Louisville, Colorado-based StorageTek has provided clients with
data storage since 1969, installing tape libraries with massive
capacities and other solutions at over 17,000 client sites. Its
diagnostic software is used to service these client-based
installations, known as the Maintenance Code, allowing StorageTek
to debug its systems whenever necessary. Access to the Code is for
StorageTek alone and is protected by a security algorithm called a
GetKey.
Some of StorageTek's clients also use third party storage
maintenance services companies. One of these, Custom Hardware
Engineering & Consulting Inc., was accused by StorageTek of
compromising its GetKey and using its Maintenance Code for its own
business purposes.
This, argued StorageTek, violates the US Digital Millennium
Copyright Act, or DMCA, which restricts the circumvention of
copy-protection systems.
Granting a preliminary injunction on 2nd July, Judge Rya W Zobel
of the Massachusetts District Court appeared to agree.
Custom Hardware, reasoned Judge Zobel, "chose to piggyback on
[StorageTek's] Maintenance Code". It managed to do this by
"circumventing the GetKey to gain access to the Maintenance Code
and then resetting the maintenance level. They thus stealthily
obtain [StorageTek's] Event Messages, which they transmit to their
own computers".
Judge Zobel also ruled that an exception to the DMCA, designed
to protect technicians when the machine they are trying to service
copies a program automatically when they switch it on, does not
apply.
He found that Custom Hardware did not copy the Code just for
repair, but also "for the express purpose of circumventing
plaintiff's security measures, modifying the Maintenance Level, and
intercepting plaintiff's Event Messages". Nor did Custom Hardware
immediately destroy the copy after the maintenance was completed,
as required under the Act.
The ruling has been criticised by some as effectively giving
StoragTek a monopoly on servicing its systems.
