Comments on: 'Warcraft' maker wins round in exploit 'bot lawsuit

Court deals setback to man behind MMO Glider software, which helps characters cheat at World of Warcraft and is the subject of a lawsuit with WoW maker Blizzard Entertainment.

[sanenazok]

Imagine that.

A case that states that copyright law forbids copying software into computer memory so that it can be altered. Who would have thought! What's next, a trademark case that forbids use of someone else's mark in a trade?

The cheating software guy has $2.5 million in revenues, can you say settlement?

[thedreaming]

If you can't play the game the way it's supposed to be played, why play it at all?

[sanenazok]

Exactly. It ruins the game environment for those that take the time to play the game within the rules.

[rdupuy11]

sanenazok, you are a moron, but worse, guilty of copyright infringement when you copied the game into your brain's memory.

Copyright implies distribution... it wasn't designed for you not to remember a book that you read, to recall a photograph that you saw. When you get a game, it comes on DVD, it will be copied into your computers memory....moron.

[sanenazok]

I guess since your arguments are weak, you want to switch to personal attack mode.

Hahaha per you computer memory=person's memory. Oh OK. I disagree. Even if it did, it is copyright infringement to read a book, remember it, then copy the contents from memory to a new book. That's how all copyright infringement starts and it's exactly what these people are doing.

They take COPYRIGHTED code, copy it in computer memory, then they change it (to do the cheating). Lastly, YEP they distribute the changes since they sold 100,000 copies of this stuff. If that ain't distribution then I don't know what is. So even in your strange notion of copyright, these people infringe. Who's the moron now?

[gematcigital]

Greg Hoglund and I discuss this kind of hack and many others (some so sophisticated that they are much harder to detect) in our book Exploiting Online Games. [CNET editors' note: advertisement deleted].

gem

[rdupuy11]

take a DVD movie. When you buy a DVD it will be copied into memory...thats how a DVD works. The 'movie' on disk, is just bit encoding, the DVD player ,will read the bits, copy them into its memory...and configure that into a display...which by the way, you may then partially copy into your own brains memory for later recall.

It will be altered, it will come in 4:3, it can be zoomed, it can be panned and scanned.

The idea that copyright prevents that is ludicrous. People talk...talking heads, don't know what they are talking about.

I agree with the Ninth Circuit...they don't write the law, and we just went through about 8 years of disastrous lawmaking....we need new lawmakers, with sensible heads, to rewrite most of the copyright laws.

[sanenazok]

When watching a movie, you're making copies with the permission of the movie studio so this analogy doesn't go very far. Care to elaborate?

[Michael Grogan]

The infringement wasn't copying the code to the computer memory, it was for violation of the user agreement which defines how the software may be used by the licensee.

[mssoot]

offensive content

[gamerates]

http://www.gamerates.com/posts/show/blizzard_wins_legal_case_v_bot_maker_glider

We posted a blog post on this over at GameRates.com on what this means for some other ToS/EULA violators such as virtual currency sellers.

"What does this mean for the gold industry however?

First off it may embolden Blizzard to actually take on major gold sellers in the courtroom. However, this could be a very dangerous move as if they lost or perhaps a U.S court found that virtual currency has real worth it could awake the sleeping giant of legal problems. For example if Blizzard bans someone accidently, or it?s servers crash, or they nerf an item all which destroy virtual goods (with real legal value) in the process one may be able to sue Blizzard for these ?real? damages caused. For this and many other reasons we doubt that such a case will arise although the reverse may be true (a gold farmer suing blizzard for preventing them from selling its legally acquired in-game goods for cash outside the game). For those of you that have been around for a while you may remember the BlackSnow Case against Mythic where such a thing happened.

Still the scary thing is the wide ruling that violating a Terms of Service (ToS) or End User License Agreement (EULA) that you haphazardly click every time you play the game can be counted as copyright infringement. An EULA can say virtually anything it wishes. Does violating any part of it really count as copyright infringement? If you choose to farm items by hand using normal game mechanics without interfering with anyone else and then you mail the items you acquire to another person that is fine (it would be considered ?twinking? a friend or new character), yet if you do the same action and the person sends you $10 through PayPal for the gift is it then considered a copyright violation because it violates Blizzards ToS?

