Slashdot Mirror
StorageTek Blocks 3rd Party Maintenance with DMCA
bstone writes "According to LawGeek, a district court in Boston has used the DMCA to grant a preliminary injunction against a third party service vendor who tried to fix StorageTek tape library backup systems. The court found that third party service techs who used the 'Maintenance Key' without StorageTek's permission 'circumvented' to gain access to the copyrighted code in violation of the DMCA, even though they had the explicit permission of the purchasers to fix their machines."
If you don't have enough money to buy politicians, you can still stop buying from companies who attack via stupid laws. If you don't have that choice, you have to live with it.
I just found out today that Switzerland passed a law in 2002 forbidding manufacturers' garages from claiming that third-party repairs and service work would void automobile warranties, even though car owners could save up to half in parts and labor costs.
If I were a purchasing executive, and had just blown a large amount of money on an SL8500, I'd seriously reconsider buying from StorageTek in the future if they were going to lock me in to their own service plans with such an ability to set prices without any competition.
Remember kids, vote with your wallets and let them know it...
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
...until only the OEM will be allowed to open your box and repair / upgrade / modefy it?
I do hope this ruling is overturned. If it's left standing, it may lead to fewer and fewer computer (and other) related items that could be serviced / upgraded by everyone (and thus cheaper than if only the OEM could do so). If this is allowed to go on, how long will it be before we see the first car which only the OEM could change oil on?
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
this case seems to basicly to be about a password protected maintenance system .... wait 'till the car companies start putting passwords on their engine computers and claiming this as a precedent ....
Monopolies are not illegal. Abusing a monopoly status is.
So now, everyone is going to encode their products' internal software so that any attempt to access it in any way to service it can be construed as attempting to circumvent a protection system.
Nice.
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
Hit um where it hurts!
Open Source Sushi
So there's no chapter in DMCA about
- owner's rights ?
- rights to recover you own data ?
- create interoperability when needed ?
This law is certainly well thought out.
Very well balanced:
Producer has all rights and consumer has none.
- and in exchange for that -
Consumer has no rights and producer has all.
We, up here in the true north, tend to see the American governing bodies as just too damn big and requiring lobbists just to get a prefunctory hearing.
Perhaps one of the more telling differences between Canadian and American systems is the much more proactive stance of the judiciary in the American system. Presently there is some debate in Canada as to how proactive we want our judiciary. I see the American judiciary as being empowered and expected to mititgate against such Catch 22 situations as the one the story outlines. Perhaps it would make an interesting Poll to ask
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
What does this ruling mean? If it stands up on appeal, it means StorageTek has a monopoly on service for all of its machines. No independent vendor will be able to compete with them for service contracts because no independent vendor will be authorized to "access" the maintenance code necessary to debug the machine.
Reading between the lines, it also seems to imply that vendors would in the future have a free card to hold their customers hostage. Imagine if a company built in code to cause a range of various complaints. It would be breaking the DMCA to reverse engineer their code and pinpoint that the problems were built in. At the same time, the company would be able to turn a nice profit on charging for "maintenance" contracts to "fix" the "bugs".
Of course, if there were too many such problems it would damage the reputation of their products. But if there were few enough, it could provide just enough extra "free revenue" to provide a useful extra profit source.
Fun stuff huh?
A little planning goes a long way...
I'm frightened. The way things are regressing, we'll have an Orwellian world with a handful of companies controlling everything; simply because they've locked down everybody with their proprietary technologies. What these greed-stricken politicians and clueless judges don't realize is that they're destroying the very premise of capitalism in the name of protecting a few corporations. What's worrying me even more is that technology is evolving at such a rapid pace that i don't see judges even coming close to keeping abreast with it. we shall definitely see more clueless rulings like this one.
If I were a purchasing executive, and had just blown a large amount of money on an SL8500, I'd seriously reconsider buying from StorageTek in the future if they were going to lock me in to their own service plans with such an ability to set prices without any competition.
