do fake the EULA acceptance (that is, ensure it never goes to an official server so Blizzard can't prove I accepted the EULA), what claims can Blizzard have against me? How can they prove there wasn't a bug in the EULA window that enabled me to bypass it without agreeing? And if I didn't agree, what did I do wrong?
IANAL, and anyone who tries any of this, or anything like this is likely to be sued, and might lose unexpectedly. This is not legal advice.
$ make available
Considering that some people play WoW more often than my computer is guaranteed to be up and running, I'd say botting on WoW puts you at a disadvantage.
Your ad here.
Because everyone knows that mages and rogues make the best bots. Mages can make food and rogues can stealth to hide from players.
Ah, but that's the thing. World of Warcraft isn't just another piece of software. It's a subscription based online service, that just happens to have a specific, vendor provided client. What is being called a EULA (both here and in WoW's installer), is actually more like what we know as the ToS.
The terms of service spell out the exact ways in which you agree to use their service. Contracts for subscription services aren't on nearly the kind of shaky legal ground that shrinkwrap EULA's are.
Looking at WoW as a subscription service, and the WoW client software as an "access control device" for that service puts Blizzard on very solid legal ground. It also makes these precedents significantly less applicable to ordinary software hacking, and ordinary shrinkwrap EULAs.
The Call of Duty example you set would not apply - they're different situations. You don't subscribe to Call of Duty, you don't even play on company servers, you play on servers set up by volunteer players. And you don't have to agree to any Terms of Service to use another player's server.
Legalize recreational marijuana. Seriously.
> So Blizzard shouldn't be able to set the terms of use for a _service_ they provide?
They have every right to. The problem with these cases is just how obscenely far the laws are being stretched. It's setting precedents that could potentially have devastating consequences.
If Blizzard says "thou shall now use a bot", then fine. If a person uses a bot then they have violated Blizzard's terms of service, allowing Blizzard to do what the terms allow. This usually means disconnecting them, but could, in principal, include a fine of $1 million. (Of course, if that were the case they'd almost certainly require a notarized signature, not just a "I Agree" checkbox.)
In this case, Blizzard was unable to detect Glider, and was therefore unable to take recourse against it's users. That's where the road should end. They should either update their cheat detection or give up.
HOWEVER, they went to the courts. They said that because Glider breaks their ToS, the _company_ should be held liable. And because the ToS/EULA is broken, the copying of the program into RAM to operate is a violation of copyright. AND that the people behind Glider should be held responsible for this infringement. They won. As a result, we have the precedents:
1) Copying a program into RAM is not fair use.
2) A company can be held liable if someone breaches a contract with your product.
And now, we get the following:
3) A program which reads/interoperates a with another outside the ToS/EULA is considered a DMCA circumvention device, and the author is _CRIMINALLY_ liable.
All three of these rulings are beyond ridiculous. This one, however, takes the cake as now it's a criminal offense. It's essentially saying that writing an unauthorized plugin, addon, or even operating system can get you thrown in jail.
To highlight:
Windows Vista Home (or any that aren't Ultimate) state in their EULA that they may not be run under a VM. If I were to install it under VMWare server, by these points above, VMWare could be sued out of business and the CEO should go to jail.
Thanks, Blizzard.
Mangos and Summit weren't stolen from Blizzard. Now AEGIS-based Ragnarok servers are a totally different story. But people have been stealing that for years using an anonymous FTP account that Gravity has left open since... about 2001. Doesn't make it less illegal, but you'd think a company would figure that out when the majority of their players don't even play on official servers.
Your ad here.
They should. If Blizzard doesn't want to do business with people who violate contract, or want to sue the people who violate their contract, that's one thing. It's a completely different thing to use an asinine law to take down a company that just provides automation tools.
Going by Blizzard's logic, Dell should also have a big lawsuit against them because their computers were almost certainly used in this circumvention, and they contributed materially to it by allowing ungood code to run on the machines they sold to the consumers.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
What if I paid someone to "bot" for me at the gym while I watched _her_ workout. Would the gym ban me for "botting" even if I paid for her account.. err.. membership? Imagine how much I'd get done if I had someone go to the gym FOR me!
...when an entire industry (legal or not) rises up to counter act an element of your game (farming) perhaps one should take that as a sign that you game shouldn't do that.
The purpose for farming is to make players play longer. It provides no challenge and no real gameplay element.
Blizzard is just too lazy to make actual content that would keep players occupied. They rely on addiction instead of providing a fun, playable game.
I don't think that they could legally put into the EULA a disclaimer saying that by accepting this EULA you accept (or must accept) any changes to the EULA in the future.
There may be some grounds for a lawsuit, though, if they change the EULA and you don't accept, you're left without any product. The EULA, as a contract, should be binding for both parties until a new contract is agreed upon by both parties. If it's not binding as such, then I would think it doesn't classify as a contract.
It's a really BAD precedent to set, to legally enforce the idea that a software developer can FORCE a customer to use their product only in specific ways they outline.
Newsflash: Apple already does this.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
The felony he committed was to traffic that "Glider" product.
Isn't that kinda like suing Smith & Wesson because people get shot?
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
It's emulation created using packet-sniffing and reverse-engineering. It wasn't stolen.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
As far as I'm concerned, people who pay for a copy of their game software have *every* right to opt to use said software with other, alternate servers, if they so desire. They also have every right to run any manner of automated script or "bot" in lieu of physically sitting in front of their screen and hand-manipulating the character they've paid for the subscription to use on Blizzard's servers!
I agree, to some extent. These extra limitations described in the EULA were not known to the user until after they purchased the software, so I don't think that it is fair to hold them to its terms.
I think it should be possible for a company to limit the way in which a service that they provide is used, but those limitations should be listed upfront before the user makes any purchases. Most software EULAs do not. The user does not know that the software contains these limitations until after the software has been purchased and opened, at which point the store that sold the software usually will not allow a refund. I think that the EULA should be printed on the box so that its terms are known before the software is purchased, with the added benefit that the EULA will be short enough that more people would actually read it.
With single player games you can do whatever the fuck you want, just as you can in the privacy of your own home.
If you can't tell that I'm using a bot from the stream of bits being sent to the server, then I am in the privacy of my own home. My hardware, my rules.
(For what it's worth, I've never used a bot in any sort of game before - but I think that this is an issue more important than the entire gaming industry.)
Or they could create some kind of central site where you have to get your software from, and you can't get software from anywhere else.
Oh I wished there were laws that prohibit this abuse of their monopoly!
And if they just make the servers newly incompatible with the older games, why can't you sue them for breach of contract (they promised you a game, you fulfilled your end, suddenly the game won't work unless you do more (i.e. agree to another EULA)...).
Very, very little can compel someone to keep providing you with a service. They can roll out a new EULA just as they can hike the price to $1000/month, stut down the whole service altogether or whatnot. Unless you've paid in advance for more service, it'd have to be very drastic for them not being able to do it and would probably only apply to those that have just bought the box and didn't get to play much at all - there's certainly no promise the MMORPG will live forever and if you got >3 months playtime I'd say you have no rights at all. it's not that different from any other service, if there's a cable monopoly and they change the terms you can either have cable or not, period. That you've inflicted upon yourself the ultimate in vendor lock-in is really your own problem.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
This basically sets the precedent for any software running within another platform to be in violation of the dmca.
