Universal Garage Door Opener OK under DMCA

Dave Walker writes "According to the EFF's Deep Links page, the Federal Circuit yesterday affirmed that the DMCA does not 'divest the public of the property rights that the Copyright Act has long granted to the public.' The ruling goes on to state 'Consumers who purchase a product containing a copy of embedded software have the inherent legal right to use that copy of the software. What the law authorizes, Chamberlain cannot revoke.' EFF's archives of the case can be found here. Another small victory for the good guys. I think I need a new garage door opener anyhow."

Comments

Re:Message to marketing folks and CEOs

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading through the courts document, it appears that Skylink does not circumvent anything. Chamberlain built a GDO (Garage Door Opener) system that also has a 'feature' to help prevent someone from 'stealing' the code to open the door. However, the system also has a 'feature' that allows the system to be reset. The Skylink transmitter (Model 39) takes avantage of the second of these 'features'. Using the Skylink transmitter with the Chamberlain GDO allows the door to be controlled, but you lose the first feature.

This is exactly the problem with this case. I have a friend who works peripherally on this, and he says that Skylink circumvents the "security" of these GDOs.

The point is that the GDO system changes the secret code every time it is used, thus securing the garage against people who would listen in on the codes. But what happens if the opener and door become out of sync? There is a safety measure that resets the system in such cases, and this knock-off always just resets the system. Thus, if you eavesdrop on the off-brand opener, you can steal the codes to open the door!

You're right in addressing this to marketing folks, but for the wrong reasons. The marketers (always demonized here) should convince the consumer that the knock-off does, in fact, eliminate the security. If you've paid extra for this fancy GDO system, then you shouldn't waste your money by opting for an opener that removes the security features.