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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."
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
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.
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.