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I consider myself fairly well read (as a layman) about IP law, and I was totally unaware that this ruling existed. It's fairly interesting stuff.

Here's the full text if anyone is interested (normally I pull stuff from the Cornell Law site but it doesn't seem to have it):
http://www.bowie-jensen.com/computerlaw/lasercomb. html

The use of the DMCA may be new, but check out the MAI v Peak case from the early nineties.

What should I look for in hiring a lawyer? Will that type of lawyer call themselves anything?

This guy. In spite of what looks like an evil bio, he's quite a techno-geek.

Some googling around finds:

* Re: "Double" Licenses--enforceability of shrinkwrap and clickwrap licenses

* WASHINGTON COURT OF APPEALS UPHOLDS ENFORCABILITY OF "SHRINK-WRAP" SOFTWARE LICENSES

* Shrink-wrap software licenses upheld

* Contractor Denied Recovery for $1.95 Million Bidding Error Caused by Allegedly Defective Software

* CPT's Page on the Enforceability of Shrinkwrap Licenses

* ProCD, Inc. v. Zeidenberg, 86 F.3D 1447 (7th Cir., June 20, 1996). This
phone directory data case is important because it validates the legality of
"shrink wrap" software licenses for the first time. This case suggests that
similar "on screen acceptance" licenses, now commonly used on the Internet,
may also be upheld as legal someday. The phone directory database at issue
in this case was not protected by copyright, but was protected by contract.
So the person who published ProCD's phone directories on the Internet was
found to have breached the shrink wrap license agreement that came with the
software.

* In Bowers v. Baystate Technologies Inc., 64 USPQ2d 1065 (CA FC 2002), the Federal Circuit has upheld a contractual no-reverse engineering restriction in an agreement between two parties in a software license that was characterized by the court as shrink wrap.

But when I stopped to think about it, it IS a big deal. The ability to run fully graphical apps locally while keeping the vast majority of the CPU load remotely is very cool. It's how our local LUG was able to set up a computer center for underprivledged kids -- A bunch of older, used equipment that would have otherwise been thrown away and a single beefy server to actually run all of the apps.

Doing it over SSH is even cooler. As long as there is a clear path for SSH between you and the box you are logged into, you needn't worry about what's between (firewalls, etc.)

* No, I didn't write that, believe it or not that little Linux blurb was written by a lawyer. They're not all bad. :) The only law firm I've ever run across that actually Gets It(tm).

It's tricky when it comes to software, since it hasn't been determined yet by the courts whether a software sale is a sale of a product or a sale of a license

Yes it has: Softman Products Company LLC v. Adobe Systems Inc. U.S. federal law, 17 USC 101 defines a "copy" as the physical disc on which a computer program is recorded. If the transfer of a copy of a program looks like a sale, walks like a sale, and quacks like a sale, then it's a sale, thus making the "owner of a copy" under 17 USC 117 the person who buys the box.

Some people might chime in and claim that MAI v. Peak nullified 117. I don't think so. The text of the decision interpreted 117 out of context; the case it referenced, Apple v. Formula, involved selling copies, but the facts of MAI v. Peak didn't. (The decision prompted a rider to the DMCA that amended 117 to authorize repair or maintenance of a computer system.) The real copyright infringement seems to have involved the "rental, lease, or lending" of a computer program separate from any hardware in which it may be embedded, and 17 USC 109 prohibits rental of software without authorization of the copyright owner.

Just look at what happens to things like playstation emulators!

They win in court .

Excerpt:
"The intermediate copies made and used by Connectix during the course of its reverse engineering of the Sony BIOS were protected fair use, necessary to permit Connectix to make its non-infringing Virtual Game Station function with PlayStation games. Any other intermediate copies made by Connectix do not support injunctive relief, even if those copies were infringing.

The district court also found that Sony is likely to prevail on its claim that Connectix's sale of the Virtual Game Station program tarnishes the Sony PlayStation mark under 15 U.S.C. 1125. We reverse that ruling as well.