Addons free from now on, per Blizzard: KeyClone okay?

[keyclone]

Keyclone isn't an addon, but it specifically interacts with WoW (I think. If anyone wants to correct me, please do)

keyclone does not interact anymore with wow than it does with notepad. the only wow specific additions i made were the username and fps settings. keyclone is as much of an addon as the G15 is.


anyone that thinks it is worth it to work for donations, you really have no understanding of the subject matter. let's say an add-on takes 2 weeks to code, that is 80 hours of work. let's say the dev puts a $10 donation button on his site and had 100,000 people download it over 6 months from his domain, which costs him $25/mon. total cost: 6 * $25 = $150 + 80 hrs work. and that does not add the support costs of updates. let's say it takes 2 hours for tweaks every month... tack on another 12 hours. 92 hrs work in 6 months.

if 0.1% of the downloaders donate, you'd be doing well. that would be 100 people... @ $10 ea == $1000. subtract the web fee, and he's @ $850, or about $142/mo. and he would be doing about 15 hrs/mon support on average... so the add-on brought him about $9.50/hr

yea, that was worth it. he'd make more selling accounts. ($300/account ... 10 days to create 5x level 80.. 15 accounts per month == $4500/mon)

i am by no means suggesting anyone sell accounts, i'm just trying to give context.

[Svpernova09]

I must be one of the few people that questhelper doesn't bother / slow down. I've disabled it, and seen no performance boost.

[Bigfish]

keyclone does not interact anymore with wow than it does with notepad. the only wow specific additions i made were the username and fps settings. keyclone is as much of an addon as the G15 is.


anyone that thinks it is worth it to work for donations, you really have no understanding of the subject matter. let's say an add-on takes 2 weeks to code, that is 80 hours of work. let's say the dev puts a $10 donation button on his site and had 100,000 people download it over 6 months from his domain, which costs him $25/mon. total cost: 6 * $25 = $150 + 80 hrs work. and that does not add the support costs of updates. let's say it takes 2 hours for tweaks every month... tack on another 12 hours. 92 hrs work in 6 months.

if 0.1% of the downloaders donate, you'd be doing well. that would be 100 people... @ $10 ea == $1000. subtract the web fee, and he's @ $850, or about $142/mo. and he would be doing about 15 hrs/mon support on average... so the add-on brought him about $9.50/hr

yea, that was worth it. he'd make more selling accounts. ($300/account ... 10 days to create 5x level 80.. 15 accounts per month == $4500/mon)

i am by no means suggesting anyone sell accounts, i'm just trying to give context.

I stand corrected. Thank you.

Concerning working for donations though, there is a certain degree of incentive analysis to it, namely, if no one thinks the good will be retracted, no one will donate. If the good is genuinely valued and the public is aware of the need for donations, you may get enough to keep providing it. Or not. Donations are a crummy business model that way. Really, if anyone was going to work for donations I would suggest a forward looking model with a monetary goal that ensures you have enough cash to cover your immediate expenses and a period of time until your next donation drive.

Anyway, developing anything with the express intent of distributing it and taking donations is a pretty poor decision to begin with, particularly if you intend to do so as a significant source of income without an idea of what your pay off will be. Of course, at the same time, how much of this stuff was created at the author's leisure, for fun or to help them put together a significant project for their portfolio? I would argue such projects, while potentially commercially viable, do not fall under the "doing-it-as-a-living" umbrella.

Edit: Oh, and your selling characters example is a bit silly, as it only considers the revenue of selling the character without consideration to the cost of account creation or capital investment (ie, the computer(s) you're running this on), and seems to be based on a flat multi-boxxing 5 characters to 80 in ten days, as well as sets the price of 300$ to whatever gear level you're associating with said 80s. Indeed, potentially viable, but in no certain terms a definitive money maker. The example relies entirely on a number of variables which may or not be accurate.

[dubiox]

Keyclone isn't an addon, but it specifically interacts with WoW (I think. If anyone wants to correct me, please do)

keyclone does not interact anymore with wow than it does with notepad. the only wow specific additions i made were the username and fps settings. keyclone is as much of an addon as the G15 is.

I don't think we can rely on common sense any more. You might want to read paragraph 2 on page 6 of the summary judgment ruling on the glider case. http://www.scribd.com/doc/3952427/MD...Ariz-No-062555

-K

[keyclone]

@dubiox
reading that section, i guess you think keyclone copies wow into memory. it does not. windows copies wow into memory when it runs the application. furthermore, at no point in time does keyclone reference any memory occupied by Blizzard's copyrighted material.

[Souca]

Maybe Microsoft / Intel should prohibit Blizzard from makeing a profit off of the use of their products.

Although "WoW" is a popular addon to Windows, seems that Microsoft has full control of what runs on THEIR software.

Blizzard paid for the right to develop their software. They paid for the compilers, which even if not written by MS, paid for the right to include runtime libraries to let them run on Windows. Anyway, the analogy is far from a good fit.

I write software for a living, I'm stating this upfront so my bias is clear.

I look at it this way, without WoW, the addons won't work. So someone pays for an addon, which requires WoW to work, what does the addon developer pay to Blizzard for making WoW? It's isn't your monthly subscription and it isn't the developers if they even have one. No where did the developer recieve rights to make profit off of a derivitaive work.

