Oh for the love of god. Blizzard has joined the 'lets sue everyone' bandwagon.

[Menokh]

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/04/18/bnetd/index.html

This has got to be one of the most rediculous legal battles I've heard of.
This is almost as stupid as when Sony sued someone for reprogramming an Aibo.

The DMCA has done more harm than good...

[Cyclone]

Oy me Goyd...


As for Blizzard, the company's statement declares flatly that "it would have been impossible for a third party to recreate specific authentication code embedded in their games by analyzing or 'packet sniffing' network traffic between a Blizzard game and Battle.net." According to Blizzard, the lawsuit filed on April 5, 2002, "alleges that members of the bnetd project violated copyright law by illegally copying portions of code from Blizzard's computer games."

Completely highly arrogant asses. I hope Blizzard loses this, big time.

Cyclone

[Shadowblazer]

Originally posted by Cyclone
Oy me Goyd...



Completely highly arrogant asses. I hope Blizzard loses this, big time.

Cyclone How arrogant of you to believe that you know better than those who wrote the code in the first place.

[Dart Zaidyer]

Let's see if we can't straighten Shadowblazer out with a quick and dirty reference of a similar case:

RIAA versus Napster.

Which brings me to another point... the music titan's victory has probably inspired other fascist penny-pinching tycoons to take a bold legal leap against their competitors in a grand effort to cut them down to ribbons and remain at the top, hopefully to stay there while everyone is too busy pointing fingers at Microsoft for doing the same thing to notice. Hence this case.

[Jemsee]

I can see why Blizzard is upset.
Soon to be released game and maybe a plan charging for the battle.net service. Then these guys come along and offer a better service for free.
But like the article said:"Build a better mouse trap, catch more mice. Build a better online gaming server, get yourself sued."

Blizzard should have been happy they pulled from the net, why continue to sue after that, it will just give them a bad rep.

[The Silent Assassin]

Well...in regards to this...

Read these two paragraphs carefully:

"In response, the bnetd team, unable to face the legal costs of contesting Blizzard in court, removed the bnetd code from the bnetd.org Web site. But this did not satisfy Blizzard. On April 5, Blizzard filed suit against Internet Gateway and bnetd.org's system administrator, Tim Jung. (Other defendants, perhaps those who contributed to bnetd's code, may be added later.) This time around, Blizzard did not cite the DMCA. Instead, Blizzard now says that bnetd serves as a way to allow unauthorized public performances of Blizzard's copyrighted work (its games).

It is unclear exactly what the reasoning was behind the change in legal tack. Blizzard's legal team may have decided that the charge that the bnetd code itself was a copyright violation would not stick -- the code "emulates" the functionality of Battle.net, but it does not actually copy any of Battle.net's code. It's also possible that the new legal language was a pre-emptive attempt to protect a new, subscription-based version of Battle.net that will debut for the upcoming World of Warcraft."

If ZC ever DID get big...that's what Nintendo would use against AGN...that is...if we EVER got that big.

[Cyclone]

Originally posted by The Silent Assassin
Well...in regards to this...

Read these two paragraphs carefully:

"In response, the bnetd team, unable to face the legal costs of contesting Blizzard in court, removed the bnetd code from the bnetd.org Web site. But this did not satisfy Blizzard. On April 5, Blizzard filed suit against Internet Gateway and bnetd.org's system administrator, Tim Jung. (Other defendants, perhaps those who contributed to bnetd's code, may be added later.) This time around, Blizzard did not cite the DMCA. Instead, Blizzard now says that bnetd serves as a way to allow unauthorized public performances of Blizzard's copyrighted work (its games).

It is unclear exactly what the reasoning was behind the change in legal tack. Blizzard's legal team may have decided that the charge that the bnetd code itself was a copyright violation would not stick -- the code "emulates" the functionality of Battle.net, but it does not actually copy any of Battle.net's code. It's also possible that the new legal language was a pre-emptive attempt to protect a new, subscription-based version of Battle.net that will debut for the upcoming World of Warcraft."

If ZC ever DID get big...that's what Nintendo would use against AGN...that is...if we EVER got that big.

Hmm, now that you mention it, you're right; that is the exact same thing. Imagine the first day the new program is released, and bnetd allows even hacked versions...given that this is a current game, I see the problem. I think Nintendo is holding back because they are no longer selling The Legend Of Zelda in stores (or anyhow, methinks), and they will only jump at our throats if we begin to charge money for this game. At that point, DN will have a salary...beta testing would be stricter than ever...and everyone involved with ZC would be potential witnesses in a Nintendo lawsuit.

