Blizzard Sues Creator of WoW Bot

Ponca City, We Love You writes "Blizzard, the makers of World of Warcraft, are suing Michael Donnelly, the creator of the MMO Glider program, which performs key tasks in the game automatically. Blizzard says the software bot infringes the company's copyright and potentially damages the game. 'Blizzard's designs expectations are frustrated, and resources are allocated unevenly, when bots are introduced into the WoW universe, because bots spend far more time in-game than an ordinary player would and consume resources the entire time,' Blizzard wrote in its legal submission to the court. More than 100,000 copies of the tool have been sold while more than 10 million people around the world play Warcraft. Donnelly says his tool does not infringe Blizzard's copyright because no 'copy' of the Warcraft game client software is ever made. The two parties are now awaiting a summary judgment in the case."

Copyright? Maybe not, but maybe trademark?

Don't really see how it infringes on the Warcraft copyright; but maybe it infringes on the trademark somehow if it's being marketed as something official to Blizzard and WoW, and giving customers the perception that this is an extension of the WoW service. As for damaging WoW by taking up more resources than the normal player would; what if I were an abnormal player who is on nearly 24/7; is there some provision in the agreement where I am charged more for the subscription or something?

Re:Copyright? Maybe not, but maybe trademark?

If you're creating some legitimate program that requires WoW, you think you should have to request Blizzard's permission just to say on the packaging that you require World of Warcraft? Definitely not.

Re:Copyright? Maybe not, but maybe trademark?

Agreed. From the sounds of it, this bot tool may impair the game, and they may have some moral or legal cause to try and stop it, but copyright and trademark infringment it is not.I think they need to find some other charge.

Re:Copyright? Maybe not, but maybe trademark?

At most it might infringe upon the terms and conditions of WoW. But that would need to be taken up with the users, not the author.

Just another example of a company aiming its litigation at the wrong target.

Re:Copyright? Maybe not, but maybe trademark?

what if I were an abnormal player who is on nearly 24/7;

I don't think that's so abnormal..

Copyright infringement?

How? Unless he stole source code and used it in his program, I don't see how. Maybe I'm just missing something, but I don't think this program infringes on their copyrights, it may violate other things like their TOS, but this seems to be merely and intimidation act to make him shut down.

Re:Copyright infringement?

How? Unless he stole source code and used it in his program, I don't see how.

They are claiming that the tool makes a copy of the game and stores it to ram to avoid their anti-cheating checks. Interesting to see if it is illegal to make a temporary copy (for your own personal use) of a program you legally purchased.

Re:Copyright infringement?

I believe the argument would go like this:

You have a right to copy the program into RAM in order to run it, if that copy is going to be used for a purpose that complies with the EULA.

However, here the programmer is using the program in a way that doesn't comply with the EULA. Therefore, he is not only violating the EULA, but also their copyright, because he is making a copy for an unauthorized purpose.

Re:Copyright infringement?

How on earth do you load the program into memory (and once again into CPU cache) to run it if you can't???

Copies performed as an "essential step" of using the program are exempted as not infringing on copyright. So copying the program from disk into memory in order to run it is not infringement, however creating a second copy of the game in-memory to get around the anti-cheating code may not be.

Personally, I've also argued that this clause means that you are not legally required to accept EULAs, or at least that you aren't violating copyright by refusing to accept them since you don't need a copyright license to make the necessary copies to install and run the program.

Here's a link to the relevant section of the law: TITLE 17 - CHAPTER 1 - 117 [cornell.edu]

Re:Copyright infringement?

That seems totally bogus: music CDs have to be copied to ram (ever had a disc man with 8 second skip protection? Wow, I'm dating myself), but they don't have EULAs.

Sweet

A program that plays the boring parts of the game. Can he come up with a program that does the boring parts of my life while I'm out having fun?

Re:Sweet

World of Chorecraft!

Re:Sweet

You laugh but.... [chorewars.com]

Re:Sweet

Since World of Warcraft is a game where players simulate fighting wars, presumably World of Chorecraft would be a game where players simulate doing chores. Which, now that I think about it, is pretty much what The Sims is ... and yet it's weirdly addictive, unlike doing the same things in real life.