Most people aren't thought about after they're gone. "I wonder where Rob got the plutonium" is better than most get.
Yes, it is a tool to allow people to break rules. But this isn't used to duplicate or even liberate copyrighted content and can't be as far as I can tell. What copyrighted data is being protected and circumvented by this software?
As long as we are prosecuting using inappropriate laws, let's just nail the defendant for murder!
I can buy a monthly commuter bus pass and ride the commuter bus with no other charges all month whenever I want. That doesn't mean I can grab the wheel and drive to Tiajuana, other passengers be damned. They're not selling you a single player game, there is no pretense that it is a single player game, and it says clearly on every box that you have to pay to play.
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
So Blizzard shouldn't be able to set the terms of use for a _service_ they provide?
Just think how viable xbox live would be if MS couldn't stop people from running hacks and mods.
And I'm sure everyone sitting in a queue waiting to get on their primary server will just love you and your afkave bot.
HELLO. READ.... This isn't about weather or not it is right for Blizzard to Ban Bots, or weather or not a EULA should be held up in law.
THE Judge just ruled that under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act WOW Glider was illegally circumventing copyright protection. HOWEVER much like the fact that blizzard doesn't have a trademark for the term "WOW" Blizzard also does not have any copy prevention. He has expanded an already outrageous protection that has been abused to no end to the point that even your run of the mill anti virus software is technically offending.
The Judge also ruled that MDY Industries is responsible for upholding a not necessarily legal document (EULA) even though they do not use the software for which the EULA applies.
Whats more is that this gives credence to the idea that Blizzard's EULA is a legally binding document. Something I don't support. WHY? BECAUSE IT CHANGES. You are forced to continue to support the EULA through whatever changes it has without any possibility of getting anything back once the first eula was accepted. You don't get back the money for the game, the money for the expansion, and certainly no the time invested in your "OTHER LIFE".
Except that depending on how ridiculous the terms of the EULA get, parts of it can be declared unconscionable by the court. For example, Apple could just start inserting terms into their EULA like, "by using this software you agree to give us your firstborn child," but no court would uphold the terms, even if the user clicked "agree." Of course there's a lot of space on the continuum between "no bots" and "give us your firstborn," but this ruling is not absolute in the sense you imply.
Once there's precedent it affects everyone, not just WOW players or gold farmers.
This really depends on what court made the decision. Usually appelate decisions have more weight. If this guy appeals it up to a US district court or (shudder) the US Supreme court, it could have a wide ranging impact. Otherwise, it's just going to put Glider out of buisiness.
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
Your entire post appears to be the work of a slashdot bot.
Actually, that server software isn't stolen from Blizzard. In many cases of MMOG private servers they simply reverse engineered the protocol and slapped something together that lets basic functions work. Thats why things like scripted events and certain boss fights don't work, or don't work correctly, on private servers, or why many times quests can't be completed.
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
You're probably in the wrong phase. Do some more quests and make sure you finished the Battle for Undercity line if you dropped it. Then you'll find a guy in the trade district who starts you on the "shrinking your head" line. Just be careful, some of them are group quests.
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
it would be if there were uses for Glider that are determined to be legally legit. 99% of the time, rifles are used for things that are completely legal. 100% of the time, Glider was not. There is a substantial difference - one of which you are well aware, but hey - I'll answer your silly question regardless.
The judge just ruled and, unfortunately, it did not go much our way. He pretty much awarded everything to Blizzard again.
Here's a link to the order: http://www.mmoglider.com/Legal/trialorder_jan28.pdf
What this means for Glider customers The judge asked us to file a memo by February 13th on why we should be allowed to continue to sell Glider through the appeal process.
I'm not sure why he asked for that, since I don't think he's going to start listening to us now. So we'll file it and see, but it seems very likely that he will rule against us. Then we'll go up to the 9th circuit and try to get a stay, similar to how the Napster case went.
If all goes badly, Glider could be shut down as early as mid-February. So keep your fingers crossed.
That's from 01/28/2009
Am I the only one who is pretty disgusted at the trend of games where the primary skill function is just how much time your character spends doing stuff?
Go play a FPS and you'll find autoaim bots, wallhacks, and other assorted cheating tools. Corner a cheater and they'll complain about how they have a "real life" and can't spend all their time playing the game to get the skills to compete with other players. This is simply more of the same.
There are thousands of folks who want instant gratification. Twitch monkeys who can't stand not being at the top of whatever hill they see but don't want to invest the time it takes to get there (nevermind that being at the top of the hill doesn't HAVE to be the point of a lot of these games). So they go for the short-cut.
Yeah, treadmills and grinds aren't for everyone. But that doesn't mean you get to ditch the rules because they're inconvenient for you. Play the game... or don't play at all.
If both of them did it, then I'm imagining The Year of Linux on the Desktop finally coming to pass! =D
I'm afraid that, should it ever come to that, by the time it gets there, it'll be the Year of the Linux in Jails. Have you read "Rainbows End"?
Get your facts straight.
My facts are straight. What's not straight is your logic.
The guy in question didn't violate Blizzard's terms. The judge determined that the users of his product ("Glider") did.
And therefore *HE IS GUILTY OF A FELONY BY PROVIDING A TOOL THAT VIOLATES THE DMCA*.
Every time something like this happens some idiot like this one tries to complain that he should be able to do anything he wants with what he bought. Even though the item was bought for a specific purpose and to be used in a specific way with a specific company's servers that they pay for and advertise and develop and put all the work into.
Please stop being MORONIC. No you don't have the right to do that. If you want to use it on another server, write your own damn code and create your own damn server and game and then pay the money to host it and the money to advertise it and market it. Then hope people show up to play it with you (I suppose you could play it all alone if you want).
Get over it morons you are buying into an ecosystem that they created advertised and monetized, you either play it on their terms or go somewhere else. I hate this entitlement crap that these morons feel they have simply because they bought something.
Why bother
No, it would be either be the year of everyone running P2P apps on their router or the year of people using Linux under a VM on their Macs and Windows machines. Seriously, who would give up Mac and/or Windows app of choice for approximate, but sadly lacking Linux alternative just because BitTorrent dies?
The issue isn't "Can you enforce license agreements?" the issue is "Can you sue someone who makes something to help other people break license agreements?"
It's all silly, glider doesn't give anyone the ability to do anything that isn't already in the game, so it's not a cheat program. I haven't used it, but I have used similar programs in other games that don't disallow botting.
Silly note. I've been in 'zombie mode' grinding boring crap that I needed and have been accused of being a bot. Just because I had my chat turned off and kept doing the same thing over and over. It's boring and repetitive, that's why it's called grinding. Fortunately the GMs investigated rather than banned, and their chat would pop up even when general chat was off. I'd love to be able to use a bot for that type of garbage.
Guess that means we need to find whoever makes a slim jim and sue them. Cuz, you know, it is a tool that allows people to violate a law (which is even more important than a contract).
Right.
This flawed logic comes up time and time again, no one is forcing you to play WoW, of COURSE Blizzard has an interest in it being played the way they want it to be played.