So as long as it remains free, it should be fine. :)

Cyclone

[Zeo]

That's not good, cyc.

They'd have to build a new "witness holding area" just for AGN if it came to that.

Then there's our international people....................


And Nintendo would do it too...............

[DarkDragoonX]

Heh, it's rather ironic how people are angry at Blizzard for that. They have a perfectly legitimate reason to be angry at the bnetd people. You guys are forgetting that, no matter how good their games are, and no matter what kind of face they show to the public, Blizzard, and other video game companies, such as Nintendo and Sony, are just that: companies. Their main purpose is to make money. Since this bnetd thing could steal tens of millions of dollars away from Blizzard, I caqn see how they would be pretty pissed.

[Daarkseid]

Originally posted by DarkDragoonX
Yeah... really. Who was it that made Starcraft and Diablo II? Independant programmers who then altruistically made the code open source? No. The good high quality stuff is typically made by professionals, I mean those who make games FOR A LIVING. Blizzard has to find some way of preventing a loss... its not as though these people, once they go out of business, are just going to keep making these games...

And still, alot of you people love Starcraft. I didn't, nor did I much care about the Diablo series much either, yet I still stick up for Blizzard... however the fact this bnetd thing was recreated as a result of Battlenet's shortcomings does illustrate a severe weakness in Blizzard's gaming plans. I think Blizzard, while
it's lawsuit may be partially reasonable and certainly their right, should instead focus on improving its Battlenet service.

Face it, alot of recent forms of abusive piracy have resulted from consumers frustrations over companies distribution and pricing schemes. Napster was created not with the intent to harm record companies, but as a means of sharing music between people. That other people were fed up with paying ridiculous amounts of money for CDs that have maybe one or two good songs on them, shows why Napster and proceeding file sharing services did so well.

If Blizzard would be more receptive to consumers, they could potentially avoid having to resort to lawsuits, or at the very least, avoid losing money to situations like bnetd.

[Mak-X]

Has Blizzard gone after FSGS and that other one you pay $20 for that I can't remember?


One of the worst things about playing Starcraft on battle.net, mainly when Diablo 2 first came out, was the constant server splitting. It got so annoying when you tried to get together with your clan in one channel. That was fixed with Gateways though.

It's mainly the community of public players that I dislike about battle.net. Every public game is a variation of Big Game Hunters, Shared Maps (? there's a option for this in the game), or Lost Temple. Big Game Hunters should have never become a official Blizzard map. There's always accusations of cheating and not knowing if people are playing with hacks.

Starcraft remains one of my favorite games that I played for so long and too much.

[Warlock]

Ok, here is the thing.. Blizzard had no problem with the b.net emulators. They were sort of uneasy as it made piracy possible, but let's face it, they really weren't doing anything wrong. Then bnetd comes along, and what do they do? They support the playing of the WarCraft 3 beta. Do you get the picture? Since the beta was only playable on b.net, ppl were downloading pirated versions and playing on bnetd, something which pissed blizzard off (and for good reason). That is why they tried to sue them. Of course, they brought up the other stuff as well since basically, it's their program and they have the right not to have it copied so to speak. They did go after FSGS I believe for legal reasons (i.e. - why did you attack us and not them? sort of stuff). I don't know what happened w/ that.. I think they just took Blizzard games off their service for now..

Anyways, the part about them still suing them after they took bnetd down is misleading. The ppl who made bnetd are fighting the lawsuit, that is why they are still suing them.

Personally I hope Blizzard wins.. they have every right to protect their property, and bnetd was literally facilitating piracy..


Oh, and Blizzard is not going to charge for battle.net.. there's really not a good chance they will ever do that. The only thing they are charging for is World of WarCraft, which will NOT be on battle.net, it will be on its own set of servers. The fee will in no way affect any other Blizzard titles that use battle.net


Edit: lol, I just read the article.. that thing is extremely biased.. it makes the bnetd ppl look like saints.. no where does it say that they allowed the playing of the War 3 beta (something FSGS doesn't do, which I think is why they are going to fight the claim).

Also, another concern which I forgot to mention, although it ties in w/ the piracy, is that bnetd doesn't use CD-Key authentication, which of course, allows for the piracy. The bnetd ppl of course act innocent saying "they would happily add the feature if they could get the specs from Blizzard", but of course that isn't possible because if Blizzard was stupid enough to give that out, it would be incredibly easy for someone to make a crack for it..

*sigh*..