Q&A With Vivendi Rep About Bnetd

Colin Winters writes "War3pub.net managed to get some answers out of a Vivendi rep about why they are suing BnetD and what they hope to accomplish. Worth a read to see how Vivendi/Blizzard is thinking about the whole thing. They believe that BnetD is going to profit sometime in the future, and want to stop them now. Kind of like arresting someone because they might get in a car accident 10 years down the road. "

Comments

Hmmm

[Matey-O]

If you don't nip something in the bud, eventually you can't litigate against it.

If you DO nip something in the bud, well then you're evil THEN TOO! Now THERE'S some logic for ya.

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

It is more like handing out speeding tickets to speeders, to curtail the behavior that may lead to the accident ten years down the road.

They, in the estimation of Vivendi (yet to be seen in court), are already breaking the law. Sure a cop looks like an asshole for giving a joy riding teen a speeding ticket, but the law is there for a reason.

They are breaking the law today, and even though it seems like a harmless little fun, it will have larger ramifications in the future. The law needs to be enforced today, to make sure damages are not realized in the future. If not with bnetd, then with an actual for profit company that will use the bnetd project as a precedent.

I'll tell you something

[Delrin]

P-T: what is your stance on making open source software illegal?

Vivendi Rep: If the open source code is being used by someone other than the creator for a profit, then it is illegal under the DMCA.

Ummm, it's just this kind of thinking that will destroy us all.

Re:I'll tell you something

[IpalindromeI]

Not only that, but if you read the legal complaint that Vivendi filed against them, Vivendi actually claims that the bnetd people used their code, illegally of course. Last time I knew, listening to client/server communication packets wasn't illegal, and it's a far cry from source code. Reverse engineering software is not illegal. It kinda sounds like Vivendi is grasping at straws with most of this stuff. Note the DMCA claims that were later dropped when they realized, "Oh yeah, I guess they didn't break any circumvention."

maybe I'm crazy ...

[karb]

didn't vivendi drop any pretense of a DMCA violation and stick to traditional copyright violations? About everything else the "vivendi rep" says is legally questionable, and seemingly unrelated to vivendi's actual positions, or at least as I understood them.

Or this just a joke/hoax that isn't very funny/convincing?

In case the forums get slashdotted...

[Anonymous Coward]

We didn't have long, but here's what I could get. Turns out this fellow is actually above the people on this case, and did not know as much of the details as I had hoped. However, he provided us with some legal information which describes Vivendi's reasoning for the complaint against the BNetD project.
--------
P-T: what is your stance on making open source software illegal?

Vivendi Rep: If the open source code is being used by someone other than the creator for a profit, then it is illegal under the DMCA.

P-T: Why is Vivendi suing on the claims of making the BNetD software for money? It's open source, no one is making any money off of it.

Vivendi Rep: The basis upon this charge lies on the idea that BNetD will eventually begin using their software, that they did not create, in order to make a profit. Though they have not used it yet for a profit, Vivendi believes that they would have or will use it in the future for a profit.

P-T: Is use of DMCA and attacking bnetd simply a publicity stunt to hype up Warcraft 3 before it's release? Were the supposed losses due to piracy used to justify the increased prices (compared to Diablo 2 regular and collector's edition) of Warcraft 3 regular version (from $30 to $50) and collector's edition (from $50 to $80)?

Vivendi Rep: No. We feel as though the intellectual property of the Battle.net coders has been stolen by the BNetD project. As far as I know, there are no publicity aspects involved in the suit against BNetD. It is a legal issue that needs to be cleared up and this is the way that we can do that.

P-T: Did Blizzard/Vivendi ever consider purchasing bnetd and fsgs technology as a way to improve and lessen the load off their b.net servers?

Vivendi Rep: I don't know. It's a possibility.

P-T: What do you think about the attempted hiring of a successful cracker of the Warcraft III Beta by Blizzard?

Vivendi Rep: Hiring your largest threat is one easy way to get rid of the threat of piracy.

P-T: What positive outcomes (for the gaming community and product development) do they expect to achieve by pursuing the lawsuit?

Vivendi Rep: We feel the restrictions against the theft of intellectual property will be cleared up in this suit, and will lead to a more clear idea of what is and what isn't internet piracy for the general public. In general, Blizzard is being used as a "first time" suit for this kind of piracy, and we want the public to understand that what is going on with the BNetD project cannot be done without legal ramifications under the DMCA.

