DRM Companies Wants To Ban Everything From iPods To Microsoft Vista
May 12th, 2007 | By James Lewin | Category: Digital Music, iPods & Portable Media Players, Podcasting LawMedia Rights Technologies and BlueBeat.com, developers of digital rights management software, have issued cease and desist letters to Microsoft, Adobe, Real Networks and Apple for failing to implement the companies’ DRM technology in Windows Vista, Adobe’s Flash Player, Real Player and Apple’s iTunes and iPod.
The companies are using an unusual interpretation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) to make their case. The DMCA, signed into law by President Clinton in 1998, makes prohibits the manufacture of any product or technology that is designed for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure which effectively controls access to a copyrighted work or which protects the rights of copyright owners. According to the firms, mere avoidance of an effective copyright protection solution is a violation of the DMCA.
MRT and BlueBeat have developed a technological measure which can be used to control access to copyrighted material. The product, the X1 SeCure Recording Control, has been tested by the industry’s standards bodies, the RIAA and IFPI, and can be used to make stream ripping difficult.
MRT asserts that, because Apple, Microsoft, Real and Adobe have produced billions of products without the use of MRT’s technologies, they are in violation of the DMCA. According to MRT, “Failure to comply with this demand could result in a federal court injunction to any of the above named parties to cease production or sale of their products and/or the imposition of statutory damages of at least $200 to $2500 for each product distributed or sold.”
“Together these four companies are responsible for 98 percent of the media players in the marketplace; CNN, NPR, Clear Channel, MySpace Yahoo and YouTube all use these infringing devices to distribute copyrighted works,” states MRT CEO Hank Risan. “We will hold the responsible parties accountable. The time of suing John Doe is over.”
Oh my god. What a bunch of litigious assholes. They’re using a bizarre interpretation of the act to force companies to use their proprietary DRM??? Nah… this is just a way of holding everyone hostage to get a fat settlement. They could care less about copyright. I hope the judge throws these idiots out of court and into a pack of rabid p2p users. They’ll know where to stick that DRM.
Eric
Why are you publishing this companies name. It’s just a stupid publicity scam by a nothing company.
You don’t understand what is happening here. The mission of the company, Media Rights Technologies (MRT), is to save the arts in this country. To do this someone has to put a stop to Internet piracy that is stealing many billions of dollars of product each year, denying the artists of their compensation. MRT’s technology was tested last year in London by the RIAA and by the IFPI in Berlin. Their technology worked perfectly in every demonstration and both the RIAA and IFPI has endorsed the Secure X1 technology as the only currently available means of stopping stream ripping on the Internet. If you will read the US Copyright Act, article 17, you will see that MRT has the right to bring this action against the webcasters involved. The federal court’s reaction will be interesting to follow.
Death to DRM! A pox upon the bourgeois swine who seek to impose it on us!
The CD I buy with my money is mine to do with as I please. If I want to rip it to MP3 and put it on my Zen, it’s my right to do so. If they want to stop me, they’ll have to shoot me.
But the recent Second Amendment ruling gives me the right to shoot back. Think about it! đ
I would gladly shoot a thief who steals and states publicly he has has no moral compunctions. Iran will take you- you should fit in nicely there. I can’t wait till the next MRT bombshell is announced shortly, this summer- It will be the death of flagrant thievery by criminals like you. MRT will shortly have the last laugh!