Quakester2000 used our news submit to tell us that SunnComm intends to take legal action against Alex halderman for exposing the weaknesses of their MediaMax CD3 DRM product. Among other things, the Princeton computer science student recently pointed out the dreaded "shift key hack" that prevents the loading of the protective software, leaving the media wide open for abuse.
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SunnComm today said the paper was "erroneous" and contains "false conclusions". On the back of said, "Halderman and Princeton University have significantly damaged SunnComm's reputation and caused the market value of SunnComm to drop by more than $ 10 million," the company alleges. And then there's the DMCA angle. SunnComm claims Halderman broke the law by revealing the name of the driver the app installs. In a statement released today, SunnComm said: "SunnComm intends to refer this possible felony to authorities having jurisdiction over these matters because: 1. The author admits that he disabled the driver in order to make an unprotected copy of the disc's contents, and 2. SunnComm believes that the author's report was 'disseminated in a manner which facilitates infringement' in violation of the DMCA or other applicable law". SunnComm's statement is, of course, a tacit admission that Halderman's information is correct: "Once the file is found and deleted according to the instructions given in the Princeton grad student's report, the MediaMax copy management system can be bypassed resulting in the copyright protected music being converted or misappropriated for potentially unauthorized and/or illegal use," it says. |
Hey SunnComm, would you like a little bread with your whine? Instead of legal action, why don't you take take corrective action. Like leaving the planet! Wow, and I thought the RIAA was a bunch of crybabies. If you want to run around tooting a horn that you can provide DRM then you had best be able to do so, or just leave it to the professionals for goodness sakes. This is serious stuff your fooling with and a lot of money is at stake.
Sure, we like your DRM programs, but we are the consumer. Your client is the one that sells records. Even if you win the lawsuit, the labels aren't going to buy your product now. We wish they would, but they won't darn it. We are the ones that should be upset with Alex for "spilling the beans". But we don't have a legal leg to stand on-as usual.
The labels should provide an attorney for Mr. Halderman. Then hire him as a consultant to provide themselves protection from future idiotic creations such as this. This guy saved them millions in lost revenues from piracy. They owe him big time.
Source: theregister.co.uk
