World of Warcraft Bot Maker Suffers Crushing Defeat

[ffs-dontcare]

Definitely rooting for Blizzard on this one. Gold sellers/buyers, script kiddies and people running bots are a cancer in this MMO and need to be catapulted out of the game as fast as they can possibly catch them.

Also, I love that the bot makers are trying to play the self-righteous indignation card.

I still remember the days where I would literally see those level 1 newbies run out of the starter zone, straight into Stormwind, spam their bile, then inexplicably suicide. Then when that didn't work, they resorted to using 20+ characters, somehow hacked them to make them float in the air and made them fall on the ground in such a manner that their corpses spelled weblinks on the ground.

I saw that stuff too, and I have nothing but contempt for anyone who takes part in it or supports it.

 

[Strazdas]

How dare that big meany Blizzard try and ensure people follow the rules when playing a multiplayer game. Those jerks.

More like how dare the big meany Blizzard come into our yard, kick us out because we have toys he does not like and then sue the toy manufacturer for making them available.

There are other issues though. Can you profit from the software that works with other software? Some things are okay if you give it away but when you start bringing in sales you've gone too far.

Of course you can. every single game manufacturer does that. A game (software) works with OS, drivers, API (other software) forcing them to do certain things with hardware in order to make the program run.
So unless you claim that every game should be free, yes, you can sell such programs. And no, they dont need expressive permission from microsoft or other OS developers to do that.

Those 2 cases are not even the slightest bit similar, blizzard could make that same case without the bot one and the outcome would be the same.

For 1, recording gameplay isn't against the T&Cs, and if they added it in to the T&Cs you better believe there would be a shit storm from the community and it would likely bring lawsuits upon blizzard for purposely eliminating the competition in trying to create a monopoly on gameplay recording.

This case doesn't give shaky precedence to anything except other bot makers (third-party program that Automates gameplay)

Your only argument seems to be T&C, you know, something that has 0 legal power.

Good riddance. bots and botters can go to hell. I hate WoW but I hate bots way more. I only wish the court order could make Ceiling Fan required to pawn off the shirts from their backs.

I dont like you, therefire i should get court to punish you for not acting like me and you should "pawn off the shorts from your back".

Bots and recording are two different things though. Bots are basically cheating in the game. However, no one can stop you from recording what happens on your monitor.

OT: This is great. It's kinda funny watching them pretend to be the hero aswell. "our customer's right to play WoW as they choose" my ass. It's outright cheating and I'm glad they been stomped.

In case of Fraps - no their not. Both are software that injects into the games memory and alters it, though in Fraps case it is merely for a display, while in bosts case it is more intrusive. however princimple is identical. third party software inejcting itself into first party software.
Altrough probably a better example here would be a MOD, as those alter gameplay. This basically gives precedent to ban all mods.

Small but rather important point Danish law does not invalidate the EULA and TOS.

Thats because in European Union EULA and TOS is not a legally binding contract to begin with, so there is nothing to "invalidate". The only way to make them legally binding is to include them in Sales Contract and have us sign it BEFORE we buy the game. and i mean actually sign it, not just press "i accept". Noone does that.

Botting is a serious issue in games. I don't buy the "play the game as you want to" argument because with a bot, you aren't playing. You're running a program to do it for you. And I have no sympathy for assjacks who actually sell this shit to people. Good for Blizz.
3rd party programs are fine as long as they don't affect actual gameplay. UI is not the same as having an auto-scripted rotation that does your dps for you. BTW botting and macro's are NOT the same thing.

Lets say a game offers a "Fast travel feature". i do not buy it as a "play it like you want to" since when your fast traveling you arent actually playing. so we should ban people from using fast traveling.

 

[SecondPrize]

How dare that big meany Blizzard try and ensure people follow the rules when playing a multiplayer game. Those jerks.

More like how dare the big meany Blizzard come into our yard, kick us out because we have toys he does not like and then sue the toy manufacturer for making them available.

There are other issues though. Can you profit from the software that works with other software? Some things are okay if you give it away but when you start bringing in sales you've gone too far.

Of course you can. every single game manufacturer does that. A game (software) works with OS, drivers, API (other software) forcing them to do certain things with hardware in order to make the program run.
So unless you claim that every game should be free, yes, you can sell such programs. And no, they dont need expressive permission from microsoft or other OS developers to do that.

Those 2 cases are not even the slightest bit similar, blizzard could make that same case without the bot one and the outcome would be the same.

For 1, recording gameplay isn't against the T&Cs, and if they added it in to the T&Cs you better believe there would be a shit storm from the community and it would likely bring lawsuits upon blizzard for purposely eliminating the competition in trying to create a monopoly on gameplay recording.

This case doesn't give shaky precedence to anything except other bot makers (third-party program that Automates gameplay)

Your only argument seems to be T&C, you know, something that has 0 legal power.

Good riddance. bots and botters can go to hell. I hate WoW but I hate bots way more. I only wish the court order could make Ceiling Fan required to pawn off the shirts from their backs.

I dont like you, therefire i should get court to punish you for not acting like me and you should "pawn off the shorts from your back".

Bots and recording are two different things though. Bots are basically cheating in the game. However, no one can stop you from recording what happens on your monitor.

OT: This is great. It's kinda funny watching them pretend to be the hero aswell. "our customer's right to play WoW as they choose" my ass. It's outright cheating and I'm glad they been stomped.

