Computing Research Policy Blog

Court Rules 3rd Party Garage Door Openers Don't Violate DMCA

In an affirmation of fair use rights -- at least, as long as they don't conflict with any other rights -- a federal court ruled yesterday that a company that makes interoperable remotes for other companies' garage door openers isn't violating federal copyright law. The law in question is the troublesome Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) (pdf), which among other things prohibits circumventing any technical measure that "controls access" to a protected work. Chamberlin, the garage door manufacturer, argued that Skylink, the company making the interoperable remote, violated the DMCA by reverse-engineering Chamberlin's door opening software to create their remote.

In this case, the court appears to have ruled that Skylink's circumvention was a legitimate fair use, and in the absence of any "foul" use Chamberlin could not use the DMCA to protect its product (the software contained in the remote and the garage door opener).

However, as Seth Finklestein points out, though it's nice to see that, in some limited cases, companies won't be able to use the DMCA for patent protection, this probably doesn't do much to address the issues of DMCA reform and the chilling effect the law has on computing researchers. (See the ACM U.S. Public Policy Committee's rundown on DMCA's chilling effect and some helpful links.)

You can also find the full Skylink opinion here (pdf). We've also covered efforts to solidify fair use rights -- including the research exemption -- previously.

Update: Ernest Miller has a much more in-depth analysis of the decision that shows it's much more complicated than our simple summary suggests.

See also Ed Felten's summary.