DMCA Means You Can't Delete Files On Your PC?

DragonHawk writes "According to Wired, John Stottlemire found a way to print duplicate coupons from Coupons.com by deleting some files and registry entires on his PC. Now he's being sued for a DMCA violation. He says, 'All I did was erase files or registry keys.' Says a lawyer: '[The DMCA] may cover this. I think it does give companies a lot of leverage and a lot of power.' So now the copyright cartels are saying that not only can we not copy things on our computers, but we can't delete things on our computers? Time to buy stock in Seagate."

Comments

Wow

[devilradish]

yet another abuse of the DMCA and its way too much power to copyright holders that the general public won't notice or care about. It's enough to make me want to stop being an obssessive nerd.

Re:Wow

[Cassius Corodes]

Don't say crazy things like that!

Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him?

[Jafafa Hots]

Isn't there some fraud possibility? If the coupons have a limit (2 per person) that you agree to by checking a box or whatever?

Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him?

[whoever57]

Isn't there some fraud possibility? If the coupons have a limit (2 per person) that you agree to by checking a box or whatever?

If there is, I can't find it on their site. It looks like they try to use technical measures only. In any case, how is this a DMCA violation? At best it is a contract or license violation.

Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him?

[sumdumass]

It appears that you have to install software that only allows you to print so many coupons. This guy developed software that erases the tracking thing that limits you and allows you to take more then they gave you.

I would say yes there is fraud going on here. When using this program you are intentionally misrepresenting yourself to the suppliers of the coupons after already agreeing to their terms for receiving them. The DMCA part comes in because he wrote a program that allows you to defraud the providers by bypassing their technology that allows them to control access to the coupons. Not because deleting things are illegal. You could delete the stuff and not use the program to get coupons again and never run into this DMCA problem.

Note, this isn't an endorsement of the DMCA. It just isn't the problem in how the story represents it.

Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him?

[drmerope]

Sorry, but an anti-circumvention argument is a stretch.

No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. The prohibition contained in the preceding sentence shall take effect at the end of the 2-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this chapter. -- USC Title 17, Section 1201(a)(1)(A)

Now, is a technological measure that can be defeated by merely deleting files or removing registry keys "effective"?

I think not. The real gem is why companies would prefer to use the DMCA: fraud is a civil matter requiring them to pursue the case on their own dime. Conversely, the DMCA allows for criminal prosecution. Whether or not the government is likely to play ball, the threat of such action improves the likelihood of "fear-for-your-life" settlement from the defendant.

Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him?

[fractoid]

You mean that copy protection crackable by magic markers is 'effective'? I think they mean 'effectively' in the sense of 'in effect', not 'with good performance'.

Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him?

[arth1]

It doesn't have to be there. It's not a contractual obligation you agree to -- it's copyrights, which are legal whether you agree to them or not. If I say you can make a maximum of N copies of something I've written, that's my prerogative as copyright holder.
There's diddley squat you can do about it -- if you make more copies, and it's not for fair use, library preservation or any other purpose specifically exempted by law, you can not legally make more copies than what I permit. Your agreement is not required.

Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him?

[arth1]

The law was phrased badly. "Effectively" here means "in effect", not "to the fullest effect".
If a plastic ribbon saying "STOP - POLICE LINE - DO NOT ENTER" in effect causes people to turn away, it's "effectively" stopping people, even if it's not "effective" in the sense of actually stopping someone.

Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him?

[einhverfr]

System Restore: Now a Circumvention Measure under the DMCA...

Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him?

[1u3hr]

If I say you can make a maximum of N copies of something I've written, that's my prerogative as copyright holder.

Copyright is designed to protect artistic and scholarly works. Not coupons. A few generic phrases used in millions of similar forms would not be protected by copyright. Possibly if there was some elaborate artwork included in the background that might be copyright. But damages would be difficult to assess, if any.

I think it's an abuse of process. If he's guilty of anything, it's fraud, and they should try to make that stick instead of using a law that was never designed to apply in this situation.

Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him?

[kripkenstein]

According to the DMCA,

No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

The coupon is the copyrighted work; the software that only allows it to be printed once is the technological measure; the circumvention is tricking the software so that it prints multiple copies. Perhaps we should trust the lawyers quoted in TFA, it seems like this might indeed be a DMCA violation.

