BNA reports on MDY Indus. LLC v. Blizzard Entm’t Inc., filed recently in the District of Arizona. Blizzard operates the online multi-player game Worlds of Warcraft; MDY sells WoWGlider, which plays WoW on behalf of your character. WoWGlider is sort of a software version of J. Pierpont Finch, the hero of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. According to the WoWGlider FAQ,
Glider works a lot like a regular player. It looks at your health, mana, energy, etc. It moves the mouse around and pushes keys on the keyboard. You tell it about your character, where you want to kill things, and what to kill. Then it kills for you, automatically. You can do something else, like eat dinner or go to a movie, and when you return, you’ll have a lot more experience and loot.
MDY freely admits in its FAQ that use of the WoWGlider violates the WoW Terms of Service. Still, it sued Blizzard for a declaration that MDY is not liable for infringing Blizzard’s copyrights in the game, for violating the DMCA, or for inducing breaches of contracts between Blizzard and WoW users. Blizzard, unsurprisingly, has counterclaimed on the grounds that this is precisely what MDY does.
I have a hard time seeing how MDY will wiggle out of this. MDY offers do-it-yourself automated goldfarming.