February 25, 2007 -
Gee, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to play World of Warcraft without actually having to go on quests and fight monsters and stuff?Michael Donnelly thinks so and has created a program called WoWGlider that will play the game for you so that you’ll be free to occupy your time with something more entertaining. Philately perhaps?
Early one morning last October, Donnelly was visited at his home by representatives of WoW creator Blizzard and parent company Vivendi. He was told that WoWGlider infringed on copyrights and violated the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). Fearing impending legal action, Donnelly filed suit first, requesting a jury trial and seeking judgment that his program is not infringing on any rights.
Several days ago, Blizzard and Vivendi filled a countersuit claiming that Donnelly had, among other offenses, violated the WoW EULA, infringed on Blizzard’s copyright and trademarks by creating an unauthorized copy of WoW, violated the DMCA and created unfair competition by selling WoWGlider.
According to the suit, Blizzard has suffered “great harm in the direct loss of revenue from terminated users, the loss of subscription revenue from WoWGlider users availing themselves of the cheat, and from the severe damage to the goodwill of the non-cheating population of WoW users.”
In addition to monetary relief, Blizzard and Vivendi have requested that the WoWGlider website be shut down, sale and development of the WoWGlider program be halted, and the rights to all WoWGlider materials including source code and domain name be awarded to Blizzard.
Via: Gamasutra
-Reporting from San Diego, GP Correspondent Andrew Eisen wants World of Warcraft on Nintendo’s console. WoW Wii!
Comments
Re: WoW Bot Creator in Court Fight with Blizzard
Blizz will allow quad boxing as long as your paying for a subscription, and people seem to be ok with that.
Blizz has made some outrageous pricing in the game for items such as epic flying mounts and has forced this type of action which in some ways is a justified backlash in their trying to keep people glued to their machines.
With Gold pricing of an epic bird in the 5k range...to have a life, this program makes things pretty easy.
For me, its possibly going to unglue $25 from my wallet and make some of these outrageous items that blizz has created become really affordable.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Re: WoW Bot Creator in Court Fight with Blizzard
Blizz is going to have a very hard time in court, simply becuase the EULA is not the LAW, if they sell a product or service, they can only regulate that service they provide, not someone elses that has no real impact on thiers.
Ok blizz's CS sucks. Period. I mean i sent in many GM tickets. For example my flags for Arena wouldn't work(whole team) all blizz had for me right away was "Sorry Im not sure what the problem is" ya ok...
Also they don't really give 2 shits about hackers honestly. I reported a bot. I had a VIDEO of it. I sent it to them and they didn't do anything about it. i had no email from them no nothing they didn't do a thing.
I also gave them hard cold proof of a gold buyer (vent recording) sent it to them and nadda.
Also nowhere do I see mention that he was band, where does it say that? And is making, but not using this program against the EULA? Because I doubt he used it himself. (although he must have tested it)
I dont claim to know anything about the WoW comunity. But I see blizzard reacting to a guy who is selling a program that runs seperate from their software, but with the purpose of being used with their software. The only reason I see them reacting this way not because they want to protect the players, but because this guy is making money off of it.
It is not a program that targets other ingame players, so the program itself does not cause other players harm. What causes them harm is the people who resell accounts, ingame currency/items ect... A normal player is not going to use this program for this purpose.
Although this program is cheep, I do not see it as a just reason for their reaction. They did not send him a "cease and desist" notice he "was visited at his home". I do not blame him for reacting the way that he did because a company does not send a representitive to give a cease and disist notice. Blizzard has a history of bullying people into submission and not taking action on behalf of the players until they feel it is worth it. I dont condone what this guys program, but I do not condone the actions of blizzard at all.
I am a strong beliver that the EULA is a load of crap. nobody even bothers reading them anymore. As a player if you dont want to play the game yourself, whats the point in buying it? But when I read that if they dont like my connection settings they can ban me permently, and I cant even call them up and ask why. Tell me how thats ok? EULA, simply says we can ban you for no reason at all, and prevent you from playing this or any of our other games in the future at our discression.