God, what an awful law.

Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him?

[Alsee]

I believe the US running definition of an "effective" technical protection method... and a definition I believe US "Free Trade" efforts have been forcing other countries into literal the text of their DMCA-style laws, is pretty well circular. That an "effective" technical protection method is one that has the intended effective in the normal course of operation... essentially one that does something unless it is circumvented by any means. So you can circumvent something that doesn't need to be circumvented, but you cannot do anything (like deleting some file) to circumvent anything something if need to, because the fact that you need to do it by definition makes it an "effective" system.

As a reducio-ad-absurdum example, one could almost argue that shipping a product with the power switch in the off position is an "effective technical protection method". Having the power switch in the off is indeed "effective" in prevent the copying of something, and you do indeed need to "apply some process or method" (i.e. switching the device on) to circumvent the technical protection method and copy something.

I for one am thrilled to see this particular case go forward. Thus far in the US no court has ever actually faced and upheld the DMCA in any criminal circumventuion case. I am thrilled to see a court have to actually directly fact just how insane the DMCA is, either to shoot down the DMCA entirely or to make some ruling inventing some "reasonable" retraction or limitation in the scope of the DMCA (and the DMCA is insanely broad exactly because virtually any limitation at all in the DMCA punches a hole so big you can drive a truck through it making the law worthless and meaningless), or to actually go ahead and get stuck making a blatantly insane ruling that this really is the insanity that the DMCA means... the sort of simple clear insane thing that you can say in under 30 seconds to a computer illiterate grandparent or a computer illiterate and brain-damaged legislator and have them understand and agree just how stupid and broken the DMCA is.

-

Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him?

[Gabrill]

Windows

Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him?

[Jafafa Hots]

"Copyright is designed to protect artistic and scholarly works."

That was how copyright was intended. But copyright law as its currently written and enforced in the U.S. is diametrically opposed to the original intent of copyright. A half-second blip of sound is considered protected under the current copyright climate and can't be sampled without permission. You can't sample a single recorded note played on a piano without permission. Given those standards, I doubt a court would look upon claims of creativity in the layout of a coupon unfavorably.

Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him?

[mhall119]

The DMCA isn't about copyright, it's about circumventing copyright protection mechanisms. It is entirely possible to be guilty of violating the DMCA, but not guilty of copyright violation. Consider this:

1.) It is legal to make a personal backup copy of a DVD that you own.

2.) It is illegal to bypass copy protection on a DVD that you own for the purposes of #1.

It's basically a law that makes you guilty of "breaking and entering" into your own home. It's worse than redundant.

Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him?

[mhall119]

I think the complaint is that the act of deleting files on your own computer should not be considered an act of circumvention. It borders on making it illegal to uninstall software. I can see the next round of spyware/adware claiming that anti-malware software violates the DMCA.

Now, this idiot went and posted a program to do all this on the internet, and so he'll probably get nailed with distributing a circumvention mechanism, which is completely different than you personally deleting files, so the article is still pure troll.

Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him?

[SatanicPuppy]

Untrue. It would only be illegal if you were deleting them for the purposes of circumventing copy protection, which would not be the case if you were simply removing the software from your hard drive.

It's an anti-circumvention clause...If there is no circumvention, then you haven't done any thing to violate it.

Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him?

[DavidTC]

I suspect this is exactly the sort of thing the DMCA was meant to apply to. Let's check the list:

1) Is there a large organization?
2) Is there a customer of that organization?
3) Did the entity in 2) do something the entity in 1) didn't like?

Check, check, and check. DMCA violation.

Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him?

[Duncan Blackthorne]

Ah, but their ultimate goal, my friend, is that none of us be allowed to own computers at all anymore, isn't it? We'd just be allowed to rent them, like they're (attempting to be) doing with software now, right? Because after all nobody can really be trusted with something as powerful and versatile as a computer.. or free speech.. or creativity..

.. and everyone who buys pseudoephedrine-containing products is just dying to build a meth lab in their garage, too. :p

Lousy excuse

[wannabgeek]

DMCA should not cover someone deleting their files or registry keys. But his excuse that "All I did was erase files or registry keys." sounds like a false pretense. He did it for the purpose of printing duplicate coupons, and that is fraud.

