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Software Government The Courts News

Interview with Alexander Noe, PxScan Developer 128

Posted by Hemos from the good-information-to-have dept.
wikinerd writes "I interviewed Alexander Noe, developer of the open source PxScan and PxView utilities. He recently received a cease-and-desist letter by Shinano Kenshi, the Japanese company which controls Plextor. His utilities provide similar functionality with PlexTools, sending special command sequences to Plextor DVD recorders that activate special features such as media quality check."
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Interview with Alexander Noe, PxScan Developer More

Interview with Alexander Noe, PxScan Developer

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  • Why do they keep trying to hide this stuff from us?
    The same goes for the Canon Digital Rebel, and everything else that has an artificial ceiling put on performance.
    • Specially since you buy the DRIVE not the software. The software is the COST of doing business. The problem is you have ignorant marketting and investors who think "everything has commercial value".

      Look at Broadcom. They hold their hardware specs a closely guarded secret [for the most part] and the net affect is you can only use their wifi stuff [reliably] in windows... The problem is without the drivers the hardware has zero customer value. But giving out free drivers lets you SELL hardware since it now has value.

      The sad thing it isn't even that you have to write the damn drivers. In the OSS world of BSD/Linux the kernel contributors would GLADLY write a driver for free if it meant they could use some quality hardware with the respective OS. So all it costs the hardware manufacturer is describing the interface [at the high level] of how to talk to the hardware. Since these documents are ROUTINELY produced internally so the software teams can write their windows drivers all it means is you re-brand the .doc file and give it out.

      Tom
      • It's nuts, isn't it? Especially with something as utterly generic (and probably free of "valuable" IP) as a sodding wireless card where I can pick up one just as good for $20 on eBay. I mean, I can understand high-end graphics cards manufacturers not giving out their specs as there probably is some very interesting stuff in there that has taken them a long while to develop, but a wireless card or a WinModem? Stupid, self-defeating and petty. Thank God for enlightened manufacturers like ralink [warwick.ac.uk] - as a Linux
        • The problem I have with GPU manufacters like ATI and nvidia is ...

          Don't you think they both understand what a pixel pipeline is? Or what a vertex shader is? Or ... It's not like they're really that different technologies...

          Also since when does interface dictate implementation? I mean look at AMD and Intel. Both implement x86 processors, both give out cycle timings, opcode formats, etc... I don't see cheap AMD clones on the market today...

          I don't know how a GPU interface works exactly but chances are
        • Here's how I see it:

          Companies put a lot of thought into their hardware implementations, the results of which would have to be shared after 20 years if they were to patent it. Instead, they choose to keep the details as trade secrets so they can attempt to hold onto them indefinitely, and require their competitors to reinvent the wheel.

          The irony of it is, they'll never know if their competitors duplicated their research, so they'll never know where they have an advantage over their competitors, and where
          • We're talking PC hardware - what trade secrets would have value 20 years from now? That's like Ford keeping it's Model A engine specs secret so Chrysler doesn't use them to develop its 2007 Mustang killer.

            DDB

            • The implementation of hardware doesn't have to have anything to do with the overall architecture it's attached to. As long as the device sits on a layer that sufficiently distances it from the nuts and bolts of the machine it's part of, there's no reason that, given the same layer in a different machine, that device can't be portable.

              As an example, consider PCI devices. As long as the device doesn't have its own BIOS (Namely, video cards), there's no reason you couldn't put the same device in a Mac and i
        • You kind of answered your own question. The hardware is dirt cheap. Heck those $20 cards are probably made in the same plant. These companies are trying to get the profits from the old days when you had only a few choices. And they are trying to get said profits through software without adding value.

          They just can't let go of the past.
        • I've heard the excuse that the radio frequency is controlled by software, so open source drivers could be modified to make the chip transmit on unlicensed frequencies. Seems like a weak excuse to me.
      • The problem is, they DO charge extra for the software, so any competition is a threat to their revenue stream.

        If someone writes free software to do something they charge $50 for, and it gets ported to Windows, then it can cost them money. Having a lawyer threaten a small time developer is far less expensive than losing a portion of their revenue stream, if all goes well for them.

        There's also the fact that if this software exists for Linux, then there will be no ROI on porting their high cost tools to Lin
        • I dunno about you but pretty much every piece of hardware from CD drive to network card, etc.. has had some piece of windows software which I promptly tossed in the garbage. I didn't buy the drivers [cuz I run hardware that I know works in Linux] I bought the hardware.

