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Blizzard Sues 'StarCrack' Hackers, Promptly Dismisses Suit
by Kris Graft [PC, Console/PC]
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April 22, 2010
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On April 12, StarCraft developer Blizzard filed suit against six individuals, alleging that they created circumvention technology that allowed multiplayer games of the StarCraft II beta on "rogue" servers.
But one week later, court filings, obtained by Gamasutra, show that Blizzard dropped the suit against the group, calling itself "StarCrack."
The company originally sued John Marshall (A.K.A. "usmc23") and five unnamed defendants for "direct and indirect copyright infringement" that violated copyright acts including the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Blizzard's complaint also alleged that Mashall and his cohorts trafficked "technology for the purpose of circumventing copyright protection systems," as well as breach of contract.
The complaint alleged that the "SC2 Pirate Community is working in concert, largely over the internet, to obtain and access unauthorized or 'cracked' game clients and develop an unauthorized, pirated version of [Blizzard's proprietary online platform] Battle.net, with the goal of enabling members of this community to benefit from Blizzard's development of SC2 without paying for it."
An individual under the screen name "usmc23," Marshall's purported online name, has been posting detailed progress of Battle.net hacks in an online forum.
Blizzard and its lawyers dismissed the suit on April 19. Court documents did not give a reason as to why the case was suddenly dropped, although we've contacted Blizzard's lawyers for more information.
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But ya, there's no publicly released multiplayer servers yet from Starcrack. All you can do is play against fan-made AI and watch replays. It's not a huge deal yet. So this is sort of preemptive. Maybe they're using this to scare others from attempting it. I doubt that'll work.
Those guys basically did the ground work of codding the AI for Blizzard and it is not far fetched to think one of them might now be working behind their walls, quite the inverse effect they were looking to achieve in fact (Hacking stuff is cool it can help you leverage a position in the field and generate media attention, no publicity is bad publicity, right? Right.). I have been saying to my friend ever since DarkBlizz members started those AI how Blizzard should in fact be thanking them for working for them for free.
@Michael Smith
They have a server emulator that is successful at authenticating beta client of Starcraft 2 and other teams were working in implementing gameplay related message and deciphering the rest of the packets, Darkblizz member were not the only one targeted by Activision take down notice (Both onlythechosen (They broke the authentication loop and encryption) and team lazytowns AKA TeknoGod (made the launcher and crack) shut down their forums on the topic) the fact that they seem to have complied to this notice is probably the real reason those charges were dropped and confirm my suspicion about this being only a act of FUD.
Also why is this article referring to Blizzard and Blizzard's lawyer as far as i can tell all take down notice came from Activision Not Blizzard itself (yeah i do know it change nothing to the fact at all). They should get a lawyer knowing his job, which am sure could be find to do this pro bono only for the publicity it would generate for his cabinet, because there is NO way this can be won with a DMCA claim, NO part of the client has been modified, thus the already shaky EULA can go to hell, clean room reverse engineering was applied for most part which is permitted as per the DMCA, with onlythechosen doing most of the R&D and supplying specification and DarkBlizz doing emulator development mostly from those data and packet dump supplied by beta tester (those beta tester probably do violate the EULA, but the worst they can do about this is ban them and their accounts). No part of the SRP6 algorithm need to be bypassed, they have to understand that this algorithm is meant to secure session key between client and server it is not meant to be used as a way to lock down a client to a specific server and can only fail if being used as such.
Do not get me wrong i do not condone in piracy or deny the right of Activision/Blizzard to protect their investment, but it make me sad when they take us for dumb ass and use shaky legal basis to scare people off. No LAN play? You are seriously asking for it anyway...
> No LAN play? You are seriously asking for it anyway...
You don't condone it, yet they were asking for it? I see.
Let's face it. Piracy isn't an issue for Blizzard. They'll make profits well beyond fair compensation. In fact, if I want to play devil's advocate here, piracy of Blizzard games could help redistribute entertainment budgets to less profitable games. ;)