Glider Lawsuit Discussion Thread

[miztamajic]

No new info coming out of the glider forums, well not from anyone who would know anything

[lunarfaerie]

You know, I don't understand what the big deal is with Glider. I mean, just as long as the users continue to pay their monthly fee for the game, I don't understand why we can't do whatever we want with our account. Take it off the rules, Blizz! >.<

[Cryptography]

I have looked over this in the past, but In reading a book on reverse engineering I found 2 prior cases that are effectively reversed by this decision.

Sega v. Accolade and Sony v. Connectix

In both cases the us courts ruled that the intermediate copies caused by reverse engineering or interoperability were not copyright violations..

For those who don't care about this case it has much wider implications then just wow. If this case stands then even software such as Samba for linux would be subjects of easy lawsuits.

Notes on DCMA:
Interoperability: reversing and circumventing DRM technologies may be allowed in circumstances where such work is needed in order to interoperate with the software product in question. For example, if a program was encrypted for the purpose of copy protecting it, a software developer may decrypt the program in question if that’s the only way to interoperate with it.
Source Reversing: Secrets of Reverse Engineering by Eldad Eilam....

In application of this DCMA exception since making the copy that blizzard claims is the copyright violation was in fact the only way to interface with the software... It therefore should fall under this legal exception.

What is more is this: Same source as above:
Protection of privacy: Products that collect or transmit personal information may be reversed and any protection technologies they include may be circumvented.

Since warden the circumvented anti copyright software collects personal information (all be it a hash) it is therefore legal to circumvent it. The idea behind this is that while warden may not tell blizzard what software is running on a machine but it will tell them if a given piece of software is present. This in itself is personal information, because it was replaced with a binary answer doesn't change that fact. The same case would be if I asked you if your social security number was {Generate all possible SSN Numbers Here} over and over again till you said yes. Though I never actually transmitted your SSN.

[DARKFOXX]

i dont like glider so i hope they go down, those bots mess up the game economy, ok say u farm say some eternals that is a long process so u charge high prices which gives u more money then a botter comes along thats just got everything without even playing making it easy, he's not gonna care to keep under cutting ppl bc he didnt do the work i saw the motes and primals go down the crapper during burning crusade because of botters

[Mazi]

I can use Glider witch 3.0.9 Patch or not ? Friend's say me i cant use that now ;/
Any one can tell me ?

[Cryptography]

i dont like glider so i hope they go down, those bots mess up the game economy, ok say u farm say some eternals that is a long process so u charge high prices which gives u more money then a botter comes along thats just got everything without even playing making it easy, he's not gonna care to keep under cutting ppl bc he didnt do the work i saw the motes and primals go down the crapper during burning crusade because of botters

Those who give up essential liberties for little safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

First, What are we (all US Citizens *note us law effects the world, though sometimes inversely*) giving up if Blizzard wins the appeal.

1. The digital millennium copyright law just got inflated. It is no longer legal for you to backup your music downloaded online. If your computer crashes you must repurchase it again. YOu also must repurchase your music and videos if you switch from an Ipod to a Microsoft Zune or Creative Nomade.

2. Medical software just became far less usable and 4 times expensive. This overhead in man hours and software cost means that your average ER bill went up $50, and longer stays will go up by quite a bit too. This is because many medical programs are based on Interoperability with other software such as Microsoft word, and insurance databases.

3. It is Illegal to stop the spread of an encrypted virus.

4. If you looked at a Windows Vista or Windows 7 Benchmark you are guilty of violating the Windows 7 EULA and therefore you are creating an illegal copy of windows and owe Microsoft $10,000 as it is yet unreleased software.

5. Web functionality will decrease drastically. Adobe can put a EULA in their flash that says that you cannot use flash on pages with XML or Javascript.

This is just a small list of things that under the judges ruling have been changed and are illegal if the presidence stands.

Now to your other claim
1. You stated that you don't like glider because it reduced the cost of primals. You should probably know that while glider accounts for a large amount of the individual botters it is a very minor part of the system as a whole. There are private programs and even companies dedicated to producing wow gold. Where do you think they get that gold.

2. You claim the price went down because of bots. What you haven't noticed is that the number of glider bots went DOWN after July last year. If they were creating the SUPPILY then the SUPPILY would have gone down. All else remaining constant the PRICE WOULD HAVE GONE UP. Which is counter to your claim...

3. You failed to recognize that the wow economy is fluid, over time there is a decreased demand for entry level epic items such as Spellweave and the other tradecraft epics. This is because people have already obtained those or better items. The result is that demand plummets. PRICE GOES DOWN... No matter what bots doing what.