If you do not like the terms, do not play the game. You can't agree to terms, break them, and then complain about the 'control' the company has over you; you hand them that control the second you decide you want to play their game. And notice that it is THEIR game, not yours, if you don't like it, build your own WoW.
-Common Sense
That makes a lot of sense. However, Blizzard can change the license agreement required to play, and you can't keep playing unless you upgrade to the latest patch and accept the new terms. Since the game is based on accumulative success, do we get reimbursed for what we paid for if the license changes to something we no longer agree with?
Or, in this hypothetical scenario, perhaps we could use the product we bought months ago on an alternate server to continue to enjoy our purchase.
Why would you get reimbursed for something that you agreed with? If the license changes and you don't agree with that license change, you stop playing and stop paying. If enough people do that, the game dies.
If this case had failed and bots became legal (not just authorized, but utterly legal), how boring would the game become? No one would have to sit in front of their screens anymore and you could have a level 80 character within a few days or so, just by having the bot play while you're gone. Imagine being new to the game and trying to join in, but going the "old-fashioned" route of playing without a bot. Imagine trying to get one of the rare drops (Timmy's kitten, one of the whelps, some of those rare patterns in general, etc). Wouldn't you be more likely to either give up the game as a result of the frustration? Plus, those server first achievements would mean absolutely NOTHING other than, who has the fastest connection?
There are too many people out there who go the easiest route available, rather than enjoying the journey to the end. Bots unfairly allow those people to basically control the rare items in the game (price and availability).
On OUR OWN computer, we have EVERY right to do whatever we want. If someone doesn't like what we do on our own computer when we interact with THEIR server, then they have every right to block our actions, but no way in hell can they say what we are allowed to do on our own machinery.
There's a clear demarcation there.
If you get the game client free with a subscription, without ever buying a game code (the alternate form of payment for a downloaded client), I want to find out what deal you're getting, and get my ~$150 in client purchases back.
Client software and bots are exactly the same as dress code and club rules.
I agree entirely. Too bad this judge doesn't.
If I sell outfits that don't conform to a club's dress code, the club should be allowed to kick out anyone wearing them. But it should not be allowed to sue me for making a product that someone else is using to break club rules.
http://www.progressquest.com/ Does all the grinding you need.
This is one of the core contentions of Blizzard, that you are 'leasing' their software and not purchasing it. Unfortunately, even though IANAL, I find it hard to disagree with the amicus brief that was filed during the case. Personally I'd love to know what was on the judge's mind to get him to interpret as he did with such a heavy precedent out of his favor.
Apparently we can now create server processes that count from 1 to some huge number on a port and thus we have a copyright in those numbers.
Machines don't create copyrighted works. Authors do. And they fix them in tangible form. Dynamic is not fixed in tangible form.
And for crying out loud this is FUNCTIONAL crap here. Executing code. How the hell do you separate executing code from its functional portion, as copyrighted work needs to be? It's code for crying out loud, and it is running. You want to lock up functionality in IP? That's called a PATENT.
Where's the necessary modicum of creativity in an algorithm? And for godsakes 99.99999% of what the server is doing is reacting to USERS who are, if anyone, the EXPRESSORS of any creativity that is going on in those packets going out to all the clients.
This decision is just fucked, in my humble opinion. Copyright is so far from its moorings it has smashed into every other dock in the bay and is now sailing out to sea.
Slim Jims have a legitimate purpose. Products that have no legitimate purpose besides breaking the law are regularly outlawed in the U.S.
Jesus loves me, he loves me a bunch, because he always puts Jiffy in my lunch.
You are missing one extremely important distinction with this point: 2) A company can be held liable if someone breaches a contract with your product.
This is not a simple case of users breaching a contract with a product, but a product that BY DESIGN is TO BE USED FOR breaching a contract.
What I find amusing about this whole debacle is the incredible uselessness of the effort that is being spent to stop Glider from existing. I mean, OK... in the short term Blizzard *might* eek out more profit because they stopped Glider from existing, but in the long term, can you really expect them to be able to stop botting?
What is it that detects if someone is botting? Well, so far it has been processes that are running that Warden looks at and says "these are controlling this character, not a human".
But what happens when the bot is smart enough that the inputs themselves (i.e. the usb ports) are fed from the bot? Think of it like this:
You have a "bot box" that just feeds the typical (read: exact) signals that a USB keyboard and mouse feed to the game. This box also reads the video output of the graphics card to determine what is happening on screen. Then some random pseudo-A.I. is thrown in to mimic the playing ability of a 9 year old kid (guess what, tons of em in WoW) and boom, undetectable and unstoppable bot.
So Blizz goes after other approaches, like checking to see if the IP address has been playing any number of different accounts for too many hours in a 24hr period and flags that address.. Then they find out that it's an internet cafe who runs WoW and they just banned the IP of the cafe... oops, guess that won't work, either.
The only thing I can think of that might have the potential to defeat botting is by running a live CAPTCHA test using real people as the testers. They've been doing this already, but it has a natural wall where if they do it too much they start to annoy their legitimate players... I know that if I'm raiding and a Blizz CAPTCHA-Cop comes to ask me if I'm real, and distracts me from my enjoyment, I'm going to think about going to another game.
And seriously, is all of this worth the supposedly bad effects it has on the economy? I'm not crying over botters or gold spammers. My fun in the game is in playing the game, not comparing myself to some guy who has a million gold... especially in a game like WoW where gold is basically useless anyway.
I honestly doubt Blizzard has done an adequate cost vs. benefit analysis on the money they are spending to stop this perceived issue that really nobody could give a fuck about.
Oh and one other thing: gold farming and spamming wouldn't exist if PEOPLE WEREN'T BUYING THE GOLD.
But they are Blizz, so get over it.
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
Windows Vista Home (or any that aren't Ultimate) state in their EULA that they may not be run under a VM. If I were to install it under VMWare server, by these points above, VMWare could be sued out of business and the CEO should go to jail.
Not true, because there are legitimate reasons to use it beyond those that violate an EULA. If its only purpose was to illegally run Windows, then they would have a case.
Jesus loves me, he loves me a bunch, because he always puts Jiffy in my lunch.
Yes, but:
Imagine you joined a club where you agreed to wear a tie. It was all there in the membership details you agreed to when you joined.
Now lets say you felt like wearing a bow-tie instead, which technically broke the rules...
Who is at fault, the person for wearing the bow-tie, or the company that made it?
bliz told them to stop a long time ago and they just renamed it and kept it up so bliz was forced to take it to court.
Blizzard sells a game that consists of playing with other "real" people online. That's the experience they are selling which is why the eula forbids using bots to play. So no you don't have *every* right to use an 'automated script' to play the game. If you don't like the eula of a game, don't buy it. If you want to watch a bot play a game then buy a game that includes them. And get a clue, if COD stated in the eula you could only play on weekends everyone would buy something else. The vast majority of WOW players are perfectly happy with the eula the way it is and wish the cheaters/boters would esad.
[nitpick]Smith & Wesson makes handguns, not rifles[/nitpick]
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
As far as I'm concerned, people who pay for a copy of their game software have *every* right to opt to use said software with other, alternate servers, if they so desire.