          If the hardware didn't work out of the box with the Linux kernel the hardware has ZERO value to ME period. So if they want to push the hardware they have to provide the drivers [or specs or both].

          The drivers have zero commercial value sinc
          • In which case Plextor probably doesn't want your business very much. They have all this windows software they want to sell you, and if you're not interested then they don't make as much money as if they'd sold the drive to a Windows user interested in their additional software.

            And they don't want OSS versions out there for any platform, because it competes with the stuff they charge money for.

            The software is a revenue stream for them. They don't care about OSS users, as a matter of fact it's clear from
            • This, ladies and gentlemen is why I own a LG superdrive.

              I put it in my AMD64 Gentoo based box, booted up and it "just worked". No drivers, no special CD burning software [outside of cdrecord and growisofs], etc...

              There is no value for me in commercial CDR tools since free [and decently working ones] exist already. The sooner ...HARDWARE... manufacturers realize that ... the better.

              Tom
              • This, ladies and gentlemen is why I own a LG superdrive.

                I put it in my AMD64 Gentoo based box, booted up and it "just worked". No drivers, no special CD burning software [outside of cdrecord and growisofs], etc...

                There is no value for me in commercial CDR tools since free [and decently working ones] exist already. The sooner ...HARDWARE... manufacturers realize that ... the better.

                You don't need special software to use a Plextor drive as an ordinary burner. That works fine with cdrecord using your f
      • Now wrap that third paragraph in a business process patent application and send it off to an IP attorney to be filed. In a year or two when you'll be awarded the patent (safe bet, given the USPO's track record), you can make a bundle from the VC's alone on the premise that you have the newest lighting-in-a-bottle-for-business-improvment(tm).

        The number of hardware manufacturer's who currently Don't Get It would provide you with a potential customer base to whom to market that would last the rest of your l
      • If I was in their shoes I might have done the same thing. There are two reasons: 1) the features being exposed may not be fully tested and therefore are not supposed to be used by customers, 2) I don't want to have to pay for supporting stuff that's not supposed to be public in the first place. If people call support because they used these features, then I'm picking up the tab even though I might just say, "That's not supporter, Sir." But this could still impact the quality reputation of my product.

        Obv

      • Re:Artificial limitiations by companies never work (Score:4, Interesting)

        by hey! ( 33014 ) on Monday June 06, 2005 @12:08PM (#12736879) Homepage Journal
        Your argument goes astray a bit because it only focuses on the producer and consumer without looking at the competition.

        The existence of an open source application that jiggers the proprietary doohickeys on my device is potentially an useful aid to my competition. It may help them figure out may trade secrets, or to divine strategies equivalent to or better than the ones I use for my patented technologies.

        It's not much help to my competitors; in practical terms it is indistinguishable from zero help. On the other hand the cost of sending a chest thumping C&D on official stationary to some private individual is practically indistinguishable from zero too.

        So when in doubt, turn the crank on the lawyer box and spit out another C&D. It's cheap and risk free, and keeps your legal staff in practice for when you really need them.

        • This premise is proven false time and time again.

          Look at the x86 CPU [or even ARM]. Look at GPUs, etc..

          There isn't a lot of competition in high end products because just knowing how to "jigger the doohickey" isn't enough to figure out how the doohickey works.

          If your trying to sell something like a 16550 UART in 2005 as a standalone IC ... well ... um you got issues.

          Complex enough products [to which the value is greater because the ability to solve it on ones own is lower] are hard to mimic to a level o
          • This premise is proven false time and time again. ...

            It's not enough that you're functionality equivalent you have to be just as efficient and cost effective.

            You're talking about much more elaborate, strategic kinds of situations. I'm talking more about the corporate instinct to swat a mosquito it detects crawling on it's hide. The chances are the mosquito isn't going to do it any harm, but it's easy to just brush it off.

            • The problem is brushing the proverbial mosquito off your arm also knocks off um ... fuck these metaphors...

              You piss off customers by making flaky non-portable drivers. ATI for instance doesn't really share the user base in Linux as nvidia does and it's solely because their drivers suck.

              But think about it this way, if the company thinks their TOP OF THE LINE product can be easily replicated today using part-time volunteers spread out across the globe... of how much value is their product anyways?

