SunnComm has decided against filing a lawsuit against John "Alex" Halderman for his act of publishing a paper that described how to work around their CD protection scheme.
Apparently, all it takes to break the protection is to press the shift key when inserting the CD.
It's too bad that there won't be a lawsuit. As Lessig remarked, it would have been good news for the law to be able to help establish an obvious point.
On the other hand, since that point does seem to be obvious, it's not ever so important to establish it even further. And the case remains as a great example to use when discussing the DMCA or the European copyright directive.
That's because one can easily imagine a slight variation. Someone might write a simple software program that does exactly what Halderman described as the method to break that particular protection.
Then that software would seem to be a "technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof," under the DMCA. It would also qualify under "devices, products or components or the provision of services" (Article 6 of the copyright directive).
The question this leads to:
Does it make sense to allow someone to describe the method a human operator can easily use to break the protection, but make it illegal to distribute software that does exactly the same?
This case seems to be a good example when one wants to point out that restricting the distribution of software is equivalent to restricting speech. As such, it is well worth remembering, even if it doesn't seem to make it to court.
Update: The SunnComm technology is highlighted as dumb technology of the month in Bruce Schneier's November 2003 CRYPTO-GRAM.
Posted by Karl-Friedrich Lenz at October 11, 2003 02:25 PM | TrackBackRediculos! Does somone think that freedom still exists in the USA. They want to make democracy in Iraq. Show must go on!
Posted by: Fred Conn on March 29, 2004 04:07 AM