Just to elaborate.

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.

While I hate bots and people who use them I'm afraid that Blizzard has no legal right to sue him. EULA=/=law and this guy hasn't broken copyright.

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)

Hightly reccomended to read this one:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=ZZAWZSV...

I hope he wins, major companies need a major slapdown.
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.

“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”
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?

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.

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.

The picture remains me of a midget-sized borg version of Captain Picard of Star Trek Next Generations.

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).

Actually, the bank robbery analogy is pretty much the same thing as the baseball analogy, it's just so hard to find a good analogy on this matter, about interference in contracts hehe.

@Mauler
"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.

@super_pope

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.

Well, really, I think Blizzard's just using the copyright and DMCA stuff as a wedge. The real problem here is twofold: this guy is distributing a program that only exists to cheat at their game, and he's doing so at a profit. Either alone would probably be enough to piss off Blizzard, but both? That's salt in the wounds, and they're probably going to make an example out of this guy.

@Zee

"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.

Hackangel
Are not macro programs against the ELUA as well?

And I shall sue you both for tarnishing my reputation as smartest man alive!

Lawsuits all around!

@Jabrwock
@the1jeffy

"Upon further review: I apologize to Hackangel. Jabr is a copy-cat!"

Can't help but laugh ;)

Okay, if you do NOT play WOW, DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS POST UNTIL YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT.

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.

They could, depending on the macro programs. Any third party add-ons, third party programs, third party software, UI modifications, File modifications can result in a ban or a suspension, entirely up to Blizzard's discretion. They decide what they allow or not in their game.

Any key macro program is a violation of most MMO EULA its like customize the controls is evil in itself,OMG the MS mouse driver can bind keys to the buttons its EVIL!!! EVIL I SAY!!!!

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.

Wow, all this hissing and moaning. And it took like 100 comments for Jabr to first to make any sense. And who the hell mentioned Jack Thompson? I'm starting to think he's right about gaming turning our brains to mush . . . except I am the smartest man alive!

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.

@Mortium

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.

@Mortium

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. ;)

"EULA’s are adhesion contracts. They are not wholly unconstitutional considering the Consitution itself is an adhesion contract. I don’t get to negioate what provisions I want and what I don’t on an individual level (wouldn’t that be fun)."
Why not? The Bush administration does...

I apologize for the outburst, but as I said, I find it highly offensive to be told that I am obligated to let people whizz in my pool and then if I get annoyed, I'm the bad guy.

Blizzard's game, Blizzard's rules you agreed to when you signed up, like everyone else. Don't like the game or the rules? Don't play it.

So ashton says that why you are doing entertainment things you shouldnt be.. well.. entertained?

So when i take my vacation to the bahamas, it shouldnt matter that the thief that stole my money and everything i had is in the right because he is putting food on the table?

If i want to watch tv, i should have to be forced to sit and watch reruns of I love lucy on a broken tv, in portagese (assuming i dont know it at all of course.) But hey, its okay. Someone somewhere is making money off my pain and suffering.

"Not at all, he is asking a jury to decide if his program is violating any copyright."

No, he isn't. Look at the relief he is asking for. He is asking for the Courts to tell Blizzard they can't stop him from selling or his customers from using his program.

This notion that he has to somehow modify the client to be consider a hacker is unsupported by any reading of the DCMA or a reading of copyright in general. You can make illegitimate copies of things without editing or doing anything to the source at all. His circimvention of Warden is the violation and it doesn't matter how or where that violation is done.

I think the most interesting point isn't the copyright issue but the first count in the countersuit which is Tortious Interference With Contract. In simple terms, an outside party can't interfer with a contractual relationship between two outside parties. This one, more than the DCMA portion will be costly for him if he loses because they can get the monthly fees, perhaps for more than one month, for everyone banned using his program. That theory alone could prevent him from selling or giving away his program. Blizzard not only has a leg to stand on, they have two and they are both on firm ground.

Glider does break the EULA. Blizzard says so. The maker of Glider says so. To disagree with the people who made the EULA and the one who admits it is to likely be wrong.

@Matt Orelup

From what I've gathered, WoWGlider scans memory addresses to acquire info on health, location, items, etc. Stuff which is clearly not encrypted.

