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)."

Comments

This is obvious

[Merkins]

It's an open and shut case.

Boom boom

This is good

[Interfacer]

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.

Re:This is good

[frp001]

Honestly... I pity you guys who live in USA, it seems that this stupid law (amongst others, like (C) length) and the dirty habit of sorting competition through court is going to kill off new business and innovation.
OTOH this is a good opportunity for emerging countries less regarding on these aspects.

Re:This is good

[jorlando]

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...

Re:This is good

[$rtbl_this]

I think that some day you'll have to pay a tax for saying "Mickey".

That's just taking the mick... er... piss! I meant to say "piss" (well, assuming that doesn't get me sued by the brewers of Fosters).

Re:This is good

[Moofie]

Demonstrating, yet again, that no matter which T-Shirt they wear (one with a donkey or one with an elephant) THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOU.

They don't care about your freedoms.
They don't care about your rights.
They only care about your money, and then only when it's not YOUR money anymore.

The ones with the donkey want to take away your money by legislative fiat, and the ones with an elephant want to take it away by unrestricted rampant commercialism.

You can argue as to which is a better way for them to take your money from you, but don't for a minute think that these people who rule us will allow you (or me) a voice.

Bread and circuses.

This is good....

[Jaysyn]

The sillier the lawsuits are, the faster the public (& politicians) will see the law needs revision.

Jaysyn

Re:This is good....

[milo_Gwalthny]

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?

IN SOVIET RUSSIA

[Old Wolf]

They fight against US laws restricting freedom of speech...

Oh how the tables have turned

I wouldn't be surprised...

[Mals]

If universal tv remote manufacturers are next on the list to be hit by the DMCA

Does actually make some sense...

[boaworm]

... because it seems a universal garage opener could be used for ill purposes, like opening someone elses garage and steal his stuff, or close the garage port onto someones car when driving in/out. Sounds like making a universal key that can unlock any lock... that wouldn't be appreciated either, would it ?

Then again, i dont think you can make a universal key, so someone must have been doing some bad thinking if they designed garage door remotes like this.

Re:Does actually make some sense...

[jdreed1024]

because it seems a universal garage opener could be used for ill purposes, like opening someone elses garage and steal his stuff,

Not really. Universal garage door openers have a bunch of DIP switches that you need to set to match the frequency and manufacturer of the receiver. I have a Skylink universal opener, and there is one DIP switch for the frequency setting, 8 for the manufacturer, and 8 for the code. Do the math. It would take a long time to try each combination, and I think most people, if they noticed some guy in a car sitting in front of their house for a while, would call the cops.

Thieves do exploit automatic garage door openers, but there are more sophisticated devices that simply scan and capture the signal from a legitimate transmitter and use that to open the door. (That's why most new garage door openers have rolling codes - so the same signal isn't accepted twice in a row).

i dont think you can make a universal key

Yes you can. It's called a master key. You have to be a locksmith, or be really good at social engineering to get one. And it only works for a subset of models of a specific brand of lock. But, yes, if some guy goes to your house, and recognizes that you have a Yale lock, model $foo, then he could likely get a master key for it.

Anyway, back to remotes. This is ridiculous. Skylink is filling a market that wouldn't otherwise exist. When the remote for our garage door opener crapped out (well, it broke in half, but that's another story), I went to get a new one. Quoth the company (after about an hours worth of phone tag) "No, sorry, we don't make replacement remotes for those anymore. Why don't you try a universal remote?"

I think The Chamberlain Group doesn't actually give a shit about patent infringement (which is what this is about - go read the case). I think what we're seeing in this case, and with Lexmark, and with the many more cases that will come, is the result of desperation. These companies are looking for a quick buck in hard economic times and understandably so. The DMCA has given them a great tool with which to make this quick buck. Now, if Skylink was some new fly-by-nite company from China that was ripping off these remotes, I'd have a little more sympathy for the Chamberlain Group. But they're not. Skylink has been around since _at least_ 1993 (that I know of), and probably longer. There are Skylink products on the shelf of every Home Depot in the country, and they've been there for 5 years (that I know of). I sincerely hope the judge tells The Chamberlain Group to fuck off, but I suspect he won't.

Re:Does actually make some sense...

[Scorchio]

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...

The complaints are contradictory

[The Monster]

First they claim that the remote infringes on their patent for the 'Rolling Code' system, then they turn around and claim that the remotes do NOT in fact generate Rolling Codes, but instead send the same code each time.

