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."

Comments

My move is still

[eddy]

to not buy Blizzard products (yes, this includes WoW), but that's just me.

Re:My move is still

[geekoid]

Based on WOW's popularity across demographic lines, yes, yes it is just you.

Re:My move is still

[PhiberOptix]

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.

Mahatma Gandhi

Corporations win again

[dotslashdot]

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.

A simple summary:

[geekoid]

here

I really hate Blizzard

[typical]

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.

More imporant: The Trademark Act

[tyroneking]

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...

Boycott is the greatest power

[PhatKat]

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.

Re:The case

[sangreal66]

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?

The court didn't say their actions weren't covered by the interoperability exemption. The court ruled that appelants waived the exemption when they agreed to Blizzard's EULA.

Appellants contractually accepted restrictions on their ability to reverse engineer by their agreement to the terms of the TOU and EULA. "[P]rivate parties are free to contractually forego the limited ability to reverse engineer a software product under the exemptions of the Copyright Act[,]" Bowers v. Baystate Techs, Inc., 320 F.3d 1317, 1325-26 (Fed. Cir. 2003), and "a state can permit parties to contract away a fair use defense or to agree not to engage in uses of copyrighted material that are permitted by the copyright law if the contract is freely negotiated."

Of course, I wouldn't call a EULA "freely negotiated."

Mod Parent down - Troll

[SoloFlyer2]

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!

Re:The case

[ScrewMaster]

Of course, I wouldn't call a EULA "freely negotiated."

Absolutely, and if the legitimacy of those things had been properly struck down in previous cases this case would probably never have made it to court.

Re:I almost agree with you.

[Psykechan]

I want to start my own set of free servers only for friends and friends of friends invitation only. Should I be allowed to create a server side application that Blizzard's WoW client can connect to and invite my friends to play?

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:

4. Responsibilities of End User.

B. You agree that you shall not, under any circumstances,

(iii) host, provide or develop matchmaking services for the Game or intercept, emulate or redirect the communication protocols used by Licensor in any way, including, without limitation, through protocol emulation, tunneling, packet sniffing, modifying or adding components to the Game, use of a utility program or any other techniques now known or hereafter developed, for any purpose, including, but not limited to, unauthorized network play over the Internet, network play utilizing commercial or non-commercial gaming networks or as part of content aggregation networks;

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.

3. Ownership.
A. All title, ownership rights and intellectual property rights in and to the Game and all copies thereof (including, but not limited to, any titles, computer code, themes, objects, characters, character names, stories, dialog, catch phrases, locations, concepts, artwork, character inventories, structural or landscape designs, animations, sounds, musical compositions, audio-visual effects, storylines, character likenesses, methods of operation, moral rights, any related documentation, and "applets" incorporated into the Game) are owned or expressly licensed by Licensor. The Game is protected by the copyright laws of the United States, international copyright treaties and conventions, and other laws. All rights are reserved. The Game may contain certain licensed materials, and the licensors of those materials may enforce their rights in the event of any violation of this License Agreement.

Lets take a moment to consider

[jsmoonrider]

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?

Re:The case

[cortana]

Fear not, consumer! It is only a matter of time before your outmoded laws are harmonised with those of America.

Ghandi was talking to the goat herders

[typical]

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.