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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.
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:
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.
Except Blizzard built cheats into the game for people just like you. They disable achievements, though. So for someone such as yourself, that's perfectly fine. But some people wanted to cheat the game AND the system to unlock achievements and artificially boost their rankings.
While I'm not sure a lawsuit is quite the answer, I do think Blizzard is right to make a big deal about this. A lot of people really like their achievements because... They're achievements! Some are rather hard to get. Blizzard is just making sure that the rewards someone earns aren't diluted by cheaters who make it impossible to determine who legitimately earned something and who just used a trainer.
Lets not forget that these so called "achievements" are nothing more than little blurbs from your computer assuring you that you are not in fact wasting your time and are actually somehow being productive.
but your friends can see your achievement tooooooo...
And your friends can see your pacman high-score at the local arcade. So fucking what.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
The mandatory achievement system is just a piss-poor pretense to try and force online-drm, market segmentation (buy one copy of SC2 for each geographical area, because blizzard says it is entitled to get paid to record achievements on each realm?) and such random marketing "SC2 is so elite, you cannot cheat" restrictions on people, besides forced updates and mandatory participation in a huge marketing data gathering effort (with as many achievements, you know exactly what people played, how much, etc... so you can make predictions about what the smallest possible addition and the highest possible price will be, amongst many other things)
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
Considering the achievement system, they're not cheating only themselves.
Except the achievement system literally has no point, no benefit, and is the most blatant "e-peen" exhibitionism around. It's even less important than the 360 Achievements, which is saying something.
No, this is a rights grab. They're trying to convince a court that you have no right to do anything with the product you bought and paid for, whatsoever, because you're not buying it, you're borrowing it long term for a set fee. It's utter madness. If someone wanted to make the "Game Genie" nowadays, Nintendo would sue them into oblivion and prevent it from ever happening.
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!
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 ?
The point isn't the ban, it's the court action. I don't care if they want to ban people for ToS violations, in fact I welcome it - we all know cheaters ruin online play - but suing and claiming breach of copyright is ridiculous. It's like selling me a book but claiming in the small-print that I only have the right to read it, not to make notes in the margins, and that if I do make notes my legitimate copy of the book suddenly becomes an illegal copy. I'm sorry, I didn't buy a license, I bought a book.
It is far more akin to a car lease agreement than a outright purchase. In both cases you don't actually own the product but have paid for it's use and in both cases there are provisions in the contract of lease for the leasor to take back the product (not saying I like what they are doing, but if you are gonna use the all important car analogy it is important to be accurate.)
There is no point or benefit to playing a video game at all, other than for entertainment value. If the acheivement system increases a player's level of entertainment, then it is just as valid and the rest of the game.
If you don't find it entertaining, that's fair enough, but there are plenty of people that do.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
Maybe you're not looking hard enough. Sure, this time they're going after cheaters, something we can all get behind because, frankly, cheaters are one of the reasons I largely gave up on multiplayer. However, the way the court action is worded, they could apply this to any mod to the game. You want to create a new fun little mod, you'll have to get an extended license from Blizzard before you can even legally play around with the code. Interested in programming and how the game works and want to poke around under the hood of the product you thought you bought? Tough luck, you just rendered your copy of the game an illegal copy, even though you paid in full, and you're now wide open to a copyright infringement action. That is the cancer here, not banning cheaters, but of course everyone's focus is purely on the cheating aspect and how Blizzard are doing the right thing - which is exactly where they want your focus.
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.
Who really cares though?
It's a game.
I play games because they should be fun. I do not play games for profit, nor do I get upset if someone has more achievements, or a greater score than I.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
And everyone can see Carlos Slim and Bill Gate's "high scores" too: http://www.forbes.com/lists/2010/10/billionaires-2010_The-Worlds-Billionaires_Rank.html
They are all just digits in a bunch of computers somewhere. If enough people decide it's real, it's real enough :). If for some reason everyone decides the US dollar is worth nothing, Bill Gates becomes worth a lot less.
Fact is most of what we do is a waste of time. Most of it does not really endure much longer than that Pacman high-score, nor means much more.
A hundred thousand years from now, someone might rate the entire human race's "achievements" by 2010 as "so fucking what".
And 100000 years isn't very long. The "classic" dinosaurs were around for about 160 _million_ years.
but your friends can see your achievement tooooooo...
And your friends can see your pacman high-score at the local arcade. So fucking what.
The difference is the expectation of privacy. If someone sees that I have achieved a "badge" that requires at least 120 hours of play time in a week or requires you to initiate "sex" with both genders, it discloses personal information that one might not want publicized.
