[Gllug] UK DMCA

[Mike Brodbelt]

On Sun, 2003-10-12 at 20:43, Jason Clifford wrote:
> On Sun, 12 Oct 2003, Andrew Richardson wrote:
> 
> > For those who haven't seen this yet check out
> > 
> > http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/33322.html
> > 
> > If the company takes this one to court it will hopefully demonstrate 
> > just how much excess legal power can be used by companies attempting to 
> > cover for their mistakes in this area.
> 
> The company involved has, apparently, already backed down and stated that 
> it wants no part in creating such a "chilling effect" as persuing the case 
> would have.
> 
> I suspect it was just a matter of the relevant people finding out what the 
> impact of the case would be in terms of wide publicity for the flaws in 
> their product. Even so it looks like this one is going away.

While I'm sure the researcher concerned is grateful, in some ways this
is a shame. A truly ridiculous court case like this could have proved
sufficient embarassment that lawmakers might have started to question
whether the DMCA was entirely a good thing.

However, the DMCA is already clocking up quite a list of "chilling
effects", and has been used far beyond it's original remit (Lexmark
cryptographically signed ink cartridges, for example). It's going to
take years to get rid of it, but the list of stupid and malicious uses
of this law is just going to get longer and longer in the meantime.

Mike.


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