The BnetD saga continues. Apparently BnetD has not given up yet. We had published about this a few months back with greater details but now the final show down will comence on June 20th in St.Louis, MO USA.
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments in Blizzard v. BnetD. The result of this case could dramatically impact consumers' ability to customize software and electronic devices and to obtain customized tools created by others. This means that there is more at stake in these proceedings than our own private servers.
Here is a quote from the bastion and holy fortress of all that means freedom in the tech world, the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
"three open source software engineers who reverse-engineered an aspect of Blizzard's Battlenet game server in order to create a free software game server called BnetD that works with lawfully purchased Blizzard games. The BnetD server lets gamers have a wider range of options when playing online. The lower court held that the reverse-engineering of the games needed to create this new option for consumers was illegal.
They continue to point out the importance of why Blizzard has to lose in this case:
"EFF took the case to stand up for consumer choice in the marketplace. Reverse engineering is often the only way to craft a new product that works with older ones. Congress expressly recognized this when it created an exception to the DMCA for reverse engineering. Whether it's allowing gamers to choose a better server for Internet play, or allowing a printer owner to purchase from a range of printer cartridge replacements, reverse engineering is a critical part of innovation in a world where more and more devices need to talk to each other in order to operate correctly.."
You can read the rest at » EFF.org.
Links
EFF.org - Latest News
EFF.org - Complete Saga
Blizzplanet.com - My Source, Post by Medieval Dragon
