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Posted on 05/12/2007 1:03:26 AM PDT by Swordmaker
A California company that makes technology designed to prevent ripping of digital audio streams has accused Apple, Microsoft, RealNetworks and Adobe Systems of violating federal copyright law by "actively avoiding" use of its products.
Media Rights Technologies and its digital radio subsidiary BlueBeat.com said in a press release Thursday that it had issued cease and desist letters to the high-tech titans. It argues that the companies have manufactured billions of copies of Windows Vista, Adobe Flash Player, Real Player and Apple's iTunes and iPod "without regard for the DMCA or the rights of American intellectual property owners."
DMCA refers to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a controversial 1998 law that generally makes it illegal to circumvent technological protection measures that control access to copyrighted works. The law says circumvent means "to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner."
MRT, based in Santa Cruz, Calif., argues that its X1 SeCure Recording Control technology has been "proven effective" as such a protective measure by plugging the "digital hole" that allows even copy-protected music streams, when played back, to be captured and potentially copied. The company says that because the companies are avoiding use of its purportedly effective product, they are violating the DMCA.
"We've given these four companies 10 days to talk to us and work out a solution, or we will go into federal court and file action and seek an injunction to remove the infringing products from the marketplace," CEO Hank Risan said in a phone interview Friday. According to the MRT, the companies in question are responsible for 98 percent of the market's media players, which are in turn used by CNN, National Public Radio, Clear Channel, MySpace, Yahoo, YouTube and others.
RealNetworks spokesman Matt Graves said he hadn't yet seen the letter, but it appeared to be a ploy by a "desperate company" to get its product licensed. "That's a rather novel approach to business development," he said in an e-mail interview Friday.
A Microsoft representative said Friday that the company had not yet seen the letter and could not comment. Representatives from Apple and Adobe did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A cease and desist letter is just a preliminary step that could precede a formal lawsuit. Recipients aren't legally required to respond to them. They can also choose to petition a judge for a declaratory judgment, which effectively says the companies are not violating the claims made by the letter.
Some lawyers said they believed MRT had offered a creative, at best, interpretation of the law that would likely not stand up in court.
"It looks to me like a play for publicity," Jessica Litman, a University of Michigan Law School professor who specializes in digital copyright issues, said in an e-mail interview. "I'm no fan of the DMCA, but it doesn't impose liability simply because some product could be redesigned to implement a technological protection scheme but its makers decline to do so."
She also said the targeted companies would likely not be liable because a section of the DMCA says that consumer electronics, telecommunications or computing products are not required to be designed so as to "provide for a response to any particular technological measure."
Randy Lipsitz, a partner in the intellectual property and technology group at Kramer Levin in New York, said the most reasonable way to interpret the word "avoid" in the DMCA is that it would cover "a technical, logical measure that's present in the work," as opposed to forcing companies to buy a third-party product.
"This one's out there," he said of the arguments in a telephone interview. "I don't know how far it's going to go."
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To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
Sorry, don't see how the DCMA works with that. Yet another undiscovered clause of the constitution that makes it a federal issue to protect rap songs for a period of the author's life plus seventy years - Just impossibly long to begin with, and it's hard to argue that music is 'useful arts'.
I gonna sue you for not buying my product!
What a concept!
The burn rate finally caught up with the founders, the good times and heady days are long gone, in a fit of desperation and booze, they decide to pursue the “SCO option”.
"MRT, based in Santa Cruz, Calif., argues that its X1 SeCure Recording Control technology has been "proven effective" as such a protective measure by plugging the "digital hole" that allows even copy-protected music streams, when played back, to be captured and potentially copied. The company says that because the companies are avoiding use of its purportedly effective product, they are violating the DMCA."We've given these four companies 10 days to talk to us and work out a solution, or we will go into federal court and file action and seek an injunction to remove the infringing products from the marketplace," CEO Hank Risan said in a phone interview Friday."
This is a novel approach... you aren't using OUR product so there for you are infringing... and we'll sue.
"Cease and desist not using our products."
???
Color me confused.
Color you with an excellent grasp of what this idiot is saying...
WTF ping
True but the really unfortunate part of this is that it will probably be tried before an idiot judge. A judge who thinks that his appointment makes him smart. The "idiot" you refer to taking a chance that he will get a favorable ruling or collect money in a settlement.
A California company that makes technology designed to prevent ripping of digital audio streams has accused Apple, Microsoft, RealNetworks and Adobe Systems of violating federal copyright law by "actively avoiding" use of its products.Hey, all you big corporations, I've got an even better method, abstinence. Pay up!
Vista, OSX, DVD players etc. do make it possible to bypass the technological measures. This company probably has a Patented and Copyrighted scheme to prevent the bypassing. I don't see how a judge could rule against the suit.
The law is clear, it is just bad law.
WHAT???!!!
This has to be one of the most idiotic patent cases I have EVER heard of. Suing someone for NOT using your technology? Any judge who would rule in favor of the plaintiff should be thrown off the bench and locked in the loony bin...
For that matter, any and all legal expenses incurred should be paid by the plaintiff for a frivolous lawsuit.
I see someone else is trying the SCO business model, LOL.
Are you a copyright attorney? What scrambled or encrypted work are these defendants accused of bypassing/circumventing? Further, if there is some sort of unscrambling/encrypting that is being bypassed - is the plaintiff the copyright owner of the scrambling/encryption scheme to begin with?
And even at that, I believe the plaintiff would have to be able to prove that these defendants actually reverse-engineered the plaintiff’s technology - which is not what it sounds as if they are accusing the defendants of...
I know it is incredibly stupid, but it is a very poorly written law. It is the Attorneys job to take advantage of poorly written law.
Well Steve Jobs did say three times in an interview how to buy DRMed files from iTunes and turn them into normal mp3s on your computer. That might be considered circumventing.
But it is a "writing" (or at least the publishing of it is) and is entitled to protection under copyright law. I do agree about the excessive length of most copyrights, especially Congress's penchant for retroactively extending copyright lengths.
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