A US federal court has ruled that a repair firm did not
violate the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)
in performing maintenance on tape backup systems from StorageTek.
The decision, reversing the court's earlier ruling, came after an
appeal court told the lower court to review its injunction against
Custom Hardware.
This article was written by John Leyden for The Register. It
has been reproduced with permission.
StorageTek claimed in a 2002 lawsuit, among other things, that
Custom Hardware engineers performed procedures that violated the
DMCA in gaining access to the tape drive's internal systems
(specifically portions of maintenance code). Initially the federal
court ruled in favour of StorageTek on this point but an appeal
court decided last summer that this constituted an attempt to
prevent competition, forcing the lower court to re-examine the
case.
Federal Judge Rya Zobel of Massachusetts ruled (PDF) late last month that StorageTek's GetKey
security failed to "effectively control access" to the system,
invalidating claims that Custom Hardware might have invalidated the
DMCA, and reversing his earlier January 2003 decision.
This legal victory for Custom Hardware is only partial, however,
since StorageTek is suing it on other grounds of complaint, which
the courts are yet to rule on.
© The Register 2006
