Lexmark and the DMCA (Groklaw) [LWN.net]

Groklaw has the Lexmark ruling in plain text format, along with some commentary. "I want you please to notice that one of the judges in this case quoted from Larry Lessig's 'Free Culture.' I keep telling you, judges do eventually get it." The ruling by the court was not unanimous; see this article for the dissenting opinions.

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Lexmark and the DMCA (Groklaw)

Posted Oct 31, 2004 21:42 UTC (Sun) by philips (guest, #937) [Link]

> I keep telling you, judges do eventually get it.

Why it is hard for people to realize (especially after reading Groklaw in general) that judges are not against progress nor against anyone else - but they are for the law as it stands in current moment of time. Similar decisions were made before, and Lessig's book is just one of the most recent publications on this topic. It is not unique - precedents are made all the time and Lessig's book is just high quality review and compilation of precedents and judicial decisions. And obviously Lawrence analysis included.

Quote from Lessig's "Free Culture" was on par with other comments made by judge. Like this one: "We should make clear that in the future companies like Lexmark cannot use the DMCA in conjunction with copyright law to create monopolies of manufactured goods for themselves just by tweaking the facts of this case:...".

Case was making a precedent for its circuit, so judge made it less boring to read ;-)