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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...
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.
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
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.
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?
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.
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.
It's still being developed anyway under a different name. http://pvpgn.berlios.de/
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
Your comment sucks.
And, I am naked.
When can I expect the call from your lawyer?
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
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...