[MUD-Dev] DCMA -- another weapon in the fight against Emulators

[Frank Crowell]

From: <bruce at cubik.org>

> You may find the following interesting:

>  http://research.yale.edu/lawmeme/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=149

Definitely worth reading.

The interesting part of Blizzard's side is the fact that Bnet
doesn't try to validate the CD key. Of course this is called a catch
22.  (A) Bnet doesn't validate the CD and therefore facilitates
warez pirates.  or if (B) Bnet reversed engineer the method for
validating CD keys, then they could be potential key farmers and
could facilitate warez pirates.  Of course Bnet could also make a
trunkload of money selling the keys.  It's an interesting argument
but Bnet has taken the high road and chances are that the piracy
point will not stand.

The decompiling argument is just another case of Kinko law (you
know-- take an existing EULA and cut and paste in violation of the
previous EULA copyright).  Servers cannot be decompiled because they
are not distributed.  I don't think Blizzard is using the EULA
anyway since the best they could do is kick a couple of people off
their servers.

Copyright infringement is really weak except for one-byte in a dll
(to bypass the CD key validation).  I would really like to see how
well this point stands up.  I expect that it is just window dressing
that the lawyers are using.  Plus it's easy to avoid because you
don't need to distribute the file -- just have the user apply the
patch.

Interesting enough the DCMA was used to stop the project, but it
also seems that the DCMA can be used as a defense too.

This is going to be a good case even though Blizzard is likely to
win because they will have the money on their side. The rest of the
case involves plain old reverse engineering/decompile blah blah.
Nothing that interesting there.

I know that Blizzard will win, but the interesting part will be what
will win the case.

frank


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