Blizzard Rains on Bnetd Project

Sir Homer writes: "Blizzard Entertainment has shut down the bnetd project using the DMCA, as declared in their site. The bnetd project is a battle.net server emulator licenced under the GNU/GPL originally for Linux and also works on most Unix variants. Project details can be found on this freshmeat.net page." As I understood it, bnetd was a complete re-implementation of battle.net, so it isn't clear what copyright violation Blizzard alleges occurred. Note to bnetd: under the DMCA, you can file a counter-notice with the hosting provider asserting that Blizzard was wrong.

Blizzard: it's been fun

You guys make some great games. I've had countless hours of fun with the Diablos, the Warcrafts, and Starcraft. Now I'll never buy any of your products again. Bye.

Re:Blizzard: it's been fun

Don't be too hard on Blizzard themselves. It's all Vivendi's fault. Remember? The people who took MP3.com and turned it into an (even worse) annoyingly commercial craphole? The people who bought Sierra and Valve and Blizzard and made the policies on their games suck? Vivendi is evil, not Blizzard.

Down with the DMCA!

We all know that the DMCA sucks, so how about we do something about it? Sign the "Abolish the Digital Millenium Copyright Act" petition! [petitiononline.com]. Oh yeah, and donate to the Free Software Foundation [fsf.org], those goes have been working pretty hard to stop this nonsense from taking place.

It's time the politicians got some sense knocked into them.

Re:Down with the DMCA!

Writing a letter, sealing it in an envelope, purchasing postage, and mailing the letter means infinately more

Does it? I've written a few letters to my legislators, and with one partial I have had no indication that my letters were ever opened, much less read. For all I know, they are stilling sitting in anthrax quarantine somewhere, or were thrown out unopened. Realistically, the best I can hope for is that some intern scanned the first paragraph of the letter for keywords, pressed a "tally one against the DMCA" button on his computer, and threw the letter away. Can someone offer me evidence to the contrary? I'd love to see my cynicism refuted by someone's experiences to the contrary... :^/

Essentially I feel like I have no say in my government's decisions, because I'm not rich enough to buy influence through campaign contributions. And even if I did have enough money to buy influence, I hardly think that is the way a democracy is supposed to work. Time to move to Canada?

Boycott

bnetd was a lifesaver for me. Battle.net wouldn't work with my LAN setups so when I wanted to play with friends, one of them set up a bnetd. Thank you for all you've done, whoever wrote it.

But on to the topic of Blizzard. They're soon to be releasing Warcraft III, and the Slashdot audience is going to be a major market for them. I think we should steer away from any of their products until they withdraw this complaint and compensate/apologize.

So: when you see Warcraft III on the shelves, don't buy it. Buy Castle Wolfenstein or whatever, just don't buy products from a company who is against our rights on the net.

Overseas!

What about hosting the site overseas? That way, the DMCA copyright law would not apply...

Re:Overseas!

And when the server flies to US for some reason ... the FBI aressts it ...

hmm ...

Text of www.bnetd.org (for when its slashdotted)

Sorry, ...

... we are down right now. However, this time it isn't because of technical reasons but for legal issues.

This site has been disabled as requested by Blizzard Entertainment and it will remain closed as we have no legal recourse other than to file a lawsuit against a large corporation. This is due to 17 USC Section 512(c)(1)(C) (AKA DMCA, supposedly required to be passed by WIPO treaties). Blizzard claims bnetd is in violation of 17 USC Section 1201(b), though we do not agree with their interpretation. Blizzard refused to specify a specific list of files on this site so the whole thing must be blocked. We are very sorry for the inconvenience but there is nothing we can do.

