Interest group speaks up against Blizzard on Glider case
by Mike Schramm 
May 6th 2008 at 8:31PM
Blizzard's lawsuit against the Glider folks (who were trying to sell a bot that was used to play the game while /afk), has a new wrinkle in it. According to PC Gamer, an interest group called Public Knowledge (they're funded by a variety of creative arts foundations) has filed a brief in the case accusing Blizzard of overstepping their rights under copyright law. In the brief, and an accompanying blog post, they say that while what Glider is doing in-game may be wrong, it isn't actually copyright infringement, because the Glider software doesn't actually infringe on any copyrights that Blizzard holds. And they're worried that if Blizzard wins this case, it could set a precedent strongly in favor of copyright holders, to the point where any misuse of the software at all, from using bots to using the wrong name, would be interpreted instead as copyright infringement.They kind of have a point here -- Blizzard just used all the tools they had in this case to try and send a clear message to anyone out there trying to sell automation software that what they were doing would get them in trouble, and they may have thrown copyright infringement on the menu when it didn't really belong. For Blizzard's part, they claim that making a copy in RAM of the game's information constitutes copyright infringement, but again, that's only because Glider is misusing those RAM files -- every user everywhere needs to copy parts of the game into RAM in order to run it.
At any rate, Public Knowledge has filed their brief and had their voices heard. It's up to the judges in this case to decide what comes out of it.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Ben May 6th 2008 8:43PM
Copying the game into RAM to play is one thing. Isn't copying the game into RAM and making money off it where the infringement comes into play?
matt May 6th 2008 11:31PM
The article's pretty short, and quite interesting. It's packed with neat info about the state of software sales, EULAs, etc..
If you were interested enough to click on the comments link for this story, you're interested enough to click over to the main article. :)
The link I'm referring to is:
http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1546
It makes Blizzard's claim of copyright infringement out to be quite plainly ludicrous. So why would they bother? Well, there's also this part:
"There’s a big legal difference between what happens when you breach a contract and when you infringe copyright. Generally speaking, the idea with contract remedies is that if you break a contract, you have to pay the other person what they’ve lost due to the breach. In copyright infringement, though, you pay a minimum of $750 per infringed work, and up to $150,000 for willful damages, no matter how little the copyright holder has lost."
Sean Riley May 7th 2008 1:03AM
@ Wolfkin
Mensrea's point is that the copying does constitute copyright infringement, since it's being done without express consent of the author. The equivalent would be if a journalist gained permission to quote a large part of a book in their column (not infringing copyright) as opposed to doing so without any (now infringing copyright).
jrb May 7th 2008 4:14AM
from my understanding of how glider works, it doesn't even breach the EULA of WoW, let alone copyright law. At best it may breach things like the DMCA, but even then it's not clear cut. As much as it pains me to say it, it looks more like blizzard are trying to force glide in to submission, rather than legally aiming for what's right.
I don't agree with what glide does, but if what it does is within the realms of law, and EULAs i would advise blizzard to ignore it, and stop drawing media attention to this product, and maybe look at making its use obsolete? How?
I think glide's main use to a certain type of person, is to allow them to level alts, where they don't want to run through the same content again, and again. other MMOs have the ability where, once you have a character of a certain level, you can create another one of the same level, thus nullifying the whole level grind, add to this a character creation cap to limit how many alts created this way, and you have a flexible way of allowing players to try out new classes, and non-low level game content.
Look at what blizz has tried to do to halt the need for farmed gold? honor, reputation, decent gear in the expansion, gear bought through BoP badges. there's less emphasis on gold, and in the same way there needs to be less emphasis on the low level grind for alts. 2.3 was a nice start, but it needs more.
onetrueping May 7th 2008 7:35AM
jrb, I personally know of no game that allows you to do this. Examples are needed, methinks.
wyrd May 7th 2008 1:02PM
@JRB
Are you serious? Have you looked at the EULA. Using a program to automate actions is most definitely breaking the EULA.
Verit May 8th 2008 3:33PM
@ onetrueping
Amazing engine - an old TSR ruleset allowed the player to keep a certain % of exp overall - which got used on new characters. But that was a tabletop game.
Eternalpayn May 6th 2008 8:46PM
I would have put this under harassment. Glider, after Blizzard said they didn't want them doing this on their servers, continued to do it.
mensrea May 6th 2008 8:54PM
That'd never fly. For starters, they'd have to sue the users of glider for harassment -- MDY is just writing software, which has been ruled first amendment expression. You don't sue Apple because some one is prank calling you from their iPhone all night. Second, a WoW player could really never harass blizzard with blizzard's own service... the mere fact that Blizzard can ban their account precludes it.
