The law is far from black and white, otherwise lawyers would be out of business.:)
In this case, however, there is a slight difference. In the MDY vs. Blizzard case, it was established that Warden was a measure used to protect intellectual property (Allowing or disallowing access to it based on a certain set of conditions), which was then circumvented, changed by the owner and then circumvented again. This is a pretty clear-cut violation of section A.
I'm not as familiar with the Lexmark case, and unfortunately don't have time to read it in-depth at the moment from the Ars link you provided. However, as I understand it from a brief overview, Lexmark couldn't clain that the ink loading program was blocking access to the printing engine because the printing engine's entire code was loaded into local memory -- you were buying the printer, which came with the engine, and the ink loading code simply was a method to access it.
If you were to modify the Blizzard case into the same situation as the Lexmark case, it would have to be something more along the lines of WoW being a single-player game, with all the data, scripts, interactions, dungeons, maps and situations loaded into the local memory, and WoW being a Client that only reads that data (with Warden just being the connector between the client and the "gameplay experience". If Glider offered another way to access this data and play the game in this way, duplicating the functionality of the client, there wouldn't be a case. How do I know? Because it's was actually explained as such in the case briefing, with specific wording to say that the court didn't find access to on-drive materials, objects, models etc in this way a violation of said law (Blizzard originally claimed this, if I recall, but dropped that claim when the court found against it -- I think specifically citing the Lexmark case, though I may be mis-remembering that particular detail).
Sure, you can argue interpretation, but that's the judges' job. Reading through the actual briefing, he was very clear in exactly why the law applied in this case as opposed to other cases. They proved that the work was protected under 17 USC 1201 (as in the Lexmark Case, where they proved that the engine was copyrighted work), they proved that Warden was designed to protect that copyrighted, on-server work from unauthorized access (As I understand it, unlike the ink loading program, which was deemed a method of access to engine code that was purchased with the printer where fair use applied -- please correct me if I'm wrong there). They showed that Blizzard's terms of service revoked the right of access to anyone that used Bots, and that you may be buying the software and objects on your local machine, you are buying ACCESS to the server "gameplay experience". They then proved that Glider was not only designed to circumvent that protection, but then knowingly (through discovery) was changed to circumvent it again once Warden was changed to protect against Glider (that part is one of the key points of the DMCA portion of the case), and therefore Glider violated that section DMCA.
Arguing against it using interpretation is like arguing that 2+2=5 because you interpret 2 as 2.5. It's probably not going to get you too far.:) You may not like it, but it's hard to form a coherent argument against that specific reasoning.
As posted elsewhere in the thread (emphasis added):
17 USC 1201
(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that-- (A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;
(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or
(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
Warden controls access to the online portion of WoW (a copyrighted work) by checking to see if cheat programs are running and refusing access to WoW if it detects any. Glider is such a program that has, in the past, been blocked by Warden. Glider was updated to circumvent this access control.
Much of the DMCA portion of the case revolved around whether Blizzard's WoW was protected by this law. The court found that it was in the same way (essentially) as artistic license.
Perhaps if it was just the once. But, you're going to go for an argument in court that says that not only was your brother/sister/nephew/cousin clicked the agreement there, but also signed up for the account for you and agreed to the ToS there, pays your credit card bill every month (or buys you time cards) with the ToS agreed to, and was there to click the "agree" button every time a patch came up?
But the issue here is not so much that each individual user agreed to the contract (I suppose MDY could fight individually for each user that used Glider did not "see" the EULA, and the EULA warning that the CEO gave on his website that bots are not allowed by the ToS), but that MDY provided a method to circumvent the contract between Blizzard and Player. That's covered in tort law, if I'm correct (but IANAL).
