Blizzard suing WoWglider creator
by Elizabeth Harper 
Feb 23rd 2007 at 3:45PM
I know what you're thinking: haven't I read about this before? You've probably read something similar, but we've moved on to the next phase of ligation: the counter-suit! Back in November MDY Industries, the creators of the automation software WoWglider, was suing Blizzard over an alleged attempt to prevent the distribution of their software. MDY wanted a court to assert their right to create and distribute WoWglider. And now Blizzard is fighting back with a lawsuit of their own. Besides asserting that the sale and promotion of WoWglider violates both the World of Warcraft EULA (end user license agreement, which you re-agree to each time you install a patch) and TOU (terms of use, which you agree to when creating your account), Blizzard claims that...Blizzard has suffered damage in an amount to be proven at trial, including but not limited to loss of goodwill among WoW users, diversion of Blizzard resources to prevent access by WoWGlider users, loss of revenue from terminated users, and decreased subscription revenue from undetected WoWGlider users.
And Blizzard is asking not only for MDY to stop selling and distributing WoWglider, but also that Blizzard be given all rights and titles to the application, the source code, and all sales information. And while I'm not a lawyer, I think someone just got pwnd by Blizzard's legal department.
If you are a lawyer, or if you just enjoy reading dense pages of text, you may like to see the full text of Blizzard's counter-suit and MDY's initial complaint.
[Thanks, Prissy]
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Cheats, Blizzard
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Das Feb 23rd 2007 4:08PM
One would think that the sale/promotion of WoW glider would be protected free speech.
In any case, it seems a little ridiculous to me that Blizz is suing MDY for all the subscriptions that Blizzard has terminated.
A_B Feb 23rd 2007 4:29PM
"And while I'm not a lawyer, I think someone just got pwnd by Blizzard's legal department."
You're just quoting the "Prayer for Relief" from Blizzard's Answer and Counterclaims. That stuff's just "pie in the sky" junk. A lot of its basically meaningless boilerplate. Like asking for "relief the court deems just and proper" or whatever. You throw in the kitchen sink there and ask for anything and everything. You can't get "pwned" by the Prayer for Relief.
James Feb 23rd 2007 4:33PM
@1:
Protected free speech? WTH? You honestly think that a company advertising a program that they ADMIT violates Blizzard's terms of use is protected under free speech? By that argument then, I can run an ad on TV advertising electronic equipment that I stole out of people's houses. Sure, its illegal, but how dare the government try to limit my free speech by arresting me selling stolen goods. Your logic is seriously flawed, and I can only guess that you also believe 'free speech' includes your right to download music for free online rather than paying for it. Actually, I'll go further--your logic is seriously flawed, and your ignorance is nothing less than staggering.
And if you can somehow work that part out, here's the other problem with that line of thinking: World of Warcraft, your character, and all of your character's stuff, is Blizzard's. If you can somehow prove that the Constitution gives a company the right advertise bot farming, it doesn't matter. If Blizzard says using WoWGlider is against their terms of use, then it is their call. Your free speech rights don't enter into the equation. You are perfectly exercise your rights by canceling your subscription, and that is about it. Azeroth is not the United States of America, and Blizzard calls the shots. They can decide tomorrow that Auctioneer is against their terms of use, and if so, we all can live with it, or quit.
I had never heard of WoWGlider up until this article. I went to their website, and it is pretty appalling that they have been allowed to exist for this long. They make no secret of what the program is for, and they, as I mentioned earlier, are quite clear that the program is a violation of the Blizzard terms of use. They go on to state that all apps are a violation of the terms of use. Whatever--while that may be the case, Blizzard has decided that this particular program needs to be stopped, and I'm not surprised. If anything, I'm disappointed that they've taken this long to do something about it.
Cheesehound Feb 23rd 2007 5:14PM
@3 the EULA is irrelavent unless they intend to sue them inside Azeroth. The meat of their claim is claiming against lost revenue and battering them with the draconian intellectual property laws that the RIAA brought in.
