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Sued Freelancer Allegedly Turns Over Contractee Source Code In Settlement
FriendlySolipsist writes: Blizzard Entertainment has been fighting World of Warcraft bots for years. TorrentFreak reports that Bossland, a German company that operates "buddy" bots, alleges Blizzard sued one of its freelancers and forced a settlement. As part of that settlement, the freelancer allegedly turned over Bossland's source code to Blizzard. In Bossland's view, their code was "stolen" by Blizzard because it was not the freelancer's to disclose. This is a dangerous precedent for freelance developers in the face of legal threats: damned if you do, damned if you don't.
For copyright infringement
did Apoc hand over the source code? I think he screwed himself by doing that.
And had no reason for existing, other than to violate TOU. That part should be emphasized. Not just any complementary product.
If it's not your code you can't give it up. You cannot be forced. Your now just damned if you do.
If "stolen" by anyone, it was the contractor. Sue him.
This is a dangerous precedent for freelance developers in the face of legal threats: damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Well, not quite. I'm a freelancer. Would I work for a client that is a bad citizen in their particular niche? No, I don't think so.
I'm not a gamer, but if I understand correctly these bots give you an unfair advantage and are forbidden by Blizzard. Yeah well, don't look surprised if the shit hits the fan at some point.
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It is illegal to ask someone to violate a contract unless ordered by a judge.
I don't have sympathy for people selling modifications to a game which the maker of the game says are illegal. Hell, if you are found to be using mods many sites ban your account, often permanently and without a refund.
I don't game like I used to, but when I do I refuse to play on-line FPS games. That refusal has at least something to do with the aim bot mods people use to install just to have their name in a high score list somewhere. You could truly be amazingly agile and great at a game, but I have experienced cheats so find it hard to assume the best.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
I have about this -->||<-- much sympathy for Bossland.
The code in question allowed users to violate a very reasonable clause in Blizzard's TOS: Don't cheat or use 'bots.
I hope that now Blizz can analyze the code and go after the users of said 'bots, which I'm sure is their intention behind getting the code.
Hopefully they'll go after the freelancers behind the other game's bots.
-- I have monkeys in my pants.
... Fees and argued it was not his code to disclose instead of leaving him hanging and a forced settlement. Problem solved the 1st time around instead of trying to not spend money in hopes the contractor can spend pay for defense all the way through court.
As the owner of the copyright didn't give Blizzard permissions they're committing copyright infringement here. It seems that simple.
As someone who doesn't play MMOs mostly because I've come to the conclusion that the only thing worse than playing against other people with way more free time than common sense is playing with people with may more free time than common sense, I don't see the problem with writing bots. Using them to gain an unfair advantage in a competitive environment, sure, but not with just creating them.
The code in question allowed users to violate a very reasonable clause in Blizzard's TOS: Don't cheat or use 'bots.
So? That doesn't mean Blizzard gets access to it. Let's take a real-world example: people have created software to automate playing chess for years now. That doesn't make it illegal. If you use it to win a tournament, sure, you're cheating, but that doesn't mean you can hand over the code to whoever ran the tournament.
I suspect that the real problem is that Blizzard made a game that's more fun to automate than it is to play. Make it fun to play, and you won't have to worry about bots.
It's not immediately clear from the short search I did, but I'm working on the assumption that Apoc was sued in a US court (and that the legal proceedings between Bossland and Blizzard have been in German courts).
If that's the case, Apoc and Bossland screwed the pooch on this. Because Bossland (and its IP) is the real party in interest in the Apoc case, they had a right to intervene in the Apoc case. The argument boils down to "Hey you can't sue $randomGuy seeking $myStuff without me being involved; I have a right to fight this even though I'm not the original defendant." And likewise, Apoc had the right to try and rope in Bossland, on the flip side argument, "Whoa, I'm not the droid you're after, and what you're asking for isn't even mine."
It would seem that either:
-Bossland didnt know (that a freelancer possessing their entire code base was being sued by the object of all their bot programs??), or
-Bossland didn't want to cede personal jurisdiction in the US (very complex and nuanced, and there are plenty of creative arguments Blizzard could have used to get what it wanted, esp. with the source code stored by Apoc in the US), or, most likely,
-Apoc just freaked out and (too) quickly said "Blaaaaaughhh here take the source code go away!"
In any case, Bossland's claim of copyright infringement seems tenuous against Blizzard. If anyone, it was Apoc who infringed (and maybe broke non-disclosure) by distributing a copy of the code to Blizzard. But there's little point in Bossland suing its freelancer. Blizzard did probably make copies of their own, and so there's an interesting question as to whether Bossland could get them for infringement there.
Also, contrary to TFS, settlements may set behavioral precedents, but they don't set legal precedents.
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in the first place? If he did have it then he should have had it illegally. I don't get to keep the code I write for my job, and for damn good reason. If someone tried to get me to give it up (such as it is :P ) I'd refer them to my employer.
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When you start on a derivative work, you're stepping into a mess.
When you sign that contract to do a derivative work, and you are doing that work for someone other than the original rightsholder, that is when you have placed yourself into a no-win situation. You did it to yourself, by taking that contract.
Now, when the original rightsholder comes after you, you are in a position of both being required to turn over that derivative work, and being prohibited from disclosing it.
Before you get to the point of settling, you need to go back to your client and tell them that if they don't join you in your defense, then a court may very well order you to break that contract.
But then again, I am neither a lawyer nor someone who would have taken this contract in the first place.
incorporate to remove personal liability. Though, in this case, I'm not sure it would be applicable to business assets, such as the source code. That is a sticky one.