I wasn't aware that slashdot postings needed to follow proper APA citation formatting standards, being that it's SLASHDOT, and that it's generally bitched about on here how Microsoft ToS and EULAS are legally binding contracts. However, since you asked so lazily:
When Donnelly first introduced Glider, he read the Blizzard End User License
Agreement ("EULA") and Terms of Use Agreement ("TOU"). These contracts did not at the
time expressly prohibit bots. They did prohibit cheats and hacks, but Donnelly did not view
Glider as a cheat or a hack because it did not modify any WoW code. By November of 2005,
however, Donnelly understood that the use of Glider by his customers was a breach of their
contracts with Blizzard.
Page 14-15:
To establish MDY's liability for tortious interference, Blizzard was required to prove
that (1) a valid contractual relationship existed between Blizzard and its customers, (2) MDY
knew of the relationship, (3) MDY intentionally and improperly interfered in the relationship
and caused a breach or termination of the relationship, and (4) Blizzard was damaged as a result. See Antwerp Diamond Exch. of Am., Inc. v. Better Bus. Bur. of Maricopa County,
Inc., 637 P.2d 733, 740 (Ariz. 1981); Wagenseller v. Scottsdale Mem'l Hosp., 710 P.2d 1025,
1043 (Ariz. 1985) (en banc), superseded in other respects by A.R.S. 23-1501. The Court
found that each of these elements has been satisfied. See Dkt. #82 at 22-26.
For Donnelly to be personally liable for MDY's tortious interference, the Court
concludes that Donnelly must have known that MDY was engaging in tortious interference.
Donnelly does not dispute that a valid contractual relationship existed between Blizzard and
its customers. Donnelly clearly knew of the relationship - he read the contracts. Since at
least November 2005, Donnelly knew that MDY was intentionally interfering with that
contractual relationship by inducing its customers to breach the TOU. And, as the finding
of fact set forth above demonstrate, Blizzard has been damaged by Glider.
There are others in the briefing, I just thought those two were pretty blinding examples for those that can do a touch of research.
Bullshit. If Warden failed to detect ANY bots, despite being intended to do so, does that make ALL bots circumvention programs?
As the court finds it, if the bot is written and advertised to "remain undetected by Blizzard", and Warden, as a "reasonable measure of protection" (Again, as found by the court) is written to block it and it is changed specifically so that Warden can no longer see it, yes.
Blizzard is pretty specific in its ToS that no bots are allowed to be run to fully automate interaction with the game. Even their macro language is written so that timed events cannot be programmed directly in, and each action must have a specific keystroke to accompany it. Those rules are often bent, I think, by specific addons, but Glider took that to a whole new level, Blizzard decided that it wasn't allowed and blocked it, then glider changed so that it remained undetected and so Blizzard took them to court.
You may not like the decision, but that doesn't mean you can argue with what Blizzard states are the rules to play its game.
By breaking the terms of the ToS, under their contract with him Blizzard can only cut off his service and keep his money. They can't fine him $150,000 "per act of infringement", as is the case with the DMCA.
You know, it's funny.
I didn't read this anywhere in the actual legal briefing and the findings of the court (I tend to go to the source, rather than believe a compiled article -- looks like a good plan, in this case). The DMCA breaches were cited because of the way that MDY circumvented Warden(as established by the findings of the court, a measure of protection of intellectual property) to allow access to Blizzard's servers that were not with Blizzard's permission. I don't agree with the methods Blizzard used here entirely (IANAL -- but I do work for the court) but from what I read the court took an extensive look into the facts of the case and determined that it Glided DID, by the written wording of the DMCA, violate the DMCA's clause of reasonable protection to an electronic system.
The "fines" are based on civil liability for loss incurred by Blizzard (both quantifiable, such as tech time and development to code and change warden to detect glider, and unquantifiable, such as loss of customers and the over 500,000 complaints they received), as well as civil liability for violating tort law by helping customers of Blizzard break their contracts (the ToS). Yes, there are civil liabilities for this.
Whether or not you AGREE with the law has little impact as to whether it IS a law.
When you have a level 80 hunter and warrior and mage, you may find that you'd really like to try out a shaman but the prospect of running through the 1-60 quests for the fourth time can get wearying.
