09-23-2003, 05:38 AM
>They are vigorously protecting their copyright, as is expected of them. They saw a potential threat to their financial interests, and took
>legal action.
Ehh, that is two different thing. The only copyright issue here is their claim that bnetd contain copied code. Just because you have a financial threat doesn't mean there is a copyright issue or that you have any case.
>They own the copyright to the "cake".
You don't get copyright to a thing such as a match making service such as bnet. You do get copyright on things such as code used to run it. But it is two very different things.
Someone mentioned the ToU for bnet. Assuming it is a completely OK and valid "contract" and otherwise legal, valid and such, it is still of quite minor interest or none at all. Playing on bnetd (or even programming/providing bnetd) doesn't require you to use the bnet at the same time. Hence, the easy solution to use bnetd foe example, despite bnet's ToU not allowing it, would of course be to not agree to the ToU for bnet. Simple as that. As for the actual validity and other aspects of the ToU, that is another story were I can tell my opinion some other time :)
Finally note that the case as someone said, also include TM issues as well as some interesting EULA/ToU breaches claimed by Blizzard. That is for me one of the most interesting parts of the case.
For interested peopoe, check out the link given at the start of the thread, and read what is there, it is quite informative although a bit legal language at time. Finally, if I understand it correctly, those people lived in USA and hence we have to look at all this from a perspective of US laws. Still, it would be interesting to ponder over differences if this project had been done (or moves to) another country.
>legal action.
Ehh, that is two different thing. The only copyright issue here is their claim that bnetd contain copied code. Just because you have a financial threat doesn't mean there is a copyright issue or that you have any case.
>They own the copyright to the "cake".
You don't get copyright to a thing such as a match making service such as bnet. You do get copyright on things such as code used to run it. But it is two very different things.
Someone mentioned the ToU for bnet. Assuming it is a completely OK and valid "contract" and otherwise legal, valid and such, it is still of quite minor interest or none at all. Playing on bnetd (or even programming/providing bnetd) doesn't require you to use the bnet at the same time. Hence, the easy solution to use bnetd foe example, despite bnet's ToU not allowing it, would of course be to not agree to the ToU for bnet. Simple as that. As for the actual validity and other aspects of the ToU, that is another story were I can tell my opinion some other time :)
Finally note that the case as someone said, also include TM issues as well as some interesting EULA/ToU breaches claimed by Blizzard. That is for me one of the most interesting parts of the case.
For interested peopoe, check out the link given at the start of the thread, and read what is there, it is quite informative although a bit legal language at time. Finally, if I understand it correctly, those people lived in USA and hence we have to look at all this from a perspective of US laws. Still, it would be interesting to ponder over differences if this project had been done (or moves to) another country.
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