equipment provided by defendant Internet Gateway. The bnetd emulator provides a server that would allow gamers unable or not wishing to connect to Battle.net to experience the multi-player features of Blizzard's games, and was designed to allow access to Blizzard games in a multi-player environment without using Battle.net. The bnetd emulator provides matchmaking services for users of Blizzard games who want to play those games in a multi-player environment without using Battle.net. The bnetd project attempted to include all of the user-visible features of the Battle.net service. The bnetd.org website provided online discussion forums and information about the bnetd program, and also provided access to the program's computer code for others to copy and modify.
The bnetd program was intended as a functional alternative to the Battle.net service. Tousing the bnetd server.
The bnetd server program is highly configurable, which means that much of the operation of the server is under the control of the administrator running the server. Running a bnetd server allows users to become server administrators and not just players on someone else's server, giving them the ability to allow or deny access to various features of the bnetd server or to modify the computer code of the bnetd server. This allows the administrator of the bnetd server to create a gaming environment with different options than those presented to the user on the Battle.net service. In contrast, the Battle.net service is operated solely by Blizzard.
Combs, Crittenden, and Jung have used a Blizzard game to log into a bnetd server. Crittenden was aware that