Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

While this does technically violate 17 U.S.C. section 1201 (a)(1) according to other case law, I feel the responsibility is upon Snapchat, Inc. to make sufficient attempts to prevent such subversion. RE is always a sticky area, and because it appears you needed to pull some form of cryptographic keys out of that process, you are likely in an unenforceable region of a DMCA violation.



Which cases have found support here?


Chamberlain v. Skylink http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chamberlain_Group,_Inc._v._....

actually went the other way, but Chamberlain's argument was an interesting one: the copyright-able "work" was the code that ran in the garage door opener that actually opened the door. That code was protected against running (access in 1201 a) by the remote's code system.

The judge got access to the code v. access to the customer's garage mixed up and ruled against Chamberlain because it seemed silly. The DMCA is that silly, though and extreme unintended effects cases like this are the way to get support to re-write digital-age copyright.

Here, there are two access controls (control over access to running (accessing) copyrighted code on Snapchat's server) in question: the API key and use of that key. Is supplying one part of a circumvention device (the library) without the other (the API key) still a 1201 a violation? Patent law has provisions against "independent" manufacturers supplying parts that together violate a patent, but alone do not. MGM v. Grokster already tried to bring some of that reasoning into copyright (case) law. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inducement_rule

The less interesting, but more dangerous to the O.P. question is the T.O.S. violation. Pure reverse engineering is done without access to documentation about the thing reversed. Purest has two teams: one to analyze and write an expression-independent specification and another to implement that spec.


So, no caselaw actually touches 1201(a)(1) in this way, contrary to GP's assertion?




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: