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  • Update February 2016 - long read

    Discussion in 'Legal' started by bossland, Feb 11, 2016.

    1. winifix

      winifix Member

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    2. z3rocool

      z3rocool Member Legendary

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      People like you are cancer, stop spreading bullshit and starting false rumors about such nonsense.
       
    3. tsukasadt

      tsukasadt Member

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      If everyone is really so impatient to hear something, check out the court website. They post the decisions of court cases there for public access: Der Bundesgerichtshof - Entscheidungen

      At this time, no decision has been posted. I don't know why. What I do know is that just because the case was heard in court on the 6th doesn't mean, by any means, that a decision was made on the same day. We will hear something when we hear it.
       
    4. winifix

      winifix Member

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      doesnt help much Der Bundesgerichtshof - Entscheidungen shows that the court case with the id bossland linked did not take place on the 6/10/2016

      I ZR 253/14, Federal Court of Justice of Germany about Honorbuddy - 6th October 2016
       
    5. tsukasadt

      tsukasadt Member

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      Somebody doesn't know how to work a court website. The case isn't listed because nothing has been posted. That's all. The page provided is for the decisions, not the hearings. I couldn't find a public listing of the hearings. Until there is a decision, they won't post anything up there.
       
    6. Aion

      Aion Well-Known Member Buddy Store Developer

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      Waves happen if they detect something.

      If they do not - they can just batch ban a bunch of player reports or so on.

      Its not like Blizzard are not active on the banwave scene.

      More than 2 of the other (non-bossland) wow bots got wiped at least twice in the timespan of 6 weeks.
       
    7. Molestia

      Molestia Member

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      Impressive at best!
       
    8. Ehnoah

      Ehnoah Member

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      Do we have a Update yet or when will the final law take place?
       
    9. Sweetangel88

      Sweetangel88 New Member

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      @ Ehnoah and ALL THE FINAL LAW IS ON THE 12.01.2017

      Bossland vs. Blizzard: Verhandlung gegen Bot-Anbieter am BGH (1/2) (IN GERMAN/DEUTSCH)

      For ALL other they cant Speak German


      In the ongoing feud of Blizzard with bot vendors, on 6th October 2016, there were two methods to the showdown before the BGH.

      The game provider had allowed Bossland GmbH to ban two bots for World of Warcraft. In a second case, he had succeeded in causing Bossland to no longer duplicate the client software for commercial purposes. Bossland had filed an appeal against both judgments.

      The procedure for using the client has lost Bossland (we reported). The judgment on the first proceedings is still pending. However, Bossland should have little prospect of success, so our impression from the hearing.



      What is the background?

      Blizzard, the developer and provider of games like World of Warcraft (WoW) and Diablo III, has been active for a long time actively against the use of bots in their own games. In doing so, the company not only blocks accounts from players using bots. Blizzard wants to combat the phenomenon at the root and is leading numerous processes directly against the developers of such automation software. The trial against Bossland before the BGH was the next round in a fight for Bots for World of Warcraft, which has been going on for years, and on which we have reported several times.


      Impressions from the competition: competition and trademark law

      In the proceedings I ZR 253/14, Blizzard's complaint against the distribution of the bossland bots "Honorbuddy" and "Gatherbuddy" was discussed. Two fundamental questions arose. First, it was necessary to clarify whether the distribution of bots is already prohibited under competition law. Secondly, it was about whether the designation of the software as "World of Warcraft Bot" and "WOW Bot" infringed the trademark rights of Blizzard. Analyzes of the pre-instance judgment are given here, as well as - very extensively - by the colleagues of Telemedicus.


      competition law

      In the competition dispute, the judges first observed that German law was applicable to the action. This is based on Article 40 (1) (1) of the Civil Code and Article 6 of the Rome II Regulation. The regulation of § 3 TMG, which is used by the lower court, is not a collision standard. Blizzard was also a competitor to Bossland.

      Required for the disputed obstruction according to § 4 No. 10 UWG a.F. (Now § 4 no. 4 UWG) is that the prohibition of automation software contained in the terms of use is binding for the players. The question was raised about the legal nature and verifiability of the rules of the game. While the Landgericht had classified the WoW-Spielregeln at first instance as legally control-free, the OLG had left this question expressly open. The BGH now indicated that it could possibly be about GTC.


      The chairman, Prof. Dr. Büscher, stated that players of an MMORPG usually conclude two contracts: A first contract conclusion is made when purchasing the client software, a second when setting up the Battle.net account. This probably does not change the UsedSoft decision. He explained that the ECJ had not even dealt with a work consisting of several programs. In terms of content, the question of the transparency of clauses should also be examined. However, they used the concept of automation software (Bots).

      According to BGH, an indirect influence on the game in the area of ​​competition law may be that the players are misled into using the automation software. They can no longer be measured and communicated with each other without restriction. It also had to be clarified how to deal with the question that Blizzard itself offers additions to his game.