Quick example: I have two starcraft accounts that were banned because Blizzard decided to ban the local ISP. When I contacted them they refused to tell me why they were banned, all I got from them was to reformat my computer and buy a new copy. Which I did and was banned again. Point is they need to act on behalf of the players and not because of profits.
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=ZZAWZSV...
i dont farm gold
i dont farm mats
i level characters to 60/70 so i can experience end game content
i know about 30-40 people that use it for this purpose
once they get to end game they dont bot
i have a wife a job a footy team a LIFE!
If i didnt have wowglider i couldnt play WoW and would therefore end my subscriptions
it does blizzard a service not a disservice
The DMCA is virutually unconstitutional and no none govt entity should wield that kind of power.
A loss in court would force game manuafactures to suddenly realize that there is a alternate solution to people dissatisfied with service. The Courthouse.
If he makes it so that Blizzard can't stop him from selling his program it also means that he makes it so that Blizzard can't stop people from using his program. They are connected. If the courts proclaimed that his program didn't violate the rights of Blizzard then they wouldn't violate the rights no matter who was using it. The provision about customers doesn't serve the purpose you purport. It serves another.
If the courts say that he is allowed to sell it then his customers are allowed to use it. Any attempt at Blizzard to stop them could be construed as an infringment of his rights. Stopping people from using it is an attempt at stopping him from selling it and they have been enjoined from doing that if the courts order in his favor.
2. For a decree enjoining and restraining Defendants from all further charges of infringement and violations of rights”
Where in this is it written "Blizzard must not ban any users of WOWglider". I don't see it.
The other customers he includes in his suit his others customers that Blizzard might want to sue for copyrights infringement by using WOWgliderjust like they threatened to sue him for copyrights infringement. He does not seek to prevent Blizzard from banning them, he seeks to prevent Blizzard suing them for copyrights infringement because they used WOWglider. How many more times must this be repeated?
The baseball anology falls short because the act doesn't interfere with the contractual relationship between the player and a third party. While it could ruin sales, even in the short term, the player and the steriod supplier isn't doing it with the explicit desire to violate the contract. Actually, the opposite is more likely true. A baseball player on steriods hits more homeruns and becomes more marketable. The football player on 'roids gets more sacks and wins defensive player of the year despite being suspended for 4 games. His marketability is unaffected.
The proper sports anology is what the NFL and MLB call tampering since the elements of the offense are the same. You have someone under contract and someone is trying to interfere with that contractual relationship. The NFL, a number of years ago, hit Carmen Policy while he was with the Browns with a 10K fine for hinting that he might be interested in Mike Holmgren as a head coach while Holmgren was still under contract with the Packers.
The gun anology fails because the contractual relationship between the maker of the gun and buyer of the gun is completed upon sale. Blizzard has a continuing relationship with all of their current subscriber. Sports works well for the right anology and tampering fits the bill.
Like I said about the analogies, you're right, they don't really fit, I have a hard time finding one about the contracts.
"If the courts said that Blizzard can’t act against WOWGlider, it’s creator or their customers (a part you didn’t include) then that would mean they could not ban for it".
I didn't include that because it has nothing to do with the issue. The WOWglider creators are not asking a jury to declare that Blizzard can do nothing against something that is against their EULA (and as stated before they can decide that pretty much everything they wish is against their EULA). The court issue here is about "is WOWglider infringing on any intellectual property or copyrights if Blizzard". Blizzard say it does, the WOWglider creator say it doesnt, he was the first to go to court to prove it.
The thing is, Blizzard allows 3rd party add-ons to their game. Every time the game upadtes, they have a message tell you to turn off all add-ons if there seems to be something amiss.
I've had a few guild members use add-ons, some of which can even tell the statistics of a group (who does more damage, time to lvl, etc), and Blizzard has accepted them with open arms.
Twinking in the game is somewhat cheap, though I can easily find that boring. Getting a character to its maximum lvl for a certain ranged battle ground (lvls 10-19 BG's usually have a ton of twinks), pimp them with some of THE best equipment for that quest, and you're ready to wipe the opposing faction (Horde wins alot, FTH!)