Bots are overrated

Bots are grossly overrated for MMOs for the most part. Sure, there are some few players that will use them in WoW and other games, but for the most part, people want to experience the game. And many bot users are very easy to spot, as their users don't put in enough to make it believable.

I am kind of surprised that Blizzard is doing this, but I think it's just a publicity thing, and they don't really care if they make any cash off of it. They are just trying to placate the masses on the forums that worry about every single little thing they can.

The reality is, bots make money for Blizzard. Once an account is banned, the player has to purchase a new box of the game to start playing again. And with the expansion, that's 2 boxes. So, Blizzard makes money off of the players that register new accounts/CDs every time they get banned.

Besides, most gold farmers are played by humans, not bots.

Maybe

Maybe instead of suing people who run bots to avoid grinding, they should make grinding less boring/time-consuming? Grinding is really the only reason they aren't getting $15/mo from me.

Ummm, so don't grind

WoW doesn't mandate it. You can never spend a single day grinding and have plenty of things to do. The problem comes from people who get in to this pissing match of having to have something just because others have it. So they want to automate it.

If people would just play the game to have fun, it wouldn't be a problem. It is a game, you don't "need" anything in it. Just do whatever it is you like to do. If you like to grind (surprisingly some people do) then grind. If you don't, don't. However don't get mad and say that you should get reward X that the grinders get.

More or less, Blizzard has a bunch of different kinds of rewards for different things. You can't get any reward doing any thing. However whatever it is you like doing, there are rewards for it.

The problem is when people aren't playing it to have fun, but playing it because they want to have all the best of everything. Well, that's pretty hard, since you have to do a whole bunch of different things. So they'll get bots to grind and such. That is just stupid. If all you care about is having the best, what's the point? The point should be to do whatever is fun. It is all just a game, none of it matters, other than to have fun.

Maybe i should start a WoW account..

so i can pay $10/month to have a bot do the boring grinding for me.

Oh wait.. that's why i don't play in the first place. Why the hell would you play an rpg that can be played more effectively by a bot than a human?

</flamebait>

Re:Maybe i should start a WoW account..

Why the hell would you play Chess, Checkers, pretty much any card game, Scrabble, Monopoly,....

It turns out that computers are better than humans at just about any game. Does this mean that we can no longer entertain ourselves?

You can, but why would you?

It turns out that computers are better than humans at just about any game. Does this mean that we can no longer entertain ourselves?

Of course we can, but wouldn't it be more efficient to have a computer entertain itself, on our behalf? Your recreation could be taken care of, for you by proxy, freeing you to pursue other more fulfilling endeavors, such as laboring.

This is just a step toward the ideals mankind has dreamt of for ages. Someday, computers will be able to drink beer for us, have sex for us, and enjoy books,music, and movies for us. Perhaps they could even sleep for us. This would make us free to perform menial tasks.

Sue sue

Wow, this reminds me of 2006.

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/11/20/blizzard-sued-by-wow-glider-creator/ [joystiq.com]

Except in 2006, he was suing them.

Does WoW have player-killing?

On some MUDs, if a player was suspected of botting, other players would give them an on-the-spot Turing test. Those who failed would be attacked.

Re:Thank God

The problem is not bots, it's crappy game design. Once your paying customers start wanting to pay in order NOT to play your game, you know your designer is a complete retard. Then again, it seems that making games not very fun is a highly successful business model..Who would've guessed?

Re:Who cares?

No free-for-all PvP RPG server or game has ever been successfuly long term (compared to other MMOs or servers in the same year/game).

Griefers always dominate - it's John Gabriel's Greater Internet Dickwad Theory proven every day. Griefers are far worse than any amount of bots.

Eve Online is the first potential counter-example, and they've been very careful about the rules.

Re:Who cares?

The winding road up the mountain of money that Blizzard sits atop of is littered with the corpses of games that "will be" X or Y while WoW delivers a game experience that people want. Not some grand artistic or social vision, a game with just enough (and I would even say only enough) depth to keep you coming back. Hell, they're down every tuesday morning and they're still regarded as the smoothest MMO experience around.

Darkfall wants to make your items lootable, they're welcome to try it. Whether people actually enjoy this level of realism is a reality they're going to face on their balance sheet.

Me, I'm looking forward to Warhammer Online, but I don't hold any illusions that it will radically change the mechanics or culture of the MMO genre. I will throw my money at what's fun.