Bot Creator Owes Blizzard $6 million dollars
BBC reports that a US court has found MDY (creators of WoWGlider; a bot program for World of Warcraft) responsible for $6 million dollars in damages owed to Blizzard.
Ars Technia comments:
"This is troubling and creates a chilling precedent. It basically says that the copy of the software created in your system's RAM is okay under the license, and when you break the EULA by using software like MMOGlider the license is revoked, and you are suddenly left playing an unlicensed copy of the game. This turns what is a normal terms-of-service issue into a copyright issue, and could potentially affect anyone running an instance of this software. Blizzard now has the option of going after anyone it believes is running a bot for copyright infringement. While at first glance unlikely, we've recently learned that Activision Blizzard has become very aggressive in its copyright litigation. "
For further commentary and a full background on the case check out our friends over at Vritually Blind.

The following is a debate over the past five days I've had with Reddit user Blackhaz. The debate started with his response to my post of the Blizzard vs. MDY (Glider) Case and a defense of the RMT industry. The original comments can be found here. It's nice to know that there are still places where you can have civil reasoned discussions on the internet.
Blackhaz: Exchange 1
I would love to see an actual lawyer expand on this case and what it actually means. I can't really see how much has changed. This type of software has always been better off being developed outside of the USA. I guess developing software which only has the purpose of violating the terms of service every single user has agreed to is now off limits as well. Is it really negative that the government protects against software who's only commercial viability is based off of the disruption of the service of others? This is not about attacking users or restricting their rights, it's about stopping massive abuse of the system.
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