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Dev Blog: Client modification, the EULA and you

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Innominate
KarmaFleet
Goonswarm Federation
#121 - 2013-04-18 15:47:56 UTC  |  Edited by: Innominate
CCP Peligro wrote:

We are looking for cheaters, hackers, botters and the likes. We are not looking for EVEMON users. Basically, please don't worry.

And in the process you have declared evemon a bannable utility. Is this a guarantee that evemon is an exception to the rule? What about other applications doing the same thing evemon does, are they okay too? Do they need individual approval? Who does one contact for such approvals?

CCP Peligro wrote:

Hi Entity! There are no blanket threats here, I'm sorry you see it that way.

You have said what amounts to "If you use anything that does any cache scraping you may be banned for it." This is the what the words "blanket threat" mean.
Lallante
Blue Republic
RvB - BLUE Republic
#122 - 2013-04-18 15:47:57 UTC  |  Edited by: Lallante
Entity wrote:
CCP Peligro wrote:
Please, consider the fact that cache scraping can be used for illegitimate purposes which are damaging to the overall health of the game,
Cars can be used to run over people. I don't see the government issuing blanket threats to car drivers.
I honestly thought you were more intelligent than this....

CCP has to state scraping is illegal to justify taking action when it is abused. This doesn't mean they will take action when it is used legitimately in a way that does not constitute an unfair advantage, cheating, evading a deliberate design limitation etc.

The same concepts apply to macros.

Its not a "blanket threat" or "heavy handed policing", its a statement of policy that allows CCP to take the necessary steps to safeguard the game as and when they are required.

Imagine the counterexample: CCP states Cache Scraping is NOT a breach of the EULA. Now if they ban people for ILLEGITIMATE, "cheating" uses of cache scraping those people will be justifiably upset. No company wants to say "X is ok" and then ban people for X.


At the end of the day, this statement that cache scraping is illegal is a statement of general principle so CCP can keep their options open and prevent abusive acts. It doesnt mean anyone is going to be banned for using EveMon.
Haulie Berry
#123 - 2013-04-18 15:48:22 UTC
CCP Peligro wrote:
Steve Ronuken wrote:
Benny Ohu wrote:
is cache scraping what evemon does when it 'sends market data from your eve installation cache to online endpoints'?


Yes


We are looking for cheaters, hackers, botters and the likes. We are not looking for EVEMON users. Basically, please don't worry.



While it's nice that you won't be banning anyone for using Evemon, is it really that wise to selectively enforce the policy like this?

"Cache scraping is against the rules, except when Evemon does it," is a much murkier message than, "Cache scraping is against the rules."
Daquaris
Aegis Victorium
The Initiative.
#124 - 2013-04-18 15:48:29 UTC
CCP Peligro wrote:
Big Jim Slade wrote:
What about all those Overview modifications by changing the overviews .xml file? Are you also checking modified .xml files to see if players are making your game more user friendly and ban them?


Nope, no worries on that one. We are after the hackers, botters and the RMTers.



Which is all well and good, until some combination of software that you have vaguely promised you won't get banned for using (but somehow don't endorse) ends up creating a false positive, and you end up banned as a hacker, botter, or RMTer.
Ranger 1
Ranger Corp
Vae. Victis.
#125 - 2013-04-18 15:49:04 UTC
Terminator 2 wrote:
Just out of curiosity:

I live in a country where the EULA has no legal binding if not presented legally correct aka during establishing a contract with the seller of the product.

This means any EULA presented during and installation process or during using the software after it was already bought is not binding and legally void.

I am however sure that CCP has the right to impose rules and regulatory to their game. But they should do so in a legal way.

Btw. the counry i am speaking of is Germany, the land of legally void EULAs. :)

Which doesn't have any bearing on whether CCP bans you for breaking their EULA what so ever. Smile

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IgnoreTheDroid
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#126 - 2013-04-18 15:49:58 UTC
Cache scraping is against eula... except we won't enforce it on some things that use it but we will allow the players to guess at what is allowed..


Glad we got a nice clear and concise definition of what is allowed and isn't.
seth Hendar
I love you miners
#127 - 2013-04-18 15:51:07 UTC  |  Edited by: seth Hendar
Lallante wrote:
Fade Toblack wrote:
CCP Peligro wrote:
Lallante wrote:

Here's a summary:
1. If you do something dodgy to gain an unfair advantage, its almost certainly against the EULA and you may get banned if caught;
2. If you do something reasonable that is TECHNICALLY against the EULA but doesnt harm Eve or qualify as "cheating" in any meaningful sense, you wont get banned and they wont be trying to catch you.


This is spot on, thank you.


No you're still missing the point.

2 DOESN'T MATTER

What matters is what I agreed to when I signed up for the game - which says what is and isn't against the EULA. There's also a paragraph on a wiki that clearly states a particular action is against the EULA.

Posts by devs on the forums stating what currently is being enforced, are certainly interesting, but do not change the agreement I agreed to.


