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.

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'.

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.

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.