Gaming News - October 2004
St. Louis, MO (October 6, 2004) - A federal district court in St.
Louis, Missouri has found that members of the BnetD project violated Blizzard
Entertainment’s End User License Agreements (EULAs) and Battle.net Terms of Use
(TOU), as well as the provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)
that prohibits the circumvention of anti-piracy technology and trafficking in
such technology.
"We consider this ruling to be a major victory against software piracy," stated
Mike Morhaime, president and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment. "By ruling in
our favor on every count, the court is sending a clear message that creating
unauthorized servers which emulate Blizzard’s Battle.net servers is without
question illegal. We have worked hard to provide gamers with a free, safe,
secure, reliable, environment on Battle.net, and this ruling is a strong
validation that we are justified in protecting and ensuring the integrity of our
game service."
Granting Blizzard Entertainment’s motion for summary judgment on all counts,
Judge Charles Shaw ruled that the defendants were bound to the terms of
Blizzard’s EULAs and Battle.net TOUs, and that by reverse engineering Blizzard
software, creating servers that emulated Battle.net, and providing matchmaking
services for users of Blizzard software, they were in violation of those terms.
Furthermore, Judge Shaw held that because the BnetD servers created a functional
alternative to Battle.net and were used to bypass Blizzard’s anti-piracy
technology, “the defendants’ actions constitute a circumvention of copyright
under the DMCA.”
This judgment upholds Blizzard Entertainment's End User License Agreements and
Battle.net Terms of Use as legally binding documents that are legally
enforceable. In addition, the judgment enjoins others who distribute BnetD or
act in concert with the BnetD members from creating and providing access to
unauthorized servers that emulate Blizzard's own servers for the purpose of
playing legal or illegal copies of Blizzard games as against the law.
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