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."

Comments

Conclusion

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Conclusion

[dnoyeb]

I agree with the court. Enforce the law to the fullest. That is the only way people will see it for what it is.

Re:Conclusion

[hardlyworking]

Where do you draw the line then? What is sufficient for something to "deserve" to be a law? I agree with the grandparent. This kind of thing will get businesses against the DMCA, and that could lead to something actually changing for the better.

Re:Conclusion

[siriuskase]

You think that cops should have the power to choose which laws to enforce? No, it's especially important for the bad laws to be enforced so political pressure can be used to fix the law.

Re:Conclusion

[ChrisMaple]

The problem with blindly enforcing bad laws is that people get hurt until the law is changed. There is no good solution to the problem of bad laws once they are laws. The workarounds all seem deficient to me: blind enforcement, selective enforcement, selective prosecution in criminal cases, jury nullification, wise judges throwing cases out of court, write-in campaigns, massive civil disobedience ... none of these seem adequate when so many of the laws are bad.

Re:Conclusion

[rben]

That's the purpose of separation of powers. If the legislature passes an immoral or unconstitutional law, it is the duty of the executive to not enforce it, and of the judiciary to not convict under it and/or overturn it.

The purpose of the legislature is to pass the laws. The executive branch MUST enforce them. Most people do not know that Reagan originally refused to enforse a law passed by congress and came close to being impeached. It was handled very quietly. The Executive branch does not have the ability to enforce selectively. The Judiciary is supposed to rule on the constitutionality of law. This is based on the Constitution itself and the body of cases that have been decided by the Supreme and lower courts since the founding of the nation. The Supreme Court can't throw out a "bad" law unless it violates the constitution. The only way to get rid of bad laws that are not unconstitutional is to get congress to repeal those laws. The only way that will happen is if people petition their representatives in such numbers that the representatives fear they might lose an election over it.

Here's the important point. We are responsible for the bad laws like the DMCA because we voted the jokers in who think that the checks from the RIAA are more important than our votes. They think that way because they know that most of us don't vote and of those who do, most vote the party line rather than voting based on the record of the representative. Most of our congressional representatives can take for granted that they will be automatically re-elected. We have the government we deserve.

If you want better laws, vote, call your representative, run for office yourself, get involved, educate your kids about how our system "works." Do something other than bitch.

Re:Conclusion

[Tassach]

You think that cops should have the power to choose which laws to enforce?

They already do. A cop on the street has a HUGE amount of lattitude over whether or not to arrest someone and what charges they want to file, particuarly for minor offenses.

Partly it depends on how much real work they have to do. A bored suburban cop is more likely to pedantically enforce all laws, whereas an inner city cop has to consider whether arresting someone will do more harm than good -- if they arrest someone that means that they'll be doing paperwork for the next two or three hours instead of being out patrolling.

Re:Conclusion

[siriuskase]

Almost, but not quite as someone else has wisely explained. Normally, a little bit of discretion is permitted, since the details are filled in by the executive. Laws are supposed to be broader and less specific than regulations. One problem that has increased over the years is that this amount of judicial discretion has been decreasing at an alarming rate. Judges must contend with mandatory sentencing laws that don't always make sense in every individual case. Maybe we trust our lawmakers more than our judges, I don't know, but I don't think that it is a good thing for citizens to lose the right to be treated as individuals. It is impossible at the time of legislation for all contingincies and aggravating circumstances to be anticipated.

Sort of related...

[fuzzybunny]

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...

Re:Sort of related...

[Voltronalpha]

This is the catch 22 of the DMCA. The real question is; is it in the spirit of the law; was the anti-circumvention aspect meant to keep those out who own a tangible good and to extend an overly broad reach by those who control and form of IP?

Or was it meant to criminalize the act of breaking a system meant to keep you out when you really have no right to be there (I.E. the system isn't in your possession/control, somebody else's machine (who BTW almost certainly doesn't want you there.)

If the DMCA was really meant to keep criminals out, and it is letting people who own IP (I don't personally believe in the concept of IP, however I digress) behave in a way that ought to be criminal, wouldn't you say that the DMCA has itself been circumvented?!

This law is in contempt of itself.

It's supposed to punish criminals when they break the law, but what it really does is turn the law against regular people who are not doing anything unethical/immoral and it turns them into criminals.

I do truly believe the politicians that voted this law into existence just didn't understand the harm they were doing, I don't think they did it in bad spirit, they just didn't understand that the potential abuse of this law was greater (and it is) that the value of that which they are trying to protect.

I mean really, there are other laws that protect copyright and IP, etc, etc.

Anyway, I'm going to write a letter, I suggest you do the same.

Re:Sort of related...

[Vitus Wagner]

Whole concept of IP, and more specifically, DMCA,
is that thing you paid for doesn't belong to you. It still belongs to company who license, not sell it to you. So, if you are breaking into it, you are criminal, even if you very life depends on proper functioning of the device.

Some day later we'll see a medic punished for fixing somebody's heart stimulator without manufacter permission, and thus saving man's life.

Re:Sort of related...

[10101001 10101001]

If the DMCA is only there to punish people who are already breaking the law, for what use is the DMCA? The DMCA is simply an overbroadening of "IP" rights which clearly go against fair use (exceptioning for fair use nullifies the extended reach of the DMCA which makes the DMCA pointless). The point, however, is to have a legal basis to harrass companies and quiet those without the financial resources to defend themselves. When will a company be countersued for racketeering for suing under the DMCA? Maybe then companies will stop suing under the DMCA.

Re:Sort of related...

[Tackhead]

> It's supposed to punish criminals when they break the law, but what it really does is turn the law against regular people who are not doing anything unethical/immoral and it turns them into criminals.

Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against - then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now, that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."

- Ayn Rand, from Atlas Shrugged

> I do truly believe the politicians that voted this law into existence just didn't understand the harm they were doing, I don't think they did it in bad spirit, they just didn't understand that the potential abuse of this law was greater (and it is) that the value of that which they are trying to protect.

You underestimate your leaders at your peril, Citizen.

Re:Sort of related...

[NialScorva]

Very illuminating, since it's industry that pushed for the DMCA. It's not the politicians who are using the law to create a nation of criminals to control, it's private industry. Rand, as usual, had a half decent idea and completely went the wrong way with it.

Re:Sort of related...

[The Conductor]

There have been some court precedents on this (yeah, too lazy to look them up). Judges have basically said that if a transaction had the appearance and nature of a sale, then it is a sale. So, EULA notwithstanding, you *do* own the software. Judges tend to look at contracts of adhesion (such as what you get when you buy an airline ticket...it is more than a pretty piece of paper) through the prism of the "reasonable man" standard. Being able to copy software onto a hard drive is emminently reasonable, copyright notwithstanding, because a shiny CD is rather useless otherwise. Copying onto 100 hard drives is another matter. Click through licences are suggestive of price gouging. Consider this: the ferry onto the island is $10, but the ferry off is $5000 or you have to swim 3 miles. Shoulda negotiated the return before you left; sux to be you. No court is going to enforce that.

Resonable man standards don't work as well for new fields of endeavor (like software) because consnensus and traditional ways of doing things haven't been established. And you can get statutory law (UCITA, DMCA) usurping the natural development of reasonable expectations.

So how long...

[WegianWarrior]

...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?

