What 'Blizzard' industry? It's an online gaming industry that Blizzard participates in like Ford participates in the auto industry.
There are server browsers (game launchers) that support talking to many different online multiplayer games to read their stats. Anything that makes emulating a server illegal should prevent these to. Nobody seems to think they're in any trouble, as they're about the same as third-party admin tools for Windows.
A third party game server would be a good idea for a company that wants to make their own MMO without the overhead of producing a client. They wouldn't need the content on the server side, and the clients own their copies of the WoW data and can use it largely as they wish, within the context of playing a game.
If you own the disc you must own the content. It's that simple. You don't own its copyright, but you don't need to.
17 USC 117 (a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.-- Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided: (1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner The idea that running a computer program required a license came from the fact that the program is copied in RAM while in use. This is obviously unreasonable, as products which are sold must be fit for the use to which they are sold, and software that you weren't allowed to use wouldn't be fit for sale. But, in the spirit of writing more laws, explicit permission was granted to copy software (as is essential for utilization) without a license of other form of permission.
EULAs require modifying a deal (sale) after the fact, without permission of both parties. If contracts could be modified like this they wouldn't be much good. Further, they purport to give you something (a right to use the software) which you already have, as you already have this right the EULA would give you nothing and is thus not a valid contract.
Yes, because letting car companies make third-party parts has sure hurt the auto industry... Ditto phones, computers, etc.
Eventually someone will win the battle and sell a for-profit server or client for WoW or similar. It's legal to reverse engineer to make IM clients work, so people will eventually realize that it's legal elsewhere.
Cheating likely violated the AUP they agree to when buying time though. They have a way to stop cheaters, but are too cheap to use it. They decided to sue the innocent guy because there's only one trial that way.
Our society's got this brain-damaged welfare-for-companies view that if you do something to threaten someone's profits, that they have a right to sue you.
If someone can produce the service cheaper than them it's a net win to the economy. It's called competition and it drives down prices. We have laws that allow anyone to implement certain interfaces (can't stop knockoff car parts, or third-party virus scanners, for example).
Every time a new medium is developed (postal system, phones, email, the web) people try to act like none of the old rules apply. If you're allowed to build parts for Ford cars, you're going to be allowed to build clients and servers that interoperate with Blizzard's software. In the long run, society chooses low prices, in the mid-term we get laws like the DMCA and UCITA that were inspired by crack. Nobody is going to accept post-sale contracts, as the UCITA would make binding. We just haven't had a big enough company (deep pockets) get bit by one yet.
Hey, there's an idea. Larry Ellison purportedly hates Bill Gates. Oracle is almost exclusively sold via specific purchase contracts and as such, doesn't need a EULA. Windows on the other hand is sold almost exclusively at retail with the appearance of a purchase and comes with a EULA. Larry just needs to run afoul of someone's EULA and push the case all the way, therein destroying a legal loophole that will cost Microsoft dearly. Everyone loves destroying markets they don't compete in but that competitors do.
I agree re: the indemnification. Anyone hurt by the exploding chainsaw can sue the maker. But not for selling a dangerous product without warning.
Similarly, I agree about your assessment of the details (unable to modify and pass off as original), etc.
But I don't think that's happening here. Someone is making a separate program which only knows how to snoop into other processes' memory. This is a debugger at this point and they're legal.
Then this program was given proprietary knowledge of memory locations in WoW.exe (or whatever...) that you can change to elicit certain behavior. This is a Game Genie and they're legal.
Selling copyrighted works, even modified, is legal. Look at signed editions for the basic proof. You could buy Playboy magazines and spend time gluing construction paper over all the naughty bits and blacking out the bad words. You couldn't sell this as an unmodified Playboy magazine (as you couldn't misrepresent any product you sold) but could still sell it either as-is (books a kid has colored in, or a pet chewed, are legal to sell despite being "modified") or specifically mention it as a service to people who want to prove they only read it for the articles. Representation is important - if you appear to be a new book store and sell sneakily modified copies you're probably tricking your customers. At a yard sale, you'd better count the pieces yourself and check that all the pages are there before buying because it's understood to be "as is".
IMHO, Blizzard's only legit way to combat this would be for violation of the acceptable use policy in their contract. The EULA on the software is void as usual since you bought it outright, but the contract you agree to when buying server access is binding.