              Tom
        • It's not risk free however. How many people are going to not buy from them now and how many others are now going to badmouth them when their name comes up? More of the latter than the former I'm sure, but together they definitely make the 'cost' of that letter a hell of a lot higher than just the cost of the lawyer.

        • Much as slashdot hates patents, the purpose is to protect you from someone stealing your hard work. If knowing your interface would help me design a device that competes with you, (though there are good arguments that it wouldn't, lets accept that as a fact for this post) then you should patent the device to protect yourself. Patents are public disclosure, and give you all the protection you need. If it would help me compete with you, then you have nothing to gain by hiding your interfaces, so publish

      • if it meant they could use some quality hardware with the respective OS

        Perhaps its not high quality hardware. By staying secretive, they can try to prevent people from finding this out.

        Maybe you are being too generous by giving them the benefit of the doubt. I seem to recall that one of the signs of mature, high quality software is that it is available for multiple platforms. Porting code can reveal bugs that are hard to find. Maybe if the hardware design is sketchy and barely functional, they are sca
      • Anecdote:

        I recall having a chat with a Plextor rep about just these features of their brand new drive a year or so ago at CeBIT. The guy was explaining all the wonderful new functionality: clever overburning/compression and whatnot, and an encryption thingummy. I asked him how much of it would be supported under Linux, and he said "only basic CD-writer functionality". So I asked him if he didn't imagine that any of the extra features would be reverse engineered or whatever, and he explained with a big grin

  • Nothing to see here please move along (Score:3, Insightful)

    by glockNine ( 851509 ) on Monday June 06, 2005 @10:53AM (#12736122)
    Just another example of an established company trying to push around the hard-working small-time developer. What else is new.

  • Article Text (Score:5, Informative)

    by El Neepo ( 411885 ) on Monday June 06, 2005 @10:54AM (#12736127)
    It was already slow for me:

    The interview was completed through IRC chat. The whole text is released under a "verbatim copying" licence, so we encourage you to re-publish it if you wish (see the full licence at the end).

    Nikolaos S. Karastathis: Hello, please introduce yourself and briefly describe the utilities you developed.

    Alexander Noé: I'm Alexander Noé:, currently studying computer science at TU-Chemnitz. The utilities PxScan/PxView i've developed perform error scans on Plextor PX-712/716 and Plextor Premium drives. The tests are the same, but PlexTools had some handling I didn't like, for example you can run several tests on DVDs, but in PlexTools you couldn't trigger them at once, but rather had to trigger one test at one time. My goal was just to make all that more convenient.

    Nikolaos S. Karastathis: You received a letter via email about these utilities. Who sent the letter and what did it say?

    Alexander Noé: The letter was sent by lawyers working for Shinano Kenshi. The Lawyers claim those utilities would violate their clients rights.

    Nikolaos S. Karastathis: Have you replied to this letter?

    Alexander Noé: No, I haven't.

    Nikolaos S. Karastathis: Why do you think the lawyers sent this letter, and what are their requests?

    Alexander Noé: Plextor maybe sees me as competitor. However, they don't offer any Linux version, neither free nor for money, so I have absolutely no idea what their problem with pxlinux could possibly be. They demand that I cease-and-desist from any further infringements, and demand that I comply a list of all steps I've taken to ensure that their clients' rights will no longer be infringed.

    Nikolaos S. Karastathis: Have you contacted a professional lawyer yet? Did you receive any legal advice?

    Alexander Noé: A professional lawyer said that in his opinion, none of the accusations made by Shinano are justified.

    Nikolaos S. Karastathis: Is the letter confidential, can you post it for everyone to see?

    Alexander Noé: The letter itself is not explicitely marked as such, but I'm not sure if I have the right to publish an email sent to me in general without the sender agreeing on this.

    Nikolaos S. Karastathis: In the last years there are increasingly more legal problems for free/libre/open-source software projects. Now software patents may be introduced in Europe. What are your views on this issue?

    Alexander Noé: I *really* hope that software patents will not be introduced, but I can't do much about it... as I don't really understand lawyer and politician language, like most people, I can hardly assess the consequences software patents would cause, but it wouldn't make life of free developers easier.

    Have your say! Discuss in Wikinerds Forum (unregistered users are welcome).

    Nikolaos S. Karastathis: What do you plan to do now?

    Alexander Noé: I'm waiting what will happen....

