Slashdot Mirror
Blizzard Gets DMCA Smackdown From Sony
tdye writes: "Blizzard has apparently released an internal memo banning P2P software inside the company. They've been served by Sony with a DMCA note, based on rampant music sharing inside Blizzard. I guess what goes around, comes around! You can see it on Declan McCullagh's PoliTech website."
Yes, I recall my task for a full week (several years ago) was analyzing Napster's network traffic and discovering exactly which ports needed to be allowed through the firewall in order to let the boss download Frank Zappa.
I am !amused.
For attack BNetD, I think this should happen. I personally feel that the DMCA will just kill all companies eventually. Because lets face it:
If you played Pong, that means you played a game, perhaps you looked at pong when you wrote your current game. You had fun in Pong, and you have fun in your game... So who's to say you didn't reverse engineer "fun"?
Location: Mt. Xinu
I imagine Blizzard will be really pissed-off at their employees who run p2p software, because it makes Blizzard look like a bunch of hypocrites-
Blizzard: Ooooh, ohooh, naughty people are creating a server that's compatible with battle.net and allows pirate copies. Ooooh, points my finger at them I do!
Sony: Oi, Blizzard! What's all that ILLEGAL music doing in your company, eh?
Blizzard: I hit you, Mr. Sony! I hit you with Dvareks Staff of Limitless Power, damage + 99 ! (Lie down, you're dead!)
graspee
CTO of the company I got laid off from used to use Napster all the time. In fact we had to tell him to stop because he was sucking up so much bandwidth.. but he's the CTO so he just blew us off.. Perhaps that's part of the reason the company in in the toilet and they had to lay off 50% of their workforce.
Ironic Iron Plate Mail of the Damned
Defense: 534
Smite Damage: 1 - 2
Required Strength: 45
Required Level: 39
+204% Legal Defense
+843% Resistance to Flames
+436% Faster legal woe recovery
+2264% More gold received from Bnetd
+30125 Running speed
-342 HP for every DCMA attack
Karma: Excer..ex...excellahhh...realll good (mostly affected by drinking not done in moderation)
Once Blizzard employees stop using up all the bandwidth for P2P apps, perhaps BattleNet will get the bandwidth it needs.
...for sharing files is Windows File Sharing. Just right click on a folder of mp3's and switch on sharing to let your colleagues enjoy your collection. I would just love to see it outlawed.
-- SIGFPE
The comedy of this is that Blizzard is owned by Vivendi Universal, one of the big 5 record labels, as well as a member of the MPAA.
Scotty: How long did you tell the captain the deflector work would take us?
LaForge: Two hours and we have barely more than that till the Borg cube arrives.
Scotty: And how long will it actually take us?
LaForge: Two hours-like I told him.
Scotty: Geordi, ye've got a lot to learn. You never tell captain's how long it will really take. How do you expect to earn a reputation as a miracle worker that way?
My father is a blogger.
... they look something like this (identifying info is X'd out, I like my job
original complaint:
RE: Unauthorized Distribution of Copyrighted Work: X
Dear X University:
Well, you've already given us a clue. Your university has the same name as a song.
TheFrood
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.
I hope you can sleep at night. Because after they pick off the guys at Blizzard they are coming for us. Blizzard just happened to be an easy target.
I sleep well at night. Theft is wrong. I don't do theft. Giving away someone elses property is theft.
What the Blizzard employees were doing was hardly "Fair Use".
Don't get me wrong. I hate the way the Music Industry (as well as others) attempt to take away our fair use. Yes, I should be allowed to store my CDs on Computer. Yes, I should be allowed to listen to them at work. Yes, P2P networking is no problems (for legal use). No, I shouldn't be allowed to hand out copies of the music to everyone on the internet.
Sony was not objecting to Blizzard employees listening to music at work. Nor were they protesting against P2P. They were warning Blizzard that their employees were engaged in ILLEGAL activities. Distributing Stolen Goods.
And so, in this case, Sony may be right.