Blizzard awarded $6 million in Glider suit

by Alexander Sliwinski on Oct 1st 2008 7:30PM

Blizzard has been awarded $6 million in damages from its suit against "bot" maker MDY Industries, the same suit it won back in July. MDY makes the World of Warcraft Glider software, allowing players to automate their avatars while they're AFK. The BBC reports that the Glider program cost $25 and it's believed the company sold around 100,000 copies.

Not that Blizzard is done yet. The company originally wanted double or triple the damages awarded. The case actually goes back into litigation this January and Blizzard will push on some remaining issues, like whether MDY violated the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act and whether the Glider programmer will have to pay damages out of his own pocket.

[Via Massively]

Source

Tags: activiision-blizzard, blizzard, glider, mdy, mdy-industries, world-of-warcraft, wow

Reader Comments (56)

also, what kind of idiot thinks that providers of harmful/illegal products are not to be partially blamed for what happens?

O dear, i just got shot in the face by a crackhead, but w/e, im sure the crackdealer knew that no harm would come from selling crack.

Whats that? Iraq supplied taliban with guns to kill americans? I'm sure they didn't know they were going to be used to kill soldiers!

Whats that? a drunk driving home from a bar killed a pedestrian? let's not partially blame the bar for this death, obviously they had no control in the customers drinking.

Can you imagine if the world blamed these people for the outcomes that came from their products?

O wait, all those things are true already.

Why should this be any different?

Blizzard FN rocks StarCraft 2 NOW Please

check my math. if they sold 100k copies at $25 a pop that's $2.5 mil. Blizzard won $6mil in the lawsuit, after legal fees only the lawyers win, not to mention the company probably doesn't have $6mil.

The way the legal system works is usually the lawsuits are for 2-3 times the damages, so if you make 100 thousand in an illegal manor then you will be faced with a two to three hundred thousand dollar fine.

Just to clarify, Blizzard makes a contract with every user of WoW. Part of that contract says you can't bot. Glider openly markets itself as a way for people to break the contract, in a way that harms Blizz. This is called "Tortuous interference with contract" and the concept has been a part of our laws since before the Declaration of Independence. Since Blizz was able to showcase what must have been a million+ complaints about bots and a record of people quitting because of the existance of bots, this was pretty much a slam dunk for Blizz on that claim.

For the rest you should just read the opinion.

Blizzard is going to win the case....Such as they are legally winning. This is not a matter some random persons self righteous way of thinking...This is a set of rules we have chosen to follow and not every rule applys to the way any one person thinks... End of Story. Bad freaking judgment to try to take advantage of Blizzard and think you can win.

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