I have some unfortunate direct experience with that. My wife accessed a private server with her legal WoW account. What happened after she connected to a Blizzard server was that the characters who were created on the private server were summarily deleted. The account was not banned, nor was I (it's my name on the account) censured in any way.
So apparently you DO have a "right" to play on a private server, just stay there once you've done it.
They also have every right to run any manner of automated script or "bot" in lieu of physically sitting in front of their screen and hand-manipulating the character they've paid for the subscription to use on Blizzard's servers!
That does not follow. I have a right to smoke cigarettes at home. I do not have a right to smoke inside the office at work. I think that's silly, but it's still the law of the land.
Elune be praised that I can smoke while I'm flying commercial on a hippogryph in the old world.
Or imagine if you bought the latest edition of a "Call of Duty" game, only to find out the EULA stated it was illegal to play except on weekends? Blizzard has effectively won the legal ability for developers to state and enforce anything like this they'd like to put in the agreement!
Puhleeeze! WoW hasn't kept growing, 12 million active accounts now, by pissing their customers off.
Really guys. +5 insightful? NOT! This is -1 flamebait.
Why not just ban anyone who is obviously behaving like a bot?
They do have GMs that act as moderators, but there's no way to monitor 15 million people.
Besides, "behaving like a bot" isn't the problem. When fishing, you appear the same as a bot. The only way to tell would be to watch the player for the duration of their fishing experience--which can be legitimate hours.
They do ban when they spot bots. They ban regularly. The problem is that there's no way to stop the person from making a new account and doing it all over again.
You have to remember that Blizzard has the entire community to worry about here, and if they find something that gives an unfair advantage they are completely within their right to ban it.
Now that's +5 insightful and EXACTLY correct.
We of the WoW community are applauding the end of glider.
Isn't that kinda like suing Smith & Wesson because people get shot?
You may take my Nesingwary 4000 only from my cold dead hands.
It is in fact free to download the client. You can do so here. What you pay for when you buy the game is the license key in the box that you'll then use to create an account. That's the charge. And the seller may toss in a couple bucks depending on where you buy it from.
Oops. Forgot to mention that the download in the link is for the trial (which you can upgrade to a full version after buying the license keys). You can redownload the full game client anytime you choose through the Account Management page of your World of Warcraft Account. This can be done on any computer. Of course, you can use your discs and install them faster, if you want.
That would NEVER happen!
Is there even any point to the game if you can't even be buggered to play it yourself?
Is porn worth it if you fast-forward through the story and dialogues?
You can't take the sky from me...
So kick off the people abusing their terms of service. Suing the company making the bot is a completely different issue, and has (rather, SHOULD have) no legal grounds.
As I understand it, the glider works along the lines of Expect (of Rogomatic fame), so there was very little they could do towards banning the glider users.
The vast majority of their customers despise bots and they had to do something. I disagree with how they ended up doing it, but make no mistake, a bot-less WoW is a much better WoW.
WoW is a multi-player game. Glider creates an unfair advantage as well as being outside the established rules.
I'd offer a compromise for the Glider users. What would you say if Blizzard established a single realm where Glider was legal under their terms of service? Would that satisfy you and would you be happy only "competing" against other Glider users and people who had explicitly given their permission to game in a bot realm?
This is not a simple case of users breaching a contract with a product, but a product that BY DESIGN is TO BE USED FOR breaching a contract.
Yes. That's an important distinction and very clearly separates things like VMWare.
Just how far does anyone think a business would get if its only product was a home burglary or auto theft convenience kit? "Break into any car and be driving away in 30 seconds or less ... OR YOUR MONEY BACK!!!" Yup, sounds like a winner.
If you can't tell that I'm using a bot from the stream of bits being sent to the server, then I am in the privacy of my own home. My hardware, my rules.
They did not go after the bot users, they went after the bot. See my earlier post regarding what happened after my wife unwittingly used a "private" server. Nothing, other than deletion of the character.
If they would spend their money to produce original content, rather than the few hours of actual content they created for wow, this crap wouldn't be necessary. It always amazes millions of people will pay money every month to play a game that makes you kill rats for hours and hours each month for a few hours of fresh content each month.
That's a straw man argument. Blizzard only deletes characters used on an alternate server when you connect to their servers, not the account. Think of it as a successful operation to remove a cancerous tumor.
I couldn't care less about glider, I play maybe a couple hours a week on a good week because I work and have other things to do. But it also means that it takes 4 times as long as alot of players in the game to get anywhere and I also don't grind anything that I don't get a decent benefit out of.
I can understand the appeal of glider, but I don't use it. Consider fishing in WoW for example, its an utterly tedious thing to level up, entirely dependant on your time to do so and can be moderately useful when it's maxed out, as such my char has a total of about 30 skill points in fishing (of about 450 i think is the max). If people use glider to level fishing for them, they may see some benefit for it and using glider to do so would not harm anyone else in the game (one person's fishing doesn't bother another persons).
People may say "oh but someone using glider to run around killing mob's just makes it so much harder for "normal" players to kill those mobs. This is utter fallacy. The reality is that if you can use glider to run around killing mobs, the user of the account is capable of exactly the same thing. In truth glider just gives them the ability to do what they can do naturally when they are not at the computer, and to be fair it would seem fair to use it to level the playing field (i.e. someone who can only manage 4 hours a week gets to keep up with someone playing 20 hours a week).
Now, if your level 80 right now, your probably running around stuggling in some area's because there are 50 other people also trying to grind in the same area. Some of these (such as mages and hunters) are capable of dealing with 3-5 mobs at once. What annoys me is that they do just that (bot or no bot), they tap 3-5 mobs and sit there with crowd-control so they get the kill. This (imho) should also be banned if they are going to go after glider.
The reality is though, that even with something like glider you wont level the playing field. The things that make some players better then others are mostly in instances and raid dungeons that glider is never going to be able to help you with and getting from level 1 to 80 with glider makes playing the game pointless because theres alot of things you learn by actually grinding your char up those levels.
The even sadder part though is that the people using bots to farm gold and spam you trying to sell it may stop using glider and move to something else equally good and so its a no-win situation because glider was "available to anyone" and easy to go after. But this is typical of Blizzard tactics (see bnetd), with the money they spent on the case they could hire people to actively go after gold spamming accounts, they make alot of money of WoW and so they go after glider as a PR exercise rather then going after the real problem. To me, the real problem is the people who sit there spamming me trying to sell me gold and power-leveling services. The rest I don't care about (if you want to farm gold and sell it online, be my guest but dont bother me with it). I also think that the whole practice of stopping people from selling what they get/own/farm online is quite wrong. After all, if you play WoW, get to level 80 and decide "i've had enough", why shouldn't you be able to sell your account? you paid for it and you probably put alot of work into it.
I personally don't think glider ever will (or would) make the game unplayable for human users, but as I mentioned, I don't care about glider.
What I do care about is the ramifications of the judgement (IANAL), but it would seem that anyone who writes software (especially in the online space - think software as a service) could stop you for automating the use of it. So if for example I choose to use google docs as my software provider they could have a terms of service forbidding me from using some macro-driven software to auto-fill bits in tables for me (they aren't about to do that). That is seriously scarey stuff. If MS come out with Office online (or is it already out?) what would happen if they choose to have a "Certification" criteria for client side macro programs - well hello monopoly abuse.