Re:So how long...

[bm_luethke]

I've been surprised it has not happened already.

More than a few boxes I have tried to service have been so convoluted to take apart that the only explaination is that they do not want people servicing thier own box or adding hardware.

One of the reasons that, if I am to advise on any canned hardware package, I always recommend more on the server class. Most places assume that server stuff will be user serviced, though that is becomming less common also. If you are going to go the expensive route, might as well go all the way.

I also understand companies such as Dell wanting to keep customers out of thier boxes. I would hate to see thier costs associated with thier tech support dealing with people opening up thier boxes. But then again they shouldn't offer that service if they can not deliver or afford it.

I always build my own systems at home, if for no other reason that ease of service in opening up the case and adding/repairing hardware. At work I look for boxes that I can specify very specific equipment or get hardware I know I can easily work on.

Re:So how long...

[Jaysyn]

"Consumer-Class" Dell cases are actually easy to take apart so tech support can walk people thru certain things over the phone. I.E. Reseating or replacing RAM, taking the CMOS battery out to reset the BIOS if the PC is jumperless, and so on.

I'm not a Dell phone monkey but my sig. other is.

Jaysyn

Re:So how long...

[kfg]

Actually, that's a requirement for many vehicle warranties, and has been for quite some time.

This has been explicitly illegal in the United States, and has been for quite some time.

KFG

Re:So how long...

[bm_luethke]

This is a response to both the replies I have gotten so far.

I mostly agree - with tech support they are not hard to take apart. As long as you know which screw to remove and where to pull/push they are easy.

Now, pop one open without thier tech support. It doesn't work the way one would expect. It requires a good deal of looking at how all the parts fit together. It's not impossible, nor really that hard. but for someone that has never touched hardware it is a VERY daunting task most likely not undertaken. I'm willing to push and pull where I know it can take it.

Contrast this to IBM's server class machines. Almost nothing requires a screw and everything is labeled within the case on how to remove it (or, at least this is the case with the ones we bought). The only Dell server rack we own is the same way.

Where I used to work we got new undergrad students yearly. You could easily guage how easy hardware was to maintain. With the consumer grade stuff they really needed someone to walk them through it. With our server grade stuff you could leave all but the most hardware inept student alone and they figured it out.

This has lead me to believe, for quite some time, that Dell does not want average consumers to dork with thier hardware. And again, I can't say as I blame them. I probably should have been more clear (as, well, I wasn't at all clear I guess) that under circumstances that they want you to, they are willing to have a user dork with thier hardware. Otherwise off limits.

And at least one case where a customer obviously knew nothing about computers (my uncle) they didn't proscribe touching the case. Whereas when I called they did. I suspect, but can not prove, that you level of competance is guaged in the initial call. Though that very well could have been a fluke.

Actually very related .....

[taniwha]

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 ....

Re:Actually very related .....

[gl4ss]

no, there's no need to wait for that. the swizerland decision being about if they should or should not have exclusive rights for committing repairs and thus skewing the competition by being able to sell cars way too cheap while charging way too much for the repairs - this is bad, because in most of cases this is done to confuse the customer into buying something without him being able to consider the real price of what he is buying. the real decision isn't of course about the means how such a competition skewing/customer screwing situation is reached but about that it should not be reached by any means.

that's just a way to find donald duck logic loopholes(the service codes are already kind of 'coded').

what if the firm goes under and the IP rights are sold off to some holding company that doesn't really want to provide any service to anyone and yet doesn't want to give out an inch of the 'rights' it has regarding the 'code protected' repair part? should the customers be stuffed? of course not, in the end the usage of dmca for these things will go away or dmca itself will be reconsidered(sooner or later).

Re:Actually very related .....

[windex]

Owning a BMW product, I dont have any idea what the fuck you're talking about. I can do everything from replace the ECU to removing the engine without any kind of special 'key'.

If someone told you they had to have a special 'key' to work on the car, they are on crack. In the US, there are laws preventing them from doing things like that. In the 80's it was even more restrictive, as the US was forcing import car makers to jump all kinds of hoops to insure that when people bought an import car that US service centers could repair the cars, since clearly, the import auto makers were all doomed. Also, it was a feebile attempt to steer more cash to domestic dealers.

Love your car-geek regional FUD hating cohort,
windex

Re:Actually very related .....

[VdG]

I think you've highlighted why this is likely to back-fire on StorageTek. It is quite easy to see the lock-in to vendor servicing being a restrictive practice. If they insist on using DMCA, they may be obliged to sell products where DMCA cannot apply. i.e. Open up their firmware.

At the least, they're going to be left with a nasty mess with loads of different firmware versions for different legal regimes.

Re:Actually very related .....

[GoRK]

You can duplicate the effect of the reset tool on most earlier model BMW's (the ones with the 1.5" round connector in the engine bay) with a paperclip. On the late model cars, it's done with the OBD-II connector, but the commands to do it are not exactly kept secret. Still, the car won't behave any differently if you just change the oil and don't reset the lights.

Re:Actually very related .....

[tomhudson]

Simple solution - ship the drives to Canada for repairs. The DMCA only applies on US soil.

1. Open up service shop in Canada
2. Let clueless manufacturers use the DMCA to force lock-ins
3. Profit :-)

Send it to me - I'll do it (for shipping + a fee, of course :-)

I thought that...

[alex_ware]

Monopolies were illegal in America.
Isn't this abusing the DMCA to circumvent the anti monopoly laws.

Re:I thought that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Monopolies are not illegal. Abusing a monopoly status is.

You bought it, we own it.

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

So now if I want to repair a StorageTek machine I have to get their signed, sealed and delivered permission to do so? What a scam. Another compnay abusing the DMCA to squeeze more money out of us.

Apply this to cars. Your mechanic would have to get permission from Nissan to so much as open the bonnet and change the oil. Come to think of it so would you. You'd also need a court order to fill up your tank, because you need access to maitenence the car.

The third party company 'circumvented' the 'protections' that StorgaTek had put in place? What quailifies as circumvention these days? Turning numbers and letter into binary digits? Simply running code that happens to do something the copyright holder dosen't like? StorageTek placed 'protections' on the code? Does compiling, and maybe obfuscating, count as protection nowadays?

Re:You bought it, we own it.

[rritterson]

I see this as a good thing, personally. The more stupid DMCA lawsuits, the closer it is to being overturned/ruled unconstutional.

Re:You bought it, we own it.

[gilroy]

Blcokquoth the poster:

As far as I know, BMW doesnt give out their car/engine specs to other car repairs other than their own.

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.

Re:You bought it, we own it.

[stor]

What quailifies as circumvention these days?

Holding down the "shift" key.

Sad, isn't it?

Cheers
Stor

Re:You bought it, we own it.

[Martigan80]

Don't believe that, there are still many stupid laws that have yet to be overturned.

Re:You bought it, we own it.

[Umrick]

Guess again. The more stupid DMCA lawsuits that are upheld, the more precedence is set.

Overturn a law? When the yahoos on Capitol Hill can't agree on what truth is, and corporations pour money into their pockets?

Re:You bought it, we own it.

[Meski]

Forget cars for the moment - printer manufacturers are doing this *now* - there are chips in most inkjets carts today that are doing just this - preventing us from using generic carts, and preventing refilling. The generic cart makers are sitting ducks for DMCA.

