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Sunday, November 23, 2008

Coupon Hacker Defeats DMCA Suit

By David Kravets

Mustard A California online coupon generating company is dropping its Digital Millennium Copyright Act lawsuit against a man sued for posting commands allowing users to print an unlimited number of valid coupons.

John Stottlemire was sued last year after posting the commands to his tenbucks.net and other websites. He was accused of posting code and instructions allowing shoppers to circumvent copy protection on downloadable, printable coupons from Colgate, General Foods and others for everything from cereal to soap.

Mountain View, Calif.-based Coupons Inc. argued Stottlemire was no different from cracks like "DVD Jon" Johansen's program, DeCSS, which allowed the duplication of encrypted DVDs.

"Without being represented by an attorney, I defended myself in federal court against a company who solicited the services of two separate law firms," Stottlemire said. "And in my opinion, I kicked their ass. By refusing to succumb to their bullying tactics, I continued to assert my innocence and fought the claims Coupons Inc. filed against me. "

The 43-year-old Fremont, Calif., man insisted he did not circumvent any technology and instead found a weakness in Coupons Inc.'s software. Removing the key to the software's program limiting coupon production allowed users to acquire an unlimited number of coupons with unique, functioning serial codes.

Coupons Inc. declined comment. Terms of the dismissal were not made public. They do not require Stottlemire to remove the workaround, which is still published here.

Despite the settlement, the legal question at issue remains unsettled – whether Stottlemire's actions were unlawful under the DMCA. The 10-year-old law prohibits circumventing technology to work around measures to prevent the duplication of what Coupons Inc. claimed were copyrighted materials.

The question may be a moot point, at least for now. Coupons Inc. has countered Stottlemire's workaround, which no longer works.

Photo: JasonJT's Photostream

Original here

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