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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)."
the DCMA should be invoke against as much ridiculus things as possible.
that way maybe legislators and voters will see the lunacy in all its perverted glory.
in Soviet Russia the DCMA invokes YOU.
The sillier the lawsuits are, the faster the public (& politicians) will see the law needs revision.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
If universal tv remote manufacturers are next on the list to be hit by the DMCA
Well I guess Universal remotes are next. So when are the retards in DC going to wake up. That should be the next poll.
I didn't use the preview button, so get over it!!!!
Mike
This is only really useful now because there was no real legal teeth for this sort of thing in copyright law until the DMCA. It specifically references technological issues, it is vague as to what it covers, and it carries criminal penelties.
Look for more patent style/interoperability contests to be faught through the DMCA.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
It is fun to criticize silly cases like this however we need more of them! Cases like these are much more likely to result in rulings against the DMCA. I suppose for most judges it is easier to visualize a garage door opener then a complex software proggie.
since when does the general public know what the DMCA is or that it even exists? The "general public" I know has never heard of it.
The truth doesn't care what I think.
Universal does not mean that it can open any garage at will. Universal means that it has the ability to be securely trained by different systems. Unless you have access to the garage door opener (the motor and circuit board in the ceiling in the garage) then you cannot program any kind of remote.
Garage door openers use code hopping and many other kinds of security. The days of CB and dip switch hacking to open garage doors are over. So, yes, this lawsuit is pure bull. It is not about making remotes that bypass the security. It is about making cheap universal remotes that compete with the $67.00 Gene(tm) replacement remote that you lost somewhere in the landscaping.
Not, I think, what Congress had in mind when enacting the DMCA.
Sadly, I think the only thing going through Congressmen's minds when they pass laws is somthing along the lines of:
Yes, I am an American, and proud to say so. But, I am also embarassed by so many of our politicians, or should I say, our corporate-controlled politicians. Sad but true, Corporate America is the aristocracy of the new world.
I went through years of school where I was taught that we fought for independence from Great Britain because of taxation without representation and a lack of other such basic freedoms.
And now we're faced with pretty much the same thing. Sure, we elect politicians. But the corporations pay for their campaigns, shower them with "perks" (aka: legal bribes), and tell them how to vote. Sure, frivolous claims such as this garage door crap is going to make people realize the DMCA is stupid. But it's most likely corporations, rather than constituents, will control how the DMCA is modified.
I own a garage. It has a door.
I own an opener for that door. I even own the remote.
By, "I own", I mean it's my property -- it's not like I'm in some strange "leasing" arrangement, where, say, I need to ask permission from the last person who owned the garage door if it's OK now to open it on up.
See, it's mine. I can do with it what I want. If the guy who sold me the door says I can't do what I want with it, I say, he shouldn't have taken my credit card. It's not his property anymore, it's mine.
And if he says the door was his idea, his "intellectual property", I'll kindly point out that, er, that's nice, see that door? It's my door. Not your door. My door. My very nice door, sure -- great ideas behind it, I don't usually buy products with crappy ideas behind them. I think the goodness of the idea was inherent in me providing that money the guy so happily accepted.
So, er, bugger off.
Ah, now it comes time to paint the door. Excuse me. Paint *my* door. What the hell? There's some "anti-stick" teflon coating on my door?
It's illegal for me to remove this stuff? Isn't it mine?
I'm supposed to buy a new door, whole new color? But I already own a door, and the paint on that door. Isn't it all mine?
If I remove the surface, I go to jail?
If someone removes *my* Teflon (I may not want it, but I sure got it -- sort of like excessive packaging) and paint *my* door the color *I* want it, *I've* got a cellmate?
Now how exactly is this door mine?
And if I don't really own the door, do they really own the money I paid for it with?
I bet if I move, I have to burn the door down and leave the next owner to buy one of their own...
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
This seems analagous to a lock company suing a locksmith for duplicating keys (assuming these keys don't say "do not duplicate" on them)
I think what Chamberlin is saying is that their GDO technology effectively has "do not duplicate" on it, and Skylink is simply ignoring it.
Plus the key copying example isn't really a good analogy in this case, since in order to make a copy of a physical key, you must first POSSESS the physical key (well I know not necessarily, but in the most common use case you do). Therefore it wouldn't make any sense to be able to sue someone who creates a dupe of a key since the person wanting the dupe already has a working key in possession. A better example (though still not perfect) would be that of a locksmith who sold MASTER keys to anyone.
I wonder....what if the DMCA had existed in the 80's...could IBM have successfully sued compaq for backward engineering the PC's ROM? Could Apple have stoped microsoft from releasing windows? we might live in a vastly different world. Clones would never have been made...maybe Amiga, Atari and TI would still be making microcomputers!
And what does this mean for my darth maul tie-fighter univeral TV remote?
In a way, using a 3rd party remote is like going down to the local keycutters shop and getting a copy of your front door key made. It's not authorised by the manufacturer of your front door lock and it's a direct copy of part of their product. I wouldn't want that to be illegal. If I needed a spare key, I'd have to go to the door lock manufacturer every time, and hope they didn't go out of business, otherwise I'd have to change the lock.