Re:Lousy excuse

[NormalVisual]

Then he should be charged with fraud, not copyright infringement through some twisted interpretation of an already twisted law.

Intentionally misleading

[Enderandrew]

It isn't against the DCMA simply to delete something. Had he only deleted registry entries, no one would know or care.

However, this was merely one step in copying coupons and intentionally violating the terms of the site. I'm not sure the DCMA applies to coupons, and the DCMA can be over-reaching, but I don't really have much sympathy for this guy. If you're trying to make a case against the DCMA, this seems like a poor example to choose. Surely there are better ones?

Re:Intentionally misleading

[wvmarle]

The major difference is in the serial numbers. The method you describe equals photocopying, this was in TFA also mentioned as being an issue for coupons.com's business.

However with the software trick, the user would be able to download completely new coupons with new, unique serial numbers - and this would supposedly be untraceable. He is really giving instructions to circumvent a copy protection mechanism, and it has been argued on /. before (sorry too lazy to dig for links) that a trick as simple as ROT13 would be protected under the DMCA as copy protection mechanism. I also doubt the law will specifically talk about "encryption" as only copy protection mechanism, that's just not how laws are written.

And by the way, instead of saving as pdf (or print-to-file), one could of course also just print 10 copies in one go. Now it's really been years since I've been working with Windows, but I do recall that used to be possible, just like in Linux/Gnome and OS-X.

Re:Intentionally misleading

[Enderandrew]

That is the thing with EULA's. With a law, we assume it needs to be fair and consistent. Rules should be the same for software across the board, right, or it should make sense in some way. However, a software company can basically put whatever terms they want into a EULA and get away with it, because 99% of people never even read them.

If I were a programmer, I'd hide crazy stuff in the EULA just to see if people catch it.

"On the third Thursday of August, if you happen to be sleeping with your significant other, you must satisfy them no less than 2 times, and no more than 4 times, each time making them call out my name. If you are not engaging in such activities on that date, you may substitute a fan-fiction of no less than 1,500 words which must be posted to 3 separate social networking sites and USENET."

"Technical assistance will only be provided after we finger each other online.

Re:Intentionally misleading

[arth1]

Cutting parts of a contract out is not the same as deleting the registry key of a program... Sorry... it's MY PC... I will delete whatever the hell I want out of it... and it's not a violation of the DMCA. If it is, you'd best not use that uninstall program like Cleansweep or the Microsoft developed "reg-clean" because it might delete something you aren't allowed to.

It appears that you missed the whole part about intent.

Yes, you can delete whatever you like on your computer, but if you delete it with the intent of and for the purpose of breaking the law, you break the law. You can delete the same parts for other intents and purposes, but once it's in order to break the law, you can't use your ownership as a successful defense. I have a feeling that metaphors and similes from the tangible world are lost on you, but I'll try again with another example: You're allowed to throw away (delete) the battery from your smoke detector and empty the fire extinguisher, but if the reason you did so was to burn down the house and cash out on the insurance, that action in itself becomes illegal (even if you never got around to burning down the house). Or how about another computer example: If you delete all your tax files from your computer because you suspect you'll get audited, you're also breaking the law.
If the intent is malicious, the action is malicious, no matter whether the same action can also be done legally.

In this case, the intent was crystal clear. The user deleted the very specific parts that would prevent the user from printing out more copies than the copyright holder allowed, and nothing else. Please explain how this could possibly not be with bad intent.

The DMCA probably also comes into play because it would be hard to identify just which parts to delete without unauthorised reverse engineering.

Misleading subject, sensationalism.

[liftphreaker]

From TFA, the guy was busted for "posting code and instructions that allow shoppers to circumvent copy protection on downloadable, printable coupons". Not exactly busted for simply "deleting some files" eh?

Less random bashing please

[thouth]

If I remove DRM from a file on my computer such as a MP3 I'm also breaching the DMCA, this isn't very different. Can we have less knee jerk reactions from slashdot over anything that remotely looks like we can complain about the DMCA? Articles like this just make us look bad and uninformed.

