Today the guys over at MDY Industries LLC (aka WoWGlider/MMOGlider) filed their opening brief to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The following is taken from the preliminary statement in their brief which I found amusing,

Imagine if you started this small business: you read Harry Potter books aloud to people who buy them. The publisher finds out about your business and decides to squelch you. It begins shrink-wrapping each copy of Harry Potter with a "licence agreement" stating that by taking the book from its shrink-wrap cover, the buyer agrees not to have the book read aloud - but instead to read it personally. Everyone ignores this silly overreaching restriction and nannies continue reading aloud to children at bedtime. Meanwhile, you persist in your small business - but (again) you read copies aloud only to people who legitimately buy the book. The publisher sues you for tortiously intefering with its contractual relations - the "license agreements" it has with the book-buying public. The publisher even succeeds in getting an injunction against you - preventing you from reading aloud for a fee.

The outcome of this has potential ramifications across all software companies trying to enforce EULAs so it should be interesting to see the outcome of the appeal. Blizzard will file their response on October 15th.

More info can be found on the MMOGlider Forums.

I don't get how they can possibly have a case for their arguement (I have no clue what they are fighting for but i'm guessing the right to use their program in games). You pretty much enter a contract when you sign up to say you won't cheat/hack/bot in the game and if you get found doing so, you can/prolly will be banned for it. How can you get around this?

last edited by DM at 23:13:04 21/Sep/09

Veeerryyy interesting!!

If Blizzard lose (doubtful), possibly they will put their weight behind streaming WoW, with a central server and basic client - but even then, Glider uses key presses mainly, ermm but also would have to know where to select and attack creeps etc.

I don't get how they can possibly have a case for their arguement (I have no clue what they are fighting for but i'm guessing the right to use their program in games). You pretty much enter a contract when you sign up to say you won't cheat/hack/bot in the game and if you get found doing so, you can/prolly will be banned for it. How can you get around this?

They are fighting for the right to allow users to use the program to play the game. The program doesn't alter any WoW code, they are arguing that game users own the WoW code installed on their computers or have rights to use it. $1m turnover would be pretty sweet for a program that helps someone play a game you had nothing to do with creating - the more successful WoW gets the more money you make! Not to mention the amount of accounts you could have open churning out gold.

last edited by Fireblood at 23:21:44 21/Sep/09

It ruins the game and don't tell me it doesn't. Botting is fairly scummy. However, you have to stop and think as a game developer if people are creating programs to play your game then you are doing something wrong.

We all know WoW is a freaking time sink. Personally I think it's the only way you should play WoW, otherwise you are wasting your time grinding to get the next level/item/money/whatever. It's not as if you bot instances or battlegrounds just the rest of the boring s***.

They are fighting for the right to allow users to use the program to play the game.

Yes and no, it's more about glider not infringing on blizzards copyright and a toc/eula being interpreted or enforced as copyright when it isnt. Also holding Donnelly personally liable as well, when his glider dealings were through his company.

And because of this, it lets people legally use glider to play the game, but in doing so violate the blizzards rules (ie, the toc/eula) and get banned and blizzard go back to playing cat and mouse.

last edited by eXemplar at 23:45:10 21/Sep/09

It's a scummy cheating program. End of story, hope they get sued into the next millennium.

fireblood: I actually had more funny getting to 60 than doing instances over and over again.

i'm guessing the right to use their program in games

More accurately, it is the right to use the game in their program.