I think this conversation has gotten somewhat away from the relevant point - the reverse engineering MDY undertook to make Glider did not only RE parts of the WoW game itself - they RE'd the Warden program, which is not included on the disc they bought/licensed (choose your own verb), and so have absolutely no claim to either own or legally license. In fact, they had to bribe a guy at Blizzard to give them a copy of it when they got stuck! I'm sorry, but when industrial espionage is part of your buisiness plan, you're doing something wrong.

Perhaps it's a misnomer that Blizzard lumped the game, the server-side programming, and the security software together as a single intellectual property, but they did. Whether Glider violates the copyright on the WoW game software is arguable (seeing as we've argued about it for some time now ), but I think we can take it as given that Glider violates the copyright protections for Warden. MDY has neither license nor section 117 protection for REing it for any reason whatsoever.

Bodyless - Jonnan and psychoak's "alternative" to an EULA is what I charitably call Screw The Company. Although we can demonstrate examples of how a company can get fucked by consumer actions which are legal under copyright law, they see this as a good way to keep those damn money-grubbing companies in their place.



Jonnan, this is a damn silly question, seeing as we have established that the WoW EULA (as well as every other one ever written, AFAIK) specifically grants Blizzard the right to terminate the license for any reason, or indeed no reason whatsoever. The only reason they have to NOT terminate the license is that they are still benefitting from it, whether that benefit is in terms of monthly payments or simply customer goodwill. It gives the customer the same right to end the license. It's a standard clause in any license agreement, giving the licenser a way out without the licensee being able to sue that the reason didn't fit some particular criteria.



Since you have called Glider a effective expainson on WoW, does it fit these criteria? I don't see how it could, but the technical details were not published with the decision. Perhaps you can prove this one way or the other?



So you were saying Blizzard was committing anti-competitive practices against Glider, and now you say Blizzard was giving them a monopoly by doing so? Please make up your mind.

Physical products do not fall under copyright law. Copyright law is used for products that contain intellectual property, and it is generally accepted that software contains intellectual property.

I do agree that the license agreements should be made simpler, and should be made available before the purchase.

In the case of WoW, the license agreements are actually available on their website - you do not need to buy WoW to read the agreements.

I am just not as paranoid to believe that companies act out of pure evilness.
Its either profit or sillyness.

Selling products is still a popularatiy contest. Ask the guys making Starforce.

So, in sum, you are *granting* my premise

A) that a company can use this interpretation of an EULA to render *any* action by their customer 'illegal', regardless of the actual legality of the action itself.

That the only legal restriction on this ability is if it runs afoul of either anti-trust legislation or that it be declared 'unconscionable' by a court of law.

And for some reason, you believe that this is an appropriate level of power to hand over to a contract that is being offered to people without legal training in a $20-$50 transaction done over the counter, and that it is actually *unfair* to companies to argue for or imply any further limitations to the power of this contract.

Willy - well, I was going to say that's just stupid, but I have to stop and rephrase that.
It's not 'just' stupid.
It's stupid in so many ways that it renders all other stupidity I have seen in my life to well considered wisdom.

Why the hell would you think this was wise?

Jonnan

It is not your premise, it is common knowledge that everyone who matters went into this conversation knowing already. If that is news to you, you are hardly the educated person you think you are.

The funny thing is, the consumer has the same power to terminate the license, and you don't blink an eye. You see Blizzard being able to end someone's license as inherently wrong, but the consumer being able to end Blizzard's income from the license as inherently right. I happen to agree with that second part, but the cost of allowing the second part is allowing the first. We both would find it unconscionable if the EULA locked the user into the contract in perpetuity, or even for a set number of years. What you see as unconcionable is giving Blizzard a way out as well - in your opinion they should be locked into the license forever. Fortunately for everyone, such is not the case.

I'll grant that the consequences of license termination are considerably harsher for the consumer than they are Blizzard, but the limit of damage the consumer can suffer is the loss of the $50 game. Blizzard is vulnerable to far greater damages, as we can clearly see in this case.

Huh - how strange - I could sworn I went into this entire conversation arguing that the UCC 2 prevented exactly that interpretation. I was granting that premise as an argument showing how overreaching the entire premise was.

If this is news to you, you are hardly the literate reader you think you are.

WOW! WHAT A CONCESSION!

After taking my money, stealing back the title to the CD I bought with that money, the license generously allows both myself *and* the software manufacturer to terminate the license, while they keep my money and retain title to my CD!

I can see entirely why you would consider that to be a perfectly obvious balance to their ability to use that license to make any action they choose to functionally illegal.