Keyclone and HotKeyNet and all the other MB programs work outside of WoW. This only affects programs that rely on WoW's internal APIs to even exist.

Edit: Replied before I saw this was 80 bazillion posts long. Still stand by my statement.

- Souca -

[dubiox]

It has nothing to do with what I think. It is how the district court interpreted that ninth circuit case that is relevant. Now read paragraph 1, page 5 of that same document. Scary stuff.

Don't get me wrong, I think the policy sucks. If it were my code I'd probably get a professional opinion. On the other hand, it looks like glider got bad advice that they should sue blizzard. If so, it appears that was a big mistake. But who could have predicted that outcome? Maybe I would just wait and use estoppel and laches as defenses. Like, hey you allowed me to write thousands of lines of code for years and now suddenly you pulled the rug out from under me? No way!

I code for someone else and let them deal with the legal issues.

-K

[keyclone]

@dubiox
it would depend on how [that which must not named] 'copied' wow into memory. i believe [that which must not named] read wow from disk and played games with the binary. in that scenario, [that which must not named] would have an issue as they accessed the binary directly, which gave them much better control over the functionality of the game.

if they simply did an exec call, which tells the OS to launch a program... just like every shortcut does... then i would be balking at that paragraph... as the body of the exec call would not be within [that which must not named], but within the OS. it was within the body of the exec call that would have opened the binary, loaded it into memory, and hooked up the dlls.

i have never installed or run [that which must not named], so i have no direct knowledge of the subject

[Sam DeathWalker]

Its just an improper business decision.

You always want more people involved with your product. Having a platform that lets others maximize their revenue from their work cannot possibly hurt your income.

Microsoft COULD eliminate competion for Word or IE explorer by not allowing others to make word processors or browsers for windows, would that benifit them? I think not.

This whole situation where companies claim to own your work product seems questionable to say the least. You develope a character using their product, and they claim they own it ....?

Does Home Depot own the house you made with their hammer?

What if Microsoft suddenly stated that all products made with visual basic (and which could not exist without visual basic) are their property?

What if Intel said that everthing made with their processors is their property?

What if Ford said that everything moved with their cars is their property?

What if your landlord said that everything you think of while on his property is his property?

I don't know its just bad business on Blizzard part.


Assuming it gets published, The district court judgement has no effect of law beyond the district in which the judgement was issued. No other court is REQUIRED to follow it. If its appealed to the Ninth Circuit THEN their decision would be law for all states in their jurisdiction (big area by the way). Others can cite to the district court opinion as an example but no other court is required to follow it.

Here is the more recent order:

http://www.exclusiverights.net/wp-co...inment-inc.pdf

They havn't even started the appeal process yet. Its not even a published decision yet, if its not published it's of no consequence except to the parties involved.

Ok cool they are going to appeal:

http://www.mmoglider.com/legal/mar10_2009.pdf

So its to early to say anything.

The permanent injunction set forth in this
paragraph shall be stayed pending appeal

Lol he lucked out there.

Bond Requirements for Stay of the Money Judgment. MDY and Michael
Donnelly shall place all present and future profits obtained from the sale of Glider or other
operations of MDY, including all monies set aside by MDY and Donnelly from the
commencement of this suit, in an escrow account approved by Blizzard. Such funds shall
remain in escrow pending further order of the Court. MDY shall report its monthly income
and expenses to Blizzard during the pendency of the appeal. Within 30 days after all appeals
being exhausted, the parties shall file a joint status report regarding the appropriate
disposition of the escrow funds

Lucked out there to ...


Well. Looks like Judge was happy to allow appeal.

Anyway that case is on appeal and we will see what the Ninth Circuit has to say.


You know thinking about ti all this new move on Blizzard Part might be to shore up their claim they are only granting limited linces to their users, as if someone else is making money from a wow direvitie product without engaging in copyright infringment, then why isnt MDY also not violating copyright. Timeing seems proper, order on the 10th and new policy comes out a week or so later.

I mean how is it that MDY is engaging in copywrite infringment but carbonite is not?



Also mdy was advised to sue so that they could get a favorble venue (arizonia), had blizzard sued first the case would be heard in southern california no doubt with more likely favorable outcome for Blizzard.

[RobinGBrown]

Its just an improper business decision.

You always want more people involved with your product. Having a platform that lets others maximize their revenue from their work cannot possibly hurt your income.

Microsoft COULD eliminate competion for Word or IE explorer by not allowing others to make word processors or browsers for windows, would that benifit them? I think not.

This whole situation where companies claim to own your work product seems questionable to say the least. You develope a character using their product, and they claim they own it ....?

Does Home Depot own the house you made with their hammer?

What if Microsoft suddenly stated that all products made with visual basic (and which could not exist without visual basic) are their property?

What if Intel said that everthing made with their processors is their property?

What if Ford said that everything moved with their cars is their property?

What if your landlord said that everything you think of while on his property is his property?

I don't know its just bad business on Blizzard part.

Lets say you own some property and the tenants pay rent to you.

You find out that the tenants have been subletting the property to someone else.

According to the Deathwalker principles above your tenants are entitled to make whatever monies they like out of your property.

There is a clear precedent in business that users of a product are not allowed to make money off that product unless specifically contracted to do so.

Really this whole thread is just QQ.