Yes, unfortunately for them, that means going after the customers directly which would be harder. It's what they should be doing though. The customers continually agree to acceptable use policies when they buy more time, and are the only ones responsible for their use of the program. As was said, they just think it'd be cheaper to drive the guy out of business than deal with all the users, despite the lack of legal and moral footing.
No, a game that *makes* you grind isn't a good game.
You may like doing some of it, but then it's not making you. When the game makes you find rare drops or kill thousands of identical monsters to go up levels it's because they have a terrible lack of content. (You know, the game says 100+ hours of gameplay but they're all nearly identical, fighting the same sprite just with different colors. Diablo for example.)
As for the steroids, if I wanted to accomplish a physical task that I wasn't suited for and pills would safely get me there why the hell wouldn't I?
I think what you're missing (Blizzard isn't - they know this and are hoping nobody else realizes it) is that you own WoW. Not just the CD, but the right to use the content. There's no acceptable use policy on things you own.
They should be able to choose who uses their network, for nearly any reason like a private club would. But not to dictate what actions you can take with your own property, on your own property.
Embezzling is theft and totally unrelated to any of this, except perhaps Blizzard's attempt to control things they've sold.
And before that (and still ongoing) is paying off stations to play the music the studios want, not whatever the station wanted.
Controlling retail channels was the scummiest. I don't care if you sell anything, but don't specifically handicap my ability to sell a competing product. There's competition and there's abuse of monopoly.
The fact that other scum suckers will try to copy anything (see spam and 419 scams) doesn't mean it's a societally accepted norm.
Sell something at a garage sale, then as someone's walking away hand them the EULA and explain how they can't modify it, study it, get a third-party to fix it, etc.
You'll be laughed at.
There are two types protection schemes, the one the DMCA covers about access controls to copyrighted works, and obfuscated network protocols designed to prevent legal interoperation.
It's not legal for your car company to deny your warranty coverage (or anything else) for using third-party parts, as long as those parts meet the specs required. Designing one thing to work with another, or fix a problem with it (and yes, having to grind is a problem) has always been legal.
This is just an attempt by people who understand the spirit of the law to twist protection for anti-piracy measures into supporting draconian restrictions on people's property post-sale.
And with the way everyone on TV waves a gun around, I can see why people aren't properly wary of them. The good guys get shot and survive, the bad guys fall over with a few little red dots on them, and everyone is happy.
Well, a game that makes you grind to get stuff that would make the game fun isn't a good game. At that, I'd suggest that the bots are the best indication of a shitty game. If it can be automated it's not very interesting.
You're a lost cause for saying people "deserve" high-level characters if they do the right things. That leads to being upset at people who don't deserve theirs because they did the wrong things. It's a game. If there's a right way to play it chances are you're a fascist.
I used to play god-mode quake with people. Only falling off the level hurt. Totally a cheat, but great fun. But many people are against even that sort of cheating, because it's not how the game was sold. Well tough, it's how I enjoy playing.
Personally I think you should be able to log into WoW and make a top-level character with all the loot. What could you do with it? Anything a 'real' character could. What would keep everyone from doing this? The ability to have a few characters, and the availability of content at other power levels. Sometimes nukes are fun, sometimes dull knives. Would my being 70th level affect your ability to go into a dungeon (of any level)?
You should lobby game makers to have non-crappy games, with monsters everywhere, where camping isn't required to get rare spawns, etc.
I was meaning something below the level of patentability.
You know a pass-through (glassless window) between the kitchen and dining room? What if you were the first person to design this, or these days, to chop out the entire wall to open up the area? It's not technological, and can be described easily to your builder who could do the same, and can be varied any number of ways while still serving the same purpose. I don't think there are any protections that cover this sort of thing.
My point was that it could end up being a society changing feature, but that because it doesn't meet the standard for copyright or patent (trademarks not really being relevant in this case) you wouldn't get a monopoly. Someone was saying that we need copyrights/patents to spur innovation - my point was that they are tangentially related to rewarding innovation and societal advances.
This to illustrate my claim that we don't give these out to help the world or encourage invention (or we'd give them to people who do neat things, without restrictions on what accomplishments can be rewarded). Clearly they're just a bone to people doing specific things, in specific industries. Arbitrary as I said. Corporate welfare for the industries with lobbyists.