The judge has obviously lost his marbles.
Analogy:
Auto manufacturer produces a car that only men can drive, not women. Judge find company B selling strap ons breaches DCMA, and that women, literally, are not allowed to drive, and will remotely disable the car if it detects a strap on.
There is no circumvention of copyright here - a farcical decision.
Not as long as you share a game world.
I agree that a shared world should have certain rules a single-player game does not. However, your dress code analogy doesn't fit here. It's a farming bot, so the character isn't doing anything a player couldn't do manually, the player isn't breaking any rules (no god mode or actual cheats). In fact, I don't play mmorpg's, but the other posts mention "chinese gold farmers" so people actually happen to do the same thing manually.
Even if this actually was a real cheat by my standards, I would still object to court involvement. It's Blizzard's responsibility to figure out how to secure their environment, detect people violating their terms, and kick them out if Blizzard is so inclined. The only time a court should get involved is if somebody challenges the account ban. Then you have a contract dispute.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
Like pot? Oh, wait...
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
If you don't like the license, don't buy the software.
We get to read that license where, before we hand over our money?
Oh, yeah...
And no refunds...
If the EULA says that running the near-monopoly operating system in a VM is a violation, then clearly the primary purpose of VM software is to run said operating system illegally, unless they stop supporting Windows altogether. And as this Blizzard ruling has established, the makers of the VM software would be in violation of criminal law.
so they can sue the no-shirts-maker?
But most of the price break of the OEM licence cost comes from the fact that it creates a better lock-in
In addition, the point was made elsewhere that now completely unrelated parties are being held to EULAs of products they've never seen.
When does this go to the US Supreme Court where it can be obliterated by people who understand the concept of earthshaking implications.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Blizzard isn't really forcing anyone to play in a specific way. They are asking for the right to kick people out who are worsening the experience for everyone else.
no, they're not.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Perhaps that's why it's called an End User LICENCE Agreement and not an End User CONTRACT Agreement.
As far as I can see from reading the details, Blizzard told MDY to stop selling the bot and MDY took Blizzard to court to allow them to continue selling it; it was in reaction to this that Blizzard then sued with the fact that the bot was circumventing their protection method.
In other words it was MDY who actually got the courts involved in the first place (I think BLizzard may have threatened it).
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet;
A chrysanthemum by any other name would be easier to spell
bookmarked.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
It's a really BAD precedent to set, to legally enforce the idea that a software developer can FORCE a customer to use their product only in specific ways they outline.
So having things like people purchasing windows home, and then having a crack that upgrades it to windows XP.
You consider that morally acceptable?
The software is written, the terms are made clear (or at least should be). If you are unhappy with those terms then you shouldn't use or buy that software. Thats the bottom line. No amount of wishful thinking will change that.
Its not your work, but your given access to their work AS PROVIDED
If you don't like how the game requires you to play (in this case with manual grinding), don't buy/play the game. Thinking that its your right to use their service any way you like is just immoral.
Buying warcraft, and modifiying it for use on YOUR private server, thats a different matter
Buying warcraft, modifiying it for continued use with THEIR service is another.
'I accept your agreement but reserve the right to amend it as i like'
Or imagine if you bought the latest edition of a "Call of Duty" game, only to find out the EULA stated it was illegal to play except on weekends?
If the requirements on the box state clearly that the game can only be played on weekends, so be it.
If the game said in a place only readable after purchase that it could only be played on weekends. You have legal grounds for a refund, or you could challange the EULA in a court of law and see how vaild they are.
Ultimatly the final thing i'm going to say is that developers, and people in gerneral are well within their rights to tell you how you can and can not use their services. And i hope that freedom is never taken away unduly.
I'm intrigued by this. You mean Blizzard deleted characters that your wife had levelled on official servers? Or that they deleted characters she'd created on a private server (which would be nigh impossible unless they were _running_ the private server)? The phraseology is confusing too - a "legal WoW account" is your account with Blizzard which lets you access official servers, and as they tell you every 5 seconds, you should never give your account details to anyone. A private server would, I would think, have its own authentication system and you would use a separate username and password to connect to it.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
There are two ways to look at these things. The old way, where you buy a widget and take it home and it's yours. And the new way, where you pay a company for the right to use one of their widgets (essentially you 'license' or lease it off them) and they can, as part of that license, dictate on what terms you use said widget.
Personally, I think the former is more ethical. If I buy a power drill, the company that made it should have no say whatsoever in whether I can hack that drill open and turn it into a blender, or a fan, or use the internals to power a skateboard.
A great example in the computing world is the Radeon 9700 / 9800 hack, where ATI sold perfectly good 9800s as 9700s because there wasn't the demand for their then-premium card (at premium rates). A simple jumper soldered on was all that was required to turn it back into a full speed 9800. Should it be outlawed to modify hardware that you've bought and paid for, to increase its performance, even if such modifications are not intended by the manufacturer? I argue that it should not. Should software have this protection where hardware does not? No, definitely not.
Should a service, then, have this protection? Well, as an ongoing contract, the provider can apply whatever conditions they want. The initial software media that you purchase, though, should still be yours freehold so long as you don't infringe on any copyright by redistributing the software.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
No, it isn't...
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
The biggest confusion comes from the advertising:
I regularly see adverts for "OWN it now on DVD" for films, etc, but what they really mean is "LICENCE it now on DVD". If they are offering for me to OWN it, then they can't add extra conditions AFTER the sale which say I only LICENCED it, not BOUGHT and OWN it. I've even got one piece of software that says in one place you don't own this software, only licence use if it, but also says in another "thank you for purchasing this software" (ie you own it) - if the software manufacturer can't be sure which is the true situation, how am I supposed to know?
They are less than honest with their advertising, so it is not surprising that people are confused that they only licence use of it and not own it - I don't play WoW and have no intention of investigating, but is it advertised as "BUY it" or "LICENCE it"?
The EULA suggests (through your lack of agreement to it that you can't use what you thought you had bought) that what you've actually bought is the EULA, NOT the game/software/whatever.
Until the industry itself starts getting clobbered by fraud cases (as they're not selling what they purport to be selling), abuse of the DMCA (via EULAs) will continue.
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet;
A chrysanthemum by any other name would be easier to spell
It's funny, but there was a guy who predicted this, two and a half decades ago. Not only did he predict it, but he set out to start a project to sidestep the whole problem!
That's right, I'm talking about RMS, Richard Stallman. I hear a lot of people make fun of his personal grooming habits, but until I see them not only predict something this accurately decades in advance and do a whole bunch of work to solve the problem, I have no respect for them. Maybe RMS is just too busy coding to shave. At least he's producing something of value. The same can't be said of those who criticize him. If I was paranoid, I would think they were the enemy because they are trying to distract from the real issues by making personal attacks.
I for one am still using Emacs on GNU/Linux to develop software and I find RMS's insights more and more cogent as time goes on.
Nathan's blog
As far as I can see from reading the details, Blizzard told MDY to stop selling the bot and MDY took Blizzard to court to allow them to continue selling it; it was in reaction to this that Blizzard then sued with the fact that the bot was circumventing their protection method.
