To clarify that a bit, I think standard copyright law is irresponsibly permissive when it comes to what a copy owner can do with software, and would leave software developers in situations where they could be legally liable for various abuses of their programs without any legal means of dealing with those abuses. Licensing is the only means a developer has available to retain the means to fight this. And while I'd partially agree with Jonnan's calls for better consumer information about the contents of the license agreement, without a rewrite of the law I wouldn't back your desire to stop licensing entirely.

If someone were to come up with changes to copyright law to address such concerns (a ban on ALL reverse engineering for starters), I could be persuaded that licensing would be less necessary. The basic viewpoint difference between us is that you see the general public as more trustworthy than corporations and I don't.

OK, i dont know the US law. I just couldnt imagine it.

EDIT: I tried to google it but couldnt find anything about that in section 117.

You found sectio 117, but you couldn't find anything about "Owner of a Copy" protections in section 117?

Really?

§ 117. Limitations on exclusive rights: Computer programs

Did you, perchance, look at the first paragraph of section 117 where is says that it's not an infringement on the exclusive rights of the copyright owner (section 106) for the "Owner of Copy" to create copies provided (1) that making a copy is an essential step in using the program on the machine, or (2) you're doing so to make a backup.

Cuz, y'know, that's like, the, um, first paragraph of Title 17§ 117, which you seem to have found. There is actually a paragraph elsewhere in the copyright act which goes to to trouble of defining the "Owner of a Copy" as being separate from the "Owner of Copyright", i.e., the person who bought and owns the disk, rather than owning the copyrighted material on the disk.

I confess, additionally, I'm a bit confused by the statement that "I just couldnt imagine it."?

You just can't imagine that U.S. law would allow for using a program you bought lawfully in the manner it was explicitly designed to be used without forcing you to accept an additional civil contract?

That's not lack of imagination, that's lack of good sense.

Jonnan

Edit: Apologies - I have no Idea why it's insisting on the 'link' highlight after in the 'section' marker there, It's never done that before, but by ythe same token, it doesn'n't seem to want to let me remove it

I blame gremlins- Jonnan

Sorry for the late answer. I had my head elsewhere

Thats exactly what i found. But there there is not a word about inofficial extensions and cheats. And thats what i was talking about.

And i do not see how the paragraphs you posted have would garantee you the right to cheat in a computer game, ect..

You obviously misunderstood my post.

To clarify:

Since bots are neither _essential_ for the utilization of WoW(you dont even play while using bots) nor an archival program, i do not see how they are covered in this section in ANY way.

Even if you legally purchased a bot, this law would only give you the right to make essential copy of the bot pogram only. Any copies of other software are not coverd in this law. So you would not have the right to make or authorize the making of copies of, for example, WoW if these are needed for the bot program to run, but not for WoW.

And section 117 fails at all if you downloaded the client instead of buying/licensing in a retail shop.

That does not say anything about playing a game.  That you're not really playing WOW when you run a bot is irrelevant.  If I want to turn mech commander into a program that spits out hello world, I am still utilizing the computer program in conjunction with a machine.  As my objective is to spit out hello world, the modifications I make to do that are neccessary.

You can argue that the law is less than perfectly clear, you cannot argue that you have no right to cheat your own game. Restrictions on rights are explicitly stated.  Those not explicitly taken away, aren't.  It's one of the primary elements in the foundation of US law, anything illegal must be explicitly stated as such.  There is no "as intended by the creators" stuck in that line.

You need to read section 106.  117 is further limitation on the restrictions previously stated in the law.  Modification of your own copy is never banned.

What, exactly, do you think the decision said, because

A. what you posted doesn't follow from either the law, or the decision, and

B. It's so far off of any logic I can see that I don't even see how you got there.

Which makes me suspect that you have an underlying bad assumption wrapped up here somewhere - could you tel me where exactly you feel I was wrong on my rather long, drawn out rebuttal:

http://virtuallyblind.com/2008/03/23/mdy-blizzard-motions/ un-biased review of the actual case and documents from the case...

I argue that the law does not give you the right to cheat in a game, thus it is legal to ban cheats from a game, aka bots.

to quote section 117 again:

Its not about what you want it to to. At least i do not see any words about that.

Nor is it a garantued right. So why shouldnt it be able to be subject of an EULA?

Jonnan, the implementation of eulas is one thing, but i was talking about if banning bots would take any rights from you garantued by the law.

So i argued that neither cheating not using non essentiel modifications/adaptions/extensions/whateveryouwantotcallit are such rights.

With apologies Bodyless - I gave you a list of five points.