Re: architectural works, it seems like you should be able to tour a building with a copyrighted design while taking detailed notes to have your architect design someone exceedingly similar. Like reading LotR and saying "Small weak hero, king of dying race, elves, unspeakable evil in attractive wearable form, etc..." to a ghost-writer who creates something with the same essential elements.
The way to handle in-game stuff is simply to give everyone everything they want. Then make it a role-playing server and gently encourage people to play something other than an uberninja. Don't enable PvP, or make it optional, and these people aren't any trouble to anyone else. Without rare items there wouldn't be camping, so another whole area of nonsense goes away.
I personally enjoy tactical combat games, even if I get to stage the fight beforehand. Especially, in fact - that way I know it'll be challenging. That may be one Chuck Norris vs thousands of bad guys, or versus a few ninjas, or maybe a "level 1 farm boy" versus a sick Orc.
People who want to lord things over other people won't play this or will always be at top level afraid to adventure and muss their hair, those who want good action will make a character of whatever level is suitable for the quest at hand and proceed.
Saying "This is a chainsaw, it will hurt you" does exempt you from charges that you sold an unsafe product to an unwary public. At this point, users of the chainsaws get sued for their actions instead of the company. Not always, but that's a failing of our legal system. He's telling people that while the program is legal Blizzard does not like it, or people who run it. It shows that the actions taken are the intent of the users and not a consequence of the software.
Further, the copyright claim is bullshit. Modifications to copyrighted works aren't protected (not talking creating derivative works). If you scribble in your textbook, or rip a phone book in half it's not a copyright violation.
Nor is it illegal to refer to a copyrighted work in detail. Many companion books (not authorized by the publisher of the other book) refer to page and line numbers, commenting on the work and offering alternative text, critique, study questions, etc.
This program is just an automated way for someone to modify something they have the right to modify. It's like a program to scribble out bad words in the newspaper before you read it. If it's used on a newspaper you signed a contract to not modify (as Blizzard states is the case) then you may have problems with that party, but not the publisher of the newspaper.
There's a specific clause in US copyright that allows for copies of software to be made as long as they are required for the normal use of the program. If your software by default runs off of CD copying to the HD wouldn't be allowed (unless the OS did it, or it was normal for caching, etc) but copies to RAM are essential, so they'd be okay.
If you sell a program that needs to be copied to the HD you're obviously giving someone permission to do that, or your software wouldn't be fit for the purpose it was sold...
Yeah, I was playing in the free two weeks. I'd just gotten into a big battle when something broke or spilled, anyways I stopped playing to help clean up and when I got back my ship was gone and I was floating in space. If this was a single-player game I'd just load the old save game and jump back in. Instead, I had 10+ hours of grinding ahead to get the money for the ship again... I stopped playing and never went back.
It's a special kind of person that needs an MMO. They need to be craving the self esteem that a repetitive easy grind gives them, and not know that single-player game can let them play the bit they want instead of the boring crap.
I love Quake for this, the 'cheat' codes to play a given level are unobfuscated, as are the commands to give yourself arms, armor, etc. Because of this I can jump into any part of the game I enjoyed and replay it, with whatever items I want to have, over and over again.
Racing games are the worst. They've got a picture of a hot car on the box, but you don't get anything better than Volkswagens to drive until you 'unlock' the better cars and courses. Ugh. Play the whole game multiple times just to eventually get to play it the way I want. I don't bother buying games until there are working NoCD cracks and trainers that unlock the thing... I've only got so many hours, if your game can't hold my attention at all phases I'm not going to play it./rant
One, sex ed should be introduced young. Kids won't be interested in all the squicky pink stuff, but they should know that babies grow in mothers and that fathers are essential in this biologically. Also that it feels good (the answer for why someone would do something icky like touch a girl).
But sex mostly just leads to more kids, dangerous tools lead to less kids.
As such, your kids need gun, cleaning products, knife, hot-water, stove, and other such training. They should definitely be taught safety around tools. Even if they don't shoot they may be around a policeman during a robbery and need to know when to hit the ground.
As for TV, if you think it's teaching your kids, you're right - to be like you.