Well who didn't see that one coming.

[JosKarith]

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.

Re:Well who didn't see that one coming.

[Arminator]

Why limit to software?

"AHA!! He used this circumvention device called 'screwdriver' to circumvent the protective casing of our device. Where are my lawyers?"

The death kneel

[poofyhairguy82]

Now no respectable nerd will buy StorageTek products again (just tell the bosses it will cost more money to fix).

Hit um where it hurts!

Lose your data to DMCA ?

[e_AltF4]

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.

curiousor and curiousor

[Quirk]

As a canadian I'm not well informed as to the various American legislative bodies, except by way of a few undergrad courses and wide spread readings.
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 /.ers what arm of the government they consider most informed and able to set right wrongs.

Hostages

[Ratface]

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?

Re:Hostages

[cat_jesus]

Expect Darl McBridge to sue you for publishing his business plan.

scared of the future

[asliarun]

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.

explicit permission: Simpsons quote

[YearOfTheDragon]

Wiggum: "Once a man is in your home, anything you do to him is nice and legal."
Homer: "Is that so? Oh Flanders! Won't you join me in my kitchen? Heh heh heh heh."
Wiggum: "Uh...doesn't work if you invite them."
Flanders: "Hidily hey!"
Homer: "Go home."
Flanders: "Toodley-doo!"

Wrong title

[Anonymous Coward]

Your rights off-line seems more appropriate ;-)

I agree, but...

[TubeSteak]

To circumvent the GetKey, defendants have used two methods. Until March 2003,
defendants used their Library Event Manager (" LEM") device, a computer they attached to the LAN wires that connect to plaintiff's Control and Management Units. A program called "reverse.exe" allowed defendants to defeat the security of the GetKey, albeit through the

sometimes very lengthy process of testing different password combinations until the code was cracked. They would then use the GetKey to set a maintenance level above 0, usually 9, and the system proceeded as designed.

And Part 2

After March 2003, defendants used "ELEM," software and a specially designed computer that worked similarly to the LEM, except that it did not use the reverse.exe program. Instead, defendant's ELEM incorporated a forged file identical to one that in the normal course of events would be created by the Control Unit and that tricks the Control Unit to reset the maintenance level at 6, at which level the trickery is not detectable by plaintiff

So basically... The company bought a big piece of hardware, licensed some software & has absolutely no rights to the Maintainence CodeMy first thought is "bummer" , but this is a little more complicated that we think. These STORAGETEK people might win for a variety of reasons.. but does that serve the public interest? There's no way anyone can say that copyright controls and/or trade secret controls weren't circumvented.

I only do this because none of you will RTFA

Uh, EMC does it and you don't hear about it.....

[jsimon12]

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 ;)

Is the Law an ass?

[orthogonal]

From the linked blog: p.s. The Court also found, in a bizarre twist of logic, that while it is legal to load a program into RAM for repairs, it's illegal to allow it to persist in RAM while you fix it. I don't even know where to begin with that one.

I used to think, when geeks said the courts couldn't effectively decide technology cases, that the geeks were underestimating the courts.

But this, plus the recent ruling that the Wiretap Act does not apply to email because email isn't just transmitted=, it's stored on servers, makes me think that perhaps the courts have finally found an aspect of society to which they just can't seem to effectively apply the law.

Which is worrisome in a number of ways. Perhaps we needs special courts, like the tax courts, for technology issues? Or do we need entire new laws that aren't rooted in traditional property laws?

A year ago I'd have said that traditional property laws could cover technology, but events -- and the courts --seem intent on proving me wrong.

Re:Is the Law an ass?

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

plus the recent ruling that the Wiretap Act does not apply to email because email isn't just transmitted=, it's stored on servers

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.

Re:Lose your data to DMCA ?

[jedimark]

Yup... They might have all the rights under your DMCA, but it's the consumer in the end that has the money... This world is getting truely bastardized. Some call it democracy... but it's $$$ apears to have the louder voice though. I know. lets all just stop paying tax ;-)

Badnarik 20004!!!!!

[BadnarikTroll]

This is why I vote Libertarian. A Libertarian President would not enforce the DMCA, and would work on getting it repealed. A Libertarian President AND Congress would certainly get rid of the DMCA, the Patriot Act, and many other evils of Big Government.

Re:Badnarik 20004!!!!!

[BadnarikTroll]

Yep, and as the libertarian candidate will probably get about 1% of the vote you will be stuck with the government that brought you DMCA and the Patriot Act in the first place.

Only as long as people keep believing that. This whole "voting 3rd party is a wasted vote" thing is a just self-fulfilling prophecy.

Besides, whether you vote for Bush OR Kerry, you're also going to be "stuck with the government that brought you the DMCA and the Patriot Act in the first place." So you have nothing to lose, and everything to gain, by voting Libertarian.

Re:Badnarik 20004!!!!!

[1u3hr]

the fact that people voted for the 3rd guy basically took away votes from the democrats

Is preferential voting, as practised in Australia, such a hard concept? It works like this: Say you have 2 major parties (A, B), and 2 minor ones (C, D) on the ballot. You like C, but are pretty sure they won't win. Of A and B you prefer A. In the US, you have to just vote A if you want your vote to count. In Australia you can vote "C,A,D,B". When counted, only the first preferences (above: C) are looked at to begin with. If no candidate has over 50%, the lowest candidate is eliminated, and his votes are given to the second one listed on those ballots (above, if C is eliminated, that vote would be added to A's). And so on, till one candidate gets over 50%. Basically, it's just rolling runoffs into a single ballot. The problem is that the only ones who can change the system are those that won the last vote, so no matter what they promise about reforming the system, they never get around to it once in power.

Re:Badnarik 20004!!!!!

[malchus842]

I've heard all kinds of "it's too complicated" objections to this. But I convinced our pastor to run our parish council elections according to this method, and it was a breeze to explain it to everyone, AND the results reflected the goal - the candidate that was most acceptable to the most people won.

As someone who has voted for "third parties" in every presidential election since 1988, I would welcome a system like this.

Imagine the alternative...

[dj245]

So your customers are using some one else to fix your product. What to do?

1. Threaten to void the warranty, making your customers angry.
2. Consider it part of doing business, and raise prices since your profits used to be based mostly on product repairs. Again, makes customers angry.
3. Lock your product with proprietary technology and sue all those who would tamper with it. The average customer won't find out, and you most current customers will never hear of it.

Personally I would have tried Torx screws. Noooobody has torx screwdrivers.

Re:Imagine the alternative...

[rritterson]

Since nobody has torx screwdrivers, I bet nobody knows what a torx screw is either.

Apparently those are what i call 'star head' screws: Site with a few pics of torx screws, thanks to google

A real pro would use those screws that have two ramps on the head, so you can tighten them easy, but if you try to loosen them the bit just slides up the ramp in circles.

Re:Imagine the alternative...

[Anonymous Coward]

2. Consider it part of doing business, and raise prices since your profits used to be based mostly on product repairs. Again, makes customers angry.

If repairs were a major source of income of the manufacturer of just about anything, it's time to change suppliers anyway.

Certificated service only, of course

[dragisha]

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.

Re:Lose your data to DMCA ?

