Legality of Botting Analysis

[bigelectron]

Hey guys,

I just recently got back to pd and heard you guys are moving away from rr and working on a new bot. Also found out someone I used to know is being sued for developing/distributing bots by Jagex. So I spent a couple of hours today researching and put together an analysis of the state of the law in the US that will be informative for you guys.

The article can be reached at: http://legalbinary.wordpress.com/2011/05/23/botting-the-legality-of-mmo-automation/

Can't really keep the formatting and post it here but if you guys find the content helpful feel free to copy/paste it wherever in the forum.

[Xuri]

I was using glider up to the point they took it down for the lawsuit. I'm glad to finally get the end result as I lost interested in WoW as soon as I could stop botting on offraid days.

I believe we need to move away from "botting" and onto "game playing automaton." Ex: This here is Bobby. Bobby is a mentally retarded savant AI and loves to play XXXX game. He may not be good at anything else. Bobby is not a citizen, but should it be denied the right to play the video game? How dare they [video game designers, etc] be racist against AI's.

I should read through some EULA/TOS's and see how far this approach would get. So far, I don't think anyone can sue an AI.

[bigelectron]

I was using glider up to the point they took it down for the lawsuit. I'm glad to finally get the end result as I lost interested in WoW as soon as I could stop botting on offraid days.

I believe we need to move away from "botting" and onto "game playing automaton." Ex: This here is Bobby. Bobby is a mentally retarded savant AI and loves to play XXXX game. He may not be good at anything else. Bobby is not a citizen, but should it be denied the right to play the video game? How dare they [video game designers, etc] be racist against AI's.

I should read through some EULA/TOS's and see how far this approach would get. So far, I don't think anyone can sue an AI.

I've been thinking about your post for like 6 hours now trying to figure out if you're trolling or you're serious.

Which one is it?

[Xuri]

Oh, I'm very serious. It's an idea I had a few years ago, but I never had the environment to let it mature. I've been thinking, "Hey, we are looking at this the wrong way. A human replication that is it's own being isn't breaking any of the rules. It's not cheating, it's playing the game for itself." I'll just happen to reap some of the benefits.

I don't think any eula/tos says that the player has to be a sentient human being. Just has to agree to the terms. I don't even know if it has to comprehend them. And if bobby wants to trade some of his stuff to his corp mates/friends, is that breaking any rules? I don't think so.

I know I'm missing some of the proper words to make this argument sound. I've always had a problem getting the ideas in my head down on paper in a format other people can understand.

[bigelectron]

Oh, I'm very serious. It's an idea I had a few years ago, but I never had the environment to let it mature. I've been thinking, "Hey, we are looking at this the wrong way. A human replication that is it's own being isn't breaking any of the rules. It's not cheating, it's playing the game for itself." I'll just happen to reap some of the benefits.

I don't think any eula/tos says that the player has to be a sentient human being. Just has to agree to the terms. I don't even know if it has to comprehend them. And if bobby wants to trade some of his stuff to his corp mates/friends, is that breaking any rules? I don't think so.

I know I'm missing some of the proper words to make this argument sound. I've always had a problem getting the ideas in my head down on paper in a format other people can understand.

I guess since you're serious I'll give you a serious answer...
1)Programs, AIs, Artificial Beigns, etc are not entities/will probably not be considered as such in any jurisdiction for a long time to come, if ever
2)To the courts if you try that arguement you'll just be admitting to coding a program to bot in games, regardless of how you try to word it
3)Assuming arguendo that you can actually get that argument across, "AIs" have no recognized rights, no capacity to contract, no ability to make money and pay monthly fees, and definitely no constitutional rights to do anything.

Does that help?

[Xuri]

I guess since you're serious I'll give you a serious answer...
1)Programs, AIs, Artificial Beigns, etc are not entities/will probably not be considered as such in any jurisdiction for a long time to come, if ever
2)To the courts if you try that arguement you'll just be admitting to coding a program to bot in games, regardless of how you try to word it
3)Assuming arguendo that you can actually get that argument across, "AIs" have no recognized rights, no capacity to contract, no ability to make money and pay monthly fees, and definitely no constitutional rights to do anything.

Does that help?


My legal-nese is not up to par for this. Has there been precedent for which these reasons been tested?

We can argue humans are just programs. The body is the system. We take our initial knowledge (all information stored in DNA) and experiences through life to create the data set we use to function on a daily basis. Humans, therefore, are just extremely complex programs. Our mind even operates on 0's and 1's (neuron impulses).

If we are programs, therefore we are also bots. Then we would be no different from the AI we have made. Just a collection of if/then statements based on the data we have.

Feasible?

