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Today the SD Florida Federal District Court, found @CorelliumHQ’s virtual iOS product was a fair use of Apple’s copyright, but left the DMCA claim for more facts.
Critically, the court found Corellium’s use, which allows for security research not feasible on a standard iPhone, transformative, which is a key fair use factor.
The court also found that the public benefit of this transformative security research use outweighed the fact the it’s a commercial product.
Apple argued bad faith, but the Court was not impressed, for redacted reasons. It’s not a good sign if a court describes your arguments as puzzling and maybe disingenuous.
Despite finding the iOS copyright use fair, the Court allowed the DMCA to survive, citing the Universal City v. Corley case.
Corley was a early DMCA case that enjoined the distribution of DeCSS, a program capable of defeating CSS, a DRM system for DVDs. It illustrates the problem with the DMCA, allowing legal locks on content you’re otherwise entitled to use lawfully.
The Corley DMCA decision, enjoining Eric Corley and @2600 magazine, also raises free speech issues, as neatly illustrated by Seth Schoen’s DeCSS haiku. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS_haiku
The Corley decision is from the 2d Circuit, and the @CorelliumHQ case is in the 11th, which is not bound to follow Corley. So after discovery and a ruling on the merits of Apple’s DMCA claim, an appeal could provide an opportunity to challenge Corley.
Here’s the full Apple v @CorelliumHQ decision. https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.555634/gov.uscourts.flsd.555634.784.0_1.pdf