;)
Odd, EMC has been locking people into service contracts and putting the screws to them for decades
Unless your are in-crowd, meaning you have a "paper" to prove you know to service/use something, DMCA will keep you out.
Not yesterday's trend in USA, where it is more important to have sw/hw/... company controlled "certificates" than university diploma. Only it is sanctioned by law now, not only customer's will to work with you regardless of certificate set you keep on wall behind you.
http://opencm3.net, http://www.nongnu.org/gm2/
Maybe it went like this:
StorageTech execs: We were going to commit suicide this month, but we decided on an alternative method of self-destruction. We'll sue to prevent someone from testing our product to make sure it works.
And then we'll get our trademark on Slashdot! We'll be the leader in company deathcycle management.
It's important to realize that the DMCA is not the only corrupt aspect of the U.S. government: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.
How does a court that does not understand technical things interpret a law that was written by people who didn't understand technical things? This way:
"... contrary to their assertions, defendants are not saved by 17 U.S.C. 117.3 That section was passed in 1998 as part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to protect computer technicians who risked violating copyright law just by turning on the machines they were to service. Thus, the statute provides that it is not an infringement for the owner or lessee of a machine to authorize the making of a copy of a computer program if the program is copied solely by turning on the machine for the purpose only of maintenance and repair and 1) the copy "is used in no other manner and is destroyed immediately after the maintenance and repair is completed," and 2) any part of the computer program that is not necessary for the machine to be activated is not accessed or used. 17 U.S.C. 117(c). Defendants copy the Code by turning on the machine; however, they do so not just for repair, but also for the express purpose of circumventing plaintiff's security measures, modifying the Maintenance Level, and intercepting plaintiff's Event Messages."
"The evidence further shows that plaintiff requires its employees to sign confidentiality agreements and that it denies its customers any rights to the Maintenance Code and Event Messages."
Earlier in the injunction, the court said, "Plaintiff's storage systems are, at their most basic, a large number of tape libraries that plaintiff collectively calls Silo Systems. They have three components: 1) a Library Storage Module, 2) a Library Control Unit, and 3) a Library Management Unit. The first is a very large box-like structure (14' x14' x 8') and a piece of hardware with robotics that is operated by software in the Control and Management units. It typically contains thousands of tapes, tape drives and a robotic arm to store and retrieve tapes as directed."
The court says that it is entirely acceptable that you can buy the room-size hardware from StorageTek, but you can't test it to see if it works: "Plaintiff [StorageTek] also services the customers' installations by means of diagnostic software, the "Maintenance Code," which it uses to identify malfunctions and problems in the customers' storage system. Although the storage systems are programmed with the Maintenance Code along with the functional operations software, the Code is not sold, and only plaintiff has access to it."
It seems to me only fair that StorageTek be required to give the injunction to all prospective customers, so that customers can see the circumstances in which they would be backing up their important data.
In my opinion, a customer would be crazy to trust their data to a company that may go out of business at any time because of incredibly bad management decisions, and amazingly adversarial business practices.
A scene like this will be repeated wherever StorageTek systems are sold: Computer tech: "Oh, you say we're getting a StorageTek system? I'll just put a copy of the injunction on the CEO's desk, with a note saying that we may be sued if we test the system."
So does this mean that with my fancy new car...the one with the factory alarm system...that a locksmith would be breaking the DMCA if he helped me without the factory's permission? Seems about the same to me.
Just another day in Paradise
No, they wont, as it cost them millions of dollars to create. Let's not get blinded by our ideologies. It's not right or wrong to be open or closed source - it's personal preference. Having a go at companies for not releasing their intellectual property they spent millions on to the general public for free is incredibly naive.
We hear a lot about this case on slashdot, appropriately given its dire implications. But you're being unfair. In a properly functioning system, judges don't make the law; they interpret it. The wiretap law targets intercepted transmissions. Email sitting on a server isn't being transmitted.
