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On May 28 2010 10:59 mmp wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2010 10:54 seppolevne wrote:On May 28 2010 10:41 mmp wrote:On May 28 2010 10:36 seppolevne wrote:On May 28 2010 10:25 mmp wrote:On May 28 2010 10:19 Kralic wrote:I gave this blog a 5/5 but then I realized he was serious.  Don't sweat the terms of use unless you are planning on using malicious software to cheat in this game or gain money off of it without their consent. Did you know that warden scans your computer and records everything? Now warden is evil but guess what it was found to be a legal program for Blizzard to use. Here is what you just agreed to have running on your computer by accepting their TOS. Warden It's not malicious software I'm defending. On May 28 2010 10:19 ShaperofDreams wrote:
mmp it doesn't matter, and what blizzard is doing is legal. who cares whether people read the user agreement or not, they are supposed to. So you agree that you don't have the right to run programs like APMLive, or Build order coachers, Rich's latency-fixing program, latency fixes that may come in the future, etc? And you forfeit the right to customize textures, sounds, models, configuration files...? You forfeit all of this? YES YES YES. If you don't want to then don't buy the game. So you think Rich and anyone who uses his program deserve to have their accounts revoked? How about the TL users that are customizing textures and other game features. They don't deserve to play on the same server as you? You may worship a benevolent dictator, but don't complain when the other shoe drops. If Blizzard wanted to revoke their accounts, they would absolutely be within their rights. Does it suck? Yes. Is it in any way illegal? No. How is that so hard to understand? Show me a legal (U.S.) ruling that backs the right of commercial software to restrict access to computer memory.
"provided, however, that Blizzard may, at its sole and absolute discretion, allow the use of certain third party user interfaces;"
If R1ch's program is in no way malicious, I don't see them not allowing it. This basically states "if something is good, we will allow it"
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On May 28 2010 11:07 seppolevne wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2010 10:59 mmp wrote:On May 28 2010 10:54 seppolevne wrote:On May 28 2010 10:41 mmp wrote:On May 28 2010 10:36 seppolevne wrote:On May 28 2010 10:25 mmp wrote:On May 28 2010 10:19 Kralic wrote:I gave this blog a 5/5 but then I realized he was serious. Don't sweat the terms of use unless you are planning on using malicious software to cheat in this game or gain money off of it without their consent. Did you know that warden scans your computer and records everything? Now warden is evil but guess what it was found to be a legal program for Blizzard to use. Here is what you just agreed to have running on your computer by accepting their TOS. Warden It's not malicious software I'm defending. On May 28 2010 10:19 ShaperofDreams wrote:
mmp it doesn't matter, and what blizzard is doing is legal. who cares whether people read the user agreement or not, they are supposed to. So you agree that you don't have the right to run programs like APMLive, or Build order coachers, Rich's latency-fixing program, latency fixes that may come in the future, etc? And you forfeit the right to customize textures, sounds, models, configuration files...? You forfeit all of this? YES YES YES. If you don't want to then don't buy the game. So you think Rich and anyone who uses his program deserve to have their accounts revoked? How about the TL users that are customizing textures and other game features. They don't deserve to play on the same server as you? You may worship a benevolent dictator, but don't complain when the other shoe drops. If Blizzard wanted to revoke their accounts, they would absolutely be within their rights. Does it suck? Yes. Is it in any way illegal? No. How is that so hard to understand? Show me a legal (U.S.) ruling that backs the right of commercial software to restrict access to computer memory. "provided, however, that Blizzard may, at its sole and absolute discretion, allow the use of certain third party user interfaces;" If R1ch's program is in no way malicious, I don't see them not allowing it. This basically states "if something is good, we will allow it"
It's not their right to approve or disapprove what else is running on your computer.
Again, it's easy to side with the benevolent dictator, but what if a program is deemed to give an "unfair advantage?" Certainly a tournament can kick you out, but Blizzard cannot deny you service for the way that you run your personal computer.
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On May 28 2010 11:06 mmp wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2010 10:56 Durak wrote:I thought this thread was going to contain a legal argument since the title is "Blizzard's terms are illegal." However, this quote destroyed that hope. On May 28 2010 09:40 mmp wrote:On May 28 2010 09:33 ramen- wrote:
This is a terms of use agreement, meaning that you agree to do this. If you don't agree to these terms, then just don't buy the game. Blizzard is not under a legal obligation to sell you its software with a liberal license agreement. You must knowingly forfeit your property rights. It is understood that virtually no user reads or understands these agreements, therefore the claims are invalid. This is incorrect by Canadian law. You can't claim that you were unaware after accepting a terms of use agreement because it counts as reasonable notice. I'm pretty sure American contract law is the same in this regard. If you're trying to make an argument as to how regulation prevents some of these contract terms, make it. Don't make extreme claims such as, "this says you don't own your RAM" without quoting some regulation. At a glance, it looks fine to me. Edit: Seriously, this is a basic standard form offer. I don't know why you're making such strong claims without support. I agree that the Canadian interpretation makes sense - but when fine print oversteps what it has a reasonable right to claim (in this case property rights over your computer hardware), then you can take it to court (in the U.S. anyway). Your bias is backwards. It's a basic and standard form in that companies often say things that have zero legal backing. No one cares to bring these things to court because of the cost - when was the last time you saw a class action lawsuit over a video game?
It's the same thing in Canada. If there is regulation that overrules the contract terms, the contract terms are obviously invalid.
Standard form offers do often have unenforceable claims. I don't see why that would be my problem though because they would be prosecuting (plus I live in Canada, lol).
To bring this back to your argument in the OP, I believe you have some good points. I agree that much of 2, especially D, is too broad. In fact, 2D is easily interpreted to mean that every user of the software is violating the ToS. Your operating system is always going to be a software intermediary between Battle.net and your RAM.
I think that you're approaching this from the wrong angle by arguing about property rights though. Again, I don't know anything about American contract law, but there are probably better objections.
Blizzard is definitely trying to make the terms more general than they reasonably can be. However, it doesn't effect me so I don't care.
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On May 28 2010 10:59 mmp wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2010 10:54 seppolevne wrote:On May 28 2010 10:41 mmp wrote:On May 28 2010 10:36 seppolevne wrote:On May 28 2010 10:25 mmp wrote:On May 28 2010 10:19 Kralic wrote:I gave this blog a 5/5 but then I realized he was serious. Don't sweat the terms of use unless you are planning on using malicious software to cheat in this game or gain money off of it without their consent. Did you know that warden scans your computer and records everything? Now warden is evil but guess what it was found to be a legal program for Blizzard to use. Here is what you just agreed to have running on your computer by accepting their TOS. Warden It's not malicious software I'm defending. On May 28 2010 10:19 ShaperofDreams wrote:
mmp it doesn't matter, and what blizzard is doing is legal. who cares whether people read the user agreement or not, they are supposed to. So you agree that you don't have the right to run programs like APMLive, or Build order coachers, Rich's latency-fixing program, latency fixes that may come in the future, etc? And you forfeit the right to customize textures, sounds, models, configuration files...? You forfeit all of this? YES YES YES. If you don't want to then don't buy the game. So you think Rich and anyone who uses his program deserve to have their accounts revoked? How about the TL users that are customizing textures and other game features. They don't deserve to play on the same server as you? You may worship a benevolent dictator, but don't complain when the other shoe drops. If Blizzard wanted to revoke their accounts, they would absolutely be within their rights. Does it suck? Yes. Is it in any way illegal? No. How is that so hard to understand? Show me a legal (U.S.) ruling that backs the right of commercial software to restrict access to computer memory.
There isn't one.
But that wasn't his point. All he said was that Blizzard has the right to revoke your account should they deem your actions undesirable. It's beyond me why you just cannot understand/accept this fact.
And you need to stop dramatizing everything. The way you rant about the issue sounds like Blizzard is giving out Trojans with the game clients.
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Does this not apply to almost every multiplayer game out there? I can't even think of an example where the player 'owns' the account. This is what lawyers do, they cover all the bases; and you can bet that Blizzard has a lot of lawyers. It's like buying a ticket to a concert, they reserve the right to kick you out. I don't see how this stops you from owning your hard drive - what are they going to do, nuke it from headquarters? The most they can do is ban your account.
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Canada5652 Posts
On May 28 2010 09:40 mmp wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2010 09:33 ramen- wrote:
This is a terms of use agreement, meaning that you agree to do this. If you don't agree to these terms, then just don't buy the game. Blizzard is not under a legal obligation to sell you its software with a liberal license agreement. You must knowingly forfeit your property rights. It is understood that virtually no user reads or understands these agreements, therefore the claims are invalid.
i know nothing about law but i at least am capable of running a search through lexisnexis
5 minutes turned up this extract from south carolina lawyer '08: (original discussion was about online privacy but this is an analogy to the eula/tos)
An analogy can be made to the online license agreement, about which there is a large body of case law discussing online contract formation. Those cases have found that users are bound to online licenses to which they have "clicked" acceptance or where they have actual notice of the terms. Users are not bound to license agreements that are only visible to the user by "browsing"--scrolling down the screen or to a different screen--and where the user is not required to view the license in order to complete the transaction. See Motise v. America Online, Inc., 346 F. Supp. 2d 563 (S.D.N.Y. 2004).
