The new industry standard, SUE HACKERS

[BKnight3 0]

FYI:

http://pc.ign.com/articles/112/1128602p1.html

[Zipper5 74]

This should be in offtopic, but I greatly support any developer taking up such a crusade against hackers. The hackers ruin the experience for their customers, so it's nice to see them finally take some legal action to shut them down.

[st_dux 26]

There is no legal basis for this case. This won't go anywhere.

[icebreakr 3156]

I'm pretty sure there's an EULA agreement when you install the game ;)

[11aTony 0]

On the other hand noone ever takes measures against video game companies that do not sell what they advertise.

[That guy 10]

I do wish that hackers could be punched in the face. this is not that good, but i take what i can.

and not just hackers, but all those online with malicious intent (hackers/cheaters/scammers/pirates/internet douchebags :p)

[ben_s 11]

This will be ... intresting.

The chance of being sued may stop these hackers once and for all. Well, for StarCraft2 at least.

I hope more companies start doing this, and design a peice of an agreement that says modifiying the game to ruin expereince for other plays or give you an unfair advantage has a penalty of XX ammount fine.

So these companies can sue the hell out of hackers/cheaters they find. Money for the company, Hackers get punched in the face virtually and the players get happy days gaming.

Why hasn't this been done before?

---------- Post added at 07:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:13 PM ----------

There is no legal basis for this case. This won't go anywhere.

Actually, Theres quite a few "legal" documents that you must agree to with any game. These usual include not hacking the game. (or around about that, in a few more words of course)

and they will obviously use this, plus the fact that 1/2 the people in that courtroom will play videogames, as their case.

[st_dux 26]

EULAs are not the law and their enforceability in court is questionable at best. This is nothing more than a publicity stunt for Blizzard, but to be fair, it's a pretty smart one.

[Tonci87 163]

I really support it, but I would also support the possibility to sue Developers that do false advertising

[Spudeater 0]

EULAs are not the law and their enforceability in court is questionable at best. This is nothing more than a publicity stunt for Blizzard, but to be fair, it's a pretty smart one.

Every EULA case that has ever been to court has lost.

You can't force people into a contract after the fact is what every court has ruled.

Clicking "OK" to a EULA is not a contract in any courts view as such a "contract" offers nothing in exchange to the person who already has bought the product and you can't lawfully keep them from using said product at that point.

Also take note that they are attempting to sue people who are not even in the country and the court has no jurisdiction to even hear the case and as such not able to enter a ruling.

Edited October 19, 2010 by Spudeater
wording,added content

[max power 21]

"For this reason, Blizzard seeks to protect the sanctity of the StarCraft II gaming experience through both contractual and technical measures."

Gaming experiences are sacred?

[ryguy 10]

Every EULA case that has ever been to court has lost.

You can't force people into a contract after the fact is what every court has ruled.

Clicking "OK" to a EULA is not a contract in any courts view as such a "contract" offers nothing in exchange to the person who already has bought the product and you can't lawfully keep them from using said product at that point.

Also take note that they are attempting to sue people who are not even in the country and the court has no jurisdiction to even hear the case and as such not able to enter a ruling.

Actually I just read the lawsuit and they do:

This Court has personal jurisdiction over Defendants, including

because Defendants have engaged in, contributed to, and induced the infringing

conduct at issue within the United States and the State of California and among

other things, have purposefully directed their activities at the United States and at

California. Blizzard additionally avers that, among other things, (a) each of the

Defendants or their respective agents are doing or have been doing business

continuously in the State of California and this District, (b) a substantial part of the

1 wrongful acts committed by Defendants, and each of them, have occurred in

interstate commerce, in the State of California, and in the Central District of

California, © Defendants know that the damages and other harmful effects of

Defendants' infringing activities occur in the United States and primarily in

California, where Blizzard has its principal place of business, and (d) Defendants'

infringing activities are part of a joint, international effort among defendants

residing within the United States and outside the United States.

Also they aren't claiming the case solely on the fact that they clicked agree on the EULA (even though they, knowingly and with bad intentions, broke it) but they are also suing under the Copyright Act which is an international law.

Edited October 20, 2010 by ryguy

[max power 21]

And I wonder how they claim that creating cheats is damaging their copyright. I can sort of see that they can make an argument that the cheat is damaging their business by frustrating their clientele (or perhaps enhancing it by making crap players better at online play), but how that it somehow infringing on their intellectual property rights seems a little vague.

edit:

I've been reading the court case more closely and it seems to pinion around the EULA, the battle.net terms of service, and the copyright act. Blizzard claims that using software to copy and alter pieces of information derived from the Starcraft II program in the host machine's RAM is violating their copyright. Additionally, there's the usual stuff about recompiling and reverse engineering, etc.

In terms of the copyright argument, that seems a little weird. Temporarily copying machine code to ram and manipulating it is infringing on copyrights? I certainly understand what they are going for, but if this case is heard, the judge is going to have to do a lot of deep thinking about what 'copying' actually entails.

In terms of the EULA argument, I think rightly so, you can't enforce a contract after money has exchanged hands. That seems unfair and open the door to a lot of abuse if allowed legally.

I am sympathetic to their terms of use argument, but does that really equal any irreparable harm to Blizzard, the State of California, or the United States? I think that these ToU things are the criteria in which you are allowed to stick around and play games. If you enter a bar and start pestering people and being annoying (harming the sanctity of the pub experience), they can ask you to leave. They can't sue you. It seems like this is a tall hill to climb.

Edited October 20, 2010 by Max Power

[ryguy 10]

It breaks the copyright law pretty obviously: In most cases you can break a copyright simply by scanning it (e.g. books), e-mailing it (games) or transporting it mechanically in any way. It doesn't just mean violating the patent. You know how hex-editing isn't allowed for Arma 2? It's the same thing: that's reverse-engineering it, just electronically.

