Blizzard wins lawsuit on video game hacking

Cnet News ^ | September 2, 2005 | Declan McCullagh

[Panerai]

A federal appeals court has ruled that computer programmers do not have the right to reverse-engineer Blizzard Entertainment's video games to improve their playability.

The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis ruled Thursday that federal law--specifically, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act--disallows players from altering Blizzard games to link with servers other than the company's official Battle.net site.

Affected games published by Blizzard, a division of Vivendi Universal, include titles in its "Diablo," "Starcraft" and "Warcraft" lines.

In a 3-0 decision, the court upheld a trial judge's ruling from October, concluding the programmers' "circumvention in this case constitutes infringement."

The DMCA broadly restricts circumventing, or bypassing, antipiracy measures. Blizzard had included such measures to tie its games to the Battle.net site and detect pirated copies.

The defendants in the case, Ross Combs and Rob Crittenden, reverse-engineered the Blizzard protocol using tools like "tcpdump" to listen to the software's communications with a game server. Eventually, their "bnetd" project let Blizzard games connect with unofficial servers, yielding benefits like faster response times.

[glaseatr]

Here's an example: You hack Starcraft so that your ships can move twice as fast

That is a very accurate statement. I hate it when I run into guys playing Starcraft on another server. They build armies twice as fast as I can. And I hate losing.

[Spiff]

This is a terrible precedent. This ruling may effect how you can look at and change traffic on your own network. These guys used a simple thing like TCPDUMP to look at the traffic on their own network which was generated by a video game that they purchased. Then, they found a way to change where that traffic went on their own network and diverted it to a different location on their own network or on some other participating network. They essentially designed a proxy to handle the traffic themselves and not to connect back to the vendor's server. This ruling demands that you can't do that and that you must permit software that you purchased to be able to connect back to the vendor's servers whether you want it to or not.

Does anyone else see a dangerous precedent being set here?

[Spiff]

I forgot to add that from what I've read about this case, these guys never actually altered the software. They just altered the way their own network's traffic was handled.

[Nickname]

Me!

I saw this headline on FR the other day:

Napolitano: Let DPS stop vehicles bound for Mexico
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1473490/posts

I had to read it to see just how much Damage Per Second they were talking about! =D

[Spike Spiegel]

Show me my signature on that contract.

The preratrators of the DMCA have made a serious fraud. They should be jailed. Then lynched.

[melbell]

"Great. Now throw the gold farmers off the servers, Blizz."

ZUG ZUG!

[melbell]

Are you kidding me? The other night I had a dream that I was standing on a street with people dead all over...all the bodies had sparklies coming out of them and my first thought was, "man, I have GOT to loot those before the cops get here!"

*giggle*

I play on Blackhand...where do you play?

[twinzmommy]

*laughs*

I mostly play a dr00d on Earthen Ring -- Alliance -- her name is Chana. Sometimes I'm on a wee warrior lass though, Morgandy, on ER as well :)

I SO understand that dream! *laughs*

[zeugma]

The DMCA (and the current stat of copyright law) is proof that we have the best congress money can buy.

This particular case shows that the judge in question has no idea about computers or networking.

[melbell]

We should make a Free republic guild!

[twinzmommy]

OMG we so should do that! *laughs*

Which server? And which side? Somehow I *think* we would have to be Alliance :)

[melbell]

Actually, I don't agree. Horde are the good guys for the most part. If you know the story the reason the orcs and humans are at war is because the humans tried to take the orc's land.

wow...I'm such a geek...I need some friends...

[twinzmommy]

*laughs* Pick a server and let's do it :)

[rarestia]

WoW addict here! Lvl 50 Dwarven Hunter on Skullcrusher

[rarestia]

Do we choose PvP or Normal? I'd imagine Alliance would be the best choice for a Free Republic guild. I could provide a Team Speak server for us to use.

[Spruce]

Nerf Shamans!

[The KG9 Kid]

I'd like to hear of you making an FR guild on a server, but I couldn't leave my guild. We're the #1 guild on our server far and away: Ragnaros on farm status for months already, and now engaging Ebonroc in BWL. I have too much DKP and too many pieces of Netherwind to quit now. If I can get 8/8 Netherwind before the end of the year, I will be undisputed wtfpwnsauce Frost mage Gnome on my server.

[Wright Wing]

I'm already guilded on Dalaran (East Coast Server)...I might venture out..Horde only!

[Old Professer]

Good, a stupid law can do what parents can't - get rid of mindless games.

[Crazieman]

Hahahaha