Obnoxious Repair Monopolies Keep Turning Farmers Into Activists

from the this-isn't-going-away dept

Back in 2015, frustration at John Deere's draconian tractor DRM helped birth a grassroots tech movement dubbed "right to repair." The company's crackdown on "unauthorized repairs" turned countless ordinary citizens into technology policy activists, after DRM (and the company's EULA) prohibited the lion's share of repair or modification of tractors customers thought they owned. These restrictions only worked to drive up costs for owners, who faced either paying significantly more money for "authorized" repair (which for many owners involved hauling tractors hundreds of miles and shelling out thousands of additional dollars), or toying around with pirated firmware just to ensure the products they owned actually worked.

Six years later and this movement is only growing, thanks in large part to farmers who are tired of getting ripped off:

"Schweitzer wound up sending his tractor to the dealer. He says it took about a month for the repair to get done. His bill to replace the fuel sensor? Nearly $5,000. He says a local independent mechanic would have charged only a small fraction of that. Schweitzer was fortunate he had an old backup tractor, so his crop didn't get ruined, but the experience made Schweitzer eager to fight for change."

Hoping to appease angry consumers and lawmakers, in late 2018, John Deere and a coalition of other agricultural hardware vendors promised (in a "statement of principles") that by January 1, 2021, Deere and other companies would make repair tools, software, and diagnostics readily available to the masses. But then it turned around and ignored those promises completely. Meanwhile, the support headaches for many of these farmers continues, according to Kevin O'Reilly of U.S. PIRG:

"I myself called 12 different John Deere dealers in six different states, asking to try to buy the software tools and diagnostics that you need to fix your tractor, and at 11 of the 12, I was told that I couldn't buy them. Sometimes I was told they didn't even exist. And then the 12th gave me an email address to reach out to, which I had never heard back from."

John Deere certainly isn't alone in trying to monopolize repair, resulting in massive backlash and proposed legislation in a growing parade of states. But companies like John Deere, Apple, Microsoft, and others have been brutally effective in using grotesque and false arguments to scuttle such legislation so far. Including claims that right to repair reform poses vast privacy and security risks (not true, says the FTC), or that improving repair options emboldens sexual predators and rapists.

27 different right to repair laws were proposed this year, some of them improving repair options for essential medical equipment during COVID-19. But thanks to a coalition of wealthy companies fighting tooth and nail against reform (using a variety of dodgy and false claims), not a single one has passed so far. That's working out well for companies like Apple and John Deere, but it's abundantly clear that when your obnoxious repair restrictions keep turning rural farmers into hard-nosed activists, you might be facing a tough fight over the longer haul.

Filed Under: activists, eula, farmers, ownership, right to repair, tractors
Companies: john deere

Rockstar Joins Other Publishers In Misusing Copyright Law To Go After Cheat Developers For GTA5

from the attack-the-hack dept

For some time now, we've noted a troubling trend in the video games industry. That trend would be publishers trying to twist copyright law into a pretzel that allows them sue makers of cheat software for copyright infringement. This novel application of copyright law has been piloted by Blizzard and Epic Games in the past. Both company's theory of the case for copyright infringement revolves around their games being licensed instead of sold, with the EULA being broken by utilizing cheat software. If the EULA is broken and the cheat-maker still makes use of the game, they do so without a license. Therefore, copyright infringement.

This, of course, is not how copyright law is supposed to work. Instead, the point of the law is to prevent unauthorized copying of the product, which is absolutely not the practical result of what these cheat-makers are doing. And, yet, the trend continues, with Rockstar Games winning a summary judgement in the UK against two individuals who developed cheats for Grand Theft Auto 5.

At the Intellectual Property and Enterprise Court, Rockstar and its parent company Take-Two Interactive filed a complaint against several people connected to the now-defunct “Epsilon” cheat. Epsilon was a so-called ‘mod menu’ which offered players significant advantages. The game companies reportedly shut down the cheat in 2018 and identified five men connected to it. They were accused of copyright infringement by creating and distributing the software.

