Thorough Ivestigation of Banning? -let's do the math

Why doesn't ANet go another route to dealing with botters as well as banning?

For example when people log in, ask them not to visit sites that sell gold or advertise gold sellers. Less customers and less ad referrals would be a big deterrant to both.

Another option would be a reward for the player base (that would be difficult for the botters to program in) if the number of botters drop signifigantly and stay that way, like a new monster that is randomly placed in a zone (outside a normal botting route) and drops 1K gold and 1 gold item for every person in the party (he'd only have the extra drop once per person per weekend event).

Copyright infringement falls under domain of using someone's work without their permission.

You are using copyrighted material ie: the game's client.
You are using the server/bandwidth.
You are selling copyrighted material ie: gold/ecto/weapons whatever.

The whole "we arent doing anything wrong, we are selling a service" excuse is exactly that, an excuse.

The service is built around someone else's work. Without that work, the service wouldnt exist. We're not talking about an independent business that provides its own content or product or service.

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If i started using copyrighted songs to make money, that would be a more obvious and easily understood violation.

What makes it different from using a copyrighted client, copyrighted armor, copyrighted monks, copyrighted spells, copyrighted skills, copyrighted everything, to sell copyrighted gold for real money?

lyra's right folks. In a nutshell, gold sellers are selling something they don't own and don't have a right to sell. Simple enough... that constitutes fraud by leading people to believe that you can legally sell them something you can't.

No. Plain and simple, no. Copyright is not about using someone's work to produce another work. It is about creating and publishing a derivative work that contains, in part or in whole, that original work. Not about using it, or producing other works with it, or providing services with it.

When I read (use) a book copyrights are not involved, whether I bought, borrowed or even stole the book. Only when I write another book and base that in whole or in part upon the book (story, characters) I read, copyrights becomes involved.

MS Word is a copyrighted software. The book I write using that copyrighted software is not an infringement on MS's copyrights. That would be ludicrous.

When someone installs and or/maintains Windows and gets paid for that service, that is not an infringement of copyright, even though that particular service could not exist without the software.

No, he is not, and you are not. Gold Sellers are selling something they own, their time and effort, or rather, the buyer's time and effort (or lack thereof).

And how does that not fit gold selling? The so called "derivative work" contains ALL of the "original work" since it exists in the same copyrighted client.

Agreed.

But the book you write is not a PART of MS Word. Your book could be written on any other software. Word is not intrinsically linked to your work.

The Gold that is being sold is PART of the client. Its programmed data that represents money in the game. The gold being sold is intrinsically linked to the client because it IS part of the client.

Servicing a software and installing/maintaining it is radically different from from taking chunks of a software and selling it.

You installed the software. Anet is servicing/maintaining it. Goldsellers are niether.

So, if I steal a car and sell it to someone else, it's OK if I claim I'm just selling my time and effort to get the car (or rather the buyer's lack of time and effort saved from having to go through a dealer, credit checks, et.al.)? Your argument not only borders on lunacy; it's encompassed by it. Time and Effort is not a valid argument when you don't own the item you're trying to sell in the first place!

ANet "owns" the virtual gold. They specifically do not permit anyone to sell their gold for real world cash. Anyone doing so can, if they chose to persue it, be slapped with Fraud.

They are not taking and selling chunks of the software. In essence it is the time and effort normally required to collect the gold in-game that is sold. The time and effort the buyer saves and the time and effort invested by the seller.

The sellers thus provide a service (of time and effort) and claiming copyright infringement is, in my opinion, not a very solid path to combat it.

Claiming that those gold sellers abuse ANet's resources - as you suggested - would probably be a better legal approach. If the numbers on banned bot-accounts are correct, a substantial part of processing and network resources would be consumed by the bots operated by those gold sellers and essentially ANet's operational costs are increased by these people.

The gold is the intellectual property of ANet. They have granted you permission to obtain said gold within normal gameplay for your personal use in game using all the time and effort you see fit. They specifically forbid the use of their property for sale for real world cash. That is clearly spelled out, and it is their right to remove you from the game for failure to comply.