so just because people don't read them, doesn't mean they're not binding.. see the relevant case
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On May 28 2010 11:11 mmp wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2010 11:07 seppolevne wrote:On May 28 2010 10:59 mmp wrote:On May 28 2010 10:54 seppolevne wrote:On May 28 2010 10:41 mmp wrote:On May 28 2010 10:36 seppolevne wrote:On May 28 2010 10:25 mmp wrote:On May 28 2010 10:19 Kralic wrote:I gave this blog a 5/5 but then I realized he was serious. Don't sweat the terms of use unless you are planning on using malicious software to cheat in this game or gain money off of it without their consent. Did you know that warden scans your computer and records everything? Now warden is evil but guess what it was found to be a legal program for Blizzard to use. Here is what you just agreed to have running on your computer by accepting their TOS. Warden It's not malicious software I'm defending. On May 28 2010 10:19 ShaperofDreams wrote:
mmp it doesn't matter, and what blizzard is doing is legal. who cares whether people read the user agreement or not, they are supposed to. So you agree that you don't have the right to run programs like APMLive, or Build order coachers, Rich's latency-fixing program, latency fixes that may come in the future, etc? And you forfeit the right to customize textures, sounds, models, configuration files...? You forfeit all of this? YES YES YES. If you don't want to then don't buy the game. So you think Rich and anyone who uses his program deserve to have their accounts revoked? How about the TL users that are customizing textures and other game features. They don't deserve to play on the same server as you? You may worship a benevolent dictator, but don't complain when the other shoe drops. If Blizzard wanted to revoke their accounts, they would absolutely be within their rights. Does it suck? Yes. Is it in any way illegal? No. How is that so hard to understand? Show me a legal (U.S.) ruling that backs the right of commercial software to restrict access to computer memory. "provided, however, that Blizzard may, at its sole and absolute discretion, allow the use of certain third party user interfaces;" If R1ch's program is in no way malicious, I don't see them not allowing it. This basically states "if something is good, we will allow it" It's not their right to approve or disapprove what else is running on your computer. Again, it's easy to side with the benevolent dictator, but what if a program is deemed to give an "unfair advantage?" Certainly a tournament can kick you out, but Blizzard cannot deny you service for the way that you run your personal computer.
Of course not, but you still don't get it.
It's not their right to approve or disapprove what else is running on your computer.
But it IS their right to terminate your account when 3rd party software is running in CONJUNCTION with whatever game client you're running.
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United States47024 Posts
On May 28 2010 11:11 mmp wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2010 11:07 seppolevne wrote:On May 28 2010 10:59 mmp wrote:On May 28 2010 10:54 seppolevne wrote:On May 28 2010 10:41 mmp wrote:On May 28 2010 10:36 seppolevne wrote:On May 28 2010 10:25 mmp wrote:On May 28 2010 10:19 Kralic wrote:I gave this blog a 5/5 but then I realized he was serious. Don't sweat the terms of use unless you are planning on using malicious software to cheat in this game or gain money off of it without their consent. Did you know that warden scans your computer and records everything? Now warden is evil but guess what it was found to be a legal program for Blizzard to use. Here is what you just agreed to have running on your computer by accepting their TOS. Warden It's not malicious software I'm defending. On May 28 2010 10:19 ShaperofDreams wrote:
mmp it doesn't matter, and what blizzard is doing is legal. who cares whether people read the user agreement or not, they are supposed to. So you agree that you don't have the right to run programs like APMLive, or Build order coachers, Rich's latency-fixing program, latency fixes that may come in the future, etc? And you forfeit the right to customize textures, sounds, models, configuration files...? You forfeit all of this? YES YES YES. If you don't want to then don't buy the game. So you think Rich and anyone who uses his program deserve to have their accounts revoked? How about the TL users that are customizing textures and other game features. They don't deserve to play on the same server as you? You may worship a benevolent dictator, but don't complain when the other shoe drops. If Blizzard wanted to revoke their accounts, they would absolutely be within their rights. Does it suck? Yes. Is it in any way illegal? No. How is that so hard to understand? Show me a legal (U.S.) ruling that backs the right of commercial software to restrict access to computer memory. "provided, however, that Blizzard may, at its sole and absolute discretion, allow the use of certain third party user interfaces;" If R1ch's program is in no way malicious, I don't see them not allowing it. This basically states "if something is good, we will allow it" It's not their right to approve or disapprove what else is running on your computer.Again, it's easy to side with the benevolent dictator, but what if a program is deemed to give an "unfair advantage?" Certainly a tournament can kick you out, but Blizzard cannot deny you service for the way that you run your personal computer.
