Blizzard wins Lawsuit against WoWGlider - Page 3

rooj · 07/16/08, 4:02 AM

I don't think there is an argument that the Glider software copies wow. Remember the claim is rather that Glider intentionally and specifically allows End Users to violate their license by "copying" WoW in the RAM in violation of the limited license that Blizzard has given in the EULA. " The copying that is done, is not by the Glider software, but rather by end users who want to use Glider.

Earlier in the thread is a link to a copyright blog here The Patry Copyright Blog

The comment section where Paltry explains why he is so critical of the ruling makes perfectly clear why the argument of "copying" to RAM is a stretch.

I noted earlier that that so far there is no circuit that has expressly disagreed with MAI, but also note that the 9th Circuit has specifically allowed "copying" in terms of reverse engineering software, something that would be covered by debugging etc.

Also, MDY did not attempt to argue the Fair Use doctrine, which seems to me to cover a lot of the more innocous "copying" of software onto the memory.

The issue isn't really with this district court's opinion, but rather the 9th Circuit's precedent decision in MAI, that merely having something "copies" into a computer's RAM constitutes "copying" for purposes of infringement under the Copyright Act.

If one wants to talk about "leveling" guides etc, one could point to the court case involving the Harry Potter encyclopedia lawsuit filed. Rowling Testifies in Lawsuit Over Harry Potter Encyclopedia - washingtonpost.com here is a discussion, including of copyright, Harry Potter and the Deathly Lawsuit: Can Rowling Make an Unauthorized Encyclopedia Disappear? | The Legality. I don't believe that the decision has been made.

nife · 07/16/08, 5:21 AM

Better discussions can be found at Slashdot | Blizzard Wins Major Lawsuit Against Bot Developers

To me the best comment is one that points out US Title 17, section 117.

The catch comes that the bot makes a copy not for the sole purpose of running the program since it also changes it.

This is a very slippery slope and makes me want to become a lawyer just so I can tell the judge he may have read the law verbatim but missed the intent of the writers.

Althor · 07/16/08, 5:41 AM

Originally Posted by nife

Better discussions can be found at Slashdot | Blizzard Wins Major Lawsuit Against Bot Developers

To me the best comment is one that points out US Title 17, section 117.

The catch comes that the bot makes a copy not for the sole purpose of running the program since it also changes it.

This is a very slippery slope and makes me want to become a lawyer just so I can tell the judge he may have read the law verbatim but missed the intent of the writers.

Except that the author of wowglider seems to be saying that the program does *not* change WoW in any way.
That in fact it only reads memory and injects keypresses into Windows (which WoW then reads).

And thus it's wouldn't (at least from a programming point of view, I'm a coder not a lawyer) be creating a derivative work.

Even the concerns over the loading part of it are suspect to me from a coder's point of view.
Freecap for example loads WoW rather than Windows directly loading WoW. And for that matter, which loaders are okay and which aren't? I assume Blizzard allows all (supported anyway) versions of Windows to load WoW with their built in program loaders, but does that mean that Wine isn't allowed? What about another emulator with it's own loader allowing WoW to run on another platform? Or another Windows shell?

I'm not going to argue about whether or not the EULA or ToS are enforceable or not and thus whether or not simply having glider on your machine and running (or even not running) while you're running WoW disallows you legally from being able to use WoW because again I'm not a lawyer and Gurg's been pretty clear on that. ;P

But the reasons put forward here about it falling foul of the law or whatever because it *modifies* WoW or because it loads it into RAM are frankly inconsistent with what the author has said is how the program actually works.

(Note: Like a number of people here I'm sure, I'm glad that wowglider is less likely to be around as a WoW player, but I'm annoyed at the tactics used and what to my understanding is the legal opinion of the court.)

Duilliath · 07/16/08, 6:18 AM

Originally Posted by webmeister

Wouldn't this section also mean that opening any game assets in any way other than the official client constitute a copyright infringement? I'm referring specifically to MPQ viewing software like wowmapviewer and wowmodelviewer.

Even the concerns over the loading part of it are suspect to me from a coder's point of view.
Freecap for example loads WoW rather than Windows directly loading WoW. And for that matter, which loaders are okay and which aren't? I assume Blizzard allows all (supported anyway) versions of Windows to load WoW with their built in program loaders, but does that mean that Wine isn't allowed? What about another emulator with it's own loader allowing WoW to run on another platform? Or another Windows shell?

