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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."
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?
Maybe they can use the DMCA to outlaw abortion! And create world peace! And make me dinner!
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
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.
And adding insult to injury, Hand Holding Online and Brain Death Online did it first! But everyone thinks Blizzard is the innovator...
The enemies of Democracy are
You are absolutely free to harass others in the theater.
Good thing there's no law against harassment. If there were, I wonder what they'd call it.
Trespassing.
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.
Get up, walk out of the theatre, tell the manager, tell an usher, tell someone who looks important.
At the theatre I work at, we love to kick out the unruly lot that make the movies worse for everyone. Every time we walk in, they hush down, it's hard for us to know where the problems are. It's also a multiplex, with only one usher for many theatres, doing double duty, cleaning and checking the facilities.
So, do something about it. Honestly, having the balls to fix the problem is probably not their problem, more likely, they don't have anything substantive and don't want to interrupt the movie more severely than it already has been. Nothing distracts everyone in the theatre more than an argument in the seats. Make the theatre staff know it's a problem, and it'll probably be taken care of.
When I get torqued off by said "unruly lot", I'll ask them myself to shut the fuck up. Heck, I had a couple of Arab characters talking in loud tones in their own language while I was trying to enjoy a good movie. I was irritated but not enough to say anything. Then, one of them sent a goddamn beer can spinning over my head. He wasn't aiming at me, true, I think he was just in high spirits ... but I stood up and told them both that "I DIDN'T APPRECIATE THE SHOWER." They got all wide-eyed and actually apologized, and wonder of wonders were quiet for the rest of the film.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Of course, this would remove about 75% of WoW players in general: Prt 2 Org 1g? Tbl plz. Ned 1g. Can u rn me thru RFC? 10s
AI research. I've always wanted to do this, but I was thinking FPSs.
One, and only one, of the following is true:
1. The anti-spammer solution you describe is effective, but no MMO developer has ever thought of it despite its simplicity and obvious nature.
2. You're retarded.
Isn't that kinda like suing Smith & Wesson because people get shot?
You may take my Nesingwary 4000 only from my cold dead hands.
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...
That seems pretty eloquent, considering he's addressing the kind of person that pays money for this shit. If you visit glider's forums you'll see such intellectual gems as "dam i got banned lol blizzard sux cock lol".
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, watch it -- I'm huge!
as cited in the court decision multiple times
[citation needed]
It's been a long time.