I took a break and looked up the legal definition of fraud. Selling ANet's gold seems to walk the line of fraud... I'd dare say the winner goes to the better lawyer should it ever be brought to that point.

The argument is that.....Gold Sellers are a service industry, and as such, they have no end product to sell, only the service is for sale, and such sale of service is legal and non-infringing.

However compare to other service industries like...say....landscapers. They take your property, and make it all pretty and you pay them. But in the end, its still something that belongs to you in the first place. They never sold you anything. Same with other service industries; hairstylists, manicurists, waiters, carpet cleaners, plumbers, repairpeople, prostitutes.

Now....Goldsellers are explicitly different in that theres a transfer of ownership of something from player to player for money. This is not a service. This is a product that is being sold.

The only thing that fits as a service would be if you paid someone to take your account and farm with it. This would be, no doubt in my mind, a service. A ToS violation...but not a copyright violation.

They do not take anything away from ANet by selling game-gold for real cash, comparing it to car-theft is ludicrous. As is the idea that 'gold' would be the 'intellectual property' of ANet. Come on, NWN had gold, most RPG's use either 'gold' or 'credits' as currency and for centuries real gold was a currency.

The copyright and intellectual property approach is without merit, IMO. They aren't stealing and selling 'gold' or copyrighted material. They are selling time and effort.

If you're looking for something more substantial being stolen you'd better look at the resources and payed for required to run the servers that are abused by the bots that farm for gamegold.

Sigh ... and they still own this 'virtual gold', no matter how often it is sold on ebay and when ANet shut down their servers, it's all gone.

No, not fraude. Selling gold just against the agreement. If someone plays the game and trades game-gold for real cash, they break their agreement with ANet. But please explain how you think this is fraude?

You are so close to seeing the light...

They are taking virtual gold that does not belong to them and selling it to you in exchange for your real money. They defraud people of their money by fooling them into thinking it's ok to purchase the gold that the seller doesn't own in the first place.

Now let's roll it back to your argument about 'time and effort'. Any sale of any product includes within the sale price the 'time and effort' (costs to produce) of the item, plus the item itself. In all those cases, however, the seller has the legitamite right to sell the product. They own the product being sold. Gold sellers do not. Gold sellers are explicitily forbidden from doing what they do, period.

Amy, I'm sorry but you really don't have a leg to stand on here. I don't feel like getting into a long debate over legal semantics, that's what I was hoping to avoid in the first place. To make it as simple as possible, if these people weren't doing anything illegal, I think that would have been the first reason Gaile would have given as to why Anet doesn't pursue this in a legal forum. I'm sorry, I just can't see any logic to your argument that what these gold sellers are doing isn't copyright infringement.

If they aren't really busy you never know what they like to do even if it means looking into your own computer as they may find other things.In your first post I am glad I talk on alliance chat and press G to go back my Guild Hall no bot could do that.I can't believe that most you throw away your cd keys it is like throwing your house or car keys way.What do you do when you reformat you HDD back the GW file on cd?I would just do a complete clean reinstall of it all in fact I delete my datback file once in awhile.You would need the cd key if you wanted to do a complete reinstall if Anet doesn't provide you with a replacement key.

There is one thing I would like to ask Gaile how long do you keep an account banned before deletion?

[QUOTE]completely wrong as the key is only used one time to set up the account serverside.

type in your login/pass on any pc GW is on and play.

you keep it safe for proof of ownership later if needed and it says not to lose them.

she stated long ago that they are never deleted under any circumstances.

Could you give an actual argument as to why you think that selling gold would be a copyright infringement? Because, despite the fancy words (legal semantics?) your post is actually void of any real content. I've given my reasoning, you've given nothing.

There may be a lot wrong with this gold selling, but it is not a copyright infringement.

You appear to be limiting service to 'changing something that belongs to you', but that is awfully restricted. You can buy information for instance, like a phone number. Providing that information is considered a service but the information is not something you own.

