Ruling pending on virtual bots

[Ed Oscuro]

Straight from an American Bar Association email (no, I don't get them, it was forwarded):


The Legality of "Rogue" Bots in Virtual Worlds: A Discussion of Blizzard v. MDY (9th Cir. Pending)

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Blizzard's "World of Warcraft" is the world’s most popular "massively multiplayer online role-playing game," with over 11.5 million monthly subscribers who battle in virtual fantasy worlds. For players to compete effectively, they must build skills, acquire assets, and win quests—all of which ups their experience level, making them more powerful in the game. So when MDY, and its founder Michael Donnelly, created an intelligent "bot" (called "Glider") to automatically take control of players' avatars to gain power for players while away from their computers, Blizzard became concerned.

After Blizzard requested that MDY stop its allegedly infringing and tortious activities, the companies landed in federal court in Arizona. Following summary judgment and trial, MDY was found to have infringed Blizzard’s copyrights, unlawfully circumvented the DMCA, and tortiously interfered with Blizzard’s contracts. As a remedy, the court imposed not only an injunction and damages on MDY, but found its owner, Donnelly, personally liable. MDY appealed the case to the Ninth Circuit, where it is now pending. Oral argument is scheduled for later this fall.

Listen to a cutting-edge discussion on intellectual property, contract, property, and tort law in MDY v. Blizzard, a case pending at the Ninth Circuit involving Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, a virtual game world where millions of players’ “avatars” battle online every day, and MDY's intelligent (and allegedly rogue) Glider "bots" that enhance the powers of the avatars.
The teleconference was today at noon-1 or so, dunno if there's a way to watch the proceedings. The case is pending - no idea how soon to expect a ruling. Aside from the general ick factor the DMCA brings, this may be something to keep tabs on, as it would have a direct impact on user freedom vs. the ability of game owners to run the game as they'd like.

Link (http://www.abanet.org/cle/programs/t09lrb1.html) to the ABA's page for this program.

[NayusDante]

TECHNICALLY, an MMO bot should be perfectly legal. It's an input device, not a cheating tool. The software provides the input instead of the player, with the player's consent. It's no different from a rapidfire gamepad in that it provides a degree of control that makes up for human shortcomings. Step back for a moment and consider the following picture. Is this any different from a bot?

http://www.offtheback.co.nz/product_images/0000/4638/drinking_bird_lightbox.jpg


Speaking from the average player's perspective, however, I say change your terms of service to require "real-time human-control." I'm pretty sure that WoW's TOS has a section requiring you to be a human being, but I don't remember if it went into detail as to whether that was for registration or gameplay.

[Kitsune Sniper]

TECHNICALLY, an MMO bot should be perfectly legal. It's an input device, not a cheating tool. The software provides the input instead of the player, with the player's consent. It's no different from a rapidfire gamepad in that it provides a degree of control that makes up for human shortcomings.

That's strange, AIMBots do the same thing in FPS games. They provide the input instead of the player, with their consent, and it makes up for their shortcomings.

Hm.

[NayusDante]

Like I said, we need better TOS to protect against these things. We just need some concrete definitions of "software controllers" and stuff like that.

I have to say that rapidfire controllers are completely absent this generation, save for modded controllers. My local Play N Trade is selling rapidfire 360 pads with aftermarket cases and buttons for $170, which covers $40 installation fees on both the case and mod. Everyone's attention is on bots, but I'm just as interested in seeing how "hardware modifications to game controllers" play out. Cheap third-party pads used to have rapidfire and often, macros (imagine fighting games online with one-button specials...), but it seems like that's been taken care of this generation, for licensed hardware at least.

[Kitsune Sniper]

Like I said, we need better TOS to protect against these things. We just need some concrete definitions of "software controllers" and stuff like that.

Valve, at least, has that covered. The recent hat debacle forced them to make it even clearer.

[Cornelius]

For the MMO, I'd say just switch it to a pay-per-minute scheme. Solves the bot problem (mostly), though of course has its own problems it introduces.

[rpepper9]

For the MMO, I'd say just switch it to a pay-per-minute scheme. Solves the bot problem (mostly), though of course has its own problems it introduces.

No user is going to want to pay per minute, you would loose your fan base.

[NayusDante]

No user is going to want to pay per minute, you would loose your fan base.

China typically uses a per-hour subscription model. It's cheaper, but they get more players. WoW is something like $7.50 for a license (compared to our $19.99), and it's like $0.42/hour to play. If you don't play more than 30 hours a month, it's actually a pretty good deal.