[Wudbaer]

I know. lets all just stop paying tax ;-)

I know this was somewhat tongue in cheek; but while not paying your taxes is not an option for most sane people there were some interesting ideas around in the 80s during the prime of the German peace movement to do civil protest by tax payments: Do pay your taxes, but either pay a miniscule amount too low (e.g. 1 USD too low) or even better, a little too much (so they own you and have nothing to hold against you). As at least here in Germany the state has to be very accurate in the payments it gets or receives (ever got one of those "Here is your great tax return of 0,03 EUR"-letters ?) you generate a huge amount of administrative overhead as the state has to remind or repay you for miniscule amounts. If enough people to this one can bring huge bureaucracies to a screeching halt.

I remember being at the top of this slippery slope

[Daneurysm]

I don't even know what to say...but I had to respond with something.

The DMCA is obviously a scourge to the freedom of information. When it was first introduced--and abused--I thought to myself "Excellent, now the absurdity and obvious problems with this law can finally be addressed, how can any rationally minded lawmaker not noticed these issues?"

Ha.

Now I realize that logic like that ranks right up there with "If it wasn't totally true, they wouldn't put it on the news..." and "The FCC can't do that....cmon, like people would let them get away with that !

Ha.

I don't know what or how, but, critical mass is obviously upon us...some day (in my lifetime anyway) I expect to see the recoil of all of these actions. What this means is a mystery to me....but, things like this can't go much farther untill the proverbial Joe Q. Sixpacks of the world become personally and financially affected...but, then again, by then....I'm sure "their" plan will be in full swing and such rogue thinkers will be dealt with appropriately.

Sickening....truely. Someone show me a glimmer of hope...please.

91/EC/250 specifically forbids this

[lkcl]

everybody has been bitching about the latest EU DMCA -clone law.

what people haven't noticed about it [the DMCA-clone] is that it is "without prejudice" to certain key sections of the 91/EC/250 directive.

in other words, certain rights such as fixing bugs by reverse engineering the code are PROTECTED UNDER EU LAW EVEN IF THOSE BUGS ARE LOCKED BY A "SECURITY MECHANISM".

it is also interesting to note that no mention is made in the EU DMCA-clone directive on the _effectiveness_ of the security measures required - yes _required_ - to be placed into technological devices to protect copyright material.

in other words, i could write some fucking dipshit brain-dead "security" measure such as XORing 0xA5 over the top of the data (yes, that's actually what MAPI does) and then sue the fuck out of people for "breaking" it.

Re:91/EC/250 specifically forbids this

[Pofy]

One thing to also note, is that the circumvention is only for protections that protect rights the copyright holder has. One such example is copying. Access is NOT a right the copyright holder have exclusivnessly. Hence protection systems for access, like region coding or many of the protections on music CDs (that prvenst access on some devices but not really copying) are NOT protected from circumvention, youcan circumvent them all you want.

In the swedish implementation (or the draft that was arround some time ago, have not seen the final propsal), this was specifically mentioned and discussed, and also cases were some protection was both copyright related (copying) and non copyright related (like access). It was deemed that circumvention in those cases was STILL ok as it would otherwise put to much power into the hands of copuright owenr. They have the option to put in measures that relate to copyright (and have protection) or measures that that relate to other things as well (and not get protection). A quite interesting reasoning in my opinion.

How did this happen?

[Futurepower(R)]

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."

Locksmith?

[dcw3]

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.

Re:Lose your data to DMCA ?

[e_AltF4]

So what happens in a few years time when StorageTek stop supporting the hardware and a business still has data they need to recover from an old tape but they don't have a working tape drive? It shouldn't happen - the business should have thought about that already. But reality and idealism don't always meet...

... and when they decide to stop doing support/maintainance you can kiss your data good bye. If this decision is being upheld, they successfully

prevent anyone else from helping you

prevent anyone from learning how to help you

starve out any competition (even if you're allowed to recover your data years later - there will be no one left with the knowledge how to do it)
Good luck recovering your data then.

Re:Nvidia, ATI (mostly) just as bad

[dave420]

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.

And to summarize your rights as a consumer

[Kjella]

"Anything you buy can and will be used against you."

Seriously though, why does it feel like more and more companies are moving to the "drug dealer" business model? You buy product $foo, oh you'll also need product $bar, and since it has proprietary connections, you'll need add-on $foobar, and repairs can only be done by certified $foobarmen. And no, you may not use third-party anything, and you're sinking deeper and deeper into the quicksand.

Selling stuff, as in money for goods, seems to be out. Everything is supposed to be licenced, and with a list of strings attached longer than my arm. Usually convieniently "agreed to" by opening the box or clicking "yes", long after the purchase. The first, in a long string of catches.

Oh yes, and of course you have the right to read the EULA up front. Just file a request with the Central Bureaucracy (if you don't get it watch more Futurama, ep. 2x11). Not to mention, who'd spend more money on a lawyer that could understand the licence terms than the product is worth?

Why does it happen? Because consumer choice doesn't work. All but a few idealists boycott because they believe something will change within a reasonable timeframe. But these companies don't need you as a customer today, next month or next year. If nothing else because they have so many other suckers hooked. You need them and their products more than they need you. Did I mention this is the "drug dealer" business model?

Kjella

Re:Lose your data to DMCA ?

[Alsee]

So there's no chapter in DMCA about
- owner's rights ?

All of your rights under coptright law are revoked. You do however get the right to do whatever the copyright holder has generously "authorized" you to do.

- rights to recover you own data ?

None. If the disk gets scratched then go buy another copy. Remember, it's "good for the economy" every time you spend money.

- create interoperability when needed ?

Well, actually there is an interoperability clause! However it only permits you to descramble software, and only under very restricted circumstances. You still go to prison for descrambling anything else, like the movie or song you bought.

Very well balanced:
Producer has all rights and consumer has none.
- and in exchange for that -
Consumer has no rights and producer has all.

Well yeah, the DMCA (and pretty much every other copyright law in the last 30 years) was literally been written by laywers employed by the publishing lobby.

And that's hardly the only lopsided portion of the DMCA. For example there's the "expedited subpeona process". The DMCA essentially gives copyright holders the power to issue themselves subpeonas without judicial review, with absolutely no penalty for bogus subpeoneas. (The "under penalty of perjury" clause only applies to the claim that you are a copyright holder on something, not that he is the copyright holder of the subject of the subpeona or the allegation of infringement.) Yep, copyright holders get special "expedited subpeona" powers while actual police officers have to go through the normal subpeona process and go before a real judge while investigating rapes and murders. Copyright holders are special that way. They need powers that even the police don't have because, well, having to get a real subpeona would be, like, annoying or something. They're special that way, they get to right the laws.

Oh, and then there's the lovely notice-and-takedown process. Again, no need to go before a judge or anything, just mail off a note. The process essentially mandates that anything get immediately yanked off of the internet based on nothing more than a private demand letter.

I'm sure I've missed some other fair and balanced portions of the DMCA. If anyone thinks of anything I missed, go ahead and add it in a reply.

-

wierd law coming out of the US again.

