In the News

iPod Compatibility Lands Real in Trouble with Apple, New Media Age, MacNewsWorld, August 17, 2004
Abstract: Apple is furious that Real reverse engineered its iPod to allow Real music store downloads to play on that iPod.

Let Reverse-Engineering Go Forward, Lorraine Woellert, TechNewsWorld, November 05, 2003
Abstract: The Copyright Office 2003 rulemaking determined that reverse engineering a product to develop an interoperable product was already covered under the DMCA, and did not need a specific exemption. This ruling is a victory for companies like Static Control, who had been threatened with use of the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions for reverse engineering products.

MS legal threat derails Foxpro on Linux demo, John Leyden, The Register, April 17, 2003
Abstract: Microsoft has enraged the developer community after a Redmond executive last week threatened a software developer to prevent him from demonstrating a Microsoft application running on Linux. Whil Hentzen, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was to have presented a seminar showing how to run Microsoft's Visual FoxPro on Linux at the Bay Area Association of Database Developers last Wednesday. But prior to the demonstration Hentzen received a call from a Microsoft marketing manager telling him that he would be in violation of the EULA (End User Licensing Agreement) for VFP if he demonstrated (or ran) the development tool on Linux.

Court blocks security conference talk, John Borland, CNet News.com, April 15, 2003
Abstract: Washington D.C.-based education software company Blackboard successfully convinced a Georgia state court to block the students' presentation, which was scheduled to be given at the Interz0ne conference in Atlanta last weekend. Blackboard argues that the restraining order blocked the publication of information gained illegally, which would have harmed the company's commercial interests and those of its clients. But conference organizers contend that the students' free speech rights were abridged.

HP, Bug-Hunters Declare Truce, Kim Zetter, PCWorld.com, August 09, 2002
Abstract: Analysis: The story behind SnoSoft's pitch, the extortion charges, and the DMCA threat.

Ed Felten, Tinkerers' champion, The Economist, June 20, 2002
Abstract: It is not just libertarians who are concerned about the restrictions caused by America's latest copyright law. Edward Felten, a professor at Princeton University, argues that the “freedom to tinker”—the right to understand, repair and modify one's own equipment— is crucial to innovation, and as valuable to society as the freedom of speech

ReplayTV Is Not Another Napster, Jane Black, Business Week, February 06, 2002
Abstract: This digital video recorder has the entertainment Establishment headed to court -- instead of embracing the technology's potential.

Anticircumvention Rules: Threat to Science, Pamela Samuelson, Science Magazine, September 14, 2001
Abstract: Scientists who study encryption or computer security or otherwise reverse engineer technical measures, who make tools enabling them to do this work, and who report the results of their research face new risks of legal liability because of recently adopted rules prohibiting the circumvention of technical measures and manufacture or distribution of circumvention tools. Because all data in digital form can be technically protected, the impact of these rules goes far beyond encryption and computer security research. The scientific community must recognize the harms these rules pose and provide guidance about how to improve the anticircumvention rules.