Apple computer will be testing a new theory in court, whether they wanted to or not. A lawsuit has been filed against Apple in response to a DMCA takedown notice relating to forum discussions relating to Apple’s FairPlay technology, which prevents users from playing copyright-protected songs on unauthorized hardware. The takedown letter alleged that those discussions, in which users discussed possible ways to avoid the limitations imposed by FairPlay, were in violation of the anti-circumvention of the DMCA. The recipient, OdioWorks, took the materials down. Now, OdioWorks, in conjunction with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has sued Apple in an attempt to have the discussion declared permissible.
The DMCA anti-circumvention provisions prohibit attempts to get around technical measures designed to prevent copyright infringement, such as the region codes on a commercially-produced DVD. The provisions have generally been assumed to deal only with the reverse-engineering of protective measures on a physical product, such as a DVD, rather than software. More importantly, perhaps, those provisions have not yet been extended to cover discussions relating to circumvention, absent any actual circumvention.
For more on the lawsuit and links to relevant documentation see this article on MacNN.
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