Eternalpayn May 6th 2008 9:03PM
Copyright infringement would never fly, either. However, they did continue to distribute the product. Also, harassment is more defaming to glider.
mensrea May 6th 2008 9:37PM
Copyright infringement may still fly. "Harassment" would get laughed out of court. Distributing a product that someone doesn't like isn't harassment. Distributing a product that others use to harass someone isn't harassment.
As for what's more "defaming" to Glider (wtf?), who cares? It'd be "more defaming" if they accused them of murder... so maybe they should do that? Besides, a successful harassment claim wouldn't bring in anywhere NEAR the damages that copyright infringement would... and that's in the nearly impossible scenario that they could get harassment to stick.
There's just not a single instance of harassment going on here whatsoever.
Eternalpayn May 6th 2008 9:59PM
There isn't a single case of copyright infringement here, either. The point of me suggesting harassment was ridiculing the fact that the word is thrown out over nothing, in the most ridiculous situations, as is the case here. Come on, a lawsuit over cheating in a game?
onetrueping May 7th 2008 7:38AM
When the cheating eliminates hours played, and hours played can be directly translated to dollars, then yes, a lawsuit is understandable.
mensrea May 6th 2008 8:50PM
"every user everywhere needs to copy parts of the game into RAM in order to run it."
That's completely irrelevant. They have permission to copy the game into RAM to play it. They don't have permission to copy it into RAM to cheat. Fortunately, the legal arguments in PK's amicus brief are stronger than your approximation of them.
Wolfkin May 6th 2008 9:04PM
L2fullyquote:
"For Blizzard's part, they claim that making a copy in RAM of the game's information constitutes copyright infringement, [but again, that's only because Glider is misusing those RAM files] -- every user everywhere needs to copy parts of the game into RAM in order to run it."
bracketed for emphasis. I think Mike covered your little comment there, mensrea.
For my part, I would defend Blizzard's right to control the content of their games, and even (within reason) the manner in which they're played. It does seem that the copyright thing is part of the "everything but the kitchen sink" approach to this lawsuit, and IANAL, but I wouldn't be surprised to see that dropped in the final calculus. Besides, do we really need ANOTHER legal copyright controversy up in this hizzy? I'd hate to see blizzard mentioned in the same breath as the RIAAs of the world.
mensrea May 6th 2008 9:32PM
What "every user everywhere has to do" is completely irrelevant to the copyright claim because the claim itself presupposes that some users (those following the ToS) are licensed and some (those using Glider) are not.
The paragraph (which you, ironically, didn't fully quote) goes something like this: "Blizzard's CI claim is bogus. They're just trying to scare people. Blizzard says X. That's not right, though, because of Y -- Z."
Where 'Y' is a misrepresentation of Blizzard's argument and 'Z' is something that's not related in any way, shape, or form to the validity of either 'X' or 'Y'.
Nick S May 7th 2008 1:13AM
so if i write a program that disables Windows Genuine Advantage and sell it, i'm violating copyright?
bullshit, i say! a breach of the terms of service, certainly, but i'm not stealing someone else's code for profit - merely creating something that interacts with it. the car, not the road, in other words.
this is, indeed, an extremely dangerous precedent to set. imagine a world where Windows programs which microsoft does not specifically approve constitute copyright infringement.
i love blizzard... but they had better lose this lawsuit.
Montag May 7th 2008 8:51AM
The primary effect of the DMCA is to make code into law. If you're doing something that the code doesn't allow you to do, you're circumventing the code, and therefore automatically breaking the law.
This will most likely be their core argument, but it's weak. It's weak because there's nothing to circumvent; the game is plainly in memory, and Glider manipulates it in the same way a player would. Now, just to clarify, Glider isn't a player, but to a computer there's no difference, and therefore there's no circumvention and no real DMCA claim.
But, IANAL, so take that with a grain of salt.
TheClaw May 6th 2008 9:03PM
I thought Blizzard's case against Glider was based on tortious (sp?) interference, not copyright? i.e. that Glider was a product whose sole and intended purpose was for its users to violate their EULA with Blizzard?
Tinno May 6th 2008 9:23PM
sorry for being the "noob" but what exactly does RAM stand for ?