EA Shuts Down Fan-Run Servers For Older Battlefield Games (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Since 2014, a group of volunteers going by the name Revive Network have been working to keep online game servers running for Battlefield 2, Battlefield 2142, and Battlefield Heroes. As of this week, the team is shutting down that effort thanks to a legal request from publisher Electronic Arts. "We will get right to the point: Electronic Arts Inc.' legal team has contacted us and nicely asked us to stop distributing and using their intellectual property," the Revive Network team writes in a note on their site. "As diehard fans of the franchise, we will respect these stipulations."

EA's older Battlefield titles were a victim of the 2014 GameSpy shutdown, which disabled the online infrastructure for plenty of classic PC and console games. To get around that, Revive was distributing modified versions of the older Battlefield titles along with a launcher that allowed access to its own, rewritten server infrastructure. The process started with Battlefield 2 in 2014 and expanded to Battlefield 2142 last year, and Battlefield Heroes a few month ago. It's the distribution of modified copies of these now-defunct games that seems to have drawn the ire of EA's legal department. Revive claimed over 900,000 registered accounts across its games, including nearly 175,000 players for the recently revived Battlefield Heroes.

Comments

Diehard?

[sexconker]

"As diehard fans of the franchise, we will respect these stipulations."

More like die easy.

Re:Diehard?

[Gordo_1]

Well, what would you do? Continue to distribute modified copies of copyright software you don't have legal rights to? If EA wants to kill off its old online games, let em. Just pisses off 900,000 potential customers who'll now have one more reason to think twice about supporting them in the future.

Re:Diehard?

[Ichijo]

Just distribute binary diffs so people can patch their own copies of the game.

Re:Diehard?

[tepples]

Well, what would you do?

Build a free as in speech FPS game in the same genre from the ground up.

Re:Diehard?

[hackwrench]

Fight to eliminate intellectual property rights being the ones enforceable by law. For every right there is an equal and opposite right.

Re:Diehard?

[ArylAkamov]

Well, what would you do? Continue to distribute modified copies of copyright software you don't have legal rights to?

Yes, exactly that, hosted in whatever country will laugh at them.

Re:Diehard?

[tepples]

Color the blood the same color as the attacking team's uniform color, and it'll look more like paintball. How is paintball hate speech?

Re: Diehard?

[liquidhot]

Can't that be removed under DMCA though?

Re: Diehard?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

May depend on the country. It's perfectly legal, for example, in my country to patch even proprietary software if it's necessary to fix it or make it function, and copyright holders can't object because it's specifically enshrined in the law as "not a copyright violation" so they have no case.

Re:Diehard?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

For every right there is an equal and opposite right.

I think that should have read "for every right there is an equal and opposite left." ;)

Re:Diehard?

[Altrag]

Because there's such a shortage of FPS games out there.

If those 900,000 players wanted just "an FPS," they could simply buy the latest Battlefield or CoD, or if they want to get off the yearly-upgrade treadmill there's only a few dozen other FPS' with high popularity and probably hundreds nobody's ever heard of.

The point is that they want to play that specific game for whatever reason.

Re:Diehard?

[joemck]

They could distribute an all-open-source launcher that launches the game and then patches it as necessary in-memory. That way they aren't redistributing anything they don't directly hold the copyright to, and players can't use it without already having a copy of the game.

Re:Diehard?

[Altrag]

Not everyone is willing (or even able) to upend their entire lives and move to a probably-still-developing country purely for the sake of being able to infringe copyrights. Especially if they aren't making money from their infringement.

Re:Diehard?

[ArylAkamov]

Who said anything about moving? Just host the server there.

Re:Diehard?

[tepples]

The other part is to define what mechanics make Battlefield different from the dozen other active FPSes with tolerated fan-run servers.

Re:Diehard?

[CanEHdian]

Not even that! Just tell users theyr'e on their own finding the patch files. Which OTHER volunteers in OTHER jurisdictions *where this is legal* are happy to supply.

EA

[Anonymous Coward]

EAt shit and die.

Not that big of a loss

[Patent Lover]

Battlefield 1942 was the bomb. Best Battlefield ever. They lost their way when they started trying to be realistic rather than fun.

Re: Not that big of a loss

[guruevi]

Theyâ(TM)re not very realistic. You mean they release the same game with slightly higher resolution textures.

If they were intending to be a more realistic simulator, they would have to do research in weapons, accuracy and injury modeling.

Re:Not that big of a loss

[antdude]

Not just that. Mod support like Desert Combat.