At my house we had a couple hunting rifles (bear territory, and just how it is in the country) and I was far more responsible around guns than most kids my age, many of whom were city kids without the same background.
Parents without guns may not have their children find their guns, but if their children find *any* guns they'll have a problem. Our guns weren't locked (that wouldn't be useful if the was a bear in the apple trees) but because of training I would have been safe if I found a gun at someone else's house too.
Guns weren't fun, they were work like any other piece of farm equipment, many of which were just as deadly if used incorrectly. My friends who didn't get that background aren't half as safe. (They don't tie their hair back when near machinery, watch for loose clothing, stand out of the likely unsafe areas, put a brace under a car instead of just a jack, etc.) Similarly I grew up helping my dad blast, through solid rock for our well, and giant stumps to save our backs. I helped plan, dig/drill holes, and clean up after the blast. As such, I've never had a firecracker go off anywhere near me. Friends, again without this background, hold and throw fireworks as if fast-burning fuses never happen...
I don't own a gun, nor dynamite, but knowing how to use both has probably kept me from risking life and limb on other things. (Power tools, welding/cutting tools, nail guns, and construction machinery.)
If you start at that age they'll understand. If you wait till they'd understand better you'll just keep waiting. After all, at 9-10 they're in school and that'd be a bad time to let them play with guns. And teenagers are notoriously unstable. People in their early 20s are often on drinking binges because of parents who didn't let them drink, so they're not a good risk. If you wait for them to be wise before educating them you'll have to wait a while.
Yes, because when being held at gunpoint by someone standing 5m away it's trivial to reach under your coat and pull your doll, putting the fear of plastic into him. Barbies work best - those little feet are sharp!
Tazers though. If you're willing to shoot someone you should be willing to zap them, and it probably won't kill them instead of probably will...
It's sort of like the QA process, identifying edge cases. You follow the routine through enough to get a rough idea of what it does with standard input.
Then you vary the inputs looking to trigger new code paths, usually by reverse engineering from the branches that aren't taken.
We're talking about an algorithm here. Not the specific code, but the process the program takes to do something. When you can see the data at every stage it's pretty easy to understand what's going on. Nothing on your computer (short of Palladium and such) is really hidden.
For online games or such, you'd play the game while snapshotting memory every so often, waiting to trigger the algorithm you were interested in. Just record whatever external things are going on then that the program could want to check (watch and see, record again with more info) and feed them back like a testing mock.
I was meaning features like a porch, or open kitchen, etc. The implementation of these is protected but the general idea should not be.
You could design a low-end house and have copyright protection. However, if you designed the best layout ever and optimized traffic flow, even if it revolutionized house layouts, you wouldn't get any monopoly rights or rewards.
I mainly meant this to illustrate that we don't grant these rights to encourage creation, or we'd give them for actual creations and revolutionary ideas. It's just arbitrary welfare to some industries.
btw, what is the standard for derivative works in architecture?
It isn't that hard to go from a stripped executable to an algorithm.
First, most debuggers support anti-anti-debugging tricks, to be able to watch even 'protected' software execute, like game copy protection, etc. This means there usually are no technical hurdles in your way.
Then it's simply a matter of finding the last time before the algorithm is called and the first time after it is. That'll be a finite amount of program and you 'merely' have to go through it. You know what data it needs (the raw data) and the output. Put a watch on the data, and on where it'll store the result.
If a computer can do it, a computer can watch it being done. Any number of times, identically, which helps.
How about, whatever people will pay for it? I have no problem with the idea of authors getting paid.
But how about we find a way to do it that doesn't grant anyone monopoly rights over certain words. A way that doesn't necessitate the creation of DRM, or the DMCA to punish those who tinker. Ideally a way where nobody who wanted to access a work was ever denied.
I don't want it to be illegal to show someone a book I'm reading, even if that means sending a PDF to my friend around the world. Books and other knowledge are, in the end, only useful when shared and copyright is about restricting our ability to do so.
Sorry, I don't believe in restricting information to promote information.
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What 'Blizzard' industry? It's an online gaming industry that Blizzard participates in like Ford participates in the auto industry.
There are server browsers (game launchers) that support talking to many different online multiplayer games to read their stats. Anything that makes emulating a server illegal should prevent these to. Nobody seems to think they're in any trouble, as they're about the same as third-party admin tools for Windows.
