EFF Takes Bnetd Case

An anonymous reader sent in: "As reported three previous times, Blizzard is attempting to squash the Battle.net emulator and open source bnetd project. The EFF has taken the case. Read the press release. LawMeme also has a satiric fable."

Comments

What a terrible approach to build game interest!

[Yoda2]

Yikes!

It is these gaming communities that build interest in the games, add features, etc. These enthusiasts dump untold hours into improving games and this is how the software companies reward them?

I have some ties to N.E.R.D., the worlds 3rd largest CounterStrike server and would venture to guess that 90+% of the gamers happily paid for their software. The community only gets better when Sierra Games backs the gaming centers.

Re:"Freedom" of thievery? Indeed.

[barawn]

Oh, please. Do you people NOT understand that reverse engineering is legal, and completely allowed. Do you also not understand that a free capitalist society WITHOUT the ability to reverse engineer would be a complete disaster? You wouldn't have two chipmakers competing in the x86 market, you wouldn't have any open source software whatsoever, not to mention that many scientific projects would be down the drain as well!

Blizzard sells games - people BUY games. Bnetd is not challenging the sale of those games - it's allowing people to play the games as they were intended - on a Battle.net server. Blizzard cannot, should not, and absolutely will not ever be able to say "oh, and you can only play these games on OUR server at Battle.net, and if you try to play them anywhere else, that's illegal."

bnetd is creating a free alternative to a necessary extra piece of 'hardware' to use the game to its full value. This is IDENTICAL to the Bleem/Connectix case. Completely identical. In that case, they created a free implementation of a Sony PlayStation on a computer, and the courts agreed "well, yes, if people BUY the games, they can attempt to PLAY them on whatever they want." If you try to say that bnetd is wrong, then by extension WINE is wrong, Bleem is wrong, hell, VMware is wrong. But they're not. Why? Because reverse engineering is legal, and critical, for any healthy economy.

Blizzard makes money off of games. In fact, Battle.net earns them no value, no reward in your own terminology. God. Blizzard, and everyone else, are just plain stupid here - let bnetd run, and Blizzard makes MORE money, for crying out loud. How the heck can it be bad to offer people MORE ways to play a game you're selling?!?

I get to decide, according to the law.

[iamsure]

Nope. Wrong.

By law, as a consumer, once I purchase a product, I am entitled to FAIR USE.

Software "licensing" has NEVER been successfully upheld in court, and many argue that it goes entirely against the protections the law has traditionally given the consumer.

Further, the Blizzard licensing agreement does not in fact restrict me from playing my software with a third-party server software.

Not to mention, they didnt come after the END USER violating those terms of service! They came after programmers who offered them an alternative. Programmers not bound by those TOS/Licensing terms.

So, No. I get to decide what I do.

The point

[SQLz]

The point of this whole thing is that legally the bnetd project has the right to reverse engineer Battle.net. It says so in the DMCA. The fact their code does not check CD keys is trivial to this matter because bnetd itself was not created to bypass copy protection. Its a piece of standalone software. Its not a crack/hack file that patches anything in the client and allows it to bypass Battle.net key checking.

Even if you agree with Blizzards point that the bnetd project does in some way promote piracy, unless you are a complete fool, you should not agree that the DMCA applies to this case. Blizzard is grasping at best.

Its everyone's right as a consumer to fight this even if you agree with Blizzard. This is everyone's chace to stop complaining about the DMCA and actually do something. This will determine if software companies have the right to not only tell you how, when, and where you will utilize their products after your purchase them but also gives them the right to prosecute you if you don't. If Blizzards case holds up, it will open the door for many many more useful emulation projects to be shut down.

Who has Responsibility?

[dschuetz]

I see a lot of people here commenting that if the open-source server simply did a check for CD keys or whatnot, that the case probably wouldn't have even been brought. That is, they're facilitiating piracy, so they must be shut down.

But I ask -- whose responsibility is it to ensure that the players are using a legitimate copy of the game? Should that be done at the network level, by the open-source game server, or at the client / cpu level, by the software that should have actually been paid for?

