Vivendi Universal has filed suit against a small internet service provider, Internet Gateway, Inc., in St. Louis for distributing free software that emulates Battle.net. The application, Bnetd, is used to allow owners of Blizzard games to play on servers other than those owned by Blizzard. In the past, users have complained that Battle.net is erratic, buggy, and full of players that utilize cheat tools.
On February 17th, Vivendi sent a cease and desist letter to the ISP demanding that the Bnetd software be taken off the site for alledged copyright infringement of Blizzard’s games and violations of section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Interestingly enough, Vivendi’s latest suit makes no mention of the DMCA but rather relies on the old Lanham Act, a pillar of US trademark law. (You may wish to read LawMeme: Analysis of BNETD and Blizzard.)
The suit states that Bnetd infringes on Battle.net’s trademark and openly accuses bnetd of illegally stealing code from Blizzard to create bnetd. In goes on to claim that bnetd illegally placed pictures of Blizzard games on their website (fair use anyone?). Furthermore the suit states that the ISP is encouraging piracy by allowing Blizzard games to be played on servers that do not authenticate CD keys.
Some relevant links:
Vivendi Complaint
Complaint Against Bnetd
Blizzard's Reasoning
Battle.Net FAQ (Blizzard)
News Coverage
EFF's Press Release
Vivendi Sues Over Online Game Tool (News.com)
EFF: Blizzard freezes bnetd gaming platform, sues own customers (Newsforge)
Blizzard/Vivendi Files Suit Against Bnetd Project (Slashdot)
Vivendi sues ISP over online games (ZDNet News)
Prior Media Coverage
Analysis of BNETD and Blizzard (LawMeme)
Blizzard v. Bnetd Archive (EFF)
Some Games Aren't Fun (InfoWorld)