Service is a product, even when it's not something you can touch. You see the (virtual) gold, I see the time the buyer saves as the product, or service that is sold.

There's no copyright violation involved in selling GW-gold on ebay, no matter how you try to turn it.

That is not fraude, the buyer is aware of how virtual this gold is. With the gamegold that is sold, the buyer can buy the virtual thingies in the game as well as the virtual gold he (could have) looted himself. He knows as much and it's exactly why he purchases this gamegold.

So, it would be ok if the buyers were informed that they'd be breaking the ToS by buying gold?

They sell the virtual gold they virtually own in the game. Within the rules of the game-world they do own that gold. In the end the real world product that is sold for real world money, the product the buyer is looking for is is still the time and effort that the buyer saves.

In the real world, they break the Terms of Service, but that does not make it illegal.

[QUOTE=Loviatar] I said that about cd keys because if you knew about older or RTS games that you can play offline for eg. MTW or MTW2 they need cd key if you uninstall them and reinstall them all the time.I keep mine as safty note.I am glad that they will never delete an account even banned.

People arguing that they bought gold sellers time is silly. You know it and Anet know it you want one thing and that isnt their time, its their gold.

Anet I dont think care if you pretend all you wanted was their time as you paid for gold, end of.

I can think of tons of way to not get caught so if you break the rules and dont cover your tracks then thats you fault....

Anet can pretty much ban you for anything from what I have gathered so there is not really anything you can do or anyone to go to if you get banned. If Anet want to ban you for buying someones time I am sure they will. No matter how you play around with words everyone knows gold and gold only is being sold and bought not time.

[QUOTE=Age]i still have my Elder Scrolls Arena key as well as the Baldurs Gate series, Ice Wind Dale Ultima etc

i even keep my windows compatable pixel perfect copy of the original LEGEND of ZELDA on the desktop for a change of play

The services i listed are labor based, which is what goldfarming would equate to. Its about labor, massive amounts of labor for a small harvest.


:/ ya but going to court means convincing a jury or judge exactly that this is fact and not just semantics.

How techsavy and understanding of the situation would a judge/jury be?

Hence the reason we're having the whole arguement as to what would be the best way to approach a court to convict someone who's been goldselling.

What real laws have they broken?

===============

I once posted that we should make the EULA a contract you have to SIGN and VALIDATE your identity, before the game activates, give Anet the ability to prosecute those who violate said contract.

Needless to say, lots of people dont like that idea.

It's not silly at all. Let's have some examples of times that you pay for someone elses time:

In game: I've just come to Lions Arch with my new Nightfall characer and I want to get to Crystal Desert as fast as possible. I pay someone 500g* to run me to Sanctum Cay so I don't have to go through the trouble of getting there myself. I'm paying them for the time it takes them to run me there.
(Possible complaint: all transactions are made in game so they have no value? Clearly, though, the gold has some value to the runner.)
*(I have no idea what the average price is because I don't use runners)

In reality: I go to a car mechanic for a regular tune-up. I get my tires rotated. I have to pay them $2 or something to get it done. I'm paying them for their time and access to their equipment.
(Possible complaint: I own the car and have given permission)

In reality part 2: I have a couple of homework assignments due in a day. One of them is for a class my friend has already taken. I convince him to do that assignment for me, in exchange for a free lunch (Or rather, I pay for the lunch) while I work on the other assignment(s). Once again, I'm paying him for his time.

The last is probably the closest IRL example I can think of for what gold-sellers do. I'm not paying my friend for the homework, I could do it myself (if I hadn't slacked off). I'm paying him for the homework now, in other words, for his time. It also has some of similar ethical issues (should I get a good grade on the homework even though I didn't do it?) as gold selling. Note that like gold selling, it isn't illegal for me to do this, however if the school I go to finds out it can take disciplinary action up to and including kicking me out (a.k.a. banning).

