i just readed this
Originally Posted by Mercury
It's been a difficult time waiting to file this, but it finally ended last night. We filed our petition with the appeals court to rehear an issue that the court appears to have overlooked.
The appeals court tossed every single thing in the original judgment, but then they re-added an injunction on MDY against selling Glider based on the DMCA 1201b violation. That is the one that says Warden is "access control" and circumventing it is thus a DMCA violation, even with no copyright infringement.
They spent a great deal of time talking about how they don't like Chamberlain, a case that would have won it for us. And in many respects, I don't blame them for not taking Chamberlain because that case establishes a confusing burden on the plaintiff to establish some liability that normally isn't there with the DMCA.
However, the court appears to have gotten too caught up in Chamberlain and overlooked a part of the DMCA that pretty much was designed exactly for Glider.
1201f "interoperability" exception
Congress didn't want people using the DMCA to expand copyright and force out software interoperation. So they added some interesting verbiage to the DMCA saying that you are explicitly allowed to circumvent access control if it's for the sole purpose of enabling interoperation between two programs (homework assignment: guess which two) and there is no copyright infringement.
Now that the copyright ruling has been reversed, 1201f should apply to Glider. We filed a petition to ask the court to consider that, since 1201f was not discussed after they dismantled Chamberlain.
There's a link to the petition at the bottom of this post. It's a pretty good read and not even that long.
What's going to happen next, then?
Well, if I was sure, we wouldn't need a panel of judges for this. But there are a few possible outcomes that may come out pretty fast. And a lot of them involve Glider going back on the market, so I've been busy preparing for that possibility.
And let me tell you, catching up on two years of WoW updates (and a practical re-write of many class mechanics) is not fun.
What this means for Glider
The legal argument is very simple and very strong. There's a very good chance that the panel will take it or possibly just lift the injunction and kick it back down to Judge Campbell to determine 1201f applicability.
And, even without this, Glider is technically legal to sell without anti-Warden code. Not that it would last very long like that, but there are some interesting options for leaving that feature as a plug-in for others to develop... or other cleverness. We're exploring quite a few ideas to put Glider back on the market legally now that the injunction is so narrow.
So if you do get Glider back out, what then?
We've updated Glider in-house to get it current with the game and its existing functionality. All the Tripwire stuff is disabled here (can't use that stuff legally), but that's not a big deal today... I doubt there's gonna be a Warden update just to whack my little test account.
Needless to say, the market has progressed quite a bit past the old simple profiles thing and we've got a lot of work to do in order to get caught up to that.
The good news is there are already some really good Glider add-ons that do some of that. And our biggest priority will be a linked questing/tasking system that's been rolling around in my head for literally 2 years. I'm looking at one-touch 1-85 with the proper community support. Judging by how big regular profiles were in the past, that should be easy to come by.
When's the next update?
Pretty soon, in legal terms. I'm guessing we'll hear back from the panel on this petition within 2 to 12 weeks. We may get jammed there and get nothing... or things might get really interesting, really fast. We'll be prepared for anything.
TL;DR
Sorry, there's no easy way out this time. Gotta read it.
Download link:
http://mmoglider.com/legal/1201f_Petition.pdf
Originally Posted by Mercury
It's been a difficult time waiting to file this, but it finally ended last night. We filed our petition with the appeals court to rehear an issue that the court appears to have overlooked.
The appeals court tossed every single thing in the original judgment, but then they re-added an injunction on MDY against selling Glider based on the DMCA 1201b violation. That is the one that says Warden is "access control" and circumventing it is thus a DMCA violation, even with no copyright infringement.
They spent a great deal of time talking about how they don't like Chamberlain, a case that would have won it for us. And in many respects, I don't blame them for not taking Chamberlain because that case establishes a confusing burden on the plaintiff to establish some liability that normally isn't there with the DMCA.
However, the court appears to have gotten too caught up in Chamberlain and overlooked a part of the DMCA that pretty much was designed exactly for Glider.
1201f "interoperability" exception
Congress didn't want people using the DMCA to expand copyright and force out software interoperation. So they added some interesting verbiage to the DMCA saying that you are explicitly allowed to circumvent access control if it's for the sole purpose of enabling interoperation between two programs (homework assignment: guess which two) and there is no copyright infringement.
Now that the copyright ruling has been reversed, 1201f should apply to Glider. We filed a petition to ask the court to consider that, since 1201f was not discussed after they dismantled Chamberlain.
There's a link to the petition at the bottom of this post. It's a pretty good read and not even that long.
What's going to happen next, then?
Well, if I was sure, we wouldn't need a panel of judges for this. But there are a few possible outcomes that may come out pretty fast. And a lot of them involve Glider going back on the market, so I've been busy preparing for that possibility.
And let me tell you, catching up on two years of WoW updates (and a practical re-write of many class mechanics) is not fun.
What this means for Glider
The legal argument is very simple and very strong. There's a very good chance that the panel will take it or possibly just lift the injunction and kick it back down to Judge Campbell to determine 1201f applicability.
And, even without this, Glider is technically legal to sell without anti-Warden code. Not that it would last very long like that, but there are some interesting options for leaving that feature as a plug-in for others to develop... or other cleverness. We're exploring quite a few ideas to put Glider back on the market legally now that the injunction is so narrow.
So if you do get Glider back out, what then?
We've updated Glider in-house to get it current with the game and its existing functionality. All the Tripwire stuff is disabled here (can't use that stuff legally), but that's not a big deal today... I doubt there's gonna be a Warden update just to whack my little test account.
Needless to say, the market has progressed quite a bit past the old simple profiles thing and we've got a lot of work to do in order to get caught up to that.
The good news is there are already some really good Glider add-ons that do some of that. And our biggest priority will be a linked questing/tasking system that's been rolling around in my head for literally 2 years. I'm looking at one-touch 1-85 with the proper community support. Judging by how big regular profiles were in the past, that should be easy to come by.
When's the next update?
Pretty soon, in legal terms. I'm guessing we'll hear back from the panel on this petition within 2 to 12 weeks. We may get jammed there and get nothing... or things might get really interesting, really fast. We'll be prepared for anything.
TL;DR
Sorry, there's no easy way out this time. Gotta read it.
Download link:
http://mmoglider.com/legal/1201f_Petition.pdf
