Originally posted by: SunnyD
Originally posted by: doornail
Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
Would that fall under reverse engineering?
Gah, I hate that the general public has been brainwashed into thinking reverse engineering is bad or illegal. Reverse engineering is GOOD and LEGAL. It's the moral equivalent of building a go kart with a lawnmower engine. Research towards compatibility and alternative use.
Companies push abusive EULA's that attempt to get you to surrender rights you have as a consumer. Sometimes the courts agree with these, like the awful BNET ruling, and sometimes they don't but you cannot go to jail over it. It's a civil matter. EULA's are not laws or contracts. They are "wish lists' where you are forced to promise not to do stuff that you are allowed to do so -- just so you can install the &*#&$# software because now the shrinkwrap is broken and you can't return even if you want.
The way I see it, some folks plunk down $50 for a copy of WoW and now they have CD's. If they want to use them to prop up a table leg, or for a stencil, windchimes, or connect to a free, experimental server there's nothing wrong -- provided they are not transferring copyrighted materials, i.e. all the blizzard models, art, and sound files stay on the PC of the purchaser only.
Quite the contrary. When the DMCA came out, it essentially outlawed reverse engineering.
Now what you can do is claim fair use, that the packets were broadcast to your home and thus you can do whatever you like with them. However, that won't fly, since the packets were not broadcast, but specifically requested from the server by your client by you, thus binding your access to the EULA.
And as much as you wish (and I hate) EULA's were not laws or contracts, you are sorely mistaken. A EULA is a broadly worded binding contract that you have the option to excercise your right not to accept by uninstalling and returning the software to the publisher/manufacturer. Should you click through the EULA, regardless of your ignorance of what it says, you just agreed to use the software binding to the terms set forth within the EULA.
And while it sounds like I am defending EULA's, I most certainly am not. They are the stupidest, most convoluted thing ever invented short of Congress. As your line of thought states,
you plunk down $50 for a box with a CD in it, it's yours, and you should be able to do whatever the hell you want to with it (short of claim it as your own work and sell it for profit as such - copyright law is a different matter all together). But you're not plunking down $50 for the box and the CD, you're plunking down $50 for the right to use what's on that CD - the manufacturer is only providing the CD as a distribution medium as a courtesy to you.
It sucks, I know, get over it.
WoW Private servers are indeed illegal as the client EULA specifically spells out that it cannot be used outside of the scope that Blizzard defined in the EULA, which I believe specifically forbids use with any emulated server or 3rd party software.
Now if we could just get rid of EULA's.