Petteri Pyyny
26 Apr 2001 14:16
Princeton professor, Edward Felten, had to give up his plans to release SDMI cracking directions in conference in Pittsburgh. Professor issued a statement this morning saying that threats of litigation against Felten's research team, their employers and the conference forced the withdrawal.
The SDMI Foundation sent a strongly-worded letter to Felten 9th of April. The letter advised him not to reveal information that might assist others in cracking proposed copy-protection technologies, including the Verance watermark.
Professor's research team broke the SDMI copy-protection schema when SDMI Foundation held an open competition for anyone to crack it -- professor's team just didn't participate to the contest and didn't have to sign NDA.
But now the problem is once again with DMCA law -- SDMI Foundation threats to use controversial law against professor and his team if he publishes the description how to crack SDMI. Professor says he will continue his fight for the right to publish his papers.