Whilst possibly it could be taken as copyright infringement, I have my doubts Blizzard will actively pursue this but will rather ignore/endorse it, much like their Machinima links (made through these items) or the Fansites using Blizzard copyrighted material.

Personal gain (for its creator) and business loss (for Blizzard) from Glider made them act - it wouldn't have been worth the effort otherwise.

Prinsesa · 07/16/08, 6:27 AM

Disclaimer: I have no knowledge of legal proceedings besides having watched a lot of Law and Order.

Assuming the legal precedent set by this case DOES step on the toes of programs such as wowmodelviewer, or even Althor's posts about loaders, is Blizzard obliged to pursue litigation against all of those?

My impression is that Blizzard specifically targeted WoWGlider because it's a botting program, and that they wouldn't necessarily go after anything the rulings would have set a precedent for if it's not actively harmful towards WoW.

ulrikft · 07/16/08, 7:04 AM

Originally Posted by Talgog

Well, to start, Gurg's impression of the advocacy gap is certainly grounded in reality. MDY is represented by a six-attorney Arizona IP firm. That's much better representation than normally seen in this sort of case, but they were seriously outgunned.

Blizzard was represented by Sonnenschein, Nath and Rosenthal, which is a 700 lawyer law firm based out of Chicago. I am somewhat familiar with the firm as it's one of the dozens that I'm going to be applying to for summer associate positions starting in 4 weeks. They have an Arizona office (still bigger than MDY's entire firm), but something involving an angry client with bottomless pockets like Blizzard is certainly going to be able to draw on support from the mothership, as it were.

It's not necessarily a disadvantage in terms of quality of lawyer - boutique firms can be very strong at what they do, while big firms can be seriously ineffecient - but just on the surface, Bilzzard's brief is quite a bit easier to read and understand than MDY's brief, and that sort of thing can matter. I'm currently working for an appellate judge as a summer clerk and people just like the easier-to-read brief. To the extent that MDY is making absurd, false, and shifty arguments/statements, that also really pisses judges (and their clerks) off. Federal judges have full-time clerks who were very accomplished law students and are generally quite sophisticated with a low tolerance for BS.

I can also say that including stuff like this in your brief, at least in this language, is not a good idea and is too cute by half:

This has little to do with the actual dispute at bar, and on top of that, doesn't make me like Donnelly much either. Federal judges work hard, and their clerks work very hard, and are planning on working even harder once they finish clerking and get a job at a place like Sonnenschein. Saying that you can't be bothered to play a game is stupid. To the extent that this is relevant, it certainly should not have been phrased that way.

There are also some arguments without authority (citation to facts or law) in MDY's brief. You don't want to do this. Even if you have no authority on your side, say as much, or just concede it. Arguments without authority are uniformly ignored and also irritate the court.

I can't comment on the substantive copyright stuff until I read some of the underlying cases. This case is basically decided by 9th Circuit precedent, which is something the amicus brief didn't seem to understand. Unless it's overruled by the Supreme Court, the 9th Circuit is the final word in Arizona federal court. You cannot make policy argument to a district court, which is basically federal trial court.

What I can say is that if the 9th Circuit cases do say what they appear to about copies to RAM (I don't think the judge is misquoting the court that can overrule him), and that is not mirrored in other circuits, MDY should have picked a different circuit to file in, if that would be at all possible under personal jurisdiction. MDY is not going to win under that precedent.

Also, I feel that MDY never should have proceeded to summary judgment on this (if Blizzard gave them a choice), based on this claim:

Basically, MDY was never going to win this claim If anything, Donnelly is an arrogant little shit about how Glider is difficult for Blizzard to deal with. It is also a very expensive claim; this is a business tort, and Blizzard enumerates quite a bit more damages than MDY has ever made off of Glider. Blizzard does not need the copyright claims. The business tort is more than enough to ruin MDY and establish that it can be applied to people selling this sort of software.

Donnelly should not have challenged Blizzard on this. He should have agreed to stop selling Glider. Now he's screwed, particularly on the business tort.

The copyright analysis is much more complex, and I have less expertise in it than I do in contract, procedure, and how courts work. I'll comment once I review Wall Data, Storage Technology, MDI and Ticketmaster.

-

Oh, as an addendum, the Internet lawyers on the WoW forums can shut up about the EULA/TOS "have never been tested in court." They're clearly a valid contract on their face under current American law, and this court treats them as such without hesitation; arguments to the contrary by Donnelly are basically meritless. That doesn't mean that the entire things are valid - most of that is not being tested here. All that is being tested is (a) do you have to read them together - YES; (b) is this a valid limited license - YES; (c) are Blizzard's modifications to them valid, i.e. the prohibition of bots after Glider surfaced - YES.

