5/5/2008 Public Knowledge Press Release:

The producers of World of Warcraft may not like gamers using automated “bots” to play the game, but the company can’t ban the practice under copyright law, Public Knowledge has told a federal court in Arizona.

In a brief filed Monday (May 5) with the U.S. District Court in Arizona, Public Knowledge said that Blizzard Entertainment, which produced the game, misinterpreted copyright law in its suit against MDY, which produces the “Glider” software that plays World of Warcraft while the owner is not even at the computer. Blizzard claims Glider infringed on the game’s copyright, arguing that by breaking the rules in a license agreement, the players are violating copyright each time they load the game into computer memory in order to play it.

Public Knowledge argued, however, that Blizzard doesn’t have a claim on copyright grounds because the right to make of users to make the copy for use by the computer is already guaranteed by law. According to the brief: “Therefore, Blizzard cannot claim any infringement of its copyrights based upon the creation of RAM copies because the right to make those copies was never Blizzard’s to license in the first place.”

For the complete press release go to: http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1547