Glad to see that devs are putting more work into Bless. Hopefully the end product will be really good. I am surprised that FF11 is being shut down on consoles, I thought that it was still making money.
Cheers.
That makes Blizzard what? 10 years late in dealing with bots?
also keep in mind most bot makers come from china and move into the us/eu servers. the only reason they were able to tag them was because they are in the us. the ones in china cannot but caught as easily being that blizzard from my understanding only has rights to sue about there game in the us court of law
here is a video for amusement
That makes Blizzard what? 10 years late in dealing with bots?
there's no such thing as too late, and blizzard isn't the first to sue a bot company, in fact Jagex LTD. had sued several bot makers in the past and forced them to shutdown otherwise they would face a jail sentence. But yea my point is its never to late to sue bot makers and force them to shutdown.
In this case they are not suing a bot maker though. They did that and lost - and reading the above I understand why (its a legal thing.)
So what Blizzard now seem to be doing is suing a US distributor. And they are hoping that a US judge (overrides EU-US trade treaties and) rules that the sale of software that is legal in the EU is illegal to sell in the US. Good luck with that: defence case - my client is a registered business selling a legal product and paying taxes.
There are many products legal in Europe but not in the US. Usually takes a court case to get the items banned.
"There are many products legal in Europe but not in the US. Usually takes a court case to get the items banned."
I think you will find that there are very few; I could explain why but basically free trade deals. However that is not what is at issue here.
So why did the EU Supreme Court make a ruling that "bots are OK"? Your post suggests that you think they are stupid. (They are not of course.)
First bots - short for robot - in this case means software set up to do repetitive tasks. As opposed to a "hack".
Real world example time. This is what was happening prior to the ruling. I could name software and companies but this was the norm.
Businesses would "buy" software from a company - Payroll software say. Usually paying upfront and/or a lease for a number of "users"; the software provider would patch it periodically. And bring out new upgraded versions that the company would then have to buy. Same deal with WoW.
The payroll software would work out how much to pay people, sort out what tax should be withheld, medical deductions etc. And to make the software work the company would provide it with employee names, an id number maybe, salary and so forth. The software would do all the mundane bot calculations for maybe thousands or hundreds of thousands of folk. OK?
Now the company also decides to get some software to help with e.g. its HR/Personal stuff. Same deal. Pay for some HR software for so many users. The company would enter employee name, social security number, assessment grades, emergency contact details, job grade, join date - all the other good HR stuff. Still OK?
Now notice that some of the information is needed by both sets of software; it is the same - a data overlap. Name say. And maybe an employees paycheck depended on their job grade - stored in the HR software.
The company could employ lots of data entry clerks in HR to enter the information into the HR software and employ lots of other people in Finance to enter information into the payroll software. OR they could get the HR software to "talk" to the Payroll software and vice versa; and only enter any data needed once.
You agree that getting the software to talk to each other is the way to go?
Now imagine that something went wrong. The payroll software - say - messed up. So you contact the company and say we need a fix. Maybe they fix it but what could also happen was "oh no, our ToSs and EULAs don't allow you to use HR software to load our payroll software; you should have enetered it by hand. And by the way we also have a range of HR software that we could sell you. WTF the company says your software costs us a bucket load of cash get it fixed. Stand off.
And companies use stock control software, ordering software, inventory management, program control software ..... so much software all used on top of sophisticated database software. Huge list, lots and lots of money. And lots of WTF moments. And lots of EULAs and ToSs giving the software companies get out of jail free cards.
And the EU Supreme Court ruled. That software is a product: it should do the job claimed. And the EULAs and ToSs cannot override the law.
And what this means is that having software talk to each other - share information - is legal. Think Lego blocks; a connected world. And a consequence: it is legal for a bot program to interact with WoW doing stuff that you could do yourself if you disengaged your brain.
Now if it was a "hack/virus" that "interfered" /"rewrote" - different ball game.
So a "blanket" ruling isn't going to happen. US courts are not going to ban "software"; nor are they going to give software creators carte blanche to advertise their product and when it doesn't work say : oh our updated ToCs say it only works if operated by someone with two left feet.
So you are down to passing a law that would have to ban named software: lists of "bad" stuff. Lists that would need to be updated every day. And not just for AB either - why would they be special ..... nightmare.
Comments
"There are many products legal in Europe but not in the US. Usually takes a court case to get the items banned."
I think you will find that there are very few; I could explain why but basically free trade deals. However that is not what is at issue here.
So why did the EU Supreme Court make a ruling that "bots are OK"? Your post suggests that you think they are stupid. (They are not of course.)
First bots - short for robot - in this case means software set up to do repetitive tasks. As opposed to a "hack".
Real world example time. This is what was happening prior to the ruling. I could name software and companies but this was the norm.
Businesses would "buy" software from a company - Payroll software say. Usually paying upfront and/or a lease for a number of "users"; the software provider would patch it periodically. And bring out new upgraded versions that the company would then have to buy. Same deal with WoW.
The payroll software would work out how much to pay people, sort out what tax should be withheld, medical deductions etc. And to make the software work the company would provide it with employee names, an id number maybe, salary and so forth. The software would do all the mundane bot calculations for maybe thousands or hundreds of thousands of folk. OK?
Now the company also decides to get some software to help with e.g. its HR/Personal stuff. Same deal. Pay for some HR software for so many users. The company would enter employee name, social security number, assessment grades, emergency contact details, job grade, join date - all the other good HR stuff. Still OK?
Now notice that some of the information is needed by both sets of software; it is the same - a data overlap. Name say. And maybe an employees paycheck depended on their job grade - stored in the HR software.
The company could employ lots of data entry clerks in HR to enter the information into the HR software and employ lots of other people in Finance to enter information into the payroll software. OR they could get the HR software to "talk" to the Payroll software and vice versa; and only enter any data needed once.
You agree that getting the software to talk to each other is the way to go?
Now imagine that something went wrong. The payroll software - say - messed up. So you contact the company and say we need a fix. Maybe they fix it but what could also happen was "oh no, our ToSs and EULAs don't allow you to use HR software to load our payroll software; you should have enetered it by hand. And by the way we also have a range of HR software that we could sell you. WTF the company says your software costs us a bucket load of cash get it fixed. Stand off.
And companies use stock control software, ordering software, inventory management, program control software ..... so much software all used on top of sophisticated database software. Huge list, lots and lots of money. And lots of WTF moments. And lots of EULAs and ToSs giving the software companies get out of jail free cards.
And the EU Supreme Court ruled. That software is a product: it should do the job claimed. And the EULAs and ToSs cannot override the law.
And what this means is that having software talk to each other - share information - is legal. Think Lego blocks; a connected world. And a consequence: it is legal for a bot program to interact with WoW doing stuff that you could do yourself if you disengaged your brain.
Now if it was a "hack/virus" that "interfered" /"rewrote" - different ball game.
So a "blanket" ruling isn't going to happen. US courts are not going to ban "software"; nor are they going to give software creators carte blanche to advertise their product and when it doesn't work say : oh our updated ToCs say it only works if operated by someone with two left feet.
So you are down to passing a law that would have to ban named software: lists of "bad" stuff. Lists that would need to be updated every day. And not just for AB either - why would they be special ..... nightmare.