Further more, gold selling isn't illegal (Don't hit reply just yet though! Because I'm in no way supporting it). Some of these arguments about copyright are so far out there I can barely believe it ... Amy is dead on here (and should know that at least one other person here realizes it).

The real problem with selling gold is that it's something we've all agreed not to do in the GW ToS. ArenaNet has agreed to give us access to their game and servers to play GW, and in return one of the things we agreed when creating our account was that we would not sell in game goods for real world goods. We also agreed that we would not use automated stand-alone programs to get in-game goods (main way gold-sellers get gold is botting after all). Therefore, if they find out someone is using a bot, or selling gold for real-world money, they can deny access to their servers because you've violated the contract you agreed to when you signed up. No more, no less.

(EDITed to html->bbcode-ify those italics tags)

All of the threads about "my account got banned!" get locked with people telling them to add their complaint to another thread.

I think we need a "My Account Got Banned!" Megathread.

I found your thread mentioned over at www.gamegoldguru.com and enjoyed reading the posts, so I decided to sign up to post my reply. Unfortunately most of the legal commentary in your thread is provided by individuals clearly lacking legal training. I will address that in more detail below.

It is a fact that banning bot accounts is solely intended as a tax on gold selling. The argument that such bans improve the economy in the game would require the economy in the game to actually follow established macroeconomic principles, e.g. the utilization of a comprehensive monetary policy to manage the supply of gold/money and maintain stable prices. Such a policy simply does not exist, and the makers of Guild Wars cannot blame the gold sellers for their own failure to address the impact of continuously printing money (dropping gold) which has nowhere to go but into circulation.

So ok, you want to ban bots/gold seller accounts in order to get some revenue out of their business. I am disturbed by any company that feels it is acceptable to accidentally punish a single paying customer without cause, even if that coincides with an effort to reach a perceived beneficial goal.

This brings us back to the legal commentary, after all, the evil bots are all maintained by gold sellers that are criminals breaking the law. The fact of the matter is that not every individual in the world is subject to US jurisdiction. The DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) contains a wide variety of provisions, but I challenge you to quote the provision that you feel is applicable to gold selling. It does not exist. Alternatively, cite relevant case law. Again, it does not exist. On a personal note to lyra_song, if you are preparing to study IP law, you may find FairUse.Stanford.edu an interesting read.

I leave you with this thought: Have you ever considered that the game developer might benefit from gold sellers? Every time Guild Wars releases new proud sales figures, it includes bot accounts. Every income statement includes sales of bot accounts. And if some academic research posted at gamegoldguru is to be believed, the entire success of an MMOG greatly depends on the development of gold selling activities in the first place (it's a lot of math and economic analysis, the summary of which here would really exceed any reasonable scope).

Well I have but 1 question to ask of gaile and Anerf. Here it is.

How many accounts have been banned and then unbanned?

Simple fair question. Then we will see if theres a problem or not.

The use of Bots is a breech of the EULA.

ya, i was mistakenly banned when one of these so and so number of bots have been banned. Sent a email to anet to get it all fixed up. Good news is that i got unbanned

Actually we have quite a few stories of players getting banned and then bugging support and getting their account back.
So those bans WERE unjust.
Why does one have to BEG so that A.net fixes the mess they made?

Like this guy:
And why shouldn't the potential buyers be aware of this and maybe look into games where such disasters do not happen?

Of course people who don't deserve to be banned get banned, but you aren't going to tell me that all people who post their "I got banned without any reason" threads really don't have a reason. And that they always tell the whole story. I mean, I've been playing guildwars for more then a year now, and I don't get why people start those threads. While instead they should wonder why they originally got banned. If you download a "mod" for guildwars and a couple of days later you get banned, you should wonder why is it that you got banned.

Of course, the real problem are those guys who come ingame and start saying: "selling ingame gold for money, go to "a certain website" and buy it there, a lot of people do it". I have to admit, it only happened once to me, but I took a screenshot and sended it to the guildwars support team. You can't do anything wrong by doing that.

