StorageTek sues over Internet piracy
StorageTek sues over Internet piracy
StorageTek has taken out a lawsuit against Custom Hardware Engineering and Consulting for violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act when it performed maintenance on StorageTek tape backup systems.
A preliminary junction has been granted and StorageTek is expected to also win two other arguments based on copyright infringement and trade secret violations.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act was brought in by the US Congress in response to growing fears about Internet piracy.
Under Section 1201, it stated that nobody may "circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access" to a copyrighted work.
Custom Hardware has been accused of breaking the DMCA Act by tricking the "GetKey" security system into activating proprietary "maintenance code" that switched on event logging and a special user interface.
According to StorageTek, Custom Hardware did this to gain access to the maintenance code for the purpose of resetting the maintenance level.
It also accuses Customer Hardware of obtaining event messages to transmit to its own computers in Tucson, Ariz, enabling them to learn what repair functions need to be performed.
A StorageTek system usually has up to 24 control units that hold hundreds of terabytes.
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