Copyfight is reporting on a Federal Circuit decision in the StorageTek case. This was a case where a company was using the DMCA to prevent independent repair shops from fixing their equipment.
They argued that the diagnostic code was protected by “technological measures” and that, in order to run the code, you must copy it into RAM. Therefore, the use of the diagnostic code by the independent repair shop is a DMCA violation.
The lower court agreed with them, but apparently, saner heads prevail. Not only did the court reverse the decision, but they made it clear that “Congress [in enacting the DMCA] did not intend to create new property rights”. In other words, if you break a technological measure in order to do some that would otherwise be legal, your lot liable under the DMCA.
Now, I don’t know if this sets a precedent or how far reaching it is. But, it’s good to have some positive news about this stuff once in a while…
Technorati Tags: DMCA
Yes, I agree 100 percent. Copyright law in recent years has become increasingly stacked in favor of copyright holders at the expense of consumers, increasingly shrinking fair use rights and making access to content more and more restricted.
I find StorageTek’s claim that automatic copying of software into RAM constitutes copyright infringement ludicrous. If this is the case, then every person using a computer is infringing every copyright of every program they run, as there is no other way of executing the software. Further, copyright law specifically allows such copying as is necessary to install and to execute legally obtained software.
As the author says, finally, some sanity.
Yup. I think the ruling also held that they were highly unlikely to win on their claim of infringement based on copying the program into RAM.
I suspect that copyright holders would really like to be able to collect rents on people thinking about copyrighted material. Have a thought about Madonna? You owe us $1.50.