My point still applies. Blizzard can use whatever technological barriers they want to block something they don't like from their servers. They don't really have the right to tell someone not to make the bot. If they want to prevent said bots, it's their responsibility to make their servers secure, and the absolutely worst they should be legally allowed to do is ban anybody using the bots (including MDY employees).
Once Blizzard got involved and told MDY to stop, MDY would have no choice but to look into legal representation. Blizzard's case should have been thrown out, though.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
if 10 million people play WoW, do you think a few of them might be judges?
No.
If 10 million people eat pork, do you think a few of them might be muslim?
Numbers alone do nothing.
This is not chance, this is choice.
The problem with your argument is that contract law isn't what is the problem here. By breaking the terms of the ToS, under their contract with him Blizzard can only cut off his service and keep his money. They can't fine him $150,000 "per act of infringement", as is the case with the DMCA. If you read the article, they're moving beyond contract law and saying violating the terms of service makes you a copyright infringer, subject to copyright law:
As I said in another comment, the problem is that they're not using contract law (which would be what license agreements fall under), they're using copyright law. They're saying if someone breaks the ToS, they're now a pirate and are subject to all the criminal penalties of copyright law. If someone helps another person break the ToS, that helping person is now a superpirate (not as cool as it sounds), subject to even harsher criminal penalties.
Some of us just happen to think that maybe this is going a little overboard for helping someone cheat on a video game.
Ditto. Unfortunately, this precedent allows developers to say that when you break the ToS, you are subject not only to terms of the contract (which are quite limited to losing all your stuff and not getting your money back for the product), but to terms that were never in the contract. This precedent says you are now a pirate, and are subject to the same criminal penalties as someone who downloaded the game off of bittorrent. This isn't a slippery slope, this is the bottom of the slope already.
Take for example some of the hidden nuggets in the Vista license: .NET benchmarks unless you follow Microsoft rules. Imagine breaking that, and now being subject to criminal penalties under the DMCA. Or if you wrote a program that does benchmarking that allows you to use settings other than the ones Microsoft approves of - you're now going to suffer the same criminal penalties as this Glider guy for creating and distributing a "circumvention device." The penalties? $150,000 every time someone uses your software.
The first thing they show is that you're now allowed to publish
Or a recent 2000/XP service pack EULA that said you allow Windows Media Player to auto-update. What happens when you put a firewall in front of the box an intentionally block the MS ip addresses? You break the contract, you're an infringer, please see the judge.
Or how about the XP license?
In other words, no VNC. Use it and guess what? Criminal.
Furthermore, there are plenty of pages and apps that let you turn on disabled features of Windows. One is the Event ID 4226 Patcher that lets you change the number of TCP connections allowed on Windows. This is something that violates the EULA. Hope you didn't download and install it, because you're now a criminal. Of course, you're better off than the guy who wrote it. With as many people that use it around the world, I think he owes about eleventy billion dollars.
I'm intrigued by this. You mean Blizzard deleted characters that your wife had levelled on official servers? Or that they deleted characters she'd created on a private server (which would be nigh impossible unless they were _running_ the private server)?
The ones run on the private server, apparently.
The phraseology is confusing too - a "legal WoW account" is your account with Blizzard which lets you access official servers, and as they tell you every 5 seconds, you should never give your account details to anyone.
She got an in-game mail nasty gram the first time she connected to a real server after accessing the private server.
Take a look at your WoW WTF directory some time. It stores details about every account/character that that WoW installation has accessed.
What's the legal term for a legally binding agreement? Is it a contract?
Am I the only one who is pretty disgusted at the trend of games where the primary skill function is just how much time your character spends doing stuff?
Go play a FPS and you'll find autoaim bots, wallhacks, and other assorted cheating tools. Corner a cheater and they'll complain about how they have a "real life" and can't spend all their time playing the game to get the skills to compete with other players. This is simply more of the same.
You seem to have mistaken my complaint to be one about cheaters. It isn't.
There are thousands of folks who want instant gratification. Twitch monkeys who can't stand not being at the top of whatever hill they see but don't want to invest the time it takes to get there (nevermind that being at the top of the hill doesn't HAVE to be the point of a lot of these games). So they go for the short-cut.
I think that's precisely what I find so wrong with games that reward sacrificed time rather than enhancing aptitudes. Because those "twitch monkeys" aren't at the top of any hill, are they? The gratification they get doesn't come from being the best, so what is it? Do they just like putting virtual bullets into virtual heads controlled by other players?
IMO this isn't healthy, and parallels games that reward time sacrifice: what exactly do these players enjoy doing? It isn't getting better at something, or being the best, because they aren't getting better or becoming the best, their characters are. I think if you set aside the morals and/or social contracts that affect how people feel about cheating, the role of cheat software to a cheater is identical to the role of the items/spells/powers your characters can accumulate: advancing your in-game advantage without advancing your own aptitudes.
It seems to me that games like World of Warcraft and Pokemon have stumbled onto something that Final Fantasy was only beginning to uncover in the 1990s. People crave foraging for items, hunting, exhausting supplies of hiding places for things to collect and hunt, and upgrading their tools. Seems to me like this taps into some very deep-seated primal instincts that are very useful if you do not live in the first world (although I'd bet plenty of the monkeys on wall street eye their investment portfolios with a similar fascination that MMORPG players consider their characters.)
Yeah, treadmills and grinds aren't for everyone. But that doesn't mean you get to ditch the rules because they're inconvenient for you. Play the game... or don't play at all.
As it seems ambiguous, I'll make it clear: I was advocating the latter option: Don't play at all. Games that make wasting your time part of the experience are ridiculous. Real life contains enough of that.
Mod parent insightful ! He's earned it, even if he was a bit overly verbose for my tastes.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
You seem to have mistaken my complaint to be one about cheaters. It isn't.
You're right. I sort of went in a different direction with the standard complaint - whether that aspect was expressed by you or not. You'll have to excuse me for taking the chance to make my point.
I think that's precisely what I find so wrong with games that reward sacrificed time rather than enhancing aptitudes. Because those "twitch monkeys" aren't at the top of any hill, are they? The gratification they get doesn't come from being the best, so what is it? Do they just like putting virtual bullets into virtual heads controlled by other players?
IMO this isn't healthy, and parallels games that reward time sacrifice: what exactly do these players enjoy doing? It isn't getting better at something, or being the best, because they aren't getting better or becoming the best, their characters are.
I disagree with the idea that players don't improve skills in these games. Sure - the games provide artificial advantages as rewards (RPGs are a no brainer, FPSs offer things like the classic BFG). But there is still a skill at playing the game.
Again - I use FPSs as the example as the difference between players is considerably less. A really proficient player will still out-perform their opponents in this environment. Meanwhile, I've experienced the difference between the skilled and unexperienced player in (for example) WoW. The experienced raider has a good idea of what they can do, where they need to stand, what to do in certain situations, etc. The inexperienced player will fold at trouble, get themselves killed in situations that should have been survivable, counteract their team's crowd-control, attract the attention of enemies that should have been avoided, etc. Likewise, the skilled PvP player understands what things are useless when fighting other players, understand how to support their teammates, avoid fights that are hopeless, etc.