Note: According to the mmoglider forums. Glider currently works

[bored aussie]

ive beenw atching the posts and still
how does glider have a chance if its a third party program ?
also if u purchase glider now does it still work?

[Dead_Man]

Why cant glider just release the source code if they are found guilty, send it to various file hosting companies, maybe a few FTP servers, torrents, and WoW would be screwed

[TaskMarster]

Why cant glider just release the source code if they are found guilty, send it to various file hosting companies, maybe a few FTP servers, torrents, and WoW would be screwed

Blizzard is currently seeking an injunction against MDY to cease and desist production and distribution of Glider for the duration of litigation, and afterward. Part of Blizzard's case is a request that the source code to Glider can neither be sold nor released to the public after the case is over. If they were to do this anyway, the software developer known as Mercury who produces Glider would be in an even worse financial/legal situation than he already is.

[Crazy-Chik]

I've looked at the videos on youtube about the owners of MDY, and its just a few guys that made "Glider", and Blizzard is a huge company.

[BloodOmenx3]

I hope it goes open source lol lol

[bbob02284]

what of the code were to be 'stolen' then what?

[Xarg0]

I have looked over this in the past, but In reading a book on reverse engineering I found 2 prior cases that are effectively reversed by this decision.

Sega v. Accolade and Sony v. Connectix

In both cases the us courts ruled that the intermediate copies caused by reverse engineering or interoperability were not copyright violations..

For those who don't care about this case it has much wider implications then just wow. If this case stands then even software such as Samba for linux would be subjects of easy lawsuits.

Notes on DCMA:
Interoperability: reversing and circumventing DRM technologies may be allowed in circumstances where such work is needed in order to interoperate with the software product in question. For example, if a program was encrypted for the purpose of copy protecting it, a software developer may decrypt the program in question if that’s the only way to interoperate with it.
Source Reversing: Secrets of Reverse Engineering by Eldad Eilam....

In application of this DCMA exception since making the copy that blizzard claims is the copyright violation was in fact the only way to interface with the software... It therefore should fall under this legal exception.

What is more is this: Same source as above:
Protection of privacy: Products that collect or transmit personal information may be reversed and any protection technologies they include may be circumvented.

Since warden the circumvented anti copyright software collects personal information (all be it a hash) it is therefore legal to circumvent it. The idea behind this is that while warden may not tell blizzard what software is running on a machine but it will tell them if a given piece of software is present. This in itself is personal information, because it was replaced with a binary answer doesn't change that fact. The same case would be if I asked you if your social security number was {Generate all possible SSN Numbers Here} over and over again till you said yes. Though I never actually transmitted your SSN.

Acutally the law case isn't about the act of reversing WoW, but about circumventing the warden, so you can't transfer this case to samba or other similar opensource projects.
Also, the claim that warden collects personal data is not ture anymore, warden currently only creates hashs of WoW's Memory space, it does not hash the window titles of other running programms like rootkit.com claimed, warden also calls some winapis to check for the presence of certain rootkits, however it doesn't send any personal information to Blizzard, ofcourse if you'd inject a DLL that contains all your personal information it might occur that Warden sends a hash of your DLL to Blizzard, but I don't think you'd do that :-)

[Apoc]

Acutally the law case isn't about the act of reversing WoW, but about circumventing the warden, so you can't transfer this case to samba or other similar opensource projects.
Also, the claim that warden collects personal data is not ture anymore, warden currently only creates hashs of WoW's Memory space, it does not hash the window titles of other running programms like rootkit.com claimed, warden also calls some winapis to check for the presence of certain rootkits, however it doesn't send any personal information to Blizzard, ofcourse if you'd inject a DLL that contains all your personal information it might occur that Warden sends a hash of your DLL to Blizzard, but I don't think you'd do that :-)

That would be pretty irrelevant considering that Warden used to invade privacy via window title and process checking. A good argument could be made that circumventing Warden is a privacy protection, as Blizzard can turn those scans back on whenever they please.

Just because Warden doesn't access, or send back anything private does not excuse them from doing it before. It is perfectly legal to monitor what Warden does for the sake of public knowledge, and privacy protection. Circumventing it is under the same roof. (It can be incredibly dangerous.)

[Kaziko.]

You know, I don't understand what the big deal is with Glider. I mean, just as long as the users continue to pay their monthly fee for the game, I don't understand why we can't do whatever we want with our account. Take it off the rules, Blizz! >.<

Yeah If anything they are gaining money out of botting because when they get banned everyone has to buy full wow and start again! Imo they only have ban waves to keep non-botters happy