I feel that's important enough to bear repeating.


















Possibly more than once.

Yeah... You already have certain rights. The company already has certain rights. The company doesn't need a license to say you can't copy their software. You don't need a license to use it.



See? This is what happens when you don't read. I've already stated on numerous occasions that I've played MMORPG's. I'm one of those players that doesn't like killing rabbits for a week. I'd be using bots to mine fish! Fortunately, my current connection makes playing one nigh impossible, so I don't have to worry about getting banned by Blizzard. I've played Everquest, gotten multiple characters to level 20ish. Actually had fun with the necromancer till around level 16, when all the spells were just repeating themselves and downtimes started getting ridiculous. I've played FFXI very fucking briefly, severely boring shit, made Everquest look like the best game ever made. Drowning in a puddle of my own drool while I destroy my brain killing five hundred beetles to ding just isn't my idea of fun. If I could skip the boring shit and just do quests, I'd be sold.

This is true only if you are making a product that fills the same need. Blizzard can make a game incompatable with all bots; they can make a game compatable with all bots - they are not allowed a middle ground where some are permitted and some not.

Now, if Blizzard was selling a bot of their own design, or had a simplistic one included in the game from the beginning, preventing Glider from working would indeed be anticompetitive. Microsoft got nailed in the Netscape fiasco because they were preventing a third party from competing with their own browser, not because they were selling operating systems intended not to work with ANY browsers. Can you recognise a distinction?

Maybe you see it differently, but I don't see how creating a competing server could possibly avoid infringing. Part of the IP covered is the results of the programming, as well as the programming itself. The appearance of the characters, the design of the world map, the various items and skills used by the characters, etc are all protected. All of this would have to be substantially altered in order to get someone within shouting distance of 'fair use'. Or are you telling me I can make my own movies about Mickey Mouse? After all, if Disney didn't make the movie, they can't hold any rights to it. Is that honestly your opinion of copyright law?

As for games getting patents, you're getting close to psychoak's level of reality-disconnect. You honesly want all software to become free after 7 years? Gee, I could have made my OWN version of Starcraft II by now - the rights to the old one expired long ago. Hell, Windows XP would become freeware in October.



Your reading comprehention is broken. Absent bot-controlled characters, server space is adequate and monster rarities are at the intended level. Overpopulation is debatable, as underpopulation for a multiplayer game is as bad or worse than overpopulation. This is like blaming the library for being empty instead of blaming the guys who just drove away with truckloads of books. Oh, and by the way, those nice gentleman just set up shop a block away and are willing to SELL you the books you should have been able to read for free. That is the essense of real money traders in an MMO.

You want Blizzard to readjust their game to correct for the actions of botters, without acknowledging the fact that this readjustment would have to be on a daily basis. If you correct the game for an artificial scarcity of one commodity, you will deflate the price and send the RMT guys to cause another scarcity somewhere else - leaving a glut of the orginal commodity, which was designed to be rare. So Blizzard adjusts back, setting the cycle up to repeat in a month or two.

You call bot users Blizzard's best customers? Nonsense. The people who use this as intended are the best customers, because they are far more numerous. The bot user is not paying any more per month than the legitimate user. And if one bot user is causing a hundred legitimate users to leave, simple common sense says to axe the botter to save the hundred others.



And exactly HOW does Blizzard initiating the suits benefit them? Either suing the users, or the users suing them, the legal costs would be similar. And unless Blizzard can recover court and legal fees in nearly all cases, they come out behind. Not getting legal fees covered in even three or four percent of the cases could wipe out the gains Blizzard might make. Perhaps they could go the same route the RCIA did and only sue users that violated EULA with multiple copies, but it's still a financial risk with almost no upside. I suppose they could go all-out on the first case in each jurisdiction, then use that one case as precedent to railroad through the rest, but it's still a hefty risk.

From post 331:


Well, the part where the customer buys the game, rather than a license to the game.

The part where the customer EVER holds legal ownership of the game copy. They own the License rights, not the copy itself.

I corrected this sentence:
"As part of the install process, consumer is forced to accept an EULA he was not forced to peruse prior to installation."
The EULA is available to the public. Not bothering to read it is much like encouraging a home buyer not to get an independant insection before closing. Yes, it's a small onus on the buyer, but it beats the hell out of trusting the seller.

The part where you claim all other circuit courts have rejected the legality of EULAs entirely, yet failed to give proof. I'd like at least one case from each circuit, each having either not been appealed of upheld by the Supreme Court. And they must rule EULAs as a funtional contract illegal, not one particular part of them.

