Apple, Microsoft, Real & Adobe Accused Of Violating Federal Copyright Law

Apple, others draw legal threat over media players
By Anne Broache, May 11 10:38:44 CNET

A California company that makes technology designed to prevent ripping of digital audio streams has accused Apple, Microsoft, RealNetworks and Adobe Systems of violating federal copyright law by "actively avoiding" use of its products.
Media Rights Technologies and its digital radio subsidiary BlueBeat.com said in a press release Thursday that it had issued cease and desist letters to the high-tech titans. It argues that the companies have manufactured billions of copies of Windows Vista, Adobe Flash Player, Real Player and Apple's iTunes and iPod "without regard for the DMCA or the rights of American intellectual property owners."
DMCA refers to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a controversial 1998 law that generally makes it illegal to circumvent technological protection measures that control access to copyrighted works. The law says circumvent means "to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner."
MRT, based in Santa Cruz, Calif., argues that its X1 SeCure Recording Control technology has been "proven effective" as such a protective measure by plugging the "digital hole" that allows even copy-protected music streams, when played back, to be captured and potentially copied. The company says that because the companies are avoiding use of its purportedly effective product, they are violating the DMCA.
"We've given these four companies 10 days to talk to us and work out a solution, or we will go into federal court and file action and seek an injunction to remove the infringing products from the marketplace," CEO Hank Risan said in a phone interview Friday. According to the MRT, the companies in question are responsible for 98 percent of the market's media players, which are in turn used by CNN, National Public Radio, Clear Channel, MySpace, Yahoo, YouTube and others....read more: here

5/11/2007 10:10:00 PM

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1 Comments:

• It should be noted also that SoundExchange recently expanded its audit of Microsoft to include year 2005. They must have found something in the prior years. They're worse than the IRS.

  By  Anonymous, at May 14, 2007 8:47 PM  

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