S/W Pirates + EFF vs. Blizzard: Blizzard Wins Lawsuit!

[Guden Oden]

Link found at diabloii.net

Is this good or bad, that "fair use and competition" lost? No, I don't think so.

This software was made so people could play battle.net games without valid CD keys. Make it legal to circumvent piracy checks will only serve as a way to increase piracy, even legitimize it in a way, thus taking away resources (in the form of money) from the developer, meaning less left to make new great games with, or else a price hike for those of us who remain honest.

Blizzard OWNS battle.net and the tech it builds on. I don't think it would be fair at all of the courts to give away their technology - which was developed at great expense no less - to a bunch of freeloading scumbags. A ruling in favor of said scumbags would set a new prescident for doing similar things against other games.

Why not make your own MMORPG server for example, play EQ2 or SWO or UO etc for free? You don't even have to buy the game, just download an ISO off some fileshare network and off you go. GREAT IDEA EVERYBODY!

Or am I completely off my rockers here? After all, I could be having a fever right now for all I know...

 

[jvd]

Why not make your own MMORPG server for example, play EQ2 or SWO or UO etc for free? You don't even have to buy the game, just download an ISO off some fileshare network and off you go. GREAT IDEA EVERYBODY!

well you can make your own uo server now , you can make your own eq server now , you can make your own wow server.

Don't see what the problem is . I can never host a 5k shard like sony or ea can host . I could host mabye 20 people before bandwidth takes a hit .

 

[ondaedg]

the problem is that noone can prove their true intentions. Personally, I don't see why anyone would want to create an alternative to Battle.net. If I want to play a ladder game, I play one and very quickly. If I want to play a non-ladder game, I play one as well. What is the point to creating an alternative battle.net unless they were attempting to circumvent Blizzard's system of checking valid cd keys to play on bnet? If they want to spend time doing the video gaming society a favor, don't waste it on something as trivial as making an alternative to an already awesome gaming network. They should be working on anti cheat measures since that is one thing that Blizzard sucks at.

 

[jvd]

It all depends .

Some people feel that certian expansions ruin the games That is why i moved from a paying shard to a player hosted shard. We were able to make updates we wanted to , but keep pvp the way it was , or change the skill advancement.

Also not everyone can afford to pay 15$ a month for a bug fest .

 

[Sage]

yeah you can already download EQ and UO servers and run them yourself. I, too, don't like the expansions- I want Sony to make an "EQ Classic" server where it's just the old world. Actually, I'd like them to have a client / server that's exactly the way it was at launch (except with major bugfixes that should be reasonably easy to implement seeing as the work has already been done...)! Hell, I'd even be willing to pay an extra $2 a month for that.

 

[Guden Oden]

It all depends .
< ... >
Also not everyone can afford to pay 15$ a month for a bug fest .

So some feels they don't have the money to plonk down the initial $35-50 either and download the game ISOs as well. Like I said, free gaming. Great idea, huh?

People will always bitch and whine about how skills change etc, it's unavoidable. Open the door for widespread piracy like this, it could be a bad blow for the MMORPG industry, which is already quite limited. Many games were cancelled quite recently before even being finished, this stuff certainly would not have improved things.

 

[bloodbob]

Correct me if I'm wrong but couldn't pirates already just play with direct ip connections?? and even if they couldn't a simple vpn would let you play lan games.

Basicly this has made SAMBA illegal as well as open office in the US as they have both reversed engineered MS products and has allowed companies like MS to now become even stronger monoplies YAY. I see their must be alot of game devs for the XBOX in this thread.

Damn linux pirates.

 

[Fruitfrenzy]

Can some one tell me if Blizzard charge to use Battle.net?

Obviously they charge for the games themselves and if the open source server is only there to allow pirate copies of games then it should be illegal but if it provides an alternative to a fee charging service then surely it is legitimate competition.

 

[Rambler]

Can some one tell me if Blizzard charge to use Battle.net?

Obviously they charge for the games themselves and if the open source server is only there to allow pirate copies of games then it should be illegal but if it provides an alternative to a fee charging service then surely it is legitimate competition.

snip from http://www.battle.net/intro.shtml:

Battle.net provides an arena for Blizzard customers to chat, challenge opponents and initiate multiplayer games, at no cost to the user. There is no hourly or monthly fee to use Battle.net, and there is no startup charge. To play a supported game over the Internet with other players worldwide, simply select the Battle.net option from within the game.