Three of the five settled with Rockstar out of court. The other two, however, defended themselves by both noting that they included a disclaimer of liability to those making use of their software and that the tools they used to make their cheats are widely and publicly available on the internet. The court didn't buy either argument and found for Rockstar in summary judgement. The court did likewise on breach of contract (the EULA) and inducement to breach that contract, except on the former for one defendent, who is a minor.

All in all, the court ruled in favor of Rockstar and Take-Two, granting summary judgment for copyright infringement against the two men. This means that the case won’t go to trial.

Both defendants were also accused of (inducement of) breach of contract and breach of contract. The court sided with the game companies here as well, except for the breach of contract claim against one of the two, who was a minor at the time of the offense.

Left unexamined appears to be why any of this is actually copyright infringement to begin with. And, if the court truly thinks it is, why the entire modding ecosystem isn't suddenly one big cesspool of copyright infringement. The law doesn't care whether a game is online or not. Either mods are appropriate fodder for copyright law or they are not.

One wonders if companies like Rockstar understand the potential harm they are doing to their industry by going down this road.

Filed Under: cheats, copyright, eula, grand theft auto 5
Companies: rockstar games, take two interactive

Apple, Verizon Continue to Lobby Against The Right To Repair Your Own Devices

from the monopolizing-repair dept

A few years back, frustration at John Deere's draconian tractor DRM resulted in a grassroots tech movement. John Deere's decision to implement a lockdown on "unauthorized repairs" turned countless ordinary citizens into technology policy activists, after DRM and the company's EULA prohibited the lion-share of repair or modification of tractors customers thought they owned. These restrictions only worked to drive up costs for owners, who faced either paying significantly more money for "authorized" repair, or toying around with pirated firmware just to ensure the products they owned actually worked.

The John Deere fiasco resulted in the push for a new "right to repair" law in Nebraska. This push then quickly spread to multiple other states, driven in part by consumer repair monopolization efforts by other companies including Apple, Sony and Microsoft. Lobbyists for these companies quickly got to work trying to claim that by allowing consumers to repair products they own (or take them to third-party repair shops) they were endangering public safety. Apple went so far as to argue that if Nebraska passed such a law, it would become a dangerous "mecca for hackers" and other rabble rousers.

In the wake of Apple's recent iPhone battery PR kerfuffle (in which it claimed it throttled the performance of older iPhones to protect device integrity from dwindling battery performance), longer than normal repair waits have resulted in renewed interest in such laws. A new bill that would make it easier for consumers to repair their own electronics or utilize third-party repair shops is quickly winding its way through the Washington state legislature. That bill would not only protect the consumers' right to repair, but prevent the use of batteries that are difficult or impossible to replace:

"Starting in 2019, the bill would ban the sale of electronics that are designed “in such a way as to prevent reasonable diagnostic or repair functions by an independent repair provider. Preventing reasonable diagnostic or repair functions includes permanently affixing a battery in a manner that makes it difficult or impossible to remove."

Washington State Representative Jeff Morris says the bill was born directly from frustration by consumers and third-party repair shops in the wake of Apple's PR face-plant late last year:

"Morris told me this provision in the bill came out of a conversation with an independent repair shop owner in his district, who noted that many electronics now use glued-down batteries, which makes them difficult to repair and much harder to recycle, because batteries are flammable when shredded. There is currently no easy way for recyclers to remove the batteries from MacBook Pros at scale, for instance.

“With Apple phones in particular, they glue the battery in the case, so for me, that sounds like a purposeful attempt to make it so you couldn’t repair the phone,” Morris said. “It helps accelerate the path of those devices to the waste stream. So we’re trying to keep the philosophy our state is behind, which is recycle, repair, reuse."