I can see the games companies being sued over something like that; perhaps if someone loses their job because a "badge" disclosed certain information.
Ahh but there are people who play for profit and not for fun. There are leagues and there are competitions. Lots of this is based on online scores, so while YOU may not care much at all I bet you there are a myriad of people out there who are pissed off that some n00b is higher on the ladder than they are by cheating, and there'll also be a handful of players who may find themselves pitched against incorrect opponents as a result of the leader board being messed up.
People should cheat in their own time, heck I cheat games for fun too. But there something to be said when the results will carry over onto Battle.net
And that "n00b" will find that competing at that level will not be conducive to fun and will likely be eliminated from any waged competition early on.
I still fail to see the issue here besides that fact that you may have to play an easy game now and then.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
LOLwut? You bought and played like 3 of their games, then admitted that you hadn't even tried "not even once" their most popular franchise, in WoW. Did you even try Diablo 2, Warcraft 3, or Starcraft 2!?! I guess we should interpret your list more as a statement of how cheap/poor you became from 1999 on. Invested heavily in dotcoms, did we?
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
I don't agree with ActiBlizzendi. If they wanted to make a MMO out of it, they should have gone ahead and done so. Making it a SP game with "tight online bindings" for both SP and MP is an engineering choice. The fact that people can hack the game on their own systems is precisely why that kind of design DOES NOT WORK.
So, basically ActiBlizzendi substitutes having a legal team for not having a development team that knows wtf they are doing. They don't innovate any more, they litigate, like the worst of the patent and copyright trolls out there.
This is why I haven't been a customer of theirs since D2, when they first showed this wholly depraved behavior in the bnetd case.
I hope they choke on their legal briefs.
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
Maybe you're just a stick in the mud. Many people brag about "meaningless" things all the time. I mean, who cares who threw a touchdown pass in a football game? Honestly, it means nothing. Until people attach meaning to it.
But then I realized the cable was blue, so I only gave it one star. I hate blue.
Since you obviously didn't get it, I'll spell it out to you: I'm not defending "achievements", I think they are retarded. I think the only thing more retarded than "achievements" is getting huffy when other people get them by cheating. I think that if anyone actually places real value on them, to the point where it becomes necessary to sue people over obtaining them "unfairly", they need to get a fucking life.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
The hate is because Blizzard is doing it utterly wrong.
Back in the late 90s, around 2000, we played a lot of SC. We'd host big lan parties where we would play. One of the beautiful things was that we could do this in an old farmhouse out in the country, with only a dialup connection. The second beautiful thing was that we all didn't have to have the game! We could spawn a copy on one computer, use the same disk in another, and all enjoy the game. It was awesome. It lead to lots of us buying the game to play when we weren't together on a lan.
My friend on the really sweet cable connection could host a game, and we could all connect to him. VIA his IP address. It didn't matter if the servers were up or not, or if we had a connection to BattleNet.
Now, that's all gone with SC2. We can only play if we all have a $50 copy of the game, and we all have a good internet connection. We can't dump 8 computers in anyone's random house and expect to play - we've got to make sure they have the bandwidth to do so. That's crap. That's a major step backwards. That's greed over loving your customers.
Additionally, it's the job of the server to make sure that the clients aren't cheating. Not the job of the client. And hacks don't matter in single-player. To ban me for doing something on my computer with software that I own which affects nobody but me is madness.
That's the where the hate comes from. You don't get to charge people $50 for your game, then deny them the ability to play the single-player missions because you don't like how they're playing. It's none of Blizzard's business. Likewise, suing people who create cheats is also treading a very thin line. It's akin to suing gun manufacturers because someone else murdered someone you care about.
SC1 was big because of how open it was. When the first SC2 demo games started coming out, and they started having issues connecting, it was clear that SC2 would never be able to be as big as SC1. You just can't do competitive, E-Sport style play if you're relying on an internet connection and someone else's authentication server and game server.
For the money, we're getting a lot less game than SC1, with a lot of restrictions that never existed before. Yes, cheating is an issue. But you know what? Draconian measures to prevent cheating are also an issue. What you're seeing is the alienation because Blizzard went far too far to that side, after building a reputation for being open and accommodating.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Sorry, I bought the game, I own my computer's ram - I can use the two in whatever way I see fit. If I want to tell my computer's ram to modify the game, then I'm allowed to do that. If Blizzard wants to ban me from using their servers because my computer's ram holds a modified copy of their game, they are allowed to do that.
But if Blizzard makes it so that I can't use the game I bought with the computer I own, then they have sold me a faulty product. If they intentionally make the game stop working, then that's something along the lines of destruction of property.