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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."
Can you replace Windows media Player with some 3rd-party (DVD) player?
Only a few years ago it was obvious that you can figure out how a piece of hardware works and tell your friends about it. Now every manufacturer is suing practically anybody who just dares to have a peek inside their product.
The owls are not what they seem
Is some company storing their copyrighted material in my garage now?
I think it would be important that a consumer can watch a DVD on a competing OS...
I think it is somewhat depressing that anyone with a lawyer and no conscience can try to force us into the most ridiculous legal situations purely for the hell (and profit) of it. What a complete waste of time, tax dollars and effort by all concerned to try to force consumers into an unfair position.
Why don't they just make their replacement either
1. Cheap enough so the competition isn't worth looking at
2. Of such high quality that ditto.
---- The Open Source Record Label : : LOCARECORDS.COM
My best friend used to live across town. One day, I discovered our remote operated his garage door too. So for about a month, whenever I drove by his house, I opened his door. Only when somebody was obvisously home of course. My friend laughed his butt off when he found out but thank god he never told his parents.
that the DMCA is going to be used to squash a competing product. As long as it's on the books it's going to be used willy-nilly on anything remotely related to so-called IP rights.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
IANAL, but couldn't this ruling be cited in defense of unauthorized DVD players / DeCSS? The basic principle is the same - I own a whole bunch of DVDs, if my current player breaks, I should be able to obtain a new player for them however I like. Even if it's for my Linux installation.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
Well, we've just found the boundaries of the DMCA. It covers everything in the house, the garage, but not, repeat not, the garage door :-)
This presumably means that automated sprinkler systems for the lawn also lie outside the DMCA, but IANAL.
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
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
Pallmeyer's quote instantly brought something like this to mind:
The Internet. The Final Free Frontier. This is the the 5 year mission of US Enterprises, their continuing mission to seek out new copyright abuses and new violations, to boldly extend the DMCA where it has never been extended before!
[Queue 64kps mp3 of Star Trek music]
Alas, if only the DMCA were badly written science fiction...
Windows Media Player can't play DVDs without a third party DVD decoder anyway. You can use it to watch DVDs, but only after installing something like PowerDVD or WinDVD.
I can't recall properly as to whether or not this kind of logic was applied to printer cartidges yet. But the same kind of idea would apply there.
I really don't care much for these people. I mean, you bring their product into your home for whatever your reason is (usually because it's the most financially prudent) and then they try to force you to pay out the nose forever and ever simply because you bought their product. It's just tantamount to someone coming into your house and telling you what you can and can't buy, these sort of strong arm tactics that are the byproduct of an overtly litigious society just show the ways that the free market eats itself up. You have huge corporations claiming that their patents need to be protected or else their innovation will be stifled, when they just use those patent laws to go off and further stifle innovation.
Seriously folks, I don't know where the people that pass these laws and run these companies were educated, but they were ripped off, because they surely didn't learn what the hell a free market was. It isn't that hard people, it's a market where you have a bunch of goods and people can buy whatever they want, that's all it is. Not a market where you can force people to only buy from you after they already bought something from you.
I'm announcing my new combo garage door opener and Linux-based DVD player!
I don't agree with this decision, and the courts got this one wrong. There's a few reasons why I say this, and why it's different than the traditional abuses of the DMCA.
First of all, there's really no legitimate reason why you can't use the usual garage door remote. One of the guidelines when making an important decision like this is "do consumers somehow lose functionality of the product or the ability to use it" by enforcing the DMCA? The garage door opener remote provided by the company is in no way crippled. The consumer does not lose by not being able to purchase universal garage door remotes. In fact, the universal remotes for household devices such as TVs are often crippled and have significant less functionality.
And second, I've had someone break into my garage by using one of these things. Nothing of any value was stolen, thankfully, but it leads me to believe the only added benefits of these devices are to theives. I, for one, would like to see these devices outlawed.
It's too bad the courts got this wrong. There's no legitimate uses for reverse engineering these devices. Also, my experience with the companies that make garage door openers is they're more than happy to provide replacement remotes at a very low cost. This is a case when the DMCA is right on.
Yhis is great news. Now if I only had a garage.
As you can see I don't care about my karma.
I love how multi million dollar issues that set precedent possibly influencing the course of civilization can be decided on the stringent legal criteria equivalent to "that seems kinda fair to me"...
Replace the dip switch inside the door opener with a 555 timer/counter circuit. Good times :)
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
They were using the reverse engineering clause in the DMCA u tard.
The only reverse engineering clause in the DMCA is this one, which specifically allows reverse engineering to produce an interoperable product:
(f) REVERSE ENGINEERING- (1) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), a person who has lawfully obtained the right to use a copy of a computer program may circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a particular portion of that program for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and that have not previously been readily available to the person engaging in the circumvention, to the extent any such acts of identification and analysis do not constitute infringement under this title.
Representatives Rick Boucher and John Doolittle recently introduced the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act to amend the DMCA to stop the most outrageous abuses of it.
Lexmark recently failed in their attempt misuse the DMCA to force out aftermarket ink cartridges that compete with their own overpriced products.
Now this case where a garage door opener maker wanted to abuse the law to force out a universal remote control maker.
I hope the failure of these companies to abuse the DMCA to enforce their monopolies is a sign that the courts and the legislature are waking up.The DMCA is a dirty word, both online and in meatspace. The DMCA is a flawed piece of law.
The DMCA is being used to stifle competition and to gag disclosures of security flaws. It is worded so broadly that it is invoked in many situations to which it logically should not apply. At the same time, it is worded so narrowly that things which should be exempted are not.