[Notme]

In order for your argument to work you would have to program a bot that can actually decide for itself whether or not it wants to play today. Meaning it would have to have real intelligence and decision making abilities. If you can do that then I doubt you would be wasting time playing eve or even writing bots for games, you would write a bot that could control the stock market or some such.

[Xuri]

In order for your argument to work you would have to program a bot that can actually decide for itself whether or not it wants to play today. Meaning it would have to have real intelligence and decision making abilities. If you can do that then I doubt you would be wasting time playing eve or even writing bots for games, you would write a bot that could control the stock market or some such.

What are we basing "real intelligence and decision making abilities" off of? Human standards? If so, that's a terrible standard. If so, I know some people who a simple if/then statement suffices most of their decision making.

EX: If hungry then eat.

They don't care if they are poor, where it is, or what they are eating. Real intelligence is a joke. I know some really dumb people and some very smart people. I know some people who are born with a mental handicap and base their actions off hormones. They law still applies to them, even if they are not sentient.

So I guess all we have to do is recognize that things have rights, even if they are not born from a homo sapien. Oh wait.... apparently animals have rights.

[bigelectron]

What are we basing "real intelligence and decision making abilities" off of? Human standards? If so, that's a terrible standard. If so, I know some people who a simple if/then statement suffices most of their decision making.

That's the first problem, the law doesn't care about theories, your argument is philosophy not law. There is no case that I know of where a program regardless of what intelligence standard is used was deemed to be a person in order to have its "rights" recognized.



So I guess all we have to do is recognize that things have rights, even if they are not born from a homo sapien. Oh wait.... apparently animals have rights.

That's the second problem...even animals which are living things barely have any rights. Animals have the right to what? Not be abused and be killed in a "humane" fashion if we want to eat them? That's not a hell lot of rights, they don't have the right to gainful employment, they don't have the right to associate, they don't have freedom of expression, they don't have the right to be exempt from illegal searches and seizures...they don't have anything, and that's just rights we would have under the US constitution, if you go down the line of common law rights we have that they don't you'll have volumes.

Point being, if there is ever going to be a time when "things" have rights, its not now. Maybe in the future we develop some really really advanced androids with real intelligence and maybe they start demanding rights or something and after years of protest(civil rights movement, gay movement, etc) we recognize those rights. But we're nowhere near that right now. Any program you make that breaches some sort of duty will open you(the creator) for liability, regardless of how advanced it is.

[Durkadur]

I like your point Xuri, but you guys are somewhat getting out of the pictures. Bot will always be used in order to exploit the game economy and either you are developing or distributing a bot, you can be held to that and they will ban you for that, even if you code an AI to play.

[Xuri]

Indeed getting off track a bit, I suppose the question is, "What defines a player?"

[IceHound]

Indeed getting off track a bit, I suppose the question is, "What defines a player?"

as far as CCP is concerned, a player is a person. flesh and blood. born from a womb (as defined in any medical text).

[bob_smith]

for me a player is anyone who can get their ho to do what he says without having to listen to their mutha fuckin problems. oh, wait, that's a playa

[civan]

ITT we listen to some guy having difficulties telling apart humans and AI...

Coming back to the original topic. Writing bots is not a criminal offense outside of US (DCMA ftw), and even there it would take some lobbying. If you fight a civil lawsuit from a company which can spend 3 orders of magnitude more on it than you, then go to FAIL, do not pass go, don't collect any profits.

Regarding your blog, I would day that if you live in US you are already pretty screwed if you do anything that includes reverse-engineering (and not bending over to be bummed by mr corporation with vendor lock-in), luckily it is not the only place where you can develop such tools ;).

Regarding your friend at Ipsoft, his mistake was simple. He registered a company and tried to sell a bot like a squeaky clean product. There are loads of mechaninsms on the internet to shift shady to downright illegal goods, and creating a company and persumably putting yourself down as a director isn't one of them.

[IceHound]

ITT we listen to some guy having difficulties telling apart humans and AI...

Coming back to the original topic. Writing bots is not a criminal offense outside of US (DCMA ftw), and even there it would take some lobbying. If you fight a civil lawsuit from a company which can spend 3 orders of magnitude more on it than you, then go to FAIL, do not pass go, don't collect any profits.

Regarding your blog, I would day that if you live in US you are already pretty screwed if you do anything that includes reverse-engineering (and not bending over to be bummed by mr corporation with vendor lock-in), luckily it is not the only place where you can develop such tools ;).

Regarding your friend at Ipsoft, his mistake was simple. He registered a company and tried to sell a bot like a squeaky clean product. There are loads of mechaninsms on the internet to shift shady to downright illegal goods, and creating a company and persumably putting yourself down as a director isn't one of them.

im really sorry... i must have missed something because your post has me completely lost.

[civan]

You would have to read the wall of text on his blog ;), that is what most of the post is refering to.