Anyhow.. there are a a couple of bizarre points brought up by the lawyers. Firstly, they reckon that Skylink's transmitters "when set to operate Chamberlain's rolling code GDOs, have no other purpose or use than to circumvent Chamberlain's technological protective measure". Does "opening my garage door so I can get the car in" not count as a use? Secondly, they claim that "Skylink's [] transmitters are marketed for use in circumventing Chamberlain's technological protective measures", and go on to explain that Skylink "promotes its universal transmitters as additional transmitters to be used with Chamberlain's rolling code GDO systems". I could understand it if Skylink promoted it's transmitters as "great for bypassing the security measures on your neighbour's Chamberlain garage door".
It seems to imply that the sole use of the Skylink device is to gain unauthorised access to other people's property. However, that clearly isn't the case. Just like DeCSS, it can be used for legal and illegal purposes. Unless Skylink's intentions can be proven to be to develop the transmitter primarily for illegal purposes - which I'm also fairly sure isn't the case - then this should be thrown out. Of course, this all relies on common sense being applied, with which the DMCA seems to be mutually exclusive...
I think it's becoming a rule that the DMCA is used whenever the original company does something really stupid.
The DMCA is a law, and as faithful American citizens, it's our duty to obide by it and cherish it, as all laws must be cherished.
Duty to obey it?... maybe. Duty to cherish it?... no way.
The First Amendment is very clear that everybody has the right to petition the government. We don't have to like the laws that are passed. Furthermore we have the right to ask our elected legislators to reverse their previous decisions. And if we really don't like our government the entire lawmaking system can be flushed out within six years or less, with a majority being overtaken in less than four years.
Actually, their crappy implementation turns this into a classic case of 'security through obscurity' vs DMCA. :-(
SUV's support terrorism !
Is a list of numbers even copyrightable? I wouldn't think so.....
Okay, I've got this list of numbers for you. Each number is between 0 and 255. What possible use could you put this list of numbers to? Try this just for fun. Make a file of bytes represented by these numbers. Name the file Windows2000.iso. I think you can figure out what to do next.
I wish lists of numbers weren't copyrightable. After all, all Napster did was broker the exchange of lists of numbers. They didn't even exchange the numbers themselves.
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.
Funny, I thought the DMCA was only for circumventing security measures for "copyrighted works". Can anyone clarify this?
Let me see if I can make this more clear. Company A does not like competition from company B. What company B did makes company A look bad. Big money can be had. So let's use our new toy, the wonderful universal do-anything tool... The DMCA. It slices, it dices, it is so versatile.
Summary: big money is involved. Therefore the DMCA can be used to do anything. What the original motivation for the law was, or the letter of the law is, is irrelevant. Is that any more clear?
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.
See, it's mine. I can do with it what I want.
Laws that remove rights to "protect us from ourselves" are often ignored because of the dictates of common sense. For example, here is a list of the laws I have broken this morning:
1. This morning I shoveled my driveway and threw some of the snow into the road.
2. I also threw some of the snow on the sidewalk.
3. I failed, however, to shovel out the area near the fire hydrant in front of my house.
4. I then proceeded to start my car and loudly rev the engine several times to warm it up a little. (Local noise ordnance forbids doing this.)
5. My car is missing one of the turn signal lenses, but I drove it anyway because it wont come in until tomorrow.
6. I exceeded the speed limit numerous times so as not to impede the flow of traffic, which is also illegal.
7. I failed to use my turn signal on a number of occasions, seeing as how it doesnt have a lens anyway.
8. I threw an apple core out the window into a large field.
9. I parked in a spot labeled "patient parking only" even though I am an employee, since every employee spot was taken.
10. I threw out a soda can because we dont have any recycle bins at work.
11. I listened to several MP3s ripped off of CDs of friends.
12. I used some windex in a manner inconsistant with its labeling.
I'm sure I've done even more "bad" things, but those probably demonstrate the most blatant disregard for the laws that I am supposed to hold so dear.
Honestly, I doubt there many persons in America, lawmakers/enforcers included, that would not be guilty of breaking some of the laws that violate common sense.
If you bought a garage door, by god its yours and you can paint it whatever color you want to. Living in fear of the consequences of using your own property, in a way that does not harm others, is a product of mass paranoia manifested in lawmakers extreme knee-jerk reactions to local upsets or other tragedies. My observation is that the larger the tragedy/upset, the more extreme the reaction.
Ahhhh, the land of the free...
[sig]you really dont want the answers, trust me[/sig]
I read 80 posts and no one has grasped the one legitimate complaint that I see. The use of the Skylink universal remote stops the code from rolling, reducing the security, without informing the buyer, and potentially tarnishing the image of the Rolling Code Security System, because the Skylink remote uses the same codes every time.
All the patent infringement claims, and the DMCA claim look bogus to my untrained eye, but Skylink IS doing something wrong: they are not telling the customer the entire truth. IMHO, the best result would be for the courts to force Skylink to tell customers that their products disable the Rolling Code Security System in order to interoperate.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.