 

[jvd]

It all depends .
< ... >
Also not everyone can afford to pay 15$ a month for a bug fest .

So some feels they don't have the money to plonk down the initial $35-50 either and download the game ISOs as well. Like I said, free gaming. Great idea, huh?

People will always bitch and whine about how skills change etc, it's unavoidable. Open the door for widespread piracy like this, it could be a bad blow for the MMORPG industry, which is already quite limited. Many games were cancelled quite recently before even being finished, this stuff certainly would not have improved things.

i bought ultima online for 50$ bought 3 expansions for 30$ each and played for 4 years paying 10$ a month before they destroyed my chars . There is a diffrence between paying for a game for 4 years and then taking it for free and taking it for free right away .

But hey i download games all the time , half of them are erased from my hardrive with in hours of getting them , sometimesi i go out and buy the full games .

Its hard now adays when demos aren't released for a month after release ,u get stuck buying craptastic games like doom3 .

 

[epicstruggle]

no is forcing you to buy the "craptastic games" like doom3. Piracy is wrong whether the game is good or bad. Id rather people boycott buying games until the industry reforms itself.

epic

 

[bloodbob]

Why not make your own MMORPG server for example, play EQ2 or SWO or UO etc for free? You don't even have to buy the game, just download an ISO off some fileshare network and off you go. GREAT IDEA EVERYBODY!

1. Blizzard isn't making any money from running battlenet so no alternate network isn't going to cost them sales.
2. Their is has nothing to do with the bundle content and you know it
3. VPN which are used by thousands of companies around the world can also allowed pirates to play LAN games over the internet which doesn't require CD-Keys according to the DMCA VPNs should be illegal as it is disabling the copyright mechanism the same as bnetd. This in turn will basicly destroy many WANs of thousands of companies. Obivously the US government had no idea when it passed the DMCA and unfortunatly the US legal system is quite happily enforcing for laws for selected groups.

Truely this should have really never been a violation of the end user lisence agreement as the developers never reverse engineered the client which they got the lisence for they reverse engineered the protocol and the server so their rights shouldn't have been waivered which ment the fair use should still apply.

LOL I'm so gonna try to get injuctions against CISCO routers when we get the DMCA in australia

 

[jvd]

no is forcing you to buy the "craptastic games" like doom3. Piracy is wrong whether the game is good or bad. Id rather people boycott buying games until the industry reforms itself.

epic

nope and the only way i can tell they are craptasic is to try them , thus downloading them.

I downloaded evil genius on friday played it over the weekend and i know own the game (Bought it on monday ) .

On the same note i had downloaded thief 3 , played it for a day or two , didn't care for it , deleted it and thats that

 

[John Reynolds]

nope and the only way i can tell they are craptasic is to try them , thus downloading them.

You could always use word of mouth on message boards. I value this as a means of determining whether or not I'll like a game far more than published reviews these days.

 

[London Geezer]

nope and the only way i can tell they are craptasic is to try them , thus downloading them.

I downloaded evil genius on friday played it over the weekend and i know own the game (Bought it on monday ) .

On the same note i had downloaded thief 3 , played it for a day or two , didn't care for it , deleted it and thats that

Not many are as responsible, honest and chunky as you are, jvd...

 

[jvd]

nope and the only way i can tell they are craptasic is to try them , thus downloading them.

I downloaded evil genius on friday played it over the weekend and i know own the game (Bought it on monday ) .

On the same note i had downloaded thief 3 , played it for a day or two , didn't care for it , deleted it and thats that

Not many are as responsible, honest and chunky as you are, jvd...

you better watch out lb , i keep loosing weight , pretty soon the only thing you can make fun of is my spelling

 

[London Geezer]

nope and the only way i can tell they are craptasic is to try them , thus downloading them.

I downloaded evil genius on friday played it over the weekend and i know own the game (Bought it on monday ) .

On the same note i had downloaded thief 3 , played it for a day or two , didn't care for it , deleted it and thats that

Not many are as responsible, honest and chunky as you are, jvd...

you better watch out lb , i keep loosing weight , pretty soon the only thing you can make fun of is my spelling

MY GOD you must be a telepath!!! I was gonna mention "what's with your space-before-punctuation-disease?"

 

[jvd]

I am not of this world ! That is how i knew ! I also wrote the matrix reloaded script . Thus the crappy writing !

 

[Sage]

 

[London Geezer]

Is yT conTagiOos ? ! .