Posts with tag wow glider

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]

In case you're out of the loop, WoW Glider is a 3rd party application that automates all major aspects of gameplay. You set the parameters and it starts farming loot, experience, reputation -- whatever you'd like. This is, unsurprisingly, against Blizzard's terms of service -- those things you have to click agreement to before you play the game after every patch. But this lawsuit isn't just about whether or not WoW Glider breaks the terms of service: it's about whether or not Blizzard has the right to kill the distribution of WoW Glider. WoW Glider's complaint suggests Blizzard has been attempting to strong-arm them into stopping distribution based on alleged copyright and DMCA violation -- and WoW Glider's makers are jumping in with the first lawsuit, which (and, no, I am not a lawyer) seems to be asserting their rights to distribute WoW Glider and telling Blizzard to back off. Lawyers and non-lawyers can read the full text of the complaint and chime in with your own opinions below.

[Thanks, Baratrill]