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Blizzard Suing Creators of StarCraft II Hacks
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Rock, Paper, Shotgun:
"Blizzard have taken the extremely peculiar decision to ban players from playing StarCraft II for using cheats in the single-player game. This meant that, despite cheating no one but themselves, they were locked out of playing the single-player game. Which is clearly bonkers. But it's not enough for the developer. Blizzard's lawyers are now setting out to sue those who create cheats. Gamespot reports that the megolithic company is chasing after three developers of hacks for 'destroying' their online game. It definitely will be in violation of the end user agreement, so there's a case. However, it's a certain element of their claim that stands out for attention. They're claiming using the hacks causes people to infringe copyright: 'When users of the Hacks download, install, and use the Hacks, they copy StarCraft II copyrighted content into their computer's RAM in excess of the scope of their limited license, as set forth in the EULA and ToU, and create derivative works of StarCraft II.'"
Blizzard used similar reasoning in their successful lawsuit against the creators of a World of Warcraft bot.
Considering the achievement system, they're not cheating only themselves.
... their new games into their asses. since Supreme Commander there was anyway no good game made and last good blizzard made was Warcraft II
Oh my god, they'd better sue Microsoft and Apple too!
I mean the OS makes multiple copies of the program everywhere. Disk Cache, Swap memory, etc. Also it even modifies things in memory (Call tables, etc.) and remaps addresses, etc. Did Microsoft get a license from the developers to do that?!?! I bet Gill Bates & Co are quaking in their boots.
Blizzard bans hackers in single player because their achievements are displayed online. So even though they are playing "single" player, they're still part of an online community, and it reflects badly on Blizzard if the credibility of their achievement system is damaged by hackers.
Whoever wrote the article is showing a bit of bias in how they worded it.
While we do realize that once you buy our games, they become your property, we do reserve the right to terminate your game at any time whenever we feel it is necessary.
Erm, what?
The message I just sent to billing@blizzard.com:
Who wants to buy that software when they could import the same style of graphics and sound into a Quake3 engine like what was done for Tremulous?
Seriously, people need to stop buying this crapware. There are no strategical improvements to the game, only new story of an old religion, and competition boils down to whomever has the lowest-latency to their host computer and peripheral hardware.
All recent software has done nothing useful but sell more Chinese and Japanese computers, and help American semi-conductors companies fund their outsourcing to other countries.
Don't reward any of these bastards, stay away from Netbooks, and go back to Homebrew computing.
For all the flaws Spore had, it got this one right.
It detected the use of cheats and gave you a very special achievement that blocked out getting any other achievements on that save. Ever.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Plaintiff: "When users of the Hacks download, install, and use the Hacks, they copy StarCraft II copyrighted content into their computer's RAM in excess of the scope of their limited license, as set forth in the EULA and ToU, and create derivative works of StarCraft II"
Judge: "Mr Player, how do you plead?"
Player: "Innocent, Your Honour. I didn't do it, a virus did."
THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS - CC Licensed Sci-Fi Novel
The real problem is that courts tend to automatically accept EULAs as being valid contracts even when they are so one-sides that they should be legally ruled unenforceable. When ruling on similar cases where there is no EULA, the courts have generally found that it is not a copyright violation. For example, the same theory was advanced to argue that a service which offered a DVD-playing program which removed certain scenes from movies (particularly, scenes deemed "offensive") was creating a derivative work from the original movie and thus should not be allowed. The courts ruled that the DVD-playing program was legal. So, basically, the question has only hinged on copyright law, the courts have ruled that it isn't a violation. When there's also an EULA, such as in the cases Blizzard has been involved in, they have consistently ruled in favor of the copyright owner.
Now, there are several reasons why this should be a non-starter. The first is that a copy in RAM should not be considered a fixation, and hence creating one is not a copyright violation. If copying something into RAM is creating a fixation then every CD and DVD player and most newer TVs continually break copyright laws every time they are used since RAM buffers have become ubiquitous. CD and DVD players simply cannot work without copying at least some of the CD or DVD into RAM in the process of playing it (although CDs could get away with as few as 16 bits at a given time). So this shouldn't legally be considered a copy to begin with, but the courts have ruled that it is in several previous cases.
