Warcraft, Glider Go PvP Over Bot Argument

By David A. Utter - Wed, 03/26/2008 - 11:03am.

Disagreement over whether program infringes copyright

An Arizona court received summaries from World of Warcraft parent firm Blizzard and from software developer Michael Donnelly over his MMO Glider program.

The $25 Glider program performs the perfunctory character tasks like grinding and skinning in World of Warcraft. This frees up the player to enjoy other aspects of the game, like Battlegrounds.

Blizzard considers Glider a bot, against its terms of service, and wants Donnelly and Glider grounded for good. Donnelly claimed in an October 2006 filing against Blizzard that three people, one a Blizzard executive, the other a lawyer for the company, the third unidentified, showed up at his home and ordered him to stop violating Blizzard's rights with the software, then called WoW Glider.

Thinking his company faced an immediate lawsuit from Blizzard, Donnelly's company filed a request for declatory judgment that Glider does not infringe on Blizzard's copyrights.

Blizzard counter-sued Donnelly over Glider. As the BBC noted, both sides seek summary judgment in the case, per motions each side filed on March 21.

Attempts at settling the case in October 2007 made some progress, but both sides were too far apart on the issues to come up with a settlement.

News Tags: Legal, Michael Donnelly, Blizzard, World of Warcraft, Glider

About the author:
David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Follow me on Twitter, and you can reach me via email at dutter @ webpronews dot com. Why not Mixx this article while you're here?

Comments

Submitted by Anon (WPN reader) on Thu, 03/27/2008 - 11:42pm.

I'm not a Glider user, but I

I'm not a Glider user, but I have hand leveled two WoW characters to 70. And it gets very old very fast. Don't get me wrong, WoW is a fun game, but the fun is in the progresson. When you feel like makinga new character and playing in a totally different style, you've got to start from scratch. If the gameplay was actually entertaining rather than repetative garbage, there wouldn't be a need for bots. I fully support Glider on this one.

The Glider program does nothing that a human being can't, other than grind without falling asleep. It's not glider's fault that the gameplay is boring, and requires third party software to get through efficiently. If Blizzard wants this botting to end, they need to work on their own flaws before pointing fingers at others.

Submitted by Guest (WPN reader) on Thu, 03/27/2008 - 12:01am.

Wow Bot

Yes it would be. how they would prove it I dunno. But it all comes into play under the term they describe as "the spirit of the game" Violations thereof resulting in banning.

Submitted by Forum Roleplay (WPN reader) on Wed, 03/26/2008 - 4:48pm.

Roleplay, WoW?

Meh, I'm apathetic about programs like this. What's to say that I can design a physical machine that plays the game? Repeats physical motions? Is this against Blizzard's ToS?

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