P-T: Do you feel that the huge number of pirated Blizzard games will hurt BNetD in the court cases?

Vivendi Rep: Yes. The fact that it is not only pirated server software but also pirated game software will do nothing but hurt BNetD in the courts.

--------

There it is. I feel as though I got a few good answers out of him, and I hope that this helps to answer any possible questions that you all might have. My impression is that Vivendi really doesn't know as much about the dirty details of the situation, and they are filing suit on a truly legal basis. Once again, I hope this helped, and I am hoping to get some answers from the same representative over email.

BNetD responsible for Vivendi's opinions?

[kefoo]

Vivendi Rep: The basis upon this charge lies on the idea that BNetD will eventually begin using their software, that they did not create, in order to make a profit. Though they have not used it yet for a profit, Vivendi believes that they would have or will use it in the future for a profit.

So now BNetD is responsible for what Vivendi thinks they may do in the future?

Pointless

[explosionhead]

Despite their justification, it seems to be another case of a company attempting to hold on to its intellectual property, ignoring the fact that letting people run with it will in aid their sales revenue in the long term.
Examples of this are everywhere, my particular fave is where fox started shutting down fan websites. How can this help promotion of your product??

Silly move.

Re:Pointless

[drinkypoo]

Despite their justification, it seems to be another case of a company attempting to hold on to its intellectual property, ignoring the fact that letting people run with it will in aid their sales revenue in the long term.

That's not the most glaring thing they're ignoring; They're ignoring the fact that the IP in question - bnetd - IS NOT THEIRS. They are complaining about use of their source code, which never happened, at least as far as we know. Instead, the people created something similar based on the outputs of their source code.

The IP in question is open source, and as such belongs to everyone. Not to any one member of everyone, but everyone - So Blizzard doesn't have a legal leg to stand on. They probably thought that bnetd would just go away when they filed, and weren't counting on them actually getting a lawsuit. When this goes to court, assuming the judge is half-clued, Blizzard will be out on their ass so quick it'll look like they wore shorts into a mosque.

Established companies trying to shut out others

[NMerriam]

As long as the bnetd guys can show they did a clean-room reverse-engineering feat, I doubt Blizzard can say much about it. I don't know how the bnetd guys would have gotten server code from Blizzard in the first place to pirate.

Imagine if 20 years ago, Compaq had not been allowed to reverse-engineer the IBM PC BIOS. The worldwide economy would probably be a few trillion dollars poorer, and God only knows if we'd even have the WWW or ubiquitous home computers...

Re:Established companies trying to shut out others

[raresilk]

Although it's true under US law that the standard of proof in civil actions is "more probable than not" (versus "reasonable doubt" in criminal cases), there is still somewhat of a "presumption of innocence." The plaintiff in a civil lawsuit still bears the "burden of proof", meaning that the defendant automatically wins any point on which the plaintiffs fail to produce evidence. At some point, unless Vivendi demonstrates there is a genuine factual dispute as to whether bnetd acted illegally, the judge will not even let the case go to a jury. (It's called "summary judgment," for legalese jargon fans.)

How this might play out: after allowing some time for "discovery" (basically, exchange of relevant documents and taking depositions of witnesses), bnetd files a "motion for summary judgment," accompanied by a sworn affidavit of whoever was in charge of the coding, saying "we swear we didn't copy any source code," and by excerpts from the testimony of various Vivendi witnesses, who will hem and haw but finally be forced to admit they have no clue whether bnetd copied a single line of their code. (I have no idea myself whether they did or didn't, but word on the street is pretty consistent that it was a legitimate reverse-engineering job with no copying.)

At that point (in my hypothetical), because Vivendi has the "burden of proof," it would have to do more than just accuse bnetd's witness of lying. To prevent a judge from granting summary judgment to bnetd, Vivendi would probably have to either (1) come up with a witness of its own with personal knowledge that copying took place (unlikely), or (2) hire an expert witness who will compare and analyze the battle.net and bnetd code, and conclude that it "must have been copied" because of various similarities. Assuming #2, the judge would determine whether the expert's testimony was reliable enough to be admissible (assuming they're in federal court), and then determine whether the testimony was sufficient to carry Vivendi's burden of proof. This is by no means a gimme: although it's true that you can find some "expert" to opine almost anything, judges often do find their testimony insufficient to defeat a summary judgment motion.