"I'll grant that the consequences of license termination are considerably harsher for the consumer than they are Blizzard" and "Blizzard is vulnerable to far greater damages, as we can clearly see in this case."??????

You grant that there are greater consequences to the weaker party, but the stronger party has more damages?

Neat theory - we consider damages to each individual customer as individual issues, but we consider damage to the software company as a theoretical aggregate. Why bother with the simple illogic of weighing apples and oranges when I can keep a bushel of oranges on one side of the scales, and weigh the apples individually on the other side of the side. Great Plan.

Sorry, ah - No. It's dishonest to even try and add them that way Willy. Which has been par for the course in your arguments sadly.

Individually, no, the risks are piled on the consumer. The consumer is the one who pays blizzard money for a CD, and then has the title to that CD stolen back from him in return for installing a program he was already allowed to install, by a EULA written by highly paid contract lawyers.

Blizzard and the consumer can both kill the license.

Whoop - fucking -eee! Money changed hands, and Blizzard still has it.

So the 'risk' under this agreement is that Blizzard either gets their money, and gets to exercise absolute control over the otherwise legal actions of the licensee, or that Blizzard gets' their money, the license is canceled, and they don't get to exercise absolute control over the otherwise legal actions of the licensee.

Or, we don't grant that right, and it would turn out that Blizzard get's their money, and that allows them to sell their product . . . but not control my computer.

For some reason, Willy and bodyless deeply believe that that last paragraph indicates something deeply and dramatically unfair for software companies. 15 pages on, and I have yet to hear *why* they feel holding buying a computer game to the same standards as buying a board game is unfair, but they're determined this is unfair.

Jonnan

Screw it, Jafo, I'm going to be bad again. Do whatever floats your boat.

A way out. What the hell is wrong with you? Not even EA would attempt such a bullshit argument, and they're claiming that 3 activation limits and requiring internet access are for our benefit. Equal footing with their customers by giving them the same ability to get rid of their customers purchase as their customer has? Are you a fucking crack head? I've talked to drug addled mental cases drinking themselves into a stupor that have more sense than that. It's not even preposterous, it's something only a cunt punting asshole would say just to piss people off. You even think it's a standard practice that all EULA's have? I thought you said you knew what you were signing off on? What the hell is wrong with you? Not even EA would attempt such a bullshit argument, and they're claiming that 3 activation limits and requiring internet access on single player games are features for our benefit.

Slightly less fucking stupid shit continued...



Question, what the hell do you want me to do Blizzards job for? If Blizzard has an actual case against MDY, and not some fictitious load of horse shit like the case they brought, then Blizzard is the one that has to try and prove it. If Glider violates copyright in a non magical fairy kingdom way, then Blizzard needs to claim such, and have it verified or disproved in court. I'm not against Blizzard taking MDY to the cleaners for breaking the law, or infringing on copyright. I'm against bullshit being invented by assfucker judges to implement wishful thinking.



...

How to explain this so a retarded fuck five year old with Down's syndrome that was dropped down a flight of stairs could get it...

Ok, I'm drawing a blank on that one, new tact. Since you're obviously fucking stoned, maybe this will make more sense.

We're all drug dealers. A supplier decides he wants to sell all the drugs himself, and hires a bunch of crack heads to kill all the dealers. When he's done, one of the drug dealers is still alive because he killed all the crack heads that were sent after him. He's now the only fucking dealer.

I swear Willy, you're the dumbest shit I've ever seen.

Bodyless, this isn't some theoretical maybe. They have their own list of games they've already turned into coasters in the last couple years. What you believe is irrelevant, they publish the information themselves. It's fact. If you really want to fuck yourself in the ass, continue being oblivious.

Cobra, copyright has nothing to do with licenses. Ignore reality all you want, but they are entirely separate. Books, music, movies, anything with an instruction manual, informational brochure, parts catalog, even just information on the packaging, contains copyrighted material. None come with EULA's. Your point is about as valid as the size of your pecker.

It only renders copying the software as illegal.



Actually, copyright law has fair use restrictions.



Blizzard is being nice by offering you a license in the first place. They don't have to hand out a license. Problem is, the license is what is allowing you to copy the product to your hard drive or memory. Otherwise, all you can really do is to look at the nice pretty CD.

UCC 2 applies to the physical CD, and that's fine. UCC 2 does not apply, however, to the information on the CD. Copyright law covers the information stored on the CD.



UCC 2 is fine, but it doesn't override copyright law. Copyright law still applies.