I say that the key-checking isn't anyone's responsibility but their own -- if you write software, and it doesn't check, then nobody else should be forced (or even expected) to do that job for you.

Look at it this way -- does HP have a responsibility to ensure that all users sending print jobs to its printers are doing so with properly licensed installations of Microsoft Office? 'cause that's about what the people here are asking for. There's no method for a printer to check whether a printjob came from a paid copy of Word, just as there's no way for bnet to check the validity of an incoming connection. Nor should there be.

They came up with a lousy copy protection / validation scheme. Too bad for them.

[note -- I admit that I'm not particurlarly versed on the specifics of this case, so if I zigged when I should have zagged up there, try to ignore that and focus on my argument, eh? thanks.. :) ]

Re:Who has Responsibility?

[Sloppy]

But I ask -- whose responsibility is it to ensure that the players are using a legitimate copy of the game?

Nobody's. To legally place that responsibility upon anyone, legitimizes copy protection.

Copy protection is just a hack. It's a cheap way for publishers to avoid expending effort enforcing copyright. If it works for some of them, fine: let 'em try doing things that way. IMHO, it's a bad idea, but they should have the right to try it (for now -- but every time I see it abused, it makes me want to take away that right). Copy protection should never be legitimized or legally recognized or institutionalized. It should remain merely a hack. That's where DMCA went wrong.

Blizzard should deal with the copyright issue and sue the infringers, instead of thrusting new responsibilities upon other parties.

Your logic is ... not there

[Hrothgar The Great]

>What reason do they have to play nice and let
>bnetd do whatever they want? They certainly lose
>ad revenue if they do that, and they -
>potentially- lose more sales due to piracy

It's not up to them whether they should "let" people do things that are perfectly legal. It's not "playing nice" to respect the rights of other people; it's the way it has to be. Get all of the other fascists together and get this through your hard stone heads: Blizzard CAN NOT create legal policy; nor can any other corporation. They are not lawmakers; they can not decide to declare something illegal because it presses upon their revenue stream. They (and you) also need to realize that stretching the boundaries of an existing law while operating under the assumption that your legal opponents will not gather the funds needed to fight back is intolerable and does ABSOLUTELY NOT constitute fair defense of your property.

>I'd be mighty pissed, and rightly so.

No, not rightly so. It would suck because someone is COMPETING with you. Are you a capitalist or a dictator?

Letter sent to Blizzard...

[Bonker]

To Whom it May Concern:

I have been purchasing and playing Blizzard games for about four years. I have enjoyed Blizzard titles like 'Diablo', 'Diablo II', 'Starcraft' and 'Starcraft: Broodwar'. I have spent hard-earned money on Blizzard titles and have spent countless hours playing them.

That said, I do not plan to purchase or play any more Blizzard titles. Why? Blizzard games has threatened legal action under the DMCA against the Bnetd project (http://www.bnetd.org/), an open source multiplayer system for games that use Blizzard's 'Battle Net' multiplayer system.

In press releases and news articles, Blizzard has indicated that it feels that because Bnetd will not and cannot check users for proper licensing that it contributes to piracy of Blizzard games.

Unfortunately, Bnetd is a small project run by volunteers who have no ability to hire expensive lawyers to defend themselves against Blizzard's claims, regardless of their merit. Blizzard software is effectively using their financial resources to silence and eliminate a possible competitor.

This practice is despicable. I don't associate with individuals who believe that this is an acceptable practice and I will not support a company who does so either.
Further, I will encourage everyone I know to stop supporting your company and to stop buying Blizzard games because of this reprehensible act. In effect, your 'anti-piracy' concerns have lost you a paying customer. I hope that the irony of this is not lost on money-conscious salespeople or executives.

Hopefully, Blizzard games will realize that it is driving away in dependant developers, gamers, and other customers with this act and will with withdraw its legal threats against the Bnetd project. Hopefully, it will even issue a formal apology to the members of the Bnetd project. Until then, what I stated above remains in effect. You have lost me and everyone else I speak to on the matter as paying customers.