Friday, March 20, 2009

Glider lawsuit

I found out that glider has stopped yesterday. Here is what I posted on zolo forum yesterday:
I just found out glider lost the suit (partially anyway, pending appeal).

I was shocked as why violating EULA became a violation of law issue. I was confident glider will win because they didn't do anything unlawful.

Spend an hour today reading copy right law and I thought they could use section 109 and 117 as defense. But after reading some of the court text, it appears that glider's lawyer already used such defenses. If a judge change the law, all following law suits must follow precedent.

I will have to take time to read through the entire context, but before that all donations will be suspended, no new keys will be issued. From the judge, seems to me that the commercial nature of glider is the main down fall (I can't figure out why section 117 is throw out, so that got be the reason). From the text, the judge seems to indicate that there is chance of appeal.

From the beginning, this bot is not meant to make money. If that is the case I will do more than $1 per charge because of the paypal overhead. My donations to charities for a single year is many times higher than all the donations combined. My initial goal is to share this tool with like minded people in similar situations, for it is man with wife/gf argos or students need focus on their homework. The donation, no matter how small, will enable blizzard's argument that I profited from this and such is guilty. So donation is taken out.

Those already donated, the key will keep working till expire.

I will find time to read the entire section of the verdict and the law.


So what I did yesterday is disable donation. I am sure that will 100% make zoloFighter covered under section 107, fair use law. Of course because I can't call a judge to confirm that, I have to do more digging myself.

Since then I have found several links and other people's discussions, I will post another blog today.