So with that long discourse, I hope I have helped a little bit in understanding the "burden of proof." As an earlier comment stated, anyone can file a lawsuit in the US -- all you have to do is show up at the filing window with the filing fee and a stack of paper that looks sufficiently like a complaint to get past the court clerk. But there are many opportunities for defendants to get a groundless lawsuit dismissed, and it happens all the time. (If the complaint doesn't sufficiently describe how the defendant violated the plaintiff's legal rights, you can often get it dismissed without going through the time and expense of the "discovery" stage.)

Am I missing something?

[FurryFeet]

As far as I understand the case, Blizzard's only stand is the claim that BnetD used source code from Blizzard without permission. If they can prove that, they win; if the don't, they lose. Whether Bnetd makes money or not should be irrelevant.
I'm not really impressed with the answers, and I posit the source was someone from Blizzard who doesn't really know what he's talking about. Maybe from accounting, for all I know.
I'm not trolling. Read the answers. There's nothing to see here.

Unintended hiring consequences

[ghostlibrary]

"P-T: What do you think about the attempted hiring of a successful cracker of the Warcraft III Beta by Blizzard?
Vivendi Rep: Hiring your largest threat is one easy way to get rid of the threat of piracy"

"Hey, I hear the best way to score a game programming job is to publically pirate their games!"

Re:easy solution to bnetd

[Stonehand]

...but bnetd does thus facilitate infringement, bypassing an "effective" technological access protection method without the authorization of the copyright holder, which puts it squarely in DMCA land. It might make an interesting test case, actually.

Blizzard is under no obligation to provide a CD authentication service for bnetd, even if that would mean that bnetd became completely legit and even if that boosted sales significantly due to more people being able to play. For one thing, they probably don't want one non-Blizzard server getting large numbers of submitted CD keys; for another, the authentication scheme might be useful for a key generator, depending on how sparse the set of valid keys is. But even if it were completely unmitigated good for Blizzard, the bnetd folks have no right to force it upon Blizzard, anymore than doctors or health insurance companies can force people to eat low-fat diets.

eh? 3rd ed?

[Telastyn]

If they are humans, they can have 2 clean-room reverse-engineering feats at level 1! =D

*ahem* on a more serious note:

Actually if the DMCA is invoked then the argument isn't that they copied Blizzard's stuff, or even reverse engineered it. Its because Blizzard does key-checking with their multiplayer games to make sure you bought a legitimate copy (or have a good key-gen) of their game. The bnetd version does not include this because they don't care about keychecking, they just want to play the game.

Blizzard will argue that this will invalidate their copyright protection (cd-keys) because people can now play multiplayer without buying a license (cd-key). And they're right.

bnetd will likely argue one of a few tracks:

a) cd-keys aren't effective copyright protection. I have a starcraft key-gen. Google knows of them...

b) that they have a clickthrough license agreement (do they? i dunno) that says "by downloading this source, I agree to only use it with legitimately purchased copies of Blizzard games." or some such.

In a legal sense I don't see bnetd have too much to argue about except that the DMCA sucks, and cd-keys suck, or cd-keys are not copyright protection as far as the DMCA is concerned.

Stupid Laws suck.

This is a side issue

[Otto]

The whole profit thing is a sidetrack and not really the crux of the matter. The crux of the matter is where they think that BnetD uses their source code.

Story recap:
- BnetD reverse engineered the protocol (*not the code!*) used by Battle.Net.
- Using this, they created BnetD, which simply emulates battle.net. They entirely wrote their own code to do this.
- They went along just fine until the Warcraft3 beta was leaked.
- Being as the software was open source, someone else took BnetD, added support for the leaked beta, and created WarForge.
- BnetD gets the crap sued out of them.

So, where does profit come into this? Answer: it doesn't, it's some moron Vivendi rep trying to screw with your head.

BnetD does not use any of Battle.Net's source. It's a totally legal hack, reverse engineering the protocol. They didn't even need to analyse the source of the games themselves, just the protocol. Any fool with a sniffer can see the packets, after all. After that it's a matter of trial and error.

So, given that they didn't use any of the source code from any of Battle.Net's stuff.. It's perfectly legal for them to sell it and make a profit.

Of course, if you assume, like Vivendi appears to be doing, that they stole the code or that they are using their code, then yeah, BnetD would be in the shit. But they say they are not, I believe them (as I've analysed protocols before), and thus I think BnetD will win, assuming they can afford counsel.

