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DMCA Invoked Against Garage Door Openers
boijames writes "In the latest bit of DMCA lunacy, copyright guru David Nimmer turned me
onto a case that his firm is defending, where a garage door opener
company (The Chamberlain Group) has leveled a DMCA claim (among other
claims) against the maker of universal garage door remotes (Skylink)."
I was able to find a website for The Chamberlain Group (the garage door manufacturer). Skylink (the remote manufacturer) also has a web site. Neither appears to have any information about the lawsuit.
I called Chamberlain's tech support number and got the number for their corporate offices: 1-800-282-6225. They said to ask for the legal depatment. If somebody with better journalism skills than I would like to follow up and ask all the questions that people have raised here, we would all appretiate you.
After reading the motion for summary judgement, what it looks like to me is this:
The manufacturer effectively implemented a OTP (one-time password) scheme in their remotes and receivers.
As anyone who has used OTPs knows, you have to know which password comes next in the sequence to get in.
Because the manufacturer couldn't think of a good way to get around this problem, they made the receiver accept a reset code that forces it to resync on the next code received.
Now they're bitching because someone else figured this out and using the reset code to allow their third-party remotes to activate the receiver.
There's a lot of bullshit about burglars and stuff, but what it basically comes down to is they thought up a great new security scheme, and then drove a ten-ton truck through it in the name of convenience. Tough shit for them, I say.
I don't think so... I think that US will try to force simmilar legislation on other countries (by means of commercial treaties, intelectual properties agreements, etc).
Since the US is such a commercial and industrial giant most countries will change laws to not loose commercial oportunities and we'll get at, some point in the future, a estagnation in inovation (or at least, innovation that doesn't pay royalties to some IP-only company).
Brazil has some of it's plants patented by foreign companies, that used breachs in their country of origin to patent these plants as medicines as if they had discovered it's medicinal properties... someday I'll discover that some IP fscked company has patented guava-tree leafs as a medicine for stomachache and that is an inovative use, but that is as fact known in Brazil since the days of my grand-grand mother (and before that, probably) and nobody patented it (how do you patent common-sense or folklore?).
This is dishonest from a ethical point of view? Yes, but companies aren't known for being ethical, they exist to profit.
IP laws are popping from everywhere. I think that some day you'll have to pay a tax for saying "Mickey".
I pity the guys living in US, but I pity them 'cause I see that as what will come to the rest of the world. They are only suffering first, we're the next in line...
Would this was so. But, note how long silly lawsuits have been going on and being ridiculed in the press with absolutely no action being taken by our 'representatives.' I would include a reference to a coffee-hot lawsuit except that defenders of the right to be stupid would start flaming me.
The US Congress is a wholly-owned subsidiary of corporate america, reporting directly to the Disney corporation. As long as they can get away with having their cake (money from corporations) and eating it too (getting reelected by the voters they are screwing) they will. It stands to nature, at least the corrupt cesspool-like nature of anyone who would become a politician.
One solution: vote. And ask questions of the people you are voting for, like: who, exactly, do you plan to represent? Me, or NYSE:DIS?
Milo
yeah. It looks like the skylink sends a resynchronize signal to the garage door, then uses the default code to open it. (page 7 of the motion to dismiss pdf file)
The claim is that by 'rebooting' the garage system and then using guest:guest instead of dealing with the standard password system, skylink is circumventing their protection to a copyrighted work.
So, it's like having a building with a super-duper unpickable lock on the front door, but with an unlocked door on the side.
My questions:
1. could using this 'side door' be considered circumvention under the orginal (misguided) spirit of the law?
2. Where's the copyrighted work? They seem to claim it is the rolling code algorithm, but the rolling code program is never accessed. Maybe they'll claim that they've copyrighted the inside of my garage... Maybe lexmart can get in on the deal if I start keeping my printer cartridges inside my garage.
I don't think the DMCA was mentioned in any of the earlier filings. It looks to be a patent infringement case that some overzealous lawyer figured he'd add this cool DMCA thing to.