Report on copy protection, get sued?

January 31, 2006

I was reading about “StarForce”:http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/30/anticopying_malware_.html last night on BoingBoing; StarForce is secretly installed as a hidden device on Windows computers which, in an attempt to prevent pirating of games, ends up breaking the machines it is installed upon.

Between the time I read the article and now, StarForce has threatened to sue BoingBoing claiming Cory’s post violates the law in eleven countries and constitutes sufficient harassment to get the FBI involved. So, like, wow.

I remember from my basic high school civics class[1] that a major muscle group behind the invisible hand of the marketplace[2] was that consumers could cease buying products if companies behaved like poor citizens. This is probably why companies seek to sue people who criticize them so often; it is also why they so eagerly seek “tort reform” at the same time they seek new laws protecting their products; so they can prevent critics from suing them at the same time they can find ways of suing their critics.

I’m not too concerned about Cory; he’s in tight with the “EFF”:http://www.eff.org/, home of the “Chilling Effects Clearinghouse”:http://www.chillingeffects.org/. Perhaps StarForce should have checked Cory’s posse before they tried to rough him up.

fn1. And sometimes these days I think I was the only person who took one.

fn2. Work with me here, people.

Posted in Technology