Re:Not that big of a loss

[deesine]

IIRC, 2-4 of that team were hired for Battlefield 2. Yes, that was the best mod ever, second place to the Star Wars one, and the the Vietnam one.

Re:Not that big of a loss

[antdude]

Galactic Conquest and Eve of Destruction mods were great too!

Re:Not that big of a loss

[whopub]

I still play a mod of the original BF1942, called Desert Combat. Tried BF2 for less than a week and gave up, never touched any other title of the franchise. There's a small community, and just a few servers, but it's still the only game I play. Hope they can never screw that up for us

Re:Not that big of a loss

[theurge14]

I have many fond memories of Desert Combat / Battlefield 1942.

I actually went out and purchased a Thrustmaster flight stick to play that game. I was the best Blackhawk pilot, carrying guys into the battlefield, hovering over targets while my gunner mowed down the enemy. Great, great times. Battlefield 2 and on after that just weren't as fun for me.

Re:Not that big of a loss

[antdude]

Yeah. I enjoyed BF2 and still have it. I got too busy with life after that. :( In fact, I resumed and finished a couple decades old games on my ancient gaming box. I still have my basic MS Sidewinder joystick, but I really suck! ;)

Re:Not that big of a loss

[antdude]

But it was fun. That's the keypoint. That's why DICE made BF2. My boss, friends, and I played DC mod too much. Haha.

EA

[Anonymous Coward]

Epic Assholes. What else would you expect?

Property is theft

[hackwrench]

Intellectual property especially, Good times were had and now EA is going to go ruin it, because "muy property."

Re:Property is theft

[hackwrench]

Didn't understand my post, fine. For every right there is an equal and opposite right. The fans just didn't fight for theirs.

Re:Property is theft

[Anonymous Coward]

It's still their property irregardless of company size.

EA is headquartered in the USA, thus your statement above is factually incorrect.

Copyright law does not impart *ownership* to the creators of any copyrighted work.
It only provides very specific and limited rights related to distribution and performance of the work to the copyright holder, which is all they can legally use copyright to limit.

In fact the only mention of the word "ownership" in copyright law is in the paragraph stating all works under copyright are the inheritance of the public to own, once the copyright term has expired.

If a small app developer finds his apps being used without his consent he/she also has the right to request that it to be stopped.

That is also factually incorrect. Consent is not required to *use* a copyrighted work.
Consent is required for distributing that work and for performing that work.
Consent is also required when a separate work is a derivative of another work that is copyrighted by someone else.

Simply *using* that work is not a restricted right under copyright law, and the copyright owners have no legal standing to claim otherwise.

In this one particular case, the legal issue is with distributing a work under copyright and held by EA.
Distributing a copyrighted work IS a right granted to the copyright holder.
Using a copyrighted work is not a right the copyright holder has any control over.

Re:Property is theft

[hackwrench]

In a nod to common law, the 10th Amendment says every right is a legal right and not just the ones enumerated in the Constitution.

Re:Property is theft

[QuantumFTL]

In fact the only mention of the word "ownership" in copyright law is in the paragraph stating all works under copyright are the inheritance of the public to own, once the copyright term has expired.

Actually, at 30 mentions of owners and ownership in Title 17, Chapter 2 alone, you are dead wrong:
https://www.copyright.gov/titl...:

Read all of the laws there. You will find plenty more mentions. And in case you try to backpedal and amend your statement, since the term is used to describe the copyright itself, and not the work, you can find the term "owner of a work" and "ownership of a work" in multiple official documents associated with our government's various copyright bodies:
https://www.federalregister.go...
https://www.copyright.gov/docs...
https://www.copyright.gov/poli...

I'm not saying I agree with US copyright law, but lets get our facts straight. Your conclusions may (or may not) be valid, but that particular argument regarding legal wording is so wrong that I have to wonder if you've even read these laws.

Bonus: Contrary to your main argument, DCMA *does* in fact prohibit actions involving circumvention of copyright--many of which are actions taken for personal use, say, displaying a legitimate copy of a video from a computer by illegally circumventing HDCP or the like. This is absurd, but that's how the law was written, and I doubt it was put there by accident.

Re: Property is theft

[orlanz]

It would be nice if in the day of digitization, a distributed work becomes public domain if said distribution laps for more than 10 years. Distribution should include utility (i.e.: you can't charge $300 for something that you mass sold for $50, or turn off the validation server). It's really not hard nor expensive to provide a public copy for the term of the copyright.

If an owner can't keep providing his work for 10 years nor fund it for such, then it wasn't really worth much and they failed in the agreement with the public. The loss to the public was far greater than the gain to the owner.