Needless to say, Apple is furiously lobbying to kill Washington State's new law. As are fourteen other lobbying organizations representing hardware companies. Verizon's also lobbying against the bill (via the CTIA and the Telecommunications Industry Association), obviously concerned such a law would hurt the company's phone repair and insurance business it runs with Asurian. Unfortunately for Verizon and Apple, with 12 states introducing such bills last year and 17 such laws already proposed so far this year, this isn't an issue that's going away anytime soon.

Filed Under: drm, eula, iphone, iphone battery, ownership, right to repair, washington
Companies: apple, verizon

Yet Again, Blizzard Looks To Twist Copyright Law To Use It To Go After Bot Makers It Considers Cheaters

from the that's-NOT-copyright-infringement dept

We've been here before a few times. Back in 2008, video game giant Blizzard initially won a very dangerous ruling against a World of Warcraft bot maker, saying that if (as most software companies do) the End User License Agreement (EULA) says that you've only licensed the product, rather than bought it, then any violation of the EULA can be a violation of copyright law. Copyright expert William Patry, at the time, pointed out how insane such a ruling was:

The critical point is that WoWGilder did not contributorily or vicariously lead to violating any rights granted under the Copyright Act. Unlike speed-up kits, there was no creation of an unauthorized derivative work, nor was a copy made even under the Ninth Circuit's misinterpretation of RAM copying in the MAI v. Peak case. How one might ask can there be a violation of the Copyright Act if no rights granted under the Act have been violated? Good question.

Thankfully, the Ninth Circuit mostly walked back this ruling (though with a bunch of other problems...), noting (as Patry did in discussing the earlier ruling) that nothing was done that actually violated copyright law. It might violate a contract, but not copyright. This ruling, however, has not stopped Blizzard from continuing to go after bot makers with copyright claims. It went after some Starcraft II cheat creators in 2010. And just last year it went after a few more Starcraft II cheat creators, using the same twisted copyright theory.

And now, as TorrentFreak first pointed out, it's done so yet again -- this time filing a lawsuit against James Enright, who had built up a series of gaming bots for use in World of Warcraft, Diablo and Heroes. And, once again, Blizzard claims that it's a copyright violation, again arguing that violating the EULA is a form of copyright infringement.

Defendants have infringed, and are continuing to infringe, Blizzard’s copyrights by reproducing, adapting, distributing, and/or authorizing others to reproduce, adapt, and distribute copyrighted elements of the Blizzard Games without authorization, in violation of the Copyright Act

More specifically, Blizzard is trying to make this a copyright claim by saying that he violated the EULA by reverse engineering their games to make his bots work. But that's not copyright infringement. It further claims that he's engaged in "tortious interference" because he's convincing other players to break their EULA's with his bots.

Now -- as in past such stories -- it's quite clear that many people are not happy about the use of cheats and bots in these games. It may be absolutely 100% true that they diminish the gaming experience for others and present a real problem for Blizzard. In all likelihood, they probably do violate the EULA that Blizzard uses on those games that forbids such activities.

But that shouldn't make it a copyright violation.

Blizzard can go after them for breach of contract. Or it can cut them off from its service. Or it can change how its games work to try to prevent bots. But that doesn't mean it gets to twist copyright law to use it against something that has absolutely nothing to do with copyright. This seems like yet another case of copyright immigration, where copyright law is used to go after "some bad thing" because it's such a powerful law with such powerful remedies. Blizzard has been doing this for nearly a decade now, and it's high time a court told them to knock it off.

Filed Under: bots, cheats, copyright, diablo, eula, james enright, starcraft, world of warcraft
Companies: blizzard

Game Developer Rewards 100 Users For Actually Reading The EULA

from the too-much-time-on-my-hands dept

Traditionally, we all know that the end user license agreement is used to try and give companies all manner of legal advantages, while attempting (often ridiculously) to strip away ordinary consumer rights. Of course, the legally binding nature of these agreements is dubious, and nobody bothers to read them anyway. We've historically noted that occasionally companies bury something fun in the ocean of mouse print to make just that point. Years ago, anti-spyware firm PC Pitstop promised to give away $1,000 to the first person to e-mail them at a specific address (it took 3,000 downloads for that person to appear).

