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DMCA Doesn't Protect Garage Door Remotes
bgood writes "A federal judge in Illinois has ruled that a univeral remote garage door opener does not violate the DMCA. "Consumers have a reasonable expectation that they can replace the original product with a competing universal product without violating federal law," Judge Rebecca M. Pallmeyer said. "This was an attempt to expand the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to where it had never gone before," said Andrea B. Greene, attorney for privately held Skylink, the manufacture of the garage door opener in question. "[This is] very good news for consumers." Additional coverage at Wired and Security Focus."
And many of my fellow coworkers were digusted to hear of upper managements pursuit of this lawsuit. Many of us are thinking of quiting.
Where does this illogical line of 'reasoning' stop. I understand that some people don't want their hard work and money being taken out from under their nose, but the idea that reverse engineering a product should be criminally prosecutable is ridiculous. Let them get a patent on the darned things if they're so special.
JGG
Any freeware or OSS dvd decoders that will run on windows with seamless integration with WiMP (like Power/WinDVD are capable of), then?
Main reason I was asking for integration into WiMP was because it probably wouldn't have a media player with it. VLC looks great, though. Don't know where a DVD to test it with is (damn VHS - I used it too much), but if I find one, I'll download it and try it out.
Could the RIAA take the shotgun/mass-sue approach if they had to cover the legal defense costs for everyone they wrongly sued?
Umm, who has the RIAA wrongly sued?
I'd modify your proposal just slightly. If the defendant in a suit wins, then the complaintant has to pay court costs. But those court costs can never exceed the costs spent by the complaintant in bringing about the complaint.
If the complaintant wins, they don't collect court costs. They might get punitive damages, under the current rules, but that's it.
I am an advocate of a law that says the loser in a tort must pay the winner's court costs.
It'll never happen. Trial lawyers know exactly what such a change would do to their business, and they also are a very powerful lobbying force.
Several years ago, one of my state assemblymen admitted to me that our state's (New Jersey) automobile insurance system was completely screwed up, but that nobody could fix it because the trial lawyers' lobby had too much power.
"Consumers have a reasonable expectation that they can replace the original product with a competing universal product without violating federal law," Judge Rebecca M. Pallmeyer said.
What's the difference between buying a third-party garage door opener and buying a third-party ink cartrige?
Out of Cheese Error:
Please reboot universe
First of all, there are legitimate uses of ball bearings. It's pretty obvious what they're used for. You choose a very poor example to make your point.
There are also legitimate uses for universal garage door openers. Or do you deny this?
Also, there is no monopoly on garage door openers or garage door openers or their remotes. If a company wishes to stop third-party remotes from opening their garage door openers, then that is there right.
It is their right, yes, but not by applying law that deals with copyrights to something that should be covered by trade secret or patent.
Or, please explain how some copyrighted material was accessed? (Even then, see below for the interoperability exemption.)
If they want to stop third party remotes from being made, perhaps they should make their signalling system a bit more secure?
It also wouldn't take too much effort to build an opener if you really wanted to break into someone's garage. Someone parked on the street with a frequency counter can get the frequency for that garage door opener, and then it is a simple matter of recording the signal and reproducing it.
You aren't going to stop it by making legitimate devices illegal.
Should universal TV/stereo/etc. remotes be made illegal? Using your logic, they should. Someone could turn my TV on by pointing one through a window and cost me money when the power bill comes.
Also, there is no interoperability at issue here. That is simply not correct. I think you misunderstand what it means. The classic example of this is Compaq reverse engineering IBM's BIOS for the purpose of allowing software that runs on IBM machines to run on Compaq machines. Interoperability does not apply here, however. The two situations are not similar at all.
Sure there is. It is legal to make devices that are interoperable with other manufacturer's products. The DMCA even specifically allows it with regard to reverse-engineering copy control methods to provide interoperability. Though the DMCA still shouldn't apply here.
Mods, do your job and mod this troll down.
I think you are referring to your own post.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Ignorant shit, the only troll here is you and no doubt your post will be modded accordingly soon enough.
I'm glad you agree there are legitimate uses of ball bearings. Too bad you too fucking stupid to see what I meant. Read what I said again, this time slower. Mouth the words out loud if it still confuses you.
There is a monopoly on remote controls compatible with Chamberlain garage door openers, or there was until this trial was finished. A company does not have the right to stop 3rd party remote controllers from working with their openers. Just as Chrysler does not have the right to stop me from putting an aftermarket muffler on my car and just as Lexmark does not have the right to stop me from choosing my own ink cartridges (not that I'd buy a Lexmark in the first place).
