Vivendi sues ISP over online games

Media conglomerate Vivendi Universal has sued a St. Louis Internet service provider, claiming online gaming software distributed by the company infringes on copyrights for Vivendi games. The suit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, claims that ISP Internet Gateway and company founder Tim Jung violated copyrights held by Blizzard Entertainment, a Vivendi subsidiary. The charges center on "bnetd," free software Jung helped develop and distribute to allow individuals to run servers for hosting online versions of popular Blizzard games such as "Diablo II" and "StarCraft." Blizzard runs its own online service, Battle.net, for those games, but many people have claimed the service is erratic, buggy, and riddled with players who cheat. Vivendi demanded in February that Internet Gateway stop offering the bnetd software, saying the program violated the company's rights under the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The suit makes no mention of the DMCA, instead relying on the 57-year-old Lanham Act, one of the bulwarks of U.S. copyright law. The suit alleges that the bnetd name infringes on the Battle.net trademark and accuses bnetd creators of illegally copying portions of the code for Blizzard software to create the tool. --David Becker, Special to ZDNet News