Secondly, the copyright law that if someone owns a copy of a piece of software then they have the right to make the copies of it needed to run it. As a consequence, the idea that a user has to agree to an EULA in order to make the copies needed to run it is ludicrous. And the license agreement itself generally only takes away rights from the user without granting anything in return. As such, it should be considered unenforceable. However, the courts have either tended to ignore that section of copyright law and consider that the license grants you the right to make the needed copies or consider that the sale itself never happened if the medium that was bought contains software. They have ruled, effectively, that if you walk into a store and give money for a shiny disc, that if that disc contains music or movies, you've bought a copy, but if it contains software you've only licensed a copy, which is, to say the least, bizarre. As such, they've rejected arguments in previous cases that the defendants never agreed to the EULA as being irrelevant since they rule that the defendants don't own a copy and hence the relevant section of copyright law is inapplicable.
Now, Blizzard is in a slightly more realistic position from an EULA situation than most companies because they do actually have something to provide the user which the user doesn't already have: access to their on-line play servers, Battlenet. So, if they were to tie it all together in the EULA: you give us back ownership of the physical copy and you relinquish your reverse engineering rights, etc and in return we let you use our servers, then that contract would be enforceable (still lousy, but enforceable). However, in the previous Blizzard games I owned (which doesn't include StarCraft II, so I'm just speculating, someone else probably has more exact information) the EULA itself didn't mention BattleNet, only the game program and BattleNet was covered by a separate agreement you had to agree to in order to get your account. If the same is true here, then the EULA should be unenforceable.
But realistically, the courts never rule EULAs unenforceable, no matter the terms, and they rule that copies of software are licensed, not sold, and they rule that copies in RAM are fixations. So Blizzard will probably win again just like they did last time. They can usually afford the better lawyers and, as a result, they wind up getting the case-law put in place to support what they perceive as their interests and the rest of us get screwed. Woo.
You might call me a Blizzard fanboy. I don't consider myself a fanboy of anything, but I think Blizzard has produced nothing but excellent PC games. Not a single bad one. All 7 of the games they released have been fun, well polished, well supported, and ran decently on older hardware. SC2 is really good. I uninstalled it yesterday because the network-centricity of it is pissing me off. I have a fast computer. I should not have to sit and wait for things to load when I hit the custom maps folder icon (on single player), as the custom maps I have already paid and I assume downloaded, should be on my local machine. Instead I wait for it to do whatever network activity it does to monitor me playing a single player custom map. And then beyond that it just gets worse. This is the first time I personally think I agree with the argument that I would be getting a better product if I find a hacked/cracked version of the game that doesn't do all this network garbage when I just want to start the game from my OS, load a map, and play single player.
It would also be nice to be able to change my account name when on multiplayer. Or even better to just let me make up new account names and start with a 0-0 record, so that I can learn other races in the game without lowering my rating with my main race (as I would lose lots of games and get stomped playing zerg for the first time when I am say at the gold or platinum level with protoss.)
I am sick of seeing the grandparent's misconception floating around.
It was only a matter of time before blizzard turned evil...maybe it's because of activision
fuck you too.
yea, its in caps. its in caps because i dont know how harder it can be stressed any further. maybe it should have fireworks popping out behind the letters.
...
they ban players, players will use hacks/cracks to play the game they BOUGHT. they sue creators of hacks&cracks, and eventually they will hit a wall in china, or russia, while trying to sue creators of crack/hack # 1231285.
in the end, because of their MORON legal team, they will not only lose A LOT of publicity, and gain hostility from entire internet gaming community, but also will have accomplished making their position harder. i bet just because of this news, there are some people in russia or china already working on some stuff, just for the glory of it
Read radical news here
You can cheat, there are cheat codes built in to the game. Just like there was in SC, WC3, WC2 and WC. /dance, whatever.
You just press enter and type in greed is good 9999, show me the money, whysoserious, or whatever depending on what you want to do and what game it is. Google is a good source.
Using the built in codes you can get virtually infinite minerals and gas, no requirements, god mode, fast build, disable fog, instant win,
The hacks you find online have, infinite minerals, no requirements, disable fog, fast build, god mode, sometimes they are spread with malware, sometimes they cost money..