See Post #4 for discussion on a very real challenge to Blizzard's EULA that is coming from Congress.

Hey!

The interesting part about EULAS being valid contracts is how this works in continental european countries with different contract law systems. Norway (where i study law) as an example, has a far less rigid system as well as a far more customer-friendly system. Both Apple and Blizzard among quite a few other companies has gotten quite a lot of flak from the customer (state) bodies that control this sort of things. It makes me wonder why they don't spend more time making individual EULAs for different legal spheres?

• Galatea · 07/16/08, 7:51 AM

I m not a lawyer, but I am software engineer. In cases like this it really feels like someone needs to be both in order to have a firm grasp of what is going on. If I am understanding what the legal minds in this thread are saying, Blizzard used the fact that glider used a launcher program in order to argue that they were violating the licensed usage of the copyright material?

As Althor points out loaders do this, but it seems even lower level to me than that. Fundamentally a program does not load itself. The OS loads and links the program. That involves copying the contents into ram, and modification of the program in memory to patch linkage points, etc. This is a basic function of the OS, on Mac OS X it is performed by a program called dyld, I am not sure what performs this function on Windows.

Now, I have to assume that Blizzard's considers such usage to be authorized. But what if I use a modified version of dyld. I actually do this, in order to debug launch problems in apps I write. Normally I have this disabled, and it should not effect WoW in anyway, but the fact is I am sometimes using a derivative of the program Blizzard approves of, not the program itself.

Likewise, how does one interpret this in the case of people playing on Linux via WINE. Rather clearly WINE copies and patches windows binary images?

thedopefishlives · 07/16/08, 9:18 AM

Originally Posted by Galatea

I m not a lawyer, but I am software engineer. In cases like this it really feels like someone needs to be both in order to have a firm grasp of what is going on. If I am understanding what the legal minds in this thread are saying, Blizzard used the fact that glider used a launcher program in order to argue that they were violating the licensed usage of the copyright material?

As Althor points out loaders do this, but it seems even lower level to me than that. Fundamentally a program does not load itself. The OS loads and links the program. That involves copying the contents into ram, and modification of the program in memory to patch linkage points, etc. This is a basic function of the OS, on Mac OS X it is performed by a program called dyld, I am not sure what performs this function on Windows.

Now, I have to assume that Blizzard's considers such usage to be authorized. But what if I use a modified version of dyld. I actually do this, in order to debug launch problems in apps I write. Normally I have this disabled, and it should not effect WoW in anyway, but the fact is I am sometimes using a derivative of the program Blizzard approves of, not the program itself.

Likewise, how does one interpret this in the case of people playing on Linux via WINE. Rather clearly WINE copies and patches windows binary images?

I doubt they're looking at anything so technical as all that. I'm not a legal eagle so take my reading of the situation with a very large grain of salt, but the gist of what I've gathered is this: The ToS and ToU constitute a limited software license. One of the clauses in this license is that you are not allowed to do what WoWGlider does. Running WoWGlider violates this clause in the license; therefore, you are not authorized to launch WoW, and doing so in contradiction to the terms of the license creates an unauthorized "copy" of the program in memory, and as such can be considered copyright infringement. No in-memory modification, hooking, or launcher application needed.

Talgog · 07/16/08, 9:57 AM

Originally Posted by Prinsesa

Disclaimer: I have no knowledge of legal proceedings besides having watched a lot of Law and Order.

Assuming the legal precedent set by this case DOES step on the toes of programs such as wowmodelviewer, or even Althor's posts about loaders, is Blizzard obliged to pursue litigation against all of those?

My impression is that Blizzard specifically targeted WoWGlider because it's a botting program, and that they wouldn't necessarily go after anything the rulings would have set a precedent for if it's not actively harmful towards WoW.

Trial court decisions are not precedential. They are only really persuasive authority in two circumstances - (1) same court, similar facts, or (2) New and arcane subject, similar/same facts. They aren't binding authority on any subsequent cases, other than baring claims that were brought in the first case.

Courts can always make rulings inconsistent with other rulings of that court; this is how you get new wrinkles in the law. Since most things are factually distinguishable, a prior decision is basically meaningless even in the same trial court, and typically isn't going to be overtly cited in any argument before that same court (you might cite the reasoning used in the prior argument, since THAT is precedent i.e. 9th Circuit cases here).

