Further signs of the end times

Cubs and Red Sox both in playoffs, genuine penant contenders. That was the first sign that the world is obviously not long for itself. As it were.

Second sign: grad student sued for holding down ‘shift’ key:

SunnComm believes that Halderman has violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by disclosing unpublished MediaMax management files placed on a user’s computer after user approval is granted. Once the file is found and deleted according to the instructions given in the Princeton grad student’s report, the MediaMax copy management system can be bypassed resulting in the copyright protected music being converted or misappropriated for potentially unauthorized and/or illegal use. SunnComm intends to refer this possible felony to authorities having jurisdiction over these matters because: 1. The author admits that he disabled the driver in order to make an unprotected copy of the disc’s contents, and 2. SunnComm believes that the author’s report was “disseminated in a manner which facilitates infringement” in violation of the DMCA or other applicable law.

(Link via Slashdot.)

SunComm somehow fails to mention in their press release that you can accomplish the same “circumvention” by a) holding down ‘shift’ as you put in the cd; b) using Microsoft’s own tweakui to turn off autorun; or c) getting yourself a real computer or at least a real OS.

This suit is garbage, and a perfect demonstration of the chilling effect that the DMCA has on all kinds of computer science research. Not to mention on me and my blog, should SunComm’s lawyers ever read this post. Yes, that’s right—this post, because it mentions the shift key “circumvention,” is potentially in violation of US the civil code. Thank heavens I don’t have one of those paypal donation buttons, or I could be looking at 5 years in the slammer.

UPDATE: The Daily Princetonian (Halderman is a Princeton grad student) reports that SunComm has dropped plans to sue. SunComm CEO Peter Jacobs had this to say:

I don’t want to be the guy that creates any kind of chilling effect on research.

Which is an admirable sentiment, and one that I wish people like Jack Valenti, John Conyers, Howard Berman, and the rest of the luddite crowd would adopt.

Filed under: technology