Microsoft Sues Developer of FairUse4WM

In a lawsuit filed against John Doe, known online by the handle Viodentia, Microsoft alleges that this individual or individuals had illegal access to MS source code. This suit is meant to give Microsoft additional power in how it pursues the alleged IP thief.

MS has already been contacting websites and ISP's hosting the FairUse4WM tools and asking them to remove it. Now MS will be bringing legal power to these requests in hopes of finding some logs or IP addresses which will allow them to identify the source of these postings. The practice of using John Doe suits to hunt down the identities of individual(s) has become a very well known practice, just ask the RIIA.

Coupling these legal actions with multiple technical attempts has been drawing quite a bit of attention to these problems. Its obvious MS is very concerned over this DRM strip as its Zune product and service are set to launch in the next few months. Viodentia has been responded with postings at doom9.org saying that he in fact did not have access to source code and wrote the tools from scratch.

I have yet to see any evidence from Microsoft supporting their allegation that Viodentia had source code.

Comments

[Casey P.]

Here's Engagdet's http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/25/the-engadget-interview-viodentia-creator-of-fairuse4wm/">interview with Viodentia.