Looks like I’ll have to burn her a CD and send it to her. At this point, I don’t think she’s listening anyway. (James and Marybeth)
Her complete testimony follows this clip from Billboard Magazine…

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In one of the first major wins against the DMCA since the Elcomsoft Decision, a US Federal Judge has rejected a claim under the DMCA to outlaw a competing garage door opener. Judge Pallmeyer ruled against Chamberlain Group’s argument that Skylink’s universal garage door opener was an illegal circumvention device, stating that a homeowner has a legitimate expectation that she will be able to open the garage door if her Chamberlain transmitter is missing or malfunctions.
IP Justice has just released an information page regarding the landmark decision (Chamberlain v. Skylink). In the decision, the court denied Chamberlain’s motion for summary judgment claiming that the Skylink garage door opener violated the DMCA.
The Court noted amici briefs filed by CCIA and Consumers Union, which pointed out the stifling effect the DMCA has on innovation and competition under Chamberlain’s theory. The Court’s Order, which denied part of Chamberlain Group’s motion for Summary Judgment, is available here. Further case documents are available here.

Here’s an O’Reilly weblog I wrote a while back with some background on this situation.
New DVD ‘ripper’ pre-empts DMCA ruling
By Munir Kotadia for ZD Net.

DVD software developer Studio 321 is preparing to launch six new applications, including an enhanced version of DVD copying software that is the subject of a US court case brought under the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
Studio 321 is awaiting a ruling over its DVD X Copy software, which includes a facility that allows users to rip backups of movie DVDs. If the ruling goes against Studio 321, the company says this new version of the copying software will ship without the “ripper” module, which decrypts movie DVDs and allows them to be copied…
Studio 321 landed in court after taking the unusual pre-emptive step of asking a court to declare DVD Copy Plus legal. Company executives decided to file the brief last April, after reading newspaper reports in which movie-studio representatives said they planned to sue DVD-copying software makers and which mentioned 321.
The case holds important consequences not only for software developers and for the motion picture industry, but also for consumers, who face increasingly complex rules governing the uses of entertainment products.
Semaan is adamant that his company’s software does not advocate piracy, saying that it helps users to protect their property. He argues that if it is legal to make back-up copies of tapes and CDs, then it should not be any different to copy DVDs. “The DMCA says that it is supposedly illegal to circumvent encryption, and while DVDs come encrypted, those other forms of media do not,” said Semaan…
In May, the judge in charge of this case said she would come back with a ruling “shortly”, but two months later, there is still no word. However, no news is good news for Semaan: “For us, the longer she takes the better.”

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I love the way the RIAA has already blamed a temp for the incident.
The temp, of course, was just following instructions. The RIAA was just using the same inaccurate methods it always uses to make its usual faulty assumptions about the presence of “pirated” MP3s.
This article includes the actual letters that the RIAA sent out.
Complaint From Recording Industry Almost Closes Down a Penn State Astronomy Server
By Scott Carlson for The Chronicle of Higher Education.

A case of mistaken identity by a temporary recording-industry employee looking for illegal file trading came close to shutting down an academic server at the astronomy department at Pennsylvania State University during final exams last week.
On Thursday, the Recording Industry Association of America sent a Digital Millennium Copyright Act complaint to Penn State’s network-security office saying that a server on the university’s main campus, at University Park, was offering a song by Usher, a popular R&B artist.
The network-security office responded by sending a polite yet adamant message to Matthew P. Soccio, the manager of the astronomy department’s server: Remove the song from the server or we will shut it down within 24 hours.
Mr. Soccio spent hours scouring the machine for Usher’s MP3 files and found a couple of an unlikely offenders: One was a directory of files owned by Peter D. Usher, a professor emeritus of astronomy. The other was an MP3 of a goofy a cappella song about a satellite that detects gamma-ray bursts.
Mr. Soccio brought the non-results back to the network-security office and begged not to be shut down. “They were kind enough to leave us up,” he says, adding that the server is used to transfer academic work. “It’s the middle of finals week, so that would have killed us.”
Penn State’s network-security officials did not respond to calls from The Chronicle.
The recording-industry association, which regularly scours the Internet for evidence that copyrighted songs are being shared illegally, acknowledges that there was indeed a mix-up. In an e-mail statement, the association’s officials said that temporary employees usually verify each complaint before it is sent out, and that an employee had made a mistake in this case. The recording industry is reviewing all of the complaints verified by that employee. The association apologized for the blunder.
Mr. Soccio, however, is still a bit irked. He spent the weekend reading up on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and compared the recording-industry’s complaint letter with the letter of the law. “I have a problem with that complaint on a couple of different levels,” he says. “The DMCA is pretty clear about needing complainants to specify the files in question and the copyright in question, and that complaint does neither of those. That letter just points to the top level of my server and says I should look for ‘artists like Usher.’ I don’t know what that means.” Until Thursday, Mr. Soccio had never heard of the R&B star.
The experience has turned Mr. Soccio into an activist. He plans to send letters to Congressional representatives, and is circulating the texts in his department, seeking signatures from professors and other employees. The letters will ask Congress to strengthen fair-use laws and protections for institutions under the DMCA, he says.

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Ed Felten On Slashdot

“…I don’t think the legislators who support these bills really understand the harm they would do. In my experience, if you can explain to them what the problem is, they will want to do the right thing. (They may not kill a bad bill entirely, but they will at least try to amend it to fix problems.) The hard part is to get their attention, and then to explain the problem in a manner that non-geeks can understand.
The underlying problem, I think, is that geeks think about technology in a different way than non-geeks do. The differences have sunk deeply into the basic worldviews of the two communities, so that their consequences seem to be a matter of common sense to each group. This is why it often looks to each group as if members of the other group are idiots.
Here’s an example. Geeks think of networks as being like the Internet: composed of semi-independent interoperating parts, and built in layers. Non-geeks tend to think of networks as being like the old-time telephone monopoly: centrally organized and managed, non-layered, and provided by a single company. It’s not that they don’t know that the world has changed — if you ask them what the Internet is like, they’ll say that it’s decentralized and layered. But the *implications* of those changes haven’t sunk deeply into their brains, so they tend not to see problems that are obvious to geeks.”

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