Blizzard Entertainment is trying to sue gaming fans for attempting to make a better version of its battle.net servers — namely, the now-closed sourceforge.net project, BnetD. This SourceForge project has a Mirror Site in the UK. The project may be under development by independent developers, but if so — I have no idea where the CVS can be found. If I find out, I’ll post it here right away. Feel free to leave comments.

Blizzard says that the software engineers are promoting illegal use of its software by providing this alternate server because the server does not check for a valid CD key. However, users of the BnetD server who have invalid CD keys and have yet managed to install Blizzard’s games before connecting have already broken the law long before connecting to the server. Blizzard refuses to let BnetD connect to its own servers to validate CD keys.

In short, the people at Blizzard are acting like little children saying “Mine, mine!” in regards to their software. Yes, they programmed it. Nobody else is trying to take credit for their work. However, as they try to establish their monopoly in the online gaming industry by destroying server-side competition, they are in essence admitting that they are a power-hungry company who can’t stand a little competition. Heaven forbid that their customers connect to an alternative server where their requests are actually taken care of and where the response time is fast.

C|Net News’ Declan McCullagh reports on the story at this link: Putting the DMCA on Trial