There are legal ways to do this, that are covered by the ToS. Blizzard has publicly stated that you can multibox characters (even two on the same machine), and even use the Refer-a-friend program.
Yes, this is my point exactly.
Having a script run it though,/target , wait 1ms, repeat; fire at if it comes up. It can respond FAR faster than a human, and can effectively keep a good number of mobs in an area tagged. In an area with a lower spawn rate or with multiple glider accounts keeping it clean, it can be very hard for a legitimate player to gather things (or mob kills) they need.
As was detailed in the case briefing, Warden was updated to detect glider specifically on two occasions, which MDY then changed so that Warden could no longer detect it.
Hard to argue that it just "remained undetected" when they actively had to change the software so that Warden could no longer detect it.
In addition, the court found that MDY had repeatedly advertised that their software circumvented protections.
The user-generated events are copyrighted (and by Blizzard?): wacked out.
I read through the legal briefing. While the line isn't clear on the "user experience" portion being copyrightable, I think that it mainly was alluding to the things that the server generates to interact with the players: Things such as gold amount given/collected, items dropped by monsters, etc. This was one of Blizzard's points in the claim (specifically); whether that will hold up in court as a "copyrightable" element remains to be seen by the 9th circuit court, apparently.
It might be along the lines of corporate logos: you can't copyright a few squares, but you CAN copyright the arrangement and colors of those squares. Blizzard wasn't contesting access to the material on a hard drive (they were at first, but then dropped that claim). The claim is that Glider circumvented Warden, which allowed or disallowed access to the copyrighted arrangements of objects in the virtual world based on data passed between warden and the servers. The briefing was pretty specific on this part.
Actually, no. The idea is that even if a guild got together and did this, it would be difficult to maintain 24 hours a day, 7 days a week -- and since even the best players are not perfect (unlike a well-coded bot) there would be the opportunity, if small, for an "outside" player to slip in and do some as well.
However, there are regularly "Chinese gold farmers" out there doing this manually, where someone hires legions of very, very low-paid people to sit and do this all day, wherein the "pit boss" usually turns around and sells the gold via spammers. This isn't allowed as again, it upsets the economy and selling gold for real money is against the ToS. It's also led to a huge amount of account hacking and compromises, which prompted Blizzard to make mails to every in-game character and a logon notice regarding keeping your account safe and not buying gold. I'm not sure what measures Blizzard has taken against gold farmers such as this though. I have noticed, however, the amount of level 1 characters with the name "sjduerlks" (etc) running into the capital cities to shout about gold selling and power-leveling services.
The (virtual) economy may be pathetic, but it is impacted by those who continually farm an area out of all resources and then become the only source of a resource on a server through the auction house. Glider enables a character to stay online, at all times, and keep an area wiped clean of any and all monsters/nodes/etc.
Some items are only dropped in one or two areas, which are easily covered by a couple of accounts running glider.
Obviously, you've never tried to farm anything yourself in an area that a glider player has been through, and had to resort to buying those stacks of rare materials on the auction house from said glider player.
Perhaps the game does suck, that's for the individual playing to evaluate. However, since those people who use the bot to cheat interact with (and gain advantages over) those that do not, it ruins the enjoyment of others that have purchased the product when the terms explicitly state that such cheating is not allowed.
See the Battlefield series.
If someone wants to cheat on a singleplayer game, more power to them. But doing it in an environment where others are playing reduces the value of others who abide by the terms of service.
Agreed with the idea of precedent set; however, I can think of multiple games that I've bought and played under the ToS, enjoyed them, and then watched that enjoyment disappear when the inevitable hackers came around and tipped the playing field to where nobody could play without the hacked software.
Feel free to go play on the Battlefield 2, Battlefield 2142, and Tribes 2 servers (even years ago) and you can see what I mean. MY enjoyment is ruined by bots that let people see and shoot through walls, with unlimited distance and automatic mouseover firing, all because they enjoy griefing others or claiming that they are the king of the hill.
