Glider (MDY Industries) vs Blizzard Entertainment - Legal Update (Good news!)

[ocktra]

Totally digging all the supportive comments.. thanks, guys! Update: there really isn't much to say right now. The legal team is still going over the documents and Mercury will continue meeting with them to figure out MDY's options. It is very, very complicated stuff.. will update you guys here once I know what the plan is.

[notburlex]

Oh nice!
Just march in to the Supreme Court yelling you are pro-gun and pro-life (however ironic and contradictory it might sound) and you will win!
/endsarcasm

On the other hand. Seeing how the justices are elected by the President, and seeing how politicians are owned by big<insert industry here>, I wouldn't get my hopes up.
Welcome to the Corporate States of America, enjoy your stay!

EDIT:
In any case, I don't want to look like I was rooting for Blizzard, so good luck!

[BrightChild]

tldr, glider may or may not come back

[Shalker]

yeahhhhh glider ftw!!! (:

[ocktra]

tldr, glider may or may not come back

Exactly. Man, this is stressful.

[Remus]

Stressing over a bot is just dumb =/ it will be as it will become, until then go and enjoy something else.

[TheDash]

Sorry but anyone who even considers using Glider after all this.. Yeah, Glider was a great little program while it lasted but if it DOES come back then Blizzard will be cracking down on it more than ever.

[Kazin420]

Sorry but anyone who even considers using Glider after all this.. Yeah, Glider was a great little program while it lasted but if it DOES come back then Blizzard will be cracking down on it more than ever.

This is pretty much what I was thinking. Regardless of the outcome, I'm sure the supreme court wont put any kind of restriction on blizz banning anyone who uses glider or any other 3rd party bots.

I do hope you guys win though. Bobby Kotick doesnt need to be tipping his strippers with 100's instead of 50's.

[Castseven]

You will NEVER get Glider back on a permanent basis. Legal jargon aside, there will never be a ruling in that favor that sticks as it would destroy the ability for countless entities to do business without fear of piracy and infringement.

But the real reason is, even IF somehow, through some magical series of events, the courts rule 100% in favor of Glider, all Blizzard has to do is tweak the TOS to plug up whatever legal holes made the case fall through. (And yes, whenever the TOS is changed, you are forced to re-agree to it or stop playing). They can put whatever they want in the TOS -- if they wanted they could make it so that only people who send them a video saying "purple monkey dishwasher" can play WoW, it's 100% their product, and users *never* have any ownership of the game or their stuff in any way.

[wooloveshacks]

But the real reason is, even IF somehow, through some magical series of events, the courts rule 100% in favor of Glider, all Blizzard has to do is tweak the TOS to plug up whatever legal holes made the case fall through. (And yes, whenever the TOS is changed, you are forced to re-agree to it or stop playing). They can put whatever they want in the TOS -- if they wanted they could make it so that only people who send them a video saying "purple monkey dishwasher" can play WoW, it's 100% their product, and users *never* have any ownership of the game or their stuff in any way.

This implies that any TOS/EULA are in some way legally binding - they are not. You can't take someone to court for breaking the TOS or EULA. Not me, the consumer, and certainly not the maker of the bot. This is why they've had to think a little more outside the box, such as copying wow.exe in realtime to manipulate it, etc..

Blizzard, like anyone else, have to fight them with things that are legally binding, such as copyright law, not TOS/EULA's

[K1boRG]

If Glider gona come back, it gona again be a ban weave, why people are cheering of some sort of bot case, blizzard will again sue them, if not you're gona just get your account banned and you'll gona cry in corner about that and will be agry on Glider that they 'came back'.

[Castseven]

This implies that any TOS/EULA are in some way legally binding - they are not. You can't take someone to court for breaking the TOS or EULA.

Forgive me for playing e-lawyer for a moment, but that's a common misconception. Assuming the TOS meets the proper standards (and they have many expensive lawyers to ensure it does), it's a legally binding contract unless it violates consumer protection laws. That's the same reason people are able to file lawsuits against corporations based on TOS violations on behalf of the provider -- it works both ways. There's no "greedy corporations always lose to righteous consumers" law.

When you play WoW you are entering into a service contract. Despite the popular belief (stemming from today's ever popular entitlement syndrome) that spending money gives you some kind of unabated right to do what you please with said service, Blizzard is well within their rights to modify and restrict said service as they please. Additionally, it gets a lot less gray when someone tries illicitly to make money off of a service that isn't theirs (as opposed to doing it under a license).