Daghol Feb 23rd 2007 5:46PM
I do not know the law, but per #4... the EULA and TOU are now LAW. Sure, they can cancel your account and ban you from the game... but that seems like the extent of their claim. Did we cover this before? Didn't Nintendo sue the makers of the Game Genie and lost? (if you recall, back on the original NES the Game Genie was a device that enabled you to hack all of their game and become invincible and such). I don't think the existence of WoWGlider is costing Blizzard any money. Should you us it? No. What's the point of playing the game then? Can Blizzard stop them? no... except by suing their pants off and getting them to settle since it will cost them too much money...
but I bet all this news about WowGlider just bumped up their sales...
Ezin Feb 23rd 2007 5:34PM
#3
You should at least use the correct analogy:
"Protected free speech? WTH? You honestly think that a company advertising a program that they ADMIT violates Blizzard's terms of use is protected under free speech? By that argument then, I can run an ad on TV advertising electronic equipment that I stole out of people's houses. Sure, its illegal, but how dare the government try to limit my free speech by arresting me selling stolen goods."
WoWGlider isn't stolen equipment, it's moreso selling the lockpicking kit to break into someone's house to steal that equipment. In you analogy the seller has committed the crime whereas it should be the buyer committing the crime. Now perhaps the developer of WoWGlider is at fault for testing his program using WoW while writing the software since he must have agreed with the eula, but the software itself likely isn't illegal (although with the dmca who knows nowadays). This also likely falls in the same territory as bnet and WoW server emulators. I don't think those were ever actually shown to be illegal but were rather just crushed under the might of blizzard/vivendi's legal department.
That said, I don't really like that WoWGlider even exists but it's a question of how much you value free speech.
Leadballon Feb 23rd 2007 5:48PM
This whole thing could have been avoided by Blizzard actually banning bots. I've reported around a dozen but I don't bother any more since when I add them to my friends list I see them levelling to maximum and happily grinding gold for weeks. Anyone checking these guys out for a minute can see they're bots so rather than doing them in big waves and allowing the gold selling market to exist why not ban them when they're reported.
It's obviously not a matter of resources, try making a character called Asspummel and see what level you get to.
Cheesehound Feb 23rd 2007 5:59PM
@6 the state of American law is very different since the Nintendo case you're talking about. Blizzard owns the servers, the clients and the protocol used to connect them, it's all their intellectual property. If you reverse engineer something that has IP stamped on it then you are breaking the law (at least in the US). So if you write or distribute a program that descrambles DVDs you are liable for arrest. If you write your own WoW client, you are liable for arrest. If they can argue that Wowglider is a breach of their IP even though it uses their own client then the case has a good chance of standing up.
These are the same laws that forbid you from making a mix CD of your favourite tracks to listen to in your car or backing them up in case they get scratched. There is no longer any such thing as fair use.
Zero Feb 23rd 2007 6:04PM
EULA and TOS mean nothing in court. There is no law behind them to take any real legal action. I hope that Blizz loses and loses badly for their outrageous and unlawful attempts against WoWGlider.
I don't personally use or approve of this program... but it all comes down to the rights of those that play the game. It may be a virtual world, but Blizz is not the law of those that play it.
Burning Adrenaline Feb 23rd 2007 7:53PM
If a contractually signed sports star can be kicked out of a league for rule violations, I don't see why Blizzard can't enforce their established rules either. We may pay for the right to play, but it's still their game at the end of the day; a game that we agreed to play by their rules. (EULA) If this can't hold up in court, then it seems rather odd.
To me, it's not whether they should be stopped that's in question, but whether or not WoWglider actually is doing something against any stated rules. Either way, cheating in this manner is akin to buying Olympic gold medals, and I hope WoWglider goes out of business.
K Whitt Feb 23rd 2007 9:19PM
Sadly, most of you are taking the knee-jerk reactions to either extremes of "Free Speech Rights! Screw the Man!" or "They are morally reprehensible and deserve to burn in their own Hell!".
Some of Blizzard's CounterClaims are perfectly true per common knowledge. However, how they apply within the outlines of the DMCA, Copyright law and many others have yet to be fully explored and seen. I personally believe that DMCA might have been violated, yet Copyright has not, with the exclusion of a minor use of the "WoW" trademark in the software's title "WoWGlider". It would have been difficult to write WoWGlider properly without circumventing the DMCA. Hell, it is difficult to design anything with the intention of interoperability with a commercial product without possible violation of a statute of the DMCA.