Some were, but I believe the point is that some are/might be being held that are innocent, and we don't know because they have not been brought to trial.
What does it matter which court they are brought to justice in, as long as they are? If they've done something wrong, shouldn't that be brought about by evidence in trial?
I'm not sure that the goal is to give them access to our civilian courts, but to be tried in a court of law where they can mount a defense and the government can bring their evidence to bear, so that people who are being detained illegally get a fair trial. Can anyone really argue against that knowing that there might be people there that aren't involved... and stories that some were sold to military police? Why not have a neutral party (country) try these prisoners so that we can discover who belongs there?
While this doesn't detail the plight of a U.S. citizen, it does show that the United States' method of gathering prisoners after the 9/11 attacks isn't what would be called logical or fair.
It also shows that the U.S. has no compunctions about holding citizens of other westernized, ally nations even after being proven that they have no connections to Al Queda or any intelligence value:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/20/terror/main4110731.shtml
I didn't realize we had battles over simple brass horns..
All joking aside I think that the conflict results over whether one believes that the phrase "inalienable rights" means natural rights that every human has, or simply legal rights spelled out in a rule of law -- the difference between written rights and moral rights.
Morally, we should be treating everyone equally, regardless of how they treated us -- isn't that how the saying goes? That's not to say we cannot fight for our rights or well being, but that when given the choice between the moral high ground and gut reaction, shouldn't we rise above our base instincts?
ONE person puts out a paper and you equate it to "most people in the global warming camp"? Isn't that a logical fallacy (biased sample)?
And also, unlike iocaine powder, some conditions can't be adapted to -- such as CO2 or Methane Gas replacing air in an area (search for "Carbon Dioxide Lakes") or cyanide in your drinking water.
Slashdot Mirror
The law is far from black and white, otherwise lawyers would be out of business. :)
:) You may not like it, but it's hard to form a coherent argument against that specific reasoning.
In this case, however, there is a slight difference. In the MDY vs. Blizzard case, it was established that Warden was a measure used to protect intellectual property (Allowing or disallowing access to it based on a certain set of conditions), which was then circumvented, changed by the owner and then circumvented again. This is a pretty clear-cut violation of section A.
I'm not as familiar with the Lexmark case, and unfortunately don't have time to read it in-depth at the moment from the Ars link you provided. However, as I understand it from a brief overview, Lexmark couldn't clain that the ink loading program was blocking access to the printing engine because the printing engine's entire code was loaded into local memory -- you were buying the printer, which came with the engine, and the ink loading code simply was a method to access it.
If you were to modify the Blizzard case into the same situation as the Lexmark case, it would have to be something more along the lines of WoW being a single-player game, with all the data, scripts, interactions, dungeons, maps and situations loaded into the local memory, and WoW being a Client that only reads that data (with Warden just being the connector between the client and the "gameplay experience". If Glider offered another way to access this data and play the game in this way, duplicating the functionality of the client, there wouldn't be a case. How do I know? Because it's was actually explained as such in the case briefing, with specific wording to say that the court didn't find access to on-drive materials, objects, models etc in this way a violation of said law (Blizzard originally claimed this, if I recall, but dropped that claim when the court found against it -- I think specifically citing the Lexmark case, though I may be mis-remembering that particular detail).
Sure, you can argue interpretation, but that's the judges' job. Reading through the actual briefing, he was very clear in exactly why the law applied in this case as opposed to other cases. They proved that the work was protected under 17 USC 1201 (as in the Lexmark Case, where they proved that the engine was copyrighted work), they proved that Warden was designed to protect that copyrighted, on-server work from unauthorized access (As I understand it, unlike the ink loading program, which was deemed a method of access to engine code that was purchased with the printer where fair use applied -- please correct me if I'm wrong there). They showed that Blizzard's terms of service revoked the right of access to anyone that used Bots, and that you may be buying the software and objects on your local machine, you are buying ACCESS to the server "gameplay experience". They then proved that Glider was not only designed to circumvent that protection, but then knowingly (through discovery) was changed to circumvent it again once Warden was changed to protect against Glider (that part is one of the key points of the DMCA portion of the case), and therefore Glider violated that section DMCA.