As an actual, RL lawyer I'm going to have to break it to you that this is bollocks. In practice CCP can ban you for no reason at all and you have no legal redress whatsoever


as a RL lawyer, you should be aware that this is dependent of the countrys, and in france, if CCP ban someone with no reason, said person can fill a lawsuit and will win, because of customer protective laws (btw, EULA are of no value at all in France).
Ranger 1
Ranger Corp
Vae. Victis.
#128 - 2013-04-18 15:51:07 UTC
Daquaris wrote:
CCP Peligro wrote:
Big Jim Slade wrote:
What about all those Overview modifications by changing the overviews .xml file? Are you also checking modified .xml files to see if players are making your game more user friendly and ban them?


Nope, no worries on that one. We are after the hackers, botters and the RMTers.



Which is all well and good, until some combination of software that you have vaguely promised you won't get banned for using (but somehow don't endorse) ends up creating a false positive, and you end up banned as a hacker, botter, or RMTer.

If you are that worried about it, don't use it.

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pmchem
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#129 - 2013-04-18 15:51:13 UTC
This 'cache scraping' stance is completely untenable. I am a third party dev. I help design / publish tools, such as http://goonmetrics.com, which players who don't want to lawyer-up the EULA will use. What am I supposed to say? "Hey guys, this is now officially against the EULA (where in the past it has generally been thought to be permitted by the EULA), but don't worry because it's just market data and not a botting program and there are a couple forum posts which say you'll be fine, honest. Oh but by the way if a GM wants to ban you nobody can help because it's against the EULA."

This is insanity.

CCP Stillman wrote:

In regards to enforcement, we don't have plans. It's not at the top of our to-do list. It's simply a case of while it not being allowed by our EULA, it's at our discretion whether or not the effort to enforce it is worth it or not. Right now, we're focused on botting, RMT, client modification that impact other players.


What you really need to do is to modify the EULA to be more specific. Have it actually mention things such as "cache scraping in conjunction with botting". If you make pretty much every evemon user -- nearly every player of the game -- a EULA violator, you're giving GMs or whoever carte blanche to ban as they please. "Hey this guy was cache scraping, and someone somewhere said he was botting. But we know he was cache scraping, off you go!"

Please, for the love of god and the sanity of devs who HELP PLAYERS ENJOY YOUR GAME and are TRYING TO DO RIGHT, fix it so extremely common, "CCP sanctioned" tools such as market data tools or evemon are not against the friggin' EULA.

Really, who comes up with this stuff? Would you stand for this if you were a third party dev? How can you have a policy that makes it so tens of thousands of players can arbitrarily be banned, then say "don't worry it's not a priority?" If you were an EVE player, would you want that Sword of Damocles hanging over your account?

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Danny Centauri
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#130 - 2013-04-18 15:52:33 UTC
I would appreciate clarification on the usage of isboxer specifically as a multiboxing client. What sort of features are legal and illegal for example when mining I use it to view all 10 clients at once on 2 monitors so I can tell which holds are full and need to empty into the orca.

I have also used it in PvP to more effectively manage 5+ accounts and blow things out of the sky, any clarification on what we can and can't do would be appreciated.

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Ranger 1
Ranger Corp
Vae. Victis.
#131 - 2013-04-18 15:53:03 UTC  |  Edited by: Ranger 1
seth Hendar wrote:
Lallante wrote:
Fade Toblack wrote:
CCP Peligro wrote:
Lallante wrote:

Here's a summary:
1. If you do something dodgy to gain an unfair advantage, its almost certainly against the EULA and you may get banned if caught;
2. If you do something reasonable that is TECHNICALLY against the EULA but doesnt harm Eve or qualify as "cheating" in any meaningful sense, you wont get banned and they wont be trying to catch you.


This is spot on, thank you.


No you're still missing the point.

2 DOESN'T MATTER

What matters is what I agreed to when I signed up for the game - which says what is and isn't against the EULA. There's also a paragraph on a wiki that clearly states a particular action is against the EULA.

Posts by devs on the forums stating what currently is being enforced, are certainly interesting, but do not change the agreement I agreed to.


As an actual, RL lawyer I'm going to have to break it to you that this is bollocks. In practice CCP can ban you for no reason at all and you have no legal redress whatsoever


as a RL lawyer, you should be aware that this is dependent of the countrys, and in france, if CCP ban someone with no reason, said person can fill a lawsuit and will win, because of customer protective laws.

LOL! No country forces a company to do business with someone that will not follow the terms of their contract.

Your internet lawyer degree must be out of date.

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Lallante
Blue Republic
RvB - BLUE Republic
#132 - 2013-04-18 15:53:41 UTC
IgnoreTheDroid wrote:
Cache scraping is against eula... except we won't enforce it on some things that use it but we will allow the players to guess at what is allowed..


Glad we got a nice clear and concise definition of what is allowed and isn't.