    Nikolaos S. Karastathis: Anything more you want to say?

    Alexander Noé: Considering that Plextor did, not long ago, announce that they would be supporting open-source, I really wonder what all this is supposed to be about. Either they support open-source, or at least "tolerate" it, or they don't.

    Nikolaos S. Karastathis: The interview appears to be finished. Thank you very much!

    The text of this article is Copyright (C) 2005 by Alexander Noé and Nikolaos S. Karastathis. Verbatim copying and redistribution of the entire text of this article are permitted provided this notice is preserved and a reference to its original location is provided: http://portal.wikinerds.org/interview-alex-noe-200 5jun [wikinerds.org]

    • Let Plextor know what you think (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      From http://www.plextor-europe.com/all/contactus.asp [plextor-europe.com]

      Plesae be polite. Explain why you are boycotting their products, and why this is bad PR.

      PLEXTOR EUROPE

      Plextor Europe is located at:
      Excelsiorlaan 9 B-1930 Zaventem, Belgium
      Phone: +32-2-725-55-22
      FAX: +32-2-725-94-95

      PLEXTOR JAPAN

      Plextor Japan is located at:
      Kyodo Building (Tokyo Ekimae), 8th Floor
      4-21 Yaesu 1 chome, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 103, Japan
      Phone: +81-3-3517-8061
      FAX: +81-3-3517-8065

      PLEXTOR USA

      Plextor USA is located at:
      48383 Fremont Blvd. Suite 120 F

    • Re:Article Text (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Frank T. Lofaro Jr. ( 142215 ) on Monday June 06, 2005 @11:21AM (#12736387) Homepage
      Email cease and desists I don't believe have legal standing. I may be wrong, but the law often demands registered/certified postal mail (and for actually lawsuits, subpoenas, etc - physical service of papers).

      Also, doesn't one have the right to make public any legal threat against oneself, like a C-and-D letter. Are those protected by copyright, or (likely) not, as they are functional not creative, and are a legal document (the law often favors legal documents being public) and in addition, one might want to make it public to defend themselves.

      chillingeffects.org might be a good place to go.

      I had bought a Plextor CD-RW a while back. It is the last Plextor product I will ever buy (*). I will convince other's to boycott also.

      (*) Unless they repudiate their C-and-D letter, promise to never do that again, and release specs on all proprietary commands to the public without any license on those specs which restricts their use in free software.

    • Nikolaos S. Karastathis: Is the letter confidential, can you post it for everyone to see?

      Alexander Noé: The letter itself is not explicitely marked as such, but I'm not sure if I have the right to publish an email sent to me in general without the sender agreeing on this.

      Yes he has that right. The recipient is free to do with the contents of that e-mail/letter as he/she wishes. If sender of a letter/e-mail doesn't like that, they shouldn't send letter/e-mail at all.

      Non-disclosure can be agre

      • Copyright on any work, including a letter, is automatically retained by the author regardless of how it is published (e.g. sent privately to one recipient) unless explicitly reassigned. The recipient of a letter therefore is not allowed to publish the letter without permission of the author.

        Copyright, however, only covers the expression of ideas and not the ideas themselves. The recipient may publish the sense or meaning of the letter at will, and may use short excerpts from the letter ("fair use") to cl

      • Not sure that's true. This might be relevant - US law regarding the publication of letters sent to reclusive author J.D.Salinger:

        http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/comm/free_speech/ salinger.html [bc.edu]
    • Seeing 3 sites on a row slashdotted, it might be a good idea to create a "slashdot cache" which acts like google cache. You can then read the article from the cache or from the main site which published it.

      There will ofcourse be issues with the bigger sites which run commercials around their content, so they will have to be excluded.

    • Alexander Noé: Considering that Plextor did, not long ago, announce that they would be supporting open-source, I really wonder what all this is supposed to be about. Either they support open-source, or at least "tolerate" it, or they don't.

      Telephone: Brrring! Brrrring!
      Nikolaos: Hello? Yes? Yes, General. No, I never--... I didn't think that--... No, I'm not a terrorist! I just--... Guantanamo?! But I--... yes. Yes, I see. No problem. Yessir.