  It would be more valuable being part of the public base that all can build upon.

Re:Property is theft

[Shadow of Eternity]

No, it isn't. It's not their property, it never was their property. It's my property. I bought it, I own it, and I can fucking use it however I damn well please. EA doesn't get to decide whether or not I can play the game I paid cash for.

Re:Property is theft

[Luthair]

I wonder if you could make a fair use argument - I presume they aren't distributing the whole work only a modified binary, is making multiplayer work transformative?

Re:Property is theft

[joemck]

Better yet, they could distribute a IPS file and the MD5 hash of the resulting exe. Unlike some other binary diff formats, IPS only stores offsets and the new replacement bytes -- that is, new material only, no original bytes from the game file. The downside is that there is no verification that the input file is the right one for this patch, which can be solved with an MD5 of the original and/or the result.

Then EA has no claim whatsoever -- no bytes of their work are being redistributed, and any DRM breaking and reverse engineering involved should be allowed under the DMCA since it is to achieve interoperability with their 3rd party server.

Re:Property is theft

[Altrag]

Yep you're correct. You can use that CD as a coaster and the box as a bookend as much as you want. If there's an offline component, you're completely free to continue using that as much as you please as well. You don't get to force EA to keep their servers up indefinitely. That's all purely in the realm of real property.

The IP/copyright part comes into play with regards to emulating EA's servers. If that was all it was, EA might not have much basis. But connecting to the emulated server required making and distributing modifications to the game, and that's getting into the no-no territory.

I mean maybe there's a chance that it could be ruled a fair use. But that would mean a legal battle against EA where even if EA looked like they might lose, they have the funds to simply draw it out until you go bankrupt and are forced to concede. And I'm not even sure its a good chance that you'd get a favorable ruling.

Re: Property is theft

[QuantumFTL]

I like the general sentiment here, but I think there are a lot of details to iron out, and we would have to be careful regarding unintended consequences.

For instance, there's the matter of how to treat trade secrets, which are common in computer code. In many cases, the creator of a work doesn't even have a right to distribute source code that they've purchased a license to (say, a game engine) and have modified, so this is untenable unless you are willing to make entire business models completely flat.

I suspect on re-reading your comment that you mean the portion of a work that is distributed--in this case the game client. There are less issues with that, but still licensed assets are a fairly reasonable part of the copyrighted works market. Perhaps unlimited duplication after a lapse time would be allowed, but derivative works would not be?

It's an interesting thought. It's not going to happen, but something like it's now on my wishlist.

Re:Property is theft

[Shadow of Eternity]

Again: My property, that I own, and I can modify and use however I want. Ford doesn't get to tell me I'm not allowed to install aftermarket tires on their truck and go mudding.

Re:Property is theft

[Altrag]

The bits are your property. The arrangement of said bits is not your property. You can dislike the law as much as you want, and try to change it if you're really motivated. But just ignoring the law makes you a criminal as things currently stand.

Next up

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's shut down butt fucking

Re:Next up

[Insanity Defense]

Let's shut down butt fucking

If you hadn't begun doing it you wouldn't need to stop.

Re:Next up

[Altrag]

.. there's a lot of states with anti-sodomy laws. Of course they've been just about as effective as copyright laws.

A lost opportunity

[techno-vampire]

If there are that many people who still want to play those games on line, EA should reactivate their own servers, let them play the game and charge a fair price for the service. Almost pure profit, as they should already have all of the infrastructure including the software.

Re:A lost opportunity

[Anonymous Coward]

the "fair price" was already paid, ffs, through the retail price for the games. ea obsoletes titles based on age, not popularity. soon as a title is 'too old' and continued play cuts into new sales, they're shut down. ea would rather people buy new titles, ones sold via one-time-use keys, and use the abomination called origin to buy and play.

Re:A lost opportunity

[Somebody Is Using My]

But people playing old classics aren't playing - and buying - the new hotness... and more importantly, the new hotness' DLC, microtransactions and loot-boxes (that's where the real money is). And gamers have repeatedly shown that they will keep buying new games regardless of how poorly a publisher treats them. So there is absolutely no advantage to a publisher to keep old game servers running: it cannibalizes new sales, shutting them down doesn't dissuade new sales, and servers cost money.

Would releasing patches - which don't contain any copyrighted material - that can be applied to end-user's executables be a legal work-around? Although ensuring the correct version might be difficult; I am guessing these games went through a multitude of updates.