Xavias · 07/16/08, 9:58 AM

I have a question about MDY and bankruptcy. Assuming Donnelly is the business owner of MDY, and say that Blizzard is awarded $15M worth of damages, will Donnelly's personal assets/cash be affected? Or is MDY its own entity in that respect. As an example, in Australia, if your company is a registered PTY LTD, it is an entity and independent from the owner. Meaning that if the company falls into bankruptcy, the owner just walks away from it and calls it a day.

Talgog · 07/16/08, 10:30 AM

Originally Posted by ulrikft

Hey!

The interesting part about EULAS being valid contracts is how this works in continental european countries with different contract law systems. Norway (where i study law) as an example, has a far less rigid system as well as a far more customer-friendly system. Both Apple and Blizzard among quite a few other companies has gotten quite a lot of flak from the customer (state) bodies that control this sort of things. It makes me wonder why they don't spend more time making individual EULAs for different legal spheres?

Remember that whole other ocean of fish I talked about?

The European EULA/TOU is actually very different in several material ways from the North American EULA/TOU. Most importantly:

(1). You have a right to sue in the Euro agreements, whereas the North American agreements impose binding arbitration via adhesion contract. You simply can't do this in Germany (most severe example), it's facially void, which is probably why the Euro agreement doesn't bother. It would do more harm than good to Blizzard's legal position. Germany generally hates unequal contracts, and I can certainly believe Norway does as well.

(2). The European agreements require you to violate the EULA/TOS for your account to be actioned. The North American agreements have good/bad/no reason termination, at Blizzard's absolute discretion.

Originally Posted by US TOU Sub 7

Blizzard’s Absolute Right to Suspend, Terminate and/or Delete the Account.
BLIZZARD MAY SUSPEND, TERMINATE, MODIFY, OR DELETE THE ACCOUNT AT ANY TIME WITH ANY REASON OR NO REASON, WITH OR WITHOUT NOTICE. For purposes of explanation and not limitation, most account suspensions, terminations and/or deletions are the result of violations of this Terms of Use or the EULA.

World of Warcraft Europe -> Termination of Service

Originally Posted by EU Termination of Service Declaration

TERMINATION OF SERVICE WITHOUT PRIOR NOTICE FOR SERIOUS VIOLATIONS OF THE TERMS OF USE

As stated in the World of Warcraft Terms of Use, Blizzard Entertainment reserves the right to permanently terminate this Agreement "without prior notice," resulting in an immediate and permanent account 'ban' if you engage in behaviour that Blizzard Entertainment considers to be a “serious” violation of the World of Warcraft Terms of Use Agreement. “Serious Violations” of the World of Warcraft Terms of Use Agreement would include the following:
[List omitted; see link]

See that "if?" Biiiiiig difference. Euro players actually have rights.

Interestingly enough, the EU Termination clause actually explicitly includes gold buying. There is no comporable language or position in the North American agreement.

-

The enforcability of the North American agreements outside of the United States, in particular the binding arbitration, is actually a huge issue, with how innately global this product is. Playing cross-region is certainly possible, and, as documented by the infamous "Chinese gold farmers," pervasive. The only countries that you aren't supposed to play from are the usual terrorist sponsor list. Anywhere else, if you can make it work, you can play, and Blizzard says as much.

Originally Posted by US EULA Sub 14 (f)

...Those who choose to access the Service from locations outside of the United States, Canada, Australia, Singapore, or New Zealand do so on their own initiative and are responsible for compliance with local laws if and to the extent local laws are applicable.

Originally Posted by EU TOU Sub 19

19. Miscellaneous. This Agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws applicable in your country of residence. Those who choose to access World of Warcraft through the Service from other locations do so on their own initiative and are responsible for compliance with local laws, if and to the extent local laws are applicable. World of Warcraft, the Service and all related software is further subject to applicable export controls. The software utilized by World of Warcraft and/or the Service may not be downloaded or otherwise exported or re-exported

i. into (or to a national or resident of) Cuba, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Iran, Syria or any other country to which the U.S. has embargoed goods; or

ii. to anyone on the U.S. Treasury Department's list of Specially Designated Nationals or the U.S. Commerce Department's Table of Deny Orders.

