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Blizzard Wins Paltry $6 million in Damages Against WoW Bot Maker

Posted 10/01/08 at 04:10:49 PM  by Andy Salisbury

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Anyone that plays World of Wacraft will know all about the woes of bots. They provide players with unfair advantages, and the ability to level their character when they’re not even at their computer. Blizzard has been aware of this as well, having recently won a lawsuit against the bot program MMOGlider’s creator, MDY Industries.For those that don’t know, MMOGlider is a third party application that runs the many repetitive tasks involved in World of Warcraft. Whether it’s leveling your character up from 1 to 70 or grinding for leatherworking materials, the application can do it for you. And the best part about it? You don’t even have to be at your computer, you simply run a script that sends your character in a pre-determined route.

Blizzard’s lawsuit is based on MMOGlider’s automation of said repetitive tasks. Using this application to complete these tasks breaks the terms of service that players agree to when they play World of Warcraft. The software is said to have sold 100,000 copies for $25 a piece.

While admittedly $6 million is no small number (unless you’re Blizzard), the amount could have been higher if MDY hadn’t won some of the prior arguments about the claimed damages in court. But there’s still a possibility for more, should Blizzard decided to appeal the judgment in favor of going for their original claim, which was double or triple that number.

The remainder of the case is set to go to court in January 2009, where the last of the issues in the legal conflict are likely to be settled.

Image Credit: MMOGlider

COMMENTS:9
TAGS: gaming, Software, world of warcraft, blizzard, MMOGlider, Blizzard Entertainment
COMMENTS
avatartheres nothing wrong with

Submitted by rayatwork05 on Fri, 10/03/2008 - 7:50am

theres nothing wrong with botting. and to sue the mod maker makes no sense.  should i get sued if i create a device that automatically repairs or upgrades my car that i paid for?

its the end users breaking the ToS not the mod company.

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avatarI applaud them for doing

Submitted by Keith E. Whisman on Fri, 10/03/2008 - 12:52am

I applaud them for doing something about farmers that ruin games. Cheaters on multiplayer games make the games suck.

However I do not want to see drastic changes to licensing privalidges that are the norm right now. I never want to be told that that piece of software that I just got at the store is unusable unless I pay even more money. Note that I do not play MMORPG games as I don't believe in paying monthly for a stupid game. But if we are not careful eventually a day may come when you have to pay to boot into Windows on a daily basis this after buying an initial license. Heck I would do it if I were them. I'm a greedy bastard so we have to make sure that they don't.

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avatarYou still aren't getting

Submitted by damicatz on Thu, 10/02/2008 - 5:59am

You still aren't getting it.

First of all, I don't play or subscribe to World of Borecraft let alone bot in it.

Second, as I stated earlier, I  aam opposed to cheaters in online games and I think they are scum.

However this court ruling has far reaching implications that go far beyond simple cheating.  This ruling opens the door for publishers to sue mod makers for copyright infringement because simplying loading an executable from the disk to memory now constitutes copying.  With the growing popularity of microtransactions and digital downloads, it's concievable that some publishers could view third-party mods as unwanted competetion.

It also provides a legal avenue to restrict how many times someone can use a piece of copyrighted material they purchased.  Since loading a file from the disk to ram is now copying under the court ruling, media companies are free to charge you on a per use basis (e.g you only get to copy this song to ram 5 times before you have to buy it again)

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avatarYou still aren't getting

Submitted by damicatz on Thu, 10/02/2008 - 5:59am

You still aren't getting it.

First of all, I don't play or subscribe to World of Borecraft let alone bot in it.

Second, as I stated earlier, I  aam opposed to cheaters in online games and I think they are scum.

However this court ruling has far reaching implications that go far beyond simple cheating.  This ruling opens the door for publishers to sue mod makers for copyright infringement because simplying loading an executable from the disk to memory now constitutes copying.  With the growing popularity of microtransactions and digital downloads, it's concievable that some publishers could view third-party mods as unwanted competetion.

It also provides a legal avenue to restrict how many times someone can use a piece of copyrighted material they purchased.  Since loading a file from the disk to ram is now copying under the court ruling, media companies are free to charge you on a per use basis (e.g you only get to copy this song to ram 5 times before you have to buy it again)

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avatarWoW, you guys are lamers

Submitted by Spider-Mom on Wed, 10/01/2008 - 2:19pm

Only 3 comments so far and 2 of them are from botters. I mean seriously, "abusing the legal system?" Screw off internet lawyer nazis.

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avatarjust plain retarded

Submitted by hogkill on Wed, 10/01/2008 - 2:05pm

OMG lol they r abusing our video gamez!  WOW playerz are teh Serious Business. ZOMG! Let's sue them.

  Stupid Stupid Stupid.  Blizzard is an even lamer than the people who pay a monthly fee to play World of Animal Slaying.  BAWWWW THEY ARE RUINING OUR VIDEO GAME!

  David Campbell is too big of a failure of a human to be judging other people.

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avatarAre you saying that animal

Submitted by Keith E. Whisman on Fri, 10/03/2008 - 12:46am

Are you saying that animal slaying is a bad thing? Because I believe that the only way to lower the stray cat and dog population is to have an Urban Hunting season. Stray cat season could start on Sept 1st and end on Sept 7th of every year. Dog season would be October 1st through October 5th as there are far fewer stray dogs than cats. A .22cal short round would be plenty powerful enough to take down both animals while providing a minimal risk to property and personal damage to humans.

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avatarOnce again, Blizzard leads

Submitted by damicatz on Wed, 10/01/2008 - 1:57pm

Once again, Blizzard leads the way in abusing the legal system.  Rather than actually improving their game's technology to counteract MMOGlider, they go for the iron-fisted approach without a care as to the collateral damage it causes.

I'm all for stopping cheaters but the courts aren't the way to do it.  And the ruling that merely copying a computer program from the hard drive to memory constitutes copyright infringement is a very scary precedent that could easily be abused for the wrong purposes.

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avatarFinally MMOGlider has been

Submitted by AntiHero on Wed, 10/01/2008 - 1:35pm

Finally MMOGlider has been stopped, i wish such a thing could happen to the other free mmo's that i enjoyed before i played WoW. And i say stopped because after Lich King, the bot will no longer work since it has to be booted with a certain version. Freeplay servers will be the only thing that will suffer bots.

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