I'm a little slow hopping on the news bandwagon here, but hey, blogging is hard.
Blizzard had a pretty significant win in the case of 'Blizzard vs The Rest of the World", as outlined by the EFF.
St. Louis - Fair use was dealt a harsh blow today in a Federal Court decision that held that programmers are not allowed to create free software designed to work with commercial products. At issue in the case was whether three software programmers who created the BnetD game server -- which interoperates with Blizzard video games online -- were in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and Blizzard Games' end user license agreement (EULA).
BnetD is an open source program that lets gamers play popular Blizzard titles like Warcraft with other gamers on servers that don't belong to Blizzard's Battle.net service. Blizzard argued that the programmers who wrote BnetD violated the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions and that the programmers also violated several parts of Blizzard's EULA, including a section on reverse engineering.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), co-counsel for the defendants, argued that programming and distributing BnetD was fair use. The programmers reverse-engineered Battle.net purely to make their free product work with it, not to violate copyright.
EFF Staff Attorney Jason Schultz said, "Consumers have a right to choose where and when they want to use the products they buy. This ruling gives Blizzard the ability to force you to use their servers whether you want to or not. Copyright law was meant to promote competition and creative alternatives, not suppress them."
EFF will appeal the case, challenging the court's ruling that creating alternative platforms for legitimately purchased content can be outlawed.
For those of you that want to stick their head amongst the nitty-gritty, the ruling can be found here.
Essentially, the favorable ruling towards the Blizzard EULA takes away any statutory and court-established rights you thought you might have, such as fair use and first sale. The judge, in all his profound wisdom, stated that those who purchased a Blizzard game box were in fact purchasing a license to use that software, not the software itself, and those nasty skr1pt k1ddi3z with their nasty bnetd were violating the EULA and the DMCA. The judge has also, unwittingly or not, set a precedent that allows any consumer right under copyright law (e.g. making backups) to be overruled by an EULA because, hey, you don't even own the friggin' game.
Interestingly, it seems alot of the decisions in this case were based upon the statement made by Blizzard that anyone could return the game to the place of purchase for a refund if they did not like the EULA. Well, just one small hitch there. EULAs are not displayed upon the box for everyone to read. You must go home and attempt to install the software to be able to see the EULA. After clicking 'Decline' you can then head back to the store. But here's the kicker - every store I know, across the great grey landscape of strip malls, doesn't refund opened software. "Thanks for that Blizzard. Here's your money. You can stop bending me over now".
It's unclear how far the implications of this ruling are going to stretch, but you should probably rule out getting any games from Aunt May for Christmas. You see, Aunt May would have bought a license, not a game, and there's no way she can pass that onto you without Blizzard's consent, or she risks getting thrown into the slammer to spend Christmas Eve the Doris the Cell Block Bitch for violating the EULA. I've also got to wonder how game shops can sell game boxes, when all they are stocking are deemed as licenses. Heck, you can also forget about selling games back to game shops, àla the preowned business Electronic Boutique runs. Tsk tsk. Naughty players. Naughty EB. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go, you law-breaking punkass bitch.
So why rant about this on a blog about MMORPGs? Well, you see, Blizzard has this little MMORPG called World of Warcraft coming out next year, and with it will undoubtedly come a EULA. It's a safe bet that Blizzard will concoct a similar EULA for WoW in an effort to cover their bases, and this could lead to an interesting turn of events when people try to sell their software (with or without a "free" WoW account) on eBay, in stores, or anywhere else.
But hey, I could be wrong. Dead wrong. It remains to be clear how hard Blizzard will enforce the EULA. Take a look at third party programs, for example. This court ruling plainly states that third party programs, made through reverse engineering of the original software, is strictly verboten. However, Blizzard still has yet to do anything about the third party programs currently running rampant in WoW.
When WoW does finally make it out the door, it's quite obvious most players are just going to click through the EULA in a mad rush to get the pHat l00t and WTFpwn each other over the head with it. But some people may actually pause for a second and think about what they are getting themselves into, and what this contract for a license from Blizzard is all about. Besides the signing-it-in-blood rule, of course. To those classified as minors, pwnz0r away. Minors cannot be legally bound to a contract. To everyone else, I'd suggest you find your 11-year-old sibling/offspring and give them the mouse.
Note: I'm not condoning the abuse of the EULA, or ways to circumvent it, but if Blizzard, or any other MMORPG manufacturer, wants to be seen as selling licenses, to bypass consumer rights, and wants to enter into contracts with players for those licenses, then there are clearly ways to get around it all. Clearly this system needs to be improved.
Alright, it's been said. Stop pulling my arm up behind my frickin' back.
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