Blizzard's in a tight spot in the end. They can try to win, but theres a chance they won't given the slips of other add-ons. They are literally all over the place. My friends rarely use bots in Diablo 2 and they get banned once in awhile (accounts, not CDKey, it works differently).
Seriously, I'm on the Nazgrel realm. There's no botters or gold farmers ruining the economy. It's an army of people who don't know what they're doing sticking dozens of stacks of mithril and truesilver on the AH for 30 silver a stack. Simply put, Bots and Goldfarmers can damage the WoW economy. So can stupid people. Blizzard should ban all stupid people too. It makes just as much sense as:
"THAT IN BLIZZARD’S SOLE DETERMINATION: (i) ENABLES OR FACILITATES CHEATING OF ANY TYPE;" (from the EULA)
It essentially means, that if Blizzard considers you're sibling logging in to your account is cheating, they can legally ban your account. That's the supreme legal fire in this whole thing. Blizzard can ban anyone they want and just say something they were doing Blizzard considers cheating. Hey, you AFK'd out of Alterac Valley, that's cheating. BAM! Banned. You entire group just dropped out of a Warsong match! That's Cheating! BAM! Banned. It's a glorious use of loose terminology. Sucks for us, but Blizz gets that cash when you end up buying another account.
And for the dozen of you wanting this man to suffer like the ninth ring of hell for this because he's ruining your 'game'? I quoth William Shatner: "Get a life!" I play WoW, I see a bot, I don't fret. Someone wants to risk their account to take a shortcut? Feel free, it's their buck, not mine. Creating an unfair advantage? I can only assume you mean PvP, which is the same argument for any gank until you ding 70, regardless of bots or not, so just shut it. Destroying the economy? Get your guildies together and start a monopoly on something not so ridiculous on the AH, like Silk or Wool, and make your own fortune. Where there's a will there's a way, so stop complaining about how your precious toon is only level 16 and doesn't have 100 gold to twink yourself out.
Overall, I agree that they can ban anyone who uses this, and should try to. But Blizzard complaining that this program is unlawfully persuading users to cheat and get banned against their will is stupid, and the fact that they want this guy to turn over the source code, customer records, profits, domain name - that seems kinda messed up. Especially since they really are suing a guy for making a really good macro (It really boils down to it).
As someone on the WoWGlider forums has stated, if this does go through, there will probably be an anonymous Glider that'll appear in another six months to retaliate. And we repeat.
"The specific relief he is asking for is that the courts rule that he isn’t violating *any* of their rights, which would include enforcement of the EULA and as such he is asking the courts to make his bot program legit in game."
I'm not a lawyer so I cant 100% say which one of us is right in this matter but I think you're reading too much into this:
"1. For a judgment and declaration that MDY's WOWGLIDER does not infringe any rights owned by Defendants;
2. For a decree enjoining and restraining Defendants from all further charges of infringement and violations of rights"
Although simply the word "rights" is used in the WOWglider creator suit I truly think it stands for copyrigths and not as you say *any* of their rights. They're pretty much mentionned as intellectual property rights and copyrights in Blizzard's countersuit, not just *any* "rights". It would be seriously ridiculous if someone, creator of bots or not, asks a jury to change Blizzard EULA as they see fit. That person would have to be crazy or joking since it's barely conceivable that they would win.
The baseball analogy still stands. I just need to ask "The sports company asked the team for the right to get the star to endorse their products". Blizzard makes it sounds like the creators of WOWglider forcefully interferes in the "contracts" between Blizzard and it's customers and forcefully makes them ban users of WOWglider. I do not believe it's the case and it will be up to a court if the creators have any responsability in the use of WOWglider beside offering to sell it.
Want another, shorter analogy, I think guns were used. If someone wants to rob a bank and the intention to purhcase a gun to do just so, the seller of the gun will be judged on if the selling of the gun was legal or not but no courts will place blame on him for me robbery.
They also mention how third-party add-on are in violation of the EULA but as I stated before, there are plenty of permitted third party add-ons and Blizzard encourages cheating in a way themselves by promoting twinking.