You can't have it both ways.

Unless I'm really dense, the whole point of Rolling Codes is that there is an algorithm shared by the remote and opener that defines previously-used codes as invalid, so that a burglar who sniffs the code you use to open the garage today can't come back and use that code tomorrow. In that case, these devices should not be working, which should be grounds for the consumers to file a class-action, but it would be proof that they are NOT violating the patent on the Rolling Codes.

Re:The complaints are contradictory

[outlier]

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.

Re:The complaints are contradictory

[Datafage]

Actually, that makes it amusingly weak for a smart thief, even without the universal opener. Thief sits back and sniffs code from OEM opener. After person leaves home, resend that same code, guaranteeing the opener and receiver are at different stages on the sequence. Sniff again when the person gets home and has to use two consecutive codes to get the door open. Now you have the codes you need for access. Sure, it's a bit of trouble, but it could be worth it for some car thieves.

Re:Nice troll, Michael

[benevold]

"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." I don't completely agree with you on this point. It is also the duty of the citizens of this pseudo-democracy to hold officials etc. responsible for the laws to make, it is supposed to be the will of the people isn't it? For example if for some bizarre reason a law was passed requiring you to cut off your big toes for the government would you? There comes a point when laws and regulations go too far, in other places and other times too many controlling laws (among other things of course) of been cause for revolution. Obviously the U.S. is nowhere near that point but the reasoning is the same. Just because the law is made we don't have to blindly believe it is for the best of everyone, don't let the lawmakers decide for you, decide for yourself.

Maybe not

[kiwimate]

If the lawsuit is seen to be silly, it'll be tossed out, but people will say, "See, the system of checks and balances did the job. No need to throw out the baby with the bathwater -- it's still a good law."

There are too many powerful groups with a vested interest to let this go by the way. Minor revisions, perhaps, but it's not going to create a huge ruckus or make any major difference to the law. Even if this particular case gains some notoriety, it'll be forgotten in a month and the vested interest groups will have won. Again.

Not that I'm jaded or cynical or anything.

Hardly Informative

[DeadSea]

The link is hardly informative. It gives no extra information at all.

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.

The transition

[IPFreely]

Things like this show the transition in IP usage. When the Patent office can't or won't grant someone a patent (as if that ever happens), then the submittor changes to copyright law, and claims whatever they have is copyrighted instead. The standard for copyright has been streached to cover soo much, so just about anything can be claimed to be copyrightable.

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.

I think this case could help my mother understand

[GeekWithGuns]

Not to be overly optimistic here, but I think this case could show just how bad the DMCA really is to Joe Public. It is not being used as intended (Take my copyrighted material off your website now! or Your taking my crapy "digital protection" off my copyrighted work, stop it!), but instead it is being used as a bully tactic. Right or wrong the copyright holder should be able to protect what he thinks are his works, but with the DMCA he has been given a club that is far to large.

Just being a little less optimistic, my bet is that one of the following happens:

• The DMCA charge fails because of the reverse engineering parts of the law. - DUH!
• The plantif drops that charge and goes after something else and wins on that. DMCA dosen't get its day in court like it needs.
• This whole thing gets thrown out because it was just silly to begin with.

But what I would like to see happen is that they loose a battle with the DMCA and it goes all the way to the Supreme Court. (Where in a 7 to 2 decision they decide that the Congress can extend copyrights indefinitly because that is a limited ammount of time - oh what wrong thread.)

I just seems like nobody wants to test this new law, but everybody wants to use it like the club it was designed to be. Somebody need to fight this thing in court, but that will take years and lots of cash.

All Your Base Indeed...

[The Tyro]

Go read the pdf...

they want a permanent injunction
they want all profits from Skylink's device
they want to impound all Skylink's stuff
they then want to destroy all of Skylinks stuff
they want treble damages
they want attorney's fees

but my favorite phrase is the "trafficking in a device that is designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing the technological measure" (referring to their rolling code tech).

Cmon, ya jokers... It's a freakin' garage door opener, not an eight-ball of heroin...

Sheesh...

Re:All Your Base Indeed...

[zentigger]

We actually have a criminal charge for jokers like this in Canada. It's called mischief. The idea is that someone must be able to show that there is some merrit, and the law somehow applies to their case before they file suit. Usually this is accomplished by consulting a lawyer.

