GOOD NEWS FOR GARAGE OWNERS

The Copyright Blog reports that the North Eastern District Court of Illinois, Eastern Division has found that garage doors do not violate the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The claimants, The Chamberlain Group had argued that the defendants, Skylink, in providing replacement remote controls to open Chamberlain’s garage doors had circumvented access controls to a computer program in Chamberlain's door opener. Not so, said the judge, who found that homeowners have a legitimate expectation to able to access the insides of their garage, whether or not they’ve lost the means of opening it.



The IPKat was too busy laughing to comment…until he found out that this was a real case and not a hoax – then he was too busy crying.



Case documents here

Read about the case in The Register

What to do if you can’t open your garage door here

Door openers here