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SunnComm Reconsiders Lawsuit Threat
The Importance of writes "SunnComm, which yesterday had threatened to sue Alex Halderman for writing a report critical of SunnComm's MediaMax CD3 DRM technology, has now backed off that threat. 'I don't want to be the guy that creates any kind of chilling effect on research,' SunnComm's CEO Peter Jacobs said."
This type of litigation would be bad for the DMCA, because it's quite frivilous (at least the description of using the Shift key, now his addressing the "virus" device driver is another story).
Say it goes to court and the court sided with the researcher, then the question as to where to draw the line in breaking "protection" schemes is opened. Best not to sue and leave everything apparently illegal.
You gotta wonder if their latest decision had anything to do with the 50,000 (guess) emails they received from people like me warning them what public suicide it would be to do that...
.sigs are for post^Hers.
Still, would've been fun to see a judge laugh their case out the courtroom.
AC comments get piped to
From the article: "I don't want to be the guy that creates any kind of chilling effect on research," Jacobs [CEO SunnComm]said.
"Halderman's graduate advisor at Princeton is Ed Felten, a computer science professor who once sued the Recording Industry Association of America in a challenge to the constitutionality of the DMCA. The RIAA had threatened action under the DMCA against Felten and colleagues after they said they would publish a paper disclosing flaws in an industry security initiative. That suit was eventually dismissed. " from the CNN article on the threatened lawsuit.
I wonder how forgiving he would be if Halderman was just a regular guy posting on his web page or if his advisor was not already experienced in defending a DCMA lawsuit.
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
Start sarcasm here.
Oh, hey, look at that - you're doing something I don't like.
You know, I could hit you with this baseball bat. You deserve it, you know, for saying that my security of the plant doesn't work too well since I leave the backdoor unlocked and unprotected.
But I won't. No, I'm just walking here in front of you, slappin' this bat against my palm - but I'm not really going to hit you with it for saying that people could just walk into the back of the store because my level of "protection" really just involves scaring away the local kids.
You did a study on my security system so people could make an informed choice about either using me, or saving the money by not having me walk up and down the sidewalk glaring at people? You know, you intellectual types are the reason why people steal things in the first place, and why my security techniques don't work on folks.
I should hit you with this bat. I still might - but I'm not.
-- SunComm
Stop sarcasm here.
Look, SunComm, you're solution you peddled to the music folks is just not secure. You know it, we know it - you're just pissed that your customers, who you thought were a bunch of luddite rubes, now know it. Granted, your customers should realize that there are other ways to ensure profit (lowering prices, giving less restrictive online purchasing options like those seen by the iTunes store, the MusicMatch store, and growing others) - but as far as your business is concerned, it's a wash.
Now we can all get on with our lives.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Yay for the parent post. Much more polite, many fewer expletives than I'd have used, but yeah, what he said.
Now, can someone explain just why SunComm thought it was a good idea to threaten litigation, but then back off, effectively publicizing the Shift thing even more for the two people who hadn't heard about it already? What kind of battle cry is "hey, we're taking you to court because you proved we're incompetent tools...oh, wait, we meant all of that except for the court thing!"? I don't care quite enough to check their stock price today or to find out if there are other money-makers for the SunComm people, but if this is the way they do business and this is a good example of the research & testing they do before deploying their products and strategies, I've got a $20 here that says I'll be able to line my hamster cage with SunComm stock before too long.
I couldn't comment on the original article yesterday evening because it made me almost physically ill. It's just a matter of time before something gives one way or the other, and to be honest I can't wait.
With this ClueBat, I dub thee Luser.
"Linux doesn't exist. Everyone knows Linux is an unlicensed version of Unix"- Kieren O'Shaughnessy
It's hard to stuff so many misconceptions and questionable assumptions into a single paragraph. This is hardly about the conflict betweeen "strong anti-piracy protections" and "less stringent copyright enforcement." More accurate would be to cite it as an example of the ongoing conflict between weak anti-piracy protections and the legitimate research of academics and professionals who expose it as such.
While we're at it, let's replace "anti-piracy protections" with "anti-duplication technology," just to highlight what this stuff really accomplishes - making it harder (and basically illegal) for individuals to exercise their fair-use rights in a vain attempt to keep copyrighted materials off P2P networks and (probably representing a much bigger impact on actual bottom lines) people from burning dupes of CDs for friends. I find it difficult to imagine anyone who doesn't have a vested interest in propping up the illusion of the efficacy of DRM technology advocating that any of the measures out there represent any real defense against file sharing.
And we can go on to replace "those who favor less stringent copyright enforcement" with "a broad cross-section of individuals, academics, professionals and politicians who question whether draconian legal attacks against individuals, questionable lawsuits against academics, and legislation that extends copyright terms far beyond their traditional boundaries and violates the principles of fair use, freedom of speech and prior restraint in service of protecting claimed technological fixes for copyright violations that have so far failed to materialize as effective methods of preventing the illegal distribution of copyrighted information." Hey, it's not so snappy. But sometimes the truth hurts prose.
And then there's "the decision against legal action represents one of a precious few instances of companies looking past their bottom line." Well, I guess it's nice to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I guess I'll make the cynical observation that this example of a DMCA lawsuit threat getting dropped doesn't seem to be all that unique, now does it? One is tempted to offer the alternative explanation - that after making a knee jerk response to getting hammered in the market (and really, this is the result of how the press reported this article - in and of itself the article would never have had this kind of effect), someone in their legal department noted that the suit was likely going to lose, that it was likely to have the opposite effect of increasing investor confidence and good will, and that DMCA suits threatening academics were a strategy likely to lead to what the industry absolutely doesn't want - a high profile case, illustrating the critical problems with the DMCA, against an individual with representation and back-up (Princeton has made it pretty clear it will stand up against attacks of this nature) likely to take it to the point where the viability of the DMCA itself might be threatened. So they cooked up the best way to spin it and had themselves a press conference.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
"From our standpoint, we are designing the software for the 99 percent of the people who don't want to steal the music but instead (want to) use it for whatever means--for whatever personal use that's allowed by the artist and the record label. The software was designed for those people, not for the 1 percent who are going to take the lock cutters and cut the lock off and steal music in an unauthorized way."
Oh, okay, I'll say something. In other words, his copy protection is designed to keep people who have no intention of trying to copy the music from copying the music they never intended on copying. It isn't intended on keeping those people who want to copy the music from copying the music, which they can and already are doing.IANAL, but Mr. Peter Jacobs published remarks about the motives of the grad student involved sound very much like slander (or is it libel?)