So I guess we will have to let a court decide who is in the right or wrong here.
Tortious interference doesn't require the third party to forcefully interfere with a contract, just that they induce the breach while being aware of the contract. It would seem that all the elements to support such an accusation are present, unsupported dismissals that they don't have a leg to stand on notwithstanding, but I've not looked up the actual state requirement for such a tort. From the elements Blizzard spelled out in their counterclaim it would certainly be a valid case.
The sports anology is good but you missed the anology. If a player is under contract with a team you have to seek the permission of the team in order to talk to him. Happens almost every year in the NFL. This year I believe it was the Patriots and Jets having it out. I don't know how it's going to work out but I think this will be a sticking point for WoWGlider. Would be interesting to find out what was done to the gamblers in the Black Soxs scandal.
It's not that he is making money off of WoW that is the issue. He is interfering with their rights and the contractual agreements with other players. Even if he were doing this for free they would have still done exactly what they did in this case.
So you make hacking tools that violate the EULA of Windows and then when MS sends you a cease and desist letter you sue them? Because that's what we're talking about. We aren't talking about someone that makes a stat calc or some other innoculous program that helps people play the game without violating the terms of service.
Consider me corrected on that part then, I'm far from an expert, no matter how many big words I tend to use. It doesn't really change my expectations of the outcome though.
As for the contents of the lawsuit being over the top? True, but the higher they aim, the smaller the concessions in any out of court settlement will seem. It most likely wouldn't have happened if mister programmer didn't try to sue them first.
(and really.. you pay lawyers a retainer for the intimidation factor, so why not getyour money's worth? But lawyer bashing is a sport I'll leave out of here, enjoyable as it is)
As for the whole copyright thing, it's true that this guy wrote the program himself, but it's made for the express purpouse of botting in WoW, it has no other use. To do that, it has to bypass the launcher blizzard made for the game, which is in itself protected, and alters it, which can quite simply be construed as a copyright violation.
I think blizzard made a mistake in trying to get the court to award them ownership of the program though. Personally I'd have tried to let him keep ownership but to seek an injunction against the program making any contact with blizzard's servers, and holding him liable for every instance in which this does happen. This way, if he loses, he'll just throw out a few copies out on the net and people can go on with it independantly, after they strip out the copy protection the guy put in it.
In the end though, it can't be denied that the guy made a program that's only usable with WoW (can't be adapted for anything else, as it's making use of an interface specific to the interaction between WoW's client and the server) and is making money off it. That in itself will likely be what will sway the court in Blizzard's favor.
Can anyone seriously see things ending differently than that the guy gets told to stop, no matter what rhetoric is behind it?
"As for the whole copyright thing, it’s true that this guy wrote the program himself, but it’s made for the express purpouse of botting in WoW, it has no other use."
That in itself is not copyright infringement. See my iPod example earlier. It can't work with Zune, or any other MP3 player. So is it a copyright infringement on Apple's IP? No.
"To do that, it has to bypass the launcher blizzard made for the game, which is in itself protected, and alters it, which can quite simply be construed as a copyright violation."
Blizzard itself gives you instructions on how to bypass the launcher, though they don't recommend it. What this program does is controls & reads the WoW app, while hiding it's "signature" from the Warden app that monitors your computer while you play. The launcher itself isn't protected.
So against the EULA and grounds for booting anyone caught using it? Definitely. Valid grounds for a lawsuit or legal bullying against the guy who wrote it? Nope.
I was fighting monsters trying to get to quest items in the Shimmering Flats. Another player comes and ninja loots them (for those nut familiar with the terms it means he took the treasure the monsters I was fighting were guarding while I was fighting them so he would'nt have to and the results was tha I would have to fight them again when the treasure reappeared). Moments later I see him killed by the monsters guarding the next treasure and we have the following conversation:
Me: I guess you kind of deserve that, ninja-looting from me.
The player: It was a mistake but if you want to bother me about it next time I'll do it on purpose.
Me: If it was a mistake then an apologie would have been nice but be a ?&%# jerk if you want (I had the profanity filer on).