Text of original message follows:

February 19, 2002

Internet Gateway Inc.
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]

Dear Sir or Madam:
This letter is to notify you, pursuant to the provisions of the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act, that we believe one of your customers is
infringing Blizzard Entertainment's, a division of Vivendi Universal Games,
Inc. ("VUG"), copyrighted materials. Specifically, Blizzard Entertainment is
the owner of the copyright for the computer games Diablo(r) II and StarCraft(r)
and the multi-player server software run by Blizzard Entertainment on its
Battle.net(r) site. The following site hosts and/or distributes software that
violates Blizzard Entertainment's copyright:
http://www.bnetd.org/
The aforementioned site either hosts or distributes software which illegally
modifies and/or alters Blizzard Entertainment copyrighted software or
bypasses anti-circumvention technology, thereby infringing upon Blizzard
Entertainment copyrights. Accordingly, Blizzard Entertainment demands that
you act expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the web page listed
above in order for you to claim a safe harbor under the DMCA from liability
for contributory and vicarious copyright infringement. Please immediately
delete or disable access to this web page and remove its contents from view.
Should you have any questions, please contact the undersigned at
[e-mail] or 949-955-1380 extension
1616.
I have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained
of is not authorized by Blizzard Entertainment, VUG, its agents or the law,
and that the information in this notice is accurate. I declare under penalty
of perjury under the laws of the United States of America that I am
authorized to act on behalf of all of the aforementioned entities.

Sincerely,
Rod Rigole
Corporate Counsel

End of original message.

We would like to thank our users for all the support and feedback over the years.

Re:Blizzard just fell in my estimation

Please excuse me, but:

"But using the DMCA is just so obviously Wrong... it's practically immoral."

I thought that the DMCA was immoral to start with. IANAL, but they could very well pull this off. And it could be worse than you might think.

The battle.net servers store CD keys in some fashion to prevent multiple uses of the same key. In doing so, they can and probably will, claim that it is a copy protection device. You know, the kind that is illegal to circumvent, or provide means of circumvention to others, under the DMCA.

Enter bnetd. This is a GPL project which can be run by anybody, anywhere. Now these CD keys don't have to be checked, because the server might not require that. Hence paving way for your local lan party, using one CD key. Very much a circumvention of a protective device, if their device is what I described earlier.

Now, the real motive is why Blizzard may be trying to do this. Sales may be one issue, but it is still going to be fairely limited to people who know what they're doing. The more feasible version is probably that they're looking to charge an access fee for battle.net. The bnetd project would make a huge dent in such efforts, if not strike it down.

Here's the good part about that. If the bnetd people can reasonably prove that Blizzard acted in bad faith, the case may be dismissed.

But then again, IANAL.

The only solution

People bitch about the DMCA but if Blizzard comes out with a must have game, will you go out and buy it anyway ?

Time to show you intend to punish companies that wield the DMCA to clobber the little guys.

Boycott Blizzard.

Re:The only solution

It won't do anything.

I hate to burst the /. reader's bubble, but the collective group of us boycotting a game will do *nothing* to hurt blizard.
Let's think about this: Slashdot has about a quarter million users. Of these, about 1/3 are zealots who don't run windows, not even for the little pleasures. Of the remaining, i would suspect fewer than 1/5 of them *EVER* buy software because they feel damnit it should be free (beer). And after that, I would say that 10% of the remaining windows users who don't pirate software actually play blizard games but would be still willing to participate in a boycot. The rest will go on buying the game anyway because it's going to be a good game.

So we're left with 3000 people that will take part in a boycot against the DCMA and Blizzard simultaneously. Oh Ouch. How many copies of diablo II have sold? [blizzard.com]
Well here's a guess. 2.75 Million copies. And again, [blizzard.com]
how about the expansion? Another million copies. Boycotting them will do no good.

Now, I was trying to figure out why they did this, and I was thinking "oh this is easy, there's a charge for playing on battle.net, that's their revenue model. But on battle.net [battle.net] i found this:
Battle.net provides an arena for Blizzard customers to chat, challenge opponents and initiate multiplayer games, at no cost to the user. There is no hourly or monthly fee to use Battle.net, and there is no startup charge. To play a supported game over the Internet with other players worldwide, simply select the Battle.net option from within the game.

So what gives, blizard? How is this helping you? Are there ads in battle.net? Do you use it for free market research somehow? Do you simply want to track ALL of the online blizard games going on? Throw me a bone here.

But let's be serious: I'm not going to boycott blizzard. They've only released 5 games in their history, yet they've ALL been fantastic smash hits that i've loved. So I'm just going to go do the exact same thing that every other casual windows user on slashdot is going to do. I'm going to wait for a copy of it to hit kopykatz or morpheus and download it.

