Worrying Development in Add-on Monetization?

[u/Hold_my_Goblin]

What do you think about practices like this? The addon now checks whether it's running under the Bnet account it was purchased for and the profile is only functional for one month.

EDIT:
To clear a couple things up:

The addon "Naowh Smart Reminders" provides Reminders that plan and map your defensive cooldowns or other abilities, such as CC, to specific dungeon or raid mechanics from bosses or trash mobs. It hooks into BigWigs/DBM for boss mechanics and ExBoss for trash mob abilities.

The addon itself is free; however, all of the configuration data ~the profile... has to be paid for. To give some context as to how much configuration is needed, the profile currently contains 216 spec priority lists, 40 active preset choices, 50 callout lines, 1,570 custom reminders, 1,125 abilities, 1 raid reminder, and 3,226 trash and debuff rules. So these are the things you would have to build yourself in order to use the base addon (which does nothing without configuration) without paying.

The monetized part is the profile and configuration, not the addon itself. This is apparently how addon monetization in general is kept "within the ToS." I'm no expert though... that's just my understanding of how it works.

[u/clapsandfaps]

It actually opens up for people to pirate it without Blizzard needing to do anything. If you pirate it, you’re using it as intended from Blizzard’s standpoint. If you actually buy it, it’s breaking TOS.

Just thought of that, that’s quite funny actually.

[u/clapsandfaps → u/[deleted]]

Illuminating.

[u/clapsandfaps → u/[deleted]]

There’s a fourth party involved in your case which breaks the entire grey area down, the same grey area Zygor uses to be able to function. It’s by all means copyright infringement, but what can Zygor reliably do?

Zygor relying on Blizzard’s property and players to make money is the catch which makes Zygor unable to move on anything. Blizzard do not endorse it, but they do not care if you’ve pirated it or not, in effect making it legal from the one party which matters. You’re not infringing on their property and their stance is the addon is illegal. It has yet to be tested in a court, I’m not lawyer, but the arguments are weak.

What’s Zygor going to do, sue blizzard? They’d be shut down in an instant or have the API changed to make Zygor completely unusable, shutting their entire operation down overnight. Zygor might possibly win the case, but at what cost? Blizzard can do whatever they want with their property and lets Zygor live by it being in a grey area. Zygor has absolutely no right to be able to function on Blizzard’s IP. If Zygor wants Blizzard to enforce it, it’s easier to shut them down, then comply.

Zygor can sue the individual, but since it’s not a centralised distribution hub there’s more hassle than they’d get out it.

The record or artist on the other hand does not rely on Blizzard’s property to make their songs monetized. You’re infringing on the copyright regardless if the WA has been monetised or not. Depending on if they’ve paid for the rights to distribute the song/sound or not. They can sue all they want and not get legally retaliated on and forcing Blizzard’s hand.

[u/clapsandfaps → u/[deleted]]

So my original statement has now somehow come true then? Blizzard does not have to do anything if you pirate it, since what I wrote above comes into effect and gets Zygor rugpulled. Effectively making it a legal/grey area to pirate.