As if buyers of information technology products don't have enough problems as it is, here's another hidden cost of ownership they have to worry about. What if the equipment contains critical software that you aren't licensed to use without paying extra?
Many readers reacted with dismay to news of a recent court decision giving StorageTek a temporary injunction effectively preventing a third-party service vendor from fixing high-end StorageTek tape library backup systems. As we've seen with Lexmark on several occasions, once again a hardware vendor is using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to control how customers can use their product.
Still, I'm going to try to resist the temptation to launch into another tirade about the DMCA over this. (However, if you haven't already told your Congresspeoples you support H.R. 107, go to EFF's site to learn how you can push for DMCA reform.) Instead, I'd like to focus on what the court's decision reveals about the value proposition StorageTek is delivering its customers.
According to the court's summary of the case, the third- party support vendor violated the DMCA by circumventing StorageTek's GetKey, a software key that prevents access to StorageTek's "maintenance code." The maintenance code is essentially all the built-in diagnostic firmware in StorageTek's silo systems, including most importantly the ability to generate event messages from the devices to allow a technician to diagnose problems. A key point for the court is that the maintenance code is retained for the exclusive use of technicians authorized by StorageTek and is not licensed to the customer.
In other words, although you purchased the system, you are not allowed to use the built-in code that you need to diagnosis problems with it. That seemed odd to me, so I decided to check to make sure the judge understood that correctly. The short answer is yes. "The maintenance code is our intellectual property, and it allows our technicians to maintain our silos," a StorageTek spokesman said. "If a customer wants to do their own maintenance or have an unauthorized third party do it, they can. They just have to write their own maintenance code."
Of course, the spokesman acknowledged that writing your own maintenance code might not be the most practical solution in the world. In fact, he said StorageTek would consider accessing and interpreting the machine code on which the event messages are based a violation of their trade secrets. So it sounds to me like you'd be better off building your own storage system from scratch than trying to work around StorageTek's intellectual property claims. But it makes you wonder what ever happened to the idea that, once you buy a product, you can do with it as you please.
Along with getting a service plan from StorageTek or one of its authorized partners, the spokesman said a customer "self-maintenance" plan is also available that includes a one-year license to use the maintenance code. (That's an option of which the court might be unaware, as the decision stated that StorageTek "does not sell its Maintenance Code separately.") So it's not that the maintenance code is too dangerously complex for customers to touch -- it's just that StorageTek doesn't want them touching it without paying extra.
One way or another, paying this extra hidden cost is what StorageTek intends customers to have to do to make use of the diagnostics built into their tape library silos. Legal issues aside, wouldn't you think there should at least be a big sign on the StorageTek's website warning that customers aren't allowed to repair the system on their own? I looked in vain for even the vaguest description of these policies where a potential customer could see it, and the StorageTek spokesman was unable to point me to any page on their website that gives a hint.
DMCA or no DMCA, customers should have the right to know what they're getting when they buy a product, and what they're not getting. Let's just hope that, in bringing these policies to the surface, StorageTek's DMCA lawsuit will turn out to have a few hidden costs for them as well.
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