Greetings Buddies,
For our long term plans, it is inevitable to do the following changes effective
immediately (tomorrow - 18 January 2017).
We are changing all existing Demonbuddy and Honorbuddy Lifetime licenses to
expire after 2 years of usage.
Over the last couple of months, we have been weighed down by legal expenses and
by low sales. The effect is simply that we are not generating enough cash to
cover its costs right now. The decision to change the lifetime keys to 2 year
keys is a very difficult decision, but right now it is the time to move forward
with it. The alternative is to stop altogether and our plans for the future
are not over yet.
Hearthbuddy - Lifetimes that have been sold between 11 October 2013 and 27 September 2016
will expire between 10 October 2015 and 26 September 2018 (bonus days not included).
Demonbuddy - Lifetimes that have been sold between 11 June 2012 and 6 June 2016
will expire between 10 June 2014 and 5 June 2018 (bonus days not included).
Honorbuddy - Lifetimes that have been sold between the year 2009 and
4 June 2016, will expire latest on 3 June 2018 (bonus days not included).
While we continue to develop Honorbuddy and Demonbuddy and continue fighting
legal battles in 3 countries, our infrastructure is being used by our beloved
Buddies since 2009 for as low as a 25 EUR one time purchase since then.
Costs are increasing, development is expensive and was made more expensive
since the 12 lawsuits in Germany, where Blizzard tries to abuse anything they
can get hands on, by starting multiple lawsuits on yearly basis.
Adding this all up, you can see our income is limited to old one time
purchases, and while it was a good business decision back in 2009, it has
stopped being viable for us since 2014. The decision however, to move forward,
was taken now, in 2017.
We regret, if you think that this might be unfair to you, the users. But a
business only can carry on as long as the business can afford paying its daily
costs, and a big amount of that daily costs are actually the infrastructure,
the development and the legal expenses.
And on the subject of legal expenses, I am happy to announce, that the Federal
Court of Justice of Germany has decided on 11th Janury this year, that WOW can
be (performing acts necessary to observe, study or test the functioning of the
program, provided that these acts do not infringe the copyright in that
program) reverse engineered, as long as it is just for the program code and as
long no audio-visual elements are shown while analyzing the code. As the
audio-visual elements are not part of a computer program but part of the
computer game and are copyright protected elements without a exclusion of
rights.
This however is just the beginning, more cases are waiting at the Federal Court
of Justice of Germany and the High Court of England and Wales.
Now as final words, we hope you stay with us and contribute again to our work,
if you think that it is unfair you can always contact us on
[email protected] and share your perspective.
For the very few users that probably would want bulk sessions, meaning 10 or
more sessions to be paid at once, you can also contact us via email, we will
try to answer every email asap.
Wish you all the health and prosperity for 2017.
The Buddy Team Bossland & Hawker
ps. To all asking about their software, the latest version of Honorbuddy v2, pre Legion, can be found here: http://updates.buddyauth.com/GetSpecific?filter=Honorbuddy&build=844
It does not support WOW Legion, but it still can be used on an Server with the pre Legion build, that it supports.
For our long term plans, it is inevitable to do the following changes effective
immediately (tomorrow - 18 January 2017).
We are changing all existing Demonbuddy and Honorbuddy Lifetime licenses to
expire after 2 years of usage.
Over the last couple of months, we have been weighed down by legal expenses and
by low sales. The effect is simply that we are not generating enough cash to
cover its costs right now. The decision to change the lifetime keys to 2 year
keys is a very difficult decision, but right now it is the time to move forward
with it. The alternative is to stop altogether and our plans for the future
are not over yet.
Hearthbuddy - Lifetimes that have been sold between 11 October 2013 and 27 September 2016
will expire between 10 October 2015 and 26 September 2018 (bonus days not included).
Demonbuddy - Lifetimes that have been sold between 11 June 2012 and 6 June 2016
will expire between 10 June 2014 and 5 June 2018 (bonus days not included).
Honorbuddy - Lifetimes that have been sold between the year 2009 and
4 June 2016, will expire latest on 3 June 2018 (bonus days not included).
While we continue to develop Honorbuddy and Demonbuddy and continue fighting
legal battles in 3 countries, our infrastructure is being used by our beloved
Buddies since 2009 for as low as a 25 EUR one time purchase since then.
Costs are increasing, development is expensive and was made more expensive
since the 12 lawsuits in Germany, where Blizzard tries to abuse anything they
can get hands on, by starting multiple lawsuits on yearly basis.
Adding this all up, you can see our income is limited to old one time
purchases, and while it was a good business decision back in 2009, it has
stopped being viable for us since 2014. The decision however, to move forward,
was taken now, in 2017.
We regret, if you think that this might be unfair to you, the users. But a
business only can carry on as long as the business can afford paying its daily
costs, and a big amount of that daily costs are actually the infrastructure,
the development and the legal expenses.
And on the subject of legal expenses, I am happy to announce, that the Federal
Court of Justice of Germany has decided on 11th Janury this year, that WOW can
be (performing acts necessary to observe, study or test the functioning of the
program, provided that these acts do not infringe the copyright in that
program) reverse engineered, as long as it is just for the program code and as
long no audio-visual elements are shown while analyzing the code. As the
audio-visual elements are not part of a computer program but part of the
computer game and are copyright protected elements without a exclusion of
rights.
This however is just the beginning, more cases are waiting at the Federal Court
of Justice of Germany and the High Court of England and Wales.
Now as final words, we hope you stay with us and contribute again to our work,
if you think that it is unfair you can always contact us on
[email protected] and share your perspective.
For the very few users that probably would want bulk sessions, meaning 10 or
more sessions to be paid at once, you can also contact us via email, we will
try to answer every email asap.
Wish you all the health and prosperity for 2017.
The Buddy Team Bossland & Hawker
ps. To all asking about their software, the latest version of Honorbuddy v2, pre Legion, can be found here: http://updates.buddyauth.com/GetSpecific?filter=Honorbuddy&build=844
It does not support WOW Legion, but it still can be used on an Server with the pre Legion build, that it supports.