[mst03004]

Now I see people are talking about what if this was applied to cars but there is a more underlying point here. WHO OWNS THE ITEM IN QUESTION! If I buy a car then is it me or the car company that owns it. now this may sound like a silly question that even a kid could answer it is that I own the car not the company. So as such they have no right what so ever to stop you for doing what ever you like with your car. Any infringement on this is a infringement on your owner ship of the item and this is what we should put in there face. They should not be able to say you cannot open the bonnet on your own car it is your bonnet after all. So if the car needs maintenance then that person has the right to do ever he sees fit to do once given consent by the own me I. This may be a over simplification of the area but I dont understand way anyone what accept or allow any one to dictate more complex conditions that this. Remember it is your car you can do anything you like to it!

Re:wierd law coming out of the US again.

[zogger]

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.

Other vendors with the same bad attitude...

[Reverant]

I do recall that Lexmark sued (using the DMCA) when a low-price ink cartridge manufacturer copied the chip on the cartidge.
Here is a link to that story. And not only did Lexmark sue, it actually won a preliminary injunction against the manufacturer. Looks like history is repeating itself...

Replace "copyright" with "distributionright"

[putaro]

Things have gotten really nutty at the intersection of computers and "copyright". Once upon a time, copying a book or movie was a step that was not a normal part of usage. Today, as we've moved to a digital world copying is THE basic mechanism for accessing anything in a digital medium. However, because we are stuck on the word "copyright" we start getting these nutty cases.

I believe that the right answer is to replace "copyright" with "distributionright". Make as many copies of anything as you like for yourself. Control shouldn't be on "copying" but on "distributing". The rules would have to be tweaked appropriately to handle companies but I think that this would be a much more sensible concept.

Re:Replace "copyright" with "distributionright"

[pommiekiwifruit]

Oh great, then we entrench the "Tesco vs. Levis" decision, where the court found that Levis could stop a supermarket from selling their jeans, because they were selling them too cheaply.

Levis is apparently an upmarket designer clothing label, using only the finest far-eastern factories, and would not want to be sold from non-authorised distributers.

Your idea would be even worse for cars, since you would prohibit all second-hand car sales since they do not give enough money back to the car manufacturer and canibalise their new car sales. In the country where I live, a lot of people buy their cars second-hand, and the price difference would be nasty if they had to get the manufacturers permission.

Re:Replace "copyright" with "distributionright"

[putaro]

Your idea would be even worse for cars, since you would prohibit all second-hand car sales since they do not give enough money back to the car manufacturer and canibalise their new car sales. In the country where I live, a lot of people buy their cars second-hand, and the price difference would be nasty if they had to get the manufacturers permission.
Copyright doesn't apply to cars (except for the "intellectual property" inside of them) and I don't see why "distributionright" would either. I would see "distributionright" as applying to information and meaning the copying and distribution of information. The right of first sale doctrine should be preserved for information (I bought it, I can sell it).

As for "Tesco vs Levis" again, I don't see why copyright or distributionright would be involved. A product was bought and is being resold. The case made by Levi's was based on trademark protection, not protection and thanks to some brain-dead EU law.

Re:Replace "copyright" with "distributionright"

[sploxx]

This is also my opinion.

Just step in where things get commercial. Do not, however, invade peoples privacy, constrain the freedom of information and our right to access information because of the greed of some big companies. Sadly, the world is different.

Nowadays, the privacy of a person is much less important than the right for companies to make a profit off everything.

Am I one of the few ones here who thinks that draconic, consumer (citizen!)-restricting copyright laws are much more invading than e.g. tax laws?

Greed.

[xxSOUL_EATERxx]

That's what all this is about. You know it, I know it, we all know it. Companies wanting to preserve their competitive advantage slap copyrights on anything in sight and charge through the nose for maintenance and upgrades.

You can see where all this is going, this me-first grubby-fisted lusting after dollars, this coveting of "trade secrets" and "intellectual property". As this practice proliferates, and as technological devices become more and more commonplace, consumers will be faced with a double-headed devil dog of a choice over every product they buy. Either buy into a proprietary "service plan" or throw the product away as soon as it breaks.

Say goodbye to the entrepenurial repair business, say hello to a world of locked-down trade secrets, where ideas are golden geese to be guarded and coveted, and most of humanity languishes in thrall to the companies with the most ruthless legal departments.

Does it have to be this way? No. We have it in ourselves to say no to this nightmarish future. Open source is one start, the idea of knowledge as a common good, to be shared not just because superior products result from open standards, but because freedom is a basic human need, like food or air.

The real goal, however, is to resist the greed that is the source of all this stifling legal red tape, and that comes down to each and every one of us. It starts with little things, like downloading Firefox, or giving a dollar to a panhandler. The future doesn't have to suck.

Re: Greed.

[silentbozo]

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...

Re:Greed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in the '80s Digital Equipment (remember them?) implemented a proprietary bus for their mass storage devices to effectively lock out 3rd party disk drive manufacturers. There was a lot of legal wrangling when the 3rd party vendors removed the proprietary chips from Digital's hardware to use in their own hardware. This was the only way the 3rd party vendors could survive in the Digital market.

So where is Digital Equipment Corporation today? Do you suppose if they were more open in those days we would still find them as a leading manufacturer of computer equipment? What's the liklihood that Storagetek will follow that same path? Because of these events I would never recommend that my company purchase anything from Storagetek. If everyone felt that way, where would that leave Storagetek?

Re:Uh, EMC does it and you don't hear about it....

[Vitus Wagner]

What will these companies do when our memories last longer than the DMCA?


Go bankrupt. And that is where they belong.

Re:scared of the future [orwellian]

[spottedkangaroo]

Are you absolutely certian that you'd recognize it if it was here?

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?

Re:Nvidia, ATI (mostly) just as bad

[dave420]

Releasing the source to their drivers is giving you something you didn't pay for. If you want to own that technology, you can license it from them for a few hundred thousand dollars. You seem to be confusing buying a video card and owning a license for every single piece of technology used in the creation and use of it. Just because you have it in your hand doesn't mean to say you intrinsically own every aspect of it.

I understand the difference between purchasing a product and purchasing the use of a product. I know that, as technology has become more complicated, lines can and will be drawn in the sand between what an owner can do with their products. nVidia, especially, are having issues with this as they use non-open-source code in their drivers. Releasing that into the wild would be a violation of their license.

I really fail to see how someone with the slightest intelligence can have a problem with that, unless you're some sort of zealot. I'm not having a go, but I really could do with it being explained to me. I'm a reasonable person :)

Your car analogy is slightly flawed. The correct analogy would be: You get in your car, it starts and drives perfectly, and you ask the manufacturer how they managed to get it to work so well. They tell you that they spent millions developing it, and unless you want to fork over some money for that secret, they won't tell you. Suddenly doesn't sound so unfair, does it. ;)

Whatever became of the Lexmark case?

[dpilot]

A quick search on google showed nothing newer than late Feb 2003, when Lexmark won the first round. Knowing nothing more, I'd guess that the Lexmark decision has not been reversed, and StorageTek is merely the second to hop on the bandwagon.

If you can't compete, legislate your competition away.

Here comes that TCO stuff again...

[AetherBurner]

"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..."

not only that...

[bani]

...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.

No.

[bani]

No copyright protection mechanisms were circumvented.

They bruteforced a password.

This password was not protecting access to any copyrighted works. It was not circumventing copyright access mechanisms.

No trade secrets were revealed. The controls were only bypassed.

They created a forged ID file from scratch.

This ID file was not protecting access to any copyrighted works. It was not circumventing copyright protection mechanisms.

