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Role Playing (Games) Government The Courts Entertainment Games News

EFF Continues Fight On Blizzard Vs. Bnetd Case 201

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a Boing Boing post discussing the continuing conflict between Blizzard Software and the makers of bnetd, linking to the latest EFF-authored court documents (PDF) in a continuing legal battle over "the free bnetd software that emulates Blizzard's free Battle.net gaming service." Boing Boing argues of the EFF's new documents: "The prose here positively sings, and is as good a treatise on fair-use reverse engineering as you could hope to read", going on to quote their argument that "...the dissimilarity between the 'BATTLE.NET' and 'bnetd project' marks alone warrants summary judgment for the Defendants on Blizzard's Count III. Also weighing heavily in Defendants' favor is the fact that Blizzard has still failed to come forward with any admissible evidence of actual customer confusion." We've previously covered this long-running legal battle on several occasions. In related news, other readers point out a $1.2 million bequest to the EFF from the estate of Leonard Zubkoff "to establish the EFF Endowment Fund for Digital Civil Liberties."
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EFF Continues Fight On Blizzard Vs. Bnetd Case

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  • by Mantorp ( 142371 ) <mantorp 'funny A' gmail.com> on Thursday February 19, 2004 @12:26AM (#8323691) Homepage Journal
    I'm confused, don't they sell those at DQ? Let's sue.
  • *sigh* (Score:5, Funny)

    by ohchaos ( 564646 ) * on Thursday February 19, 2004 @12:32AM (#8323724)
    I'd just managed to convince myself Blizzard was no longer evil, and that I could look forward to purchasing W.o.W. and now slashdot's gone and reminded me that they're still evil.......
    • They're only half evil. One of the few companies that actually will do something clever like release games that are hybrid for Win/Mac.
      • Re:*sigh* (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Cecil ( 37810 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @01:25AM (#8324032) Homepage
        Doing superficial good to placate the masses while doing real evil that will screw the masses long after they've forgotten about the folks responsible, does not make one half-evil, it makes one a politician (in other words, pure evil).

        Seriously though, Blizzard is above even Adobe on the list of companies I will never ever buy products from, no matter how good or useful they may be, or how much I may want them. Adobe being in the black books for having a foreign citizen arrested the second he stepped on American soil for the crime of figuring out how to change a bit in one of their files.
        • Re:*sigh* (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Hobophile ( 602318 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @11:10AM (#8327173) Homepage
          Frankly I admire your resolve. Blizzard would be so easy to hate if only they didn't make by far the best games on the market.

          You would be hard pressed to find a company that displays more naked contempt for their community than Blizzard routinely does, however.

          Blizzard representatives openly mock posters on the public forums. Granted these posters often ask inane or redundant questions, but there is an astonishing lack of professionalism displayed. Questions like "what can you tell me about feature X" are often answered "when you find out, tell me, I'd love to know!" There's no need for that kind of reply. Even Microsoft doesn't actually resort to taunting its users.

          Posters who ask difficult questions -- like "what happened to the clan ladder that was advertised on the box of Frozen Throne?" -- have their posts deleted. Repeat "offenders" are summarily banned.

          On the other hand I know they have a lot of extremely bright and talented people working there, and some are about the nicest people you'd ever hope to interact with. Knowing the long hours and the limitless passion and energy they put into creating and refining each game, it's hard to harbor any ill will towards the company. After all, these guys are the ones that really make Blizzard great.

          It seems to me such a waste to let their berserk legal department and bizarre PR attitudes overshadow that.

    • Re:*sigh* (Score:5, Funny)

      by kfg ( 145172 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @01:15AM (#8323976)
      You think you've got it bad?

      I'm an AoE addict.

      KFG
  • Imagine that... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Robotech_Master ( 14247 ) * on Thursday February 19, 2004 @12:34AM (#8323732) Homepage Journal
    Imagine that...a weblog run by one of the leaders of the EFF, Cory Doctorow, praising the EFF's side in a court case. Isn't that just amazing?

    (I'm not saying anything about the relative merits of the case here...just the amusement inherent in citing BoingBoing's opinion on an EFF affair as authoritative.)
    • Re:Imagine that... (Score:5, Informative)

      by btempleton ( 149110 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @01:09AM (#8323935) Homepage
      Cory doesn't hide his position, but he's not a leader, he's our online outreach coordinator, a sort of technological evangelist and analyst who studies and writes and slogs around to do hard work representing the EFF in important places.

