Blizzard Sues Overwatch “Cheat” Maker For Copyright Infringement - Polidicks

[QUOTE=OmniConsUme;50648433]Here' what I can understand, the Cheater is in Germany, so they cannot legally to sue them for breaking a US Law (DMCA). The Suit was filed in California, Not in Germany, so only monetary damages can happen. [editline]4th July 2016[/editline] Has people in here (and Blizzard) forgotten that the DMCA is a US Law?! He cannot be successfully sued If he broke a law that's not even in his own country,[/QUOTE] That's close enough to my point. Don't get me wrong, if there was a good anti-cheat law on the ballot, hell yes I'd vote for it. But there are an absurd number of ways you can screw something like that up, especially here in these early years of Internet law when everything's still kind of nebulous. So I'd really rather not even try it until someone manages to come up with something airtight.

[QUOTE=lavacano;50648527]That's close enough to my point. Don't get me wrong, if there was a good anti-cheat law on the ballot, hell yes I'd vote for it. But there are an absurd number of ways you can screw something like that up, especially here in these early years of Internet law when everything's still kind of nebulous. So I'd really rather not even try it until someone manages to come up with something airtight.[/QUOTE] There's literally no way to make a "good" anti-cheat law. Any kind of law that bans information is a law that's doomed to fail and be exploited by people with nefarious interests. The only effective tool against cheating is for a company to invest time and money into developing their own anti-cheat solution or buying the rights to use a 3rd party anti-cheat. Don't like their solution? Don't buy their game or write them a letter telling them how shit their software is. Whether your distaste is acknowledged or not is something else entirely but just because a corporation can't be arsed to stop cheating doesn't mean a government would do any better. Writing something into law doesn't magically make stuff happen. And even if you managed to make a concrete bill that's clearly worded and extremely detailed there will always be someone with enough money and lawyers to distort the meaning of it and make it conform to their interests.

sadly Rockstar doesn't follow Blizzard and they don't C&D cheat makers

[QUOTE=EddieLTU;50648700]sadly Rockstar doesn't follow Blizzard and they don't C&D cheat makers[/QUOTE] Rockstar's too busy sending PIs with C&D notices to innocent modder's houses to do that

-snip im too tired to debate

[QUOTE=OmniConsUme;50648433]Here' what I can understand, the Cheater is in Germany, so they cannot legally to sue them for breaking a US Law (DMCA). The Suit was filed in California, Not in Germany, so only monetary damages can happen. [editline]4th July 2016[/editline] Has people in here (and Blizzard) forgotten that the DMCA is a US Law?! He cannot be successfully sued If he broke a law that's not even in his own country,[/QUOTE] When you do business in a country, even if you are not physically located there, you are bound by that country's laws when dealing with their citizens. That's why Valve doesn't sell games in countries where the sale of said game would otherwise be illegal, despite being a Seattle-based company.

cheating is definitely something that shouldn't be in the legal sphere, but contained within the TOS for the game of course this means that they can't really go after cheaters without knowing that they've accepted the TOS, but I assume that to write the cheats they'd have to sign the agreement.

More companies need to do this.

[QUOTE=Rent-a-BoxHouse;50648937]Rockstar's too busy sending PIs with C&D notices to innocent modder's houses to do that[/QUOTE] That's take two actually, Rockstar were pretty cool with the modding community before take two went dickhead mode.

[QUOTE=Cloak Raider;50649340]cheating is definitely something that shouldn't be in the legal sphere, but contained within the TOS for the game of course this means that they can't really go after cheaters without knowing that they've accepted the TOS, but I assume that to write the cheats they'd have to sign the agreement.[/QUOTE] TOS means nothing legally though. Afaik a lot of online games already have no cheating clause in their TOS, changes nothing as with most TOS things.

[QUOTE=The Baconator;50647064]I hope Blizzard reignites the fight against hackers. Valve is so fucking passive when it comes to hackers in their games.[/QUOTE] That's most likely because Valve makes lots of money off of cheaters buying their games over and over.

I remember when runescape sued RSBuddy and effectively took them down. So there is some precedent.

[QUOTE=racerfan;50647069]Although I agree with the lawsuit, I hope Blizzard doesn't win. I feel this would set a bad precedent for dealing with anything relating to circumventing DRM, such as modding/user-made content.[/QUOTE] A large number of hacks result from reverse engineering - I am yet to see a game from the last decade that doesn't have a copyright clause that doesn't cover reverse engineering of software in the EULA.

[QUOTE=bunguer;50647172]Tbf there are actually a lot of exceptions to the law and encryption research is a major one. Regarding the other point though, it's a very grey area and it's uncertain whether that falls into fair use. DMCA has tons of issues and it repeatedly shows that it fails to protect small individuals while giving too much power to big players.[/QUOTE] The hilarious thing is that a DMCA is irrelevant in this situation as it is a german company, not an american one.

[QUOTE=RenegadeCop;50650574]Isn't RSBuddy a client that is authorized and used by Jagex staff members?[/QUOTE] It is now I guess, but back in like 2011 it was a full blown bot and one of the best ones available.

[QUOTE=ROFLBURGER;50648391]That's their fault for not having a good anticheat system, plus how the fuck would you even catch these people? Do you expect that the government will create a division to track hackers that cheat in a TF2 lobby? What will you do with people behind 7 proxies?[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=FurrehFaux;50648605]There's literally no way to make a "good" anti-cheat law. Any kind of law that bans information is a law that's doomed to fail and be exploited by people with nefarious interests. The only effective tool against cheating is for a company to invest time and money into developing their own anti-cheat solution or buying the rights to use a 3rd party anti-cheat. Don't like their solution? Don't buy their game or write them a letter telling them how shit their software is. Whether your distaste is acknowledged or not is something else entirely but just because a corporation can't be arsed to stop cheating doesn't mean a government would do any better. Writing something into law doesn't magically make stuff happen. And even if you managed to make a concrete bill that's clearly worded and extremely detailed there will always be someone with enough money and lawyers to distort the meaning of it and make it conform to their interests.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Cloak Raider;50649340]cheating is definitely something that shouldn't be in the legal sphere, but contained within the TOS for the game of course this means that they can't really go after cheaters without knowing that they've accepted the TOS, but I assume that to write the cheats they'd have to sign the agreement.[/QUOTE] I think I may have an idea on how legislation could be used to prevent cheating in online games. Any legislation that tries to ban the act of cheating itself would simply be unenforceable. At the same time, no anti-cheat measures are going to be that effective due to the people who basically run businesses off of building cheat engines and how good they are at it. Therefore I think the best way to go about it would not to target the developers or users of cheat engines, but their distributors. If we make the act of selling or distributing software which is explicitly designed for cheating in online multiplayer games, then the amount of cheaters should go down significantly and make moderation of games much easier. Owning cheat engines, the act of cheating, or making your own cheats should not be illegal, but the act of selling and profiting off of cheat engines at everyone's expense should be. It's a parasitic industry that very actively harms gaming for everyone involved (players, developers, publishers, patrons, etc...). We've been looking at this problem from the wrong angle.

[QUOTE=rndgenerator;50650269]TOS means nothing legally though. Afaik a lot of online games already have no cheating clause in their TOS, changes nothing as with most TOS things.[/QUOTE] if that's true, then that should be enough. i guess not enough companies actually bother enforcing them.