The part where Glider is legal. If an object has no legal use, it must be considered illegal itself. DMCA specifically includes language to that effect regarding decryption software, as do drug paraphenilia laws everywhere.

The part where you can't seem to understand what constitutes "competition".

The part where you don't seem to understand Constitutional checks and balances. Judicial review of law trumps the law as written. If Congress disagrees with how judges are interpreting the law, they can change the law to clarify what is intended. Since no one has submitted a bill to ammend the copyright law to say "Consumers clueless, so we can't expect them to read. All EULAs are illegal", we have to conclude that either A) Congress doesn't consider this the problem you do; or game companies have bought off a significant portion of Congress. Which of those options seems more likely to you?

The part where you fucked up "All your base are belong to us." If you're going to try humor as an argument, do it competently.

I dont agree with this.

"I feel that's important enough to bear repeating."

I dont agree with this.

I dont agree with this.

I dont agree with this.

I dont agree with this.

I dont agree with this.

I dont agree with this.

I dont agree with this.

I dont agree with this.

I dont agree with this.

I dont agree with this.

I dont agree with this.

I dont agree with this.

I dont agree with this.

Who is right now? The one who spammed his opinion more often?

Or maybe noone can tell without taking a deeper look on how glider was programmed/works.
After reading the article in the topic i had the impression that glider indeed violates some law.
Who am i(or are you) to fortune tell if this is true?





Read my last posts again to get my point.

I asked you for an better alternative that eulas.
psychoak said that you only need copyright law and now eulas.
The argument you quoted was in case there is no eula.

I have not read all of the pages of posts yet, so I'm not sure if anyone has said this yet:

I may be totally wrong, but I think the reason it is a violation of copyright law is that he is selling a product that is dependent upon interaction with someone else's game and that is the only thing it does. Look at it like this: If someone released an unauthorized expansion pack for someone else's game and charged money for it, even if it somehow didn't actually contain any of the assets present in the original game, then that would be a copyright violation. This seems like it would be similar.

I'm sure these laws can get rather murky and probably even inconsistent at times, but that is my take on it.

Oh wow, I really hosed those quotes... pathetic.

Borg, you are. A program is a program. Either it violates copyright or it doesn't. The classic example of an expansion would be copyright infringement because expansions expand on the intellectual creations that are the sides and stories in a game, not just the mechanics. An expansion needn't actually do that though. You could expand on Sins by creating a new hud that subverted and replaced the original, used entirely original code, and was in no way, shape or form, copyright infringement of any kind, and then sell it with proper notation as to who owns what trademarks and such when marketing it.

Games themselves are nothing more than expansions for your operating system when it comes to the relative function. They work within the OS, and provide you added functionality that the OS itself doesn't have.

Willy, you have a disconnect between your brain and fingers.

Making a game compatible with bots, and changing a game to prevent the compatibility of pre-existing bots are two separate things. A company is under no obligation(contrary to congress' opinion concerning Microsoft) to make their software compatible with anything and everything to start with. There is no requirement to ACT, it's an entirely passive obligation in allowing compatibility. It's a no no to ACT in the opposite direction. Blizzard can design Fort Knox, Blizzard can't change their program specifically to prevent the use of other legal programs later. Blizzard modifying WOW to prevent Glider is the same as Microsoft modifying Windows to prevent Netscape.

Blizzard creating a game designed not to work with bots in the first place is irrelevant. Blizzard banning bots on their servers is also irrelevant. They can do so till hell freezes over. Their servers are their own private property, as long as they tell you before you hand over your money to use their service, they can do whatever the hell they want.

Also, my constitutionally uneducated shmuck, your understanding of judicial review is as vapid as the rest of your knowledge. Judicial review and "interpreting" a law are entirely unrelated. Judicial review is the duty of the Supreme Court in ruling on the constitutionality of any given law brought before them. "Interpreting" is a nice way of saying "forsaking their oaths to uphold the laws of the land" and should at the minimum have them disbarred and impeached for such flagrant and obvious violations as this, and should probably see them tried for treason and hung from the neck until dead.

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psychoak - what you're describing is a mod, not an expansion. A user-created mod such as you describe would be legal only because the Stardock EULA allows it - and guess what, selling a mod is specifically prohibitted. Yes, you've indicated one more gray area where an EULA provides protection that is not expressedly given a company under copyright law. Thank you for bringing up a point in favor of the necessity of EULAs.



Glider was certainly NOT a pre-existing bot, it was designed to work on WoW only after WoW was released. In fact, it was originally called WOWGlider, but the name was changed to prevent trademark infringement.

