For those of you outside the US, or for anyone that's unfamiliar with the case, the US printer manufacturer Lexmark incorporated technology in it's printers that would refuse to work with "unauthorized" (read: non-Lexmark) print cartridges. Rationale: the printers themselves are usually money losers -- they make their profits by selling cartridges. A third-party company (SCC) reverse-engineered the Lexmark cartridges, and added a chip of their own that fooled the printer.
Lexmark sued SCC under the DCMA, and was granted an injunction, but this was later reversed. Lexmark appealed, but the appeal failed.
Here are some excerpts from the article (the emphasis is mine):
The court even quoted Lawerence Lessig, which IMO is pretty cool.Generally speaking, "lock-out" codes fall on the functional-idea rather than the original-expression side of the copyright line. Manufacturers of interoperable devices such as computers and software, game consoles and video games, printers and toner cartridges, or automobiles and replacement parts may employ a security system to bar the use of unauthorized components. To "unlock" and permit operation of the primary device (i.e., the computer, the game console, the printer, the car), the component must contain either a certain code sequence or be able to respond appropriately to an authentication process. To the extent compatibility requires that a particular code sequence be included in the component device to permit its use, the merger and sc?s ?aire doctrines generally preclude the code sequence from obtaining copyright.
We should make clear that in the future companies like Lexmark cannot use the DMCA in conjunction with copyright law to create monopolies of manufactured goods for themselves just by tweaking the facts of this case: by, for example, creating a Toner Loading Program that is more complex and "creative" than the one here, or by cutting off other access to the Printer Engine Program. The crucial point is that the DMCA forbids anyone from trafficking in any technology that "is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a [protected] work." 17 U.S.C. § 1201(2)(A)
Reading the DMCA in pari materia with the rest of the copyright code supports this interpretation. The DMCA should be used as part of the copyright code as it applies to computer software codes and other digital media. To this extent, the specific "purpose" language of the DMCA modifies the more abstract language of the previous copyright law. As the Court explains, the fair use exception in copyright law explicitly looks to the purpose of the one making the copy in determining whether or not such copying violates the statute, and the DMCA itself contains a reverse engineering exception that also demonstrates Congress's aim merely to prevent piracy.
OK, my interpretation of this is:
- Copyright infringement is still bad. Circumenventing the copy protection on a game violates the DCMA
- Reverse-engineering a game console manufacturer's copy protection mechanism for the purpose of distributing your own game (or other content that is freely distributable) is allowable under the DCMA
Food for thought, though.
