To prove that there is still a world outside the storm of E3-related news, Blizzard has won a summary judgment in the ongoing court case against MDY Industries - developers of the infamous "Glider" bot program.
The summary judgment (PDF) smacks down MDY's arguments pretty hard - a summary judgment is issued when a judge thinks parts of the case is clear cut based on the facts presented. MDY defended themselves by effectively saying "We are not doing anything wrong. It's the users who buy our botting software that violate a contract. Go sue them, please". In this case, the court thinks otherwise.
On the Blizzard's copyright infringement claims, the court finds
Blizzard owns a valid copyright in the game client software, Blizzard has granted a limited license for WoW players to use the software, use of the software with Glider falls outside the scope of the license established in section 4 of the TOU, use of Glider includes copying to RAM within the meaning of section 106 of the Copyright Act, users of WoW and Glider are not entitled to a section 117 defense, and Glider users therefore infringe Blizzard's copyright. MDY does not dispute that the other requirements for contributory and vicarious copyright infringement are met, nor has MDY established a misuse defense. The Court accordingly will grant summary judgment in favor of Blizzard with respect to liability on the contributory and vicarious copyright infringement claims in Counts II and III.
Judge also found MDY liable for "Tortious Interferece with Contract" - effectively making money while helping Blizzard's customers to break the EULA and terms of service.
Because the other requirements for tortious interference have been satisfied, the Court will grant summary judgment in favor of Blizzard with respect to MDY's liability on this claim.
MDY also had a small victory - the court found that Blizzard's "Warden" anti-cheat measures are not proven to prevent access to a copyrighted work and parts of claims based on DMCA violation were not ruled on.
Although Blizzard contends that scan.dll and the resident software prevent a user from accessing the non-literal elements of the game, as noted above, Blizzard and MDY have failed to address this aspect of the case in their statements of fact. Because there appears to be a factual dispute with respect to the extent to which Blizzard's protective software protects against the copying of software code to RAM, and because the parties have not submitted sufficient facts from which the Court can decide whether these protective measures protect Blizzard's rights in the non-literal elements of the game, summary judgment on this claim will be denied.
Other parts of the case, including remaining disputes under DMCA and the trademark law, and the determination of damages or other remedies on the resolved counts were referred to another trial, so the saga will continue for a while, but it looks like MDY Industries is pretty much done for.
The judgment is sure to create some controversy over it's application outside this specific case. Slashdot is already on the case with it's army of armchair lawyers. Personally I find the case pretty clear cut - if you violate the licensing agreement of the software (EULA and Terms of Service, in the case of World of Warcraft) and then make a "copy" of the software by loading it to RAM, it constitutes a copyright violation.
The act that violates the EULA and TOU and takes Glider users outside the scope of Blizzard's limited license is the use of Glider to play WoW, and the use of Glider to play WoW necessarily includes copying the game client software to RAM. Thus, the act that exceeds the scope of the license and the act that violates Blizzard's copyright are the same.
It looks like Blizzard's EULA-fu was strong in this case. No word yet on any appeals.