As for suing for damages, I can certainly see how. They broke the copywright law and actively cause damage to their online play ("damages" meaning disrupting players). They're right in how they say the damage is unrepairable, because the hacks have already gotten into the hands of so many people. These two dude living in Canada may have actually caused significant damages to the company.

[Inkompetent 0]

This case may very well succeed because this isn't only bad, unintended use of the product (like selling in-game gold for real money in WoW, which isn't illegal in itself even though Blizzard doesn't like it and bans the people doing so) but actually manipulating the code of the product, intercepting the game's data in the memory and modifying it there. That *is* to break the copyright law since it manipulates the product itself.

I really hope that they win this since selling multiplayer cheats should be totally wiped off of the face of the Earth. However I do not agree with them banning people's BattleNet-accounts just because they cheat in singleplayer. That's just wrong on so many levels.

[ben_s 11]

All they need is to get to court with a judge who plays StarCraft II

Past there anything they get as actual legal evidence is a bonus. :P

[max power 21]

It breaks the copyright law pretty obviously: In most cases you can break a copyright simply by scanning it (e.g. books), e-mailing it (games) or transporting it mechanically in any way. It doesn't just mean violating the patent. You know how hex-editing isn't allowed for Arma 2? It's the same thing: that's reverse-engineering it, just electronically.

As for suing for damages, I can certainly see how. They broke the copywright law and actively cause damage to their online play ("damages" meaning disrupting players). They're right in how they say the damage is unrepairable, because the hacks have already gotten into the hands of so many people. These two dude living in Canada may have actually caused significant damages to the company.

Hex editing in ArmA 2 is for altering a unit, assigning a different texture to it, and publishing a derivative work. How is this similar?

This case may very well succeed because this isn't only bad, unintended use of the product (like selling in-game gold for real money in WoW, which isn't illegal in itself even though Blizzard doesn't like it and bans the people doing so) but actually manipulating the code of the product, intercepting the game's data in the memory and modifying it there. That *is* to break the copyright law since it manipulates the product itself.

You think? Or does it manipulate the high low voltage patterns of someone's RAM? Does Blizzard suddenly have claim over your whole computer and the way it operates when Starcraft 2 is being run?

I really hope that they win this since selling multiplayer cheats should be totally wiped off of the face of the Earth. However I do not agree with them banning people's BattleNet-accounts just because they cheat in singleplayer. That's just wrong on so many levels.

This seems backwards to me. If it's established that this is somehow a breach of Blizzard's copyright, then yeah, it's wrong. If not, then there's nothing wrong about it except bad sportsmanship. I wish bad sportsmanship was illegal, but it's not, sadly. On the other hand, the owners of the battle.net service reserve the right to do whatever they want with the service. It's their prerogative to ban whoever they want. Moreover, if it's found that this is indeed a violation of international copyrights, then cheating in single player is a violation of Blizzard's rights. You are damaging Blizzard by cheating in SP if the court rules in favour of Blizzard.

Edited October 20, 2010 by Max Power

[MrBump 10]

Every EULA case that has ever been to court has lost.

You can't force people into a contract after the fact is what every court has ruled.

Not true, for instance Blizzard v MDY Industries, where in 2008 Blizzard won the damages for a WoW bot where it was decided the creators were "liable for tortious interference and copyright infringement, based, in part, upon the legal premise that users of the World of Warcraft client software are licensees rather than owners of their copy of software."

In terms of the copyright argument, that seems a little weird. Temporarily copying machine code to ram and manipulating it is infringing on copyrights? I certainly understand what they are going for, but if this case is heard, the judge is going to have to do a lot of deep thinking about what 'copying' actually entails.

Copying software to RAM is already established as copyright infringment from the case of MAI Systems Corp. v. Peak Computer inc. this was a key to Blizzard's case above.

In terms of the EULA argument, I think rightly so, you can't enforce a contract after money has exchanged hands. That seems unfair and open the door to a lot of abuse if allowed legally.

The question is, do end users own the game, or just a license for use of the game... if they own just a license then in the court's view, users are not licensed to use the software if they break it's terms of use.

[max power 21]

Copying software to RAM is already established as copyright infringment from the case of MAI Systems Corp. v. Peak Computer inc. this was a key to Blizzard's case above.

Very interesting! I wonder how the hacks operate. I was reading an overview of the case and it said specifically 'copying software into ram for the purposes of execution'. I don't know if that is the whole over arching ruling but if that is the mechanism, it seems like it would depend on the way the hacks actually work, and the defense lawyer's ability to convince the court not to expand that definition.

Not true, for instance Blizzard v MDY Industries, where in 2008 Blizzard won the damages for a WoW bot where it was decided the creators were "liable for tortious interference and copyright infringement, based, in part, upon the legal premise that users of the World of Warcraft client software are licensees rather than owners of their copy of software."

The question is, do end users own the game, or just a license for use of the game... if they own just a license then in the court's view, users are not licensed to use the software if they break it's terms of use.

I'm very interested in the answer to this. I wonder if it's something that must be specifically stated or if this is going to be the default state of software ownership.

[bascule42 10]

(Saw the title of this thread and wondered if there was a new uber developer named Sue Hackers).

[Flash Thunder 10]

I really support it, but I would also support the possibility to sue Developers that do false advertising

Why that would put Codemasters out of business, if that was to happen I would crawl into a corner and welp. ;)

lol NOT

GO TO HELL CONMASTERS!

ONtopic

What a fuckin concept I thought this was already in full swing....

anyways sue the guys that are messing up the games, I could care less for people who hack the content for fun.

Edited October 21, 2010 by Flash Thunder