SunnComm to drop lawsuit against student

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
> Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 08:48:02 -0400
> From: "Paczkowski, John" <JPaczkowski () knightridder com>
> Subject: SunnComm to drop lawsuit against student
> To: "'dave () farber net'" <dave () farber net>
>
> http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2003/10/10/news/8797.shtml
>
> Threat of lawsuit passes for student
> SunnComm backs down from lawsuit against a computer science grad student
>
> Josh Brodie
> Princetonian Staff Writer
>
>     SunnComm Technologies, Inc. announced yesterday morning it would sue
> first-year graduate student John Halderman over his recent critique of the
> company's new CD copy-protection method, but by the end of the day SunnComm
> president and CEO Peter Jacobs said he changed his mind.
>
>     Jacobs said in an interview late last night that a successful lawsuit
> would do little to reverse the damage done by the paper Halderman published
> Monday about his research, and any suit would likely hurt the research
> community by making computer scientists think twice about researching
> copy-protection technology.
>
>     "I don't want to be the guy that creates any kind of chilling effect on
> research," Jacobs said.
>
>     SunnComm plans to make that announcement this morning.
>
>     Halderman's paper hit SunnComm hard. Since Monday its stock value has
> dropped $10 million - one-third of the company's total worth.
>
>     "I just thought about it and decided it was more important not to be one
> of those people. The harm's been done . . . if I can't accomplish anything
> [with a lawsuit] I don't want to leave a wake," he said.
>
>     In the increasingly bitter wars between those advocating stronger
> anti-piracy protections and those who favor less stringent copyright
> enforcement, the decision against legal action represents one of a precious
> few instances of companies looking past their bottom line.
>
>     "I think it's a sensible decision given the situation, given that what
> [Halderman] was doing was perfectly legitimate," said computer science
> professor Edward Felten. "[Jacobs is] to be commended for not wanting to
> interfere with research."
>
>     Felten and some of his colleagues had been in a similar situation in
> 2001 when the Recording Industry Association of America - the same group
> that sued Dan Peng '05 last semester for running a campus file-sharing
> website - strongly urged the research group not to publish their work on
> another copy-protection technology.
>
>     The RIAA said publishing the work would violate the Digital Millennium
> Copyright Act.
>
>     SunnComm's press release threatened to use the same law against
> Halderman.
>
>     SunnComm had also initiatially decided to sue Halderman because the
> company thought he had unfairly critiqued their product after
> misunderstanding their intent in designing it. Throughout its development,
> the company's software, MediaMax, was designed to be a step toward curbing
> casual copying rather than a silver bullet, Jacobs said.
>
>     However, Halderman claimed the company's allegations of "incredible
> security" were overstated. As he pointed out, the system would not have
> worked on any computer where autorun - the feature in Microsoft Windows that
> automatically launches a program when a CD is inserted - was disabled.
>
>     When The Daily Princetonian informed Halderman that the suit was not
> going to proceed, he was relieved.
>
>     "I think that's a horrible precedent," he said. "A large amount of
> security research is critiques of existing security systems . . . The worst
> thing in the world is a false sense of security."
>
>     Last November Halderman said he was concerned about presenting his
> junior paper research to an audience of scientists for fear of being sued
> under the DMCA. He said at the time the existence of the DMCA forced him to
> carefully word his research so as to avoid a lawsuit.
>
>     Halderman plans to continue his research toward a doctorate and hopes to
> pursue a career in computer security afterwards.
>
>     Even before Halderman published his paper, SunnComm had planned to
> release a new version of its software that addresses many of the same
> concerns Halderman raised.
>
>     "I don't want to be the people my parents warned me to stay away from,"
> said Jacobs of his decision. "It's 10 million bucks, but maybe I can make it
> back, and maybe [Halderman] can learn a little bit more about our technology
> so as not to call it brain dead."

-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com
To manage your subscription, go to
 http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/