Boo fucking hoo, boycot.

~z

Re:The only solution

You're an idiot.

You boycott something by not buying the product and then actively telling your friends and relatives not to buy it either. Whenever you hear people mention the name, you go into litanies about the company and don't shut up until whoever is listening to you agrees not to buy the product either. You post to message boards, you bug your local merchant, you do what you need to do to get your message across. Maybe you'll be lucky and get someone in the press to notice and then the word will spread even more.

3000 people know a lot of people. It's a networking effect.

-Russ

Re:piracy???

Nope it's because they really are dealing with a service that facilitates piracy, even if it was not their goal.

Not true at all. "Doing nothing to prevent piracy" is not the same thing as "facilitating piracy". Facilitating piracy implies an intentional act (e.g. offering warez'd binaries for download). Simply failing to do key checking is not.

Shall we make ftp illegal now because it does no checking to make sure that the files you transfer aren't copy protected? Most of the Internet would be a violation of the DMCA under your criteria. (hell, maybe it is... in which case either the DMCA goes or the Internet goes... they can't co-exist)

They didn't shutdown sourceforge

http://sourceforge.net/projects/bnetd

CVS, and the downloadable files are still there for now.

Just submitted this...

to YRO, any bets whether it gets double posted to /. twice?

Seriously though, this only happened when someone warezed the WarcraftIII beta and modified it to work with BNetD, creating an 'open' beta test. This obviously infuriated Blizzard into having the BNetD project shut down. A shame too, since it doesn't cost them anything to have quite a few more of their fans playing the beta.

I fail to understand the DMCA Jurisdiction

Digital Millenium Copyright Act: (layman's definition) A piece of legislature which prevents people from thieving digital ideas or products and publishing them as their own.

BNETD: A program that emulates a battle.net server.

Notice how it says "server"? Blizzard doesn't sell their server software, and nor does BNETD allow people to play the Blizzard games. I've never heard of a company shutting down a utility on the grounds that it enables more people to use their product. That'd be like a bucket company suing a mop company for making mops designed to fit in their buckets.

DMCA all over again...

The real reason it was shut down...

I'm willing to bet some Warcraft III ladder points that the timing of bnetd being shut down was due to the Warcraft III beta. People (myself included) are using it to play the beta illegally, which maybe made them think that we'd simply use the cracked beta instead of buying the game at a later date. I still don't understand what's so bad about a few thousand extra beta testers, but hey, it's their product, they have the right to do whatever they want with it.

Re:The real reason it was shut down...

The BNetD project had NO support for Warcraft 3 in it, and the team was not planning on even starting to add Warcraft3 support to it until it was officially released by Blizzard.

What you had was a group of people downloading the source code and modifying the source code to work with Warcraft 3, OUTSIDE of the BNetD tree. The BNetD project had nothing to do with the leaking of the Warcraft 3 beta, nor the support for the non-blizzard bnet servers for War3.

What you basically have is somebody getting ahold of an Open Source program, changing the source to violate license agreements with Blizzard (beta testers, read the agreement over) or enabling people to play pirated beta copies of the software, and the original open source project getting busted for it. This would be like somebody downloading the source for grep, changing it to automatically break out copy protection in some program, distributing it back out on the net and then the companies going after grep as being the issue.

This leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I also just cancelled my pre-order of Warcraft 3.

I don't think it's Battle.net, its pirated games

If I remember correctly, Battle.net is a completely free service. It's not like bnetd was taking revenue away from some online service Blizzard has. However, Battle.net does serial number verification. You cannot create a battle.net account without a unique serial number which is only obtained by buying a legit copy of the game.

I don't know enough about bnetd, but I would bet that bnetd doesn't do serial number verification. This basically allows everybody to use the same warez copy of a particular game and enjoy the benefits of Battle.net. I'm sure this is the largest reason why Blizzard wants to shut them down. Blizzard doesn't make any money off its free Battle.net service, but it does enforce that people actually buy the game.