Warden scans for "suspicious" programs and window titles, It scans DLLs and running processes, and compares them to known "hashes". WoWGlider just keeps updating to be different all the time.

Y'know, when it comes down to it, what this really is is a battle over the right to refuse service. Blizzard prefers to refuse service to botters, for game balance reasons.

If that right gets overturned, I expect to see some quite severe ripples in the MMO community.

just curious, because of something i saw on the site, and maybe someone who is more coding savvy could explain.

Warden activates the WoW client, and without warden being activated WoW will not run

WoWGlider bypasses Warden by activating the WoW client and tricking the WoW client into thinking warden is running.


Am I A) correct in understanding the way WoWGlider functions and if so B) correct in understanding that the only way this could be done is analyzing and cracking the "software protection" that blizzard set up, (meaning that the guy selling wow glider is selling a product that's only purpose is to aide people in breaking their "EULA contracts" with blizzard?)

I originally thought WoWGlider functioned as say, Ghostmouse, which just gave commands to your mouse to move here click here, at certain time intervals, but now it seems more like a trainer than a macro program to me.

"Ethically, he’s on VERY shaky ground. But legally? He’s on more solid ground than Blizzard is right now…"

Actually that sums up the situation very neatly. Nice one.

@Gray17

"It’s pretty standard to send a cease and desist before resorting to suing."

True, but without a legal leg to stand on, they were just bullying him. His lawsuit is his version of a "back off".

"Not to mention the WoWGilder guy is on pretty shaky legal ground himself seeing as he’s selling a cheat program."

I don't think "writing a cheat program" is a felony. ;)

"Blizzard’s got a legal leg to stand on"

Please explain how. They claim he's violating their copyright, which he isn't, because he's not using any of their IP to sell his own. They claim he's violating the DMCA, but his program doesn't hack theirs, it just runs it.

Ethically, he's on VERY shaky ground. But legally? He's on more solid ground than Blizzard is right now...

"I play FFXI and and WoW."
I'm guessing you play a troll :P

"Fuck your entertainment, if you don’t care about others, nobody should give a shit about you."
Just because it's entertainment, doesn't make it any less important. I pay for a certain service and I prefer that service not to be overrun with people exploiting and ruining it. Whether that service be a phone line (I don't want telemarketers), an e-mail service (I don't want spam) or a postal service (I don't want my mailbox full of "You may already have won...), there are alway people who will take advantage of of it to push a product or try and make a quick buck. The bots and goldsellers are no different.

"My sympathy lies more with them than with you."
With people like IGE? The suits who just manage a website while washing their hands of the farming sweatshops that create their money?

"You people sure are obsessed with him."
He is a public figure who has made silly blanket statements like this in the past and has been known to argue on this site previously. I was merely pointing out the similarity between your comments and the kind he makes.

@monte Please pay more attention to what I wrote next time. I mean a cheat in the traditional sense as in breaking the code. I don't particularly consider it a cheat myself, but I can see and understand why others would think it is. The reason I don't really consider it a cheat is because to me it's just leveling up really, really fast. That's it, no hacking other players equipment, no hacking the system to get items, etc. But I don't have the game. I don't play MMOs, so it doesn't really matter if I consider it cheating or not.

"First, I’m an adult and I pay my own bills, so fuck you on that front. (27, if you must know, the language is because I get highly offended when other people tell me I’m not allowed to be annoyed by things.)"

Bravo. Did you want a gold star sticker? This changes nothing.

"Second, let’s try another example. Telemarketers. I mean, hey, they’re just putting food on the table, right? So it’s perfectly okay for them to call you whenever you want and try to get you to buy roofing tiles or magazine subscriptions or whatever garbage they’re trying to peddle. I mean, nobody could possibly mind that, right? For a good cause and all. I mean, if people didn’t like being harassed during their leisure time, then they might create some…oh, I don’t know, a registry of some kind where people could sign up so they wouldn’t be called. But hey, what are the odds of some kind of “Do Not Call Registry” being created? Pretty low, I’d say! What kind of petty asshole would ask to not have their downtime constantly interrupted!

Oh wait, what have we here? Seems there’s a lot more people who don’t like being bugged than I thought!