Larian Studios, developers of the game Divinity: Original Sin, recently decided to have some fun of its own. The company just released a completely, massively-revamped version of the game it had been giving away for free to customers of the old title. But buried in the fine print for this new offering was a little message ignored by the lion's share of customers who downloaded the title:

"16. Special Consideration. A special consideration in material or immaterial form may be awarded to the first 100 authorized licensees to actually read this section of the EULA and contact LARIAN STUDIOS at info@larian.com. This offer can be withdrawn by LARIAN STUDIOS at any time."

Larian has yet to confirm what these folks won, but did note on the company's Facebook page that it pulled the fine print once the developers were satisfied that 100 people had actually bothered to read the fine print:

"We're telling you now because the results are in and it turns out that you in fact do read these things. Our lawyer feels good about this. He's also revoking the consideration because we're making him pay for every mail we get."

Frankly, it's pretty astonishing that even that many users could be bothered to read the EULA. More frequently, the gaming industry (like all other industries) is obsessed with using EULAs to strip away consumer rights or make consumer-owned products less useful, so it's refreshing to see a company with a sense of humor. That doesn't make it any less true that the standard EULA remains a ridiculous, unread beast and that keeping it simple is a better bet if winning consumer hearts is anywhere on your radar.

Filed Under: divinity: original sin, easter egg, eula, reading, terms of service
Companies: larian studios

Nintendo Bricks Wii U Consoles Unless Owners Agree To New EULA

from the console-yourselves dept

Nintendo: it protects what it believes it owns with great vigor. The company has rarely missed an opportunity to make sure that other people are not allowed to alter or mess with the stuff Nintendo insists is Nintendo's. In an apparent effort to maximize the irony combo-meter, Nintendo also has been known to make sure that customers don't mess with or alter the properties those customers actually own, such as online support for games that Nintendo decided to alter long after purchase... just because.

But the cold grip of Nintendo's control over its customers' property is apparently no longer limited to games. Nintendo recently released an update for the Wii U that forces you to "agree" to a new end-user license agreement, or else it simply bricks the console altogether.

This is how Nintendo's update to its end-user license agreement (EULA) for the Wii U works, as described by Youtube user "AMurder0fCrows" in this video. He didn't like the terms of Nintendo's updated EULA and refused to agree. He may have expected that, like users of the original Wii and other gaming consoles, he would have the option to refuse software or EULA updates and continue to use his device as he always had before. He might have to give up online access, or some new functionality, but that would be his choice. That’s a natural consumer expectation in the gaming context – but it didn’t apply this time. Instead, according to his video, the Wii U provides no option to decline the update, and blocks any attempt to access games or saved information by redirecting the user to the new EULA. The only way to regain the use of the device is to click "Agree."

It immediately brings to mind Sony's similiar move with their Playstation 3 product, in which the company unilaterally pushed out an update that would strip the console of serious functionality, including the ability to run other operating systems. It was something users had specifically wanted when they bought the console, and an update was pushed out to then take it away from them, but at least the update could be refused. There were consequences to refusing the update, but it didn't brick the console. Nintendo, in other words, is now officially worse than Sony when it comes to screwing with the console property of their customers.

As the EFF post notes, this represents the latest step in a very troubling trend for consumer rights. It's a practice no longer even limited to the digital world, with physical products now including different kinds of DRM or methods to break the product if any payment issues arise. This also only continues to happen as long as customers put up with it. Nintendo may end up learning that lesson the hard way.

