[avg_freeper]

With the DMCA present this ruling was assured.

[antiRepublicrat]

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

This is BS. The DMCA, even as bad as it is, allows reverse engineering for purposes of interoperability. In this specific case, interoperability with other game servers.

Ever since it came out, the DMCA has been used as a cudgel for big business to restrict competition and fair use. Even though it hasn't been legally effective in every case, it can still be used as a deterrent -- not everybody has the money to defend themselves.

[Jalapeno]

bump

[ShadowAce]

[The KG9 Kid]

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

[B Knotts]

DMCA needs to be repealed. The courts are not capable of determining the particular cases where interoperability is justified.

[RabidBartender]

For the Horde!

[SpitfyrAce]

All Your Servers Are Belong To Us!

[twinzmommy]

OKay so ummm. . how many of you are WoW addicts!

Signed. . .

Chana, 00ber dr00d of Earthen Ring :)

[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?

[Spruce]

Nerf Shamans!