The Warden security program, which Glider is specifically designed to defeat, is by its nature evolutionary. All security systems are. Bots were a known hazzard when WoW was created, and Blizzard took steps to prevent them. What you said here is that software makers can put whatever safeguards in their product they like, but can't update it to catch new threats? The virus makers must love you.

And as I've pointed out several times now, this is not similar to the MS/Netscape conflict. MS was targetting a competitor in favor of its own product. Blizzard does not sell bot programs. Glider is not a competitor to WoW, it is a parasite.



Yes, I used the wrong term. My apologies - although you are not entirely correct, either. The power of judicial review is not specifically enumerated in the Constitution, nor is it limited only to the Supreme Court.

To be seeking impeachment, you must have legal proof of criminal activities? You perhaps have a record of Blizzard paying the guy off, or maybe you saw the judge smoking crack on the bench? An opinion contrary to your personal views does not constitute criminal activities.

And speaking of constitutionally uneducated, perhaps you'd like to read the definition of treason sometime? That actually is written into Article III, you know.



You think the judge is waging WAR on us? Or perhaps Blizzard is, and the judge is just giving them aid and comfort? Not to mention you have a pretty high standard of evidence to meet.

Last, it's hung by the neck. As opposed to having the noose around some other body part, which would make for an altogether much slower execution, don't you think? Also, hanging is illegal nearly (if not entirely) everywhere in the US.

Ahah. Ahaha. I can't stop laughing... It's just so funny... What the hell do you think an expansion is? An expansion modifies the pre-existing game. That we give two identical things two different names because they come in different contextual environments does not change reality. If you can expand on a game without violating copyright, and the scenario I gave DOES NOT VIOLATE COPYRIGHT, it's legal. It's your right to do so, the EULA, by banning such things, VIOLATES YOUR RIGHTS. Yeah, I make real good arguments on the necessity of EULA's to violate our rights.



"Pre-existing" is not restricted to "pre-existing the existence of the game itself" and means exactly what I said. The bots exist before Blizzard makes changes to their program to stop them from working.



Viruses are illegal. Malware and other such things are explicitly excluded from the protections against anti-competitive behavior. Is it really that complicated?

If Blizzard wants to claim that, by circumventing their software and invading their servers in a way they don't allow, that Glider is illegal software, and Blizzard can get the argument to go somewhere, Blizzard can get the guy thrown in federal prison. As I've said, Blizzard has legal options. They don't include nailing the guy for copyright infringement that doesn't exist, and they do not hinge on the existence of an illegal contract forced on you post sale.



As you have yet to grasp, anti-competitive behavior does not require that you actually sell a directly competing product. If I sell apples, and you sell oranges, we compete. We are not competitors in the orange or apple market, we are competitors in the food market. Blizzard, believing another product was costing them money, acted to prevent it from functioning. They make the case for me. They believed and acted accordingly to stop it.



True, it is not limited to the Supreme Court. The scope of the courts at the time of writing is, unfortunately, limited entirely to the Supreme Court. No other courts are formed by it, the underlying infrastructure had to be built by congress within the constitutional bounds. So my statement is correct, it is the duty of the Supreme Court, despite other courts also being formed between then and now with the same duty, subject to the will of higher courts above them.

However, the power of judicial review is specifically enumerated, no one recognizes it because what is considered judicial review is unrecognizable. Modern judicial review was pulled out of someone's ass, Alexander Hamilton's to be exact. The Supreme court has appellate jurisdiction over the laws of the land. If Congress passes a law, and I appeal it, the Supreme Court has jurisdiction and hears the case, then makes a ruling. If I appeal an action by state or federal government on the grounds that it is unconstitutional, the Supreme Court has jurisdiction, again ruling on whether it is constitutional or not. There is no mention of interpretation or any such nonsense because there wasn't any need for interpretation. The constitution is written crystal clear, that some people choose not to read is a problem. There is no such thing as a gray area, all powers not explicitly given, do not exist. We now have things like imminent domain to give property to private businesses, not to mention firearms restrictions left and right despite the clearest wording ever given to a law in the history of mankind. See the problem with letting crazies say crazy shit because it accomplishes a short term goal? Your judge makes some of the crazier gun rulings look like damn good law.



"Section 1. The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensation which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office."

Where exactly does it say you need legal proof of criminal activities? That was an easy one. You really should have read section one. It would have prevented at least two paragraphs of nonsense. If violating your oath of office is good behavior, we do indeed need to fear the judicial system.



