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Quoting the introparagraph at arstechnica.com... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Judge's ruling that WoW bot violates DMCA is troubling Glider, a popular WoW bot, took another hit on Wednesday as a federal judge ruled that the product went beyond copyright infringement to being a circumvention device under the DMCA. The decision raises serious questions about the legal status of interoperability and competition in the software industry. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wow, who would have thought that an MMO bot was a violation? However, there's more to the story if you can deal with legal concepts that surround this issue...
In short, Vernon owns the firm (MDY Industries) that produces "MMOGlider" - the popular WoW bot. Blizzard sues Vernon for violations under the DMCA - that's right - the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. So Blizzard are reduced to using copyright legislation to enforce adherence to their EULA. WTF? Well, legally, you take whatever action and course is going to get the result you want, so fair enough - I'll buy that...for now. Seems a bit of a jury rig (badoom tish) however, its gotten the right results so far. Back in July 2008, a US court ruled against Vernon in favour of Blizzard, basically stating that MMOGlider violated Blizzard's copyright by accessing WoW in the manner it did (not that Glider existed at all, or was a contravention of WoW's EULA, but the way it did what it did). It was a mildly mixed decision in that YES, Glider violated Blizzard's copyright, but not quite in the way that Blizzard alleged. But it was considered to be a disturbing decision, because it was very general and based on the idea that Glider was violating copyright by copying WoW into the computers memory (a program? in MEMORY!? OMG POLICE!). A public advocacy group filed a brief to this effect, which was subsequently rejected - the decision stood. This is disturbing because of the concept of "Precedent" or "case" law. This concept is that future decisions in court are generally based (and argued) upon the merits of previous, similar cases. So if there's a decision that says that "copying a program into memory for manipulation and use by the user is bad", then suddenly, this is a great precedent case for ANY game/application developer to make the exact same argument. Building addons, extending functions, API bits - all the cool stuff related to extending a game or application; all of it suddenly becomes suspsect....and sue-able. Sooo...back to the recent decision - the nuts and bolts are simple: WoW has "Warden" - a program that scans your HDD looking for dodgy bots & programs that it doesn't like. Warden has been previously argued to be an invasion of privacy, but it didn't hold up - because you agree to warden sniffing your shit when you sign into WoW. Because Warden is designed to stop unauthorised access to the game and its "elements" (zones, ui, mobs, content generally), and because Glider defeats that 'legal' checking by Warden, it is therefore a DMCA violation. Warden legitimately protects Blizzard's copyright. Glider dodges Warden. Glider is therefore violating copyright. That's the guts of it all. Who knows? Maybe this legal decision will form a nice basis for Blizzard to now be able to definitively ban anyone that has Glider installed at all, regardless of whether it is (or has been) used or not - because its sole intent is to void Blizzard's copyright? That'd be an amusing next phase, now wouldn't it? So yeah, the legislation (DMCA) that was largely setup to stop massive P2P file sharing (well that worked a charm, now didn't it?) has now found its golden day in the sun - enforcing EULAs for MMO's. The legal ramifications of this decision are a little scary, but I don't blame Blizzard one bit. If you agree not to bot, but you do anyway, then your account/subscription/licence to play their game is void on the spot. You're not playing the way you agreed to. I do however find it sad that they are reduced to whoring the DMCA to achieve their legitimate end. Two entities can contractually and consensually agree to almost anything that is legal, and the terms of that agreement are binding. You agree to purchase, pay for and play an MMO, without cheating, botting, plat selling, griefing or whatever else. That's your agreement when you click the I ACCEPT button. It shits me that such a simple concept can be the province of such bollox. Make your agreement with Blizzard and live up to the terms you willingly agreed to, or bugger off. At the very least, if you're gonna bot your ass off, don't complain if you get yourself done over and banned. You can view the full article here: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/01/judges-ruling-that-wow-bot-violates-dmca-is-troubling.ars |