Filed Under: eula, ownership, property, wii
Companies: nintendo

To Read All Of The Privacy Policies You Encounter, You'd Need To Take A Month Off From Work Each Year

from the get-busy-reading dept

We've discussed the stupidity of privacy policies many times in the past. Honestly, it's an idea that serves no useful purpose, yet most sites are required to have one, and if you don't, people get all upset. But no one reads them, and most people incorrectly assume that if a site has any privacy policy, they must keep data private.

The reality is that the incentives of a privacy policy are to not use it to keep your info private. In fact, the incentives are to make a privacy policy as permissive as possible. Because the only time you get in trouble is not if you fail to protect someone's privacy... but if you violate your own privacy policy. So companies have the incentive to write a privacy policy that is as permissive to the company as possible, so that they're less likely to avoid violating their own privacy policy. That is, conceptually, the best privacy policy for a company is one that says "we don't take your privacy seriously at all and share all your data," because then they'll never break that policy. Of course, companies don't go that far, because that's pretty extreme -- but it does lead to vague privacy policies that no one reads anyway. Oh, and even when people do read them, almost no one understands them.

In fact, a new report notes that if you actually bothered to read all the privacy policies you encounter on a daily basis, it would take you 250 working hours per year -- or about 30 workdays. The full study (pdf) by Aleecia M. McDonald and Lorrie Faith Cranor is quite interesting. They measure the length of privacy policies, ranging from just 144 words up to 7,669 words (median is around 2,500 words) and recognize that at a standard reading pace of 250 words per minute, most privacy policies take about eight to ten minutes to read. They also ran some tests to figure out how long it actually takes people to read and/or skim privacy policies.

They put all of this together and estimated that it would normally take a person about 244 hours per year to read every new privacy policy they encountered... and even 154 hours just to skim them. They used some variables to create a lower and upper bound estimate as well: They then go further to try to estimate the cost to the economy of all this privacy policy reading, but I always finds such extrapolations to be pretty meaningless. They assume a constant return on time, so just like bogus studies about how much personal surfing "costs" the economy, those figures seem totally meaningless. But the amount of time estimates do seem completely valid.

And, here's the thing: that's only for privacy policies. Imagine if you read terms of service and end user license agreements too... Of course, sometimes those include little hidden gems. Like the time a company put a clause in its EULA that the first person to read that clause and contact them would get $1,000. It only took four months for someone to actually spot it.

Filed Under: eula, privacy policy

EA's Origin Service Wants To Exchange Games For Your Personal Data [Updated]

from the plus-full-retail-price,-if-possible dept

Just when you thought no one would be able to top the various levels of DRM insanity plied by Ubisoft in its quixotic quest to end piracy as we know it, something else comes along that's bigger and badder than the nuisances that preceded it.

Electronic Arts' new game service, Origin, has hidden some rather disturbing language inside its EULA. Rock, Paper, Shotgun notes that in order to play Battlefield 3, or any other game that requires Origin to run, you're going to have to let EA root around inside your computer. Here's the gory details, straight from Origin's EULA:

2. Consent to Collection and Use of Data.
You agree that EA may collect, use, store and transmit technical and related information that identifies your computer (including the Internet Protocol Address), operating system, Application usage (including but not limited to successful installation and/or removal), software, software usage and peripheral hardware, that may be gathered periodically to facilitate the provision of software updates, dynamically served content, product support and other services to you, including online services. EA may also use this information combined with personal information for marketing purposes and to improve our products and services. We may also share that data with our third party service providers in a form that does not personally identify you. IF YOU DO NOT WANT EA TO COLLECT, USE, STORE, TRANSMIT OR DISPLAY THE DATA DESCRIBED IN THIS SECTION, PLEASE DO NOT INSTALL OR USE THE APPLICATION. This and all other data provided to EA and/or collected by EA in connection with your installation and use of this Application is collected, used, stored and transmitted in accordance with EA's Privacy Policy located at www.ea.com. To the extent that anything in this section conflicts with the terms of EA's Privacy Policy, the terms of the Privacy Policy shall control.