Using US contract law in general, and binding arbitration in adhesion contracts in partciular, to control global virtual worlds is really pretty damn messy, because of exactly what you talked about. European courts hate things like the North American agreement, and almost all virtual worlds are controlled by American agreements. Add in the fact that someone can play cross-region and how national legal systems generally feel about jurisdiction over their citizen's disputes as a matter of public policy (THEY WANT!) and there you go.

rooj · 07/16/08, 11:31 AM

Xavias, the short answer is that unless there are actions that "pierce the corporate veil" Donnelly's personal assets are protected when it comes to wrongdoing by MDY. Piercing the corporate veil is a rather simple doctrine, with complicated applications. Essentially, don't abuse the legal creation of an independent entity. What gets sticky is that the cross complaint by Blizzard, named Mr. Donnelly personally and not just his corporate entity.

janodandre · 07/16/08, 8:48 PM

I found a couple of links:

The site Virtually Blind follows all Blizzard related lawsuits: http://virtuallyblind.com/category/providers/blizzard

Corynne McSherry, EFF staff attorney posted about the case: You Bought It, But You Don't Own It

The logical implication of the holding is that any time you buy software, be it film editing software, accounting software, iTunes, Skype, etc., software owners can always use license agreements to prevent you from ever having full control over your software and taking advantage of standard copyright limitations (such as the right to sell your copy [Section 109 of the Copyright Act] or the right to make copies necessary for use of the software [Section 117]). You can buy it, but you can’t own it.
But this decision is not the whole story: this is the third holding on the issue by district courts in the Ninth Circuit in the past three months.

If I understood correctly, I can buy a software product, reject its license, but still see myself stripped of the rights i would normally have. I guess this would show on combat log as Software license casts banish on consumer rights!

Rannasha · 07/16/08, 9:26 PM

Originally Posted by janodandre

If I understood correctly, I can buy a software product, reject its license, but still see myself stripped of the rights i would normally have. I guess this would show on combat log as Software license casts banish on consumer rights!

This is not strange though. I recall that Microsoft (at least at some point in the past) used to add an extra line to the license agreement of their OEM products that if you didn't agree with the license, you could return to the person who sold you the computer and get the OS-part of the price refunded.

As far as i know, you've never "owned" software you bought, merely obtained the right to use it. The Blizzard/Glider lawsuit doesn't add much news to that.

PSGarak · 07/17/08, 1:01 AM

Copyright (and trademark and patent) law in general was made with a much different view of the value and nature of information. Part of this is the computer age where the separation between raw data and a physical operating object has been blurred, but part of it also comes from that information was not recognized as a resource or commodity until the industrial age and the US patent system is a kludged version of something implimented by an agrarian society. The legal system (here or elsewhere) generally recognizes property in terms of physical objects or analogies to physical objects, and lisences and trademarks are usually defined in terms of ownership of an abstract quanitity like the organizating principle or thematic content of a piece of work. The strain is evident in how contractual and copyright law has to be twisted and turned in order to sell a product that consists entirely of information without relinquishing the rights to the information that the product consists of, and how that interacts with use and operation of the product necessarily involving manipulation or expression of that information. Honestly, we need separate rules governing information than those that apply to property, those that apply to contracts, and those that apply to intellectual property because it is a fundamentally new structure that resists interpretation by analogy.

rooj · 07/17/08, 3:13 PM

I agree that when the Copyright Act was passed some of its implications on "The Information" age and especially computer technology wasn't completely clear. However, the Copyright Act does not suffer too much from distinctions in property law.

There were two ways that the Copyright law got implicated in this case.

1) Was the software that you purchased owned? Was it merely licensed? And what were the limitations on that license.

This is implicated, because if you OWN the medium then you have far more rights to do whatever you like with it. For instance, i may own an album of The Beatles, but it is a far cry from the idea that I own any of the songs on the album. There are definite limitations on how i can use the songs contained on the album. You bet Sony will come knocking if I attempt to use Let it Be as a soundtrack to a movie i produce. The idea extends to WoW. We own the client program, but we do NOT own the code that runs on our computers. That doesn't seem controversial to me. There is a Ninth circuit case that struggles with ownership when it comes to software, and that is discussed a bit in Paltry's blog. But overall, i am very comfortable with the notion that while i am purchasing the right to play wow on my personal computer. If i am attempt to use WoW in a training video, I may be violate the license. And if I try release a new MMPORG that uses the models, art, and even actual code from WoW, i can sure excpet to be in violation of the license.