Now give us a single reason to use the 3rd party hacks? So you can do it secretly online. It's the only reason. SC2 is a competitive game, probably the most competitive, and the cheaters are ruining this. They are spoiling it for everyone, they actually ruin e-sports by cheating. Is blizzard going after anyone for making something that doesn't ruin sc2 for everybody, that you use on your machine just for fun? No. Anything that you'd wanna make can be done and is encouraged with the map editor.
There are fun and nothing serious mode, where you can do whatever you want, and there's the competitive online play, where you stick to the rules. I'm glad they're going after cheaters.
If you'll notice the claim they're making, it is virtually word for word the claim they used and ultimately won with when suing the developer of the Glider World of Warcraft bot.
I had a feeling this was coming in some form. However banning users who cheat in single player from playing the game at all is ridiculous, Blizzard. I supported your crusade against people who impacted my game-play experience, but single player players? That's just silly, guys.
If you've ever played Starcraft 2 single player, you'll know that you generally authenticate with your Battle.Net account first and are able to chat to your online contacts etc etc. Single player's "achievements" are also integrated and a part of your multiplayer profile, so by using hacks/whatever it's possible to get hard/difficult achievements without actually putting in the hard yards. Play the game before you jump to conclusions!
While I would really want to rant about Blizzard and Activision and how they are the cancer killing gaming, I just don't see much wrong with the way they handled this. The guy just shouldn't have cheated.
Whether the article was telling half-truths or not, the fact that Activision is behind it tells me all I need to know. This is simply more deception and tricks being pulled by Bobby Kotick to get more money from people. I'm not an avid PC gamer, but Bobby really does have it out for console gamers. I suggest others who are seriously fed up follow suit with Dice and write them a letter asking Bobby if he's happy. This is seriously a low blow from Activision.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKDwuB2_-mc
If this was multiplayer by connecting joystick port to another console, or one of those homewbrew portable Atari 2600 mods, then efficient computing would be back in style and Americans can try their hand at keeping their IP domestic by simply revamping their Homebrew computing sector with more native labor just for the hell of it. Portable Atari 2600.
It should be a felony to outsource to a country that doesn't have the same or equivalent rights as the home country, because in-fact China is slave labor while Japan is just weird and overpopulated because they didn't strain their gluttony of childbirth.
This one's easy. "While we do realize that once you buy our cars, they become your property, we do reserve the right to terminate your car at any time whenever we feel it is necessary."
Also, "While we do realize that once we pay for your games, the money becomes your property, we do reserve the right to demand our money back at any time whenever we feel it is necessary."
Well, that clearly worked for Apple with Psystar.
Back in my day, it just meant that you wouldn't get any support for your unorthodox use of the game. Now they can sue you for millions!
This is about Blizzard temporarily suspending people who have used external cheats - deliberately, as opposed to the internal cheats - to get achievements and screw with ladder rankings.
Unfortunately I think you're right.
while I wholeheartedly support multiplayer games being free of cheats, the suits brought seems on the surface to enable the companies to pretty much put "we own your a**" in their EULA and get it through court. I strongly oppose any such movement. Not because I feel everything should be open sourced to be toyed with as you like, but because when I buy a toaster, what I do with it after the time of purchase may or may not be legal, it may or may not invalidate my warranty, but it's not the MANUFACTURER who decides what I can and cannot use my toaster for, anything I do with MY property is MY responsibility, legally and morally. The same should hold true of immaterial products, like software. I suspect this is why they're trying to make this sound like a simple case of pirating.
Because in essence they're using copyright infringement as the sacrificial lamb, when in reality, no distribution is taking place, and as such cause the company no loss in sales. I dont see how this cannot be a case of simple fair-use. I hope this means that screwed up EULAs will finally die a slow and horrible death, because if they loose the case, that might set a presedence for EULAs being unreasonably strict.
Disclaimer: I have NOT read the indictment, only the article(s), which may or may not be portraying reality in a tinted light.
--- To err is human... Am I more human than most ?
This sucks, but it doesn't affect me in the least. Blizzard went on my "evil company" blacklist the day they sued Bnetd.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Obviously everyone here forgot Blizzards legal assault on bnetd, a way to play D2 multiplayer with friends across the internet without suffering from the server downs, rollbacks and hacking that went on in the realms at the time. When they pulled that, I stopped buying their games. Forever. Great games, so an excellent development team, destroyed by the greedy litigous arseholes in charge. No doubt the merger with Activision will decay the "great games" part soon enough.
