DRM for batteries

[Steven M. Bellovin]

On Sat, 5 Jan 2008 15:28:50 -0800
Stephan Somogyi <cryptography at lt.gross.net> wrote:

> At 16:38 +1300 04.01.2008, Peter Gutmann wrote:
> 
> >At $1.40 each (at least in sub-1K quantities) you wonder whether
> >it's costing them more to add the DRM (spread over all battery
> >sales) than any marginal gain in preventing use of third-party
> >batteries by a small subset of users.
> 
> I don't think I agree with the "DRM for batteries" characterization.
> It's not my data in that battery that they're preventing me from
> getting at.

Correct.  In a similar case, Lexmark sued a maker of print cartridges
under the DMCA.  Lexmark lost in the Court of Appeals and the Supreme
Court declined to hear the case.  See
http://www.eff.org/cases/lexmark-v-static-control-case-archive and
http://www.scc-inc.com/SccVsLexmark/




		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb

---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Cryptography Mailing List
Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo at metzdowd.com