      The BGH acknowledged great doubts in the presentation of the revision that concrete losses would have to be put forward for a competition offense. A certain prognosis is also necessary in the case of preventive injunctive relief, the defendant's lawyer argued. This, however, contradicts both the commentary and the explicit wording of the legal foundation. Moreover, reactions from dissatisfied customers were also cited specifically.

      Just as critically, the judges saw the argument, Bot software could also attract new players. It is doubtful whether Blizzard would win such bot-motivated players as customers at all.


      Trademark law

      With regard to the questions of trademark law, the Federal Court of Justice initially declared that Article 12 of the Community Trademark Regulation (CTMR) did not allow legitimate companies to use foreign marks such as their own trade marks. An infringement may also arise in particular if the distribution of the product thus marked is unfair under competition law.

      It became clear that the question of the applicable law for the claim for damages and damages is a question which needs to be clarified. This reminded the BGH of his "Gartenpavillon" -project at the ECJ (decision of 16.08.2012, Az. I ZR 74/10). The legal assessment is still to be clarified. In the then decision of the ECJ, the Attorney General had probably adopted the theory of the Mosai, but the theory of unity was also conceivable. The literature has different views on this, partly without problem awareness. The BGH explicitly pointed out that the distribution of such software via the Internet may also have to be treated differently from the distribution of physical products across Europe. The question was still to be examined.


      Conclusion

      For the Federal Court of Justice (BGH), some legal questions remain open, in particular under trademark law. So it was not completely surprising that no judgment had been passed on 6 October 2016. The Federal Court of Justice decided on Thursday, 12 January 2017, to make a decision.

      Both Bossland procedures are of great importance to game developers and publishers who want to defend themselves against bot vendors. Although the decision has not yet been taken in the competition and trademark-based process, judges tended to tend to share Blizzard's view.

      In both cases, of course, it remains to be seen how the BGH justifies its decisions. We will report!

      Note: This post is based on the impressions from the hearing. The full text of the decisions is not yet available. It is merely a preliminary presentation of the course of the hearing and no legal representation of the dispute.
       
    10. lolp1

      lolp1 New Member

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      Not too good :p
       
    11. z3rocool

      z3rocool Member Legendary

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      From what I read, it's not looking to swell for Bossland this upcoming January.
       
    12. wallyworld

      wallyworld Banned

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      Yup, once the appeal fails, which it very much sounds like it will, we may not have HB for much longer.
       
    13. Mario27

      Mario27 Banned

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      mutch more people wil go away since the bans are randomly people buying new accounts getting banned afther 3 4 days with battlechest accounts just by questing not that there are banwaves but some people just getting triggered they are not stupid to trow away money like that anymore.
       
    14. wallyworld

      wallyworld Banned

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      Same as always...

      I have absolutely zero clue what point you're trying to make with your posts.

      I have no clue how you can compare the courts telling Bossland they can no longer run their bot and someone getting themselves banned. They aren't even in the same universe as far as resemblance goes.
       
    15. Aion

      Aion Well-Known Member Buddy Store Developer

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      All of the posters above have failed to read the last and most important line:

      So we should make conclusions from the blog of a random journalist, seriously?

      If someone have brain, would obviously make assumption, that if this case was so "easy" for the supreme judges, they would just rule it against Bossland GmbH (like this was the feeling of the random journalist) but obviously, this would not happen for reasons, only the Supreme judges are aware of, so they very unusually postpone the decision for 12th of January.
       
    16. wallyworld

      wallyworld Banned

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      The insight is from a lawyer, not a journalist..It also happens to appear on a website dedicated to these types of lawsuits...
       
      Last edited: Nov 7, 2016
    17. Energie

      Energie New Member

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      I don't think Bossland will go down that easily. We are talking about massive amount of money this company makes out of bot. They won't go out of business just like that.
       
    18. wallyworld

      wallyworld Banned

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      If the courts order Bossland to immediately stop selling HB and order the servers shut down, it could happen just like that...

      I don't think the Buddy team will go out of business, but that could be the end of all their Blizzard bots.

      Just because a company makes money, it doesn't mean they can go against a court order...

      And the amount of money the buddy team makes is chump change compared to Blizzard.
       
    19. Myra

      Myra Member

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      I seriously wish you are right in your assessment and pointing out to the indeed unusual procedure of postponing the final verdict to Jan. 2017.
      However, as wallyworld has rightly pointed out, the blogtext was not written by a random journalist, but an IT and software specialized lawyer. He clearly stated, that his blog entry was his impression of the matter as well as his personal perception of what and how it was being handled.

      That said, I still hope you are right and his impression succumbs to the same illusion as the polls regarding the US presidential election did...


      Edit: And after the recent banhammer, hopefully there's light at the end of the tunnel coming January.
       
      Last edited: Nov 10, 2016

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