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Toner Cartridges new DMCA victim
anarkhos writes "Lexmark leads the curve by being the first to invoke the DMCA to prevent 3rd parties from making Lexmark-compatible toner cartridges." It's gonna get worse before it gets better. Update: 01/12 14:13 GMT by J : Yep, it's a
dupe;
see
here
and here
for more info; for more on the DMCA, see
our next story
;)
Morning CT, this is a duplicate story. =)
Location: Mt. Xinu
There is a simple solution to it. Don't buy Lexmark or any other company that pulls this crap. There's another good reason to avoid Lexmark anyway, they make low end products that don't work well. Vote with your $$'s and it's not an issue. These companies will get the message when they start losing market share.
Rob, this is your JOB, you get PAID to do this! No one's asking you to *live* on Slashdot, but come on! All it would take to stop this nonsense, is for each editor -- before they start posting articles in the morning -- to look at the "Older Stuff" headlines. And when they're thinking of posting a story, if it sounds familiar, use the /. search to make sure it hasn't been posted already.
This is nothing short of incompetence. You and the other editors have easy, cushy jobs, you could (at the very least) take them seriously, and do them well. Michael seems to have just that. He's probably the only real journalist amongst you. He never posts dupes.
Get your act together.
The real problems with the DMCA are the sections which prevent circumvention of devices (or methods, etc.) which control access to a work. This effectively gives copyright holders a new right, the right to restrict access. This is not among the rights granted by the copyright statute (right to copy, distribute, perform, etc.) These sections, in reality, mean that the copyright holder can prohibit you from accessing their works, even after you have purchased a legitimate copy, as exemplified by the DeCSS case. It is quite possible that being able to restrict access to a work contradicts the purpose of copyright as stated in the Constitution: "To promote the progress of science and the useful arts." If access restrictions are contrary to this constitutional policy, they may very well be unconstitutional. And this is the perfect case to illustrate that.
Lexmark is claiming that these replacement cartridges allow access to some code which resides on boards within the printer and not on the cartridges themselves. This is the focus of their circumvention argument (they also argue that these cartridges contain actual copies of other code, but that is purely a traditional copyright problem). Thus, Lexmark is claiming that even though you bought their printer, you don't have the right to access their code unless you're using their cartridges. This is not a case where Lexmark is worried about copying or piracy. The 2600 case involved both access and copying (sort of) but the court was too stupid to look past the piracy rants of the MPAA and see the problems with the access restrictions. Here, we have a perfect case to illustrate why the entire access control section of the DMCA should be declared unconstitutional, without worrying about claims that piracy of digital works will cause the downfall of western civilization.
Of course, even if the access control sections were removed, copyright holders could still create hybrid control systems which prohibit both access and copying. These could then still be enforced under the anti-copying provisions. But, we can save that fight for after a court has noticed the distinction between access controls and copy controls. Then we might have a chance to win.
Thanks to Lexmark for bringing a perfect case for those of us who want to see the DMCA destroyed! (By the way, IANAL in the technical sense, but I do have a law degree in addition to a computer science degree.)
-Tim Watson
And now that someone else is trying to take this market away from them, they run crying to the courts.
Seems like more and more companies/industries believe it is the responsibility of the courts to ensure their business models remain effective, and profits guaranteed. A shame, really.