The emulator, called "bnetd," is based on a game called
Battle.net. Battle.net is a title from Blizzard Entertainment, a
company owned by Vivendi. Blizzard game purchasers can meet on-line
or on a local area network to chat, find competition and start
multiplayer games using the bnetd software.
Vivendi demanded that the ISP disable the web site hosting the
bnetd software, claiming it violates copyright law and the
anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright
Act (DMCA). The EFF, a civil liberties group, responded to
Vivendi's letter, calling its claims unfounded and stating that the
bnetd software, which was removed upon receipt of the demand, would
be re-posted in 10 days.
"A group of volunteers decided to write a server for Blizzard
games because the Blizzard servers were undependable and we wanted
increased functionality," explained Tim Jung, owner of Internet
Gateway, based in St. Louis. "Vivendi claims that the server
violates the law because it does not implement checking the game's
CD-KEY, designed to prevent the use of illegal copies of their
games. We asked them to give us the information we needed to do the
checking, but they refused."
"This is yet another example of misuse of the DMCA and copyright
law," noted EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. "Bnetd developers
engaged in legal reverse engineering without circumvention or any
illegal activity."
The EFF added that “the DMCA has no requirement that one must
include every feature of a program or system like CD-KEYS; in fact,
the DMCA's ‘no mandate’ provision states that developers of
interoperable programs do not have to respond to CD-KEYS and
similar technology.“
"Corporations have wielded the DMCA to censor magazines,
academic researchers, and competitors," said EFF Senior
Intellectual Property Attorney Fred von Lohmann. "Now Vivendi is
using the DMCA to threaten customers who simply want to improve the
gaming environment for a product they've purchased
legitimately."