Now, as RPS notes, some of this wording is not that unusual. Many software companies collect system data and several will even tell you that they plan on distributing this to third parties. This includes Steam, whose EULA states that it will:

... store information on a user's hard drive that is used in conjunction with online play of Valve products. This includes a unique authorization key or CD-Key that is either entered by the user or downloaded automatically during product registration. This authorization key is used to identify a user as valid and allow access to Valve's products. Information regarding Steam billing, your Steam account, your Internet connection and the Valve software installed on your computer are uploaded to the server in connection with your use of Steam and Valve software.

But, as RPS points out, there's a big difference between Valve's policy and EA's policy:

Valve's policy is self-restricted to anything on your PC directly relating to its own products. EA's is so broad that it gives the publisher permission to scan your entire hard drive, and report back absolutely anything you may have installed, and indeed when you may use it, and then pass that information on the third parties.

Now, this data collection may be used in a neutral fashion, heading directly back to EA for dissection and analysis. But there are two aspects that are particularly troublesome: A.) the wording in the EULA is very unspecific and B.) you have to "AGREE" to the terms in order to install your purchased software. In other words, before you can even start playing, EA wants to start digging.

It gets better:

And then even more creepily, they say they intend to take such information, combine it with personal information about you, and use it to advertise directly to you. However, when selling on this free-for-all on your computer's contents, they'll at least remove personally identifying information. Gosh, thanks.

Perhaps you're thinking to yourself: screw this online delivery system and its unseemly urge to dig into my hard drive and operating system. I'll just buy one off the shelf, thank you very much. Not. So. Fast.

It strikes us as beyond acceptable. And so much more serious now that EA has made its intentions clear to make so many of their games exclusively delivered through Origin. Were there a choice about what you'd use to play Battlefield 3, Mass Effect 3, etc, then gamers could opt out of allowing Origin on their systems while such a policy is in place. But instead it's a case of agree to such remarkable terms, or don't play their games at all.

So, it comes down to this: EA wants what's in your hard drive and any other info it can pick up from your usage habits. Sure, EA has probably always wanted this information but now it's deciding that you, the customer, will only play its games if you give up your information. Apparently, $50+ for a game just isn't payment enough anymore.

Update: Looks like all this attention has gotten EA to back down a little. Not fully, mind you. They now say they can still collect the data. Just not give it to marketing partners.

Filed Under: eula, personal info
Companies: ea

Supreme Court Chief Justice Admits He Doesn't Read Online EULAs Or Other 'Fine Print'

from the so-why-are-they-binding? dept

We just recently wrote about how circuit court judge Richard Posner had admitted to not reading the boilerplate legalese on his mortgage agreement, and wondered why such things were then considered binding. Taking it up a notch, now Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has admitted that he doesn't read the fine print on websites or medicines and that this "is a problem."

Answering a student question, Roberts admitted he doesn't usually read the computer jargon that is a condition of accessing websites, and gave another example of fine print: the literature that accompanies medications.... It has "the smallest type you can imagine and you unfold it like a map," he said. "It is a problem," he added, "because the legal system obviously is to blame for that." Providing too much information defeats the purpose of disclosure, since no one reads it, he said. "What the answer is," he said, "I don't know."

Well, that's comforting. Of course, I'm less interested in "the answer" to all that small type, and more interested in the answer to the question of how those things can be considered legally binding when even the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court doesn't read them...

Filed Under: contracts, eula, fine print, john roberts, lawyers

Blizzard Sues Starcraft II Cheat Creators Under Dubious Copyright Theory

from the fleeting-copies dept

Video game company Blizzard often appears to be a study in contrasts. At times, it seems to recognize the changing nature of the technology landscape, embracing scarcities, giving people reasons to buy and even coming out against DRM. But, at the same time, it tried to retroactively ban anonymity in its forums, and has been notoriously litigious, even going after organizations who promote its games.