Re:This is a side issue

[MindStalker]

1. Make Battle.net server emulator.
2. ???
3. Profit!

Ummm, no.

[Spankophile]

> Kind of like arresting someone because they
> might get in a car accident 10 years down the
> road.

I guess you're also against arresting someone who's drinking and driving only because they "might" kill someone.

Re:Ummm, no.

[SecurityGuy]

I am, absolutely. Arrest them because driving while under the influence is illegal. I can't think of an instance where you can be arrested because you "might" do something, only where you are suspected of breaking an actual law. Around here you can be arrested for threatening someone. You won't be arrested because you might carry out the threat, but because you've already broken the law by issuing it.

Re:Ummm, no.

[markmoss]

I guess you're also against arresting someone who's drinking and driving only because they "might" kill someone.

Pedantically, you can arrest someone who's drinking and driving because they are breaking a law, while (depending on the interpretation of some unnecessarily complicated laws) what bnet is doing may or may not be breaking the law now. You can't arrest them because they might break the law later.

But the interesting question is, why is it right to pass a law against drunk driving because they might kill someone later, and wrong to ban something because it might turn into a copyright violation later?

Answer: IRREMEDIABLE HARM. The copyright holder can wait until there is an actual copyright violation, then go to court, shut them down, and also get monetary damages to replace any alleged lost sales. But if a drunk kills someone, no court can bring them back to life. So given that it is easily shown statistically that drunk drivers are far more likely to kill someone than nearly all sober drivers, it is reasonable to stop them when they start weaving around the road, test them, and arrest them if alcohol or other drugs are the cause, rather than waiting for the crash. There are at least two fine lines here that the legislature should consider, how much hazard is too much, and what kind of tactics are acceptable to catch the drunks.

Note that personally I don't much approve of tactics such as waiting near the bar, pulling everyone over for breathalyzer checks, and prosecuting solely on the basis of the blood alcohol content, rather than looking for evidence of impairment first. I and some of my relatives can get pretty drunk at well under the legal BAC limit. (Inherited metabolic peculiarity. I figured that out in 1976 and haven't drunk since, but if I was an idiot and an asshole, I could drive home drunk every night and never get arrested.) Other people can be functioning pretty well when their BAC is high enough to be illegal in any state. Many of them will have faster reflexes drunk than I am when going home after 14 hours at work -- although if they're driving drunk, they're probably reckless too, and fast reflexes don't make reckless driving safe...

This is just silly...

[yeoua]

Uh, well, the answers to the questions from Vivendi are, well... silly

Vivendi Rep: If the open source code is being used by someone other than the creator for a profit, then it is illegal under the DMCA.

Uh, first of all, it hasn't yet been used for any kind of profit (see next answer), but doesn't this rather go against the whole open source thing? Isn't the point to have it spread around and fixed by many to get the best of the best making something? And isn't it supposed to be free in most cases anyway? So what is their argument? That the only people who can use bnetd for profit is... uh, the creators, who are, uh, bnetd? So based on his answer, blizzard can't even use this code for profit as they are not the creators, so what exactly is he trying to say?

Vivendi Rep: The basis upon this charge lies on the idea that BNetD will eventually begin using their software, that they did not create, in order to make a profit. Though they have not used it yet for a profit, Vivendi believes that they would have or will use it in the future for a profit.

And this speaks for itself. They are getting punished just because they stand a chance of making a profit off this product. Well, this is rather silly since bnet is free. The SECOND bnetd starts charging in any way, shape, or form, bnet will have a new bunch of regulars. Isn't it in blizzard's interest that bnetd starts charging? I mean, if they charge, the piraters need to either pay for the game and play free on bnet, or pay for bnetd. At this point, most would probably rather go legit and play on the official servers, rather than pay for using illegal software (that doesn't include a cool box and manual and whatnot). Which essentially means that bnetd will probably never be for profit (besides the fact that its open source and everyone has the code already anyway, so charging for it would be next to impossible given the speed of piracy nowadays).

Vivendi Rep: We feel the restrictions against the theft of intellectual property will be cleared up in this suit, and will lead to a more clear idea of what is and what isn't internet piracy for the general public. In general, Blizzard is being used as a "first time" suit for this kind of piracy, and we want the public to understand that what is going on with the BNetD project cannot be done without legal ramifications under the DMCA.