- d

Blizzard's Lawyers

Well I talked with Blizzards lawyers about this. They claim the problem is that bnetd doesn't have the CD-KEY anti-piracy that their servers have. Thus anyone with pirated copy can play online with bnetd but not on battle.net, thus we are encouraging piracy by providing a place for people with pirate copies to play online.

I suspect the real reason is the Warcraft 3 BETA mess. Combine this with the issue of other groups (http://www.madgrfx.com/warforge.html, http://www.clan519.com/, and a group on DALnet #bnetd) trying to say that they were the bnetd group and began working to support the Warcraft 3 BETA being pirated everywhere. Well I am sure that didn't help things at all.

It does seem like a DMCA violation to me.

They implement copy protection via a serial number, which is verified online through the battle.net servers. If you have your own server, and modify your hosts file or whatever so that it goes to this new server instead of the battle.net server, their copy protection is circumvented. The DMCA says you can't make a device ("device" having been interpreted to mean software) that bypasses copy protection.

It's a terrible law, which copyright holders can apply in far too broad a scope, but terrible or not, it's on the books. Write your legislator, or hope the supreme court finally stops it.

mirror

http://censored.firehead.org:1984/bnetd/

I expect to get the CVS version of the project up there soon as well.

Bye Blizzard.

You've fallen. Starcraft was one of my favorite games. In fact, its the last game I ever bought, as I'm no longer much of a gamer. Me sitting here vowing to never purchase another of your games will no doubt fall on deaf ears, and it would be a pointless guesture since I'm not buying them anyways.

But consider something. bnetd costs you nothing. If anything, it saves you bandwidth costs. You still sell the games. Oh, sure, you might complain that there's no cd key verification in bnetd and people can play cracked copies online with others now. Is this your reason? Perhaps it makes sense. Perhaps it doesn't. Maybe this gives cheaters the upper hand, maybe it doesn't. Maybe nobody really cares anyways.

What have you accomplished? Did the DMCA stop the proliferation of decss? No, it just moved it underground. You've taken a legal product and forced them to become outlaws. Now they have NO desire to cooperate with you, nor should they. Here is a group of people, who for NO MONEY WHATSOEVER have taken it upon themselves to provide services in your honor, to promote your products. And how do you respond?

What could these people have done for you? Its these same dedicated individuals who spend countless hours creating maps, who create all the fan sites. Creating for years on end an almost insatiable market of gamers who drool in anticipation of your next quality release, so they can start all over again starting with a purchase that puts money in your pocket and funds your next game. They're your customers. They're people who have a vested entertainment interest in prolonging the life and creative talents of your fine establishment. Without these people, your games would have no community. They would be played for a few months then forgotten. Your sales would never reach the levels you're used to seeing. These people are the reason you exist as you do today.

And you've just gone and pissed them all off. Great job. I truely admire your lack of vision.

-Restil

Re:Bye Blizzard.

Your answer is in the letter sent to the bnetd folks, as posted here [slashdot.org]:

Blizzard Entertainment's, a division of Vivendi Universal Games,
Inc. ("VUG"), copyrighted materials.

*Subliminal Guy mode on* VU are the same nice people (blood sucking control freaks) that bring you movies (and prosecute the exchange of ideas like DeCSS), music (and squash P2P music exchange) as well as other forms of entertainment (cultural control). *SubGuy mode off*

Go figure.

Soko

Blizzard Contact Info

Ok, here's the contact info straight from their web site, if you feel like voicing your opinion. Couldn't really find a "bitch at us" address...

Blizzard Entertainment
P.O. Box 18979
Irvine, CA 92623

Sales Information/Ordering
USA: (800) 953-SNOW
International: [phone]
[e-mail]

Support
[e-mail] or
[e-mail]

This is nothing new.

One of my roomates was responsible for the work (mainly analyzing the packets) that brought bnetd to
life several years ago. In fact, the news was on Slashdot at the time, IIRC. He gave the project to
someone else, and no longer has anything to do with
bnetd.

Incidentally, he told me he recieved a cease and desist order from Blizzard when the news got out about his work. He also says he ignored it, and
nothing happened. However, this was before the DMCA existed, IIRC, so now Blizzard has the
teeth to follow through.

