You can access your car again
In a rare blow for sense in the DMCA muddle, an Illinois district court ruled that replacement garage door openers were not “circumvention” devices under the DMCA’s anticircumvention provision. Chamberlain, a maker of garage door opener devices, claimed that Skylink’s interoperable replacements circumvented its access controls, but couldn’t manage to show the court how accessing one’s own car was the kind of harm Congress envisioned when passing the DMCA. Maybe if they’d called it a boat garage …
Unfortunately, the ruling was only against granting a summary judgement to the plaintiff on the DMCA claim. The case will still go to trial, and could still be decided against the defendants.
Comment by Fuzzy — September 6, 2003 @ 1:06 pm
True the ruling was only denying the plaintiff summary judgment, but the opinion suggested that if the defendant were to file its own summary judgment dismissing the DMCA 1201 claims, the judge would be inclined to grant it.
Comment by wendy — September 7, 2003 @ 5:03 pm