      But he's also one of the most respected web journalists, and if he writes that he really likes a brief, I would wager that he really means it.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 19, 2004 @12:36AM (#8323751)
    I'd polymorph Blizzard

    "Don't make me turn you into a mindless sheep!"
  • But... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Zakabog ( 603757 ) <john@@@jmaug...com> on Thursday February 19, 2004 @12:37AM (#8323754)
    ... didn't they stop releasing Bnetd? I dunno I remember they stopped developing it a while ago because of the battle. That was back when the only WC3 was the beta. I haven't looked into it since then because after the game came out I didn't need Bnetd anymore.
    • Re:But... (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      bnetd is still available from the CVS on the SourceForge Project page. Funny that Blizzard has either missed them or never seen the need to send CoD letters there. But anyway:

      :pserver:anonymous@cvs.bnetd.sourceforge.net:/cvsr oot/bnetd
      (no space between cvsr and oot. IE. cvsroot)

      You're looking for module bnetd.
  • by Johnny Fusion ( 658094 ) <zenmondo@@@gmail...com> on Thursday February 19, 2004 @12:38AM (#8323757) Homepage Journal
    Who knew those legal types could produce poetry?
    The Legal brief is actually a very fun read.
    Plus, you got to give some kudos for a guy that uses the term bogosity [catb.org].
  • by kravlor ( 597242 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @12:38AM (#8323758) Homepage
    I attend college at an institution with highly restrictive Internet access. We are incapable of playing games on the Internet, such as through Battle.net. Intra-network traffic is not restricted, however. As such, with the help of bnetd, I am able to run a server that is used campuswide daily. I've been following the case for the past two years, and I'm glad to see that it's finally getting some press -- much as I love Blizzard's products, I'm also a big fan of reverse-engineering products. The services offered by bnetd (and other offshoots like PvPGN) are invaluable to many users who would otherwise have no means of taking advantage of the matchmaking services offered by Blizzard's official servers. I'd love to see their work continue unhindered by legal pressure.
    • by abertoll ( 460221 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @01:12AM (#8323958) Homepage Journal

      invaluable to many users who would otherwise have no means of taking advantage of the matchmaking services offered by Blizzard's official servers.

      ... looking for love in all the wrong places

    • At UC Berkeley, you can make your own majors. Maybe if games are so important to you, you can go there and become a network gaming major.

      I mean really, what are you at college for? Is this a survival issue? I don't know if the bnetd project is right or wrong, but it should be argued on its own merits rather than whether or not the guy from I Phelta Thi can play WCIII against his tri-Lamda counterpart.

      • by 0x0d0a ( 568518 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @01:52AM (#8324134) Journal
        I believe that you're factually incorrect on your second point, and I just plain disagree with you on the first.

        At UC Berkeley, you can make your own majors. Maybe if games are so important to you, you can go there and become a network gaming major.

        I mean really, what are you at college for? Is this a survival issue


        And yet, college students look for entertainment. Some go to bars, some watch TV, some hunt girls, some learn to cook strange foods, some do dope, some hit movie theaters, clubs, go paintballing, etc, etc, etc.

        The point is that gaming is a perfectly legitimate form of entertainment. You hvae many friends nearby on a fast network, and most of you just got a computer in the last few years for college. Why not? Do you really never play games?

        I don't know if the bnetd project is right or wrong, but it should be argued on its own merits rather than whether or not the guy from I Phelta Thi can play WCIII against his tri-Lamda counterpart.

        One of the clauses in the DMCA in determining whether a device is an illegal circumvention devices is whether the primary purpose of the device is for copyright infringement. Blizzard is representing bnetd as a device designed to facilitate software piracy. When people chime in and talk about all the legitimate reasons they use bnetd, it helps undermine Blizzard's arguments on that clause.
        • Blizzard spends a lot of time and money keeping people with illegetamate CD Keys off their network. Perhaps that's a secondary consideration to some, but preventing people with stolen/passed-around keys from having an alternative Network to play over prevents a certain amount of software piracy.