Is bnetd theft of intellectual property? They claimed that they used code from blizzard, which is near impossible unless they "hacked" them and stole code, which would be another thing all together. It'd be a bit easier to write from the ground up than steal the code and risk all sorts of other problems. And i'm sure they got quite a bit of documentation that this was a straight reverse engineering process (i know the guys responsible for the warcraft3beta code for bnetd did reverse engineering with port dumps and so on, since the daemon STILL doesn't work as well as bnet, and they had to play with much to even get it working with 1.21, and many things are still not supported, as well as "new" features i don't believe existed in bnet).

Vivendi Rep: Yes. The fact that it is not only pirated server software but also pirated game software will do nothing but hurt BNetD in the courts.

Contrary to popular belief, bnetd CAN be used with retail blizzard games. Just because it can be used for pirated games doesn't mean it is illegal. Like the emulator situation, the games/roms are illegal, the fact of getting the thing working isn't (thus legal demo roms). If bnetd ONLY worked for pirated games, then that'd be another situation.

Silly...

Re:Wow.

[Fizzlewhiff]

Put it into the context of the discussion. This is about bnetd not about httpd (or other OSS). :) The question was poorly worded to get a rise out of open source supporters and muddy the water even more. Personally I feel Blizzard does have the right to protect their games. They might not be doing it in the best way this time around but I'd almost bet that the problems this has caused them this time around will be taken care of in their next game.

For now let Blizzard do what they're doing. It's good for the game industry. How you ask? Take a look at Diablo II and its Battle.net problems. People know Battle.net is full of problems. People know gamers want control and the ability to run their own servers. Blizzard is fighting these folks tooth and nail with bnetd. Enter the competition, Gas Powered Games and BioWare with two Diablo-like RPG's where players can host thier own servers and build their own worlds. We've already seen GPG's early success with Dungeon Siege. Once players can start cranking out their Siegelets Diablo II will start fading from Battlenet. Blizzard will have to either compete by developing similar technology or hold to their guns with their next RPG and stick with a briken battlenet. In my opinion this is all good.

As for the bnetd folks, it's too bad that they put so much time and effort in and few will be able to use bnetd. However, they have done something really good and that is they've made people in the industry rethink what they were doing. Maybe it is in Blizzards best interest to work with bnetd to get the community something they want, an alternative to battlenet, and still protect their vision of a beta that ends so people will buy WarCraft III or not play with cracks.

Their lawsuit to stop bnetd will probably do more damage to themselves as they are basically going after their most hardcore customers. This will be a lesson learned for them and others in the industry to build game that are more open. All you have to do is look at Halflife to see how a game that is open can thrive and still sell copies years after releases of that same time period are in the $4.99 bargain bins.

Re:Wait for it...

[Peyna]

IP is a different story. I can't take Stephen King's latest novel, touch it up, and sell it under a very similar name and try to profit off of it. That's where the problem is.

Goods, services, IP, and software are all very different interrelated things.

Re:If you guys want battlenet i have a solution

[AngryAndDrunk]

That won't help. Blizzard's beef is with the very existence of bnetd, not the fact that it's open source.

The problem is that bnetd doesn't (in fact, can't) check the authenticity of the CD keys in use by the clients that connect to it - that allows people to pirate the games, hack out the CD key stuff (or use a distributed key), and then use bnetd to play multiplayer. It can't check the CD keys because Blizzard, understandably, won't give out their list of keys.

Supporting Transgaming won't help either, as this is the Battle.net server that has ben reverse engineered, not the client. The server isn't available to the general public, it's what Blizzard use to allow online multiplayer gaming. It's doubtful that Blizzard will make it available, either, as that would allow people to hack around or spoof the CD key authentication routines (if it dialled home) or extract the list of CD keys (if it shipped with them). Besides, there's no point, right? Blizzard already provide the service, for free. Never mind that battle.net is notoriously slow and buggy...


This is my solution, I'm sure my Open Source Supporting Community may end up flaming me,

So be it, I want games in linux.

Don't take my post as a flame; I want games under Linux too, but this issue has nothing to do with them.

Humans, obviously...

[ChaoticCoyote]

...because Orcs would never stoop so low.

This is bull.

[drivers]

So, they claim that bnetd is made of Blizzard's copyrighted code. This is complete bull. I asked Tim Jung (the defendant in this case) what he knew about this claim:

I am not even sure what they are talking about when they say we copied their code, since they don't explain it at all or in any details. We have never had access to their servers so there is no way for us to copy their server code. We also did not decompile the clients to get information that we needed either, everything was figured out and guessed at by looking at packet traces and packet dumps of the traffic.

