A Princeton University doctoral candidate will not face litigation from SunnComm Technologies for publishing a paper early this week discussing how to bypass SunnComm's compact dist copy protection just by punching the shift key.
Claiming his academic paper was duplicitous at best and a felony at worst, SunnComm had vowed to file a lawsuit against computer scientist Alex Halderman under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act and push the government to pursue criminal charges, CNET said, but reversed its stance without a specific reason early October 10.
The threat got a volume of attention from legal analysts saying it might represent abuse of the DMCA, which makes exemptions for academic research and reverse engineering, CNET continued, with Congress looking into making the exemptions broader.
"Analysis of the MediaMax CD3 Copy-Prevention System" discussed flaws in that system, which was used in a CD by Anthony Hamilton released on BMG last month. "Most users who would be affected," Halderman had written, "can bypass the system entirely by holding the shift key every time they insert the CD," which stops the drivers from loading.
SunnComm shares dropped about $10 million in value in the paper's immediate aftermath, CNET said, with trading reported at $0.109 on the Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board early October 10.
"I expect I will be well-represented in the case of a lawsuit," Halderman said October 9. "If pressing the shift key is a violation of the DMCA, then the law needs to be changed."