          I know that when we wanted to do some two-player games here at home (My wife is a much bigger Diablo II fiend than I am) I went out and bought a second copy. I'm sure I could have dicked around on the 'net and fou
          • by 0x0d0a ( 568518 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @05:44AM (#8324875) Journal
            What I'm saying is that that is not legally significant -- that it is financially beneficial to Blizzard for something to happen is not enough to have the courts rule in their favor. Even crime reduction is not enough to force someone to do something -- if packaged food were eliminated, it's likely that people would litter much less. However, food packers do not need to get rid of packaged food.

            I am quite sure that there are many people out there that have used bnetd to avoid paying for a copy of a Blizzard game. I am also sure that plenty of illegal content is swapped in IRC channels. Neither is a reason for shutting down a group of people that produce a tool that *may* be used to facilitate pirating a game.

            I've never used bnetd, but here are a number of reasons I could see someone legitimately using it:

            * Blizzard kicks a player off Battle.Net, for whatever reason. They can still play their game, just not using Blizzard's servers.

            * The player and his friends have limited or nonexistant network access. If I work in village in many countries, I probably have lousy network access, but a fair number of folks that would like to play a game locally all in one place (especially an older game like Warcraft II that works on older computers).

            * Pure interest in reverse engineering and writing a server. It's *fun* to do something like this, and you feel good when you can sit back and look at the finished product. I remember when folks reverse engineered the Hotline protocol (a vaguely BBS-like server that was quite popular on the Mac at one point). It was very neat to have something like this done.

            * Ensuring that the game continues working. Blizzard may give "lifetime access to Battle.Net", whatever that means, but at some point, Blizzard will go out of business, just as all companies do eventually. Blizzard is very likely to continue sinking money into the service forever. If there is an open-soruce implementation of the protocol, people can continue playing as long as they'd like, just as with Quake.

            Any of these are good reasons, and if any of these were the primary purpose of bnetd, rather than bypassing copy protection mechanisms, then the bnetd people are in the clear relative to the DMCA.
            • I've never used bnetd, but here are a number of reasons I could see someone legitimately using it:

              * Blizzard kicks a player off Battle.Net, for whatever reason. They can still play their game, just not using Blizzard's servers. For 99% of the players that means "Blizzard bans your keygen-generated CD key you used to install your warezed copy".
              I don't know other reasons why battle.net wouldn't work yet bnetd would, since they are so similar.

              • Note that I'm not a Blizzard customer (don't even have a Windows machine around), and have never used Battle.Net, so I'm not sure of their policies, but I'd guess that Blizzard will probably ban someone that they feel is cheating at games. They *may* have bans for what they consider to be inappropriate behavior via chat -- not sure. I remember some people griping on Slashdot about getting banned for something they did in Diablo that they thought they shouldn't have been banned for -- those folks can still
              • 'For 99% of the players that means "Blizzard bans your keygen-generated CD key you used to install your warezed copy".'

                Ummm. No. That means that you've been banned for griefing (backstabbing) or maphacking, in Warcraft 3. In diablo II its item hacks and other goodies. It is not keygen cd keys. Keygen cd keys have never worked on battle.net, unless you were lucky enough to randomly generate a key blizzard had already distributed, and then that person will get rather irked and notify blizzard.

                I tried b
            • Blizzard is very likely to continue sinking money into the service forever. should be Blizzard is not very likely to continue sinking money into the service forever.
            • Blizzard games already support local network play. Old games that only shipped with IPX LAN support were updated many years later with support for UDP LAN.
  • by Operating Thetan ( 754308 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @12:41AM (#8323774) Journal
    I'm uncertain. Did they feel the reputation of battle.net as a cheat filled hell would be impinged? Maybe they feared the loss of script kiddies and bot runners to this site? Are they not aware that the majority of pirates already play on battle.net, using keylogged CD keys stolen from the many users of bots/hacks/cheat programs?

    Mind you, this is the same company that threatened legal action over an open source tribute to an 8 year old game [slashdot.org] on the grounds it may cause confusion with their modern products. Having said that, the intelligence shown by the average 14 year old Blizzard fanboy makes that a real possibility
    • by Robotech_Master ( 14247 ) * on Thursday February 19, 2004 @01:37AM (#8324074) Homepage Journal
      The thing that probably motivated Blizzard to take action on this wasn't the copyright violation per se...it was the fact that someone had leaked the beta of Warcraft III, and someone had forked the bnetd project to allow unauthorized folks (non-beta-testers) to play it over their version of bnetd. (And to a lesser extent, it would also allow use of pirated copies of already-released Battlenet games that would be serial-number-checked by Battlenet.)

