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Blizzard/Vivendi 2, bnetd 0
wiggles writes "It appears that the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals has sided with Blizzard/Vivendi (pdf link) in the ongoing bnetd case. According to the PDF of the opinion posted today, 'Appellants failed to establish a genuine issue of material fact as to the applicability of the interoperability exception [of the DMCA]. The district court properly granted summary judgement in favor of Blizzard and Vivendi on the operability exception. Summary judgement in favor of Blizzard and Vivendi is affirmed.' No word yet on the EFF's website as to what their next move will be."
to not buy Blizzard products (yes, this includes WoW), but that's just me.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Is it the case that the non-violation of the DMCA through interoperability was so blindingly obvious here that the court simply had to get it wrong?
I really do wonder how the US legal system works; do they ever find someone technically knowledgable to assist in this sort of case? Or do they just defer to whichever side provides the most fluent jargon?
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Surprise surprise. The DMCA was written by big corporations to protect them from competition (especially open source.) Now, if you write a program that works with another commercial program, good luck, especially if that program threatens a coveted corporate market with competition.
here
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I owned a copy of Diablo 2 (actually I bought both it and the expansion twice because I lost my first cds). I started a bnetd server so I could play lan games with my friends with slightly more strict item rules. In typical lan games, people would do stuff like trade items and then get them back by loading an older version of their chars. :)
In any case, my use of bnetd wasn't a case of pirating at all. Everyone that used it owned a copy of the game. Disbelieve me if you want, but that's why that whole case angered me.
I've played WoW since beta too. I suck.
:wq
"(1) Blizzard's software end-user license and terms of usage agreements were enforceable contracts; (2) Appellants waived any "fair use" defense; (3) the agreements did not constitute misuse of copyright; and (4) Appellants violated the anti-circumvention and anti-trafficking provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA")."
Enforcable EULAs, sacrifice of fair use...I shake my head in disgust. Law and justice just aren't keeping up with the times.
Our side may have already lost because it is unlikely that the Supreme Court will take this case under reconsideration. The next step of this battle would be to change the laws themselves at the Congressional level. It will be a long and hard battle, but one that we must fight.
They're one of the few publishers that doesn't even bother with "We'll see if the market supports it" when asked about Linux support for their software -- they just say "no". They sue open-source developers. They had a habit of using infamously exploitable network designs in their games. Blizzard is right up their with Microsoft in my "People What Are Evil" book -- they just have the virtue of writing more entertaining software and having managed to get Tycho and Gabe to constantly advertise for them.
Think of the applications of a law that allows a software publisher to make *illegal* any reverse-engineered interoperable software. That's quite a find.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Check out the eff site to lobby your senator against something more important than the case in this story (http://action.eff.org/site/Advocacy?id=113). Boy, if all the /.'ers in the US did this it might actually make an impact...
Well, I haven't been on bnet much in the last month, but frankly about 1 in 3 or more games (warcraft III) tend to have at least one player time out because of bnet lag or server issues. It's wonderful that blizzard supplies bnet for free in most games, but given the lack of stability sometimes an alternative solution would be better.
There are plenty of legitimate uses for alternative Battle.Net servers. For example, the custom map Dota Allstars has attracted a crowd of Warcraft 3: FT players in the hundreds of thousands. A serious problem with the emergence of the map, however, is that there is no ranking system. Players can simply leave games at any time with no repercussions. Most games are an hour long, with 5 players per team, which means that once the action really starts to get sticky, the experience can be ruined by one jackass who simply decides to quit -- because he has no incentive to stay in the game.
Blizzard's Battle.Net treats all custom maps the same -- no ranking system, no automatic player match-ups, etc. They're unregulated.
I've been on alternative servers (for Starcraft) that allowed statistics tracking for all various kinds of maps. A solution like this would be ideal to promote custom maps. I have participated in talks with the guys who run Dota-Allstars.com to create a ranking system that runs along side existing Battle.Net and specific to their map to address these problems; Blizzard refuses to recognize the issue.
Alternative Battle.net servers can be used to do a lot of other things besides promote piracy.
When this conflict first came up I emailed blizzard to tell them I would never buy one of their products again and I've kept my word. I suggest if you care about this issue that you do the same. Oh, and tell your friends.
If this were the case, then one of the major reasons for starting your own 'theatre' would be because the main theatre is full of whiney, disruptive assholes, is ill-maintained, and is not always available.
Despite the proliferation of other uses, bnetd was beloved by many because it was convenient, private, and oftimes more reliable than the public servers. Certain other games allow for private servers that authenticate to the primary... why can't Blizzard just make this a requirement to keep out the hacked CD-keys but allow private hosts?