Either

A. My logic is right, but one of the premises I have listed in that post is wrong, so the logic, while consistent, is based on a false premise. If you believe one of those premises is wrong, please tell me which one and why you believe that.

B. My premises are correct, but my logic is flawed. Again, if you believe that to be the case, please point out the step that you believe is incorrect.

C. Hey, I could have both bad premises *and* bad logic. Have a field day, but please be specific.

or -

D. My premises are correct. My Argument flowing from them is correct. And frankly, although I have kept hearing about how I *can't* be right on this because for some reason the belief that it would be unfair to the Blizzard for this to be legal, I have yet to hear anyone actually debunk the premises or the logic, other than some stubborn refusal to believe that the consumer protections explicitly established in contract law actually apply to consumers.

Even the court granted that, with no law restricting the programs you can run on your computer, there was nothing intrinscally illegal about Glider. We don't require laws to make action legal. Laws are limitations on what you can do, not permission - even 'rights' like the Bill of rights are limitations on what the government can do - 'i.e.. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or restricting the free exercise thereof . . .' is not something that magically 'gives' you a right to be jewish or hindi or wiccan, it something that say congress has no right to interfere with you, regardless. So the question of a guaranteed 'right' is sloppy thinking - without a law sying you *can't* do it, you're within your rights.

So either the EULA is not valid from the beginning - I believe I've extablished a strong case for this.

Or it's valid, but that particular provision is invalid. I think you can make a good, albeit weaker case for that.

Or it's valid and the provision is valid, in which case the courts logic holds.

But, if you really believe the latter, I feel you actually need to find a weakness in the logic or premises of my argument, rather than making these stubborn assertions about how it must be possible because if it's not possible Blizzard has to put up with this asshole. Well - until we have a legal definition of asshole that one can go into court and go "I'm sorry you're honor, but my respected opponent is plainly being an asshole under the Section 16, paragraph 12 of the "Assholes, fool's, and jackanapes" act of 2008, and accordingly you should give me his stuff as required by law in section 17 Paragraph 9a." - we're going to have to put up with assholes. 

Even wealthy creative people like Blizzard.

Even if you are justifiably quite fond of the stuff that they put a lot of work into.

Jonnan

Well, nothing wrong with this. But you simply oversee that the same holds true for Blizzard. The law does only put little limitation on what limitations Blizzard may put on its software. And since i didnt saw a paragraf yet that forbids one to ban programs, which only work in conjunction with your own software and thus does not qualify and competionor, to work in conjuction with your software, i think Blizzard has the right to ban bots from its games according your logic.

I was only talking about the particular provision in the last few post to be honest. And i still think its valid since i didnt saw a good argument against it yet since you cannot compare it to windows vs linux or inet explorer vs netscape since that are competionor.

If the EULA is valid from the beginning is a good question since you showed some contradiction with contract law. If EULAs get declared invalid because of their implementation, the only thing that will change is the latter. So either the court is right because noone declared EULAs invalid yet or EULAs will get an implementation that makes them valid.

So my answer is B. since you fail to see the case from Blizzards point of view and instead make short sighted conclusions in favor of the user. short sighted because either the new implementation of the eulas may be more inconvenient for the user and/or the production of games will shrink the user would want to consume.

Restricting EULA's wont get a valid implementation because few people are dumb enough to sign over their rights for a product.

Well if you dont like to be banned because you cheated you either should not cheat in that game or not buy it.

That fine Bodyless - perhaps my logic is flawed.

But "fail to see the case from Blizzards point of view and instead make short sighted conclusions in favor of the user" is not an attack on my logic - that is a value judgement. Nothing wrong with a value judgement - I think being in favor of this decision is shortsighted as well and have said so several times.

The logic doesn't care which of us is short-sighted - it cares whether a follows from C follows from B follows from A.

My five point are still there. You have now stated that you agree with the premises behind the points.

Given that you grant those premises, where is the flaw in the logic?

Jonnan

Well that sentences were more of an summary.

The flaw is that you want the user to have all the rights he/she may have. But any right one person has limits on the same time the rights of another person. And since Blizzards consists of person you limit the rights of them. But there is no reason why one side should enjoy all possible rights and the other be completely limited to what the law may garantue them as a minimum.

Instead, we get licenses and terms of use where the company says which rights they want the user to have and which not, which is the same as which rights they want to keep for themself. This is far less one sided, even if the user may not like it.

While the system of accepting these terms after purchasing and opening the box may be flawed if not illegal, it does not mean that such a contract cannot exist and that the company is not allowed to restrict the usage of its software in any way.