World of Warcraft Going After Bots, Cheaters, and more?

Blizzard Entertainment, the creators of World of Warcraft won a summary judgment for a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona against MDY Industries, Michael Donnelly, the programmer who created Glider. Glider is a bot that basically plays WoW for a gamer while the gamer is away doing other things like eating dinner or watching a movie.

Glider is touted by the MDY website as a bot that is designed to only be used to level up alternate characters by those who just don't want to put in the additional time getting those last few levels to 60 or 70. Additionally according to the website, the program does not change the WoW program either on the hard drive nor in the memory. The site even warns users that it is against the World of Warcraft to use the program and that players use it at their own risk, It further warns that Glider can be detected by Blizzard scanning your computer for it, or is can be detected by other gamers noticing your character's robot-like movements and reporting your character to server GMs.

There are some facts that must be understood before going much farther. First, when a user buys software, they only purchase the rights or license to use that software as the developer intended that software to be used. So when World of Warcraft launches on a user computer, it creates a copy of the game on the memory of that system. That copy is the property of Blizzard Entertainment, and not the user, and this was upheld by the court ruling. Secondly, according to the End User License Agreement, (EULA), and Terms of Use, no files within the WoW directory on the user's computer hard drive or memory may be changed by the user or by programs installed by the user.

According to this court ruling, it upheld the additional clauses in section 4 of the Terms of Use of the software where you agree that "You agree that you will not (i) modify or cause to be modified any files that are a part of the Program or the Service; (ii) create or use cheats, bots, "mods", and/or hacks, or any other third-party software designed to modify the World of Warcraft experience; or (iii) use any third-party software that intercepts, "mines", or otherwise collects information from or through the Program or the Service. Notwithstanding the foregoing, you may update the Program with authorized patches and updates distributed by Blizzard, and Blizzard may, at its sole and absolute discretion, allow the use of certain third party user interfaces."

For most gamers in WoW, this is a welcome clause and it is a relief that Blizzard is getting tough on the cheaters, but some might think it better to get tough on those who choose to use the hacks instead of those that make it available. After all, those that make it available did not force cheaters to use their bots, just made the bots available for those who chose to use them. But that is up to a court of law and not up to a court of public opinion.

Blizzard contended in the court filing that MDY upset the balance of the competitive environment and thereby caused blizzard to loose customers and revenue. Players upset that others would use bots to mine and cheat in-game by farming materials, would quit the game and cancel their subscriptions. When contacted by Blizzard and asked why they canceled their subscriptions, they would explain that there was "just too much cheating going on" and that they were "just tired of it". This in part spurred Blizzard's action.

The court held that Blizzard owns the copyright to the game and the client software and the player has been granted limited use of the software. That use as mentioned above from section 4 of the Terms of Use does not include the use of unapproved third-party software. The use of that software infringed on Blizzard's copyright.

Some feel that since they have purchased the software, and have installed it on their computer, that they actually own that copy of the software and can do with it what they wish. But the court upheld that the software license was still owned by the company, Blizzard in this case and that the licensee only had the right to use the software in the way that the company deemed the software be used, and only in that way.

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Others have a basic concern that while the courts are used to fight for security, it then goes another step toward taking away another piece of freedom. Though Blizzard is a great company with 10 million subscribers and would never do anything that would possibly illegal or violate our basic gaming freedoms, they also have great power to change and alter the terms of the agreement and enforce that agreement to their benefit at any time.

If for example, Blizzard did not want to have a 3rd party voice communication system used because there is one in-game, one change to the EULA and Ventrilo and TeamSpeak are out or players are banned. This may seem far fetched, but it is a concern of some. How many of you have actually read the EULA of Terms of Use after the last update? And if you disagree with those terms after buying the game, you have no recourse and NO REFUND. SO you need to read the fine print before you buy and if you agree, then buy. If not, then you don't buy.

We all know that Blizzard is a fine company and does business on the up-and-up, and having worked with them for years, we have seen nothing to contradict this. But this court ruling does open the door for the question about other companies that might use it as a precedent for creating broadly defined restrictions for its own software that could leave the door open for abuse of copyright restrictions, that could leave some grandma from West Virginia with a big fine just by using the wrong add-on on her computer. We should just be careful of what freedoms we are willing to give up for the sake of security and be sure to know what we are agreeing to when we click the "I Agree" button next time.

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