I beleive that contempt of court charges can also be applied in a case where someone brings a case before a judge and the judge is forced to publicly laugh at their stupidity.

Hmm...

[BJH]

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.

Master Lock vs. AA Locksmith

[Froobly]

I skimmed the brief, and the DMCA claim seemed to boil down to this:

Plaintiff makes a garage door opener that is keyed to Plaintiff's remote. Defendent creates garage remote capable of being keyed to many different garage door openers, including Plaintiff's. Purpose of garage doors is to secure property inside garage. Therefore Plaintiff's device is an anti-piracy (as in nautical theft) device, which is "circumvented" by an "unauthorized" (third-party) key (remote control).

This seems analagous to a lock company suing a locksmith for duplicating keys (assuming these keys don't say "do not duplicate" on them), since the company made the locks and keys to go with them, making the existence of a key not made by the lock company a circumvention device.

I wonder how long before we see such a suit filed?

In related news...

[KeyserDK]

I can actually start Simcity 4 with my original Battlefield 1942 CD.
It even shows a nice Battlefield 1924 logo when starting simcity 4.
I'm not lying :=)

So is my bought battefield 1942 cd a circumvention device?

And can EA sue EA for making a curcumvention device that breaks EA's copy protection?

Initial Musings on Commerce and Property

[Effugas]

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

Re:Initial Musings on Commerce and Property

[Effugas]

It's called a crowbar.

Don't sell me a crowbar proof door if it ain't crowbar proof.

Don't whine that stores shouldn't be selling crowbars.

And sure as hell, don't sue the guy making me a crowbar. Makes it sound like it ain't my door to bang on, makes it sound like it ain't your money to be suing anyone with.

Look, I don't know what to say. It's my door. I want to open it with whatever remote I damn well please. If it's possible for me to generate a remote for my door that doesn't actually require me to do anything particularly special *as the owner*, then the remote control I had doesn't actually protect me as much as I thought it would.

Now I know I may need to buy a new door, or I may decide to accept the risk. But it's my door to make that choice with.

--Dan

Re:Initial Musings on Commerce and Property

[BenEnglishAtHome]

It's illegal for me to remove this stuff? Isn't it mine?

Legislators aren't above telling you what you can do with the stuff you think you own. All you have to do is convince them that there are negative effects to the public at large if you're allowed to do what you want with your own property. In theory, I can go along with this. But where do you draw the line? Where do things get silly?

Let me give you three examples:

Example one:

In the west, "land use" and "property rights" fights have been going on for decades. "How dare the damn new world order guvment tell me I can't do what I want with my own land! I own it! That gives me the absolute God-given right to stripmine it to the center of the earth and fill the hole with toxic waste if want to, by gum!" I've known ranchers who hold views this extreme. I've known ranchers who literally plowed up access roads on their property because the state passed a law saying that through-roads (roads connecting one publicly accessible road to another) had to be publicly accessible.

Example two:

In your own house, I'm willing to bet you have more than one cleaner with a label that reads "It is a violation of federal law to use this product in a manner inconsistent with its labeling" or words to that effect. So here's a couple of household cleaning tips: #1 - The best bathtub cleaner in the world is to take liquid drain opener and brush it on all the surfaces then sprinkle it with a scouring powder that will form a sort of paste and hold the liquid in place. Let it sit for an hour (with windows open and good ventilation) then come back and scrub. You'd be amazed at some of the greasy, stained, crudded-up salvaged tubs and sinks I've rescued with this method. Tip #2 - This method is illegal. Consider that and consult your conscience before employing it.

Example three:

The New Jersey state legislature has proposed legislation designed to make repairing firearms so ridiculously burdensome that no one will do it. Check out this link.s What that means is that if the extractor (a $5, easily-replaceable part) on the 1911 Colt left to you by your grandfather breaks, you have to fill out forms and turn the gun over to the state police for examination (with no guarantee written into the law that they'll ever have to give it back to you) and jump through all sorts of other hoops to get the thing fixed in-state. Or just break the law, fix it yourself, and risk a $10,000 fine and 18 months in jail. What's that, you say? It's yours? It's legal to own? You think you should be able to repair stuff you own without going, hat-in-hand to the state police for permission and procedures? Not if enough legislators can be convinced that the public has an legitimate interest in what you do with your own private stuff.

