Hacker sells cheats for Overwatch, Blizzard smacks him with 8.6 million dollaridoos lawsuit - Sensationalist Headlines

[quote]The developer of the hit video games World of Warcraft and Overwatch has successfully sued a company that sold "cheat" tools for its titles. A California court ordered German firm Bossland to pay $8.6m (£6.8m) to Blizzard for 42,818 counts of copyright infringement. Blizzard had argued that Bossland had reverse-engineered and otherwise altered its games without permission.[/quote] [url]http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39490317[/url] Get fucked.

I think the best part of stuff like this is when all the hackers getting incredibly salty and whining about how "persecuted" they are. Can't wait to see this shit unfold.

I would understand if it was modding a single player game. But screw online hackers

I never understood why they're trying to run a legitimative business on an obvious crime.. Where are they expecting it to go besides wrong?

[QUOTE=Tools;52058346]I never understood why they're trying to run a legitimative business on an obvious crime.. Where are they expecting it to go besides wrong?[/QUOTE] Violating EULA is a crime?

[QUOTE=CruelAddict;52058385]Violating EULA is a crime?[/QUOTE] Let's not go into semantics, but they agreed to a set of rules and then broke them.

tbh going after the people who make/sell the cheats is a pretty smart move

I have to wonder, if other companies did this, would cheaters be as widespread as they are? Somehow, I doubt it.

Even if they don't end up paying Blizzard, it's a shitty business that got shut down and hopefully other cheat makers got intimidated by the pursuit. I'm very thankful to say the least.

-snip misread-

[QUOTE=Grandzeit;52058463]Even if they don't end up paying Blizzard, it's a shitty business that got shut down and hopefully other cheat makers got intimidated by the pursuit. I'm very thankful to say the least.[/QUOTE] if only, they're going to continue no matter what they frankly don't care

[QUOTE=J!NX;52058516]it was after the company that was [U]selling[/U] cheats[/QUOTE] Yup, good ol' company liability saves the day

[QUOTE=CruelAddict;52058385]Violating EULA is a crime?[/QUOTE] Reverse engineering the software violates dmca, which is a crime. Circumventing anti-cheat software also violates the dmca, which is a crime. Selling software that by design directly damages a company through lost customers and damaged customer relations is a crime. Don't muddy the issue.

Not defending Bossland, but there's actually a much bigger history here than you may know. Blizzard has sued Bossland MANY times. Bossland has actually "won" many of them as well. This is the first really big win for Blizzard against Bossland because this is the first time they've really had good grounds for the suit. They've sued Bossland for: Honorbuddy & Gatherbuddy (WoW bots. I think this one has happened multiple times and is still going through the courts) Stormbuddy (HoTS Bot, lawsuit was rejected at all points) Selling WoW Gold Looking around I'm seeing lawsuits in the US, UK, and Germany (where Bossland is based). Via some quick searching I'm finding around 15 but I know there are even more. Bossland has actually sued Blizzard as well. On their forums there's a subforum specifically for documenting the various legal cases. [url]https://www.thebuddyforum.com/forums/legal.147/[/url] Bossland has actually pulled off getting a court order that prevents Hawker (one of the core devs) from working on any project touching a Blizzard IP. Blizzard hates Bossland so much they've taken every approach they can to hurt them, including targeting the devs rather than the company. The reason Blizzard really won this time is because the Overwatch hacks were true hacks rather than external bots. They directly manipulated the game in ways that could only be known by heavy reverse engineering. Overwatch has some really complex anti-cheat and anti-debugging measures that make memory based hacks REALLY hard to make. That's why most Overwatch hacks are color based (they just use the health bar's solid color as a base for where the head is).

Blizzard is not suing a person they are suing a company, your title is misleading

[QUOTE=CruelAddict;52058385]Violating EULA is a crime?[/QUOTE] This is a company who's very existence is based on breaking EULA's and ruining the game for other players. They're making money off breaking the rules and ruining your customer's fun, which in turn can cause damage to your own profits if nobody wants to buy a game that's riddled with cheaters. Games have died due to uncontrolled cheating driving down sales and chasing away existing players. Selling cheats for online games is a parasitic business model that makes money by damaging other businesses, it only makes sense that they would get sued.

[QUOTE=Sally;52058547]Blizzard is not suing a person they are suing a company, your title is misleading[/QUOTE] Does it really matter?

[QUOTE=kilerabv;52058575]Does it really matter?[/QUOTE] Yes it does really matter. A company is working directly against Blizzard and reverse engineers their software. That company is getting their shit pushed in.

[QUOTE=kilerabv;52058575]Does it really matter?[/QUOTE] It implies they are targeting specific cheat makers as apposed to companies selling cheats

[QUOTE=Sally;52058590]It implies they are targeting specific cheat makers as apposed to companies selling cheats[/QUOTE] Well they've actually done both. Bossland is a company, but it only consists of a few people. Blizzard has actually managed to get a court order against one of their core devs that prevents them from working on any project related to a Blizzard IP so you could say they're going after both (the company and the individual devs)

I have no sympathy for online game cheat developers. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Reminds me of when Nexon, the creator of Combat Arms ended up suing a bunch of cheating websites because it was so rampant that they claimed it was attempting to sabotage their revenue. It worked to my understanding, and they sort of just fucked off entirely from it for a while. No idea the situation now, but it might still be there.

[QUOTE=Sally;52058590]It implies they are targeting specific cheat makers as apposed to companies selling cheats[/QUOTE] It's not a giant corporation, it's a handful of people. While there is a difference, it's negligible in the grand scheme of things.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;52058648]It's not a giant corporation, it's a handful of people. While there is a difference, it's negligible in the grand scheme of things.[/QUOTE] No it's fucking not. Suing the company means they want the company to stop what they are doing and preferrably stop excisting, and lets everyone or almost everyone walk away from the company. Suing the people would put them in bankruptcy and ruin their lives. [editline]4th April 2017[/editline] The purpose of LTDs like Bossland is to make sure that the company owners are not responsible for the debts of the company. So trying to angle this as "big mean blizzard sues to bankrupt poor white hat hacker" isn't really working out.

Can't this set a precedent not only for multuplayer cheat distributors, but also earnest people who reverse engineer old games?

[QUOTE=Lord of Boxes;52058320]I think the best part of stuff like this is when all the hackers getting incredibly salty and whining about how "persecuted" they are. Can't wait to see this shit unfold.[/QUOTE] Listen to this if you haven't. There's some great ones in there. [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaTx31cv55c[/media]

[QUOTE=BANNED USER;52058977]Can't this set a precedent not only for multuplayer cheat distributors, but also earnest people who reverse engineer old games?[/QUOTE] blizz has already won similar suits on warcraft bots and cheats over the years, basically if its pay-me-to-win its illegal even if the game has pay-to-win because someone else is deliberately hurting the original owner's property

This doesn't mean anything. Bossland didn't show up to defend themselves and they won't have to pay a penny of it because no extradition etc.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;52058389]Let's not go into semantics, but they agreed to a set of rules and then broke them.[/QUOTE] Not related to this case, but you can't take EULA's as gospel, if the law allows you to do something chances are the EULA can't override it in most countries, just like how Spanish law allows you to modify the program to get it to work and reverse engineer it

[QUOTE=CruelAddict;52058385]Violating EULA is a crime?[/QUOTE] No but bypassing security is, then selling that for profit. That's why it's criminal not because of the bypass but the profit. Except in south korea where in game hacking is full illegal.