Blizzard v. BNETD Disaster

> http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/archives/000708.html

Blizzard v. BNETD (Davidson v. Internet Gateway) Fair Use/DMCA
horrors

September 30, 2004

Blizzard v. BNETD (formally "Davidson & Associates v. Internet
Gateway") (http://www.eff.org/IP/Emulation/Blizzard_v_bnetd/) is
a case about the right to reverse-engineer and build a
open-source network game emulator. A district court decision has
just been issued (via Ed Felten
[http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/archives/000692.html]
[(http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/doc/2004/bnetd_30sep.pdf)]).
In sum, it's a horror on every item, and rules solidly against
programmer's interests.

Some of the parade of horrors:

The quasi-Libertarian like-it-or-lump-it view of a contract of
adhesion:

The parties in this case did have unequal bargaining power
because Blizzard is the sole seller of its software licenses;
however, the defendants had the choice to select a different
video game, to agree to the terms and gain the software and
access to Battle.net, or to disagree and return the software for
a full return of their money.