Law question... interesting

my friend brought this up to me and i told him that it was retarded and that the company couldnt do anything. heres the story…

http://iro.ragnarokonline.com/support/operationrule.asp

Scroll all the way to the bottom and read:

"Use of illegal automated programs, Scripts, and Computers.

The use of any illegal automated program (Ex. 3 rd party bot) or system, devices, computers, or scripts on RAGNAROK Online is strictly prohibited and may result in criminal liability under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Section 1030 of the United States Code . Violators will be prosecuted to the full extend of applicable law and may also liable for the punitive damage. GRAVITY may terminate and permanently disqualify any users who, in its sole discretion, determines as being in violation of these Terms of Service. All decisions by GRAVITY are final."

Well this is some game that a few thousand (in the US… millions world-wide) people play. They subscribe monthly and pay something like 12 bucks a month. Some people use bots so that they kill monsters and pick up whatever items it drops automatically. The company doesnt like this and bans the people who it catches - which is fine. Now they have had enough of it and claim that they are going to prosecute people that they catch. Now it seems REALLY silly and retarded for a company with 17 million subscribers world-wide paying 12 bucks a month (almost 2.5 billion a year) to make this claim. What the hell can they say… “this guy paid for a service, he broke the rules and hurt no one, but made a little fake money. We want to sue him.” ???

Seems pathetic to me. So can they do anything?

Its fairly simple to see why.
The game is there to reward people who play, not people who dont play.

Bots can ruin the gaming experience by killing other peoples monsters. Its not fair that bots can take the kills people who are actually playing the game for entertainment.

It also can lead to in game economy problems. People have limitations to how long they can play (obviously they must sleep/eat/work presumably), but if everyone could be ‘playing’ 24 hours a day, its quite feasible that the in game economy could be flooded with ‘fake money’ (but still quite real to the gaming experience) and ruin the experience of gamers.

Basicly, the game isnt designed to be played to be harvested, and Ive seen it in other games. They degrade because of exploitation, because the mechanics arent designed for what your doing.

IANAL to start.

Also, companies can reserve the right to boot anyone, as long as they inform there customers of the rules.

If the rules are seen as inappropriate, go somewhere else is a perfectly legitmate company stance.

But a company has to prove malicious damage, irreversable damage. The company merely provides a forum for people to play, and charges. It doesnt own what goes on. I doubt it’d be able too.

I think a more appropriate legal action would be a player to sue a player… But still wouldnt win.

I am not trying to argue for the people using the bots, I just don’t see what the company would charge the players with?

After reading the whole act which they cite (http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/1030.html), I can only find one thing which would be remotely close to what they claim charge.

section (a)(7):

“Whoever - with intent to extort from any person any money or other thing of value, transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to cause damage to a protected computer;”

nitpick: companies dont charge people, they file law suits. Law suits can be a lot more ‘frivilious’ then charges, hence why you see a lot of stupid stuff in the news.

Nitpick(s): You know he was asking which of the elements of the criminal statute the company would seek to have the user prosecuted under.

The word is frivolous.

The word is than.

Hence why?

:frowning:

Any other ideas?

While I am a lawyer, I practice patent/trademark law and so fraud is not something that I’ve dealt with on a regular basis. Accordingly, what I’m about to write is my personal opinion, albeit flavored with some legal background. This AIN’T a legal opinion jack.

Anyway, your buddy just signed a contract and agreed to abide by its terms, one of which states that using bots is considered fraud. This “could” be taken to be an admission on the buddy’s part that he knew using a bot was fraud and did it anyway. Even if it is not an admission, breaking the rules of a game for the purpose of getting ahead is a scenario that could easily result in a fraud conviction. Just think about what would happen if you used a bot to increase your chances of winning the lottery.

Would a company ever try to get someone criminally prosecuted. Not unless they felt that they could talk the DA into this AND there was a strong case. A single person using bots doesn’t rise the level of harm that a DA would likely consider. However, if the company could show that a significant number of persons were using bots and that their use led directly to some harm, i.e. loss of players, degradation in game play, harm to reputation, then they might be able to get the DA after the rule breakers.

CJ