The player: Nice wording.
Me: I don't what that was, it (the word) was supposed to bigger.
I found out what I typed at my next play session because I was suspended for 3 days for "use of a racial slur". You see I accidentally typed the letter right of the B on the keyboard. I wrote to Blizzard asking if they suspended me on the player word alone or if they had logs of the conversations. If so, one could clearly see that it was a typing mistake and that I meant to type "bigger" not the other word. They answered me that a GM read the log of the conversation and that they decided to suspend me anyway because I agreed not to use "racial slurs" in the EULA.
Are not macro programs against the ELUA as well?
Lawsuits all around!
@the1jeffy
"Upon further review: I apologize to Hackangel. Jabr is a copy-cat!"
Can't help but laugh ;)
Let's forget it's botting program here. Imagine it's an add-on called WOWinterfacer that modifies the interface for a quicker access to spells. This is against the EULA. Imagine yours is so good that you decide to sell it. Blizzard then comes and tell you to cease and desist because you are violating their copyrights. You ask for jury trial to determine if what you created is your creation alone and not Blizzard. That is what is happening here. He's not suing Blizzard per se but they are involved in making the claims he is violating copyrights.
Bot programs like this one are a scourge to the game. Be it Chinese Goldfarmers (called such because most Goldfarmers are low wage workers in China) or power levelers, these people DIRECTLY harm the enjoyment of others to the game.
Goldfarmers 1) monopolize mobs/resource nodes in areas where high value mobs and resources tend to be found. 2) wreck havioc on the in game economies by through flooding the market or mudflation. 3) have been known to use bot programs like this one as part of account hacks, where they take control of an account, log into a character, hearth back to a main city, retrain the character as an enchanter, disenchant every item in the character's possession that cannot be traded, transfer all tradeable materials (and the freshly dusted equipment) and gold to a mule account, and begin selling the shards, nexus crystals, etc on the AH (Blizzard had to re-work how enchanting worked to contain the damage this was doing, which cost time and money that could have been spent designing new content, or fixing bugs in existing content).
The powerlevelers? Ever been in a PUG with some botted 60? Oh the pain... learn2play does not even begin to describe, and oh yeah, there went my evening's relaxation time.
I hope blizzard owns this guy's ass financially for the rest of his miserable life after this.
The goldfarming and botting will only stop when they are made to pay in painful ways. This is a start.
Yes, but the question is, is Blizz allowed to sue him for helping others violate their EULA, or are they merely allowed just to ban people?
He's suing them because they threatened him with legal action if he did not fork over the profits from selling his macro program and stop upkeeping it. He sued them in order to force them to admit that they don't have any authority over him beyond enforcing the EULA... They countersued claiming he violated their copyright and the DMCA.
Oh it an bind more than 1 key to a button to (copy paste can do 2 keys at once thus breaking a ELUA)
and what about thos redesigned keyboards for MMOs its the same damn thing!
Now there is a diffrance in gaining control over a game and bot program,the BOT program can used to farm and thus a bad thing.
The only thing Blizzard is allowed to do is to say, "No, we don't like this and if you're caught using it with our program you'll be banned." If blizzard works hard enough to counteract glide users, people will stop buying the product that doesn't work. Simple as that.
Ahem, seriously, though. It looks like this guy found a legal loophole and was exploiting it for his own gain. Good for him. He then pro-actively sued, meaning he is either very dumb, or has a lot of money to pay good lawyers, because Blizzard will fuck him. Hard. Like running backwards through a cornfield. Naked. If they can, anyway, and I hope they can't. I don't like game companies trying to legally enforce EULA's in court.
Look, no one is debating whether Blizzard can ban his, or any other account, that uses this Bot. It's fairly straight forward in the EULA. Botting = Banning.