There are many many uses for bnetd
Blizzard dont have any servers in Austrlia! and ping times below 500 when using broadband are rare, therefore there are many people like ISP's using bnetd so that their customers can play battlenet games on the internet with other people in australia and have respectable ping times.
This is a big deal, and could set a very dangerous precedent!
"I reject your reality, and substitute my own" - Adam Savage
Think about it this way - you bought something (a copy of a Blizzard game) and you want to use it in a different way than they want you to. Specifically, you want to connect to a private server instead of theirs [Battlenet]. As other people in this thread have commented, you might want to do it so you can change server settings (such as item spawning in Diablo) or you don't want to deal with politiking and/or the unpleasant people who do use battlenet.
In most cases, the maker of a product has no right to prohibit you from using it in a different way than intended. If I buy a book and use it as a doorstop instead of reading it, for example, the book's publisher has no recourse to stop me from doing just that.
However, Blizzard is using an ill-concieved law (the DMCA) to do just that, at the expense of our civil liberties (the right to use products we have purchased as we please). And, as if to add insult to injury, the DMCA explicitely does not apply to programs for the sake of interoprability, which is quite clearly the case here.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Because we all have fun using technology in ways that the inventor didn't invision.
Xbox's running custom media centre applications.
Using game ROM's in emulators
Overclocking and tweaking
Gateways that use NAT for TCP/IP
They're effectively hacks. We enjoy using them.
Many of us here don't see computers as pre-assembled things which can do only specific tasks. We code, we hack, we play, we tinker. Screw anyone who tries to tell me this mindset is wrong.
Anyone who's ever played a Blizzard game online knows how easy it is to congregate in a private channel and create a private, password-protected game. No one else will even know it exists, let alone the password required to join it, unless you explicitly tell them.
Valid complaints against the ruling exist; yours is not one of them, troll.
The fact that you zerg rush says a lot about you, methinks!
Boy that'd be nice... that's also what this was really about. Blizzard didn't want anyone making a WoW version of bnetd so they nipped it in the bud before it could even start. They also have several lines in their EULA about not making your own server. You do read these things, don't you? Here's what you should pay attention to:
I've paid for the client. I'm just not using their monthly service anymore.
You should know better than that. You did not buy anything but a box with shiny discs in them. The software is 0wned by Blizzard and not you.
Since it is free to play on battle.net with a LEGAL copy, it's highly skeptical that it had another purpose, no matter the "disclaimer" that may be attached.
No matter your skepticism people really do just want to have private LAN parties, without connecting to the Internet at all even, and without "stealing" anybody's software to do it.
Please also note that it is Blizzard who will not allow the bnetd people to use their authentication process to prevent the use of illegal copies.
KFG
Let's look at the ramifications of this ruling to some of the most popular OSS. OpenOffice: Interoperability with Microsoft product by... reverse engineering GAIM: interoperability with Microsoft/Yahoo/AOL product by... reverse engineering Two huge players that could never be produced if this ruling is upheld. Anyone else scared?
"[P]rivate parties are free to contractually forego (...) exemptions of the Copyright Act" "parties [can] contract away a fair use defense"
....there *is* no fair use in the USA anymore. Why on earth would any copyright holder give away anything freely? Fair use rights are supposed to be rights the copyright holder shouldn't be allowed to withhold, like the right of first sale. Though I suppose by the "usage restrictions over DRM" protected by the DMCA you have no control over your own use anyway. Let me demonstrate how silly this is:
EULA for this comment: Your fair use rights are null and void. If you want to quote me (that requires my permission now, bitch), you may not write anything negative about the comment, and it must be done wearing a pink bunny suit.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Continue developing it anyway and release it over p2p networks.
Problem solved.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
bnetd's ability to "circumvent" Blizzard's authentication is a SIDE-EFFECT.
I loved starcraft, but why the crap should I connect to somebody else's server to play? I liked Jedi Knight, where I could connect to "The Zone" if I wanted to find someone I didnt know, but if I just wanted to set up a quick game, I'd tell someone on IRC and he'd connect to me directly. Because it's convenient, and it makes more sense.
I dont know anything about World of Warcraft, but if bnetd supports it, and it's the only way to set up a private world, then hell yeah it's a good reason for bnetd.
I can't comprehend the ability to not see a strong legitimate use. If bnetd really support world of warcraft, I may just buy world of warcraft- because there's no way I'm buying a game I can only play by paying to connect to a particular server.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
The maker of a product has no right to prohibit you from using it in a different way than intended.
When it comes to computer software, yes, they do have a right. And they have cases like this and more to prosecute people who use their software in ways they don't allow for whatever reason they want to give.