A third party game server would be a good idea for a company that wants to make their own MMO without the overhead of producing a client. They wouldn't need the content on the server side, and the clients own their copies of the WoW data and can use it largely as they wish, within the context of playing a game.
If you own the disc you must own the content. It's that simple. You don't own its copyright, but you don't need to. 17 USC 117
(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.-- Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:
(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner The idea that running a computer program required a license came from the fact that the program is copied in RAM while in use. This is obviously unreasonable, as products which are sold must be fit for the use to which they are sold, and software that you weren't allowed to use wouldn't be fit for sale. But, in the spirit of writing more laws, explicit permission was granted to copy software (as is essential for utilization) without a license of other form of permission.
EULAs require modifying a deal (sale) after the fact, without permission of both parties. If contracts could be modified like this they wouldn't be much good. Further, they purport to give you something (a right to use the software) which you already have, as you already have this right the EULA would give you nothing and is thus not a valid contract.
Yes, because letting car companies make third-party parts has sure hurt the auto industry... Ditto phones, computers, etc.
Eventually someone will win the battle and sell a for-profit server or client for WoW or similar. It's legal to reverse engineer to make IM clients work, so people will eventually realize that it's legal elsewhere.
Cheating likely violated the AUP they agree to when buying time though. They have a way to stop cheaters, but are too cheap to use it. They decided to sue the innocent guy because there's only one trial that way.
Yes, totally expected.
That makes it acceptable?
Our society's got this brain-damaged welfare-for-companies view that if you do something to threaten someone's profits, that they have a right to sue you.
If someone can produce the service cheaper than them it's a net win to the economy. It's called competition and it drives down prices. We have laws that allow anyone to implement certain interfaces (can't stop knockoff car parts, or third-party virus scanners, for example).
Every time a new medium is developed (postal system, phones, email, the web) people try to act like none of the old rules apply. If you're allowed to build parts for Ford cars, you're going to be allowed to build clients and servers that interoperate with Blizzard's software. In the long run, society chooses low prices, in the mid-term we get laws like the DMCA and UCITA that were inspired by crack. Nobody is going to accept post-sale contracts, as the UCITA would make binding. We just haven't had a big enough company (deep pockets) get bit by one yet.
Hey, there's an idea. Larry Ellison purportedly hates Bill Gates. Oracle is almost exclusively sold via specific purchase contracts and as such, doesn't need a EULA. Windows on the other hand is sold almost exclusively at retail with the appearance of a purchase and comes with a EULA. Larry just needs to run afoul of someone's EULA and push the case all the way, therein destroying a legal loophole that will cost Microsoft dearly. Everyone loves destroying markets they don't compete in but that competitors do.
I agree re: the indemnification. Anyone hurt by the exploding chainsaw can sue the maker. But not for selling a dangerous product without warning.
Similarly, I agree about your assessment of the details (unable to modify and pass off as original), etc.
But I don't think that's happening here. Someone is making a separate program which only knows how to snoop into other processes' memory. This is a debugger at this point and they're legal.
Then this program was given proprietary knowledge of memory locations in WoW.exe (or whatever...) that you can change to elicit certain behavior. This is a Game Genie and they're legal.
Selling copyrighted works, even modified, is legal. Look at signed editions for the basic proof. You could buy Playboy magazines and spend time gluing construction paper over all the naughty bits and blacking out the bad words. You couldn't sell this as an unmodified Playboy magazine (as you couldn't misrepresent any product you sold) but could still sell it either as-is (books a kid has colored in, or a pet chewed, are legal to sell despite being "modified") or specifically mention it as a service to people who want to prove they only read it for the articles. Representation is important - if you appear to be a new book store and sell sneakily modified copies you're probably tricking your customers. At a yard sale, you'd better count the pieces yourself and check that all the pages are there before buying because it's understood to be "as is".
IMHO, Blizzard's only legit way to combat this would be for violation of the acceptable use policy in their contract. The EULA on the software is void as usual since you bought it outright, but the contract you agree to when buying server access is binding.
Yes, unfortunately for them, that means going after the customers directly which would be harder. It's what they should be doing though. The customers continually agree to acceptable use policies when they buy more time, and are the only ones responsible for their use of the program. As was said, they just think it'd be cheaper to drive the guy out of business than deal with all the users, despite the lack of legal and moral footing.