The solution is simple, don't keep buying their crack. Don't buy Diablo 3 (to be released some time after Duke Nukem Forever) - buy Torchlight 2 instead. It will be out a lot sooner, you get to support the same great developers, and you don't support the morally repugnant warping of the legal system against your rights.
Eventually we will be forced to play storing data in L1 cache only. L2 could infring some other EULA.
slashwhat?
Was big fan of games produced by the old Blizzard. But once they became Activision, decided to move on. Not a boycott, just seemed the right thing to do. Life is better now.
Looks like somebody's trying to stir up some anger with that post.
1. Players creating cheats are locked out of their single player mode.
2. People creating cheats are being prosecuted by Blizzard.
Those are two completely seperate issues. Don't believe #2 relates entirely to #1.
The cheats being persued by the courts are likely those who create cheats to be used online, leading non-cheaters to have their experience spoilt.
You guys are way slow on the uptake. I stopped supporting blizzard when they changed focus with Warcraft3 and decided to stick with the same old game mechanics as the previous games. Same bat games, same bat channel.
As far as suing the developers goes...
Question 1: How can an END-USER license agreement be voided by anyone but the end-user?
If you're going to claim that the developers of the hack must have been end-users at some point, well, firstly, that's not a given (Maybe I pirated it; Then I'll sue you for piracy; Alternative pleading FTW!), and secondly, that a single violation of such a license can hardly amount to being worth much of a penalty (after all, you're not trying to sue every user for the same infringement).
Question 2: What Terms of Service apply to a single-player game? Where's the Service?
Okay, you might want to ban someone from using online account access, but when single-player access is unusable without account access, well, I'd argue that you were stupid for unnecessarily tying the two together, and as a consequence lose the ability to forbid either (rather than gain the right to forbid both).
I've been anti-Blizzard since the LANCraft suit, so I freely admit to not being one of their fans already, but seriously, I don't get what basis they're using to argue their case. I try not to jump to conclusions like this, but it really is as if copyright law is not only being used for whatever purpose they please (even far beyond the written law, let alone the intent); but that they freely admit to expecting that it ought to work exactly that way.
Or even better to just let me make up new account names and start with a 0-0 record, so that I can learn other races in the game without lowering my rating with my main race (as I would lose lots of games and get stomped playing zerg for the first time when I am say at the gold or platinum level with protoss.)
Does the win-loss record include skirmishes against AI? Because if not, you can train until you can curb-stomp the maximum number of AIs set up on a team against you, and only then try online.
Fuckin A
Play Command HQ online
why buy their games?
hasn't blizzard done enough evil shit over the years to deserve a permanent boycott?
when someone shits in your face you don't beg for more (not unless you have the same fetish Hitler had, that is).
so why buy their stuff? doesn't matter how good (or bad) their games are, by buying their stuff you are contributing to the evil crap they do.
boycott them.
Something to consider in all this is that Blizzard has done relatively well is that it's been relatively successful changing the mindset from 'people buying a game', to 'people buying a license to play a game'. When looked at from that perspective, it makes what they're doing a little bit clearer, as in they're selling access to experience gameplay in an environment they own. If you're coming to play in their house, you get to play by their rules. Perhaps consider it like borrowing a friends toy when you were a kid. If you break his super neat-o toy, you may not be allowed to play with it any more.
Is it just me or the legal world totally and absolutely crazed? What the lawyers of a company like Blizzard have in their heads for ideas like this, shit?
From now on I'm officially considering that lawyers are not intelligent life forms
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
There is no entertainment value in achievements. It's purely for bragging rights - and bragging about something meaningless.
I am scientifically inaccurate.
I purchased all the original Warcraft series - still have most of the disks.
I purchased the original Diablo several times. Still have two sets of disks.
I have multiple copies of Starcraft/Broodwar.
I have been an avid WoW player.
I will not be purchasing any more Blizzard games.
I will be telling all my friends to avoid Blizzard games.
This is the final straw, Blizzard.
