Would you think it’s right to kick people out of your restaurant for swearing if they were being very quiet in their own booth? But if some other customer came up to them, sat at their booth and listened to what they were saying and reported to you that they used a bad word, would you boot them? Or better yet if you had a bionic ear and could automatically know when someone used a bad word, would you kick them out for it, without a refund?

If someone used a dietary supplement to gorge themselves at your all-you-can-eat buffet, would you think you had an injunction case against the maker of the supplement, as a restaraunt owner? If you could go to all of the stores and destroy all of the supplements and you did, by rationale that you own the restaurant, would you think the maker of the supplement had a case against YOU? Or at least when you did end up sueing the supplement maker you could successfully claim that destroying the supplement was your right as OWNER, and thus their actions to prevent the destruction of their business constitute contractual interference?

Besides, impairment of free speech is a root cause of all the strife in the world. I would think you would need a better reason to allow the impairment.

[...] memory might be a breach of EULA. Take a look at the recent discussion about a certain WoW bot tool Raph's Website » Blizzard scores win against WoWGlider [...]

I see as much attempting to use the EULA to hamstring the companies in this discussion as people decrying how the companies are so viscious with them.

Tell you what, we’ll keep heading down this road of people insisting nobody can tell them what to do or not do on/with someone else’s property. When nobody is willing to take a risk and start a business or innovate because of the behaviour that emerges, then what? Why do I get the feeling we’re already at that point? :9

Again, if the property owner is abusive with their rights (kicking people out for frivolous/no/bigoted reasons), then that place will earn itself a reputation as such.

It might take law enforcement showing up before removal occurs, but the decision generally comes from the owner or an owner’s authorized agent. We had off-duty police (in uniform) as our weekend security. When there was an issue that did not involve a law being broken, they wanted the words to come from my lips before they would haul someone out.

EULAs have most commonly been unenforceable due to the litigious nature of them, the fact you have to buy the product first and the fact that the product in this case is presented, sold, and played as a “normal” piece of non-licensed software. Not to mention EULAs heavily favor the writer and occasionally are worded to strip rights they cannot actually take away in the first place.

Quick point: the existence of bad EULAs does not preclude the existence of valid EULAs. To the topic, the fact that many people cannot seem to create a non-objectionable EULA does not mean that Blizzard’s EULA is objectionable or flawed.

This is not the same as an EULA. EULAs have most commonly been unenforceable due to the litigious nature of them, the fact you have to buy the product first and the fact that the product in this case is presented, sold, and played as a “normal” piece of non-licensed software. Not to mention EULAs heavily favor the writer and occasionally are worded to strip rights they cannot actually take away in the first place.

The problem specifically with Blizzard’s interpretation attempt, is that if Glider presented their own EULA which contradicted Blizzard’s EULA, there is no way to presently argue for who’s EULA is the winner. If Glider’s agreement said it doesn’t allow other software to conflict or turn it off without permission from the user, then what? Blizzard would have to make another amendment saying that Glider’s amendment was invalid if running their game. And so on. It turns into a big game of one-up manship.

The common sense thing to do is ignore both EULAs and have Blizzard continue banning people. It solves the problem of who has the better lawyers, and lets both parties continue their business as normal, which in the end, harms nobody (don’t even get me started on what a debacle “financial damages” would ensue from claiming gold sellers using Glider are destroying their player base ).

Try this analogy:

You build a big barn, and you decide, for fun, to let people come in and paint things on all the walls. You charge a small fee for the paint and such, and you tell people they can do whatever they want provided:

1. No crude images or words.

2. Don’t disrupt other people’s fun.

Now, someone comes in, pays, but does in fact start painting crude images in places. They aren’t directly disruptive, but the images they leave behind tend to be. Yes, you can certainly kick them out, but the question is, have they also damaged your barn by how they behaved? If so, don’t they need to repay you for that damage?

Now, to more precisely fit the analogy, let’s say someone decides to stand outside your barn and sell stencils of crude images to the people heading in. Is that person causing harm to your barn? What can you do about it?

US Code Title 17, Chapter 1,
§ 117. Limitations on exclusive rights: Computer programs

(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.— Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:

(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or

(2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful.

Quoted from the Cornell University Law School website. Highlight is mine. This, I believe, is the crux of the copyright argument, in terms of the law on the books. WoWGlider was using that copy in RAM in a manner which was not intended, and was in fact expressly prohibited in the EULA.

As such, I can’t disagree with the ruling as presented. The ruling does indirectly establish the validity of the license relationship (versus the sales relationship), but again, in my mind this has been established for some time (whether I like it or not).

…I’m confused.

If I toss folks out who don’t mesh with the atmosphere I want, thats protecting my investment. Playing the discrimination card is just a manipulation of public opinion as backlash. When I worked at the movie theatres, I was constantly bombarded by endless claims that “you can’t throw me out, this is public property”. Again the same in the parking lot as their drunken nonsense became a bother to people there, too (still private property). Then, naturally came the “you’re discriminating” protests as people have to create excuses to deny their own poor behavior.

We tossed out noise-makers because they were disruptive to those around them. Blizzard is tossing out those who they feel are disruptive to the atmosphere they desire.

The game code is their property, if they don’t approve of you copying it, that is their right.

The hard drive and memory are your property, if you don’t want their code in it, that is your right.

They have the right to say no.

You have the right to say no.

Neither of you have the right to force the other to say yes.

If Blizzard objects to your copying (and altering mid-stream, I might add..but not a necessary qualification) their property, you don’t get to blow them off and sneer while dancing around ambiguity.

(You and I in these statements are not meant as absolutely binding pronouns, btw :9)

You aren’t even populating memory space yourself, you launched an application (written by Blizzard) which contains code (copyrighted by Blizzard) that tells the operating system (owned by someone else) to send data from the hard drive onto the motherboard traces leading ultimately to your memory modules.

You can’t copy the game into memory without using code that someone else holds the copyright to.

Enjoy those precious hard drives you own, entirely useless without the hard work of thousands of other parts (physical or not) created by thousands of other people.

I can put stolen goods inside my house, that doesn’t protect them from being seized once my crime is discovered.

I can broadcast copyrighted material on file-sharing applications right? I’m just copying 1s and 0s from my hard drive to the memory and sending them out the network adapter, all of which I own.

Self-deception and moral ambiguity do not impress me in the least.

VERY different things. Because according to them, no, you can’t alter their game code even with a rogue server, because the simple act of loading it into ram is a copyright violation if they didn’t okay it first.