There are, in fact, skill sets involved. And a player who puts the time in to playing the game will (most likely) pick up these skills.
Really, the same goes for almost any game. You've got to put in time behind basketball or chess to be good at it (though they reward different abilities). Is Chess a time sink that shouldn't be pursued?
It's pretty hard to cheat at chess - everything is right there in front of you. Basketball is difficult but perhaps a little easier as there's a lot more going on. Online games tend to be massively complex and, with the computer as the judge, impossible to cheat unless you install software that blinds the judge (who then won't complain).
I think if you set aside the morals and/or social contracts that affect how people feel about cheating, the role of cheat software to a cheater is identical to the role of the items/spells/powers your characters can accumulate: advancing your in-game advantage without advancing your own aptitudes.
I agree in so far as those game advantages take effort to get and installing the cheat is instant satisfaction. They both provide advantages. But the intended advantages require effort and time that the cheater is simply not inclined to put forward. They want instant gratification.
With MMORPGs its harder to see it. But take a FPS where the in-game advantages are limited on scale and scope. Speed hacks, wall hacks, auto-aim bots, etc. are all there to supplement skill rather than supplement game rewards. Speed hacks give you the ability to out-maneuver your opponents at any time. Wall hacks let you see where your opponents are and uncover ambushes (as do spiked models). Auto-aim bots provide perfect marksmanship. These all replace experience and intuition gained by time spent playing the game.
It seems to me that games like World of Warcraft and Pokemon have stumbled onto something that Final Fantasy was only beginn
You fucking idiot. THEY ALREADY HAVE THE RIGHT TO KICK PEOPLE OUT. For pretty much any reason. What they are asking for is the right to take legal action against people who violate the EULA, and they are getting it. This is fucking retarded, like you. Idiot.
Geez, you guys make this sound way more complicated than it really is. The Judicial branch of the US government does not exist to mindlessly enforce the laws that Congress pass. Their job is to act as a check and balance on Congress.
Where is the public endangerment?
What civil liberties are being infringed?
Is this going to destroy our economy and/or way of life?
These are the questions a Judge should be asking himself.
Blizzard made a stupid game where your fun and enjoyment is seriously dependent on the actions of other people. Certain people are acting like assholes. So Blizzard runs to the Judicial branch to punish the assholes. Give me a break. If we threw every asshole in America in jail there would be no one left. Blizzard should just fix their game or shut up.
Here's my take on this business.
Back when the DMCA was being discussed before being passed into law, I recall that legislators had an understanding that "access controls" and "use controls" were two different things, with "access controls" being schemes to control access to the actual original unencrypted bits (1's and 0's) the work consisted of, and "use controls" being schemes to control what uses could be made of the work (presumably without access to the bits). The consensus seemed to be that the DMCA would restrict circumvention of "access controls", but avoid any special treatment of "use controls".
Now, the idea that "use controls" were necessarily separate from "access controls", or that they usually were separate and would continue to be separate with the presence of a powerful law like the DMCA, is seriously naive. I have many guesses about the source of those views (wishful thinking, not fully exploring various kinds of consequences of the law they were enacting, etc.) and those could eat a whole thread in themselves.
But, at least for "use controls" of a work that were not in any way also "access controls" of the work, it seemed to be clear: the DMCA provides no protection for those "use controls".
As a (fairly inventive) way of getting around this "shortcoming", Blizzard legal has decided to set aside for a moment the main copyrightable work in WoW (the object code and multimedia assets on provided on disc and sent to the user over the network, presumably the "literal elements"), and instead frame the "use" of those works as itself a work ("non-literal elements"). Now "use controls" of the first work, otherwise unprotected by the DMCA with respect to the first work, are actually protected, because they are also "access controls" of the second work.
Will the framing of use of a work as a separate copyrightable work (i.e. "non-literal elements" or somesuch) really hold under appeal? What other kinds of copyrighted works are also susceptible to this argument?
I agree that most advertising gives a misleading impression of the deal - but they probably feel it would scare people away to phrase it differently.
I wonder if anyone actually could win such a lawsuit. They would probably need to have a lot of money to start with - and thus are not likely to wish to sue.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
There's a difference between a real challenge (or time spent acquiring an actual skill) and the "challenge" of spending a lot of time performing an easy task over and over again.
The kind of challenge that's fun to play through couldn't be done by a bot. On the other hand, if a task can be automated by a computer script, then it wasn't fun or skilful (and hence was a pointless task) to begin with.
The kind of challenge that's fun to play through couldn't be done by a bot. On the other hand, if a task can be automated by a computer script, then it wasn't fun or skilful (and hence was a pointless task) to begin with.
I completely disagree. Aim-bots give you, the FPS player normally dependent entirely on your own hand-eye coordination and whatever experience you have with the digital ordinance of choice, the ability of perfect aim without developing all that skill required to have it on your own. Just because something can be automated, doesn't mean that aspect of the game should be avoided.
I should note that some of the more recent FPS games come with their own bots. You tell the server you set up that you want X bots with X-level "skill" and the bots run around shooting at you (and each other). And darned if sometimes I can't tell the difference between a real player and bot if I didn't know any better. That doesn't mean the game is any less fun because a bot can do it.
Let's look at Chess. There are chess programs out there that completely out-class me (not that I've ever claimed to be an accomplished player). That doesn't mean I can't sit back and enjoy a good game. And it doesn't negate the merrits of the game at all.
I'm not saying the grind is the pinnacle of game play. I certainly appreciate the view of folks who dislike it. Gawd knows I've seen some WoW grinds and opted against it. I've also found ways of making some of those grinds fun and accepted them as part of the game.
I should note that a lot of WoW grinds exist because players want to game the system. Some things are meant to pop up by simple luck. Some are supposed to show over the length of a "career". But players being players, they'll crunch the numbers and figure out how to force the issue by simply brute-forcing it. Which is fine if you can find a way to make that your thing. But that doesn't mean that every grind that exists in the game must be done by every player.
In terms of Vista, yes and no. Windows prohibited people from installing from a boxed version of Home and Home Premium yes, however they allowed for Ultimate and Business licenses to run in a VM environment.
Further for VMWare Server based environments, Microsoft created VECD for VM licensing. As far as I look at it, it makes sense. Microsoft has never gone after some 13-year old running a pirated copy of XP, instead they tend to focus on businesses violating their license terms (i.e. buy 25-licenses, and install on 100 computers), people who sell copies, and people who manufacture pirated disks. This isn't RIAA we are talking about here, the worst they have ever done is to annoy people (black screens, CD Keys, Authentications, etc.).
This all comes down to one thing, which is that most people, if given the choice and the means, will pirate. I understand the principle behind backups. This most strongly applies to Windows Vista on VM, which more times than not is installed on Mac OSX (i.e. Parallels, VMWare Fusion, etc.). I am willing to go on a limb and state that at least 80% of these copies are illegitimate, and of these 80%, nearly 90% are going to be Vista Ultimate.
It would be like me complaining that Coors Light tastes bad and can get you arrested for DUI, even though I stole it from a store.