Now just imagine paying for the priviledge of having your leisure time pissed on."

Except with RMT players, you're decidedly on something you're doing for entertainment. Fuck your entertainment, if you don't care about others, nobody should give a shit about you. With telemarketers, however, you might actually be doing something important while they call. So sorry, try again.

As an aside, you can hate them all you want. If you'll read carefully, I never said you couldn't, just that you're a faggot for doing so. My sympathy lies more with them than with you.

"If you don’t play the game then none of this argument applies to you and maybe you should just drop the issue."

I play FFXI and and WoW.

"Are you an alt character of Jack Thomspon?! What a stupid thing to say!"

You people sure are obsessed with him.

The fact that WOWglider is cheating is not the issue here (to those who consider that something giving an unfaur advantage is cheating, can't believe I'm stating that again). There are plenty of LEGAL and ILLEGAL cheats within the World of Warcraft that Blizzard do nothing against. In fact, Blizzard encourages it. Bots are an exception and since this one is charging for it that is why they're suing for monetary compensation after the guy wanted to make it clear that WOWglider does not violates any copyrights.

Will he be found to violate any copyrights? I dont know enough about copyright laws to give an answer.
Will he be found to be responsible for a loss of money to Blizzard? I don't understand how Blizzard can sue for that. If you're banned for using a bot, unless someone forced you to used it, it was your own decision so the guy can't be held responsible for the decision of others.

Bluntly put, no, I don't give a shit if they starve. Fuck them for trying to screw up my entertainment for your revenue stream, and fuck you for being such a smug asshole about it. Or would also say it's okay to use marked cards in a casino to earn a living?

This is exactly the sort of mentality that spammers use to justify clogging everyone's email for dick pills and credit card scams.

@ Ashton
"Also, the people who think that cheaters need to be “dealt with harshly” need to get real. Someone “ruins a game” for you and should be “dealt with”? Please. Talk about a spoiled brat."

Yes, how dare these people who pay a subscription fee be allowed play the game without interference/ecomomic inflation from people using cheats/hacks/bots? When they say "dealt with" they mean removed from the game, not put in jail. If sports stars are using performance enhancing drugs, or fixing games by not playing to standard, would you say that people asking for their removal from the sport were spoiled brats?

If you don't play the game then none of this argument applies to you and maybe you should just drop the issue.

"“Ruining your gaming experience” can only be considered positive."

Are you an alt character of Jack Thomspon?! What a stupid thing to say!

"Bluntly put, no, I don’t give a shit if they starve. Fuck them for trying to screw up my entertainment for your revenue stream, and fuck you for being such a smug asshole about it. Or would also say it’s okay to use marked cards in a casino to earn a living?"

Then you're a spoiled shit and don't deserve your life.

Simple as that.

You say it's perfectly reasonable to ban someone who is breaking the rules but if you look at what he is trying to do is to sue Blizzard so that they can't enforce the rules against using his program.

Nobody is playing a game to "keep food on the table" or "keep a roof over their head" because the money isn't there for that. It's a red herring. Gold farming pays sub minimum wage all things considered and when the overhead factors in the notion that this is providing a living for someone while ignoring the fact they can go get any job that pays more is downright ludicrous. There is a reason that gold farming is done on a massive scale in China and not in the US.

@Holj102
"I mean a cheat in the traditional sense as in breaking the code... The reason I don’t really consider it a cheat is because to me it’s just leveling up really, really fast. That’s it, no hacking other players equipment, no hacking the system to get items, etc"

Actually, i would say say that cheating in the "traditional sence" would be getting any kind of unfair advantage that other players do not have. Using BANNED equitment to level up really, really fast without actually having to actually do it yourself is in and of itself cheating. It gives you an unfair advantage.

What you are talking about is "hacking" in the traditional sence, not "cheating"... two very different things
cheating = unfair advantage
hacking = changing and altering code
hacking is one method of cheating, but one does not need to hack inorder to cheat...

All the braindead posters here who are lobbing tomatoes at this guy need to read that the article writes that he claims he is not infringing the COPYRIGHT, not the EULA. No matter how you slice it, he's not infringing copyrights by selling/using his OWN programmed code.