I must admit, my definition of making war on the United States does differ from a later judicial ruling that decided there was a requirement of an actual assembly of armed men first. I would however venture a guess that my definition is not any more interpretive than theirs. I consider the willful violation of their oath in order to subvert the law of the land to be an attack on it.

As the big cheese, I'd execute every last one of the hypocritical fucks, and this judge is at the top of the list. Yes, I realize we'd run out of judges, but as lawyers would replace them, and most would in turn be executed themselves, the long term effect would be a sizable dent in the population of lawyers. I can't see that being a bad thing.



I'd love to argue the advantages in a slower execution, but sheeple don't usually believe in the death penalty to start with so it's probably even more of a lost cause than the current one. Anal picking apart of word usage could get messy though, shall we avoid that? I must however point out that a proper hanging is one of the least painful deaths possible. The position of the knot in relation to the spine is designed to knock the individual out just before snapping their neck, death is near instant and while unconscious. As long as the hangman does his job, the drop and rope strength are properly chosen for the weight of the individual using them, and it goes off without a hitch. It's more humane than firing squads, electrocution(my preference, but it's rather messy for the cleanup crew) and lethal injection. The horror stories are mostly bullshit, but there are, fortunately, people that actually get executed in this country almost universally deserve far worse, individuals on whom the knockout drug doesn't work. My uncle is nearly immune to Valium, as well as several local and general anesthetics, he's probably one of them.

There Jafo, I didn't call his arguments vapid.

So everyone can legally make expansions for every game and even sell them without owning any copyrights?

You are obviously making a joke here.

Or why dont we see any EA published Diablo Expansions?

Hey Stardock, make an expansion of MoO3 and fix that damn game. I give you $20!!

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The EULA cannot take any rights from you that you never had in the first place.





bots that existed before wow cannot be compatible with it. You need to know how the game is played to make a bot.
So wow pre-existed any wow-bots.

Well gee bodyless, I don't know, perhaps the one that wasted 40 minutes creating the previous post and then 'spammed' the important point he felt should be listened to. Alternatively you could ignore that entire post, not look up a damn thing yourself and make an ass of yourself by pretending I hadn't made that post after a long detailed post and just assume I was talking out my ass.

But since the summary judgement decision itself stated that the reason there was a copyright violation was due to the EULA withdrawing the license on Blizzards customers - even the decision itself granting that, at least for purposes of summary judgement, Glider had, in and of itself, violated no law.

So, lets be clear - the Summary judgement, *regardless* of whether Glider has any illegal aspects that might be determined in a full trial, was based in Glider not being illegal in and of itself.

Which in turn means that, regardless of the legality of any other program created, there is no legal way of not applying exactly this logic to *whatever program Company X doesn't like*. Even, arguably, any action taken by their customer that they don't like - after all, the customer *accepted* the EULA, not their fault they weren't aware that by donating to the democratic or republican party they were violating the EULA.r

So - until this ruling is overturned

Microsoft can decide dual-booting with linux violates the EULA.

Adobe can decide using Gimp, or for that matter any other competing product on your PC has violated the EULA.

Fundamentally, this decision has handed the keys to your PC over to every software company whose software you use.

But hey, you're free to ignore all that and cheer on the fact that it screws people you don't like - after all, I must be an idiot I keep researching long detailed posts that reference the plainly written text of the UCC and copyright law that say what these contracts aren't allowed to do, so that I can see people post "Nyah Nyah - I can't hear you" in response. Anyone that keeps thinking people that respond like that are going to be swayed by facts is obviously too damn stupid to worth listening too.

Y'all are sheep and I'm past caring if you get slaughtered.

Jonnan

Now there is a differnce between banning a whole class of programs (bots) and banning a specific program (linux). Also, while windows is competing with linux, there is no competing blizzard product for the glider.



If glider has now legal use, why should it be legal?




Until eulas are declared void, you cannot expect any judge to act like they were completely void.
Also, i am still wondering if you know any better alternative to eulas. Do you?

Quoting out of order, because this is the most important misunderstanding here - apologies.



You are approaching this backwards - the summary judgment phase *presumes* the program to be legal, because it's assuming there's no likely defense against this argument, and the program has *not* been found to be illegal. If Glider being found to be a legal, non-infringing program was a defense, the judge would have been bound to *not* issue a summary judgment here.

So, assuming for the purposes of argument that I am completely wrong about whether Glider is a legal non- infringing program - I don't think I am, but let's assume -

That makes no difference - because this judgment means that a corporation EULA can *effectively* make a perfectly legal program illegal through the simple expedient of saying that the client does no own the CD and that the license is withdrawn as soon as program 'X' is used, or indeed action 'X' is taken.