Arguing against it using interpretation is like arguing that 2+2=5 because you interpret 2 as 2.5. It's probably not going to get you too far.
17 USC 1201
(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that--
(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;
(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or
(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
Warden controls access to the online portion of WoW (a copyrighted work) by checking to see if cheat programs are running and refusing access to WoW if it detects any. Glider is such a program that has, in the past, been blocked by Warden. Glider was updated to circumvent this access control.
Much of the DMCA portion of the case revolved around whether Blizzard's WoW was protected by this law. The court found that it was in the same way (essentially) as artistic license.
Perhaps if it was just the once. But, you're going to go for an argument in court that says that not only was your brother/sister/nephew/cousin clicked the agreement there, but also signed up for the account for you and agreed to the ToS there, pays your credit card bill every month (or buys you time cards) with the ToS agreed to, and was there to click the "agree" button every time a patch came up?
But the issue here is not so much that each individual user agreed to the contract (I suppose MDY could fight individually for each user that used Glider did not "see" the EULA, and the EULA warning that the CEO gave on his website that bots are not allowed by the ToS), but that MDY provided a method to circumvent the contract between Blizzard and Player. That's covered in tort law, if I'm correct (but IANAL).
Nor on mine... but it doesn't stop the n00bs from trying. :)
All references from http://www.mmoglider.com/Legal/trialorder_jan28.pdf.
Page 13:
When Donnelly first introduced Glider, he read the Blizzard End User License Agreement ("EULA") and Terms of Use Agreement ("TOU"). These contracts did not at the time expressly prohibit bots. They did prohibit cheats and hacks, but Donnelly did not view Glider as a cheat or a hack because it did not modify any WoW code. By November of 2005, however, Donnelly understood that the use of Glider by his customers was a breach of their contracts with Blizzard.
Page 14-15:
To establish MDY's liability for tortious interference, Blizzard was required to prove that (1) a valid contractual relationship existed between Blizzard and its customers, (2) MDY knew of the relationship, (3) MDY intentionally and improperly interfered in the relationship and caused a breach or termination of the relationship, and (4) Blizzard was damaged as a result. See Antwerp Diamond Exch. of Am., Inc. v. Better Bus. Bur. of Maricopa County, Inc., 637 P.2d 733, 740 (Ariz. 1981); Wagenseller v. Scottsdale Mem'l Hosp., 710 P.2d 1025, 1043 (Ariz. 1985) (en banc), superseded in other respects by A.R.S. 23-1501. The Court found that each of these elements has been satisfied. See Dkt. #82 at 22-26. For Donnelly to be personally liable for MDY's tortious interference, the Court concludes that Donnelly must have known that MDY was engaging in tortious interference. Donnelly does not dispute that a valid contractual relationship existed between Blizzard and its customers. Donnelly clearly knew of the relationship - he read the contracts. Since at least November 2005, Donnelly knew that MDY was intentionally interfering with that contractual relationship by inducing its customers to breach the TOU. And, as the finding of fact set forth above demonstrate, Blizzard has been damaged by Glider.
There are others in the briefing, I just thought those two were pretty blinding examples for those that can do a touch of research.
Bullshit. If Warden failed to detect ANY bots, despite being intended to do so, does that make ALL bots circumvention programs?
As the court finds it, if the bot is written and advertised to "remain undetected by Blizzard", and Warden, as a "reasonable measure of protection" (Again, as found by the court) is written to block it and it is changed specifically so that Warden can no longer see it, yes.
Blizzard is pretty specific in its ToS that no bots are allowed to be run to fully automate interaction with the game. Even their macro language is written so that timed events cannot be programmed directly in, and each action must have a specific keystroke to accompany it. Those rules are often bent, I think, by specific addons, but Glider took that to a whole new level, Blizzard decided that it wasn't allowed and blocked it, then glider changed so that it remained undetected and so Blizzard took them to court.
