The Legality of “Rogue” Bots in Virtual Worlds

Blizzard’s “World of Warcraft” is the world’s most popular “massively multiplayer online role-playing game,” with over 11.5 million monthly subscribers who battle in virtual fantasy worlds. For players to compete effectively, they must build skills, acquire assets, and win quests—all of which ups their experience level, making them more powerful in the game. So when MDY, and its founder Michael Donnelly, created an intelligent “bot” (called “Glider”) to automatically take control of players’ avatars to gain power for players while away from their computers, Blizzard became concerned.

After Blizzard requested that MDY stop its allegedly infringing and tortious activities, the companies landed in federal court in Arizona. Following summary judgment and trial, MDY was found to have infringed Blizzard’s copyrights, unlawfully circumvented the DMCA, and tortiously interfered with Blizzard’s contracts. As a remedy, the court imposed not only an injunction and damages on MDY, but found its owner, Donnelly, personally liable. MDY appealed the case to the Ninth Circuit, where it is now pending. Oral argument is scheduled for later this fall.

Listen to a cutting-edge discussion on intellectual property, contract, property, and tort law in MDY v. Blizzard, a case pending at the Ninth Circuit involving Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, a virtual game world where millions of players’ “avatars” battle online every day, and MDY’s intelligent (and allegedly rogue) Glider “bots” that enhance the powers of the avatars.

Ted Sichelman (Moderator), Professor, University of San Diego Law School, San Diego, CA, and Affiliated Scholar, UC Berkeley Center for Law & Technology.
Greg Lastowka, Professor, Rutgers Law School, Camden, NJ,
a foremost expert on “the law of virtual worlds” and author of the forthcoming Virtual Law (Yale University Press, 2010).
Shane McGee, Partner, Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, Washington, DC, who is arguing the case for Blizzard.

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