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The makers of World of Warcraft are locked in a legal battle with afirm that has produced a tool to automate many actions in the virtualworld. Blizzard is suing Michael Donnelly, the creator of the MMO Gliderprogram, which performs key tasks in the game automatically, such asfighting.
Both sides have submitted legal summaries to a court in Arizona.
Blizzard says Glide is a software bot which infringes the company's copyright and potentially damages the game.<!-- E SF -->
In its legal submission to the court last week, the firm said:
Blizzard wrote:
"Blizzard's designs expectations are frustrated, and resources areallocated unevenly, when bots are introduced into the WoW universe,because bots spend far more time in-game than an ordinary player wouldand consume resources the entire time."
'Infringed agreement' Blizzard argued that Michael Donnelly's tool also infringed theEnd User License Agreement that all parties have to adhere to whenplaying the game.
More than 100,000 copies of the tool have been sold, accordingto Mr Donnelly. More than 10 million people around the world playWarcraft.
Mr Donnelly said the first time had had been aware of potentiallegal action over his program was when a lawyer from Vivendi games,which publishes Warcraft, and an "unnamed private investigator"appeared at his home.
In his legal submission, he detailed: "When they arrived, theypresented Donnelly with a copy of a complaint that they indicated wouldbe filed the next day in the US District Court for the Central Districtof California if Donnelly did not immediately agree to stop sellingGlider and return all profits that he made from Glider sales."
"Blizzard's audacious threats offended Donnelly," according to the legal papers.
BBC wrote:
Mr Donnelly says his tool does not infringe Blizzard's copyrightbecause no "copy" of the Warcraft game client software is ever made.
Blizzard has said the tool infringes copyright because itcopies the game into RAM in order to avoid detection by anti-cheatsoftware.
The two parties are now awaiting a summary judgement in the case.
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