Slashdot Mirror
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.
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."
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).
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...