From: Rich Gauszka 

Anything is possible under the DMCA

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070511-company-targets-apple-microsoft-a
nd-others-for-not-using-enough-drm.html

What do Vista, Flash, RealPlayer, and iTunes have in common? According to
Media Rights Technologies (MRT), all of them are infringing products under
the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and MRT has just sent
cease-and-desist letters to Microsoft, Adobe, Real, and Apple.

"Together these four companies are responsible for 98 percent of the
media players in the marketplace; CNN, NPR, Clear Channel, MySpace, Yahoo,
and YouTube all use these infringing devices to distribute copyrighted
works," said MRT CEO Hank Risan in a statement. "We will hold the
responsible parties accountable. The time of suing John Doe is over."

Media Rights Technologies is not a content owner, so why are they suing
under the DMCA? The legal argument is a bit complicated but goes like this:
Microsoft, Adobe, Real, and Apple make media player software. That software
can tune into digital music streams like Internet radio stations, many of
which are transmitted without any sort of DRM attached. Although streams
are designed to be ephemeral, it's trivial to use streamripper software to
snag copies of the songs being played through such services. MRT claims
that all four companies should have used some form of DRM to protect
streams—or rather, they should have used one particular form of DRM, the
"X1 SeCure [sic] Recording Control." And who makes X1? MRT does.

Essentially, the company has sent letters to four of the biggest players in
the industry, threatening them with lawsuits that could lead to
"statutory damages of at least $200 to $2500 for each product
distributed or sold" unless they adopt the company's proprietary
streamripping protection code. The legal argument at work here is that,
under the DMCA, "mere avoidance of an effective copyright protection
solution is a violation of the act."

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