      Nikolaos S. Karastathis: The interview appears to

    • OK, when reading this back, one could seriously think I was french :p "and demand that I comply a list of all steps" -> "and demand that I *compile* a list of all steps"

  • The source (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MartijnH ( 602886 ) on Monday June 06, 2005 @10:59AM (#12736198)
    The original source of this story is this thread on the CD Freaks Plextor DVD Burner Forum [cdfreaks.com]. I guess the comments in that thread tell a lot about what long time customers of Plextor think at the moment.

    • Re:The source (Score:3, Informative)

      by justins ( 80659 )

      I guess the comments in that thread tell a lot about what long time customers of Plextor think at the moment.

      No. Long time customers of Plextor will continue buying Plextor equipment, since it is generally the best, and those long-time customers value quality above all else. When you see stuff like "my next drive will be a BenQ, not a plextor!" you are not dealing with a statement representative of the loyal Plextor buyer. BenQ, ffs...

      As always, the correct approach is for everyone worried about this t

      • Re:The source (Score:2, Funny)

        by todu ( 560148 )
        > As always, the correct approach is for everyone worried about this to send polite emails to Plextor corporate.

        Yeah? Oh well, why not:

        Subject: Regarding your cease and desist letter to Alexander Noe.

        Hello Plextor,

        Please forward this email to your CEO.

        I read a story about your company sending legal threats to a free software developer making software for your hardware. I am just a powerless individual and realize my request has no real meaning to you and your competing companies. But what the heck -
        • I am just a powerless individual and realize my request has no real meaning to you and your competing companies.

          Well, that is a little defeatist. :)
      • Actually, there are numerous manufacturers who produce equipment comparable to Plextor. I have an LG CD-RW which does a better job of ripping copy protected audio, for example.

        I've bought quite a few Plextor drives over the years, both for myself and for machines built for other people. At least five in the last couple of years, off the top of my head. I think that makes me a long time Plextor customer. And I'm absolutely serious when I say that if Plextor doesn't drop this case, I'll never buy another Ple
    • On the forum linked above, zeb_ makes a good point about this that should definately be noted.

      "... the lawyers represent Shinano Kenshi, the company that writes Plextools (and Plextools Pro). They don't say they represent Plextor actually. The plaint does not come directly from Plextor. So maybe this matter could be discussed with Plextor itself."

  • An email? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dougmc ( 70836 ) <dougmc+slashdot@frenzied.us> on Monday June 06, 2005 @11:04AM (#12736245) Homepage
    Alexander Noé: The letter itself is not explicitely marked as such, but I'm not sure if I have the right to publish an email sent to me in general without the sender agreeing on this.
    Just recently I received an email from a lawyer in Nigera. Apparantly his client's father had died and left a large sum of money in a bank account. Apparantly they need my help to get the money ...

    Seriously, serious legal threats usually don't arrive via email. Lawyers usually prefer to speak with certified letters and such, where they know it was received and who received it and when (and can prove it in court), and so in general anything received via email should be taken with a big grain of salt. Email is too unreliable (my spam filter ate it!) and just hasn't been around enough decades to make the legal system trust it. At most, they might send a certified letter and an email at the same time (and so the email will arrive first) but I suspect that even that's rare.

    The email may be legitimate, and in this case it sounds like it probably is, but even so ... big grain of salt.

    • I agree: they should at least take the proper steps if they expect proper action to be taken. We want hardcopy legal threats and not just emailed ones!
    • Alexander Noé: The letter itself is not explicitely marked as such, but I'm not sure if I have the right to publish an email sent to me in general without the sender agreeing on this.

      Well, I don't know about Europe (or any other country, frankly), but I'd say an unsolicited email coming from an unknown person is yours to do with what you want. Secrets imply deception. Look at government in general for a great example of this concept.
    • Perhaps they don't have his real snailmail address and are hoping he isn't savvy enough to know there may be a difference.
      Hell, just look at how many people in the world think the DMCA relates directly to them, even though they aren't even friends with an American, let alone a citizen.
    • Typically, those "This C&D letter is secret and should not be shared with anybody" lines are attached to letters that have absolutely no legal leg to stand on, but the laywer is hoping that you don't know that and wants to make sure you don't mention it to anybody with actual knowledge of the law. From what I can tell, this tactic often works as sites are taken down with barely a word as to why other than "legal reasons, too expensive to fight". I'm betting a good 95% of the C&D letters sent out a
    • At most, they might send a certified letter and an email at the same time (and so the email will arrive first) but I suspect that even that's rare.

