[cc-licenses] Parallel Distribution and Non-Copyleft Licenses
James Grimmelmann
james at grimmelmann.net
Sat Dec 2 12:09:21 EST 2006
Rob Myers wrote:
> To address an earlier point, I am not sure that an undocumented pinout
> constitutes a TPM:
>
> http://www.boingboing.net/2004/09/01/garage_door_openers_.html
>
> http://www.boingboing.net/2004/10/26/printer_cartridges_a.html
>
> http://www.boingboing.net/2005/08/25/court_dmca_cant_proh.html
The garage-door opener and third-party repair cases depended on the fact
that the TPM did not bear a "reasonable relationship" to a copyright
holder's rights. In the printer-cartridge case, the underlying work was
not copyrightable. That is, in all three cases, once the defendant had
broken through the TPM lock, copyright law made what they did explicitly
legal. The results of those cases would likely have been different if
the point of circumventing the TPM had been to make new copies of a
copyrighted work protected by it.
The hypothetical DMCA undocumented pinout case would turn instead on
whether the undocumented pinout actually "effectively" prevents copying
of the work on the chip. That would be a 1201(b) issue, and all three
of the cases above were 1201(a) "access" cases.
James
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