[legal] November 2014 update on legal

[bossland]

OLG Hamburg - suit Blizzard vs Bossland GmbH

Main issue - World of Warcraft fairplay/contract breach/unfair competition

You may remember the hearing on 10th September 2014 and where i told you that the written ruling should be there around first week of November 2014. It actually arrived, a little late, yesterday.

It is all written in german, it is 60 pages long, it is a interesting read and everyone understanding german should have a read.

The ones of you that do not understand german, will wait a bit until i have made a summary in english. The very basics are:

* Blizzard lost 1/3 of the case, we lost 2/3 of the case at this court of appeals. The court of appeals allowed us to go to the Federal Court of Justice of Germany
* The court of appeals wrote in its last sentence the following by meaning: It finds that the case has fundamental meaning and that the Federal Court of Justice has to further define the basics.

We are no happy Panda, because in our oppinion there are much more things that we think should have been decided in our favour, but it seems this has to wait until 2016, thats is the year where we should have an appointment at the Supreme Court.


Meanwhile there was another hearing about my personal liability, which was not yet decided, there will be another appointment it seems, interesting fact is, that it is scimilar with another case and therefore the judges asked each party if they do not want to see how the decision in the other case goes on. Blizzard disagreed. Much more interesting would be the fact where two courts decide opposite to each other ... anyway

 

[Mario27]

awsome so we have a full year stil til we hear the good or bad news i hope we wil keep alive longer then a year

 

[Jtroy]

So...? HB is still not fully available for germans?

 

[Jtroy]

"a life time licens of hb is about 80€" srsly who the fuck are these people? They don't even know the prices

 

[nooblet]

Good luck in future cases.

 

[1101011]

"a life time licens of hb is about 80€" srsly who the fuck are these people? They don't even know the prices

this pdf is full of such erros but with the wrong decision in nearly the most cases,

 

[Saburr]

Was genau passiert jetzt? Das Urteil, dass HB nicht mehr in Deutschland komplett verkauft werden darf, war ja schon.

Baut dieses Urteil darauf auf?

 

[flazh1337]

I think for us to have a valid bot with no legal cases available, it has to be open source program. But then the issue arises: then Blizzard could decapitate the software and find flaws, so that we can be caught in using the software.

But in the bottom line, there's no laws that is against making of these kind of software. All it does is breaking the terms of services for every user. So I don't really get why you are sued at all, you're not breaking any laws! You state that yourselves at the front page, don't you?

I hope this doesn't end like my previous bot Glider did

 

[DarkTemplar24]

I think for us to have a valid bot with no legal cases available, it has to be open source program. But then the issue arises: then Blizzard could decapitate the software and find flaws, so that we can be caught in using the software.

But in the bottom line, there's no laws that is against making of these kind of software. All it does is breaking the terms of services for every user. So I don't really get why you are sued at all, you're not breaking any laws! You state that yourselves at the front page, don't you?

I hope this doesn't end like my previous bot Glider did

Glider was in America, so Blizzard flashed their wallet and ruined the developer's life. This case is a lot more complicated for Blizzard because Bossland is in Germany.

 

[kravitz]

All the best to you Bossland & Team!

Seriously, you shouldn't have any "personal" liability... you do reserve the right to reverse engineer Blizzards application and do as you please on you own computer systems. What you're not allowed to do is re-distribute their product, or explicit code, for compensation. Your own hard work is with HB to learn about how an application operates and educate yourself, so all you did is a create a little income to help you with your education by writing an application to help others in a game. So, that little side project became popular but now you have all these uneducated buffoons whinning about how some people have a greater advantage over them in a game, so what! So, in order for Blizzard Entertainment to make these whiners happy and with having deep pockets... they go out and blame individuals who just have a desire to learn, but also these individuals who have a desire to learn brought HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of dollars into Blizzard Entertainments pockets and helped make them as successful as they are today. Without you bot developers Blizzard Entertainment would likely be unheard of today, as well many other software and/or game developers and titles being offered. It is not illegal to bot or use advanced tools to enhance your personal enjoyment of a game. You're not causing personal economical hardships to anyone; Blizzard Entertainment is, obviously, causing the drama over their childish disillusion. There is nothing wrong / illegal about what you're doing, simple as that.

