Cheating at Solitaire

There was an interesting court ruling in the news this week: a federal appeals panel upheld a lower court ban on software that automatically plays World of Warcraft, enabling players to grind through the lower levers of character development while showering, working, sleeping, or doing their homework. On the face of it, of course, both halves of this case are absurd; the people who make software that enables customers to exchange hours of their actual life for a virtual existence are suing over software that makes it easier and more convenient for their customers to succeed in the game, and people who are spending their spare time pursuing virtual rewards are complaining because software that allows them to cheat has been outlawed by the court. But when you actually get into the facts of the case, everything rapidly becomes a lot murkier…

Consider, for example, that the software company makes money on time-based subscriptions to their online activities, which means that any software that decreases the amount of time their customers have to spend online cuts directly into their bottom line. Since an automated program can “play” the game 24 hours a day, each day of the subscription will be that much more productive, and the player will be able to spend less money while reaping the same benefits. By the same token, this type of software allows people who are willing (and able) to use it an unfair advantage over players who actually take the time to develop and grow their own characters. In many ways, it’s like the cases we’ve seen where online games allow the user to purchase success elements using real-world money rather than earning them through game play as intended. The difference in this case is, the terms and conditions of the game expressly forbid the use of software (or “bots” as they are called) that can play for you automatically…

What a lot of people fail to grasp is that the terms of service provided in an End User License are actually the terms of the contract under which you are purchasing or leasing the product, and failing to conform to those rules is a material breach of your contract. I’m not aware of Blizzard Software suing anyone over the use of bots in World of Warcraft, but from a legal standpoint this shouldn’t be any different from the civil cases regarding unlawful copies or piracy issues or any of the other software-oriented lawsuits of recent years. Or, to put it another way, these bots aren’t legally any different from a software program that would allow five hundred office workers to use one copy of MS Office (and only pay for it once), but no one would even try to argue that such a program wasn’t both breach of contract and piracy. It’s just because the application they are designed to fool is a game program – and the image of a technology geek furtively cheating on a game which is a surrogate for actual human interaction and achievement, like a man cheating at solitaire – that this case ever made it to court in the first place…

You can pick up the rest of the details off David Kravets’ “Threat Level” blog at Wired.com if you want to. I can’t really comment on the quality of the legal actions involved, or even on the DMCA, because as previously noted I don’t have a law degree or a license to give you advice on legal matters. Ultimately, the issue of what constitutes violation or misuse of a copyright will have to be decided by more qualified people than me, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see additional legislation as well as additional case law come into effect before all of this gets settled. For the moment, let me just suggest that if you’re going to develop World of Warcraft characters you do it the old-fashioned way, at least until a more favorable legal climate emerges. Of course, if that bothers you, there are always activities in real life you could amuse yourself with in the meanwhile…