It looks like the noxious swarm of bullying legal action emanating from that putrid law, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act[PDF], has been momentarily halted.
Wired reports a judge has ruled on Chamberlin Group’s lawsuit against Skylink Technologies. Chamberlin, maker of garage doors, had argued that Skylink, maker of universal garage door openers, had violated the DMCA in manufacturing a remote control able to open Chamberlin’s brand of doors.
The court decided in favor of Skylink:
“Under Chamberlain’s theory, any customer who loses his or her Chamberlain transmitter, but manages to operate the opener either with a non-Chamberlain transmitter or by some other means of circumventing the rolling code, has violated the DMCA,” reads the opinion from Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer of the Northern District of Illinois U.S. District Court. “In this court’s view, the statute does not require such a conclusion.”
Skylink’s victory may blow wide the door for a flood of anti-DMCA court rulings. It certainly raises questions about Lexmark’s lawsuit attempting to prevent third-party’s from selling ink cartridges for their inkjet printers. Third party ink sales could end the common practice of ransoming ink to buyers of cheapo inkjets.
For once at least, we can say.
Not today, DMCA.
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