Re:A lost opportunity

[Dutch Gun]

EA is only interested in games that can extract maximum micro-transactions from players, probably in the form of in-game loot boxes. Look for this trend over the next few years from all EA-owned studios. In other words, even a single-player game is going to require some sort of massive grind (declared "optional"), like the new Mordor game (different publisher, but same damned mindset), or will have some sort of multi-player tacked on which support micro-transactions. I'm no longer expecting great single-player RPGs from Bioware - my assumption is that they'll be filled with this sort of crap, and I hope I can stand by my principles and not purchase it.

Screw this. Screw them. I weep for my own industry and the reluctance of publishers to consider simply making great games that people want to play, and instead spend all their efforts figuring out how to milk "cows", players who spend hundreds or even *thousands* of dollars on worthless in-game crap, all at the expense of people like me who are willing to pay for a great, one-time game experience.

Re:A lost opportunity

[Anonymous Coward]

Would releasing patches - which don't contain any copyrighted material

They'd be derivative works.

Re:A lost opportunity

[Insanity Defense]

The problem with this is that just because you may have liked the old game you may not like the new one and so won't buy it and may not buy the next one either because they took away the one you actually liked.

Re:A lost opportunity

[JackieBrown]

I still play Enemy Territory: Wolfenstein and but new games

Re: A lost opportunity

[Dutch Gun]

Support indie gaming. The best titles I've played over the last 5 years have come from very small shops. They build decent games and are less likely to oull that crap.

I am an indie game developer - literally a one-man show. I decided to "go rogue" a few years ago, and I should be finished with my game in another year or so. No micro-transactions. No loot boxes. No DRM. No crap, as you say.

Re:A lost opportunity

[iive]

The patches themselves are not derivative, because they are entirely owned by their authors.

The patch can just check if the executable binary is original by using checksum, then write the new binary data at fixed locations.

There is absolutely no reason for the patch to contain portions of the old executable, since these portions could just be copied by the patching program to their new location(s).

The patched executable would be derivative work and this means that it cannot be distributed. But it can still be used by its legal owner.

The first sale doctrine states that once a person had obtained legal copy (aka he has paid for it) then he can do whatever he wants with it, except distribute other copies of it (or its derivatives) -
thus copy-right.

They were distributing modified game files

[HalAtWork]

Instead of distributing patches of their own design, they were distributing modified files that were under copyright by EA.

Re:They were distributing modified game files

[Guybrush_T]

I'd be interested to know why they didn't distribute tools to patch the original binaries instead of modified binaries. Maybe copy protection of some sort.

Re:They were distributing modified game files

[UnknownSoldier]

Yeah that is rather strange.

One reason might be that the original .exe's are no longer available?

Does anyone know if EA is still selling any of the effected games?

Re:They were distributing modified game files

[Somebody Is Using My]

Even if they were only releasing patches, it might not keep them out of legal entanglements, especially if they have to bypass authentication or copy-protection methods to get it to work. Publishers have successfully argued that offering such methods violates the DMCA.

With older games the fan-developers might get away with it since the copy-protection was usually built into the executable and only checked at launch; modifying the multiplayer code likely wouldn't touch the copy-protection at all. But bewer games also use access-control measures when they authenticate with online servers and bypassing that can get you into hot water. I am not sure how the Battlefield games do it.

Of course, regardless of the legality of their actions, EA has the resources to make the developer's life hell through extended legal battles. It sounds like - since the developers were posting full executables rather than diffs - they were caught red-handed and EA would probably be able to get a judgement against them. If they just switched to offering patches - even if the patches themselves were fully legal - EA would still be able to go after them for their prior actions. So the developers probably took the wiser course by settling and just took everything down.

Now, if some other group took their work and released diffs based on those previously-released executables (and if these patches didn't violate the DMCA clause against trafficking in bypassing access-control measures), EA would have a much harder legal battle. Of course, for a company that makes $800 million per year on FIFA alone, they could still terrorize the patch-makers with endless law-suits, no matter how spurious, so it still might not be worth the effort on the part of the patchers..

Right to repair

[PPH]

My game stopped working. I* fixed it. As should be my right.

*Or I had the mechanic of my choice perform the repair. For myself and all the other people who own this product.

Keep all this EA ass-hattery in mind as you purchase vehicles and other products. For which manufacturers maintain the right to not only withhold support, but remotely disable when they feel end of life has been reached. [This fulfills my obligatory bad car analogy quota for the week.]

BF2Hub

[Maetryx]

BF2Hub client still seems to work for Battlefield 2.

Re:Alternatives to BF 2142? (no gore, fun action)

[damnbunni]

Splatoon.

It would be hard to get more fun and less realistic than Splatoon.