You may not like the decision, but that doesn't mean you can argue with what Blizzard states are the rules to play its game.
By breaking the terms of the ToS, under their contract with him Blizzard can only cut off his service and keep his money. They can't fine him $150,000 "per act of infringement", as is the case with the DMCA.
You know, it's funny.
I didn't read this anywhere in the actual legal briefing and the findings of the court (I tend to go to the source, rather than believe a compiled article -- looks like a good plan, in this case). The DMCA breaches were cited because of the way that MDY circumvented Warden(as established by the findings of the court, a measure of protection of intellectual property) to allow access to Blizzard's servers that were not with Blizzard's permission. I don't agree with the methods Blizzard used here entirely (IANAL -- but I do work for the court) but from what I read the court took an extensive look into the facts of the case and determined that it Glided DID, by the written wording of the DMCA, violate the DMCA's clause of reasonable protection to an electronic system.
The "fines" are based on civil liability for loss incurred by Blizzard (both quantifiable, such as tech time and development to code and change warden to detect glider, and unquantifiable, such as loss of customers and the over 500,000 complaints they received), as well as civil liability for violating tort law by helping customers of Blizzard break their contracts (the ToS). Yes, there are civil liabilities for this.
Whether or not you AGREE with the law has little impact as to whether it IS a law.
When you have a level 80 hunter and warrior and mage, you may find that you'd really like to try out a shaman but the prospect of running through the 1-60 quests for the fourth time can get wearying.
There are legal ways to do this, that are covered by the ToS. Blizzard has publicly stated that you can multibox characters (even two on the same machine), and even use the Refer-a-friend program.
Glider, by its very nature, is against the ToS.
Yes, this is my point exactly. Having a script run it though, /target , wait 1ms, repeat; fire at if it comes up. It can respond FAR faster than a human, and can effectively keep a good number of mobs in an area tagged. In an area with a lower spawn rate or with multiple glider accounts keeping it clean, it can be very hard for a legitimate player to gather things (or mob kills) they need.
Compared to other bots that inject themselves and patch out hack protection entirely? I'd say there's a big difference.
Method is highly irrelevant. Only the intentions and results matter in this application.
As was detailed in the case briefing, Warden was updated to detect glider specifically on two occasions, which MDY then changed so that Warden could no longer detect it.
Hard to argue that it just "remained undetected" when they actively had to change the software so that Warden could no longer detect it.
In addition, the court found that MDY had repeatedly advertised that their software circumvented protections.
The user-generated events are copyrighted (and by Blizzard?): wacked out.
I read through the legal briefing. While the line isn't clear on the "user experience" portion being copyrightable, I think that it mainly was alluding to the things that the server generates to interact with the players: Things such as gold amount given/collected, items dropped by monsters, etc. This was one of Blizzard's points in the claim (specifically); whether that will hold up in court as a "copyrightable" element remains to be seen by the 9th circuit court, apparently.
It might be along the lines of corporate logos: you can't copyright a few squares, but you CAN copyright the arrangement and colors of those squares. Blizzard wasn't contesting access to the material on a hard drive (they were at first, but then dropped that claim). The claim is that Glider circumvented Warden, which allowed or disallowed access to the copyrighted arrangements of objects in the virtual world based on data passed between warden and the servers. The briefing was pretty specific on this part.
So, you're contesting that ToS are not legally binding contracts, as cited in the court decision multiple times?
Of course, this would remove about 75% of WoW players in general: Prt 2 Org 1g? Tbl plz. Ned 1g. Can u rn me thru RFC? 10s
Actually, no. The idea is that even if a guild got together and did this, it would be difficult to maintain 24 hours a day, 7 days a week -- and since even the best players are not perfect (unlike a well-coded bot) there would be the opportunity, if small, for an "outside" player to slip in and do some as well.
