14 DAY TRIAL // In a piece posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday April 10th, an anonymous reader writes: "In the overlooked case between Blizzard and MDY Industries, [ADAMRK=1]the creator of the WoWGlider bot, Blizzard is arguing that using any programs in conjunction with the World of Warcraft constitutes copyright violation. Apparently accessing the copy of the game client in RAM using another program infringes upon their rights. Under that logic, users do not even have the right to use anti-virus software in the event that the game becomes infected. Furthermore, Blizzard's legal filings downplay the role of their Warden software, which actively scans users' RAM, CPU, and storage devices (and potentially sensitive data) and sends information back to Blizzard to be processed." Does this strike anyone with the thought that Blizzard is like a possessive girlfriend? Clearly, there's something wrong with the whole user rights issue, if using other programs while running World of Warcraft means stepping on Blizzards hand. The example provided by the writer is perfect: an anti-virus. That's a program, and a damned must-have one at that. Now, tell me how many WoWers you know are willing to log off their anti-virus, whenever they log on to WoW?
Heck, some are so addicted to the MMO that something like this would imply logging off the anti-virus permanently, for days at a time. Of course Blizzard isn't taking this into consideration, as it's an abnormal behavior for a person to spend that much time in front of the monitor. But their solution isn't good either. Not mentioning privacy. Something in between should be considered, to satisfy both gamers and the company providing the servers.