If the draconian crap that goes on in the software industry nowadays was going on "back in the day", some truly awesome "hacks" would never have been created. Hellfire, the Diablo "expansion", for instance, was actually produced by Sierra, not Blizzard. Counterstrike was originally a (rather extensive) modification of Halflife. Punishing creative people who fill the niche market left by holes in the product is stupid, self-destructive, and hurts the entire industry.
This is just another example of how copyrights and software patents are broken, stifling creativity and competition. EULA's are obviously just a way to take your money without delivering anything in return.
Shame on you, Blizzard, for helping to kill your primary source of income. I hope you're happy.
Postscript:
I hope the pirates win. I didn't feel that way previously, but I'm tired of seeing increasing prices for decreasing quality, along with the ridiculous legal battles tying up our court system for the benefit of no one.
Today, Blizzard joined the likes of the RIAA and MPAA in my mind. I hope they starve.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
lol. Well, if they don't want me to play their games and/or they don't want my money, I won't play Blizzard games or I'll just play rip-offs and play on private servers when they become available.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with someone playing solo and 'cheating' against only themselves. Unfortunately, this is more of "Big Brother" socialism that the Obama bin Biden lovers feel is so right with America. You are not in control of your life, Socialists are.
Way to go Blizzard by creating an underground market to compete against your product.
That's the sound of me NOT buying Cataclysm!
After 9 years and $100 million+ they're going after people for HACK PATCHES? You MUST be joking.
I think it's clear that both Sony and Blizzard are the new WORST gaming companies ever. I won't buy their shit, and now I don't even want to work for either of them anymore.
Hear me Actiblizzard? Go fuck yourselves.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
Blizzard Games:
RPM Racing 1991 Never heard of it.
Battle Chess 1992 Bought it. Twice I think.
Battle Chess II 1992 Bought it once as part of a deal. Never played it.
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Vol. I 1992 Never played it. Never bought it.
Castles (Amiga port) 1992 Bought it, played it, liked it.
MicroLeague Baseball (Amiga port) 1992 Never heard of it.
Lexie-Cross (Macintosh port) 1992 Never heard of it.
Dvorak on Typing (Macintosh port) 1992 Never heard of it.
The Lost Vikings 1992 Played it once I think. Never bought it.
Rock N' Roll Racing 1993 Never bought it.
Shanghai II: Dragon's Eye 1994 Never heard of it.
Blackthorne 1994 Never heard of it.
The Death and Return of Superman 1994 Never heard of it.
Warcraft: Orcs & Humans 1994 Bought it, played it, liked it.
The Lost Vikings II 1995 Never bought it.
Justice League Task Force 1995 Never heard of it.
Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness 1995 Bought it, played it, liked it.
Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal 1996 Never bought it.
Diablo 1996 Bought it, played it, liked it.
StarCraft 1998 Bought it, played it, liked it.
StarCraft: Brood War 1998 Bought it, played it, liked it.
Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition 1999 Never bought it.
Diablo II 2000 Never bought it.
Diablo II: Lord of Destruction 2001 Never bought it.
Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos 2002 Never bought it.
Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne 2003 Never bought it.
World of Warcraft 2004 Never played it, or even tried it, not even once.
World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade 2007 Never played it, or even tried it, not even once.
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King 2008 Never played it, or even tried it, not even once.
StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty 2010 Highly unlikely to buy it.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm 2010 Highly unlikely to buy it.
Diablo III Under development Highly unlikely to buy it.
StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm Under development Highly unlikely to buy it.
StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void Under development Highly unlikely to buy it.
I think they lost it over 10 years ago. Why anyone still buys anything from them is beyond me. When the games were fun, when they were original, when they were affordable, and when I could "own" the game, yeah, they were quite good. Now though? I'd rather drop some cash for their 10+ year-old-games from a back catalogue than pay for even one month of their MMORPG or fight to install their latest games.
It's the same with most games companies - some good ideas, some really good games, some takeovers and then crap for the rest of their lives.
There is absolutely no just cause for a lawsuit under these circumstances. If people can circumvent their current system, they need to add restrictions to prevent it. If someone is able to develop a hack that circumvents their achievement system lock down, then they need to offer that person a job, not set out to ruin their life over it.
I don't understand where all the hate is coming from. I love Blizzard for doing this and hated them when they didn't do anything against hackers in Warcraft3 in the end.