I do believe that the "Prayer for Relief" section goes a little overboard in its requests. It also makes some rather grand claims such as Mr. Donnelly being the single and sole person behind MDY, LLC. It is unlikely that a single person is the only one behind the entirety of its codebase. Even if you aren't a lawyer, you can get the basic contents of each document fairly easily when you go over them. Specifics (such as where they cite law references and such) are publicly available in some cases, just make for very dry reading.
I would wonder that if Mr. Donnelly transferred the ownership of the codebase to a foreign entity, he could circumvent a few of the excessive requests (such as giving Blizz ownership of the source, the site, the domain and all of it's said info). I can see somewhat proper usage of this tool to stress test emulated or otherwise contrived non-blizz WoW servers (which are arguably legal, even if modifying the client in order to connect to them violates the standard TOS/EULA, but since you aren't using their service, TOS does not apply).
Still, while I do not condone the software itself, I think a number of claims and requests by Blizz/Vivendi are unreasonable. I am actually very interested in the outcome of this trial, as it could create precedence for a number of other things.
michel Feb 23rd 2007 9:33PM
contract means _Everything_ in court
contracts between YOU and Blizzard is more important than laws in court.
the only case or laws is more important is when the law _specifically_ forbids a term in contract.
Blizzard has a very standard "eula", typically accepted in court and no law tries to restrict the full application of this eula in you and blizzard
there are some restrictions about assurances/garanties/consumers rights than some States enforce more or less upon software eula.
--
about that specific case. Wowglider reverse-engineered the proprietary wow protocols. US laws allows a company to protect a protocols.
it's easy to blizzard to argue wowglider is a threat to the right course of the game and their business
It's also easy to argue wowglider only purpose is to not respect the EULA subscribers accept (freely, noone forces you to play the game) to obey.
here, the protocols is all Blizzard properties, the servers are blizzard properties, the characters are, the whole client is their properties, the whole "wow" experience is their.
it's not like the "game genie", the game-genie allows you to "cheat" with your _copy_ of the game in your house with no consequences upon nintendo business or others players. it's you and your private console.
not _here_. never. it's NOT the same thing.
you play with your computer, okay _but_ ON _blizzard_'s servers.
and theses servers are blizzard's shot. and blizzards asks you to respect a _contract_
and you accepted it.
---
what was the difference in "napster" software and bittorrent software ?
napster was only about music piracy. helping people to search how to access music neither napster had right to help neither to distribute. the goal could be only piracy and napster was caught helping people.
Bittorrent is different, it's only a technology , a software you use to connect to some servers.
nothing to help you in bittorent to find music's author, noone from a "bittorrent company" to give you instructions. just download of bits.
(trackers servers of pirated contents are of course a _different_ thing)
the main argument here is : "if the tools _only_ use it to break in house and steal, it is easy to conclude it's wrong" (please, the word "only" is really important. it's the very core why some software/servers could be judged illegal and why some not, even if some people _may_ use them to do dishonest acts).
and here, it will be easy to blizzard to say wowglider uses is only to break the EULA and Wow.
Zuuler Feb 26th 2007 12:36PM
By playing the game you are bound by the rules in the EULA. Blizzard has to take action against accounts using programs like WoWGlider because they can ruin the in game economy. By cancelling these accounts they are losing potention revenue for themselves. Theres also the logistical issue of identifying accounts that are using bots. Just simply reporting someone you suspect of being a bot isn't enough. Blizzard needs to spend time and money to pay someone to investigate that player and identify if they are a bot or not. If it was as simple as reporting someone, then gankers would be banned all over the place because people would file a false report just to get rid of them.
Someone above mentioned its not illegal to sell a lock picking kit, but its illegal to use on to break into someplace. Thats true, but there are legal uses for a lock picking kit, which is why its not illegal to buy. Cable block boxes are illegal to use, and to my knowledge, illegal to buy because there are no legal uses for such a device. The same goes for Wowglider. The only purpose for Wowglider is to violate the EULA, it has no purpose in WoW other than that. I feel WoW is in its right to go after a company that willingly created a program like this.
Besides, to create a program like this, you would have to test it, which means you would have to have an account and agreed to the EULA in order to produce a product like this. This alone is grounds for legal action.