Unauthorized MMO Hosting – Video Game Law Blog

The FBI has shut down an illegal game operation that allegedly provided subscribers with fraudulent service to, and code for, Lineage II. Apparently L2Extreme.com (now seized by the FYI) had some 50,000 active users. NCSoft says it lost millions in revenue from this. The operators of L2Extreme.com face a fine of $250,000 and up to five years in jail. NCSoft has said it has no plans to pursue the users.

This case is different from the Blizzard v. BNetD case because in the BNetD circumstance, they had reverse engineered the Blizzard server software and, presumably, wrote emulating software in a “clean room” without access to the original Blizzard server software – thus no direct copyright infringement. In the L2Extreme case, it is alleged that the L2Extreme.com server software was pirated (ie: copied) NCSoft server software.

Text of Blizzard v. BNetD Decision
Audio of Oral Arguments before the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals [MP3 from EFF]

In making a more stable and feature-rich, multi-player online video game server available for free to Blizzard’s video game customers, in competition to Blizzard’s own proprietary Battle.net server, the 8th circuit CA held, among other things, that the appellants’ (i) reverse engineering and circumventing of Blizzard’s CD key validation process; (ii) distribution of the resultant circumvention software; violated the anti-circumvention and anti-trafficking provisions of the DMCA.

Dale’s Comment: It seems to me that this is yet another unintended consequence of of the DMCA. The DMCA’s primary purpose is to protect copyright, not to protect Blizzard’s business model. So long as players are using properly purchased/licensed versions of the game, end users should not be liable if they create a competitive online means of playing that game.

Tag: Unauthorized MMO Hosting

FBI Shuts Down L2Extreme.com’s Unauthorized Lineage II Servers

Blizzard Wins Video Game Hacking Lawsuit Against BNetD