No, a game that *makes* you grind isn't a good game.
You may like doing some of it, but then it's not making you. When the game makes you find rare drops or kill thousands of identical monsters to go up levels it's because they have a terrible lack of content. (You know, the game says 100+ hours of gameplay but they're all nearly identical, fighting the same sprite just with different colors. Diablo for example.)
As for the steroids, if I wanted to accomplish a physical task that I wasn't suited for and pills would safely get me there why the hell wouldn't I?
I think what you're missing (Blizzard isn't - they know this and are hoping nobody else realizes it) is that you own WoW. Not just the CD, but the right to use the content. There's no acceptable use policy on things you own.
They should be able to choose who uses their network, for nearly any reason like a private club would. But not to dictate what actions you can take with your own property, on your own property.
Embezzling is theft and totally unrelated to any of this, except perhaps Blizzard's attempt to control things they've sold.
And before that (and still ongoing) is paying off stations to play the music the studios want, not whatever the station wanted.
Controlling retail channels was the scummiest. I don't care if you sell anything, but don't specifically handicap my ability to sell a competing product. There's competition and there's abuse of monopoly.
The fact that other scum suckers will try to copy anything (see spam and 419 scams) doesn't mean it's a societally accepted norm.
Sell something at a garage sale, then as someone's walking away hand them the EULA and explain how they can't modify it, study it, get a third-party to fix it, etc.
You'll be laughed at.
There are two types protection schemes, the one the DMCA covers about access controls to copyrighted works, and obfuscated network protocols designed to prevent legal interoperation.
It's not legal for your car company to deny your warranty coverage (or anything else) for using third-party parts, as long as those parts meet the specs required. Designing one thing to work with another, or fix a problem with it (and yes, having to grind is a problem) has always been legal.
This is just an attempt by people who understand the spirit of the law to twist protection for anti-piracy measures into supporting draconian restrictions on people's property post-sale.
Exactly.
And with the way everyone on TV waves a gun around, I can see why people aren't properly wary of them. The good guys get shot and survive, the bad guys fall over with a few little red dots on them, and everyone is happy.
A description of someone finding their friend's parent's gun
Well, a game that makes you grind to get stuff that would make the game fun isn't a good game. At that, I'd suggest that the bots are the best indication of a shitty game. If it can be automated it's not very interesting.
You're a lost cause for saying people "deserve" high-level characters if they do the right things. That leads to being upset at people who don't deserve theirs because they did the wrong things. It's a game. If there's a right way to play it chances are you're a fascist.
I used to play god-mode quake with people. Only falling off the level hurt. Totally a cheat, but great fun. But many people are against even that sort of cheating, because it's not how the game was sold. Well tough, it's how I enjoy playing.
Personally I think you should be able to log into WoW and make a top-level character with all the loot. What could you do with it? Anything a 'real' character could. What would keep everyone from doing this? The ability to have a few characters, and the availability of content at other power levels. Sometimes nukes are fun, sometimes dull knives. Would my being 70th level affect your ability to go into a dungeon (of any level)?
You should lobby game makers to have non-crappy games, with monsters everywhere, where camping isn't required to get rare spawns, etc.
I was meaning something below the level of patentability.
You know a pass-through (glassless window) between the kitchen and dining room? What if you were the first person to design this, or these days, to chop out the entire wall to open up the area? It's not technological, and can be described easily to your builder who could do the same, and can be varied any number of ways while still serving the same purpose. I don't think there are any protections that cover this sort of thing.
My point was that it could end up being a society changing feature, but that because it doesn't meet the standard for copyright or patent (trademarks not really being relevant in this case) you wouldn't get a monopoly. Someone was saying that we need copyrights/patents to spur innovation - my point was that they are tangentially related to rewarding innovation and societal advances.
This to illustrate my claim that we don't give these out to help the world or encourage invention (or we'd give them to people who do neat things, without restrictions on what accomplishments can be rewarded). Clearly they're just a bone to people doing specific things, in specific industries. Arbitrary as I said. Corporate welfare for the industries with lobbyists.
Re: architectural works, it seems like you should be able to tour a building with a copyrighted design while taking detailed notes to have your architect design someone exceedingly similar. Like reading LotR and saying "Small weak hero, king of dying race, elves, unspeakable evil in attractive wearable form, etc..." to a ghost-writer who creates something with the same essential elements.
They *did* act outside the norm.
They created a product and sold it, THEN tried to exert control over it.
They should be able to block accounts (with proof, or risk being sued themselves) but not to object to what someone does to a product they own.
The way to handle in-game stuff is simply to give everyone everything they want. Then make it a role-playing server and gently encourage people to play something other than an uberninja. Don't enable PvP, or make it optional, and these people aren't any trouble to anyone else. Without rare items there wouldn't be camping, so another whole area of nonsense goes away.
I personally enjoy tactical combat games, even if I get to stage the fight beforehand. Especially, in fact - that way I know it'll be challenging. That may be one Chuck Norris vs thousands of bad guys, or versus a few ninjas, or maybe a "level 1 farm boy" versus a sick Orc.
People who want to lord things over other people won't play this or will always be at top level afraid to adventure and muss their hair, those who want good action will make a character of whatever level is suitable for the quest at hand and proceed.
Saying "This is a chainsaw, it will hurt you" does exempt you from charges that you sold an unsafe product to an unwary public. At this point, users of the chainsaws get sued for their actions instead of the company. Not always, but that's a failing of our legal system. He's telling people that while the program is legal Blizzard does not like it, or people who run it. It shows that the actions taken are the intent of the users and not a consequence of the software.
Further, the copyright claim is bullshit. Modifications to copyrighted works aren't protected (not talking creating derivative works). If you scribble in your textbook, or rip a phone book in half it's not a copyright violation.
Nor is it illegal to refer to a copyrighted work in detail. Many companion books (not authorized by the publisher of the other book) refer to page and line numbers, commenting on the work and offering alternative text, critique, study questions, etc.
This program is just an automated way for someone to modify something they have the right to modify. It's like a program to scribble out bad words in the newspaper before you read it. If it's used on a newspaper you signed a contract to not modify (as Blizzard states is the case) then you may have problems with that party, but not the publisher of the newspaper.
Correct.
There's a specific clause in US copyright that allows for copies of software to be made as long as they are required for the normal use of the program. If your software by default runs off of CD copying to the HD wouldn't be allowed (unless the OS did it, or it was normal for caching, etc) but copies to RAM are essential, so they'd be okay.
If you sell a program that needs to be copied to the HD you're obviously giving someone permission to do that, or your software wouldn't be fit for the purpose it was sold...
Yeah, I was playing in the free two weeks. I'd just gotten into a big battle when something broke or spilled, anyways I stopped playing to help clean up and when I got back my ship was gone and I was floating in space. If this was a single-player game I'd just load the old save game and jump back in. Instead, I had 10+ hours of grinding ahead to get the money for the ship again... I stopped playing and never went back.
/rant
It's a special kind of person that needs an MMO. They need to be craving the self esteem that a repetitive easy grind gives them, and not know that single-player game can let them play the bit they want instead of the boring crap.
I love Quake for this, the 'cheat' codes to play a given level are unobfuscated, as are the commands to give yourself arms, armor, etc. Because of this I can jump into any part of the game I enjoyed and replay it, with whatever items I want to have, over and over again.
Racing games are the worst. They've got a picture of a hot car on the box, but you don't get anything better than Volkswagens to drive until you 'unlock' the better cars and courses. Ugh. Play the whole game multiple times just to eventually get to play it the way I want. I don't bother buying games until there are working NoCD cracks and trainers that unlock the thing... I've only got so many hours, if your game can't hold my attention at all phases I'm not going to play it.
Wah. Someone doesn't want to play the same game you do. Boohoo.
Does it stop you from playing the game? Not even one fucking iota.
"Deserve" a high-level character?!? Worked hard to achieve? You're a lost cause.
One, sex ed should be introduced young. Kids won't be interested in all the squicky pink stuff, but they should know that babies grow in mothers and that fathers are essential in this biologically. Also that it feels good (the answer for why someone would do something icky like touch a girl).
But sex mostly just leads to more kids, dangerous tools lead to less kids.