A bizarre loophole? Yes. Clearly outside the general conception of surveilliance? Sure. But a bad ruling? No. The ruling is correct -- the law is broken. And judges don't make law.
The people who dropped the ball -- as has so often been the case in high tech -- are the people's representatives. You want your email to be safe? Get Congress to pass an updated "wiretap" law.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Yes. But if you reverse-engineer the specs, you can open up a BMW-servicing shop. Under the DMCA, if they encode any bit of the info, you could be sued. That's the issue here: Not that the company has to help you figure out what to do; it's that you're not allowed to discover it on your own.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Perpetual state of war, government controlling the flow of the "free press," re-writing the language (e.g. patriot act), government can review your reading habits without a warrant, there are cameras at every major intersection, cameras located on every isle of meijer, government can listen to your phone conversations with little oversight,,, Did you know you need a permit to protest in public?
At what point do you step back and say... OK, now is it orwellian?
Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
What quailifies as circumvention these days?
Holding down the "shift" key.
Sad, isn't it?
Cheers
Stor
"Yeah well there's a lot of stuff that should be, but isn't"
Or better, they are trying to monopolize the said market.
The goal of every capitalist is to dominate the market. The lesson here is that our laws and court system are so incredibly broken to allow trivial monopolies to occur without some sort of corresponding public good to outweigh the inefficiencies that come with monopolies. Patents and copyrights are monopolies. That they can be handed out like candy, and retained almost indefinitely (in the case of copyrights), or for obvious or pre-existing inventions, clearly undermines any possible public benefit to granting such a monopoly.
The real tragedy is that YOUR money (in the form of tax dollars) will inevitably go toward enforcing such monopolies under the current law, in the form of court time, paperwork, and legal actions (both civil and criminal if certain lawmakers have their way). Yes, you got that right - you're paying money so that the government can sue you on behalf of monopolists who are ripping you off (in most cases.) That you've already paid for your congresscritters to pass such stupid legislation, and will eventually pay again for the court time and challenges required to overturn such legislation should also be factored into the equation.
Copyrights and patents were meant to reward sharing material and ideas reduced to practice with the public, by protecting your ability to profit from that information even after making the info public. In many cases, I'd argue copyrights really don't apply because there are so many restrictions (ie, copy protection in the form of DRM, shrinkwrap agreements, etc), you're really dealing with something more akin to trade secrets rather than copyright. In the same vein, the companies aren't really sharing the information with the public in exchange for monopoly protection. For example, a publisher issues a DVD which degrades in 5 years, but forbids anyone from making any copies, which means that 20 years down the line, there are no readable copies left. Sounds crazy? Many old films fall into this sort of trap - the only surviving copies exist because somebody violated the "law" by hanging onto something they weren't supposed to, or by making a bootleg duplicate. The irony? Studios doing restorations of films to release onto DVD have relied on such copies (because they didn't take care of their own masters), which have surfaced from time to time, from certain "private" collections.
Theoretically it is supposed to be that every copyrighted work is filed with the Library of Congress, but since they're not getting enough money to store, cateogorize, and preserve such materials, they've long since dropped that requirement. So much for preserving creative works until such time that they lapse into the public domain...
"Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." I have a suggestion for all the purchasing managers/planners/engineers/designers who rely on purchased assemblies - do your back-end homework. This scheme of selling cheap on the front end and screwing you in the back-end has been going on for years. The standard manufacturing mantra has been to sell cheap to get the customer hooked then suck them dry maintaining it. Now the DMCA is being used to secure this business model. Nothing new. If you are going to purchase something, do your homework. How fast does a company obsolete equipment? What is the cost of non-warranty replacement parts? Factory-only service or third-party independents or both? If you want to make a dent, don't buy products from manufacturers that perform back-end gouging. The word will get out, but then the US Congress is the best government that special interests can buy and somehow the special interests will whine that free choice is ruining their business and congress will ban that too to keep the money coming in and their jobs preserved. "A little revolution now and then is a good thing..."