You can see his entire response on my site: Boycott Blizzard. boycottblizzard.org

Re:you dont get it

[Sancho]

Then you're the idiot.
The code for BNetD is SERVER CODE. It has nothing to do with the games that are played. All the games are STILL Windows-based.

People would still connect to blizzards server!

Then who would care? The point here is NOT to connect to Blizzard's servers, but to be able to host our own.

Besides, your whole idea is based on the fact that Transgaming says they'd support battle.net. Who says Blizzard would agree to give them the information to do so anyway?

Anyway, what's the point then? I like the idea of BNetD because it means I can tweak the way things work in the games. If I want my item drops to be better, I can do it. If I want to make some of the enemies harder, I can do that too. If it's closed source, I may as well be using Blizzard's slow-as-hell servers.

I don't believe the article at all.

[El Camino SS]

WHOOP WHOOP! (Sound of crap detector going off)

A Vivendi Rep?
Does this Vivendi rep, say, have a name?
When and where did this interview take place?
Who is the interviewer, can we get his real name too?

Why is some forum posting considered that important that it made it on /.? After all, if this was an interview or series of questions about a precedent like this and Vivendi's planned actions, wouldn't it be on a specific web page? Why would a Vivendi rep even talk about the DMCA when they said in press (with real names instead of "vivendi rep" as a monniker) previously that they were not using the DMCA? Also, why would they go out on a limb, patently off subject and say that open source should be declared illegal? The open source debate has really precious little to do with this action, IMHO.

I think that this is all complete hooey. This is some troll pushing "the tech hot button of the week" and then throwing in a little "open source sucks!" to shake up the antfarm.

Re:I don't believe the article at all.

[Robotech_Master]

Not only that, but in most cases where two parties are involved in impending legal action, nobody from either one will comment for fear of accidentally providing the other side with additional ammunition to use in their courtroom battle. It would certainly be irresponsible of a Vivendi rep to comment, especially one higher placed in the chain of command than the level at which the lawsuit was being conducted.

The DMCA prosecution (if targetted) is Vivendi's

[RalphTWaP]

Alright,

Let's follow the possible argument form that Vivendi could present.


1 (arguable assumption): The CD-Key authentication as used to authenticate players of network games on servers owned by Vivendi is a protection mechanism within the definitions bounded by the DMCA

2 (provable fact): The BnetD server system does not utilize any CD-Key authentication.

3 (Conclusion 1:2): The BnetD server system circumvents a protection mechanism as defined by the DMCA


Folks, at this point, the game is over for BnetD.

The courts may return a ruling that none of the IP involved was incorrectly obtained (essentially ruling that the reverse-engineering of the protocol was cleanly done). However, unless the court finds that the DMCA violation did not take place (i.e. if the BnetD lawyers show #1 above to be false), then the court is bound to rule that the BnetD project is in fact guilty of a violation of the DMCA.

Guilt under that proposition alone would likely cause the disintigration of the BnetD project.

Now, of course, there are many courses of appeal ("The DMCA is an unjust, unconstitutional law", "The violation is in accordance with the exemptions within the DMCA") but that road is long, hard, and expensive.

As it stands, I would have to say that the case is similar to what would obtain if a company were to create (for instance) a Playstation clone capable of playing any game, from any region, (and incidently without checking to see if it was a copy). That device would then be in an approximately similar position as BnetD.

Of course . . . that's already happened, the device is a mod chip, and Sony is going hard after the creators . . . . Using the DMCA.

.

Unfair, yes. Unjust, certainly. Unconstitutional, perhaps. But the DMCA is your law, and damn if you hadn't better learn what kind of evil it is -- and fast.

Because the corporate lawyers already know.

Read between the lines...

[Cryptnotic]

The reason Vivendi/Blizzard is trying to shut down Bnetd is because Blizzard has been planning on charging fees for using Battle.net. They can't have a free alternative available, or no one will pay for a Battle.net subscription.

By saying that the emulator, Bnetd, is using stolen source code, Blizzard will try to get them shut down for distributing copyrighted material. However, for material to be copyrighted, doesn't it have to be published? If it is a legitimately reverse engineered trade secret, and not a copyrighted work, then Bnetd should be in the clear. Surely Blizzard realizes this and is hoping that the Bnetd will crumble under the costs of defending themselves in court.