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Isn't this sort of like people selling devices to get free satelite TV? They are making a profit from selling something intended to target the users of a product from a single company and the action is not allowed by the EULA of said company. I read the Blizzard EULA for StarCraft II (well speed read parts of it and assume WoW is sort of similar). It says the software is owned by Blizzard even after being installed. The user has a license to use it, yet as the property of Blizzard, they can decide when to upgrade without the user's concent. Also the license is void if people do one of the following actions and then some list where using bots is one of them. In other words, bot users play pirated copies as installing a bot will render the copy unlicensed, and as result, the bot maker is selling something, which makes people use unlicensed Blizzard software. This makes it comparable to unlicensed TV viewing and as we know, people selling those are raided by the police once in a while.
I'm not a German lawyer, but my guess is that this is how Blizzard treated the case in court, which would make it less bogus than first meets the eye. I'm concerned with the concept that they own the software on my HD and can update it against my will, even to the degree where they increase the hardware requirements. However those concerns are more in a technical and political sense, something the court isn't allowed to consider. I suspect the court would be likely to rule in favour of Blizzard. The court might not have the power to transfer the source code, but they could do that with money. However an out of court settlement isn't limited to what the court can rule.
In Bossland's view, their code was "stolen" by Blizzard because it was not the freelancer's to disclose.
That's possible because there are two contracts (or contract like) cases here. Freelancer and Bossland likely states that he isn't to give out the source code (that would be pretty much standard). However the WoW EULA is a contract like agreement between Blizzard and the freelancer and since those two aren't linked in court, Blizzard doesn't have to care about a contract with Bossland, a company not even involved in the court case. If Blizzard had to consider the Bossland contract, they could just have written in the contract that neigther party can be sued by 3rd party due to their product, which would prevent Blizzard from even going to court. Luckily law doesn't work like that because I don't think any of us would be able to imagine the scale of abuse that would result in.
Bossland could very well sue and win against the freelancer, but I don't see what they could gain from it. They could get financial compensation from the freelancer, but likely not enough to make it worth suing and if they haven't already scared alway all freelancers, suing one would ensure that would happen.
If there were material agreements in place att he signing of the freelance work, then that is not anything new.
However, if there was no agreements in place with regards to material ownership and the court is forced to interpret, yeah...that could be a problem.
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act maybe
There is no cow level
If the code wasn't his, or he was under contract to keep it secret (NDA for example), then the court can either, UNDER ITS OWN COGNIZANCE, break the contract or force giving up the code. So the contractor is in the clear, AS LONG AS THE COURT ASSERTS IT MUST.
Blizzard may, being the recipients of someone else's code without license (and the court cannot grant that license without explicitly granting that license from the owner to Blizzard) are in trouble, though, since they are now in copyright theft trouble. And this one IS theft: Blizzard will assert and have asserted that they get the code and ownership,which they don't.
Bliz are in trouble.
The COURT may well be in trouble, if they didn't rule that the disclosure contract was anulled.
The contractor is only in trouble if they had the choice of not handing it over or did not tell the court it was not theirs to divulge.
The court COULD NOT rule that he be jailed for not handing over what was neither his nor Blizzard's property, though they would go and do it anyway, because the court doesn't give a shit about the law when it comes to their perogatives (they insist your solicitor should bring it up, else the law doesn't exist). But on being arrested, he could sue for wrongful arrest and unjust imprisonment.
A cheater got cheated. Not feeling any sympathy.
Oh you want to treat IP like real property, don't be upset if you give something to someone and they give it to someone else.
Sounds like you're making up shit as you go along.
If a tennis player contracts me to make a tennis racquet which is larger than the rules allowed according to the sport's administrative body (non-government), did I do something wrong?
This is an example where the law, including civil, can just get nicked.
I'm 100% with you on that. For 15 years I was kind of a freelancer, runnung a three-person shop most of that time. Certain people we didn't do business with because they were devious or deceptive. Not necessarily -criminal-, but certainly not upstanding citizens who were careful to always do the right thing.
I've seen a lot of people get burned by associating with the wrong people, from business issues related to associates who push the limits of spam to charges of drug dealing against someone who hung around drug dealers and hookers. Sometimes the slimeball burns you, sometimes the slimeball gets involved with another slimeball who burns you, sometimes you're collateral damage when the authorities go after the slimeballs. All too often, when you lay with dogs you wake up with fleas, one way or another.
You can't be contractually obligated to conceal a crime.
If Blizzard alleged that the contractor violated their rights, then regardless of who actually owns the code, all the code the contractor wrote is subject to a legal subpoena. They'd have gotten it if this went to trial.
If on the other hand, he just passed on stolen goods, then yes, the German company has grounds to sue the contractor as well.
Not that he can make them whole, but it will make the "precedent" go away.
Any freelancer should know that signing an NDA and touching any proprietary code puts him in danger.
And better do not work with companies which want to keep their code secret.
There should be big difficulty for the companies that do not publish their code under some kind of OpenSource license to get skilled developers.
Of course this case doesn't place employed developers in danger. They cannot disclose the code, which they touch only in the office.
If Bossland don't win this that means that there is precedence that copyright is automatically void as soon as an item leaves the owners hands! Free copies for everyone! Finally information (and software) can be truly FREE TO SHARE!
He didn't give Blizzard source code that they plan to implement, they only need it to see how it works, then implement a fix. By this time I would imagine that Blizzard already has what they need and any legal action might, at best, result in a cease and desist to delete the source code from their servers. Seems like any breach of contract or monetary issues would be solely between Bossland and Apoc.