SunnComm drops suit against Princeton grad's CD hack

Posted on 13 Oct 2003 at 11:33

SunnComm Technologies has dropped its plans to file a suit against Princeton university and the graduate that published a paper outlining how to bypass its MediaMax CD-3 CD-protection technology.

The company said it did not want to pursue legal action that could result in academic research being stifled and instead elected to conclude that the graduate, John Halderman, was mistaken the goal of the technology in his evaluation.

SunnComm president, Bill Whitmore stated, 'Because SunnComm is, itself, a company which relies on research and development for its survival, we feel that bringing legal action for damages against researchers in a higher learning environment may contribute to a chilling effect on the type of research that faculty, staff, and students elect to pursue. Therefore, we've decided to move along and not pursue legal remedies in deference to "the bigger picture.'

Peter Jacobs, SunnComm CEO said: 'Mr. Halderman had mistakenly expected to be researching an "extremely hack resistant" copy protection product when he evaluated MediaMax.'

Whitmore added: 'A technology has not yet been invented that will keep all those individuals from appropriating the unprotected music without limitations if they intend on taking it that way. MediaMax creates an opt-in "speed bump" of security.'

At the time of the MediaMax CD-3 rollout, Whitmore described the technology as having, 'robust security features designed to protect copyrights'.

Halderman's research, however, revealed that the protection techologies could be circumvented as easily as holding down the Shift key or disabling the driver.

Even so, SunnComm maintains that although MediaMax CD-3 is currently only a 'speed bump' on the road to copying copyright music, its current version 1 form achieves precisely what it set out to do and what it advertises as its capabilities.