Yale Law Journal - The Law and Economics of Reverse Engineering
Reverse Engineering
Digital Law Online: Reverse Engineering


It's absurdly funny how Blizzard has this delusional belief that they retain exclusive "intellectual rights" to the memory on a customers computers, which they do not. Also, the market within World of Warcraft is generated by player actions, not just by players alone, but the "currencies" generated by players are virtually limitless, unregulated, and generated by a server. In real life... currency has a defined limit, governed and regulated by our governments. In World of Warcraft / Blizzard... the game currency will always be there and will never have an effect on real economical issues. I was going somewhere with that, but lost track.

Glider was in America, so Blizzard flashed their wallet and ruined the developer's life. This case is a lot more complicated for Blizzard because Bossland is in Germany.

Too true! The capitalistic whores in America seriously need a gut punch. Also many Justices here are Republicans (very unwise individuals) and believe that written law is perfect law, and people or corporations with money are always right. There is no such thing as Justice in America.

Similarly lets talk, different thread, about Blizzards out-right theft of an addon called oQueue.

 

[Aion]

@kravitz:
Even if people shouldn't have any "personal" liability, Blizzard do state this in the court, so the people have no other option but to defend themselves.

And I am pretty sure Bossland have already made his homework before starting this awesome project exactly in Germany, so thats not coincidence, and as we can see, Germany Law System do protect its companies, after maybe 3 years of Blizard bombarding the court.

 

[Mitchy590]

Similarly lets talk, different thread, about Blizzards out-right theft of an addon called oQueue.

Hear, Hear! Well said

 

[Sucre]

Why is Blizzard still fighting this? if Honorbuddy shuts down, they will lose far more customers than they would want to....

 

[Aion]

Why is Blizzard still fighting this? if Honorbuddy shuts down, they will lose far more customers than they would want to....

I am afraid you ask this question in the wrong site

 

[Lemmi]

Why is Blizzard still fighting this? if Honorbuddy shuts down, they will lose far more customers than they would want to....

because bossland made a lot of money and they can squeeze them and steal it. Or they hope to.

 

[Aion]

because bossland made a lot of money and they can squeeze them and steal it. Or they hope to.

At least they are trying to.

 

[wizfor]

i know i'd quit if HB wasnt around

 

[Weird0]

because bossland made a lot of money and they can squeeze them and steal it. Or they hope to.

in the us maybe... not in germany. atleast not as long as the transatlantic fagreement isnt in place

 

[Mr_Pibb]

Why is Blizzard still fighting this? if Honorbuddy shuts down, they will lose far more customers than they would want to....

Thats not the point. After botting for some years now, I think I know what Blizzard is doing and I personally would do it exactly the same way.

They need subscribers. But honest subscribers run away if blizz does nothing against botting. In the other hand, the botters also pay Blizzard. And they pay eaven more, if they get banned and open new accounts.

So they try to find a balance and ban the hardcore botters that bot for profit and they ban botters that got reported. If they would not do that, they would loose the honest players. And of course they run a never ending fight at court, so that they can tell everybody "we are doing something" and show them some success.

Lets be honest. Bots are not hard to detect. If they really want to do something against bots, they could easily do that without paying lawyers thousands of $. We know their servers log basically everything. A scan of thos logfiles with a filter would detect most of the bots. Because noone uses the exact same waypoints over and over and over again.... Just as an example.

So just sit back and relax. As long as Blizzard goes to court, nothing will happen. If they stop doing that, I would start to worry about it.

 

[Macatho]

Thats not the point. After botting for some years now, I think I know what Blizzard is doing and I personally would do it exactly the same way.

They need subscribers. But honest subscribers run away if blizz does nothing against botting. In the other hand, the botters also pay Blizzard. And they pay eaven more, if they get banned and open new accounts.

So they try to find a balance and ban the hardcore botters that bot for profit and they ban botters that got reported. If they would not do that, they would loose the honest players. And of course they run a never ending fight at court, so that they can tell everybody "we are doing something" and show them some success.

Lets be honest. Bots are not hard to detect. If they really want to do something against bots, they could easily do that without paying lawyers thousands of $. We know their servers log basically everything. A scan of thos logfiles with a filter would detect most of the bots. Because noone uses the exact same waypoints over and over and over again.... Just as an example.

So just sit back and relax. As long as Blizzard goes to court, nothing will happen. If they stop doing that, I would start to worry about it.

The problem with those filters are that if they are too tight you get false positives. Something which is unacceptable.