Blizzard Entertainment's victory over bnetd sealed in Appeals Court
{{date|September  3, 2005}}

{{w|Blizzard Entertainment}} has won a federal ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals against the programmers of {{w|bnetd}}, a software package that emulates Blizzard's {{w|Battle.net}} service. The court reaffirmed the original judgement, given in October,  that the [[Digital Millennium Copyright Act]] and click-through {{w|EULA}}'s prohibited the reverse engineering of Blizzard's software in order to improve their playability. This was the first real test of the DMCA's applicability.

Bnetd, released under the {{w|GNU General Public License}}, was created to enable users to play multiplayer games, bypassing Blizzard's freely accessible Battle.net servers, which have sometimes been unreliable or slow for gamers. The software also disabled the CD-Key check which is present in Battle.net to prevent users of pirated copies from being able to connect to Blizzard's servers. Offers by bnetd developers to incorporate Blizzard's CD-Check system were declined.

The CD-Check system itself has faced controversy, with some users complaining it borders on breaching privacy in the same way as {{w|adware}} and other malevolent software. This is not confined to Blizzard: controversy occurred when {{w|Sony Online Entertainment}}'s {{w|EverQuest}} had a similar system which was later disabled due to complaints. Other games designed for network play are also known to have similar systems in place, the most prominent perhaps being {{w|Valve Software}}'s {{w|Steam (content delivery)|Steam}} system developed for {{w|Half-Life 2}}.

Blizzard has produced many popular titles such as {{w|Starcraft}}, {{w|World of Warcraft}} and the {{w|Diablo}} series.

== Sources ==
*{{source|url=http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8CCA8F80.htm?campaign_id=apn_tech_down&chan=tc
|title=Court KOs online game bypass program
|author=Jim Suhr/[[w:Associated Press|Associated Press]]
|pub=BusinessWeek
|date=September 02, 2005}}

*{{source|url=http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=13440&hed=Blizzard+Beats+BnetD%2C+Again&sector=Industries&subsector=EntertainmentAndMedia
|title=Blizzard Beats BnetD, Again
|author=
|pub=Red Herring
|date=September 02, 2005}}

*{{source|url=http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2005/09/03/battlenet_hack/
|title=Court WoWs with Battle.net bypass ruling
|author=Brett Thomas
|pub=Bit-tech
|date=September 03, 2005}}

*{{source|url=http://p2pnet.net/story/6118
|title=BnetD looses in Blizzard case
|author=
|pub=P2pnet
|date=September 02, 2005}} (Source misspelled title, should be "BnetD loses in Blizzard case")

*{{source|url=http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/warcraft3reignofchaos/news_6132467.html
|title=Blizzard wins hacking lawsuit
|author=Declan McCullagh/[[w:News.com|News.com]] 
|pub=GameSpot
|date=September 02, 2005}}

*{{source|url=http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1040_22-5830718.html
|title=Game players say Blizzard invades privacy
|author=Daniel Terdiman/[[CNET]] 
|pub=ZDNet
|date=August 12, 2005}}

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[[Category:United States]]
[[Category:North America]]
[[Category:Computing]]
[[Category:Science and technology]]
[[Category:Copyright]]
[[Category:Digital Millennium Copyright Act]]
bnetd, a software package that emulates Blizzard's EULA's prohibited the reverse engineering of Blizzard's software in order to improve their playability. This was the first real test of the DMCA's applicability.

Bnetd, released under the , was created to enable users to play multiplayer games, bypassing Blizzard's freely accessible Battle.net servers, which have sometimes been unreliable or slow for gamers. The software also disabled the CD-Key check which is present in Battle.net to prevent users of pirated copies from being able to connect to Blizzard's servers. Offers by bnetd developers to incorporate Blizzard's CD-Check system were declined.

The CD-Check system itself has faced controversy, with some users complaining it borders on breaching privacy in the same way as Sony Online Entertainment's Valve Software's Steam system developed for .

Blizzard has produced many popular titles such as World of Warcraft and the  series.

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* (Source misspelled title, should be "BnetD loses in Blizzard case")

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United States North America Computing Science and technology Copyright Digital Millennium Copyright Act