In case of Fraps - no their not. Both are software that injects into the games memory and alters it, though in Fraps case it is merely for a display, while in bosts case it is more intrusive. however princimple is identical. third party software inejcting itself into first party software.
Altrough probably a better example here would be a MOD, as those alter gameplay. This basically gives precedent to ban all mods.

Small but rather important point Danish law does not invalidate the EULA and TOS.

Thats because in European Union EULA and TOS is not a legally binding contract to begin with, so there is nothing to "invalidate". The only way to make them legally binding is to include them in Sales Contract and have us sign it BEFORE we buy the game. and i mean actually sign it, not just press "i accept". Noone does that.

Botting is a serious issue in games. I don't buy the "play the game as you want to" argument because with a bot, you aren't playing. You're running a program to do it for you. And I have no sympathy for assjacks who actually sell this shit to people. Good for Blizz.
3rd party programs are fine as long as they don't affect actual gameplay. UI is not the same as having an auto-scripted rotation that does your dps for you. BTW botting and macro's are NOT the same thing.

Lets say a game offers a "Fast travel feature". i do not buy it as a "play it like you want to" since when your fast traveling you arent actually playing. so we should ban people from using fast traveling.

Don't be willfully ignorant. Devs make deals to release on platform/os. What I'm talking about is doing so without permission.

 

[Strazdas]

Don't be willfully ignorant. Devs make deals to release on platform/os. What I'm talking about is doing so without permission.

Really? I didnt knew you need to pay Microsoft to make a game for Windows.

 

[SecondPrize]

Don't be willfully ignorant. Devs make deals to release on platform/os. What I'm talking about is doing so without permission.

Really? I didnt knew you need to pay Microsoft to make a game for Windows.

Who said pay?

 

[Denizen]

Whether you like cheating or not (most people don't, obviously), this is still a rather controversial subject.

Consider that a judgement like this can be used as a basis for limiting/prohibiting ALL software development of third-party addons/plugins for games or other software (not talking the standard WoW addons here), and it's in fact a rather large limitation.

In Denmark, we actually have paragraph in our Copyright law that ensures us the right to develop software that works with other software, including the right to reverse engineer the parts of the software necessary for us to make our own software work. Over here, Blizzard would have lost that lawsuit

That's what I'm afraid might start happening now. There's so many victories for seemingly insignificant things that people completely overlook and don't see what's truly at stake.

With the way commercial law - and copyright law - is in the US, it's just getting harder and harder for the customer/consumer/PERSON to say with a straight face that they have any rights to what they pay for. That, and the lawmakers here know next to nothing about technology; sure, they might know what a terms of use generally is and liken it to a binding contract since those are 99.99% of the time written by lawyers. Now throw in technology, Internet and/or gaming into the context and suddenly it's out of their hands and whoever has the most money wins.

At the end of the day, this guy made a bot. This bot was so good that people would pay money for it. Blizzard should have just sent a cease & desist order, banned his account, and/or what would've been cooler: buy the bot from him so they can improve their bot-detection system. Instead, they took this guy to court, technically made him pay them to give away his bot, and this case could establish a precedent like what you said.

So for anyone who says he got what he deserved; legality aside and looking at the whole situation again, this guy is screwed all because generally he made a cheat device for an online game. The cheat device and the game itself hardly has any real-world consequences. This is beyond excessive. Blizzard isn't being overwhelmed by botters, they're not losing money unless you want to overly consider the minuscule amount of money that would not impact them in any significant way, and lastly, this isn't to protect players from what botters might do - thus, there's no damages to cite.

Blizzard did this purely out of greed. But instead, "ha ha, that's what the hacker guy gets." This is what he gets for making a botter program. A botter program that could only play World of Warcraft. He made software that plays an online video game. This costs $7 million - in America.

Bandit Keith be damned; and not trying to push the topic further away but the US is so behind in policy compared to generally all of its fellow long-running members of the UN that it's no longer funny anymore, now it's just getting scary.

 

[Strazdas]

Don't be willfully ignorant. Devs make deals to release on platform/os. What I'm talking about is doing so without permission.

Really? I didnt knew you need to pay Microsoft to make a game for Windows.

Who said pay?

Well, i guess you caught me here, i should have used the term "Get permission" instead.

 

[RicoADF]

As someone who played WoW in the bot heyday...

no, in fact if this had happened back then I would of bought more game time instead of letting it run out. Nothing is more annoying than seeing a level 60 [at the time] gnome mage running around and the instant you target him he targets you regardless of where you are at and stops moving, presumably macroing his attacks.

Anyone who has played an MMO that has boting in it will say that they wish the developer would do something about them. Unless of course they themselves bot, but then who would openly admit that?

I play MMOs, I don't use bots, and I think court ruling is stupid. It's a game, they made a piece of software that (as far as I know, I've never used or seen one) doesn't touch Blizzards code, so Blizzard has no right to prevent sale of said software. I also think Blizzard has no right to stop those that do use said software, if people are really that stupid to not play the game their paying for then that's their loss, doesn't effect me. I play MMO's for the experience, if they want to ruin theirs then that's their problem not mine and especially not Blizzards.

 

[likalaruku]

I don't condone bots, but 7 million f**king excessive. There should be a law that you can only sue for more than 1 million if the defendant is filthy stinking rich. One day you're making bots, the next you're pushing a cart with a sleeping bag in it because Big Money made bank off your cheating ways.

No one would have been cheering if Nintendo had successfully sued the makers of the Game Genie back in the 90s.