However, perhaps the most troubling (and highest profile) issue involving Blizzard is its lawsuit against a guy who made a bot for doing things within World of Warcraft. While we recognize that such things can be used to "cheat," the problem was Blizzard's attempt (successful so far) to drastically stretch the meaning and intent of copyright law, to suggest that making such a bot infringes on its copyright. Beyond the basic questions of how the decision in the case was at odds with the basic concepts of the First Sale doctrine, the real problem was that nothing the bot does actually violates copyright law. The judge had to seriously twist both the letter and spirit of copyright law to come to that conclusion (and if you don't want my analysis on it, try copyright expert William Patry's, who noted):

The critical point is that WoWGilder did not contributorily or vicariously lead to violating any rights granted under the Copyright Act. Unlike speed-up kits, there was no creation of an unauthorized derivative work, nor was a copy made even under the Ninth Circuit's misinterpretation of RAM copying in the MAI v. Peak case. How one might ask can there be a violation of the Copyright Act if no rights granted under the Act have been violated? Good question.

To get to its result, the court had to first find that WoW, even though sold over the counter, was licensed not sold. In so finding, the court declined to follow the recent Vernor opinion in the Western District of Washington, believing it had to follow other Ninth Circuit precedent. I agree with the Vernor court that the other precedent (MAI, Triad, Wall Data) do not hold that over the counter software is licensed, not sold. (WoW may be purchased online too, but I don't think this changes the analysis.). Having found there was license not a sale, there still had to be a breach of the license in order to permit an infringement action to lie, and recall here that the claim is not one for direct infringement, but rather secondary liability; there was no privity between the parties. There was in fact no provision in the license that barred use of WoWGlider. The court took the extraordinary step of stitching together two unrelated provisions to create one. You have to read it to believe it, but it took the court 8 pages to go through this hard work, and why? Was the court offended by what it regarded to be cheating? If so, God help us if law is being reduced to such subjective, non-statutory grounds.

While the appeal in that case is still ongoing, it appears that Blizzard is using that precedent to go after more folks who have made tools for "cheating." The company recently banned thousands of players from Starcraft II for allegedly using such cheat codes, but reader Jay was the first of a bunch of you to point out that it's also suing three creators of cheat codes using the same dubious claims of copyright infringement.

Now, let me make it quite clear: I completely understand why Blizzard and many players of Blizzard games hate cheat codes and find them unfair and damaging to the overall gameplay. However, even if you think such cheats and hacks are the most evil thing out there, you have to admit that it's no excuse to misuse copyright law to punish the makers of those cheats, knowing that the end result could be precedent that negatively impacts all sorts of other things online. So what is Blizzard claiming specifically? Well, to make this a "copyright" issue, they're claiming that:

When users of the Hacks download, install, and use the Hacks, they copy StarCraft II copyrighted content into their computer's RAM in excess of the scope of their limited license, as set forth in the EULA and ToU, and create derivative works of StarCraft II.

Pick apart that sentence carefully. In order to make this a copyright issue, Blizzard is claiming that (1) running a cheat code violates the EULA and the ToU (the fine print no one read) and (2) once you've violated the EULA and the terms of service, you no longer have a license for the game ("excess of the scope of their limited license") and, because of that (3) when you copy aspects of the game in a fleeting manner into the computer's RAM, it violates the copyright.

Hopefully, you can see how problematic this is. Thankfully, for now, other cases (in a different circuit, I believe, so non-binding on the Blizzard cases) have found that fleeting copies in RAM are not considered infringing, and hopefully the courts here agree, and toss out this kind of tortured logic that could lead to all sorts of other ridiculous rulings. If Blizzard is allowed to make these claims, then any software/content company that offers you a long license, where you don't obey each and every claim, can say you've infringed on their copyright and owe huge statutory damages.

Filed Under: abuse, copyright, eula, starcraft ii, tou
Companies: activision, blizzard