In his summary ruling on Blizzard's case against World of Warcraft cheat-maker Michael Donnelly (released yesterday), District Court Judge David Campbell has stated that the act of using a bot in violation of a game's license or terms of use qualifies as a copyright violation. Huh?
Just to get it out of the way, I'm as much against cheats as the next guy. As a WoW player in particular, I'm glad to see Blizzard shut down the cheaters and cheat-makers. But this ruling doesn't make much sense to me; it seems like a case of the judge just trying to find a way to cover something which doesn't really cross any real existing laws. Worse, it sets some (arguably) nasty precedent, effectively making EULAs law (any violation is a violation of copyright), rather than simple contracts where the most you can lose is your right to use the software.
Strangely, the judge actually dismissed Blizzard's claims that the cheats violated the DMCA. Given the amount of use the DMCA gets in such cases, you'd think that the ruling would have been the other way around, at least. In any case, it seems the case is now going to trial to decide the DMCA portion for certain.
What do you guys think? Should this ruling stand? Personally, I think that it shouldn't--stripping cheaters of their access to the game and perhaps making a civil claim against the cheat-makers for damaging the game for everyone else is justified, but making any EULA violations illegal, as Judge Campbell (inadvertently or otherwise) has done is going too far.
No - I have no objections to a EULA being enforced between merchants. It is between a merchant and a consumer.
That said - You actually do have a case that argues your point here as I see it - I think it's bad law, but it does in fact explicitly accept clicking a EULA as acceptance to the modification of the sales contract. For all practical purposes, it completely defenstrates all consumer protections written into UCC in respect to software programs buy ruling the contract as a 'sale now, terms later' contract - I disagree with it's using ProCD as a precedent - It's both from a different circuit, and given how badly reasoned ProCD actually is, it makes me ill to see it referred to as the "leading Case on Shrinkwrap Agreements" for every reason I gave - But they take that case and make the extra effort to clarify that the simple act of accepting the "I agree" on previously bought software implies accepting it.
Which means any court that accepts *this* case as a precedent will enforce any license term not deemed unconscionable.
Congratulations. For all practical purposes, you have no rights.
Jonnan
It is certainly not logical to value every right that is not limited by the law as "garantued". Yes there are some laws for consumer protection. Buts thats not what i was talking about.
Still you refuse to see that an argument like your 5 points may be right and such. But that does not mean that you can win the discussion with only this single argument and instead deny any argument that does not directly fight yours.
Because in practical terms there is hardly any customer who wants to read such a contract when he only wants to buy a 50$ game. Nor would hardly anyone refuse to buy a game because of this.
EDIT:
Since signing the contract would be the only way to legally purchase the game and there is atm no paragraph of an eula which limits the consumer in a serious way.
Still you would need to prove that there is no contradicting law if you wanted to prove anything.
Well i am still confused what you wanted to say with your 5 points and how it relates to this topic.
But as long as you didnt prove that the contract is invalid you cannot ignore the question if a part of it is legal.
So you agreed that banning bots is legal in wows case. Why was anyone saying the opposite on page 17 of this thread?
No. Since in your logic anything, that is not illegal, is legal. So everywhere where eulas are not declared invalid, they are valid.
I try to discuss about the topic and not only about a single argument.
Also i never disagreed with it. I accept it as argument but atm is not enough to convince me of ....what did you wanted to say?
And i wrote "see above" because i would have to repeat myself to often.
MDY vs Blizzard is a commercial case. So commecrial rulings are very on topic.
Assuming the law of non-contradiction holds, of course. Which I think we'd agree is a reasonable assumption.
About the "I can't disprove it, therefore it is false" argument: While we agree that the teapot you refer to is so unlikely that it is extremely unreasonable to expect it to ever occur, it is still a statistical argument rather than a predicate logic argument.
Indeed, it is a statistical argument, and while the chances of a teapot appearing are extremely unreasonably small, the chances of a contradiction in our laws is not unreasonably small, therefore I would argue that you are ignoring the statistical aspect of the argument in respect to the law.
Unfortunately, while it is certainly true that contradictions don't exist in the universe itself, that's not to say we can't create laws that don't contradict each other. There's nothing saying that two contradictary phrases can't be written down on sheets of paper. While it may be very likely that you are right, we can't say it's logically impossible for you to be wrong.
Please excuse any inaccuracies or poor word choices or just plain bad reasoning, I am not a lawyer.
Well, filing 96 appears to indicate they are still going to trial. Counts I, II, and III (Tortious Interference with Contract, Contributory Copyright Infringement, and Vicarious Copyright Infringement) have basically been granted summarry judgements, and the jusge has awarded $6 million for damages. Counts V and VII (Trademark Infringement and Unjust Enrichment) have been dismissed.
That leaves us with:
In the best English I can muster:
This part was addressed in the summary judgement, in MDY's favor. Since a user could theoretically read the entire game off of their hard drive one bit at a time, bypassing Blizzard's security does not qualify as trafficing in illegal decryption technology.
One major part you missed that will be addressed at trial - whether Donnelly will be held personally liable, or if the judgement will only go against corporate assets. Remember, the judgement is nearly double MDY's total revenue since Glider was released, so if Donnelly is held personally liable he's in a world of hurt.
Yep and the new bankruptcy laws for private citizens are a bitch.
I wish that the Wall Street bankers and corporate executives would be held to such standards and liabilities for their actions and business dealings.
Partially true - and partially false. The judge ruled this way for the game client itself - but for the "non-literal elements" of the game. It is still going to trial, but only for "non-literal elements" of the game.
Agreed, thanks for the correction.
For all business types except the sole proprietership, there is a clear line between business liabilities and personal liabilities. Changing this would be a very fundamental shift in the way businesses are run today.
Exactly my point.
Thats also a MMO not a solo play game.
Funny, there was a story a couple of years ago about a Chinese millionaire using slave labor to mine and sell gold in WOW. So using a cheat is against the law but, slave labor is ok!
If you buy the software and are paying to play it (why I hate MMORPG's), I don't see anything wrong with playing it your way, including using Bot's or cheats as long as your not cheating or effecting other players.
Getting lawyers involed in the gaming industry only means one thing, more lawyers!
The real danger here is not cheats but, mods, are we going to see game companies sueing players who use mods that change game play or adds something they don't like? Whats the difference between a mod and a cheat, that's the stuff that will keep lawyers busy from years to come and we will all pay for it!
Enigma_Legion wins the necrothead award for the day.
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