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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."
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?
Because they want to keep the other 70%?
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.
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.
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
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.
Is there even any point to the game if you can't even be buggered to play it yourself?
$ make available
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!
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).
Perhaps the game does suck, that's for the individual playing to evaluate. However, since those people who use the bot to cheat interact with (and gain advantages over) those that do not, it ruins the enjoyment of others that have purchased the product when the terms explicitly state that such cheating is not allowed.
See the Battlefield series.
If someone wants to cheat on a singleplayer game, more power to them. But doing it in an environment where others are playing reduces the value of others who abide by the terms of service.
You're not really free to do it. Otherwise you could stay there (as you would like to) but you can't. As you said they will throw you out.
Freedom isn't about doing whatever you want with no repercussions. There are always repercussions which is the way it should be in a lot of instances.
It's all well in good to say that you're free to say nigger and people are free to react in whatever way but the fact is the way they will react makes it more or less impossible to use the word in most cases. Secondly if you are free to do something wrong and people are free to retaliate then even if you have the freedom to use a WoW bot then Blizzard should have the freedom to stop you and protect the majority of their paying customers that dislike it.
If it were a single player game where you only affected yourself then go nuts and do whatever you want but it's a multi-player game where people have to pay a monthly fee and if most people don't want it then the majority win. As I said Blizzard has the right to retain as many customers as possible.
Whether or not the DCMA route was the right way to go about it may be debatable. Part of me does say they're not circumventing copyright protection but another part of me says that bot users in any game are scum so fuck 'em.
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.
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.
We should reinstate the draft and send these people to some foreign country to get blown up. Or at the very least, basic training.
Yes because it is much better when the annoying people are trained killers. Military training doesn't necessarily stop you being an inconsiderate twat.
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...