The vague references to civil liberties and "ill-concieved laws" are equally disturbing. When you bought a Blizzard game, you just got permission to play it in a way Blizzard condones. No personal liberty or "rights", just permission to play the game their way. Nothing else.
I really want to understand how it is you and the moderators that marked the post as insightful came to believe otherwise. Give me some feedback here. Is it that you never bothered to read a single EULA? You haven't formulated an opinion on the matter yet?
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
They could have based their ruling simply on the DMCA and still schilled out an adequate though bought decision to their corporate masters without damaging individual liberty. I want to know where my part in negotiating a eula is "active". I don't get to change the terms, I don't get to talk with anyone in the company regarding it, I don't get to remove any of the add-on software they often push with their crap. And don't give me that "you choose no" garbage, I can't play realplayer files on my computer because "i choose no" simply because I don't want the baggage that goes with realplayer. The player is FREE, but i'm still screwed by a eula. I think I know of some judges who have earned themselves a special place in hell for their biased rulings today.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Ok... it's is open source and we are in slashdot. But I don't see why that should allow them not to follow rules. Does it suck to be unable to create a private server? Yes it does... but that is not enough reason to anyone to start breaking laws... even if it is open source.
Some people wrote an emulator for the server that Blizzard uses to match up internet games for their products. Much like P2P, this program has been used for some legitimate purposes, but mostly just so people can play their pirated copies of the game online.
Blizzard, of course, doesn't like this and sues. Slashdot readers yell as if they didn't know that it was mostly being used for piracy, and try to pretend that the majority of people only use it legitimately. Meanwhile Blizzard's lawsuit, while probably only intended to protect their games against piracy, cause a degradation of our fair use rights.
I blame both Blizzard and the vast majority of users of bnetd (who use it for piracy, please don't pretend that they don't) for this fiasco.
What if somebody rehosts BNET.d on a non-US server? There are plenty of non US develpers who wouldn't mind sharpening their skills while having fun working on this. Perhaps it is just time for the original development team to pass the torch.
My rights don't need management.
They're too busy being litigious assholes.
where's the part where the customer can sign to show that they will legally abide by the terms of the "contract"?
hmmm?
where's the underlined area where the signature goes?
guy selling fruit by the road: by buying my oranges you agree to let me sell your childrens organs. (text of which appears in 1pt font under a shady tree near the ground).
tell me if that's what you think of when you think of contracts.
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
just an interesting thing I noticed, when blizzard does something they do it thoroughly.
All your base are belong to Wii.
Bullshit. He bought exactly what Blizzard stated they were selling on the front of the box - a copy of the copyrighted work (WoW). That copy is his private property to do with as he pleases within the bounds of copyright law. The statements in the EULA are irrelevant. You do not need to agree to them to legally acquire a copy of the game.
People are free to "modify or add components to" their personal property whenever they damn well please.
of apple forbidding people buying osx and using it on anything other than what hardware they choose.
/. is a losing proposition but if some people don't, others will think it's ok if companies do things like this and even believe it's for their own good.
even though no one expects support for unofficial configurations, they go out of their way, and soon with osx86, using the DMCA to prevent bought copies of it being used.
funny though, you don't hear a lot of calls for boycotts.
arguing for property rights on
stand up for all the rights of customers, not just when it's your pet company or if it doesn't involve you at this moment. i guarantee it WILL involve you sooner or later.
i had a lot more hope for the geek community to prevent abuses... but i've been disappointed.
we're no longer the x or y generation, we're the DRM and DMCA gen (P.A.T.R.I.O.T comes to mind). hope you guys like the world we're building.
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
There is an understood proviso there, that Ghandi's statement applies to the masses. He wasn't talking to a group of smart, dedicated, but ultimately limited-in-population geeks.
The OSS/geek world is powerful because it has the ability to release disruptive technologies (and has consistently done so, sending waves through the tech community, especially in the past few years). Its buying power may not be tiny, but it is still insignificant compared to that of the Joe Sixpack market.
And Blizzard has busily sealed off the main way that the OSS world can bring in disruptive technologies -- write software compatible with Blizzard software, and you get sued.
The only real remaining way would be to sit down and write a better version of whatever Blizzard produces, but Blizzard (unlike, say, Microsoft) produces products that have relatively little code and lots of content (audio, artwork, etc). The OSS world is rich in coders, and exceedingly poor in skilled people willing to donate talent on audio and graphics. So, yes, I can design and implement an WCIII-type RTS engine -- it still won't impact Blizzard's bottom line, because they have masses of artists and sound engineers that I *can't* get. Sure, there are open-source people busily producing RTS code, but as long as their audio and graphics aren't comparable to Blizzard's, Blizzard can easily shrug them off.