Cryptnotic

B.S. in almost every answer.

[Maul]

Vivendi Rep: If the open source code is being used by someone other than the creator for a profit, then it is illegal under the DMCA.

Is he trying to say that Open Source is inherantly illegal under the DMCA because many open source lisences allow for this very thing? Or am I misunderstanding?

Vivendi Rep: The basis upon this charge lies on the idea that BNetD will eventually begin using their software, that they did not create, in order to make a profit. Though they have not used it yet for a profit, Vivendi believes that they would have or will use it in the future for a profit.

This is a load of crap. The Bnetd team is doing this out of their own free time as hobbyists, and released their code under the GPL so that anyone could use it for free. There is absolutely no evidence that anyone involved with Bnetd ever seriously wished to make money off of it. Bnetd
has been around for ~4 years, I believe.

Vivendi Rep: No. We feel as though the intellectual property of the Battle.net coders has been stolen by the BNetD project. As far as I know, there are no publicity aspects involved in the suit against BNetD. It is a legal issue that needs to be cleared up and this is the way that we can do that.

It is a fact that Bnetd was created through reverse engineering, not stolen code. Truth be told, Battle.net is apparently not very complex, and it only took a matter of time to get a clone working just through packet sniffing.

Vivendi Rep: We feel the restrictions against the theft of intellectual property will be cleared up in this suit, and will lead to a more clear idea of what is and what isn't internet piracy for the general public. In general, Blizzard is being used as a "first time" suit for this kind of piracy, and we want the public to understand that what is going on with the BNetD project cannot be done without legal ramifications under the DMCA.

Or do you just want the public to understand that they are stuck with crappy Battle.net, and that Blizzard doesn't care that their customers find added value in a server protocol that allows them to have an alternative way of playing online?

Vivendi Rep: Yes. The fact that it is not only pirated server software but also pirated game software will do nothing but hurt BNetD in the courts.

Again with the Bnetd being "pirated." Additionally, it is as if Bnetd is directly responsible for all the pirates out there. There are probably many more pirates on Battle.net using "stolen" CD keys than playing on Bnetd servers.

I've bought Blizzard titles in the past, and although I was sort of looking forward to Warcraft III, I will not be buying or playing any more Blizzard titles unless Vivendi/Blizzard does a
complete 180 on this.

New info

[Otto]

After reading the First Amended Complaint, I see a wrinkle nobody mentioned before. EULA violation. According to this, the EULA states (in section 11) that if they agreed to the EULA, they are forbidden from emulating the networking features of the games in question.

Also, according to section 17, they claim code theft because the BnetD emulator copies the results of a bug in the username/password authentication portion of battle.net. Well.. depends on the bug, but that doesn't necessarily state that they copied code from battle.net. They may have simply copied the protocol. Anyway, how did they get access to that code? Seems fishy to me.

not really

[martissimo]

1 (arguable assumption): The CD-Key authentication as used to authenticate players of network games on servers owned by Vivendi is a protection mechanism within the definitions bounded by the DMCA

2 (provable fact): The BnetD server system does not utilize any CD-Key authentication.

3 (Conclusion 1:2): The BnetD server system circumvents a protection mechanism as defined by the DMCA


according to statutes that the EFF cites...

This is simply untrue. As an initial matter, it does not appear that Blizzard's CD-KEYS system controls access or copying within the meaning of 1201. Even assuming that Blizzard's CD-KEY system meets the requirements of the statute, 1201(c)(3) contains an unequivocal "no mandate" provision that ensures that no person is required to design software so that it responds to Blizzard's technological protection measures. It provides:

Nothing in this section shall require that the design of, or design and selection of parts and components for, a consumer electronics, telecommunications, or computing product provide for a response to any particular technological measure, so long as such part or component, or the product in which such part or component is integrated, does not otherwise fall within the prohibitions of subsection (a)(2) or (b)(1).

This provision means that bnetd is not required to design its server software to implement your "key" system or other any other technological measures you might choose to place on Blizzard games.

and unless im mistaken, that would be the reason that Vivendi dropped this part of the lawsuit

Aha! Now we can destroy Microsoft

[bee]

Vivendi Rep: If the open source code is being used by someone other than the creator for a profit, then it is illegal under the DMCA.

Ok, so this means that Microsoft using the BSD networking code (open source) and making an immense profit is illegal under the DMCA? Cool!