However, there are regularly "Chinese gold farmers" out there doing this manually, where someone hires legions of very, very low-paid people to sit and do this all day, wherein the "pit boss" usually turns around and sells the gold via spammers. This isn't allowed as again, it upsets the economy and selling gold for real money is against the ToS. It's also led to a huge amount of account hacking and compromises, which prompted Blizzard to make mails to every in-game character and a logon notice regarding keeping your account safe and not buying gold. I'm not sure what measures Blizzard has taken against gold farmers such as this though. I have noticed, however, the amount of level 1 characters with the name "sjduerlks" (etc) running into the capital cities to shout about gold selling and power-leveling services.
The (virtual) economy may be pathetic, but it is impacted by those who continually farm an area out of all resources and then become the only source of a resource on a server through the auction house. Glider enables a character to stay online, at all times, and keep an area wiped clean of any and all monsters/nodes/etc.
Some items are only dropped in one or two areas, which are easily covered by a couple of accounts running glider.
Obviously, you've never tried to farm anything yourself in an area that a glider player has been through, and had to resort to buying those stacks of rare materials on the auction house from said glider player.
Perhaps the game does suck, that's for the individual playing to evaluate. However, since those people who use the bot to cheat interact with (and gain advantages over) those that do not, it ruins the enjoyment of others that have purchased the product when the terms explicitly state that such cheating is not allowed.
See the Battlefield series.
If someone wants to cheat on a singleplayer game, more power to them. But doing it in an environment where others are playing reduces the value of others who abide by the terms of service.
Agreed with the idea of precedent set; however, I can think of multiple games that I've bought and played under the ToS, enjoyed them, and then watched that enjoyment disappear when the inevitable hackers came around and tipped the playing field to where nobody could play without the hacked software.
Feel free to go play on the Battlefield 2, Battlefield 2142, and Tribes 2 servers (even years ago) and you can see what I mean. MY enjoyment is ruined by bots that let people see and shoot through walls, with unlimited distance and automatic mouseover firing, all because they enjoy griefing others or claiming that they are the king of the hill.
Yes, to farm gold and then sell it for real money (against the ToS) and to level characters and then sell them on eBay (also against the ToS).
Some were, but I believe the point is that some are/might be being held that are innocent, and we don't know because they have not been brought to trial.
What does it matter which court they are brought to justice in, as long as they are? If they've done something wrong, shouldn't that be brought about by evidence in trial?
I'm not sure that the goal is to give them access to our civilian courts, but to be tried in a court of law where they can mount a defense and the government can bring their evidence to bear, so that people who are being detained illegally get a fair trial. Can anyone really argue against that knowing that there might be people there that aren't involved... and stories that some were sold to military police? Why not have a neutral party (country) try these prisoners so that we can discover who belongs there?
While this doesn't detail the plight of a U.S. citizen, it does show that the United States' method of gathering prisoners after the 9/11 attacks isn't what would be called logical or fair. It also shows that the U.S. has no compunctions about holding citizens of other westernized, ally nations even after being proven that they have no connections to Al Queda or any intelligence value: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/20/terror/main4110731.shtml
I didn't realize we had battles over simple brass horns.. All joking aside I think that the conflict results over whether one believes that the phrase "inalienable rights" means natural rights that every human has, or simply legal rights spelled out in a rule of law -- the difference between written rights and moral rights. Morally, we should be treating everyone equally, regardless of how they treated us -- isn't that how the saying goes? That's not to say we cannot fight for our rights or well being, but that when given the choice between the moral high ground and gut reaction, shouldn't we rise above our base instincts?
ONE person puts out a paper and you equate it to "most people in the global warming camp"? Isn't that a logical fallacy (biased sample)? And also, unlike iocaine powder, some conditions can't be adapted to -- such as CO2 or Methane Gas replacing air in an area (search for "Carbon Dioxide Lakes") or cyanide in your drinking water.