      And so they bring out the copyright guns to shut it down...
      • by mabhatter654 ( 561290 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @03:51AM (#8324553)
        But that is the point to some extent! While I don't condone mass-pirating of games, it's not their place to decide the WHO, WHAT, & WHEN you can play ALL network versions of their products ....especially when versions like bnetd do not use Blizard resources to provide access. Wether the game is fully legal or not isn't the question in this matter...only a side issue.

        Unlike Kazzaa-lite or the IM clones bnetd is not attempting to use Bizard network resources...for a matter of fact it's the opposite! They're attempting to REPLACE Blizard's locked-in service to provide playing of the game on their own terms...it's not like they're trying to hack or take over or interfere with Blizard's offical channels here...mearly offer another alternative for those not willing or able to use the "offical" channels. It's fundamentally about connecting two copies of something you already paid for...you shouldn't need "permission" to do that.

        While the supporting of "pirate" copies may be a problem to blizzard, the bnetd project really doesn't have any business worrying about authentication! There's no constraint on their part to require the game to follow the "rules" that's the whole point of developing their own servers!! More than that, this would also set precedent in cases that would replace say, XBoxLive. That product is all about vendor lock-in...but the console and games themselves should be allowed a similar hack simply because it's your fair use to connect your products...especially if you are using unmodified original product...Part of this is about companies requiring you to use "specific" company-approved portals...and requiring so in the EULA! To take it to an extreme, what would the reaction be if MS forbade you from using, say, Samba on YOUR OWN networks to connect YOUR OWN PCs because they dediced to require windows license verification in AD/W2K3 server connection!! That's exactly the same issue being set forth even though it seems silly to say so. Cause remember, much of MS stratagy has been to "hide" their lock-in schemes behind the veil of "security" or "authentication" schemes. Imagine the "free-for-all" if companies can simply tag a serial number or phone home to every network connection and sue you if you don't follow it! That's totally nuts!

  • DMCA and gotwow.net (Score:5, Informative)

    by satanami69 ( 209636 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @12:44AM (#8323790) Homepage
    Blizzard has also recently issues a cease and desists letter, backed by DMCA threat to gotwow.net. Read the forum post here [gotwow.net]

    Well, today I received an email from Blizzard. You may read it below, long story short, all files and the spell db will be taken down and will not be hosted on this server anymore. Here is the content of the email
  • by asscroft ( 610290 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @12:51AM (#8323832)
    For the right price....

    I'll pretend to be a customer who was confused and sell out free software and legitimate uses of reverse engineering and for that matter all practical applications of intelligence and education. Why the fuck not. For the right price...

    private message me for details.
  • by GoMMiX ( 748510 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @12:52AM (#8323842)
    So many people seem to think there is nothing important to be had in this case; I think they are wrong. Dead wrong.

    Blizzard envoked the DMCA against bnetd, claiming bnetd (primarily) circumvented their copyright protection efforts because it bypasses the cd-key check given when logging into the battle.net service.

    This is obviously an abusive use of the DMCA as that 'special' cd-key check only takes place on battle.net. It doesn't happen on single player, LAN, or TCP/IP games.

    Sure, right now there are larger - more important cases to be fought. But, this case also has it's place of importance.

    Blizzard is clearly abusing the DMCA [Yeah, yeah - atleast ACT suprised, k?) - and if they are allowed to abuse the DMCA this way and win their case - their case will become a reference in other similar cases.

    As lame as this may sound, this is something gaming companies could use as a leash to control mods that they do/don't want to allow to continue developement.

    Or, say, someday MS decides that each time you log onto their xBox Live gaming service it checks some sort of key. This would prevent anyone from offering competing services to the xBox Live. Even if they are just doing it for fun, or as an OSS project.

    Regardless, the point is that the results of this case could potentially have FAR-reaching implications for potential OSS projects.

    Nevermind the fact that the entire lawsuit is bogus. Though, with the exception of the trademark/copyright claim for the use of the 'bnet' name. (Battle.net is, in fact, collectively known to the majority of users as b.net - and is most commonly referred to as such.)
    • ""This is obviously an abusive use of the DMCA as that 'special' cd-key check only takes place on battle.net. It doesn't happen on single player, LAN, or TCP/IP games.""