The CD costs pennies to create. The vast majority of your payment is for the software on the CD, not the CD itself.



But Blizzard isn't suing for the rights for the physical CD! Maybe you're right about contract law, but it doesn't matter. Just because you're fine under contract law doesn't mean you're fine under copyright law.

You have absolutely no clue.

The relevant text from the copyright act has already been posted more than once. It is explicitly stated that copyrights do not pertain to the copying required for use of the software, or for backup purposes. The only countries that do not have copyright laws specifically allowing you to use the software as necessary, also do not uphold licenses.

Learn first, post stupid shit after. Even without going anywhere, there are 14 pages refuting every point you gave.

This would be fairly obvious if you weren't intentionally playing stupid. Take each license on an INDIVIDUAL basis. Used in the intended manner, the consumer gets to play the game and Blizzard gets money. Terminated in the usual manner, the user stops playing the game, and Blizzard stops making that money. So far, nothing even psychoak could argue.

HOWEVER, look at the down side of potential abuse on either side. If Blizzard arbitrarily ends the license, the consumer is out his $50, and could be liable for infringement on that one copy - even if Blizzard sues them, the consumer's liability for violating one license is pretty low. If the consumer violates the license, Blizzard could be looking at millions of dollars in lost revenue, or indeed even lawsuits from other license holders, depending on exactly what the consumer breaking the license did. In MDY's case, the actual damage is being done by the 100,000 Glider users, but the conditions that allow those damages to occur were caused by ONE PERSON breaching the license.

While obviously not every license breach by a consumer is going to cost Blizzard millions of dollars, it only takes one to really ruin their day. THAT is what I meant when I said Blizzard faces the greater risk. The only way a consumer could face the same level of risk is if they breach the license in such a way as to encourage and enable others to do so as well - MDY is seeing a major downside to breaking the license, but the average user will not.

As for why software deserves greater protection, I've said so several times. Software by its very nature can easily - and in ways technically legal under copyright law - be altered, reverse engineered, cribbed for other programs, or AS IS THE CASE IN THE MDY CASE WE ARE DISCUSSING, interfered with after the fact. Show me ANY other copyrightable medium that can have retroactive infringement effects. If you infringe on a book copyright, that won't change anything about the copy I already own. Maybe the resale value, but that's it. You can't change what's printed in my book, you can't use your infringment to deny me access to my book, you can't affect my physical copy in any way. No amount of infringement you do can affect a copy already sold.

Now compare that to the use of Glider on WoW. Ten million people have active licenses to it, and yet the actions of less than 1% of those people can affect the use of the product by the other 99+%. These infringing actions can and do affect the usability of products that were licensed BEFORE the infringement takes place. Retroactive effects on other consumers, and standard copyright law would probably allow it. Yes, that is a BIG fucking deal, and if you can't see that, you're a moron.

psychoak - I've been called worse, by things I consider closer to real people than you. You sound like a spellchecker with touretts.

About the german EULA:

Well, not about the german one per se, but the norwegian one. Close enough. Basically, most US EULA's you're asked to sign are partly or wholly void because they ask you to give up rights granted by law that you cannot normally give up. (Some EULA's tries to get around that by claiming that by signing you also give up your applicable rights, but they haven't been tried in court so hard to say if they stick... some of those EULA's leaves a rather bad taste in my mouth reading'em.).

But this guy, he has to be a very ... optimistic fellow to sue Blizzard over this and NOT expecting a counter.

One exerpt from blizzard's motion for summary judgement:

"Indeed, MDY’s stated goal is to drive up Blizzard’s cost of combating Glider to the point it ultimately abandons efforts to block it, an option that Blizzard’s rule-abiding customers, who have filed over 465,000 formal complaints and voiced their continued displeasure with Glider on Blizzard’s forums, have made clear is unacceptable."

At any rate, other news: "Blizzard respectfully requests that the injunction preclude MDY, Michael Donnelly, all employees and agents of MDY, and any person acting in concert with them from marketing, selling, supporting, or developing Glider or similar software for use with WoW."

(This is from 'Virtually Blind'. Their main archive on the subject:
http://virtuallyblind.com/category/active-lawsuits/mdy-v-blizzard/

The judge ruled that the relevant text you refer to only applies to the owner of the copyright, and not to licensees. You want a clue? Read the court rulings yourself. I have.

Whether you agree with the judge's ruling or not, the judge has addressed that exact issue. I am not clueless or stupid for discussing the issue.

Fucking shit, did it again. Christ I hate this connection.