Banning bots is a tax? You mean like a kickback to crooked politicians? I call shenanigans.

If you mean to imply that Anet and Botters coexist peacefully (with botters paying their dues in new accounts), i think i would heavily disagree.

If you are accusing Anet of unscrupulous business practices, creating an artificial blackmarket to perpetuate a cycle of revenue indirectly through players buying gold, i suggest you present some evidence other than saying "It is a fact".

You continue to build an argument on something you havent proven, merely one line stated as if fact.

I suggest you look at all things people do for a beneficial goal, perceive/false/or real.

Some customers will get burned. Mistakes will happen.

This is gonna happen. Disturbing? Customer Service claiming 100% satisfaction is bullshit. Packages get lost. Typos get made. Shipments get delayed. Bugs get overlooked. Programs crash. Hardware fails.

Its impossible and unrealistic to expect perfection. You cant ban all the bots and expect to not ban some person.

Even if Anet didnt ban botters, there are still other bannable offenses in the EULA and innocent customers can still get misbanned.

Now the question to ask is wether Anet fixes mistake bans. Yes they do, but theres also the fact that some innocent players might have gotten unjustly banned permanently with no appeal. Now thats gotta suck, but thats going to happen.

While i feel really strongly about DMCA as having the proper to citations to back my arguement (since i feel gold selling equates to illegal distribution of content), upon much deeper inspection DMCA only covers illegal distribution other than through the original provider (which in this case, it is still through Anet) or modification of content (which it isnt, its still the same content). As such, you are correct and it is irrelevant to the discussion.

Its very difficult to pin down gold sellers because theres no legal ammendments that have ever taken it into account specifically. There are no cases because no one has ever done it. Hence why i said that losing such a case would be very bad since all future cases would cite it.

Hence the difficulty of prosecuting and risks of losing and proving illegality possibly overcome the positive outcome.

And further hence, the reason we are arguing over the proper direction and means of prosecution.

And even more further hence, the difficulty of prosecuting overseas companies outside of jurisdiction.

Although...laws are being proposed concerning taxation of virtual goods could propogate new laws that would properly allow game companies proper legal control of third parties profitting off their IP (without permission).

---

As an digital artist/graphic designer, theres things about copyright and fair use we need to dance around for my love of Fanart and my own original works.

A lot of people here have already mentioned the seemingly symbiotic relationship of gold sellers and MMORPGs. It doesnt take a math whiz to look at the figures and wonder how many people are bots, and how much do they pay a month to cover the costs of REAL players.

Interpreting the math as the direct motivation rather than a side consequence for such a relationship is still, imo a bad idea.

As an artist, and since quite a few of my friends are in the game dev business, theres nothing more annoying to me than someone who takes something you've slaved over and uses it as a tool for their own gains.

And i would feel inclined that Anet would feel the same, and removing said symbiote is the best course of action



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Oh i have no doubts. You're looking at someone who was falsely banned right now.

But theres also a lot of justly banned players who would have nothing more lovely to do than to post in such a manner that disfigures the facts to make Anet look like a monster.

Theres tons of those now.

I still don't understand who is buying all this gold the bots are farming. It is a clear waste of real money, and the buyers don't get anything for it. Nobody notices armor much - titles have been devalued except those that can't be bought - weapons are a dime a dozen, so why would anyone bother??? It makes more sense to do it all the old fashioned way and then at least you have some feelings of acomplishment for your efforts.

@Hauser

well, Lyra basically said most of it but 2 more things to point out:
It doesn't take a legal expert to realize this is speculation. People will, in fact, charge huge sums of gold for items because they know the likelihood of someone having huge sums of gold is high. There are always people who work for their fortune, & (as long as you let them) there will be people who buy their gold. It does make a difference, granted this is usually on higher end stuff.

Skills, Ident, Salvage, Scrolls, Armor, Weapons, Drinks, Sugar, Keys, Lockpicks, Dye, Insig, Runes .... I don't know about this "failure to address" But I don't know if I buy it.