If this judgment found that Glider had to be illegal for the EULA to withdraw the license, this decision wouldn't be scary at all - I'm comfortable with that.

It doesn't.



Short answer: Really - Prove it.

Given that the legality or lack thereof of Glider has nothing to do with the Summary Judgment decision finding MDY liable for contributory infringement, prove *any* difference.

Because the fundamental argument here is that Blizzard can both remove the title for the media from their customers, and then remove the license for use of the program on the media based on what the customer does.

So - given that 'Software Company X' owns the media, on what basis can you say that 'Software Company X' *can't* withdraw their license and sue either their customer *or* the third party that enabled that action.

We know that it doesn't require that action to be infringing or illegal - that would have removed this from summary judgment.

Give me a legal justification for saying the EULA *can* remove the license for a legal, non-copyright infringing application in circumstance A, and *cannot* remove the license for a legal non-infringing application in circumstance B, regardless of the wording of the EULA, and then you have a case for saying I'm over-reacting.

But at the moment, the only two *legal* restrictions on this that I can see would be if the company runs afoul of anti-trust law (Which, given how enforcement very much waxes and wanes depending on political issues, I find an awfully slender reed to attach my faith to, even given that it really only applies to the very largest companies), or if an EULA was actually written to require something that was legal but qualified as 'unconscionable' - and a contract has to go a long way past 'unfair' before a court will refuse to enforce it as unconscionable.

So, do me a favor and assume I'm wrong about whether or not Glide is legal in and of itself, but also assume that I am right about the fact that for purposes of summary judgment it doesn't matter - and then come up with an argument based on legal precedents you can verify from here that limits this power without either . . .

A) Requiring laymen (consumers) to understand the contract on a $20 product
Requiring the contract to violate actual anti-trust law or
C) Requiring the contract to be unconscionable.

Jonnan

Umm - following the clearly delineated law of UCC2, just like every *other* merchant?

I have yet to figure out why everyone deeply believes that somehow software companies need a contract written to their specification that the consumer can't read before purchase when no other company selling to the public at large seems to need this.

Would you buy a *couch* that had a notation on the box saying 'We have a contract, and you will get to see it after you take the couch home - remember to read it before you sit down'

Jonnan

Because the simple existence of them is enough to brainwash most people into believing their surroundings are necessary. This isn't even a particularly impressive example of sheeple, a particularly dumb one perhaps, but various groups of people have shafted themselves far worse for far less reason on countless occasions simply because they thought the status quo was necessary.

Edit: Arg, brain damage. Continues post...

Bodyless, you do understand the concepts involved right?

Expanding on a game without violating copyright is nearly impossible. It's a pain in the fucking ass. To do a real, across the board game expansion, you'd have to create all your own content, basically hack it all together as you wouldn't be allowed to include potentially necessary code in your package, and then sell it without violating trademarks and copyrights in the marketing of your product. You can't use the name, you can't use any characters, the world is off limit, the minute details of the entire game are entirely off limits. You have to design an entirely original game that simply runs off the engine, without needing to duplicate any of the pre-existing code to manage it.

Then, if you accomplished such an anal task that might be more difficult than just making your own game, you'd get sued before it ever got out the door, and even if you won the lawsuit, would probably still be bankrupted and put out of business thanks to a hugely unfair civil legal system that costs a fortune to effectively use. Even without that, Diablo 2 sold four million copies. That's your entire market for a modification to Diablo 2. Not your customer base, your market. The entire Diablo 2 capable computer market was several hundred million people. Blizzard sold four million to that market, you're going after a likely more minuscule percentage of their customer base.

If you do expand on a game, it's generally something like a UI upgrade, or you add a few items to it. Even the full blown mods that people do, heavily drawing from copyrighted material both of the game designers and other IP's, are generally very simple changes. Rare is a mod that people consider worth paying for. Even when free, the number of mods that have been downloaded enough time to have paid for the time put into them if those same downloads had been for a reasonable price is likely to be counted on one hand. Counter-strike is the only one I'd bet money on.

MDY only managed to sell a bot for WOW because Blizzard was effectively shutting down the other bots, and they found themselves a gold mine in making the only one that worked, and had several million people as a customer base with a known high demand, and a negligible cost of creation and distribution. It was the perfect setup, Blizzard's own practices in shutting down bots created a market by giving MDY a monopoly on an otherwise insoluble business plan.