...he would be held liable if he didn't fix it, and the manufacturer is protected from all liability for defective heart stimulators anyway.
so everyone loses except the manufacturer.
I still can't get over how phrases like "Free Speech Zone" and "The Homeland" have entered the language with such little fanfare. Anyone refering to the protection of The Homeland and wearing a little lapel flag 24/7 would have been looked at a little funny in Ye Olden Dayes.
The Slashdot Paradox: "100% Overrated"
Isn't there already like 3 precedents that have been set that basically shot down using the DMCA to protect your business model? We have the garage door opener thing, the ink cartridge thing, and....I think there was one other.
I mean, if all that is required for locking people into buying service from you is adding some brain dead authentication scheme, thats just lame.
I think StorageTek will loose.
Which of these is true:
- Your population is underinformed, living in fear and being exploited by corporations
- Everything is hunky-dory, just these troublesome terrorists to deal with (but not the causes, obviously) and they only hate us because we're free or something.
Really, something is wrong with America. The diminishing of personal "liberties" (why didn't you say rights?) you're happy to tolerate is just one symptom, and without treatment of the causal disease (and I'm not pretending to know what it is) there's only one inevitability; the death of America. At best, I think you're looking at civil war within 30 years. Insane? Maybe, but did you argue when Reagan funded the Mujaheddin?The Slashdot Paradox: "100% Overrated"
Except:
1) They sold you the device. What right do thay have to prevent you from modifying your own property to take advantage of capabilities they built into it then proceeded to disable? This is like Intel suing someone for overclocking a processor!
2) Good for StorageTek. If they want to cut their margins in anticipation of future business, that's their problem.
3) If they don't want people to be examining it, they should lock it away in a secure room. Trade secrets have no legal protection as long as they're not leaked in violation of contract - so if I get a StorageTek device and reverse-engineer the trade secrets out... They can't do anything. If they want legal protection and truly have an innovative invention, they can do what everyone else does: patent it.
There's a lot of precedent against you already with cars. You may own the car, but you can't legally remove the catalytic converter, or change intake and exhaust engine settings for example, nor may a serviceman, unless it follows the law. People do it, but it's not legal. Go to any muffler shop, most of them have signs saying they can only replace the CC, they may not remove it and replace it with a normal straight pipe and allow you to drive away. You can own your diesel car or truck, it will run on regular fuel oil, but it's illegal for you to run it on anything except approved taxes paid on it road diesel, on the public roads anyway. And even if you ran it off road with the cheaper diesel, then go back on on road, and use the approved diesel-they can determine you put the illegal fuel in chemically sometime in the past, so therefore you still broke the law *technically*. It's happened to people, and they lose in court.
No, the bottom line is you really don't completely own your property,that's LONG gone now in our legal system, the government can and does put any restrictions on it, how you use it, where you use it, etc, basically anything they can dream up, that they feel like putting on it, and they can make it a law to follow. They can tax you for owning it too, for any reason, and take it away from you or further restrict you if you fail to pay their fee for the privelege of thinkiing you own something. Happens all the time.. You pay a homeownership tax, a car registration tax,that keeps reocurring, there are thousands of various "your property" codes and regulations out there that restrict what you can and cannot do with your property, etc. Lots of back legal precedent that the bottom line is-it's not your property, it's theirs. You are allowed a government *limited use* and *partial* ownership, which can be changed on any whim they determine. The old check and balance was supposed to be voting and the court system, but with legalised bribery and the hijacking and almost complete monopolization of government by two private for-profit in the technical sense organizations called the major "political parties",who collectively run the nation as a closed shop semi-cooperating criminal cartel, those checks and balances are long gone.
They give/allow people the illusion of "owning" property, but if you really owned it, you could do with it what you wanted to do with it, and that just isn't the case.