On Thu, Feb 21, 2002 at 01:33:23PM +0100, Robert Millan wrote: > If you check http://www.bnetd.org, you'll find > a note explaining that their project has been > branded as illegal by the DMCA.
s/DMCA/Blizzard/ > Bnetd is a server for networked playing with propietary > Blizzard games like Starcraft or Diablo. It aims to provide > the same features as the official BattleNet service. > > Those games are protected in a way that server addresses > cannot be changed in order to use an unofficial server, > but the bnetd project (and others, even blizzard itself > used to) provides a tool to hack the game so that > unofficial addresses can be used. > > What Blizzard claims is not well specified: > > "The aforementioned site either hosts or distributes software which > illegally > modifies and/or alters Blizzard Entertainment copyrighted software or > bypasses anti-circumvention technology, thereby infringing upon Blizzard > Entertainment copyrights." *I* don't think that's a legitimate invocation of the DMCA. IANAL. The whole argument is spurious anyway. > The Debian package only contains the server code, which is > written as free software from scratch. > > Is that package illegal? No. Afaik, Debian has not received a cease-and-desist, and no court has ruled that distributing bnetd is illegal. If Blizzard sent us such a notice, we might pull the package rather than argue the point... > If it does indeed break the DMCA, would it be any problem > in distributing it outside the US, where this law [1] does > not prevail? Not until the international versions come into force, no. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | Dept. of Computing, `. `' | Imperial College, `- -><- | London, UK