In neither case were they bypassing or circumventing copyright protection mechanisms.

storagetek will lose just like the automobile manufacturers lost.

Re:No.

[gcaseye6677]

Just like the SCO lawsuits, this one was not filed for the purpose of winning in court, but to intimidate and spread FUD. Once PHBs hear that it is "illegal" for them to service equipment in any way without a vendor contract, they will make sure to keep all of their maintenance contracts current.

Free Software, the sensible alternative.

[inc_x]

This problem wouldn't have happened if the company had used Free Software instead of locking itself into the whims of a proprietary software vendor.

Is your company leaving its business critical data at the mercy of a single vendor? Maybe it's time to switch to a sensible alternative.

Re:Lose your data to DMCA ?

[pjt33]

Alas, Amazon doesn't list it, but if you can find a copy somewhere read Bureaucrats and how to annoy them by R.T. Fishall.

What this actually means!

[tchae]

StorageTek is stopping people using a maintenance facility that it considers intelectual property. It is NOT stopping people from maintaining its systems, merely using its maintenance routines. People who talk about maintenance monopolies and 'not opening the hood' really should actually read what this is about!

Re:Abuse the DMCA to destroy the system

[geminidomino]

Unless Joe Average has massive amounts of money to pay the lawyers to push that kind of offensive through, no he can't.

If he DOES have that kind of money, he's not Joe Average.

Yup, I have to agree...

[Gordonjcp]

OK, I've only worked on late-80s E30 BMWs, but they are really simple to work on. Plain ordinary Bosch Motronic injection, the details of which are available anywhere. Bosch will even sell you manuals, but you'd be better picking them up off Ebay or from a garage that's closing down.

I've never needed any special tools, particularly. Especially not a funny key. Even the service light resetting tool can be "faked" with a simple piece of wire...

Magnusson-Moss act?

[shoppa]

Does the Magnusson-Moss act have any relevance here? (This is what lets you do your own oil changes instead of having to take the car to the dealer...) Or does the presence of a "license" contract signed by the customer somehow void these guarantees? Or (GASP!) does the DMCA somehow override the Magnusson-Moss act?

Re:Magnusson-Moss act?

[zogger]

to me, just looking at it, it's when computerised controls, that have restricted software of some type, come into play that these apparently previously allowed actions by your or your repair person then magically become disallowed using the DMCA. I think the manufacturers will be following this one to see if they can go revist the older laws again. It's what we worried about and speculated about when it got passed, now you are starting to see them being applied in real world cases. And when you have software patenting, this is what will happen.

Take the oil change, or after market parts. Does your auto have a computer with copyrighted software on it that measures the oil and pressure and engine-on runtime and use? If so, it *might* apply,I am not saying it actually does, but it just might given the right case, whereas with an older car that has no such provisions, it clearly doesn't. Say your engine records hours running as applied to a complex algorithym that determines wehen the oil is really worn out, based on history of throttle settings and whatnot. they could say only their sensors and their certified mecahnics would be able to actually determine when is the right time to change, and it might even show up in a blackbox recordable history someplace inside the engine. I don't know, just speculating, but perhaps sometime down the road you have an engine failure that might be normally covered. whoops! They determined you went several hours too long before a dealer authoeirsed maintenance, or you drove too fast, etc, so you void your warranty because you "bypassed" their *allowed use*. It's creeping in near as I can see, as more and more things are computerised, with the additional copyrights and patents involved. And the default with lawyers and big corporations (and most governments) and copyrights and IP patents, etc, is, if in doubt, sue, and restrict.

Re:Magnusson-Moss act?

[KD5YPT]

They could have a sort of oil filter system that's computer controlled that you need to turn-off to change the oil... oops, you can't because it will violate the DMCA.

Re:Magnusson-Moss act?

[zogger]

That's the point, they could. We already saw the case where the guy lost in court using a lease car that recorded speed, etc. Heck, an insurance company could dissalow any warranty claim if the engine/car had been operated above the maximum posted speed limit anywhere the car might have been used inside the US for instance.

It's a slippery slope that has just had a nice coating of teflon applied to it.

I think we might even see it becoming almost impossible legally to work on your computer (or any computerised gadget) at all in the near future. The mobo will have propietary stuff, every device in it, etc,every chip on it, etc, etc and they could mandate by law those are the only ones that may be manufactured/sold/imported in.

Re:Abuse the DMCA to destroy the system

[Angostura]

It would be an interesting exercise to see whether the DMCA could be used against the very process of law making; that might make legislators sit up and take notice.

I'm blue sky handwaving here, but I wonder if a sufficiently evil legal genious could show that any attempt to amend a law was in some way inimicable to the DMCA.

Hmmmm. Probably not, but it's an intriguing thought.

This is the methgd..

[danheskett]

To get the DMCA changed or busted completely, this is the type of case that is critical.

Congress put a stop to this type of "false monopoly" on big ticket items a long time ago.. car manufacturer's tried to make it so that only "certified" techs (aka, dealerships) could work on their cars (and jack up the costs)...

Now, its' creeping back in. First, ink/toner cartridges. DMCA'd to the point where ONLY "dealer" brand is compatible. Second, "copyrighted bits" in communication protocols and whatnot. Big oh-oh. Now, copyrighted keys for "big rig" hardware.

Tough break for the guys in this case, but it is a true negative effect of the DMCA - a chilling of all kinds of previously legal activity.

Re:Uh, EMC does it and you don't hear about it....

[fuzzybunny]

I don't own any EMC kit either! *-8)

Seriously though; a purchasing department should (ideally, har har) consider TCO of a new piece of equipment. In a large corporation, it's a hefty factor in making a decision to go with vendor x or vendor y--"how well can this be fixed? How fast can they service this? How much will it cost me?"

Remember that for a lot of hardware, the initial acquisition cost is only a small portion of its overall lifetime cost.

Re:scared of the future [orwellian]

[BenBenBen]

Really, how does the government know what I read last week?? They can review my purchasing habits, and can request my library history, but they have no way of knowing what I bought with cash at the local thrift store/used dealer.

They can demand your library history, and jail the librarian if (s)he reports the demand. That this is acceptable to you says a lot. Seems to me that you have exposed a dangerous loophole though, so someone better email Ashcroft.

there are no cameras at any intersection where I live.

Doesn't really matter, as your cellphone (you carry one, right?) records will show your location for the past x months on demand.

And the only time you would want/need a permit to protest is if you intend to block traffic, and the permit provides the "protesters" police protection

Sure, and the safe area thoughtfully provided by the police tends to be out of sight of both the event they are protesting and the media attending it.

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.

Re:Lose your data to DMCA ?

[Wudbaer]

Hmm... preview ;) Here's what it was supposed to be:

I plead guilty to posting under influence of not enough sleep and too much coffee, you honour ;-)

So whatever you do, you always generate that overhead. Which would probably mean that it's considered normal and is already budgeted.

Yes and no. They certainly plan for some overhead. On the other hand they will only plan for a certain percentage of invalid transactions, if you manage to get over this rate considerably it should cause some trouble. Also there are much more people in countries like the US and Germany and I presume that maybe also the Finnish government is perhaps a little more automated than most German agencies currently are (extrapolating to my perception of Finland vs. Germany). However, the other poster is right that this only works if you manage to get a huge amount of people to contribute, else it will only be a minor annoyance. And it certainly has to go hand in hand with appropriate PR campaigns.

