You heard it here first.

Remember before, when I noted how the grad student at Princeton may well have violated the law by pointing out the using the shift key will bypass SunnComm’s new “copy protection” on CDs? Go on back and read the other entries, if you want: one and two.

SunnComm is suing him. Excellent response, boys: rather than, you know, selling a product that doesn’t suck, or (failing that) abandoning the snake oil business altogether, you sue the guy who points out that your emperor is as naked as a jaybird. It’s worth noting, I’m sure, that SunnComm’s stock is down 20% — to something like twelve cents a share — since the introduction of this “technology” (which they tauted as serious best-of-breed stuff, shockingly enough; I’m not sure if it’s fair to blame the guy that says your boat’s full of holes if it turns out not to float).

N.B. that the complaint utterly ignores the whole idea of Fair Use:

SunnComm is taking a stand here because we believe that those who own property, whether physical or digital, have the ultimate authority over how their property is used. Owning copying technology is not an unconditional ‘free pass’ to replicate or distribute protected work.

I guess that only applies to them owning the copyright, and not to me owning the CD, huh?

Comments are closed.