DMCA comes down on tech service vendor

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Barry Ritholtz <ritholtz () optonline net>
Date: July 10, 2004 10:35:21 PM EDT
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: DMCA comes down on tech service vendor

Hi Dave,

I came across this today, and thought you might find it intriguing: It 
seems the DMCA is being used to thwart 3rd party competition in the 
computer services field.

Another bad application of a poor piece of draftsmanship. The law of 
unintended consequences rears its head . . . .

Barry L. Ritholtz
Market Strategist
Maxim Group
britholtz () maximgrp com
(212) 895-3614
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Big Picture:  A blog of capital markets, geopolitics, with a dash 
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DMCA hammer comes down on tech service vendor
http://lawgeek.typepad.com/lawgeek/2004/07/dmca_hammer_com.html

This just in: A district court in Boston has used the DMCA to grant a 
preliminary injunction 
(http://lawgeek.typepad.com/lawgeek/LegalDocs/storagetekdmca.pdf) 
against a third party service vendor who tried to fix StorageTek tape 
library backup systems for legitimate purchasers of the system.

How is this a DMCA violation?  Well, it turns out that StorageTek 
allegedly uses some kind of algorithmic "key" to control access to its 
"Maintenance Code", the module that allows the service tech to debug 
the storage system.  The court found that third party service techs who 
used the 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.

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.

The DMCA was meant to stop digital piracy, not inhibit legitimate 
competition in the computer services market.  How many more markets 
will we allow this law to kill before someone fixes it?

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.

July 09, 2004 in DMCA


 

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