The trouble is the angle Blizzard lawyers chose to use in the case against the makers of Glider; they claim that Blizzard owns it's code (makes sense) down to the bytes running through a computer's RAM (bad) because that where Glider works to allow unintended gameplay perks (ie. hackin' and bottin'), rather than only files residing on a hard drive (Glider doesn't modify the original files in the WoW folder).

It's an interesting issue; I'm against software like Glider, but Blizzard lawyers sure took a very sketchy angle that I'm not 100% in agreement with.

Actually, I agree with the concept that - if you hack our software, we can cut you off.

But the angle Blizz is arguing is just plain wrong. They are saying that they own the right to how the software resides in your memory.

This makes things that monitor performance (which measure how much RAM your program is using) could be a violation of COPYRIGHT. What about instruction caching at the chip level? Windows Swap file? How about running WOW on a RAM drive to improve performance? These too would be violations of COPYRIGHT.

Not violations of the terms of service, but violations of the digital copyright laws which have a $10k-25k (or more) a pop fines.

Blizz's position is simply wrong. They should win that anyone who uses glider violates the terms of service and can be banned. But to say they own HOW your machine writes those bits to memory is hogwash.

well, let's say you buy a video game that doesn't require a subscription. After beating it three or four times, you sell it used to the local used games dealer. You just committed a Felonious Act according to Blizzard. because you didn't own the game, so you don't have the right to sell it.

or let's say blizzard signs a deal with dell, now wow will only run on dell brand computer's. If you modify it to work on your homebuilt, or your HP, blizz takes you to court, just for playing a game you've already paid for...

I'm not saying this is likely to happen (or at least likely to be done by blizz) but there are lots of crooked people out there trying to chip away at your ownership rights. For example, the RIAA is trying to apply licensing concepts to music cd's, which would make it illegal to sell used cd's without giving record company's a taste...

the ultimate point is that software should be treated like property. If I buy a used car and junk it for parts, that's fine. But if I pay for a piece of software, I can't use it how I see fit?


BS!!!

When you buy a Toyota, are you not able to modify it within the boundaries of the law? You don't have to ask permission from Toyota.

This is exactly what this is about, Blizzards EULA is not law, it is their EULA.