Where I live, it's de facto illegal for me to paint my garage door without approval of a quasi-governmental committee. (It's called a "home owners association" and where I live, the state grants it major power over my life and property. YMMV.)

So your example of, basically, "Why shouldn't I be allowed to do what I want with my own property?" doesn't really hold water. Governments make rules that often forbid it. Men and women with badges and guns enforce those rules. Individuals enter into contracts that encumber them with silly rules because life is darn near impossible to get through otherwise if you live near other human beings.

So where do you draw the line? Do you refuse to have a credit card out of high-minded principle and a practical concern for your own privacy and then make an inconsiderate ass out of yourself, causing problems for those around you just so you can say you adhere to your principles? Do you become a hermit, squatting in a shack in the forest? Or do you do as I have done - figure out where you draw the line (I disagree with the ranchers in example 1 and the legislators in example 3, but will take my chances by continuing to violate the law as in example 2) and accept that life involves compromises and that it's really OK for the government to tell me I can't do certain things even if I wish they'd just leave me alone?

It's a tough lot of thinking you're getting yourself into when you decide to be aware of what's going on around you, when you lose your innocence of the greed that underlies so much of our rules of personal, professional, and business interaction. Sometimes I wish I had never started down that path.

You did miss something

[MemeRot]

This is absolutely hilarious. They say they spent tons of money building this Rolling Code system, and that homeowners absolutely depend on its security. Yet they conveniently included a backdoor so that the same code will work over and over. But it's a 'synchronization code' so it's not a security hole in their system.

Their implementation is horrendous and practically invites this. If they wanted a secure sytem, the remote could query the opener for a current timestamp, and then it could use that timestamp to generate an appropriate code and send it. To make the code specific to one door, you could enter the serial number of the opener into the remote as a seed for whatever code generating algorithm it uses, just program it once when you first buy it. You can obviously only see the serial number if you're inside the house so that should be pretty secure. It sound like they just have a list of 1000 codes and they go through it in order, which is why they need the synchronization code, in case you hit the button when you're out of range of the door and your remote is on 48 while the opener is on 46.

I especially liked the verbal chicanery, where they use circumvent to mean 'got the door to open' rather than to mean 'break into the list of codes'. If the competing universal remote actually broke into the list of codes (which was encoded or protected somehow) then they may have broken the DMCA, but it seems like they just experimented with sending signals and found one that always opened the doors, it's not even reverse engineering, just discovering an undocumented API. Is a list of numbers even copyrightable? I wouldn't think so.....

Re:You did miss something

[gorilla]

I think it's becoming a rule that the DMCA is used whenever the original company does something really stupid.

Re:You did miss something

[j-turkey]

They say they spent tons of money building this Rolling Code system, and that homeowners absolutely depend on its security.

I sure hope that they did not spend too much on that rolling code system. It sounds like a freaking joke:

The rolling code changes with each actuation of the transmitter and increases by three. The computer program in the transmitter encrypts the identification code and rolling code by a scrambling algorithm that scrambles the binary digits representing the identification code and the rolling code.

OK, so let's assume that the rolling code is a 6-digit number. It only changes when the garage door is opened, and the only change is that the rolling code is incremented by three. I'd bet dollars to dimes that the scrambling algorithm is simply an xor of the identification code and the rolling code. Meaning that only one known value is necessary (your identification code) to derive the other (the current state of the rolling code). Keep in mind that I'm no cryptographer (IANAC), but judging from their description of the cryptosystem, its only a half-step up from rot-13.

That's not encryption...its a slight mathematical obfuscation. Maybe the DMCA would be a bit less unfair if there were a distinction made on this one.

--Turkey

DMCA 80's style

[ryber]

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?

DMCA? How about patent infringement

[binaryDigit]

OK I'm a bit confused, eveyone is saying that this is a DMCA case, but when I read the complaint, I don't see where DMCA is explicitly mentioned. I see three patent infringement complaints and one software copyright complaint (in the original complaint). Is the software copyright complaint the DMCA part (even though it mentions the copyright act of '76, or is the entire thing wrapped up under the auspices of the DMCA because of the intent of the offending device? (i.e. circumventing security measures)

Because of the patent claims, couldn't this lawsuit have happened even with DMCA?

If the patent complaints are found valid, isn't this a valid (from a non legal standpoint) action by Chamberlin? If so, then why is eveyone bitching about DMCA?