2) The case implicated the Copyright law because, Copyright infringement requires "copying." Without anything being copied, nothing is protected by copyright laws. For instance, if someone lets me borrow a car, but with express reservations on where i can drive it, and I ignore those reservations, I may have breached a "contract" or instituted an unlawful "taking." But copyright law isn't implicated at all. Copyright law requires that something be fixed in teh medium, and an infringing act of that medium, namely "copying." This is where the controversy over "copying into RAM' comes out.

In short, Garak, there are different rules governing such things. Copyright law was created specifically because they recognize that an author, composer, writer, has an ownership right to expressions of thier ideas. The difficulty comes with trying to balance that ownership right with First Amendment concerns.

While I think some of these issues here are interesting in an esoteric sense, the implications are not as far flung as people make it out to be. The most controversial aspect of this order, (RAM usage = copying) has a very convincing rebuttal found in the actual Copyright Act; a rebuttal that may eventually win the day in other courts.

levk · 07/24/08, 1:06 PM

Just some points as a programmer:

Running code off a really fast hard drive isn't feasible, in any case any already compiled software won't work like that. A real possibility is actually making a RAM drive and running it off that, but the thing is as far as everything is concerned it still will be copied into RAM again (for reasons I can explain in a PM). And besides, just like someone else mentioned, they'll just go for copy to CPU since every instruction executed is copied to CPU.

I'm a little confused on the whether the point of having a special loader fire wow, as in if it's important legally or not. I've never ran glider so I had no idea how it gets to wow memory, but since they have their own loader it all makes sense. Unless you're running Windows98, you're on a protected system; which means under no circumstances can you see other processes' stuff. Meaning you can't just 'scan memory for wow code' because all you can see is your code and whatever system code the system allows you to use [edit: if you're curious how this happens I can explain in a PM as well]. Exception to 'under no circumstances' - unless you're system code, part of the kernel; in which case I imagine you'll incur a very real wrath of the Microsoft gods as it's a security violation. Now because he has a special loader, it's in the same process, so yeah it can look at whatever it wants.

Another thing I was curious about, what if you build a bot program entirely based off image recognition, would that be illegal? Illegal in the sense that would it be vulnerable to the same kind of lawsuit? While it's not impossible it isn't feasible to do something like this by a long shot. As I understand it, it'd be vulnerable to the (pretty open) business tort part, but not the copyright?

Caryna · 07/28/08, 7:56 AM

Originally Posted by levk

Another thing I was curious about, what if you build a bot program entirely based off image recognition, would that be illegal?

Interesting question because I know that this has been done in the past (image recognition based bot). Reading the contents of the graphics memory and sending keystrokes/mouse-movements to Windows isn't rocket surgery.

• Galatea · 07/29/08, 6:36 AM

Originally Posted by levk

I'm a little confused on the whether the point of having a special loader fire wow, as in if it's important legally or not. I've never ran glider so I had no idea how it gets to wow memory, but since they have their own loader it all makes sense. Unless you're running Windows98, you're on a protected system; which means under no circumstances can you see other processes' stuff. Meaning you can't just 'scan memory for wow code' because all you can see is your code and whatever system code the system allows you to use [edit: if you're curious how this happens I can explain in a PM as well]. Exception to 'under no circumstances' - unless you're system code, part of the kernel; in which case I imagine you'll incur a very real wrath of the Microsoft gods as it's a security violation. Now because he has a special loader, it's in the same process, so yeah it can look at whatever it wants.

You are not correct. Protected memory does not mean you cannot fiddle with another processes memory. It means that there are explicitly defined boundaries and APIs you need to use in order to map the memory, so that you do not accidentally cross into some other processes mappings, and so that security measures can be enforced through those chokepoints.

On virtual memory based systems different address spaces are distinct, and may have individual ACLs that protect them, but it is not impossible, nor even difficult to look at another processes address space under most circumstances. If applications could not read another processes memory it would be impossible to implement a debugger. In general it is not possible to read the memory of a process owned by another user, but if WoW is running as the same user as a program attempting to fiddle with then nothing will protect wow from that program.

On Windows this is achieved through APIs like ReadProcessMemory()/WriteProcessMemory(), on Mac OS X it is done through mach_vm_read()/mach_vm_write(), and on Linux you do it through reading/writing/mapping of /proc/<pid>/mem.

Mortimmer · 07/29/08, 10:19 AM

Edited:

False assumption on Warden being a rootkit. For a discussion: [WoW] New Warden crosses the line? - Quarter To Three Forums

From the US EULA (there's also a part in the EU one, I believe it's somewhat different but after a very quick scan I coulnd't locate it).