Hackers destroyed WC3, a game I played for many years, but in the end every other online game I tried to play online, I got either map hacked, disconnect hacked or crash hacked. Blizzard released a patch, a week later there was a new hack
I still like the game, but it became unplayable, it ruined all the fun.
And now SC2 arrived.
And hacks soon after.
The hacking is not only in the single player game by the way.
I was very sad when I saw the first map hacks arrive in SC2 and encounter the first hackers on the ladder. It was so great to read when they banned a lot of players that used the hacks and even better, they are now targeting the hack developers.
Also don't forget that SC2 is aiming to be more than a game. it's aiming to be the no1 e-sports game.
This week a game from old SC1 legend SlayersBoxer returning in a SC2 tournament, with 80k for the winner, was watched on a stream by more than 700,000 people. No joke.
Mostly Koreans, but more and more people outside Korea start liking E-sports as well. People who don't play the game at all watch the tournaments online and like it a lot. Some youtube commentators, who cast games with english commenting, have more than 100k subscribers.
There are even a few americans and europeans now living in Korea as professional gamers, people who earn their living by playing SC2.
It's becoming pretty big.
I would love it if E-sports got as big worldwide as it is in Korea.
But if that's your goal as a game developer you have to get rid of cheaters, like in any sports.
A football player who's caught on doping gets banned too and they will for sure try to find the provider of the doping and get him in a lawsuit as well.
Anyway, on SC2 fan sites almost everyone approves about Blizzard taking action:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=161168
Just thought it would be good to add this info to the discussion
I don't play SC2 and never liked their Warcraft/Starcraft series, but I completely understand Blizzard's stance. Certain features of the game were intended to function a certain way with THEIR servers. By bypassing the system, you are in essence modifying the content their servers provide, in this case the Achievements. I'm ok with someone using cheats during single player, as it sometimes does reduce frustration with a product you purchased and it can help make it more enjoyable. Personally, I refrain a majority of the time as long as the game is still enjoyable. But this is clearly a case of people wanting to attain something they truly shouldn't be rewarded with (Achievements). If this helps narrow down the gap of people producing multiplayer hacks, I'm all for Blizzard rooting these people out. I wish Blizzard made FPSs and did the same with people that created Wallhacks, Aimbots, and the like. It is a sad state of affairs when people can't play a multiplayer game honestly and fair.
Those Bicycle Playing card people are going to sue me out of existence I've been cheating at solitaire for years.
Everyone is completely up in arms over this and it kills me. The achievements have a much greater impact than most seem to realize. Starcraft morphed into practically a sport in certain places, especially Korea, for example. So cheating the single player game and receiving the achievements is a real issue for Blizzard. They run high level very expensive tournaments that can be, and are being affected by these cheats. Sure it seems to be constrained to the single player campaign but what does that do to the multiplayer community that know they could easily be cheated at any time. Blizzard has to do something about it immediately or risk a lot of backlash from a community that was very much a consideration in the development of the game.
Ok so competitive gaming isn't as highly paid as professional sports but would you also be ok with performance enhancing drugs? How about corked bats? Maybe it should be ok to fix horse races? Just because it's a video game doesn't really change the fact that it's shitty to try and move up the ladder illegitimately. Those who cheat or support cheating are just showing everyone how much they have embraced their own ability to utterly fail.
I've said for a long time that the sensible way to fight piracy is to simply sell the product at a price point where people are happy to pay for the convenience of an easy high quality download.
Now i've discovered a new market. People want cheats for SC2. Blizzard should make cheats available and charge some nominal fee to download their cheat program. $2.99. Sure it's more than the free cheats, but it's unlikely to carry trojans, it's easily downloaded through the blizzard downloader you already have, and really who knows more about the inner workings of the game? Some punks with a hex editor or Blizzard?
I am only about 25% joking. When i started typing this i thought it was funny. now i think this idea has real merit.
So, because of copyright law I'm not allowed to buy a book or magazine, cut up the pages, and paste them together to make my own derivative creative work in the form of a collage?
Elementary school kids and teachers are in sooooo much trouble.
What is the difference in results between what gameshark does on consoles and what hacks do on PCs?