And as long as the DMCA sits around, as long as there are restrictions on reverse-engineering and producing interoperable software, the open source world is hamstrung in many ways.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
I've had an interest in following the outcome of this particular case, maybe more than some people, because I used to know Tim Jung, the owner of the Internet Gateway ISP and defendant.
.... but I know a lot of people in the St. Louis area who wonder what ever happened to him. (It seems the www.igateway.net web site is still up, but the contact numbers are disconnected and many things look like they haven't been changed/edited in years. So it's more of a "placeholder site" at this point.)
I assume he's not really allowed/able to discuss any specifics of the case, since it's still going on
I'm not sure if the ISP was sold off voluntarily, in an action totally unrelated to the Vivendi/Blizzard suit, or if it had to be done to cover some legal expenses? (Hopefully, it was the former!)
EULA violations are a civil matter, and havn't been tested in court. This is about the DMCA. There could have been no EULA and they'd still be able to take them to court under the anti-copyprotection stuff.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
But the GPL still has to explicitely tell the user they may use the software however they choose, they just don't go into great length to limit its use.
No it does not. The GPL mentions as an FYI that you can use the software for whatever purpose you like- that's because there is no legal grounds by which they could demand otherwise.
Once software is in your hands, the author (or other copyright holder) can't make any demands about what you do with it.
However, distribution is still use EULAs and the GPL both set restriction son distribution.
Wrong again. Repeatly lying about the contents of globally available documents makes you look not only dishonest, but stupid as well.
The GPL makes no restriction on distribution. Distribution is already restricted by copyright law, so if there were no license file at all, it would still be entirely illegal for you to redistribute a program. The GPL removes pre-existing restrictions in certain cases.
half of you all will log onto WoW tonight anyway.
Really, Steam isn't a problem, at least for people who bought the game via steam and weren't crippled by the outdated CD locking junk Vivendi required in the retail version.
Realities just a bunch of bits.
it still won't impact Blizzard's bottom line, because they have masses of artists and sound engineers that I *can't* get
I can't help wondering if you've hit on the uncomfortable core of this whole argument here: vile though the DMCA is, and massively multinational though Vivendi are, Is it not possible that this isn't plain and simple evil coporate badness? maybe what's being protected here is the work of those masses of artists? in which case isn't that exactly what copyright law is supposed to be about?
The masses of (frankly, incredibly talented) artists at Blizzard aren't there as slaves to the man, they're getting paid for doing what they love (and are really good at): collaboratively producing a finished product that's then protected under copyright law, so that there's still a market for their susequent work.
If I were one of these guys I think I'd want the suits to persue this case with extreme prejudice. After all if Vivendi lost, and the courts rules it was fair use to bolt my artwork onto any old OSS RTS project, then who'd be paying for new art in a couple of years? Say what you like about Blizzard but over the years they've significantly raised the bar for the artistic standard of games.
OK, so bnetd itself is just a means to play Blizzard's games online without going through battle.net, but in legal terms that's the thin end of the wedge. Looked at in those terms, just maybe they're right to be stomping on it hard.
If we want OSS RTS gaming to flourish as competition to the big corps, we've got to do it entirely sepparately from commercial projects, and that means finding tallented digital artists who are as commited to the OSS idea as the coders are...
Yes, imagine such an insane world were you might walk into your local Best Buy, pick up a CD full of music, a PS2 videogame, a movie, and a copy of Windows for Dummies, pay for them, take them home, then use them as you like without having to agree to some contract.
Oh, wait, I guess I can do that today and the world hasn't ended.
If a company wants to sell me software under contract, feel free to do so. Businesses do so all the time. You sign the contract, you pay for the license, then you get the actual software. But if I walk into a store and buy a music CD, a book, a PS2 video game, and a PC video game, I would suggest that I own those particular items and am free to use them as I wish. But you're claiming that I get home, open my purchases, and I can read the book without an agreement, I can play the music without an agreement, I can use the software on the PS2 without an agreement, but I need to agree to some new thing for my PC video game, that's just insane.
Now if only there was some sort of law that could stop people from maing copies. Perhaps by granting a monopoly right to copy to the original author/publisher. Perhaps we should call it copyright. That seems like a good idea to me.
Thet LEGISLATIVE limitation you seem so worried about already exists. It works fine for books, music, console video games, movies, television programs, plays, maps, essays, articles, magazines, paintings, photographs, and more. Perhaps most importantly, it covers computer software.
You are right about one thing, the legal ignorance here is disturbing. Perhaps you're seeing your reflection in your monitor?
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