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Why play when you can glide? Because...

By Chris Bennett, Tudor Carsten, Michael R. Coburn, Sarah Dale-Harris, Pablo Guzman, Danielle (Dani) Lemon, Chris Metcalfe and David Spratley

In 2006, MDY Industries sought a declaration that its "Glider" program that plays World of Warcraft doesn't violate Blizzard's and Vivendi's copyrights. The Arizona District Court ruled in favour of Blizzard and Vivendi, for tortuous interference with contract, contributory copyright infringement, and vicarious copyright infringement. The parties then agreed that the court should hold a bench trial regarding three outstanding issues.

On January 30th, the court released its ruling, concluding that:

1. MDY was trafficking in anti-circumvention technology;

2. the president of MDY should be personally liable because he knew that MDY was infringing Blizzard's and Vivendi's rights, and he supervised the infringing activities, and he profited from them personally; and

3. Blizzard and Vivendi are entitled to a permanent injunction against MDY.

A copy of the order is available here.

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Full post as published by Video Game Law Blog on February 12, 2009 (boomark / email).