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The Chamberlain v. Skylink DMCA rulingThe Chamberlain v. Skylink DMCA rulingPosted Sep 11, 2003 4:50 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330)Parent article: The Chamberlain v. Skylink DMCA ruling
Courts generally like to find the narrowest grounds possible for deciding a case: lower courts generally don't want to be making new constitutional law every day. If they can give victory to the right party on a technicality, they prefer that to declaring the DMCA unconstitutional. So, the GDO company puts "thou shalt not use a competing GDO" on their box, and someone sues them again.
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The Chamberlain v. Skylink DMCA ruling Posted Sep 11, 2003 18:12 UTC (Thu) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link] That leads to this question: Are DVDs and eBooks labeled so that theircustomers know aren't allowed to use non-DVD-CCA licensed players?
The Chamberlain v. Skylink DMCA ruling Posted Sep 12, 2003 0:21 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] That leads to this question...No, it doesn't -- the actual ruling doesn't, anyway. I read it, and what the judge says is that various other facts of the garage door opener world may mean that Chamberlain gave every user permission to use a Skylink transmitter; absence of an explicit prohibition on using replacement transmitters was just part of the puzzle. None of those other facts have analogs in the DVD and eBook world. It's worth noting, by the way, that this is just a rejection of summary judgement -- that means the judge did not consider all the facts. He just said that there may be facts that need to be considered.
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