      It's kinda hard to perform the check in singleplayer and LAN games, as you could either circumvent it by unplugging your network connection to the world, or losing sales to every user who do not (gasp) have Internet connection.

      No keycheck for direct TCP/IP games is bit more gray area, but basically they are 'LAN games' as well, and requiri
  • You know what... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Rallion ( 711805 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @12:59AM (#8323877) Journal
    I feel for anybody whose circumstances prevent them from playing on bNet. But as long as a project like this gives the ability for anybody to effortlessly negate Blizzard's main layer of piracy control, as well as providing a tool to use in developing cheats that will work on bNet (by providing a nice reference on the network protocol), I fully agree with Blizzard's decision to shut it down. It's indisputable that bnetd provided both of those things, and I'm pretty sure that some form of copy protection wasn't on their list of future features, either. Neither did they plan on closing the source to deny bad cheaters easy reference.

    I'm not saying that piracy and cheating don't happen on bNet, of course. But the way I see it taking things like this out of the picture is like locking your door in a bad neighborhood. It sucks for a guy walking by who needs some shelter, but is that really going to change your mind about it?
    • Blizzard's utter joke of an enforcement policy doesn't help, I doubt preventing cheats was their main motive in this case
      • by Rallion ( 711805 )
        Well, they are the only game developer I know of that has an enforcement policy...

        And they do ban cheaters' CD-keys. The more cheats there are, the more complicated the enforcement work gets.

        I will certainly agree that it wasn't the main motive, however.
    • Re:You know what... (Score:5, Informative)

      by devaudio ( 596215 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @01:20AM (#8324007) Homepage
      and I'm pretty sure that some form of copy protection wasn't on their list of future features, either.
      Wrong -- the actually contacted blizzard and asked how they could incorporate it into bnetd. They were first ignored, then later hit with cease and desist, and then DCMA and then here we are today. But they actually made the effort to make the CD Key check work
      • by Anonymous Coward
        BNetDguys: Hey, we've managed to emulate your servers so that we dont need you anymore. Now, if you could just give us your CD-Key scripts so we can make sure these guys arent cheating...

        What Blizzard Hears:
        Hey guys, we just disabled your ONLY way of fighting piracy. Now, if you could just give us your CD-Key scripts, we can make it so you never sell another blizzard game again!

        Posting Anon, because you hate to hear the fucking truth.
    • Piracy Control? Huh? (Score:3, Informative)

      by GoMMiX ( 748510 )
      Okay, for starters - bnetd said they would implement the cd-key check system Blizzard uses on battle.net. Blizzard in fact agreed to it at one point, then retracted and filed suit.

      The CD-Key check on battle.net is NOT Blizzard's primary form of anti-piracy. Hell, it's not even a good one. CD-Key gen's are available for every Blizzard title. EVERY title. (Well, all those that require a key anyway.)

      All can be found with little effort, navigating the right hack sites. In fact, many people trade them off for
    • by asdfghjklqwertyuiop ( 649296 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @01:48AM (#8324117)
      Blizzard can get angry all they want, but the fact is that bnetd is none of their buisness. It is simply a matter of people using their private property (the bnetd code, and the copy of the game that Blizzard sold them) however they like. Once again, the DMCA gives anyone with a lot of money the right to tell other people what they can do with their own property by assuming them guilty.

      It is possible that people use bnetd in conjunction with illegally obtained copies of blizzard games, but that has nothing at all to do with bnetd. Those people should be prosecuted for copyright infringement. No need to use the DMCA to prosecute people who did not commit a crime.

    • >as well as providing a tool to use in developing cheats that will work on bNet (by providing a nice reference on the network protocol)

      If anything, this reflects poorly on Blizzard. What's the first rule of anti-cheat online gaming?

      NEVER TRUST THE CLIENT!... EVER....

      You must assume that you have absolutely no control over what commands the client will issue and when it will issue them.

      The system should be designed so that even if I had the source code to the client I wouldn't be able to cheat. Just l
      • by Rallion ( 711805 )
        Unfortunately, that doesn't work at all in practice, even in a server-based model.

        The major method of cheating in a WarCraft III game is via a map hack.

        The server-side solution to this is to only send what the player can see to the player.

