You may recall that, about a year ago, World of Warcraft publisher Blizzard sued computer whiz Michael Donnelly, creator of a popular WoW botting program known as Glider.

Last week, both sides filed new motions in U.S. District Court for summary judgment, essentially seeking to have themselves declared victorious without having to go through a trial.

We note that in its motion, Blizzard claims that Donnelly sold $2.8 million worth of Glider. That’s a lot of bots. For the legal-minded, here is Blizzard’s motion and here is Donnelly’s

For a better-informed discussion of the issues involved, we defer to a post by Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on the Lawful Use mailing list:

Glider lets WoW players play on “autopilot” in order to maximize in- game experience and loot. Blizzard has not been able to successfully stop players from using it, despite the deployment of technical countermeasures (i.e., “Warden”).

Blizzard is arguing direct copyright infringement by WoW players who use Glider (because they breach the EULA term that says “no bots!” and copy the WoW software into RAM),

and secondary liability for MDY, the maker of Glider.

Blizzard’s argument is built expressly on the MAI v. Peak’s “RAM copies” doctrine, plus the argument that any contractual breach of a EULA term makes an infringement claim, at least where the license grant is expressly conditioned on compliance with the contractual restriction (apparently the WoW license grant is contingent on compliance with **all** the terms of the EULA, a typical drafting approach in contemporary EULAs).

Blizzard plus argues 1201 [DMCA] liability, on the view that Glider evades Warden. There is an interesting question here as to what copyrighted work Warden restricts access to — Warden blocks access to Blizzard’s WoW **servers**, not the client-side game software itself. Blizzard seems to argue that assured client-side game assets — i.e., graphics — are rendered inaccessible when Warden blocks an detail for cheating. But it’s fair to say that that is not the typical “encryption” or “password” 1201 terrain.

Finally, Blizzard argues tortious interference with the EULA, premised on the same EULA whose breach is supposedly additionally a copyright infringement.

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