Also, the people who think that cheaters need to be "dealt with harshly" need to get real. Someone "ruins a game" for you and should be "dealt with"? Please. Talk about a spoiled brat.

This issue is precisely why I paid Hal Halpin's fee. Corporations who have tons of money and congressional buying power do not get a free ticket to just walk all over whomever they want, despite what they might think.

In theory, a fight of some kind might ensue between the ESA and the ECA, and while I can appreciate the content coming from the ESA members, as an actual ECA member, my rights are not to be ignored/dismissed.

Yeah, really. What a bunch of spoiled assholes, expecting everybody to play by the rules. How snotty can you get to expect people to actually play the game instead of buying bots that never take breaks to do things for them?

Wether or not he broke the EULA(which he obviously did) has zero bearing on this case. Blizzard has already punished him to the extent that they can according to the EULA, so unless the DMCA has something in it that i dont know about, they really have no real legal basis for their countersuit.

The way I see it, the guy has every right to sue Blizzard.

When he did violate the EULA, Blizzard had every right to ban him.

However they went beyond that, and threatened him because he was enabling other people to violate their EULA.

He's not suing because they banned him. He's suing because they're making claims about his software that he wants refuted. Namely that it violates their copyright, and that it violates the DMCA. Since he's not selling copies of WoW, but a utility to run it, the copyright isn't violated, and unless he broke some encryption, they'll have a hard time proving he violated the DMCA, which since his app just runs the keyboard and mouse for you, he doesn't.

@Matt

Section 12 of the EULA won't possibly stand up in court. It's not their right, it's still up to a judge if they get their attorney fees or not.

Good. I hope the kid rots. Cheaters should be aggresivly pursued and dealt with harshly, as they ruin the game for everyone else. Your rights to play the game end where the developer says. It's their effort, their time, their money. If you want to be able to do whatever the hell you want, you can go make your own game. That's part of the reason why it's called an End-User *License* Agreement- you never actually own anything, only license your use for it from the developer.

Thanks to gs2005 for backing me up:
EULAs are forced contracts. They strip consumers of their rights and powers, and are wholly unconstitutional.

Gold is not static in the game. Because there is an economy, you have to accept and act on the changes in that economy. You'd be hard pressed to say that there's a difference between gold farmers and these bots. The fact of the matter is that neither is avoidable, and neither is really "wrong." Bots are simply traceable.

I think botting is silly, and a waste of processing power. Furthermore, I find MMO's just as bad. Obviously, the philosophy of a task-based calculation game is broken by a task-based calculator (Bot), but that's it. I really don't see how you can possibly be upset by this situation. If WoW introduced "NPC Adventurers" that did the exact same thing as this program, they'd be hailed for submersion/realism.

I say that judicial action in lieu of a video game is silly because, well, it is. This isn't a concept of financial loss on Blizzard's part. Users are choosing to use their product how they would like to without causing harm or damages to anyone else. If you think that the marginal economic offset of a server is effectively harming users pocketbooks and that it's hearable in ANY court, then there'd be a lawsuit every month because someone ganked your clan before you could finish your raid.

We're talking about play money in a play environment. Regardless of how this play money becomes worth less, that's still the final outcome. It doesn't infringe on anyone else's rights as users beyond the normal construct of the game. The game doesn't disallow play for 24/7, nor does it disallow massive amounts of gold harvesting. A 3rd party program that hides itself from a right-infringing "warden" program does those very things. It's cheap, it's unfair, and it's unsportsmanlike. It *isn't* illegal, or even damaging to anyone's income.

EULA's are adhesion contracts. They are not wholly unconstitutional considering the Consitution itself is an adhesion contract. I don't get to negioate what provisions I want and what I don't on an individual level (wouldn't that be fun). You can't agree to the contract until after the money has been paid, even if you have read it first, so claiming that it's not a contract of adhesion because it's possible to read it before hand (still impossible to agree to it until money has been paid) doesn't ring true either. By stating that you can "take it or leave it" is a hall mark of an adhesion contract.

Ok I chuckled when I saw it. Try and do a search of the forums of the WoWGlider site.
It has an anti-botting countermeasure. I'm not sure if that is irony, but I chuckled.