"Yeah, about that. There are these things called license agreements, they're kind of like contracts..."
Books don't have "license agreements". Publishers tried that sort of thing ("no lending, etc") and got smacked down. Why should software?
There didn't seem to be any other way to contact you than a comment (feel free to mod OT,) but if you feel that maybe you've put a good deal of thought into the subject we were discussing, I've got some interesting ideas about game design and cheats that I'd like to bounce off of you. My contact info is at codebad.com if you're interested in chatting.
So you don't like achieving things and prefer disposable instant gratification. That's fine -- a lot of games cater for this. Just stop pretending that WoW has to conform to your idea of a great game.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, watch it -- I'm huge!
Ah, I was thinking of using automation in the sense of not playing, and just leaving your computer on its own to play for you. Aimbots and the like would be using automation to improve your own performance artificially, which in a game of skill is commonly known as cheating...
I guess there's also a distinction to be made between things where the challenging and automatable part is also the fun part (things like chess come under that - automating the game and coming back to see the "You Win" screen wouldn't be fun). It would be silly to automate your way through the fun part, but trying to eliminate a boring/repetitive/challenge-less part in order to skip ahead to the reward, I can understand that.
That said, I'm not totally adverse to grinding... in certain things at least. So long as the task itself is relatively engaging I can put up with a lot of repetition. Especially if I can do something else at the same time.
It would be silly to automate your way through the fun part, but trying to eliminate a boring/repetitive/challenge-less part in order to skip ahead to the reward, I can understand that.
I can understand the appeal. I've played with automation aspects before. I used UOAssist back in the old UO days. And one of my favorite (defunct) addons of all time for WoW was Autotravel (you placed waypoints, named special waypoints, and could do things like "/at bank" to follow your waypoints to the bank). For someone who's grown up with computers, the desire to automate is natural.
Having said that - I also see where automation causes trouble. A friend of mine played Ashron's Call for quite awhile. One of the annoying aspects were players who had bots that timed the spawning of rare materials. Their bot would log in, collect the material (I think it was some kind of crystal), and log out. Players who didn't have bots running never had a chance to get at the materials in question.
Glider presented a similar problem for WoW players - automation provides an edge. It isn't just skipping over the repetition. It is cheating the same way that aim-bots and wall-hacks are cheating.
That said, I'm not totally adverse to grinding... in certain things at least. So long as the task itself is relatively engaging I can put up with a lot of repetition. Especially if I can do something else at the same time.
I don't do a lot of grinds. They're not really my thing (I don't think). But I've come up with ways of making them work. One of the big social interactions for my guild is picking a materials target, then going out en-mass to grind that goal. Many hands lessen the toil and all that. And it turns the whole process of gathering materials to arm our people in to a fun, social event.
Well that depends on the game world. If the game world's rules aren't against botting then where is the problem? Again, as has been pointed out countless times before, the issue is suing the Glider program makers for what is a TOS violation of the various individual users. The precedents are *very* bad. Blizzard is helping the DMCA do a lot more damage than I had thought would come of it. A shame. I liked Blizzard.
And a player who puts the time in to playing the game will (most likely) pick up these skills. {...}I agree in so far as those game advantages take effort to get and installing the cheat is instant satisfaction. They both provide advantages. But the intended advantages require effort and time that the cheater is simply not inclined to put forward. They want instant gratification.
Yes, but if the player isn't interested in putting the necessary time and effort, shouldn't the player simply consider switching to another kind of game ?
Games are supposed to be fun. Not to be something you put efforts that you dislike into.
If one starts not liking the game, one should consider moving to a different type of game.
There are lots of games out there that don't require necessarily some special set of skills and that are both enjoyable by newbie and veteran players.
(Nintendo has repeatedly shown this with some of its crop of Wii games - Mario Kart Wii comes as a nice example of game play balanced between newbies and veterans).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
If you pay for dues to a sports club and then violate dress code, they kick you out - or at least politely ask you to go put on a shirt.
They don't file a lawsuit against you, citing federal law!
Worst analogy I have ever seen modded up. There is nothing in being a judge that prevents you or tells you not to play WoW. And I bet you in 10 million muslims, you will find a few of them that eat pork because not all of them will be that strict. When numbers get big enough, the improbable with become probable. And judges playing WoW isn't even improbable. In short, you are an idiot.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
Another stupid analogy when none is needed. Glider isn't some general purpose tool...it is a tool specifically for botting in WoW. People have varying degrees of toleration of cheating in games. The bar is set very high in MMOs since people like to compete and want a fair playing ground. Glider causes people to quit the game, provides service for an entity that does not require rest using resources that could be used on non-EULA breakers, and can cause its users to be banned from the game. Your analogy fails because VMWare isn't causing harm, it is actually something that might get more people to buy Vista.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
WoW Glider is a cheat program, plain and simple. Spin it any way you want, while you're eating your new heaping helpings of shit, cheaters.
And if I didn't agree, what did I do wrong?
You used software written by Blizzard in a way that they didn't approve. If you didn't click the EULA, then you have no license to use it at all, and if you did, then you agreed not to use it with an alternate server. The business case for forbidding it is that you may get a lot of users who want to use bots logging into your server. Since it's your server, they don't have to pay Blizzard a monthly fee to play WoW, and therefore you're costing them subscription fees.
Seems simple enough.
Virg
They have every right to tell you that you can't put their software on your machine if you don't agree to play the game as they dictate. They can't tell you how to use your machine, but it's not your code so it's not your call.
On OUR OWN computer, we have EVERY right to do whatever we want.
You're free to generate your own art and programming and storyline, and then run it to your heart's content. However, it's not your code, and it's not your pictures and sounds, so you don't get to do whatever you like just because it's stored on your machine. If you pay them for the right to put it there, then you play it by their rules. If you don't want to play by their rules, you're free to use your computer to play some other game.
Virg
"programer" " in a chess game>" "creaters" "there servers" "weather " "blizzard" " make no " " no since>" "there ass" "boting" "desided"
Your code must be shit.
You should feel bad about yourself as a person.
...anywhere where it will affect other people. Period. Tampon.
Only in America. It seems consumers who buy software these days, have *no* rights at all. It's about time governments started actually looking after their constituents, by making laws *against* software companies removing our rights, and making the DMCA illegal (as well as software patents). Limit copyright ownership for software to 20 years maximum, and we'll start heading in the right direction. There is simply no freedom of rights in the software industry anymore.
Of course, I wouldn't waste my money buying WOW anyways, those guys are worse than crack whores going for cock or the crack pipe.
It's about time that governments started taking social responsibility against software vendors like Blizzard who deliberately make games knowing that consumers will become addictive to the point where it dames their social, and welfare status.
Of course, governments, at least modern ones, especialy the US government, don't give a fuck about the ordinary person. It's quite plainly clear, we've only got to look at the rescue packages given to those greedy rich corporate fuckers. What about those that are going to be homeless because they're losing their houses? They get jack shit.
Dave
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. --Martin Luther King Jr.
And one does not 'start a conversation with a patron with a threat', one _starts and concludes_ an interaction with an asshole by informing them that they are leaving, immediately, and never coming back, and how many times their head bounces off the ground in the process is entirely up to them.