I'm not sure why people assume everything is "without cause" but let me put it into perspective. Assuming that everyone who was banned was without cause is like me assuming that everyone who complains on the forum about being banned is a evil lying botter. This is silly x10.

Another assumption. Gaile has stated before that the vast majority of bots are stolen (keylogged) accounts. This is reason enough to discourage bots, but you are actually trying to defend them.

Newbies? Wasteful people IRL? Despreate people who want to get that one item in GW that has over inflated ingame market prices?


While I am all for banning bots, like I tried to hint in my first post there are other things that can be done about it. Banning bots is like trying to cork a gaping hole. While it slows the tide a little, it doesn't stop the problem. What needs to be done is a more proactive solution to the game (that doesn't include wow's sniffer software) that fundementally changes how things work.

For example in IRC I once suggested making gold and all items undroppable and untradable (you can still merch them or put them in the trash can). Another option is a daily limit on how many items or gold you can trade away to another player. Not quite as severe but it could put a damper on mega-expensive items (note I'd also have that a stack of items would count against the total for the total number of items in the stack). Someone else suggested an ingame tax. Another idea would be to limit how much a character can have in his inventory to a certain limit of money and armor+items.

Anyways as I said, banning bots is a stopgap solultion and not a longterm one. While anet doesn't have to do somethings as severe as the things I mentioned, if they really want to change botting, they need to change how their game works.

Actually I was banned while farming with my dervish in 15k armor, so even thats not safe. Luckily my account was restored, after sending a few email's letting them know what I thought of their random banning policy.

Well my list was specifically for botters who bot with intent to resell ie: mass bot goldfarmers.

But lets not forget.

There are regular players who bot.

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Id like to point out, that what might seem "random" to us, could be players unwittingly fitting a specific profile of what a botter could be.

We cannot say it is random since we do not know the specifics, and it would be counteractive of them to give those profiles out.

It makes no sense, but thats because we only see one side of the picture.

So Lyra what would be n exceptable loss then. 20,30,40 or more players who were banned and then after the actually investigation were unbanned. shouldnt the actual extensive investigations happen before anyone gets banned? Come on by my count alone ive seen atleast 50+ ppl get banned then unbanned, this is a problem.

Those players aren't regular players - if they bot - they are bots!
And if A.net is on a holy war against bots - then ban them. I really don't care.
They should make sure though that the ppl banned for botting ARE bots. And if they aren't sure - they shouldn't ban.
And since we have a lovely number of players who we're banned for botting and it turned out they weren't - i'd SERIOUSLY look at the whole procedure of banning.
Since its obvious that it has its share of flaws!

lovely number..........how exact that is.............not

Gaile said over 8000 bots were banned last month and the *lovely number* of possibly wrongly banned accounts were a handful and possibly a short handful at that.

and the nice customer service people restored their accounts.

there is truly a point where if you insist on perfect justice or dont do anything there will be no justice at all

No shit!, thanks for pointing that out.

my very first account got banned because i farmed way to long xD, and i didnt use a bot.
but np, i only had Prophecies so i started over again

Just work out the numbers then, 8000 actual bans and how many employees? One job is approx 9600 minutes per month. That's only 72 seconds per actual ban for each employee full time investigating possible botters. That is not much.

I can imagine they have this procedure highly automated and that only when a complaint is made someone will spend some real time on a case. A thorough investigation of all these 8000+ accounts - there are likely more suspects then bans - that are possibly botting could become rather expensive.

But it wouldn't be right to pretend that unjust bannings are rare.

when you know the correct numer of employees covering the bans and have an accurate figure on time you can turn in the pointed hat and leave the corner

that is assuming only one single employee which is stupid since it was stated they have a much larger staff on that job.

and a handful out of over 8000 is rare and they got the mistakes corrected.

tell me - why should i care?
i really don't care how many bots they ban - if any actually.
so if the only way to prevent FALSE bans is to STOP bans - i am all for it.
one false ban is one too many. and all the right ones don't make the false one right.