NEWS: Blizzard takes legal action

[LazyJones]

Within the text on the CHaosCrusade site, it was confirmed that The notice was real. It was approved by both DMCA and Blizzards affilliation with the law firm. They are all gonna get closed down. its a flippin power struggle with Retail and Emulation...

Oh?

5-6 servers have been affected, of which at least one is now back up, and others are convinced that the letter is fake.

The top100 site was never taken down, it was merely overrun by people who panicked, because of the persons who keep spreading the rumor that this is real.

The letter has not been verified as real, someone simply CLAIMED that it has been. And you chose to believe this anonymous individual.

"Approved by DMCA"... What does that even mean?

"Blizzards affiliation with the law firm" - I haven't seen any signs of an affiliation between Blizzard and this law firm.

"They are all gonna get closed down" - There is no sign of that happening, certainly not due to 5-6 servers CHOOSING to shut down.

It's now been 4 days since the letter was recieved. Nothing new has happened in the last 3 days. This is by no means a total crack-down. It's merely what it is. ONE LETTER. - And a fake letter at that.

[gangstagreen]

Believe what you must.. flaming is something u like to do, right? It's basicly seeing and reposting... If chaoscrusade is just being a jerk and can't support their servers so be it... On their site it states that the notice was authentic and passed as a legal document... other then that i really dont care much for this perdicement. Hopefully, what i said wasnt true and it was false on my part. Keep your unkind words to a minnimum good sir.

[Sajakain]

*hint* nobody but the people who sent it and blizzard does.

logically until factual proof arrives (in the form of a court order) whether its real or not defaults to "no".

If you read the prior pages to this thread you will see that I was quoted from the forums of the private server that I personally play(ed) on: WoWFusion. Also, if anyone were to pay attention to those boards and follow through with what they look up, they'd realize that I did in fact write Mr. Christian Genetski and he did reply to me stating that he did, in fact, write the letter to SoftLayer.

Despite what you may personally think; rest assured. The letter is real. The situation is real. And Blizzard will take legal action if they have to.

- Sajakain

[Noobcraft]

KEEP ALL FLAMING OUT OF THIS THREAD. Take up your petty arguments in pms.

[LazyJones]

Believe what you must.. flaming is something u like to do, right?

Excuse me?
I didn't flame anyone, and no - it's NOT something I like to do.
If you think my tone was harsh, then maybe you have a point, and I apologize. But flaming, it wasn't.

On their site it states that the notice was authentic and passed as a legal document...

But it doesn't state how they know this.
There is no evidence.
It remains, as I stated without flaming, merely a CLAIM.

[LazyJones]

I did in fact write Mr. Christian Genetski and he did reply to me stating that he did, in fact, write the letter to SoftLayer.

Oh, so YOU are the person who contacted Mr. Genetski?
What exactly did he have to say?

The letter is real. The situation is real. And Blizzard will take legal action if they have to.

What is implied in "The situation"?
So far, all we have is 5-6 servers that's been affected, simply because they were on the same host.
Everything else (hidden snoop software, total crackdown, the end of emulation, a list of many other sites) is simply rumors and speculation.

[ieatglueandstuff]

End of story this is a real Notice. It isn't an order or declaration it is a notice that if above said things are not done then they will be forced to take legal action. All the people who think it is fake are completely retarded. Emulation is here to stay however will there be servers up for long periods of time is the question.

[gangstagreen]

agreed... to a point. I think this sucks is all lol

[AzolexX]

Here is petition i saw on wow fusion:
Stop Shutting Down Private WoW Servers Petition
Sing in if ya think it will help ( this is not only for wow fusion but whole PS community )

[obionekanobi123]

ysut sit back and see what happens ...im sure someone yust fking around its not true at all

[Cowfrommars]

this is legitimate you guys are literally retarded

[tomeh]

dude, u dont need to be a fag about it, do u want all the servers to go down? there is nothing wrong about hope

[Nikogrom]

Personally, I couldn't care either way.

I use private server software for only two things;

Machinima
Playing with a small group of friends.

Honestly, I think this whole mess was brought up by the emulation community trying to rush a WotLK core. The expansion JUST came out, and already some of the top server more or less support it in some form. Why? If they really did want to show respect to Blizz (like some server admins have said they would as a reason for not supporting WotLK BETA) they would've at least waited a few more months before upgrading.

Don't get me wrong, I do hope this is a hoax. However, if it is not, ya'll just brought it on yourselves.

[bence0701]

Hi guys.

I''ve just found this about Blizzard.

They've done this about the Battle.NET too.

Blizzard takedown demand and lawsuit

In February 2002, Blizzard filed a DMCA safe harbor takedown demand against bnetd with their Internet service provider (ISP). Blizzard subsequently filed suit against the developers of bnetd and their ISP in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. The lawsuit alleged copyright infringement, trademark infringement, and violations of their games' End User License Agreement (sometimes referred to as a clickwrap license) and DMCA anti-circumvention prohibitions, in what would become an important test case for portions of that law. The Electronic Frontier Foundation mounted a defense, in which defendants denied copying any portion of battle.net or Blizzard games, denied the validity of the battle.net trademark, denied that CD keys are an anti-piracy measure, and denied that bnetd is a circumvention tool.

In September 2004, the court disagreed and granted summary judgement to Blizzard. On appeal, defendants argued that federal copyright law, which permits reverse engineering, preempts California state contract law, upon which the EULA's prohibition on reverse engineering is grounded.

In September 2005, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the defendants' argument and affirmed the lower court's decision. "Appellants failed to establish a genuine issue of material fact as to the applicability of the interoperability exception [of the DMCA]. The district court properly granted summary judgement in favor of Blizzard and Vivendi on the operability exception." The appeals court further ruled that bnetd circumvents copy protection in violation of the DMCA. (Eighth Circuit 2005)

bnetd developer Ross Combs and EFF staff attorney Jason Schultz criticized the appeals court ruling, claiming the ruling means software and hardware vendors can use a DMCA-EULA combination to prevent otherwise lawful reverse engineering and chill the development of interoperable systems. Blizzard co-founder Mike Morhaime called the ruling "a major victory against software piracy." An Entertainment Software Association representative also supported the ruling, claiming it reinforces the DMCA's ability to prevent "IP abuse and theft." (Lyman)

As a result of the litigation, the bnetd.org domain was transferred to Blizzard's control pursuant to the consent decree entered during the trial. As recently as September 2008, the domain continues to redirect to Blizzard's battle.net website. Although Blizzard won the case, the lawsuit did not stop the continued distribution of bnetd's open source, nor of derivative projects such as PvPGN. Other hosts were quickly set up by third parties in countries where no anti-circumvention legislation equivalent to the DMCA exists.

Blizzard won that. We hope that they will lose this.

Full version : hxxp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blizzard_v._BnetD