Devil's Advocate

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I'm not a fan of the DMCA, but this seems like another case of computer geeks missing the forest for the trees. However you end up circumventing the DCMA, it's going to come down to a set of simple, technical, legal steps. Similarly, a gun is fired using a set of simple, technical, legal steps. Whether these steps constitute a legal or illegal actions depends on situation and intent. If I shoot somebody, frankly it doesn't matter how legal it is for me to retract my index finger half an inch. And, as the law is written, if you're circumventing the DCMA, it really doesn't matter how legal it is to delete a file on your computer.

Re:Devil's Advocate

[ShaunC]

Similarly, a gun is fired using a set of simple, technical, legal steps.

No. Gun laws, however restrictive they may be in the United States, are generally sane compared to the DMCA!

I can purchase a gun; say, a Glock 19. I can purchase ammunition to fire from that gun, say, Winchester 115 grain 9mm Luger JHPs. The thing is, I can also make my own ammunition for that gun. I can buy the raw materials and load my own cartridges and create my own ~115 grain 9mm JHP bullets. And if I happen to do that, Winchester (or Federal, or anyone else who sells 9mm JHP cartridges) can't do a damned thing about it. Because there's nothing special or innovative about putting X amount of Y ingredient into Z container, and the Courts have recognized this.

(Re)loading is a common activity here in the US-and-A, and although they do stand to lose some money, none of the well-known ammunition manufacturers would dare challenge the right of the individual gun owner to load his own. Most gun owners are going to buy new manufactured ammo. Those of us who dare load our own are of no consequence to the ammo pushers, just as those of us who block ads are of no consequence to the "Firefox lets people block my ads" camp.

The DMCA is an entirely different beast, especially in cases like this. Here, it's as if BATF is raiding your home and saying "sorry, you can't throw away those bullets you made, even though you crafted them legally... They might be defective!" I can't delete files from my own PC? The fuck I can't, go to hell. If your method of "protecting" your assets is to determine whether or not I have a cookie set in my browser, you need to update your business model past 1999.

Ladies and gentlemen, wake up. Have you read a news article today that referred to you as a "consumer," instead of as a "person," or an "individual," or a goddamn "human being?" Companies are continuing to attempt to limit your ability to use your own personal computer. No matter what you want to use it for. "Intellectual property" is a parasite that's going to fuck all of us but the patent trolls. And when that day comes, I hope most of us own guns and know how to load our own cartridges...

This brings up a good point

[Arceliar]

Where exactly does circumvention of copy protection begin and end? If a person had deleted the data but not printed more coupons, would it still be circumventing copy protection?

What if they had to format the filesystem?

Or for that matter, what if he had bought a new computer? Can we now not buy things because it circumvents copyright, albeit inefficiently and in an extremely costly manner?

And yes, I realize he actually got busted for posting instructions for circumvention, even providing software that does it, but they probably are charging him with the greatest charge they believe they can get a conviction for, or possibly planning to settle out of court, cause this does sound at least a little bit invasive even for the DMCA.

In fact, lets take this a step further and make it more like what the guy did. I know I'll probably get troll flagged for this, but this is a matter of morals now.

Anyone wanting free unlimited coupons from Coupons.Com can do so by buying a new computer for every set of coupons they create.

There, I just told you how to circumvent it. Thereby violating the DMCA, for all of slashdot (that reads this far down) to see. Don't like it? Then sue me.

DM-Copyright-A

[ben there...]

From TFA, the guy was busted for "posting code and instructions that allow shoppers to circumvent copy protection on downloadable, printable coupons". Not exactly busted for simply "deleting some files" eh? Ahh, the great art of coupon design. Next thing you know they'll all be sharing them and viewing them on their iPods.

wired, you're a whore

[blhack]

I work at wired and right now some of our editors are putting together a story about an Arizona State University student being sued by Random House for covering his OWN PAPER with ink! Appearantly these jerks now think that their copyrights should extend to the very paper in your printer.
"All i did was apply a little ink to some of my paper, is that a crime now too?" says some jackass. Clearly the book companies need a lesson on copyright violation. /just kidding //you insensative clod.

What if I just reinstall the OS from scratch?

[mark-t]

Is _THAT_ suddenly a DMCA violation as well?

Then wouldn't it also be illegal to sell any tool that enables one to do such? Like Windows itself?

this is not a dmca violation

[someone1234]

There was no key (no lock).
Mere files and registry entries don't represent an effective encryption algorithm.
So he didn't bypass any 'security measures'.

