Want to stay current on e–commerce law? Sign up for Email Newsletter.
Eighth Circuit Upholds Video Game Reverse Engineering Decision
Blizzard Entertainment, a well-known video game publisher (its games include the Warcraft, Starcraft series), provides an online "arena" called battle.net that allows players to log on and play against each other. Battle.net is a subscription service, and players agree to Terms of Use and End User Licence Agreements when they become members.
Last year Internet Gateway Inc. reverse engineered Blizzard's software and protocols to create the bnetd project, which was a free and unregulated alternative to battle.net. Blizzard sued, and in October 2004 the District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri ruled that the defendants had violated U.S. copyright law and had also breached Blizzard's licences and terms of use.
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeal recently upheld that decision. The Court found that the defendants had breached the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s anti-circumvention provisions by allowing gamers to play unauthorized copies of Blizzard games on bnetd. The Court held that the DMCA prohibits reverse engineering in order to create an open-source program that extends a video game for those who have purchased originals of the game. The Court also held that the defendants had violated the DMCA’s anti-trafficking provisions by developing bnetd for the purpose of circumventing Blizzard’s copy protection.
Additionally, the Court ruled that Blizzard's online agreements (which, among other things, prohibited the reverse engineering of Blizzard's software) were valid and enforceable, and that the defendants had breached those agreements.
For additional information, visit: