[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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