And I quote:
"5. Consent to Monitor. WHEN RUNNING, THE GAME MAY MONITOR YOUR COMPUTER'S RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY (RAM) FOR UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAMS RUNNING CONCURRENTLY WITH THE GAME. AN �UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM� AS USED HEREIN SHALL BE DEFINED AS ANY THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY �ADDON,� �MOD,� �HACK,� �TRAINER,� OR �CHEAT,� THAT IN BLIZZARD'S SOLE DETERMINATION: (i) ENABLES OR FACILITATES CHEATING OF ANY TYPE; (ii) ALLOWS USERS TO MODIFY OR HACK THE GAME INTERFACE, ENVIRONMENT, AND/OR EXPERIENCE IN ANY WAY NOT EXPRESSLY AUTHORIZED BY BLIZZARD; OR (iii) INTERCEPTS, �MINES,� OR OTHERWISE COLLECTS INFORMATION FROM OR THROUGH THE GAME. IN THE EVENT THAT THE GAME DETECTS AN UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM, THE GAME MAY (a) COMMUNICATE INFORMATION BACK TO BLIZZARD, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION YOUR ACCOUNT NAME, DETAILS ABOUT THE UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM DETECTED, AND THE TIME AND DATE THE UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM WAS DETECTED; AND/OR (b) EXERCISE ANY OR ALL OF ITS RIGHTS UNDER THIS AGREEMENT, WITH OR WITHOUT PRIOR NOTICE TO THE USER."
So they can ban him, or any one who uses this Bot. Hell, Blizzard can ban you for little to no reason at all. That's their decision to make in turning away your montly fee. But counter-sue him for distribution of the program? Not so much. Why?
Because this opens a legal can of worms that no-one wants open. No one wants a court decision that relates real-world loss with a bot that generates gold. Not Blizzard, not the players, not even the gold farmers. This will end badly one way or another.
If I was Blizzard would have simply gone mole, ferreting out his secrets in the guise of a user, found a way to track the bot, and mass-banned users of it. If it was worth a lawsuit, it was worth the time of a programmer to investigate the code.
But, they went all C&D on his ass. Yuck, what a mess.
"And it took like 100 comments for Jabr to first to make any sense"
I ressent that, it's what Ive been saying all along :P but finally some people seem to grasp the point of the issue here.
Like pretty much all of the others you missed the point entirely (and I played WOW in case you use this as an argument). The point is not about if botting programs are good or bad. I don't think even one person here mentionned bot programs as a good thing. The point is about can Blizzard sue the creator of one for copyrights violation and ask for monetary compensation for the users they banned.
By your logic, any iPod add-on is making money off Apple's IP and should not be allowed to profit...
Please apply your own advice. Ethically he's horribly horribly evil. Legally, Blizz has no grounds to threaten or sue him.
@the1jeffy
Yeah, Hackangel beat me to it. Maybe I just worded it more simply. ;)
I've been playing wow since open beta and yes while I agree botters and farmers are annoying as hell. You need to pull your head out from your ass and see what legal precedents this can have on independent software developers.
Right now you and many others are venting your frustrations and annoyance and a guy who may have caused a lot of your grief but did nothing legally wrong. So if you want to ban glide users in WoW no argument here, but if you want to see the guy go into financial ruin for no good legal reason. Then you're no better than those "for the children" politicians we've been hating on lately.
Why not? The Bush administration does...
The guys who make my lamp are different from the guys I buy light bulbs from. The fact that they work together doesn't mean the guys who make the light bulbs are infringing on the design of the lamp.
How exactly could this possibly be construed as violating copyright law when applied to a digital medium? I've written a few programs that can run on Windows without anyone giving me permission, am I an offender now?
How would that right get overturned? Theres not even any mention of this at all.
@Chadius
Exactly what I have been saying. People who complain about how this upsets the economy need to realise there's been plenty of other factors ruining it. I wrote before that these problems will persist as long as there a huge difference between casual and hardcore gamers in their "virtual" ressources. Thus there will always be a market for bots and gold farmers and thus an imperfect economy (it's not like the real one is perfect either).
Blizzard is not exactly flawless when it comes to their claim. It doesnt want bots that makes some player have more ressources than others but it encourages twinking (twinking, by the way also upsets the economy of an MMO). They say that third party add-ons are against the EULA but they allow plenty and even recommend some on the forums.