No 3rd party maintenance? No sale!

[Bad Boy Marty]

Very simple: I will not permit any vendor to lock me in to their products, so StorageTek will not be eligible to bid on any RFPs that I'm a party to. I vote with my wallet!

A few points from a StorageTek user

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a UK financial company - we have a large amount of StorageTek hardware. Our support is supplied via a reseller, who resell StorageTek's support packages.

There are a couple of points here that people don't seem to realise:

1) If you tamper with a StorageTek library you can enable unlicensed slots (cells) and enable it to store more tapes than you have paid for. StorageTek are very good in that they allow you to expand your library as you require, rather than making you get a new fully expanded one because you may need the storage space in the future.

2) StorageTek rely upon support contracts to make their libraries profitable. If they allow other companies to support their hardware they will have to charge more for the hardware in the first place.

3) These bits of kit are seriously advanced robotics, there are a lot of trade secrets etc that STK don't really want people to be examining.

Re:A few points from a StorageTek user

[RickHunter]

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.

Re:A few points from a StorageTek user

[wk633]

"2) StorageTek rely upon support contracts to make their libraries profitable. If they allow other companies to support their hardware they will have to charge more for the hardware in the first place."

The same argument can be made for printer cartridges. We know they make a proffit on the cartridges, not the printer. There is the potential for the same thing to happen to anything we replacement/consumable parts.

Blank media, fuel (not going to happen, but it could). Want a new roll of toilet paper for your fancy new automatic toilet paper dispenser? Sorry, that uses a proprietary intelligent roll mechanism. Our brand only.

Re:A few points from a StorageTek user

[onion2k]

So I should pay more than I need to for storage in order to keep StorageTek in business?

Err.. no.

Re:A few points from a StorageTek user

[Phil John]

1) If you tamper with a StorageTek library you can enable unlicensed slots (cells) and enable it to store more tapes than you have paid for. StorageTek are very good in that they allow you to expand your library as you require, rather than making you get a new fully expanded one because you may need the storage space in the future.

Then that is a fundamental flaw in the way these products are designed. Now, if the machine was delivered with only the slots ordered but room for more (which could be added as a bolt-on) and some kind of hardware dongle to stop the robot arm from accessing these unless they are licensed, problem solved.

2) StorageTek rely upon support contracts to make their libraries profitable. If they allow other companies to support their hardware they will have to charge more for the hardware in the first place.

Any business model that relies on monies brought in from a service contract is fatally flawed from the outset. Let's say for a minute that they build good machines that work 100% of the time, they make no money on support (people wouldn't buy /renew the contract). If they don't make money on their machines they are a loss-leader, which is not only dumb but also illegal in several western countries (IIRC Belgium for one, where I had the pleasure of seeing one of these machines up close at a summer job I had whilst at university).

3) These bits of kit are seriously advanced robotics, there are a lot of trade secrets etc that STK don't really want people to be examining.

So do many production cars, but they don't stop you opening the bonnet and tinkering with them, do they? If you ship a product out, that someone has purchased (not licensed) then you should have no right to stop people opening it up and having a look inside.

some "ram"ifications

[zogger]

....potentially anyway, these are just off the cuff and off the top.

MS (had to do it) makes it illegal for anyone without at least a MS cert of some kind to "fix" their software, for instance. Apply that-along with this ruling- to any other propietary closed source licensed software or software/hardware combination out there, which this storage tek deal is. That could mean any official vendors computer or computerish gadget in general terms. Not make it just a hassle, or "void your warranty", just make the attempt to do so *illegal*. How many whitebox shops could get sued now by the big vendors if they chose to do so?

Automotive manufactuerers finally can make it really legal to make it illegal for third party garages to "fix" your car. note:there's a story running on Drudge now over police trials of the new "car zapper" which will let them send a blast of EM aimed at your car to halt it, by screwing up the electronics. The companies (and government) might make hardening attempts against that illegal -means you can't "fix" your car and a mechanic can't/won't take a chance on it- either

Apply the idea to other sorts of appliances and gadgets, most of them are computer controlled now, and they can make them blackbox-you can't open them up at all without violating circumvention and permission. Washers/dryers/stoves, small engines, televisions, all that stuff. The basic main idea of the ruling (it's just an injunction at this point of course) is they-they being any random company with a software/hardware combined product- can state the terms in whatever detail they want, and even if you own the product you have to still follow the terms. It's like applying a copyright license that overrules any normal fair use provisions of normal hardware ownership, if it's a combination product.

I know this is in conflict with other laws, but lately, where are the "wins"? I don't see too many. It seems like it's lose access and rights 99 to 1 lately.

precedent

[SQLz]

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.

Re:scared of the future [orwellian]

[BenBenBen]

But losing some of them is acceptable to you? [insert that quote about prepared-to-sacrifice-deserves-neither-etc here]

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?

Exactly

[Takuryu]

A good number of years ago there was a law in Japan that said that you "couldn't be held responsible for anything said/done while intoxicated." This was used as a "get out of jail free" card, so to speak, for some time. Numerous attempts to get the law changed fell on deaf ears... that is until a judge enforced the law to the letter and acquitted a person who was driving drunk hit and killed a child. There was a public outroar and the law stricken from the books.

Sometimes the best way to change a law is to insist on it being enforced.

Re:Exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

Ulysses S. Grant: "The best way to get rid of a bad law is to enforce it."

Re:Exactly

[betelgeuse-4]

Something is wrong if the death of a child is required to get a stupid law changed/removed.

Re:Exactly

[iphayd]

The problem with this is that the general American public will never hear of the evils of the DMCA, as the media (whether it be liberal or "fair and balanced" conservative) has an interest stake in not providing the truth. Furthermore, most people do not understand, nor care to learn about, how the DMCA strips individuals of their rights.

At my county political convention, I attempted to insert a plank into the platform denouncing the DMCA (and the Mickey Mouse copyright laws). It got struck down because people do not understand what copyright is about, and how indefinite copyrights are bad for us.

Re:Exactly

[PlusFiveTroll]

You are correct, its called Apathy. It is one of the most common human traits.

Re:Exactly

[innerweb]

The general American public does not need to know. They would never do anything anyway. The people who run businesses need to know just what their greed opens themselves up to. They are the ones who will run and moan and cry not fair. They will put money into the hands of legislatures to make a change. They are the ones who need to know.

InnerWeb

Re:Kapitalism

[tom's a-cold]

Isn't the American ideal capitalism? Free competition?

Precisely. It's competition by corporations to buy legislation to eliminate competition in the buyer's marketplace. That's one of the biggest problems with American capitalism: firms compete not only to produce the best products and services, but to shape the playing field to their advantage. As a consequence, we see such grotesqueries as the DMCA or the insanity that is US patent law.

Business trade off

[nuggz]

1) a License violation is still a license violation. The DMCA isn't required to

2) Loss leaders aren't the only business model.

3) Trade secrets, keep them secret then, where is the NDA?

Location location location

[okie_rhce]

Seems all of you saw "DMCA" and decided to rant rather than reading the decision. The issue here is location of the maint. code. If the code was not in the library but rather a STK tech's notebook would you even be having this conversation? This is no different than downloading XP from the net and using a forged product key to use the software. The decision does not bar them from servicing STK products but from using tools that STK developed for their own techs. The only party licensed to use the maint. code was STK, not the owner of the library, not anyone else.

