This might be a suggestion u guys already heard a thousand times, but what about finding a (nice) guy at blizzard EA, some community manager or ex-battleforge employee who still works at ea and just hit him up at twitter or fb or smth like that and explain what you guys want to do here. maybe he can get this to his bosses and they actually approve and give u green light (in writing). maybe they'd say u have to pay x amount, but that could be achieved through donations maybe. or maybe I'm just day dreaming here and EA is a company which doesn't even want to "sell" a dead game, with which they dont earn any money anymore - just to keep the possibility to maybe release a game in 50 years with Battleforge stuff.
this may sound wise-assy, but: isn't it better to talk with an EA guy before making the game etc.? if they just file a complaint and the server gets taken down as soon as it hits closed beta or maybe official release, all the work would've been for nothing. sorry for sounding like an ass, but I just want this project to succeed, like all of us - and the devs the most, I imagine
also I work for a tax advisor and I know a quite a few things about german tax law and accounting and stuff. I dont know if germany is the best place to set smth like this up though.
Edit: I just found this project by accident and this is my first post. Again, I apologize if I overstepped or just repeated the same suggestion u guys already got 1000 times.