Letters to the editor

Letter to Editor: Response to Florian Mueller's Release re: "Anti-IP"

On August 22, 2005, Florian Mueller distributed a press release (Linux trademark issue: EU anti-swpat campaigner supports Linus, is concerned over anti-IP positioning of open source) on behalf of nosoftwarepatents.com critiquing what he considered to be "anti-intellectual property positions" in the open source/free software movement. Among those criticized was EFF's defense of the BNETD project, which was sued in U.S. courts by Blizzard entertainment for creating an open source interoperable server that worked with Blizzard games. Mr. Mueller chides the EFF for rushing to the aid of "piracy-enablers" and making it look like software patent critics are "against copyright."

In the interest of correcting the record and full disclosure, we'd like to note two things. First, the Blizzard v. BNETD case is anything but "against copyright." The defense of the case is based entirely on the right to reverse engineer and create interoperable software embodied in the Fair Use Doctrine of U.S. copyright law under Title 17, Section 107 and Section 1201(f) of the Copyright Act. It is hard to understand how one could be "against copyright" when one is relying on the Copyright Act as the defense to Blizzard lawsuit.

Second, it is also worth noting that Mr. Mueller is anything but a disinterested party in this fight. In fact, he has extensive ties to Blizzard Entertainment and is listed as a contributor to numerous Blizzard games including Starcraft, Diablo, and WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness. While EFF applauds Mr. Mueller's work on software patent policy, his failure to disclose these facts and failure to accurately describe the Blizzard v. BNETD case must call into question his credibility on this issue.

Sincerely,

Jason Schultz
Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation

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