This is the same reason they used against WoW/MMOglider when it was the biggest WoW bot out there. They claimed that it violated copyright by modifying the memory in RAM, and the judge was dumb enough to grant Blizzard the victory. This has all happened before.
... a copy in RAM should not be considered a fixation, and hence creating one is not a copyright violation. If copying something into RAM is creating a fixation then every CD and DVD player and most newer TVs continually break copyright laws every time they are used since RAM buffers have become ubiquitous. CD and DVD players simply cannot work without copying at least some of the CD or DVD into RAM in the process of playing it (although CDs could get away with as few as 16 bits at a given time). So this shouldn't legally be considered a copy to begin with, but the courts have ruled that it is in several previous cases ...
This argument probably fails since deriving a properly sized/scaled image from the copyrighted material is the intended use of this material, possibly an "essential step of utilization". The software that does this is also licensed from an industry organization IIRC.
Secondly, the copyright law that if someone owns a copy of a piece of software then they have the right to make the copies of it needed to run it.
The argument also seems to fail on its face. The copy in RAM is allowed as part of normal usage. The datas use by hacking software is not such normal use. I think you would have to make a "fair use" argument, not an "essential step of utilization argument", for the line of thought you are pursuing.
Now, Blizzard is in a slightly more realistic position from an EULA situation than most companies because they do actually have something to provide the user which the user doesn't already have: access to their on-line play servers, Battlenet. So, if they were to tie it all together in the EULA: you give us back ownership of the physical copy and you relinquish your reverse engineering rights, etc and in return we let you use our servers, then that contract would be enforceable (still lousy, but enforceable).
I believe SC2 requires you to connect to Battle.net as part of the post-install authorization process. It is quite different from the older games in this regard.
Correct. Judges have already thrown out the Copyright Act. Though the Copyright Act explicitly says that it does not apply to any copies necessary for the intended use of the product, the courts have declared that this clause is unfair to copyright giants, and ignore it.
But hacking/cheating does not constitute the intended use. It is not part of the "essential step of utilization" chain of events. Note that "intended use" is probably defined with respect to the copyright holder's perspective. If it were the user's perspective then it could mean anything, and thereby nothing. The exception to "intended use" would probably be "fair use", good luck getting a court to rule that hacking/cheating is "fair use".
Back in the day of Star Craft 1, you could buy a copy, then give it to your friend, whose computer would crash at some future moment. At that point, many times that friend would then just go out and buy a copy of their own. They already knew they loved the game, so it didn't really seem like to big a jump to throw down the $30 for it. Now, not only does Blizzard want to force you to buy a copy just to play it, they want to claim "we haz all ur base" and demand that you buy another copy of it if at any time during your playing of the original copy you decide to enable a cheat to help you get through a tough level, or play a "dirty" once-through. Well they can fuck off, and keep their cash-sucking time-waster! I'll stick to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. SoC if they are going to be that way about it.
-Oz
So now they think they're so big that they can do whatever they want? Blizzard, I am disapoint.
If they continue this kind of BS, here's hoping WoW finally dies. SC2 is a disapoint and Diablo 3...ugh.
When somebody cheats Open Source somehow, the Slashdot crowd is at the gates, with torches and pitchforks. Sue the bastards into oblivion! They must be stopped! Take away their money!
When it's somebody not Open Source acting in their best interest to stop somebody from messing with them, well, clearly that's wrong. It's just unacceptable to go to court.
Yeah, Slashdotter's let's see how long it takes to deny this.
Cuz I doubt you'll look into the mirror and the truth.
Not all anyway. Some might.
So what do we have next??
YOU ARE READING THE BOOK WRONG!!! YOU MUST START AT BEGINNING AND END AT THE END OR YOU ARE BREACHING COPYRIGHT!!! STOP READING THE END OR I'LL SUE!!!
DON'T BURN 2 PAGES FROM THE BOOK!! YOU ARE BREACHING COPYRIGHT! I'M SUING!
That's what Blizzard is preaching. Now, they should go and fuck themselves because they have no case. A license allows one to use one copy of the compiled code. But that code will have to be broken anyway thanks to the retarded DRM if someone wants to play that game in 2020 or 2030 - that's allowed by law. Same with any other modifications of the binary by the *owner of the copy*.