        Problems arise with lag, when the player can't see units as soon as he should. It also means for a significant number of extra fun computations on the server, which is probably pretty busy as it is, and that will likely just add to the first problem.

        This is all irrelev
    • I feel for anybody whose circumstances prevent them from playing on bNet.

      Hmmm, like bnet crashing, or having horrible lag because the windows servers they use are unstable.... or just plain slow ISP.

      But as long as a project like this gives the ability for anybody to effortlessly negate Blizzard's main layer of piracy control,

      Hmmm, so what is the purpoe of the pain-in-the-ass CD Key I have to type in every time I reinstall my legitimate copies of every Blizzard product? Why do I have to keep the s

  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 19, 2004 @01:14AM (#8323972)
    I find it hilarious that Blizzard can complain about copyright infringement when their entire IP is stolen from Dungeons and Dragons and Games Workshop
  • Blizzard=SCO? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Operating Thetan ( 754308 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @01:19AM (#8324005) Journal
    Taken from a Cease and Desist issued by them

    Recently, we have received an increasing amount of feedback from our customers in regard to the probable copyright infringement of Diablo, Diablo II, Starcraft, Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition, Warcraft III and World of Warcraft products (each, a "Program") on the Internet. We here at Blizzard share the concerns that many gamers are voicing. In this regard, we have contacted one of your users in connection with the aforementioned site and the infringement of Blizzard intellectual property. Please note that all title, ownership, and intellectual property rights in and to each Program and any and all copies thereof (including, but not limited to, any titles, computer code, objects, characters, character names, stories, dialog, catch phrases, locations, artwork, animations, sounds, musical compositions, audio-visual effects, methods of operation

    Seemingly Blizzard now claims the rights to the entire RTS genre
    • Re:Blizzard=SCO? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Rallion ( 711805 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @03:08AM (#8324411) Journal
      That's pretty standard, really. Cease and desist letters are always scary and irrationally worded, if never outright lies. "Methods of operation" is such a vague term, it can mean practically anything. Hell, forget RTS, maybe it's talking about the use of mouse and keyboard. Or a machine that computes things. Or a device that has metal parts.

      Or maybe it means building a Command Center which can then build SCVs and allows a Barracks which allows an Armory which allows you to build Firebats...okay, I haven't even played that game for about two years.

      That's the point, though. Say terrifying things. Make them think you could sue the pants off of God so you don't have to try to sue the pants off them.

      Shady, yeah, but what isn't these days?
  • WoW (Score:2, Funny)

    by filtur ( 724994 )
    Someone tell the EFF to leave Blizzard alone so they hurry up and release World of Warcraft :)

    (I kid, I kid)

    • You don't want the lawyers to get anywhere near the code. Really, you don't. That would be ... messy, to put it nicely. Seriously. No lawyers near code. You wouldn't like it. Really. I'm not kiddin' you.
  • by Queuetue ( 156269 ) <queuetue@@@gmail...com> on Thursday February 19, 2004 @08:46AM (#8325493) Homepage
    But some Corporation's ability to make a buck off of me shouldn't be more important than my freedom to do whatever the heck I want to with my own property.

    The U.S. has to stop treating corporations - tools designed to deflect liability and dodge taxes - as living entities. A Corporation's goals do not benefit mankind - they benefit the stockholders.

    When you give a non-human entity greater rights and priveleges than you do actual people, it enslaves us.
  • I happen to run across another lawsuit that is about to break. It appears that Blizzard Entertainment is in a trademark dispute with a New York company called Blizzard Records. Here is the only link I've found on it in the public sector. [uspto.gov] Based on what I've heard this could really hurt Blizzard Entertainment.
  • This is really obvious to anyone who tried to sign up for the beta test. They have to shut down any free versions of battle.net because they're planning on making money off of world of warcraft monthly fees.

    I don't blame them but then again I'm not sure they should be able to shut someone down who created a free version of their proprietary online game engine.
    • This is really obvious to anyone who tried to sign up for the beta test. They have to shut down any free versions of battle.net because they're planning on making money off of world of warcraft monthly fees.


      You know that 200000+ people hitting a server and constantly refreshing is rough right? I mean the forums were flooded with "When are beta signups" and when someone posts that it's up, everyone looked. 400000+ total applications and a bunch of 'em being spammed isn't nice.

      Battle.net service is NOT be

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