Princeton Student Sued for Paper on Defeating CD Copy Protection


Sunn Comm Technologies, Inc. is suing a Princeton Graduate Student from publishing a paper on how to defeat the MediaMax CD-3 copy-protection technology.

So, how is it done, you ask? Well, according to Alex Haldermann (the student in question), all you have to do is hold down the Shift key as you insert a CD protected by the software. He also said it can be defeated by stopping a driver which is loaded when the CD is first played. Sunn Comm says that Haldermann violated the Digital Millenium Copyright Act by divulging the existence of the driver file.

I am only aware of one CD at tyhis time that uses the technology (Anthony Hamilton's Comin' From Where I'm From), but that doesn't mean more don't (or won't) exist... and be defeated by something as simple as hitting the Shift key...

Listening to: Dar Williams - "The Beauty of the Rain" (2003)