That's the whole point. If you give people a clear, definitive explanation of what is allowed, smart, bad people will immediately set about exploiting the **** out of the loopholes.

CCP is using deliberately open-ended language in the same way that in many countries, criminal laws do. They want there to a grey area SO that they can approach each case on its own merits and dont have their hands tied when they have to deal with a clearly abusive case which is "technically" on the legitimate side of a clear dividing line.

Its a good policy and one I wholeheartedly agree with as a lawyer.
Jackie Fisher
Syrkos Technologies
#133 - 2013-04-18 15:53:51 UTC
I'm pretty sure all the members of the security team are looking forward to telling Hilmar that they have enforced the EULA and perma-banned 400k accounts for using Evemon. Big smile

Fear God and Thread Nought
Lallante
Blue Republic
RvB - BLUE Republic
#134 - 2013-04-18 15:54:21 UTC  |  Edited by: Lallante
seth Hendar wrote:
as a RL lawyer, you should be aware that this is dependent of the countrys, and in france, if CCP ban someone with no reason, said person can fill a lawsuit and will win, because of customer protective laws (btw, EULA are of no value at all in France).


Incorrect. While a EULA might not be legally enforceable as a contract, that doesn't prevent CCP from refusing access to its services to whoever it likes for whatever reason it likes. At best consumer protection law might get you a refund of unused, pre-purchased subscription time (doesnt apply if you use ISK bought plexs), which will be vastly less than any legal fees incurred, so good luck with that.
Acac Sunflyier
The Ascended Academy
#135 - 2013-04-18 15:54:40 UTC
Does this include a visual modification to make everything look like star wars ships?
None ofthe Above
#136 - 2013-04-18 15:55:37 UTC
Danny Centauri wrote:
I would appreciate clarification on the usage of isboxer specifically as a multiboxing client. What sort of features are legal and illegal for example when mining I use it to view all 10 clients at once on 2 monitors so I can tell which holds are full and need to empty into the orca.

I have also used it in PvP to more effectively manage 5+ accounts and blow things out of the sky, any clarification on what we can and can't do would be appreciated.


As I understand it: It's illegal, as it uses client modification to get it's job done. CCP wasn't against the function in theory, but more the way it does it.

The only end-game content in EVE Online is the crap that makes you rage quit.
Uppsy Daisy
State War Academy
Caldari State
#137 - 2013-04-18 15:56:07 UTC
Jackie Fisher wrote:
I'm pretty sure all the members of the security team are looking forward to telling Hilmar that they have enforced the EULA and perma-banned 400k accounts for using Evemon. Big smile


Don't worry, it's ok.

They are only threatening them all with bans, it's absolutely fine!!
Entity
X-Factor Industries
Synthetic Existence
#138 - 2013-04-18 15:56:25 UTC
CCP Peligro wrote:
Entity wrote:
CCP Peligro wrote:

Please, consider the fact that cache scraping can be used for illegitimate purposes which are damaging to the overall health of the game,


Cars can be used to run over people. I don't see the government issuing blanket threats to car drivers.


Hi Entity! There are no blanket threats here, I'm sorry you see it that way.

We've stated our intent numerous times, and I'll do it again; the policies are in place to protect the well being of the game. We'll use these policies to get rid of cheaters, and I'm sure you don't want them around any more than we do.


Obviously I do not want cheaters screwing with the game any more than you.
The problem is, having had the only 100% compatible cache decoder since pretty much the launch of the game, being a labor of love, you can understand that I am a bit concerned about the legal status and continued life of my pet project.
A project which was given the green light by high-ups in CCP after internal discussion back then when I submitted it for review. Additionally, explicit public permission for decoding the cache was granted.

So yeah, I'm not particularly happy atm.

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None ofthe Above
#139 - 2013-04-18 15:56:59 UTC
Acac Sunflyier wrote:
Does this include a visual modification to make everything look like star wars ships?


Can't you just fly a Hurricane?

The only end-game content in EVE Online is the crap that makes you rage quit.
seth Hendar
I love you miners
#140 - 2013-04-18 15:56:59 UTC  |  Edited by: seth Hendar
Lallante wrote:
seth Hendar wrote:
as a RL lawyer, you should be aware that this is dependent of the countrys, and in france, if CCP ban someone with no reason, said person can fill a lawsuit and will win, because of customer protective laws (btw, EULA are of no value at all in France).


Incorrect. While a EULA might not be legally enforceable as a contract, that doesn't prevent CCP from refusing access to its services to whoever it likes for whatever reason it likes. At best consumer protection law might get you a refund of unused, pre-purchased subscription time (doesnt apply if you use ISK bought plexs), which will be vastly less than any legal fees incurred, so good luck with that.

no, if this is a perma ban CCP will have to refound all RL money invested in said acount from it start (du to the nature of the skill progression related to time and not playtime), plex included + fee linked to the law suite + variable amount of money to compensate the user prejudice (said amount will vary at juge appreciation)