DMCA Madness

[SirFozzie]

This might be the lawsuit that dethrones SCO vs the World for the most bizarre tech related lawsuit ever.. a company telling Apple/Microsoft et all, "Since we make a good Copyright Protection system, if you fail to use our products (and pay us for it), we'll sue you under the DMCA (and you'll pay us)" Yeah. Good luck boys.

LONDON (Thomson Financial) - Microsoft Corp and Apple Inc could face a possible lawsuit for failing to include measures to control access to copyrighted material in products such as Vista OS, iTunes and the iPod, two companies have warned.

Media Rights Technologies (MRT) and BlueBeat.com have issued cease and desist letters to both companies and to Adobe Systems Inc (nasdaq: ADBE - news - people ) and Real Networks -- which produce the Adobe Flash Player and Real Player respectively -- for actively avoiding their X1 SeCure Recording Control, which they said is an effective copyright protection system.

MRT and Bluebeat said the failure to use an available copyright protection solution contravenes the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which prohibits the manufacture of any product or technology designed to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a copyrighted work or protects the rights of copyright owners.

They said a failure to comply with the cease and desist order could result in in a federal court injunction and/or the imposition of statutory damages of 200-2,500 usd per product distributed or sold.

[JediKooter]

So, MRT has something they made and they are mad because those companies aren't using "their" (MRTs) technology? Or am I reading too much into it?

Crazy is what it sounds like to me though.

[Drake]

That may be the fastest way ever to put your company into bankruptcy.