Of course, it's a vastly different style of 'shooter'.

No fan-run servers?

[marcle]

It might be hard to find a CPU and chipset that don't require air cooling. Maybe Peltier modules?

Re:No fan-run servers?

[marcle]

Look son...we have a smart ass here.

Thank god I got a reaction. Gamers are a deadly serious bunch.

Re:No fan-run servers?

[DontBeAMoran]

In my days, CPUs didn't even require any cooling. We had to squeeze everything from 4MHz or less, no graphic subsystem, no audio subsystem.

Re:No fan-run servers?

[joemck]

Come on now, you had a dedicated graphics subsystem that automatically scanned through a text buffer in dedicated video memory, converted it to pixels dynamically and generated a video signal. And bitbanging 1-bit PWM audio over the parallel port is a perfectly functional audio subsystem.

Makes me glad I stopped playing their games.

[HiThere]

I never trust a game that depends on somebody else's server being accessible. This is another piece of evidence as to why that is proper.

But "Electronic Arts", in particular, has several black marks against themselves in my book. Perhaps I just notice them more, but they seem worse than the average game maker.

Re:Makes me glad I stopped playing their games.

[thegarbz]

I never trust a game that depends on somebody else's server being accessible.

So you don't play games.

Re:Makes me glad I stopped playing their games.

[HiThere]

Actually, I do play games. Just not recent ones. Every time I go looking to buy something recent, it isn't acceptable. So I end up running older games under emulation.

Actually, I play less now than I used to, but that's because I've gotten a bit bored with the ones I have. Still, when I really tired, but it's not time to sleep, I'll pull out a game. Civilization is a good one. But I've never activated the last edition I bought, because it demands access to a remote server.

Re:Alternatives to BF 2142? (no gore, fun action)

[Hognoxious]

From the title I assume it's either like paintball or, well, you know...

right to repair laws?

[Joe_Dragon]

will right to repair laws? stop like this from happening??? as if not car manufacturer can use IP clams to shut down 3rd party stops and parts.

Re:right to repair laws?

[sims 2]

Afaik they are only intending to apply it to physical products like toasters, cars, trucks and tractors.

But yeah it would be nice if it was legal to keep software you and others bought running after the company decides to no longer support it.

Re:Alternatives to BF 2142? (no gore, fun action)

[DontBeAMoran]

I've seen friends play that game on the Wii U (or was it the Switch?) and... it's hard to describe. Try to imagine paintball mixed with Taito's Qix.

Re:Alternatives to BF 2142? (no gore, fun action)

[damnbunni]

You play as a kid that turns into a squid and run around with splat guns or paint rollers or ink snipers or Gatling guns and the goal is actually to cover more of the arena in your team's color than the other team's, and you can shoot each other with the ink guns.

It's a very chaotic and offensive game; finding a defensable position is possible, but won't help cover territory.

Public random matches are short, but you can enter ranked play and team ranked play. (Neither of which I use, because I'm not very good at the game.)

Splatoon 1 is for the WiiU, Splatoon 2 is for the Switch. I don't know if many people are still playing the first one, though.

Re: Dear Electronic Arts:

[Anonymous Coward]

EA did not ask for the servers to shut down.

Hopefully you teach your kids to think independently and not get all butthurt over information which is spoonfed to them.

Re: Dear Electronic Arts:

[Shikaku]

https://i.imgur.com/nGFjzEs.pn...

And now this. I see a pretty harsh trend and it's not a one off. I think it's good to teach them what the company has a LONG history of doing.

and what about the original, 1942?

[deesine]

Last year Moongamers was still running a 1942 server.

Kali

[AndyKron]

Meh, Kali still supports Duke Nukem. I'm good.

Why not ship tool that patches the binary?

[LazLong]

EA's upset that these guys are illegally distributing the binaries. Why not distribute a tool that patches the binaries? Wouldn't this be legal?

Intellectual property theft goes two ways

[Shirley Marquez]

People has said that the games are EA's intellectual property and they have the right to control them. But what about the intellectual property rights of people who bought the game, and had it turned into useless slabs of polycarbonate or collections of digital bits by EA's decision to shut down the servers? EA is stealing THEIR intellectual property by refusing to allow alternate servers to continue operation.

Re:Intellectual property theft goes two ways

[Altrag]

what about the intellectual property rights of people who bought the game

How many congresscritters do they own? None? Thought so.

I'm not so sure I like that logic

[rsilvergun]

the car companies are fighting R2R laws tooth and nail. I'm not sure I want to add the software industry to that list.