SDMI Threatens Professor If He Doesn't Destroy Paper

Legal Issues

from the veiled-threats dept

A while back someone at SDMI must have thought it was a good idea to offer up the “Hack SDMI” idea to prove that their copy protection scheme was solid. There were, of course, lots of problems (and plenty of people who boycotted the whole process anyway). Some folks at Princeton bailed out at the last minute once they realized that the agreement they would have to sign (or, rather, “click”) meant they couldn’t publish their findings. Of course, they went on with their research, and now are planning on publishing their findings at a conference. The folks at SDMI are (to say the least) upset. They’ve sent a threatening legal note suggesting that the professor needs to destroy all copies of the paper. This is the thanks he gets for proving that the copy protection scheme they’ve created is full of holes? Anyway, full text of the letter and this dangerous paper are available here.