      It's becoming less so. I was sent a C&D not to long ago (over trademark issues), and got the dual notification (e-mail first, then a copy certified with return receipt).

  • What Plextor is up to (Score:4, Insightful)

    by doublem ( 118724 ) on Monday June 06, 2005 @11:11AM (#12736306) Homepage Journal
    Plextor may be doing a couple things. First and foremost, they're making sure no unauthorized Open Source projects spring up. They have no interest in supporting the software unless they wrote it. I can understand this motivation. We all remember the Mandrake Linux release that killed some CD RW drives, and Plextor is no doubt concerned about a similar problem for them.

    Next, they probably have some lawyers trolling the net, sending cease and desists to anyone writing "competing" software. This is a sadly common CYA issue, and is done more to demonstrate they've been actively protecting their patents and copyrights than anything else. If this is the case, a few e-mails between the developer and Plextor could resolve the problem and allow the software to continue being developed, assuming Plextor doesn't want the product squashed.

    Then again, this could all be about unauthorized use of the Plextor name or graphics on the developer's web site. They could be doing this to protect their corporate branding, and to keep people from thinking the software is authorized or supported by Plextor.

    Has anyone contacted Plextor about this?

    • You've fogotten the details (Score:5, Informative)

      by anti-NAT ( 709310 ) on Monday June 06, 2005 @11:26AM (#12736442) Homepage

      Plextor may be doing a couple things. First and foremost, they're making sure no unauthorized Open Source projects spring up. They have no interest in supporting the software unless they wrote it. I can understand this motivation. We all remember the Mandrake Linux release that killed some CD RW drives, and Plextor is no doubt concerned about a similar problem for them.

      Plextor would have nothing to fear if they've followed the ATAPI / MMC specifications correctly. Those drives that died (I had one) implemented something like a firmware flash (or "trash") command using the same opcode as the write cache flush command (or something similar, the details in my head are fading). On a CD-ROM drive, write cache flush obviously is unnecessary, however, that doesn't mean that the opcode can be grabbed to be used for something else. The CD-ROM manufacturer was the root cause of this problem.

      • Good point. Thank you for the clarification.

        However, my original point remains. If no Open Source code is written to take advantage of the advanced features, then Plextor doesn't have to worry about anyone uncovering, possibly in an inadvertently destructive manner, any such bonehead design decisions on their part.

    • Re:What Plextor is up to (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Bri3D ( 584578 )
      This would not cause a Mandrake/CDRW type screwup. This application simply enables some quality checking in the drive by sending it the correct ATAPI requests. The Mandrake/CDRW thing was with LG drives, where the IDE_FLUSH_BUFFERS command made the drive flush its firmware too. This was by no means Mandrake's or Linux's fault(it existed in other distros).
      • I was just tossing out an example and theorizing on what may be motivating Plextor. I never said I thought it was a GOOD reason. I just think it's a LIKELY reason for the email.
    • Please, it wasn't Mandrake's fault for using some code SuSE had commissioned, but then rejected before the distribution CDs were burned. It wasn't even SuSE's fault for writing the code that Mandrake used. It was LG's fault for not adhering to the ATAPI specification. And they were read-only CD-ROM drives, not CD-RW drives.

      The ATAPI specification says what the command should be to force a writeable device to decache. The code in question worked by issuing a "flush write cache" command, and checking th

    • This is a sadly common CYA issue, and is done more to demonstrate they've been actively protecting their patents and copyrights than anything else.

      This is apprently not the case, since according to Eric Fernandez (Zeb), developer of PxLinux ( who is also being harrassed):

      I read on some forums some people try to find exceptions to the protection of copyrighted work to justify the legality of PxScan/PxView/PxLinux. Actually, there is no copyrighted work use in our code whatsoever. The copyrighted c

  • Publish the letter! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RealProgrammer ( 723725 ) on Monday June 06, 2005 @11:27AM (#12736456) Homepage Journal
    I'm not sure if I have the right to publish an email sent to me in general...

    Even if they explicitly tell him not to do so, he can still make public the information in the letter.

    They have copyright on the letter. What he needs to do is paraphrase the letter, with attribution, and quote only the most unbelievably stupid parts.

    As for the original program, they need to tell him which specificy rights of theirs he is violating. The is no such thing as generic "intellectual property". There are only copyright, patent, trade secret, trademark, and contractual rights.