5. Consent to Monitor. WHEN RUNNING, THE GAME MAY MONITOR YOUR COMPUTER'S RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY (RAM) FOR UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAMS RUNNING CONCURRENTLY WITH THE GAME. AN "UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM" AS USED HEREIN SHALL BE DEFINED AS ANY THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY "ADDON," "MOD," "HACK," "TRAINER," OR "CHEAT," THAT IN BLIZZARD'S SOLE DETERMINATION: (i) ENABLES OR FACILITATES CHEATING OF ANY TYPE; (ii) ALLOWS USERS TO MODIFY OR HACK THE GAME INTERFACE, ENVIRONMENT, AND/OR EXPERIENCE IN ANY WAY NOT EXPRESSLY AUTHORIZED BY BLIZZARD; OR (iii) INTERCEPTS, "MINES," OR OTHERWISE COLLECTS INFORMATION FROM OR THROUGH THE GAME. IN THE EVENT THAT THE GAME DETECTS AN UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM, THE GAME MAY (a) COMMUNICATE INFORMATION BACK TO BLIZZARD, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION YOUR ACCOUNT NAME, DETAILS ABOUT THE UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM DETECTED, AND THE TIME AND DATE THE UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM WAS DETECTED; AND/OR (b) EXERCISE ANY OR ALL OF ITS RIGHTS UNDER THIS AGREEMENT, WITH OR WITHOUT PRIOR NOTICE TO THE USER.

Sorry about the caps, but that's how it's part of the EULA.

◊ Cadfael · 07/29/08, 11:35 AM

Originally Posted by Mortimmer

On the matter of protected process memory, Blizzard's Warden program (rootkit) can fully access (and modify) everything in your RAM (well, not the first bit I expect, but..nvm). Also, if you do not allow this to happen (various programs can be used for this), WoW doesn't run right.

You are wrong on many many levels. No Warden cannot read and fully access everything in your RAM. It can come quite far if you are running WoW in Administrator context which should not be done anyway. Even when run as Administrator, there are memory areas that are off limits and are simply not available without first installing code that the OS kernel accepts and grants full privileges and even then it's not a simple free pass at anything. Run your WoW with least privileges and it will still run and work fine.

Please also read up on what constitutes a rootkit. Warden does not qualify for that. I know that there are sites out there from shocked players what Warden can do and how it supposedly does it, but that is no free pass to spread false information. Warden does spy around when it becomes active, that is true, but the extent of what it does and what it actually can do (technical limitations) are much more limited than you might assume. Please also note that it's actually in the TOU/EULA whatever that you should have read and accepted.

If Warden was a rootkit or could read "everything" then Glider wouldn't have had such a long time where it could evade detection.

There are a lot of quite complex interactions and limitations in play here and as such your posting doesn't really fit this thread in my opinion because of false assumptions. So that mine is not off-topic either I'll just add in that the copyright thing used in the the lawsuit might be a very good and clever move from Blizzard. At first reading it sounds like something insane to anyone with a bit of understanding what starting a program on a computer really means (namely copying). But the more I think about it the more I get the suspicion that the reason that was used was because Glider needs a way to interact with WoW and needs to start WoW so that it can manipulate either the OS environment or preloaded libraries or whatever it is it does to be able to understand what's going on in the game world. There are other ways to interact with a foreign process but they are generally far more easily detectable.

It may be that the Glider's author actually is correct when he claims that Glider does not manipulate the WoW client (directly), because if you are in control of starting the program, you can actually change the environment with pre-loading changed libraries or intercept library calls, like the FreeSocks proxy server for example seems to do by pre-loading a changed WinSock to redirect network traffic. This does not modify the original program in any way, but still allows quite extensive manipulation by the starting process. So by declaring such a program start as unauthorized copying, such use can be prevented or at least "made illegal".

Mortimmer · 07/30/08, 8:39 AM

You are right about Warden not tecnically being a rootkit, my apologies. My source was:

[WoW] New Warden crosses the line? - Quarter To Three Forums

I am not an anti-Warden fanatic, and I know it's part of the TOU/EULA, see the quote in my post. I will alter my earlier post with the reference to the debate for people that are interested.

If Warden was a rootkit or could read "everything" then Glider wouldn't have had such a long time where it could evade detection.