Only on
A simple way to help deal with this is to restrict the loser's payment to no more than the loser himself spent in legal fees.
Example: The RIAA sues Joe. RIAA spends $10,000 in legal fees; Joe spends $500. The loser, whoever it is, pays the winner $500 for legal fees.
An even more radical alternative would be to make it so that the loser pays an amount equal to his own expenditure; in that case, Joe would owe an extra $500 if he lost, but the RIAA would owe him $10,000 if they lost.
Either way, both parties would have a powerful incentive to keep their legal spending within reasonable limits. This is good for everyone except the lawyers.
You can quote statutory law, but you might not understand the big picture. This is typical of what I see on slashdot when it comes to legal issues: a lot of geeks who know how to navigate detail.
Reverse Engineering is a topic for debate, as it is allowed by some jurisdictions, and also by international treaty, also supported by case law.
For example,
The UK CDPA 1988:
" 50BA Observing, studying and testing of computer programs
(1) It is not an infringement of copyright for a lawful user of a copy of a computer program to observe, study or test the functioning of the program in order to determine the ideas and principles which underlie any element of the program if he does so while performing any of the acts of loading, displaying, running, transmitting or storing the program which he is entitled to do.
(2) Where an act is permitted under this section, it is irrelevant whether or not there exists any term or condition in an agreement which purports to prohibit or restrict the act (such terms being, by virtue of section 296A, void).".
The WTO TRIPS agreement, to which the US is a signatory:
"Article 9. 2. Copyright protection shall extend to expressions and not to ideas, procedures, methods of operation or mathematical concepts as such."
Copyright law is here to protect the little guys as well.
No, the insurance system is so screwed up because of the Insurance companies. They are the evil ones. They leave here because they can't force damage limits on victims. Is for example a million dollars enough in the way of damages when you require that much in sugery to fix you after and accident? How about how much pain and suffering you have to endure the rest of your life? Insurance companies are the ones in the wrong here in NJ. They are the ones who cry foul every time they have to make any payout. I'd love to post some of the dirty tricks they've used in past cases I'm familiar with, but I'm simply not allowed to.
Regardless of whatever bias you have against The Trial Lawyers, they are on the right and moral side in this case. For every big case you hear about where some lawyer get some huge settlement, there are a thousand others where people are getting screwed by Insurance companies.
Of course feel free to believe whatever the heck you want. Afterall Insurance companies have such stellar record when it comes to acting ethical, how could they possibly be in wrong?
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
You had better believe that Asia is going to start kicking ass real soon.
We had a trade delegation from Taiwan round here (New Zealand) the other day. They were from the "Digital Content Industry Promotion Office, Ministry of Economic Affairs". They talked a bit about how their IT industry is trying to move away from 'race to the bottom' motherboard manufacturing, and how they are looking to move towards digital content. They showed us some lame arse XBox game and a worse animation, of which they were very proud. Honestly, it looked like a siggraph demo from 1992.
So we asked them what we could do for them - what they wanted from New Zealand. "Training". Yeah, I bet you fucking do. They've looked at their lame-o work, they've looked at Lord of the Rings and thought "Bollocks. Let's chuck these sheep shaggers somewhere between ten and twenty million bucks to show us how it's done. Then... fukkem"
These people have a mission, a big one, and while the US chucks it's money away on invading countries, massive corporate fraud and generally speaking screwing up left right and centre they are quietly working out how to kick all our arses.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
I am an advocate of a law that says the loser in a tort must pay the winner's court costs. That would prevent fishing expiditions like SCO's because they are too expensive.
Absolutes are not very good in this case, because there are many reasonable grounds to go to court, and losing shouldn't necessarily imply that one side was all right and another was all wrong, in particular in civil suits where the standard is only "preponderance of evidence".
Leave it at the judge/jury to decide if either case should carry their own costs, or if the loser should pay the winner's court costs in part or in full. The general rule would is that each party covers their own. This would keep frivolous lawsuits at bay, while still maintaining a fair balance in cases where both sides' arguments had true merit.
Also, the partial costs is very nice for instances where the little guy should be forced to pay some extra for wasting the opponent's time, but where the other side has spent excessive amounts on legal fees, e.g. reporting large parts of the legal department to be working on said case.
This is taken from the court system in Norway, and in my experience it is working well. In particular note that even if you get a lawyer that'll take your case on a contingency basis, you'd still have to pay hard cash if your claims are hogwash. I think the US system could use some of that...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Remember, we are not citizens, we are consumers.
Just in case you were getting any wild ideas.
From the parent-linked article:
So now the Media player is a part of the kernel as well? I smell DRM coming on strong...
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.