In other words, they're not allowed ban people for hacking?
If you're generalizing to "what else is running on your computer", then at that level, there's no relevant difference between Oblivion and Chaoslauncher.
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Wait you don't own your hard drive? Meaning they could just collect everyone's hard drives if they wanted?
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One of the two sides of this argument seriously needs to show some precedent. As far as I am aware, not being aware of the terms of a contract is never grounds for breaking it. If mmp or someone else has a court case that establishes a precedent in the opposite direction, please show it to us.
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Edit: would rather not get into it. Not a lawyer.
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They are reserving the right to ban you from Battle.net which they certainly can do as they please if you are doing something they don't like and its pretty obvious what those are, twisting their words into something completely unrelated isn't making you have a better argument.
SC1 mods aren't even supposed to exist with all the backdooring the programs do to make them work but they don't care about them over Battle.net, it's pretty obvious why their ToU wouldn't be supportive of something like ICCUP running on its own server emulator or assisting its development (data-mining) or you hacking their game for your own advantage.
It's the same agreement for pretty much every online service/game out there, whats your next argument going to be that they shouldn't be allowed to ban RMT spammers?
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On May 28 2010 09:53 mmp wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2010 09:42 Conquest101 wrote:On May 28 2010 09:40 mmp wrote:On May 28 2010 09:33 ramen- wrote:
This is a terms of use agreement, meaning that you agree to do this. If you don't agree to these terms, then just don't buy the game. Blizzard is not under a legal obligation to sell you its software with a liberal license agreement. You must knowingly forfeit your property rights. It is understood that virtually no user reads or understands these agreements, therefore the claims are invalid. Lol what? The claims are invalid because people don't read what they're agreeing too? Brb, going to "buy" some real estate. Yes, exactly because no one reads the terms for a computer game versus a license for more important goods and services. There is no means of verifying that a user agreed to the terms as they are presented - therefore Blizzard's claims constitute "fine print." If Blizzard just said they could ban users for completely arbitrary reasons (such as race, religion, politics) and it was in the ToS, it would still be an illegal overreach of your civil liberties to enjoy a good or service - precisely because a wide audience of people who may be unfairly harmed. In general, you have a right to use your computer hardware as you like (provided you harm no one else) and it takes far more sophisticated legal statements than this to invalidate your property rights.
What about those parts in points you mentioned?
however, that Blizzard may, at its sole and absolute discretion, allow the use of certain third party user interfaces;
in any way not expressly authorized by Blizzard;
using programs or tools not expressly approved by Blizzard;
If you are resorting to something that isn't there then I don't think you have any examples to back your OP. ICCUP and every program made for WoW (and there is fuckton of them) is enough to show that you are wrong.
On May 28 2010 10:41 mmp wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2010 10:36 seppolevne wrote:On May 28 2010 10:25 mmp wrote:On May 28 2010 10:19 Kralic wrote:I gave this blog a 5/5 but then I realized he was serious. Don't sweat the terms of use unless you are planning on using malicious software to cheat in this game or gain money off of it without their consent. Did you know that warden scans your computer and records everything? Now warden is evil but guess what it was found to be a legal program for Blizzard to use. Here is what you just agreed to have running on your computer by accepting their TOS. Warden It's not malicious software I'm defending. On May 28 2010 10:19 ShaperofDreams wrote:
mmp it doesn't matter, and what blizzard is doing is legal. who cares whether people read the user agreement or not, they are supposed to. So you agree that you don't have the right to run programs like APMLive, or Build order coachers, Rich's latency-fixing program, latency fixes that may come in the future, etc? And you forfeit the right to customize textures, sounds, models, configuration files...? You forfeit all of this? YES YES YES. If you don't want to then don't buy the game. So you think Rich and anyone who uses his program deserve to have their accounts revoked? How about the TL users that are customizing textures and other game features. They don't deserve to play on the same server as you? You may worship a benevolent dictator, but don't complain when the other shoe drops.
Who customizes textures to play normal games and not just mods? What other features do you have in mind?
when was the last time you saw a class action lawsuit over a video game?
When was the last time you saw them ban accounts for anything other than hacking?
On a side note, + Show Spoiler +I remember W3 UMS games where demons where running with huge erected falluses attached and blink described as using those falluses as poles to jump.
My friend saw a Naruto UMS with little Sasuke doing seals. How badly does this break Blizzard's ToS?
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EPT