    Unless they have a patent on the method his program uses to perform the activity his program performs, or he's violating an NDA or using their trademark, they can't stop him from performing the activity.

    Bottom line: they can't stop him from publishing his code, only theirs. Using the same methods they use doesn't violate their copyright.

    • They have copyright on the letter. What he needs to do is paraphrase the letter, ...

      Yes, but the letter itself is property of the receiver.

      Besides, claiming your mail is private when you just sent it across the world from Japan in plain text won't hold in court.

      I think he can safely publish the letter on the web including a copyright notice.

    • I'm not sure what "copyrights" are implied on a legal document sent to another party for them to read and how much/whether the "another" party is restricted from dealing with it. The sending party does, after all, want the recieving party to use the document and take action upon it in favour of the sending party. The reciever, if he publishes it on a website, might just be asking for legal opinion from his legal consultants who happen to be the readers of that particular website. Of course, it might be copy

  • In related news: (Score:4, Informative)

    by Mitchell Mebane ( 594797 ) on Monday June 06, 2005 @11:34AM (#12736529) Homepage Journal
    DVD Decrypter is dead, as well, thanks to a C&D from some company as yet unnamed.

    Story @ CDFreaks [cdfreaks.com]

    These are sad times...

    • Re:In related news: (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      OT, but the last DVDDecrypter 3.5.4.0 is still at http://www.doom9.org/ [doom9.org]

      Alternatively, it's here: ed2k://|file|SetupDVDDecrypter_3.5.4.0.exe|899414| F2AC534A2A37C33BF0634382318FE527|/

      Middle finger to the assholes I guess.

  • Well Time to add it to the Boycott List (Score:3, Funny)

    by CodePyro ( 627236 ) on Monday June 06, 2005 @11:43AM (#12736613)
    So far we have the following on the boycott list:
    1. SCO
    2. Microsoft XP Professional Edition(Home is ok *wink*)
    3. Java (read "The Java Trap" [gnu.org])
    4. French Products (no real valid reason)
    5. Plextor (see above article)

  • And what actually did he illegal? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Unfortunately the lawyers did not tell what actually should be illegal.

    I think the letter is just FUD from Plextor. If he copied some code from the plextor software the lawyers should have given the information of what he did

  • Because it could be argued that email is not a 100% guaranteed transmission. You could have ignored it and claimed your spam filter must have erased it, and gone on about your business.

    IANAL, but don't you have to serve someone papers in a traceable way, like a registered letter or some such? And if so, I think these guys are probably not the brightest lawyers around. So I wouldn't worry.

  • Talk about sending mixed signals... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Rescate ( 688702 ) on Monday June 06, 2005 @11:49AM (#12736674)
    As mentioned in this /. article, Plextor PVRs Now Support Linux [slashdot.org]

    Plextor Press Release, March 8, 2005
    Plextor PVRs Now Support Linux [plextor.com]
    "...Plextor is strongly committed to supporting the Open Source Software movement with free development tools that help speed the creation of next-generation Linux-based video software," said Dirk Peters, director of marketing, Plextor. "The release of this SDK was a direct response to requests from the user community for an easier way to work with Plextor ConvertX video capture devices on computers running Linux..."

    "Plextor's new Linux SDK provides developers with a free GPL-based full-source driver to support all of the popular V4L2 applications," said, Tom Luax, vice president of sales, WISchip International. "The combination of low-cost MPEG4/DivX Video compression hardware and Linux OSS software is a great solution for anyone who wants to build a high-quality and low-cost personal video recorder for their PC..."

    Yes, I realize this is for PVR stuff, not DVD burners, but one would think their strategy would be a bit broader than product-by-product. Maybe they think their PVR offerings need more help, while their DVD burners don't.
  • I've already made a subdirectory under ~/suppressed.

  • Everybody unite (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Rac3r5 ( 804639 ) on Monday June 06, 2005 @12:50PM (#12737311)
    Seriously,

    the best way to speak is with your wallets and ur voice. If eveyone on slashDot sends plextor an e-mail saying that what they are doing is complete BS, and we won't stand for this stuff, we will boycott their stuff and recommend others against purchasing their products they will start to listen.

    If every posted article posted gets slashDotted within 5 - 10 mins of it getting posted, u can imagine the number of e-mails that can get sent telling them what u think.

    It just takes about 2 mins to write a decent e-mail, do it now and speak up for the little guy.

