Wow, this place really *IS* full of Bobby Kotick cheerleaders.
To repeat for all those who didn't see it before:
EULAs (End User License Agreements) have zero legal weight in the USA. The USA courts decided this (among other cases where they said the same thing) in Vernor v. Autodesk. So everybody, please quit saying "well the EULA said they couldn't do that," because guess what? What the EULA says doesn't matter a thing.
To add something more, I'd note that Blizzard DOES have a recourse against cheaters: they can ban them from Battle.net. As Battle.net is very clearly a service, not a product, they CAN stipulate a license agreement for its use, and as such, may use the rules of it to terminate a user's access to the service as they see fit.
Of course, as I said before, this simple fact basically shoots Blizzard's court case in the foot. Because you can't play
StarCraft II in multiplayer WITHOUT Battle.net, and Blizzard HAS banned cheaters, they've just proven that no, they CAN deal with the problem.
Of course, perhaps there would've been less cheating had Blizzard not forced battle.net down everyone's throats; for all we know,
could the cheaters be cheating simply to get back at Blizzard for forcing use of battle.net and restrictive DRM? And at the very least, even if they ARE simply just no-lifers, chances are they'd rather avoid battle.net and stick to private-server games where it might cheating might be allowable.
[citation][nom]falchard[/nom]Bet Blizzard loses, they don't really have a case due to several factors.[/citation]
Glad to see someone else has a bit of sense here.
[citation][nom]x3style[/nom]Wow so many people actualy read the entire article and just start bitching.May i renote some key points here.[/citation]
Your points are all incorrect or irrelevant:
- Blizzard still has no case against the hack-creators, in part BECAUSE they banned everyone that used said hacks. Courts ALWAYS hold that a non-court remedy (unless it itself is illegal) is better than a remedy that involves litigation.
- Blizzard has a long-shot case against someone profiting on a hack that uses none of their IP. Copyright and patent law allow for add-on works, provided they do not actually contain any protected (copyrighted/patented) material from the original themselves.
- "They analyzed them." I highly doubt this. And as I said before, loading data into RAM without the copyright holder's blessing is not illegal in the slightest. As I said before,
the EULA holds ZERO legal weight; it's all a lie. Once you own a copy of a game, provided you don't give someone ELSE a copy of it, you're free to use it as you see fit: make >9,000 backup copies, hack it, light it on fire, whatever. This includes "loading data into RAM without permission." The first-sale doctrine, which isn't going away anytime soon, says that it's YOURS. And it's hardly unique; the Doctrine has been around for over a century, and all courts have upheld it without exception, including for computer software.
- I'd LOVE to watch you struggle and search for a law that forbids the creation of hacks, edits, exploits, and cheats. Case-in-point: console hacking devices like the Game Shark, Game Genie, and Pro Action Replay. Yes, Nintendo tried suing the makers of them; the courts told them that Nintendo had no case.
- Your example with safecracking shows your hilariously poor understanding of IP law: once you buy a copy of
StarCraft II, you OWN That copy; it no longer belongs to Blizzard. So
cracking your copy of SCII is just as illegal as picking the lock to your OWN safe.
- As far as "ruining the value of SCII," that would be a claim a PLAYER would have against cheaters. As the company actually doesn't play their game for enjoyment, loss of enjoyment from their product is not something they can claim harm for.
[citation][nom]x3style[/nom]I hope for some this is clear enough.[/citation]
Yes, you've made it clear you have no idea what the heck you're talking about.
[citation][nom]dalta centauri[/nom]So they should stick with banning users who are hacking rather then taking a whack at the source?[/citation]
Yep, becayse legally, that's all they're allowed to do. As I mentioned above, Blizzard isn't some sort of god. They are trying to overstep the boundaries of power given to them by virtue of their copyright. (yes, that's right, the power granted by holding a copyright has LIMITS!)
If you read ANY of my comments, you'd see why, legally, Blizzard has zero case. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but just because you dislike something doesn't make it illegal. Like hate speech, cheating in a video game is something that may be disliked, but is legally permissible.
[citation][nom]dalta centauri[/nom]User-end agreements are still laws,[/citation]
LOL no. Wow are you short on knowledge. You should try educating yourself a little before you try posting such comments.
End-user license agreements (EULAs) have ZERO LEGAL WEIGHT. That's right: 10,000 words of absolutely no value. Software is sold, not licensed, and as such, according to the >100-year-old First Sale Doctrine, (which yes, applies to copyrighted software, BECAUSE it's copyrighted)
the owner of the copyright cannot stipulate what may or may not be done with their product. This was addressed MOST RECENTLY in a court case,
Vernor v. Autodesk; Autodesk tried to say that their EULA forbid the resale of their software (like all EULAs state) yet the courts told Autodesk they were wrong.
You can read about the case here.
Think on it: this is why used-game sales like at Gamestop even EXIST; virtually all EULAs say you're not allowed to re-sell your game, yet these large national chains do so anyway. Ditto for libraries: they let people borrow books for FREE.
Owning a copyright does not give you god-like powers over the product copyrighted. Rather, it merely keeps others from unrightfuly copying and distributing said work. So in order to actually WIN a copyright infringement case, the defendant must have either:
(a) Distributed copies they produced without permission, be it for profit or for free, OR
(b) Directly used the copyrighted material to profit. (such as 'performing it', like having people pay to watch them play)
Those are the only things copyright law ACTUALLY restricts you from doing; those are the only two things you actually need permission to do with someone else's copyrighted work. Any claim to the opposite is false. (yes, there's the DMCA, but that actually doesn't deal with copyrighted work, merely anti-piracy measures)
[citation][nom]davewolfgang[/nom]It will stand up in any court in the land.[/citation]
Actually, you forgot a key element:
the hacks don't contain copyrighted work. Why would they, when anything that's copyrighted that they'd need will be right there in the
StarCraft II disk/installation? As such, the hack contains zero copyrighted parts, and as such, the sale of it doesn't infringe upon Blizzard's copyright any more than an aftermarket book jacket infringes upon the book-maker's copyright.
I'm not saying that cheating is good, (rather, I hold it to be incredibly dishonorable) but I AM saying that what Blizzard is doing about it here is dishonest and dishonorable.
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