The above commentor is correct. We proposed this solution to Blizzard, who rejected it because it doesn’t check across multiple BNETD servers. Also, since the server was released under the GPL, any authentication code could be commented out. This is a major issue for all open source software in terms of being seen as an anti-circumvention tool.

Secondly, don’t these games have a LAN play option? I know that I played Starcraft on my campus LAN in college, and that didn’t require access to Battle.net.

There are features that Battle.net offers that are not available in LAN play. I can’t recall all of them now, but I remember they do exist. Plus, at companies like AOL, there are many many LANs that are all behind firewalls.

The above commentor is correct. We proposed this solution to Blizzard, who rejected it because it doesn’t check across multiple BNETD servers. Also, since the server was released under the GPL, any authentication code could be commented out. This is a major issue for all open source software in terms of being seen as an anti-circumvention tool.

Secondly, don’t these games have a LAN play option? I know that I played Starcraft on my campus LAN in college, and that didn’t require access to Battle.net.

There are features that Battle.net offers that are not available in LAN play. I can’t recall all of them now, but I remember they do exist. Plus, at companies like AOL, there are many many LANs that are all behind firewalls.

I share your distress with the Courts decsion in this case. Does this case establish a precedent for legal action against reverse engineering file formats, which might be protected by a click wrap license? Would anti-trust law enter into this, if perhaps the file format publisher help a monopoly position in their industry? Blizzard was propably a small player in the games market, so anti-trust issues did not enter into this decision correct?

This wouldn’t keep one from using the same CD key on multiple BNetD servers, though it could be leveraged to keep multiple versions of the key off a single server.

One of the major draws of the online play offered by Blizzard was the advanced matchmaking and large player base — a private server didn’t really compete in any meaningful way, in my opinion.

Plus, Starcraft specifically had a “spawn” installation option that allowed you to install a multiplayer only version of the game on any number of computers — but those installations could only join games created by the original.

I’m also curious about the answer to Tim’s first question, as it occurred to me as well.

Two questions: the decision seems to think that BNetD doesn’t seek to verify if a user’s CD key is already in use by another player. Isn’t that a trivial anti-piracy step that wouldn’t require assistance from Blizzard?

Secondly, don’t these games have a LAN play option? I know that I played Starcraft on my campus LAN in college, and that didn’t require access to Battle.net.

In any event, I agree with your final paragraph.

For example, Rob Cirttenden, one of the developers, originally helped write the program so that he and his friends could play legitimately-purchased Starcraft games during lunch behind their company’s firewall, which did not allow access to Battle.net. The BNETD server also allowed you to set up your own rules for play and have private servers so you didn’t have to deal with vulgar or annoying users.

Moreover, the BNETD developers repeated tried to find ways to limit unauthorized copies from being used with their server program, but Blizzard refused to cooperate and provide any assistance in implementing these restrictions. If there had been any way to limit use of unauthorized copies, the BNETD team would have been willing to work on implementing them.

The bottom line with this decision is that now it no longer matters what you do or what your intent was or what the results were as a reverse engineer or creator of an emulator program — you are a criminal. Hopefully other courts will see it differently.