A ruling by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans may have a long-lasting effect on digital rights management (DRM) copy protection, even though the case wasn’t directly involved in a high-profile copyright lawsuit.
The case between Power Maintenance International (PMI), a company owned by General Electric responsible for software services, was recently involved in a legal matter with MGE UPS Systems, a power supply maker -- and it stems around PMI workers that circumvented MGE security features over a two-year span.
The employees first are accused of using MGE UPS management software without permission, along with 428 counts of bypassing MGE's security. The court awarded MGE $4.6 million in damages related to unfair business practice, copyright infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets, according to Home Media Magazine.
It is an interesting legal case to observe because the court said that the actions of PMI employees didn't violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), when it dismissed MGE's original claims.
"The DMCA prohibits only forms of access that would violate or impinge on the protections that the Copyright Act otherwise affords copyright owners. … Without showing a link between ‘access’ and ‘protection’ of the copyrighted work, the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision does not apply," said Judge Emilio M. Garza, in his court ruling. “The owner’s technological measure must protect the copyrighted material against an infringement of a right that the Copyright Act protects, not from mere use or viewing.”
Judge Garza's ruling, according to some supporters, indicates this could set the standard for future DMCA and copyright cases involving copyright. As long as "mere use or viewing" is cited and can be proven, circumventing mandatory copy protection may not be a DMCA violation -- depending on how the copyrighted content was used.
This could be a major victory for Real's RealDVD technology that was in continued legal limbo before the company simply threw in the towel. In the ruling, Real had to pay $4.5 million to the MPAA in fees, as a judge said using RealDVD gave users the ability to infringe on movie copyrights.
This ruling only solidifies the common-sense view on the DMCA that has been widely opined by many logical thinking people: If there's no copyright violation occurring, why would it be illegal to bypass DRM or a copyright protection scheme?
