BNETD finally lost their case after their final appeal. The ruling signifies a loss for BNETD, Blizzard game fans and for programming innovation. So this match ended with a 3-0 for the winner, as usual, the lawyers and the corporate world. So it is - No rm, gl, hf - for the programmers today.
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis ruled, after an appeal by the progamers of BNETD of the previous lower court's decision against them, that federal law considers it an infringement of the law to reverse engineer battle.net like servers and thus disallowing players from altering Blizzard games to link with servers other than the company's official Battle.net site. This is their final interpretation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a US federal law. The Electronic Frontiers Foundation argues against the inherent problems of such rulings because the consequences are far worse than many understand and go beyond Blizzard's current complaints. This quote probably explains best their point of view.
As it stands, the lower court's decision makes it unlawful in most cases to reverse engineer any commercial software program, thus making it impossible to create new programs that interoperate with older ones. This squeezes consumer choice out of the marketplace by essentially allowing companies to outlaw competitors' products that interact with their own.
Paul Sams, chief operating officer of Blizzard Entertainment had to say this about the subject to gamespot, "by again ruling in our favor on every count, the court is reiterating the message that creating unauthorized servers which emulate Blizzard’s Battle.net servers is without question illegal. We have worked hard to provide gamers with a free and secure environment on Battle.net, and this ruling further validates that we are justified in protecting our service and our players. In addition, it represents another major victory against software piracy."
In the Warcraft Battle.net Q&A Blizzard has addressed this subject and given their answer.
What about the hobbyists who are not pirating your software but just want to use these servers as an alternative to Battle.net?
Unfortunately, software pirates have spoiled this situation for hobbyists. We are constantly working to improve Battle.net, and we sincerely hope that one day, no one will see any reason to seek alternatives to Battle.net for playing Blizzard games.
Unfortunately, software pirates have spoiled this situation for hobbyists. We are constantly working to improve Battle.net, and we sincerely hope that one day, no one will see any reason to seek alternatives to Battle.net for playing Blizzard games.
In other words they are encouraging us for patience while they continue to improve Battle.net. Having said this, when Blizzard sues its own die hard fans it makes a mistake. Let me quote the last part of a news post at » CNet: Putting the DMCA on trial regarding the subject.
That doesn't mean Blizzard is wise to file this lawsuit. Its energy could have been better spent in improving Battle.net or, better yet, offering legal ways for its customers to create their own servers. Suing your customers, especially devoted fans of your games, is rarely the wisest business strategy.
So, yes Blizzard won their battle but in doing so they have finally made making projects such BNETD illegal in the USA and saying "no" once more to Blizzard game fans to playing in private servers. This really is of little importance if one looks at the large implications of this ruling. In the near future, many courts and lawyers will be going back to this ruling, sending us a little more into that corporate world of stifled innovation and choked creativity, all in the name of greed. The irony of it all, is that I am willing to bet that many of the coders and progammers at Blizzard were cheering for BNETD.
Entropy
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Links
EFF.org - Source and Paladins of Good
EFF.org - Mp3 of the first ruling (June 20th).
Gamespot.com - Source of Paul Sams Quotes