That?s ridiculous and as such we don?t see the case ever being applied to the virtual currency market.

In fact we think that if the case is appealed it has a very good chance of being reversed. It?s simply too broad in its scope"

[VirginiaLewis]

Glider is intentionally violating the Terms of Service

Q: Is using Glider cause for suspension/ban?
A: Yes, Glider is against the Terms of Service as provided by Blizzard for World of Warcraft.

This is a Q&A from their own website. They admit they are violating TOS they are not the underdog they are parasite that thrives on the host that supports them. Without the host they die but they harm the host as they thrive. Good for Blizzard for going after the source instead of trying to run around swating at every little flea.

[ElmoKajaky]

Nothing is lower than a person who cheats in a game. How incredibly pointless.

[edwindante]

aceptame ps
soy edwin ok

[Chaotic84]

in reponse to VirginiaLewis comment.. first have you ever even played the game..? Let us look at the facts here. There are millions of games out there Wow, Pogo, Yahoo etc... all have cheat programs for there games that you can buy, For instance "Playbuddy" but they don't get sued do they? because they payt a portion to yahoo and pogo each year so yahoo and pogo doesn't press charges. - they make money why would they?

Now let's look at blizzard, they ban and close thousands of accounts each year just because they can, they even say it in ther TOS. Now is it fair for those thousands of players who didn't cheat, played the game fairly and spent hours upon hours , weeks upon months of leveling there character just to lose there account so they have to pay for the game, and expansions again just to start over? No it's not but can you do anything about it? no because you aggree to it when you sign up. MMo glider makes 25$ for there program for people who want to get past the painful hours of leveling , cause unless ur 80 the game isn't fun- you can't do raids, you can do arenas etc. blizzard made it that way so people would push hours of playing to get to the point it's fun, MMo glider simple helps you get there faster. Now granted people use it for the wrong reason, farming gold etc BUT!!!!! Mmoglider does not force you to buy or use it, and people need to take responsibility for there own actions not the people who create the program, they are trying to make a living and money just like the tabaco companys that sell ciggaretts. Ya smoking kills you but they still make millions off it each year, so how many of you ******** about a programmer making money because it gives players a boost in leveling but sit there and smoke till you get cancer? morals are the same..

Also you quoted there website that they said yes useing mmoglider is against Blizzard terms... thats them taking responsibility and letting you know, if you choose to buy it anyways and use it then it becomes your resposibility not theirs, they gave you the heads up.

Fyi heres the full warning not just a part of it

""Yes, Glider is against the Terms of Service as provided by Blizzard for World of Warcraft. If you are detected using Glider, your account will be suspended for 72 hours and very likely banned completely. While Glider does not violate any of the terms listed under Blizzard's "Client/Server Manipulation Policy", it is still a third-party program and their Terms of Service are very open in what falls under that definition, meaning they can find you in violation for pretty much anything they want""

^^^^ MMoglider does not break the TOS because they aren't useing it on the game you are...

And one last thing..

World of warcraft = 20$
Expansion Burning Crusade =25$
Expansion Wrath of the Lich king = 45$
Monthly Fee for playing =15$

now if my caculations are correct and it don't take a rocket scientist to figure out that blizzard makes alot more money everytime they bann someone for useing MMoglider and that person has to buy all the games and a motnhly fee again. So MMoglider makes 25$ and blizzard makes just over 90$ in the Cd Keys itself.. for each customer so how exactly is blizzard loseing any kinda money here, and since when it become Chaos to have a idea to make a program that helps people while it makes you money? if u had the know how and the idea to do it first you would have in a second.


As even MMo glider states and i back this up 100%, What is worth more , time or money?.. 25$ u get glider you level up to 80 while u continue doing your daily life, then when you hit 80 you can play the game and have fun, if you choose to speend over 500+ hours getting to 80 then unless you have no life ytou should hit it about next year.. like stated above and on the site, you don't have to use this program and blaming glider and sueing them because blizzard customers broke the TOS even tho it was stated on the site is stupid and you people need to stop blaming the wrong people and take responsibility for yourself, not use it and then blame the company.