  • SCSI commands (Score:3, Insightful)

    by starfishsystems ( 834319 ) on Monday June 06, 2005 @01:24PM (#12737605) Homepage
    It might only be a minor point, but it's one which goes against any claims which might underly the "cease and desist" email.

    According to the cdfreaks website, the PxLinux software simply uses a series of SCSI commands to retrieve statistical data from the drive. The same principle would also apply to ATAPI.

    The SCSI command set is a set of published specifications specifically intended for such purposes. It cannot reasonably be the case that Plextor, the drive manufacturer, by following these specifications, expected to restrict the use of SCSI commands for drive control.

    It's possible that there is some sort of exclusive software development agreement between Plextor and Shinano Kenshi, but that agreement is not binding on other parties.

    It would also be possible, in principle, to sell these drives under condition not to use them except as strictly specified, but again such an agreement would not be binding on other parties.

    In no case is it reasonable to seek damages against some third party who independently develops a means to use a manufactured device as intended. An impossible situation would clearly develop for both industry and the public at large if courts were to award such damages.

    [I am not a lawyer, and the foregoing does not constitute legal advice.]

    • What you don't understand about this is, ..., well, a lot.

      Plextor doesn't make the chipset for the drive - they buy them from Sanyo. The "trade secret" commands that are being sent to the drive are quite likely described in a document that is restricted to Sanyo licensees. So, Plextor quite likely doesn't have the right to disclose this information in the first place.

      The commands are way outside of the MMC3 specification, or any other specification that exists. They are "vendor specific" and are not in

  • Great. Now I can't get Twisted Sister out of my head.
  • Another developer who also received a cease-and-desist letter from the same company is Zeb, who developed PxLinux (a port of PxScan/PxView). I interviewed him just now. Read the interview with Zeb [wikinerds.org]
  • I use and prefer Lite-On drives. They are cheap and standards-compliant. The same can't be said for Plextor (although they have improved in recent years).

    What really put me over the fence for Lite-On is the freeware (closed source) program KProbe [cdrlabs.com]. This works only with Lite-On drives, and is only for Windows (unfortunately). Even though it is closed source, it is a free download (unlike Plextor's commercial utility).

    The program KProbe [cdfreaks.com] seems to perform similar functions to what these Plextor utilities d
    • what's wrong with "great quality" discs?

      just cd discs or dvds as well?

      the problem with the media industry is, is that there really is no way to test/verify the quality of the media independently or at all.

      and price certainly is no indication of quality. people have reported the same exact discs selling for sometimes 2-3 times as much as a generic brand.

      maybe THAT is exactly what they are hoping to prevent. they don't want people to be able to indentify the quality level of discs. they make 1000% profit

  • HEMOS involved in PxTools sourceforge shutdown!!! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Creepy Crawler ( 680178 ) on Monday June 06, 2005 @08:52PM (#12742212)
    Take a look [sourceforge.net]

    _____
    [ 1151117 ] Administrative issue
    You may monitor this Tracker item after you login (register an account, if you do not already have one)
    Submitted By:
    Takeshima - takeshima Date Submitted:
    2005-02-24 07:40
    Changed to Closed status by:
    hemosSourceForge.net SubscriberSourceForge.net Site Admin Closed as of:
    2005-03-03 07:00
    Last Updated By:
    nobody - Comment added Date Last Updated:
    2005-06-06 10:45
    Number of Comments:
    6 Number of Attachments:
    0
    Category: (?)
    Project Administration Group: (?)
    Second Level Support
    Assigned To: (?)
    Jeffrey Bates Priority: (?)
    8
    Status: (?)
    Closed
    Summary: (?)
    Administrative issue
    One of your members is starting a new project, called
    PXscan, PXview or PXTool Linux.
    This contains unauthorised usage of Plextor-owned
    intellectual property and should be refused.
    If accepted, we will take legal steps.
    _____

    Hmm.. "Mr. Your rights online" Hemos is a wonderful censor and deleter of content, isnt he?

    I guess depleting a 'business venture' of some big company is more worth saving than a free software developer. Well, either that, or MMC3 scsi commands are now considered "propertiary secrets".

    Which is it Hemos?
  • ...support.

    Its an awesome feature I'm dying to use...
  • still available, can anonymous developement continue? Stop putting your name on this stuff and let them find somebody to sue.

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