There has been a few turns and twists in the conflict between Blizzard (and their fans) and WoW Glider creator Michael Donnelly, here is a brief list:
- Blizzard to Sue Creator of MMO Glider Bot (26th Mars 2008)
- More on WoWGlider (11th April 2007)
The basic thing is that Donnelly is creating a software that will do things automatically for player in WoW, so you don’t even have to be by the computer, and have earned some really good money on it. If you ever were angry at some random bot in battlegrounds or farming your quest mobs, he is probably responsible in the end. Blizzard tried to ask him to stop, which he refused, so they sued him. The principle is right, as it would make the game a lot better for all us, and discourage future bot-makers from, well, trying to be bot-makers.
The only hitch here is how Blizzard did it, claiming copyright infringement in a slightly vague manner, and the latest news is that an interest group called Public Knowledge have filed a brief in the case, accusing Blizzard of overstepping their rights under copyright law. Here is a snip from their blog post:
In this case, Blizzard is saying that any user who runs Glider while playing WoW is infringing Blizzard’s copyrights. This is despite the fact that Glider doesn’t make any copies of WoW. Instead, Blizzard claims that any time a user runs WoW, the copy of the game (or the portions of it) that are copied into RAM are infringements. Or, at least, they would be, but for the generosity of Blizzard, which grants users a license to make these RAM copies. That license, Blizzard argues, includes limitations, like not using bots like Glider. So using glider is a violation of the license, meaning that making that RAM copy is copyright infringement. Bring on the statutory damages!
Of course, basically every program ever written needs to be loaded into RAM, and certainly not every coder is going to have a license agreement with every user. So why isn’t every user a copyright infringer?
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Meanwhile, Blizzard’s basing its copyright suits against MDY on the idea that individual WoW players infringe copyrights any time they do something against the terms of use, which is where bots are explicitly banned.
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Name your character “Roflcopter,” and you’re liable to Blizzard for copyright infringement. Now these rules may make good sense for running a game, but they’re not in any way related to Blizzard’s copyrights.
So, just copying the game to your RAM would be copyright infringement, unless approved by the creator? Here is where things might get hard for Blizzard in vanquishing one of the most annoying plagues of WoW: Why didn’t they just claim that he had made a product that disrupted their systems, and based the case on the damage he does to Blizzard and Blizzard’s subscribers? The problem here won’t be if Blizzard gets rid of Glider, but rather what other effects this can have in courts regarding software, with this case set as an example…
The overwhelming majority of WoW-players would like to see Donnelly’s software rot somewhere unpleasant, but there are also people concerned about the actual implications this lawsuit could bring, and they might be right… In the meanwhile, I’ll just refrain from naming any new characters Roflcopter!
It seems simple enough, though Blizzard has worded it badly. Artificially tampering with the natual process of how blizzard intended and build the game to interact with the memory banks is wrong. They just need to get a better legal team who know what charges to press. Then again, the likelyhood that Donnelly will be able to afford a legal representative to contest that is slim, which is probably upon what Blizzard is gambling on, that he’ll drop out and be unable to defend himself appropriately. A little dishonest and underhand, I wish they had thought of a better way of doing it.