Cobra, the judge shitting on the law doesn't change reality. It's the Ninth circuit, they get rolled more often than a Vegas hooker. If the Supreme pansy shit ass fucker Court wasn't fucking us over and intentionally not ruling on copyright despite conflicting rulings on a federal statute, something they are required to resolve, they'd overturn this ruling and the insanity that was used to justify it.

If a judge rules that water is a dangerous substance based on the number of compounds it dissolves, will you stop drinking it?

Khardis, read more carefully. Blizzard gave them a day to surrender before filing. They just launched a preemptive strike.

Willy, my original text would have actually looked like someone with Tourrettes, but I deleted most of the more explicit statements and reworded. I even ended up duplicating a sentence while editing stuff out...

You could use a spell checker though. A brain too, but that's asking too much I think.

Reality is, this could affect future rulings on EULAs and the efforts of companies to stop bots in multiplayer games.

In this case, I personally think there is nothing wrong with software companies having some control over piracy, and there is nothing wrong with game companies wanting some control over bots.

You can yell "but they can ban" until you're blue in the face, but frankly regular account and IP address bans are simply not being effective enough. The botters simply get new accounts and new IP addresses. Do you have a better idea?



No.

I don't have to blindly agree with you, psychoak.

God I'm getting tired of posting the same shit and walking through the logical conclusions step by step.

Okay - for the court to issue a Summary Judgement the had to assume that no disputed facts could render it invalid.

Needless to say, the question of whether "Glider" Infringed Blizzard or did anything illegal was disputed, and accordingly, the summary judgement assumes that for the purposes of this judgement "Glider" was perfectly legal and aboveboard. Read it carefully - it makes no statement about whether "Glider" does *anything* illegal, in and of itself - it rests on an interpretation of Blizzards EULA between Blizzard and the person that bought the the CD with the WoW client.

Abridged (Because I've already posted an unabridged version) Order of events -

The EULA on Program A (WoW Client)
A) restricts the consumer from using Program B (Glider); For purposes of Summary Judgment, Program B is *presumed* to be legal in and of itself
Retroactively 'steals' the title of the CD - THE PHYSICAL MEDIA THAT YOU WALKED OUT OF THE STORE WITH - from the person that bought it. This is critical because as the legitimate owner of that CD the consumer does not need a license (More on this below)
C) Issues a license to use the program

The consumer installs Program A, accepting the license agreement (because he way of installing otherwise)
The Consumer installs and uses Program B
This Use, *EVEN IF LEGAL* rescinds the license issued for Program A
The consumer uses Program A, violating the copyright of the owners of Program A because the consumer no longer has either title to the CD *or* a license to use the program.
The Owners of Program B are now liable for contributory infringement because the use of their program rescinded the license.

Note - nothing in this requires there to be *any* infringement of the Owners of Program B into the rights of the Owners of Programs A.


Umm - so? Copyright law is being used to cause this 'infringement', however, once you accept this interpretation as binding, there is *nothing* limiting the actions that the company can decide violate the license. You have to remember - the Summary judgement *assumes* MDY didn't do anything in and of itself illegal.

If you accept this proposition at all, then perforce you have to accept that the lawyers that write up the EULA can make *anything* reason to rescind the license so long as a court doesn't void the contract as unconscionable or decide it violates some *other* law.

And the only other law that *I* can see coming into play is anti-trust law.

But since nothing in this requires Program B to have done anything illegal themselves, whether or not they used fair use is irrelevant.

Factually Wrong sir - This is the "More on that" previously mentioned

*Copyright Law* contains provisions allowing you, as the legitimate, legal owner of a legitimately legally created CD, to install and run the programs on a computer or make a backup.

In fact, this 'license' is written specifically to deprive you of that right by retroactively saying you don't actually own the CD you bought - which, since that is adjudged by UCC 2 law, is thus where the entire formation of a contract question comes into play.

So no Cobra - they're not 'being nice' by offering you a license - they're actually stealing the property back out of your hand that you paid good money for by forcing you to take a license that gives you *less* rights than not having a license would give you.


I hope you mean that since, as mentioned, the court is (incorrectly) applying UCC2 sales law to actually override the copyright law.


Well no, you're paying for a legal and legitimate copy of the CD - That is all that is required to use the program under copyright law for me to use the program.

Again, the problem is that Blizzard is stating that you don't actually own the physical CD.


No - This entire case revolves around the belief that the EULA actually *gives* them the rights to the physical CD. Cobra - if you own that CD, Blizzards Case for Summary Judgement falls apart.

Jonnan