But then I guess Blizzard is a company to avoid these days. I'm certainly voting with my money.
PS. I hate cheaters in multi-player games and all those people should be banned. I never use cheats in single player (takes away from the game) either. But people have a right to modify their own binaries!
News papers suing people who create paper mache hats out of news papers and glue they bought for themselves. This is in clear violation of the original scope of intent of the license to use the newspaper.
Oh if only Blizzard could see all the trainers and hacks i had going (at once) back when Diablo I was popular... They would shit.
You take a book you bought and copy a page. Take that copy, white out a few words and put other words in their places, change face to ass or whatever absurdity you please to make the story funny to you. Place that page in the book and read the book, reading that page instead of the one it was copied from.
Blizzard is claiming that's copyright infringement?
Yes, Blizzard is Evil. They have been since bnetd as people point out. Valve is also if you really think about how Steam works. That being said. Nobody creates better games than these two. I'm sick of shitty games. I personally DGAF about all that when I sit down to play a game. I want quality and these evil jerks deliver. If you don't like it make something better. This heavy handed shit will continue until a time that the quality of the game play diminishes or a developer that creates comprable games comes up and isn't evil. For me, I have limited time to play games between work, family, etc. When I do I don't want to play trash to be a zealot. An evil goverment has not caused me to leave the US yet either. Yes, this is the wrong opinion in a righteous world. This is not a righteous world. I applaud them for banning cheaters. I hate that they flex IP. But I will continue to play quality games, no matter who makes them. Hitler himself could make something, and if it's GREAT, I'll play. I DGAF, and I'm not alone on this one if you look at sales figures. It's not right, it just is.
There are more important issues in the world: poverty, murder, rape, government, global warming... move along.
My question is what happens when these users say that they did not buy the game and therefore did not sign any EULA. If they claim they went to some gaming cafe and designed the application there, no one could be sued if its a EULA thing. The cafe owner could claim he had no idea that this was happening. I agree with going after cheaters and banning them, and also going after the people who create these multiplayer cheats. I do not agree with using RAM and copyright to win this case. If copying anything to RAM is making a derivative work, then we all are guilty of copying this web page's content. I'd like to see Blizzard sue someone who has less than 2GB of RAM on their computer for this. The whole game cannot reside there so there is no possible way you could create a derivative of the game.
While I do think they should crack down on cheaters in multiplayer and do have a moral right to go after those that make the chats, their lawsuit statement concerning the Ram and all is flat out absurd. So does that mean every time somebody loads the game Blizzard can do whatever they want, including disabling and suing them?
Their journey to the darkside is complete, apprentice of Darth Activision.
There are lots of lawsuits like this that are more of a nuisance or scare tactics then anything else. If you compare a hack to a parody or a quote. You will see that neither are a copyright violation, as they are not selling the authors work. The portions of the EUL need to be valid before they are enforceable, and the company needs to show damages. If the EUL stated that if you share the EUL with your friend penalties are $10,000 is as ridiculous as this claim. If you write a book review of a book, is that a copyright violation? If you black out or highlight sections of a book you bought and wrote in the margins is that a copyright violation (see students/textbooks)? If you buy a cell phone and buy an aftermarket accessory for it, is that patent infringement because it did not come with the phone? The "hacked code" is almost certainly new code and therefore probably not a copyright violation.
I am extremely saddened that nobody here, in 4 pages of comments, mentioned StarDraft. I probably fooled around with it (and the hacked StarEdit, and StarGraft) almost as much as I actually played Starcraft 1. I miss Camelot Systems...
Bet they'd get sued like no tomorrow if they were around today. That's just depressing.
"Blizzard have". Tsk, tsk.
I have not yet bought SCII. I was waiting for things to work themselves out first (like this little tidbit). If Blizzard wants to play these kinds of games on people who aren't really hurting Blizzard (or their profits) in any way, then I will never purchase SCII or any other future Blizzard title. Luckily, I have the discipline to resist buying such games, even when their as cool and as anticipated as SCII. Too bad everyone else doesn't have the same discipline otherwise we could bring Blizzard to their knees and prevent them from doing crap like this. They should have never made their game a broadband internet required concoction anyway. There's too many bad things that can result from that and I want no part of it.