So Blizzard has been after bnetd before. This is
nothing new.

my lettter to Blizzard

Subject: DMCA action => no more customer
From: [my email address]
Date: 20 Feb 2002 22:16:13 -0500
To: Rod Rigole

Dear Mr. Rigole:

Blizzard has had good success in parting me from my money. I have half a
shelf of the fine games your company has produced. However, that era is
over. Your ridiculous and short-sighted attack on the bnetd project,
claiming that the creation of a program that interfaces with your
somehow infringes on your copyright, may successfully stop that
interesting effort. Regardless of its success, it has cost you my
business forever, and you may rest assured that I will bring to the
attention of anyone soliciting my views of what to purchase your
company's bad behavior.

In an industry where some companies, like iD and Sierra, find great
success in opening their flagship products for interoperability with
customer-designed modifications, and even release old source code as a
learning resource for the larger community, your company has decided
that preventing enthusiasts from working with your products somehow
protects you. What it will protect you from is getting any more of my
money.

Sincerely,

[signature]

Counter File Paperwork

Adjust to your needs and fill in the blanks.
Was orginally made to deal with Napster issues at the height of the craze.
--
Malk-a-mite
=============

Dear Internet Service Provider:

This letter is written in response to your notification to me of a complaint received about my webpage(s). The pages in question are:

(insert list of URLs here).

The complainant's claim of copyright violation should be rejected because (please see all checked items):

The material in question is not copyrighted, or the copyright has expired. It is therefore in the public domain and may be reproduced by anyone.

The complainant has provided no copyright registration information or other tangible evidence that the material in question is in fact copyrighted, and I have a good faith belief that it is not. The allegation of copyright violation is therefore in dispute, and at present unsupported.

The complainant does not hold the copyright to the material in question and is not the designated representative of the copyright holder, and therefore lacks standing to assert that my use of the material is a violation of any of the owner's rights.

My use of the material is legally protected because it falls within the "fair use" provision of the copyright regulations, as defined in 17 USC 107. If the complainant disagrees that this is fair use, he or she is free to take up the matter with me directly, in the courts. You, the ISP, are under no obligation to settle this dispute, or to take any action to restrict my speech at the behest of this complainant. Furthermore, siding with the complainant in a manner that interferes with my lawful use of your facilities could constitute breach of contract on your part.

The complaint does not follow the prescribed form for notification of an alleged copyright violation as set forth in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 USC 512(c)(3).
Specifically, the complainant has failed to:

Provide a complaint in written form.
[17 USC 512(c)(3)(A)]

Include a physical or electronic signature of the complainant.
[17 USC 512(c)(3)(A)(i)]

Identify the specific copyrighted work claimed to be infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works are covered by a single complaint, provide a representative list of such works.
[17 USC 512(c)(3)(A)(ii)]

Provide the URLs for the specific files on my website that are alleged to be infringing.
[17 USC 512(c)(3)(A)(iii)]

Provide sufficient information to identify the complainant, including full name, mailing address, telephone number, and email address.
[17 USC 512(c)(3)(A)(iv)]

Include a written statement that the complainant has a good faith belief that use of the disputed material is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
[17 USC 512(c)(3)(A)(v)]

Include a written statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complainant is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
[17 USC 512(c)(3)(A)(vi)]

This communication to you is a DMCA counter-notification letter as defined in 17 USC 512(g)(3):

I declare, under penalty of perjury, that I have a good faith belief that the complaint of copyright violation is based on mistaken information, misidentification of the material in question, or deliberate misreading of the law.

My name, address, and telephone number are as follows:
(insert your name, address and phone number here).

I hereby consent to the jurisdiction of Federal District Court for the judicial district in which I reside (or, if my address is outside the United States, any judicial district in which you, the ISP, may be found).

I agree to accept service of process from the complainant.

My actual or electronic signature follows: ________________________________.

Having received this counter-notification, you are now obligated under

17 USC 512(g)(2)(B) to advise the complainant of this notice, and to restore the material in dispute (or not take the material down in the first place), unless the complainant files suit against me within 10 days.


David S. Touretzky is a principal scientist in the Computer Science Department and the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition at Carnegie Mellon University.