There are many ways to alter byte code to mask a program that eventually does the same. But I don't believe that Glider's succes at evasion is solely due to the limitations of Warden's access. I will ask my questions in a PM to not further smother the thread with Warden stuff

edit: After having read more information, I am inclined to say that Warden is nothing like a rootkit at all. My bad.

strafe28 · 08/08/08, 12:10 AM

No speculation. Just facts to think about.

here is a definition for tortious interference:
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Tortious interference, in the common law of tort, occurs when a person intentionally damages the plaintiff's contractual or other business relationships. This tort is broadly divided into two categories, one specific to contractual relationships (irrespective of whether they involve business), and the other specific to business relationships or activities (irrespective of whether they involve a contract).

Tortious interference with contract rights can occur where the tortfeasor convinces a party to breach the contract against the plaintiff, or where the tortfeasor disrupts the ability of one party to perform his obligations under the contract, thereby preventing the plaintiff from receiving the performance promised.

Tortious interference with business relationships occurs where the tortfeasor acts to prevent the plaintiff from successfully establishing or maintaining business relationships.

The tort was first described in the case of Keeble v. Hickeringill, (1707) 103 Eng. Rep. 1127, styled as a "trespass on the case". In that case, the defendant had used a shotgun to drive ducks away from a pond that the plaintiff had built for the purpose of capturing ducks. Although the ducks had not yet been captured, the Justice Holt wrote for the court that "where a violent or malicious act is done to a man's occupation, profession, or way of getting a livelihood, there an action lies in all cases." The court noted that the defendant would have the right to draw away ducks to a pond of his own, raising as a comparison a 1410 case in which the court deemed that no cause of action would lie where a schoolmaster opened a new school that drew students away from an old school.
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Now, blizzard is suing MDY for tortious interference and copyright infringement by claiming that glider was created with no purpose other than tempting WoW players into breaking their 'limited contract (EULA)' with blizzard.

It has also been recorded that blizzard did not amend their EULA to contain the paragraph concerning third party programs until after MDY and Glider were created. I submit that in creating that paragraph blizzard was perpetrating tortious interference against MDY LLC and that because they were committing tortious interference that paragraph should be removed, thereby invalidating their claim that MDY was infringing on their copyright by copying a game to RAM while running an unlicensed piece of third party software.
-----personal opinion below----
that claim is ridiculous anyway. My 2gb of non-persistent memory (ram) cannot 'copy' a 9gb game.

genjuro · 08/25/08, 10:02 PM

I'm a programmer and not a lawyer so maybe this view is naive from a legal standpoint, but I find it completely ridiculous that copying the executable code from the hard drive to memory for the purpose of execution by the CPU constitutes a legal "copy" with respect to copyright law. First of all, a modern computer has a deep memory hierarchy so there may be six or more "copies" of a given instruction at a point in time (CD-ROM -> hard drive -> system ram -> l2 cache -> l1 cache -> on-chip instruction cache -> instruction registers). Am I illegally copying the software six times? Of course not, these "copies" exist simply to run the software, they are automatically made by the computer as an integral part of running the software and without them the software would be useless. They should not even be considered by copyright law. The entirety of the on-disc and in-memory executable and data and any temporary copies made to *run the software* should be considered a *single* copy with respect to copyright law. Doing otherwise is opening the books for corporate exploitation. It's like a publisher saying that you're "copying" a book when you read it because the information within is being duplicated by your brain cells while being processed your brain. This kind of thing is common sense to me and seems like it would be to anyone else with even a modicum of computer knowledge. And while I understand that the congressmen and judges charged with creating and interpreting copyright law are typically older individuals who, not having grown up with computers, are not technically proficient, it just seems like this facet of copyright law is specifically engineered to give power to copyright owners in ways that do not reflect the spirit of copyright law, that is to prohibit people from illegally profiting from or devaluing the works of others. To classify in this way the running of a legally licensed computer program just seems wrong.

While I agree that MDY profited by assisting users to break their EULA/ToU and should be liable (and I also hate Glider), I disagree that copyright infringement is the appropriate legal vehicle to make this judgment.

WantImages · 08/26/08, 8:40 AM

MDY should obviously not be liable in any form, shape or way because what they are doing is in no way copyright infringement nor even any other form of violation.

The problem MDY has is simple, they were stupid enough to be registered/operating from the US where there are dubious laws and rules regarding computers (DMCA, fair use, memory = legal protected copy and so forth). If they had operated out of say a scandinavian country or anywhere sane they would've been fine.

Worst thing about this case is that again the US Court system is opening up a whole can of ugly worms with some ugly precedense though that's been the case for years with the DMCA and it's blatant disregard for reverse engineering and private fair use.