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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."
He understands the difference, and his findings don't rely on Glider breaking the EULA. Basically he said that since Warden controls access to certain parts of the game by checking for software that accesses these parts in an unapproved manner, and Glider attempts to bypass these checks, the DMCA applies.
In other words, a tool that a) accesses elements of a copyrighted work b) evades protection mechanisms to do so violates the DMCA. Maybe the issue isn't with the judge, but with the law he's interpreting.
It's nothing but crumpled porno and Ayn Rand.
Glider was a bot that would farm for you. It would move to areas, kill things, collect things off the body for you, even fish.
It's not just a spam bot, it's a full script that would play the game for you. Whether it's farming something, fishing to get your levels up, or mining, it was able to do it without your interaction.
Evil Walrus >83=
DMCA, Wikipedia: "It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures (commonly known as Digital Rights Management or DRM) that control access to copyrighted works and it also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself."
I'm sorry, but you have this incorrect (at least, in my opinion)
Glider does not bypass warden. Glider is stealthy and is not detected by Warden. Warden still runs. Blizzard updates Warden to detect Glider and hauls out the banstick.
But either way, Glider is not a tool that "accesses elements of a copyrighted work". It is a tool which accesses elements of a copyrighted work that you, as the user/developer, have a legal license to access until such time that Blizzard revokes said license for violation of their terms of use.
In other words, Glider does not bypass protection mechanisms granting you the ability to access copyrighted work without a license. Glider breaks a civil contract, which upon discovery will cause the licensor (Blizzard) to revoke the license of the licensee (you). After that, you can no longer access elements of the copyrighted work.
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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.
Yes, to farm gold and then sell it for real money (against the ToS) and to level characters and then sell them on eBay (also against the ToS).
17 USC 1201
(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that--
(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;
(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or
(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
Warden controls access to the online portion of WoW (a copyrighted work) by checking to see if cheat programs are running and refusing access to WoW if it detects any. Glider is such a program that has, in the past, been blocked by Warden. Glider was updated to circumvent this access control.
The ruling, if you bother to take the time to read it, explains all of this stuff. Maybe you don't like the law, but it was at least properly applied here.
I haven't read this new ruling, but I read the last one - and he clearly understood everything perfectly well.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
The (virtual) economy may be pathetic, but it is impacted by those who continually farm an area out of all resources and then become the only source of a resource on a server through the auction house. Glider enables a character to stay online, at all times, and keep an area wiped clean of any and all monsters/nodes/etc.
Some items are only dropped in one or two areas, which are easily covered by a couple of accounts running glider.
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
Actually, no. The idea is that even if a guild got together and did this, it would be difficult to maintain 24 hours a day, 7 days a week -- and since even the best players are not perfect (unlike a well-coded bot) there would be the opportunity, if small, for an "outside" player to slip in and do some as well.
However, there are regularly "Chinese gold farmers" out there doing this manually, where someone hires legions of very, very low-paid people to sit and do this all day, wherein the "pit boss" usually turns around and sells the gold via spammers. This isn't allowed as again, it upsets the economy and selling gold for real money is against the ToS. It's also led to a huge amount of account hacking and compromises, which prompted Blizzard to make mails to every in-game character and a logon notice regarding keeping your account safe and not buying gold. I'm not sure what measures Blizzard has taken against gold farmers such as this though. I have noticed, however, the amount of level 1 characters with the name "sjduerlks" (etc) running into the capital cities to shout about gold selling and power-leveling services.
Prt 2 Org 1g?
Prt = Portal (A Mage-class player can create portals for other players to use)
2 = to
Org = Orgrimmar (a major city)
1g = 1 gold (currency)
In this case a player is requesting a mage to teleport them to another city, and is willing to pay 1 gold. (Since the latest patch, most portals usually go for 2-5g... sometimes I even get 10g on the Eonar server.)
Tbl plz.
tbl = Table (A Mage-class player can create refreshment tables for other players)
plz = Please
A party member is asking a mage to create a table that they can use for food that replenishes health and mana.
Ned 1g.
Ned = Need
1g = 1 gold (currency)
Someone needs money. Usually you'll see this from the lower players asking higher players for money.
Can u rn me thru RFC? 10s
rn = run (a process where a higher-level character parties with a lower level character and then proceeds to do a low-level quest or dungeon so that the low-level character can complete a quest or get an item without doing any work)
RFC = Ragefire Chasm (a dungeon for a group of low level characters)
10s = 10 silver (currency... 1g = 100s)
A low level character is asking a presumably higher level character to do the dungeon for them, and is willing to pay 10s. (10s is nowhere near the price anyone would pay for a run. Hell, you'll pick up a few gold in the dungeon...)
Now you know, and can be nerdy like us. Just like us... Just like us... Just like us...