blizzard Blizzard Wins $8.74 Mio in Copyright Damages

[Stan 5,252]

Please note that the use of third-party software (also known as "bots") is against the ToS and will get your account suspended. This article is purely informative and doesn't promote botting in any way.

Last time we wrote about Blizz vs Honorbuddy, Blizzard filed a motion for default judgment, demanding $8.74 Mio in damages. Honorbuddy creator Bossland failed to defend himself, so it was an easy win for Blizzard. Bosslands needs to pay more than $8.7 Mio and the bot cannot be sold now in the United States. 

The California District Court agreed that hacks by Bossland bypass Blizzard's anti-cheating protection (also known as "Warden"), which violates the DMCA. The full judgment can be found here.

More information can be found over at Torrenfreak.

Is this the end of Honorbuddy?

A mighty blow has been dealt to the bot creator, but it doesn't stop there. One of the prominent community members and combat routine creators for Honorbuddy has been ordered by a court order in England not to touch any Blizzard title.

Good to see Blizzard's not only going after the company, but also trying to dissolve the developer team.

[Sharknad0 67]

Nice! Big win for Blizz! Damn botters piss me off!

[Hoods 40]

Really nice, I hope this will affect the Battlegrounds real soon. Blizzard did it again <3

[FichtenMoped 11]

This is really nice!

 

I still don't understand why people would pay money to play the game and then pay someone else again to make a program that plays the game for them.

[CodeRazor 47]

Am i the only one that would try to hire those guys if i was Blizzard? I mean, in order for their bots to be undetected by the security system, really good programming skills are required...

Even building the smallest of AIs could be a pain in the ass sometimes, so imagine building that kind of AI.

[Prophet001 599]

23 minutes ago, CodeRazor said:

Am i the only one that would try to hire those guys if i was Blizzard? I mean, in order for their bots to be undetected by the security system, really good programming skills are required...

Even building the smallest of AIs could be a pain in the ass sometimes, so imagine building that kind of AI.

 

The problem with hiring thieves is that eventually they steal from you too.

[CodeRazor 47]

48 minutes ago, Prophet001 said:

 

The problem with hiring thieves is that eventually they steal from you too.

Its a high risk - high reward situation.

You get a group of high skilled programmers working on your company's security system, with a high risk of them leaking information or any other malicious action they may think of. But i think you can minimize that cost, by keeping them happy, with a big enough salary. Selling bots doesn't provide that much of a guarranteed income, and it is directly affected by the sales.

Im pretty sure i heard something similar some time ago, when a game developing company hired a group of crackers to work on their anti-cracking system, and it worked out pretty well. Please correct me if im wrong in this one. Can't remember any more details :/ .

Edited April 4, 2017 by CodeRazor
Freaking typos -_-

[Maruken 31]

Excellent news. Now let's hope an alternative doesn't pop up in its place.

Also worth noting that bots might still appear occasionally. They can't sell Honorbuddy in the US, but there are players that play on US servers even though they don't live there. But this is still a massive win.

Edited April 5, 2017 by Maruken

[simpetar 13]

12 hours ago, CodeRazor said:

Its a high risk - high reward situation.

Usually when companies hire hackers to improve their security, they haven't sued them and won 8.4M bucks. The risk of the programmers exacting revenge is disproportionately higher than the possible reward.

[demonardvark 556]

18 hours ago, FichtenMoped said:

This is really nice!

 

I still don't understand why people would pay money to play the game and then pay someone else again to make a program that plays the game for them.

So much this ^. Also don't understand people who pay for mythic (previously heroic) carries. The goal is to play to get the lootz if you pay get all the lootz at once the incentive is gone beyond going into lfr blowing up dps charts and calling everyone newbs. Had an old guildy who dropped like 200 to get full heroic set and then all he did was complain he was bored, >_>

[Seksi 212]

1 hour ago, demonardvark said:

So much this ^. Also don't understand people who pay for mythic (previously heroic) carries. The goal is to play to get the lootz if you pay get all the lootz at once the incentive is gone beyond going into lfr blowing up dps charts and calling everyone newbs. Had an old guildy who dropped like 200 to get full heroic set and then all he did was complain he was bored, >_>

Can't figure it out either, the whole point / fun of the game is becoming good enough that a great team will want you in and together you can beat the hardest encounters in the game (for your skill level I guess). The whole fun here is in the process, not in the result.

[CodeRazor 47]

6 hours ago, simpetar said:

Usually when companies hire hackers to improve their security, they haven't sued them and won 8.4M bucks. The risk of the programmers exacting revenge is disproportionately higher than the possible reward.

Yeah you are right, i forgot to clarify that i meant trying to hire them before actually suing them!

My bad, thanks for pointing it out :)

[demonardvark 556]

4 hours ago, Seksi said:

Can't figure it out either, the whole point / fun of the game is becoming good enough that a great team will want you in and together you can beat the hardest encounters in the game (for your skill level I guess). The whole fun here is in the process, not in the result.

[positiv2 955]

On 4. 4. 2017 at 6:40 PM, FichtenMoped said:

I still don't understand why people would pay money to play the game and then pay someone else again to make a program that plays the game for them.

Some players bot through annoying or boring parts of the game, like money-making, so they can later enjoy the game without major and repetitive grind, which gets even more boring as you get more and more characters to the max level.

[timeblue1 2]

I used Honorbuddy for quite a long time, but they got me during the ban wave in December.  For me, it was a way to get through tedious parts of the game while maintaining a good relationship with my wife, keeping my grades up in college, and working a full time job.  I never cared to bot professions (except for fishing and that silly catfish mount from Margoss).  I didn't really want to influence other people's gameplay.  In the end, rules are rules and everyone has a reason why they broke them.

[Thorgal2226 9]

On 4.04.2017 at 7:43 PM, CodeRazor said:

But i think you can minimize that cost, by keeping them happy, with a big enough salary. 

The one thing u failed to see in this is greed.

If someone that skilled is using his skills to do cheats like this, he is probably to greedy to take a dull job and forfeit to try to take advance of it.

It could also encourage others to go the same way. It would be an all the way disaster if Blizzard would hire them.

[Daedrik 4]

On 4/8/2017 at 3:37 PM, Thorgal2226 said:

The one thing u failed to see in this is greed.

The one thing you failed to see in this is the actual data for when this has happened before. It's a great idea, and has been used to great effect over and over again. Here's a small list of examples of illicit hackers hired onto security teams and such.

http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/story/266255/7-hackers-who-got-legit-jobs-from-their-exploits

[Sharknad0 67]

On 4/5/2017 at 4:53 AM, demonardvark said:

So much this ^. Also don't understand people who pay for mythic (previously heroic) carries. The goal is to play to get the lootz if you pay get all the lootz at once the incentive is gone beyond going into lfr blowing up dps charts and calling everyone newbs. Had an old guildy who dropped like 200 to get full heroic set and then all he did was complain he was bored, >_>

What really gets me are the botters for in raid. So all you want to do is move your character while a program performs your rotation, just so you can top the meters? How you get any satisfaction from that is beyond me. You may get some praise, but you didn't actually do anything to deserve that praise. I loved when a ban wave went out in Pandas, during SoO, and two of our Rogues plus a Mage, were all of the sudden not able to raid anymore. We all knew then why they were always top three on the meters and their DPS was so strangely consistent from week to week. I had never felt so avenged and praised Blizz for being the Avengers!