What else comes next?
They write passwords plaintext in dont_read_me.txt ???

Re:this is not a dmca violation

[dgatwood]

More than that, a coupon is not copyrightable. You can say that a duplicate copy of a coupon is not to be accepted by stores, and you can refuse to honor it if a store ignores that rule, but you can't prevent people from making a million copies, as it would not qualify as a creative work by any stretch of the imagination, IMHO. You can only really prevent people from using them by specifying an "originals only" policy on the face of the coupon.

In this case, the company can be accused of gross negligence, which pretty much gets this guy off the hook because of contributory negligence, I suspect. All the company needed to do was make their software send a unique identifier---maybe hash the computer's hard drive ID, the CPU ID, hard drive size, other things unlikely to change---to the server and keep track of it on the server side. That's very basic, trivial security to implement, and the fact that they did not do this means that not only could somebody fool it this way, but also could simply reinstall windows and get the same effect. Yeah, that's like killing a fly with a hand grenade or even a nuclear warhead, but the point is that they didn't really try at all to prevent you from getting more than one coupon.

At worst, this person is in breach of the user agreement of the software, and thus could probably get some civil liability, maybe criminal if they stole a huge amount of money with these coupons... but probably just a civil suit for the coupon value plus penalties for violating the user agreement... assuming the company even has a record of all of the violations. Otherwise, it's probably just whatever damages they can squeeze out of this person for violating the user agreement....

IANALBIPOOSD.

Re:this is not a dmca violation

[StrongAxe]

At worst, this person is in breach of the user agreement of the software, and thus could probably get some civil liability,

Yes. Since he would be in breach of the EULA, at least they could cancel his licence to use the software, which would require him to uninstall it (which would presumably delete any files and registry keys that the software used...)

Re:this is not a dmca violation

[Torvaun]

You could also take a VMWare snapshot before doing the coupon thing, then revert afterwards. This is exactly the kind of thing that is meant for, denying unwanted changes to a system.

Story distortion is getting old on Slashdot

[GoldTeamRules]

Submitters should more accurately reflect the content of their stories rather than creating a misleading teaser that doesn't represent the core issue being debated here.

Oh, Please

[DynaSoar]

"DMCA Means You Can't Delete Files On Your PC?"

I expect to see that kind of amateur, fact evading, OMYGOD hair-on-fire hysteria from WIRED. I don't just not expect to see it on /., I expect to NOT see it on /.

STOP IT. Use some sense and have a little editorial integrity, will you? If this is the result of lack of submissions, consider whether perhaps having fewer stories is not less damaging to your reputation than having this sort of asinine crap. I hope the reason this article was used was that you knew it'd result in a lot of sparks and smoke in the discussion, because the alternative is too depressing to contemplate. If it is, it's still not good enough.

We really, really need the ability to mod parent articles.

Re:The purpose is to create criminals

[TubeSteak]

This is like open container laws, speed limits, and marijuana bans - useful when the State needs to enforce _something_, and pretty much ubiquitous, so they're guaranteed to have it over pretty much everyone. You're really going to use open container laws and speed limits as examples of why "the State" is just trying to find things to enforce? I bet you really hate mandatory seat belt laws too.

Open container laws are a public safety matter. You don't want drivers to be drinking in the car and the same goes for their passengers.

Highway speed limits were originally set at 55 mph as a fuel conservation measure. Later they were raised to 65, but not higher because of public safety concerns.

Federal highway funds were linked with both of those issues to gaurantee that States would enact those two laws.

Neither of those examples really backs up the point you're trying to make (because they're arguably about public safety), nor do they have anything to do with the topic at hand... the DMCA.

Quoting from Ayn Rand doth not automatically make a post insightful. Especially when you follow it up with a poorly supported argument.

Re:The purpose is to create criminals

[Bert64]

Actually, if an adult in the back of the car doesnt wear his seatbelt, in a crash he could come smashing into the back of the front seat and smash his head against whoever was sat in the front seat...
If i'm sat in the front of a car, i damn well do want people behind me wearing their seatbelts to reduce the risk of them killing me. I dont really care if they choose to kill themselves.