Yeah, the DMCA sucks in many ways but STK is not using the it immorally.

Strange reaction with Storagetek vs Cisco et al

[sethstorm]

Well, it seems that a good deal of people dont mind getting their fix if it's cisco and others similar, but if it's anyone else like Storagetek it seems to be fair game for applying the flame. It's gotten to the point where companies are starting to tout the lack of the "drug dealer" businesss model, even if it's just Adtran. The only thing is that Adtran and the like need to be able to beat cisco at its own game, to look like a real contender in networking equipment so that the drug dealers are forced to scale back or drop their efforts.

How strong does the security have to be?

[Fortran IV]

IANAL, but after reading the injunction itself, all I can think is, "Holy cow! I may have broken the DMCA myself!"

We have a large piece of CNC (computer numerical control) manufacturing equipment. The machine is purchased, not leased. The software controlling it is proprietary, but runs on a Windows NT console. The manufacturer's idea of securing their IP is to give access to the controlling software only through the Administrator logon. The OEM keeps the Administrator password.

We use the machine through an operator logon that can only execute the software, and has no access to Win NT utilities or controls. As the OEM would have it, we have no Administrator access to the OS.

We wanted to network the system, so we wheedled a field technician into giving us the Administrator password. Now it sounds as if we are violating DMCA if we log on to the console as Administrator!

To complicate matters further, I don't know whether our purchase contract says anything about whether we or the OEM hold the license to Win NT. Normally, I would expect the owner of the hardware to also own the OS license, and we've behaved as such; we've even changed the admin password. But from what I've read today, then doesn't the DMCA allow the OEM to prohibit us from having Administrator access to our own licensed OS?

This is all just entirely too weird for me.

How I feel this should be challenged, but IANAL

[einhverfr]

IANAL, but I think that at least this clause of the DMCA could be challenged effectively in court. Here is my reasoning:

Eldred vs. Ashcroft dealt with the fundamental question of whether retroactive copyright extension violated the "limited times" clause in the constitution. The majority opinion stated that they did not feel that perpetual copyright was the intention of Congress, and that they saw no reason to consider this 20 year extension unconstitional. There did not seem to be any disagreement with the general idea that perpetual copyrights are unconstitutional.

The DMCA effectively mandates a perpetual copyright for all digital media with access control technologies. It does this by banning circumvention technologies. These access control technologies can then be used to further enforce EULA-like restrictions on the works even after they lapse into the public domain.

Imagine, if you will, a world where Shakespear's plays were all originally published in e-book format. Now, 350 years later, we would STILL be paying royalties to the publishing houses in order to perform the plays. And an essential aspect of our culture would be greatly diminished. Limited copyright terms exist for a reason. The DMCA made an attempted run around this concept, and so the offending portion of the law needs to be removed.

Re:How I feel this should be challenged, but IANAL

[mark-t]

Actually, that's not the DMCA's fault, That's that stupid Sonny Bono Copyright extension crap.

The DMCA is bad too, but it doesn't affect the duration of the copyright. Once a copyrighted work expires (which is never, thanks to that friggen copyrigbt extension act), you could break the encryption on that work without violating the DMCA.

Re:Incorrect

[julesh]

The Maintenance Code is copyrighted material and protected intellectual property of StorageTek.

Yeah, OK.

The use of the event messages generated by the maintenance code by the 3rd party maintenance vendor is thus copyright infringement.

Do you have a reference to statute or a precedent that backs that statement up?

It isn't usually the case that data generated by a copyrighted program is automatically assumed to be held under the copyright of the owners of the program. For instance, Microsoft doesn't hold copyright to IP packets that are transmitted by windows machines, even though it is their code that assembles those packets.

Furthermore I believe that, in general, copyright cannot be applied to the result of an automated process. From www.copyright.gov:

Copyright protects "original works of authorship"

There is no authorship here. The article continues:

Copyrightable works include the following categories:

1. literary works;
2. musical works, including any accompanying words
3. dramatic works, including any accompanying music
4. pantomimes and choreographic works
5. pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works
6. motion pictures and other audiovisual works
7. sound recordings
8. architectural works

These categories should be viewed broadly. For example, computer programs and most "compilations" may be registered as "literary works"; maps and architectural plans may be registered as "pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works."


I don't believe the "event messages" involved fall into any of these categories, however broadly you interpret them.

Re:What am I missing here?

[kmankmankman2001]

Please re-read the article. The judge specifically addresses that section and specifically indicates why, in his judgement, the defendants are in the wrong.

Simple Solution

[tbond_trader]

1) Check to make sure you are allowed 3party services and products 2) If not, Don't buy their products

I've heard this before

[Nf1nk]

The problem with this logic of turning all men into criminals is that once one becomes a criminal, one tends to act like one. When to get the bread you need you must break a law that puts you in the same catigory as the thief, why not steal the bread. When Stealing bread has a penalty like killing someone why not kill when you steal as dead men tell no tales. and when men become lawless the govement can no longer rule them.

Re:Uh, EMC does it and you don't hear about it....

[ckaminski]

Um, have you SEEN a Symmetrix? Are you sure you want just ANYONE touching that mass of drives, controllers and aluminum nastiness? Only with a sledgehammer, man...

Simple solution..

[gillbates]

Client: I'm having trouble with my Storage-Tek....
Vendor: Okay, bring it in...
A few hours pass.
Vendor: Um, we've got kind of a problem here...
Client: What is it?
Vendor: Well, it turns out that the DMCA prohibits us from accessing or repairing your hardware.
Client: So, what exactly does that mean?
Vendor: Well, per contract, you agreed that submitting a DMCA-protected device for service would render the full value of the contract due immediately. This is a DMCA-protected device, so your full 5-year service contract will be due before we return the device.
Client: Okay, but is it usuable? I mean, can we get our data back.
Vendor: Unfortunately, no. It would be illegal.
Client: So you're screwing us, right?
Vendor: No, you screwed us. You bought hardware that was illegal for us to service. We can't do anything for you without breaking the law.
Client: What do you mean, illegal?! It's our data.
Vendor: Um, yes, it is your data. But you don't own the software which controls access to it - Storage-Tek does. And since this software is restricted by the DMCA, you can't legally access your data without Storage-Tek's permission. Your only option at this point is to return the device to them.
Client: So let me get this straight: You're going to charge us a full five year contract, and you don't even fix the machine?! How can you keep clients like this?
Vendor: Truth is, we can't. That's why you agreed in the contract not to send us DMCA-restricted devices. Since we cannot legally service DMCA restricted hardware, we can't restore your data. And this is why you agreed in the contract to pay off the full value of the contract if you did so - as compensation for the fact that we can no longer do business with you.
Client: So what happens if Storage-Tek goes out of business? What would you do then?
Vendor: It's not what we would do, it is what you would do. You'd probably go out of business because no one would legally be able to service your Storage-Tek machines. The next time they failed, you would irretrievably lose all of your data.
Client: So, how could we avoid this in the future?
Vendor: Simple - buy a machine that isn't DMCA-restricted.
Client: But we obviously didn't know this when we bought these machines...
Vendor: Well, it's not my problem you want to break the law....