TI, what the heck is going on? You are better than this, you are not SONY… via /.
Texas Instruments has struck back against Nspire gamers and hackers with even stronger anti-downgrade protection in OS 3.0.2, after the TI calculator hacking community broke the anti-downgrade protection found in OS 2.1 last summer and the new one in OS 3.0.1 a month ago. In addition to that, in OS 3.0.1 the hacker community found Lua programming support and created games and software using it. Immediately, TI retaliated by adding an encryption check to make sure those third-party generated programs won’t run on OS 3.0.2.
Even MAKE was sent a legal nasty-gram for just LINKING to something TI didn’t like.
Re: Illegal Offering of Material to Circumvent TI Copyright Protections
It has come to our attention that the web site http://blog.makezine.com contains material and/or links to material that violate the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”). This letter is to notify you, in accordance with the provisions of the DMCA, of these unlawful activities. Pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA, we request that you remove any whole or partial reproductions of and/or disable links to the following:
The discussion entitled “ Fun Number Theory Facts ” located at the following URL http://www.unitedti.org/index.php?showtopic=8888 and the link to the personal website of “brandonw” at http://brandonw.net/.
Texas Instruments Incorporated (“TI”) owns the copyright in the TI-83 Plus operating system software. The TI-83 Plus operating system uses encryption to effectively control access to the operating system code and to protect its rights as a copyright owner in that code. Any unauthorized use of these files is strictly prohibited.
http://blog.makezine.com is distributing or providing links to information
(http://www.unitedti.org/index.php?showtopic=8888 and http://brandonw.net/ found at http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/08/ti-83_plus_os_signing_key_cracked.html) that bypasses TI’s anti-circumvention technology. By providing copies of or offering links to such information, http://blog.makezine.com has violated the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA at 17 U.S.C. §§ 1201(a)(2) and 1201(b)(1).
Please confirm to the undersigned in writing no later than noon on **/**/**** that you have complied with these demands. You may reach the undersigned by telephone at ***-***-**** or by email at **********@ti.com. TI reserves all further rights and remedies with respect to this matter.
Dale’s response was “Our post is a news report of facts of interest to our community and as such we do not view it as illegal in any respect.” – TI didn’t follow up after that.
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