As such, your kids need gun, cleaning products, knife, hot-water, stove, and other such training. They should definitely be taught safety around tools. Even if they don't shoot they may be around a policeman during a robbery and need to know when to hit the ground.
As for TV, if you think it's teaching your kids, you're right - to be like you.
At my house we had a couple hunting rifles (bear territory, and just how it is in the country) and I was far more responsible around guns than most kids my age, many of whom were city kids without the same background.
Parents without guns may not have their children find their guns, but if their children find *any* guns they'll have a problem. Our guns weren't locked (that wouldn't be useful if the was a bear in the apple trees) but because of training I would have been safe if I found a gun at someone else's house too.
Guns weren't fun, they were work like any other piece of farm equipment, many of which were just as deadly if used incorrectly. My friends who didn't get that background aren't half as safe. (They don't tie their hair back when near machinery, watch for loose clothing, stand out of the likely unsafe areas, put a brace under a car instead of just a jack, etc.) Similarly I grew up helping my dad blast, through solid rock for our well, and giant stumps to save our backs. I helped plan, dig/drill holes, and clean up after the blast. As such, I've never had a firecracker go off anywhere near me. Friends, again without this background, hold and throw fireworks as if fast-burning fuses never happen...
I don't own a gun, nor dynamite, but knowing how to use both has probably kept me from risking life and limb on other things. (Power tools, welding/cutting tools, nail guns, and construction machinery.)
That would be why you teach them...
If you start at that age they'll understand. If you wait till they'd understand better you'll just keep waiting. After all, at 9-10 they're in school and that'd be a bad time to let them play with guns. And teenagers are notoriously unstable. People in their early 20s are often on drinking binges because of parents who didn't let them drink, so they're not a good risk. If you wait for them to be wise before educating them you'll have to wait a while.
Yes, because when being held at gunpoint by someone standing 5m away it's trivial to reach under your coat and pull your doll, putting the fear of plastic into him. Barbies work best - those little feet are sharp!
Tazers though. If you're willing to shoot someone you should be willing to zap them, and it probably won't kill them instead of probably will...
It's sort of like the QA process, identifying edge cases. You follow the routine through enough to get a rough idea of what it does with standard input.
Then you vary the inputs looking to trigger new code paths, usually by reverse engineering from the branches that aren't taken.
We're talking about an algorithm here. Not the specific code, but the process the program takes to do something. When you can see the data at every stage it's pretty easy to understand what's going on. Nothing on your computer (short of Palladium and such) is really hidden.
For online games or such, you'd play the game while snapshotting memory every so often, waiting to trigger the algorithm you were interested in. Just record whatever external things are going on then that the program could want to check (watch and see, record again with more info) and feed them back like a testing mock.
I was meaning features like a porch, or open kitchen, etc. The implementation of these is protected but the general idea should not be.
You could design a low-end house and have copyright protection. However, if you designed the best layout ever and optimized traffic flow, even if it revolutionized house layouts, you wouldn't get any monopoly rights or rewards.
I mainly meant this to illustrate that we don't grant these rights to encourage creation, or we'd give them for actual creations and revolutionary ideas. It's just arbitrary welfare to some industries.
btw, what is the standard for derivative works in architecture?
It isn't that hard to go from a stripped executable to an algorithm.
First, most debuggers support anti-anti-debugging tricks, to be able to watch even 'protected' software execute, like game copy protection, etc. This means there usually are no technical hurdles in your way.
Then it's simply a matter of finding the last time before the algorithm is called and the first time after it is. That'll be a finite amount of program and you 'merely' have to go through it. You know what data it needs (the raw data) and the output. Put a watch on the data, and on where it'll store the result.
If a computer can do it, a computer can watch it being done. Any number of times, identically, which helps.
How about, whatever people will pay for it? I have no problem with the idea of authors getting paid.
But how about we find a way to do it that doesn't grant anyone monopoly rights over certain words. A way that doesn't necessitate the creation of DRM, or the DMCA to punish those who tinker. Ideally a way where nobody who wanted to access a work was ever denied.
I don't want it to be illegal to show someone a book I'm reading, even if that means sending a PDF to my friend around the world. Books and other knowledge are, in the end, only useful when shared and copyright is about restricting our ability to do so.
Sorry, I don't believe in restricting information to promote information.