Material that is copyrighted becomes public domain after a certain period of time. When that time period is up, the material belongs to the public. This is a fact that is not mentioned often enough these days. We should not destroy rights and freedoms meant to be permanent in the name of protecting a copyright that is meant to be temporary.
The DMCA must be withdrawn or amended before it causes irreparable harm to our society. Whatever replaces it should acknowledge that our permanent Fair Use rights and our permanent right to free speech are far more important than a corporation's right to protect its temporary copyright.
Only on
"Consumers have a reasonable expectation that they can replace the original product with a competing universal product without violating federal law,"
IANAL, so I'm wondering how this statement is inapplicable to ink cartridges. It seems to me that a judge sitting on another bench would be unable to make a distinction between this precedent as it applies to one product over another.
After I have received the wisdom of good teaching, I will untiringly teach all people. - The Teachings of Buddha
And this is different from the past? I would argue this is the whole point of Constitutional checks and balances - to prevent dumb laws from infringing on rights. Since the judiciary has always been one of the primary components of this system, nothing has really changed for nearly 200 years. Judges are and have been the public's first line of defense against the government trampling on our rights.
I suggest reading about the "Alien and Seditions Acts of 1798" to see how important the judiciary is to preserving our rights.
I'm going to build a universal remote then cruise the 'hood at 3am openning everyone's garage door and you can't do a DMCA thing to stop me!
Thus, if a component of a product you own, like a car or something, breaks down, it is illegal for you to get a replacement part from any source, however derived, other than the original copyright holder of that part, even if said original copyright holder has gone out of business and/or no longer exists. It would even be illegal for you to obtain a replacement that was made by that source but sold or given to you by someone else (in other words, you could not go to a junk yard and disassemble the part from another car, because that is piracy). This would be good for consumers because it directly coincides with the noble, good, and correct line of thinking that led to that fine law known as the DMCA.
Oh yeah, and people should be put into prison upon being born, because that is human genome piracy.
And keep in mind that this sort of "judicial activism" on the part of federal judges is precisely the sort of thing that gets the right wing's panties in a bunch.
None of the troglodytes that Bush is packing the bench with would have come to this decision. In fact some of them (notably Pryor) maintain that constitutional rights should be subject to majority rule and can rightfully be yanked by a majority in the legislature for any reason.
Thank you, Jesus Christ, for liberal activist judges.
A lot of people have complained that the DMCA and cases like this destroy the free economy. Well guess what, it still is a free economy.
:)
If a certain company makes it illegal for you to use a universal remote, then that is a strong downside to their product. Think of it as a feature (in the case of TVs for sake of argument: TV 1 supports HDTV and universal remotes, TV 2 supports HDTV, but you will be sued if you try to use a universal remote on it. Well, I think i'd buy TV 1. That's the free economy for you
Likewise with printers: if printer A won't let me use cheaper 3rd party cartridges, then I'm not going to buy their printer.
no comment
Isn't the name of the thing the Digital Millenium Copyright Act?
If so, tell me
1.) How a garage door or garage door opener uses a digital signal.
2.) What copyrighted material was accessable after the alleged violation.
~Will
sig?
Sorry, but NO! This is not good news for the consumer. The fact that this has been thrown out is a return to sanity. The fact that this case went to trial is such bad news for a society that the direction it's heading is quite obvious. And if not obvious, at the very least somewhat leading.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
"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
From the wired article, the headline, "Opening Doors With the DMCA" sits right next to a Best Buy ad.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
Critics of the DMCA believe the lawsuit was an abuse of the DMCA, used to trample the competition
I thought the whole point of the DMCA was to trample competition? This case is meaningless, the whole law abolished is what we want.
The laws purpose is to basically give companies a tool that allows them to produce shabby token security and use law to cover the rest, its like producing a very very bad lock and saying "its ok, its just a token lock, if anyone does break in we'll sue them". You might as well just go the whole way and not make the lock at all and then just sue people if they push the door open or copy the cd or whatever it is.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
That Turing guy reverse engineered products we haven't even invented yet! Oh, the courts already screwed him... Nevermind.
What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean....
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
Trolls who assume some air of authority with respect to the article. They post quickly, making wild, non-trivially verifiable claims.
Of course, it's all a crock of shit.
Moderators: Don't moderate up anyone informative if they don't offer any proof or make a claim and they have a shoddy posting record. Otherwise YOU WILL be slaughtered in M2.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Remember, we are not citizens, we are consumers.
Just in case you were getting any wild ideas.
There is already a law on the books (I think it's a federal law) called "Rule 11." The defendant can appeal to the judge that a suit is frivolous and baseless. If the judge agrees, the one suing is required to pay the legal fees and of the defendant, and the case is dropped. Now that I reread it, it sounds like the *lawyers* have to pay the penalties...
Of course, if you want legal advice, talk to a real lawyer, and not some guy who's taken a half-semester of one class like me. Of course, this is Slashdot, so you should listen to crackpots like me as gospel, right?
Ceci n'est pas une pipe.
15 U.S.C. 14:
Sale, etc., on agreement not to use goods of competitor
It shall be unlawful for any person engaged in commerce, in the course of such commerce, to lease or make a sale or contract for sale of goods, wares, merchandise, machinery, supplies, or other commodities, whether patented or unpatented, for use, consumption, or resale within the United States or any Territory thereof or the District of Columbia or any insular possession or other place under the jurisdiction of the United States, or fix a price charged therefor, or discount from, or rebate upon, such price, on the condition, agreement, or understanding that the lessee or purchaser thereof shall not use or deal in the goods, wares, merchandise, machinery, supplies, or other commodities of a competitor or competitors of the lessor or seller, where the effect of such lease, sale, or contract for sale or such condition, agreement, or understanding may be to substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly in any line of commerce.