Court Upholds Blizzard's Anti-Bot DMCA Claim, Denies Copyright Infringement

An anonymous reader writes "The Ninth Circuit reversed a $6.5 million judgment for Blizzard against MDY Industries, saying that making bots is not copyright infringement. The bad news for MDY? The court found that they did violate DMCA Section 1201(a)(2) (PDF), which prohibits trafficking in products that circumvent technologies designed to control access to copyright-protected works."

Comments

Re:DMCA is useful?

[poetmatt]

getting rid of bots fails to answer as to what has gone on to encourage bots in the first place.

if you think getting rid of bots is good, you are missing both the destination and the journey.

the underlying question should be: how has this game become so repetitive that people can automate it in the first place?

oh right, blizzard, grind, etc.

Re:Perhaps it's only me....

[mrnobo1024]

Like it or not, IP is a significant contributor to much of the world's economy.

It may be a huge contributor to the world economy, but it's a huge drain on the domestic economy, if you can't stop other countries from becoming free riders on it. China has no reason to pay for American IP when they can just take it and not pay. We can't do the same to them, because they make actual physical products. If things continue as they are, the unidirectional money flow is going to destroy the US.

Re:Perhaps it's only me....

[The Snowman]

What you're really saying is the government is more openly aggressive, in the face of efforts to undermine the world's economy, showing that individual artists, musicians, programmers, and inventors are receiving help from the government to protect their sources of income.

Bullshit. So if I call up the FBI and inform them of copyright infringement of one of my works, they will help? Not likely, unless I also happen to be in the legal department of a Hollywood corporation.

IP law in the United States is written to benefit corporations, not the artists, musicians, programmers, and inventors. The man who "invented" Mickey Mouse is long dead at this point, but the Disney corporation is still profiting from the its perpetual copyright. Whom does IP law benefit? Not its creator.

The Golden Fence

[Mateorabi]

Exactly. This was one of the most compelling complaints against DMCA when Congress passed it:

In the name of copyright protection it allows the content creators to build a fence. This 'golden' fence gets a special status under the law and is protected by the DMCA and people who breach it are considered law breakers. But the gross injustice is that along with legitimate copyrightable works, the content creators can put whatever else they want behind the fence. Want to deny a fair use? Integrate such use tightly with the enforced-by-law copyright protection mechanism. Activities that others would legitimately be able to do with the content that aren't infringing become untouchable, because to do so they must cross that golden fence.

In my opinion, if content creators overreach and try to prevent fair-use activities by fencing things off within their copyright protection/access control mechanisms (such as this case) then the access control technology should lose its special status as legally protected under 1201(a)(2).

You are a content provider who wants the protection of the law/legal-threat for your access mechanism? Don't want 'violators' to get a free pass? Tough. Only protect things that you had the right to protect in the first place.