including the White Paper of the National Information Infrastructure Task Force, congressional
reports, and the WIPO treaties, the court ruled that the information on the selvage and the tag did
not constitute CMI within the purview of the DMCA.^1303 The court found the IQ Group
decision, discussed above, influential to its decision, although it chose not to define the scope of
CMI as definitively as that case did.^1304 Nevertheless, the court was persuaded by that case that
Section 1202 should be “subject to a narrowing interpretation” as follows:
While the Court does not attempt in this decision to define the precise contours of
the applicability of § 1202, the Court nevertheless cannot find that the provision
was intended to apply to circumstances that have no relation to the Internet,
electronic commerce, automated copyright protections or management systems,
public registers, or other technological measures or processes as contemplated in
the DMCA as a whole. In other words, although the parties do not dispute that
the FEATHERS fabric contained [the plaintiff’s] copyright information, there are
no facts showing that any technological process as contemplated in the DMCA
was utilized by plaintiff in placing the copyright information onto the
FEATHERS fabric, or that defendants employed any technological process in
either their removal of the copyright information from the design or in their
alleged distribution of the design. In short, the Court finds that, in light of the
legislative intent behind the DMCA to facilitate electronic and Internet
commerce, the facts of this case do not trigger § 1202.^1305c. Jacobsen v. KatzerIn this case, the plaintiff was a leading member of the Java Model Railroad Interface
(JMRI) Project, an online, open source community that developed model train software and
distributed it under the open source Artistic License. The defendants also developed software for
model railroad enthusiasts. The plaintiff brought a claim under Section 1201(b), alleging that the
JMRI Project Decoder Definition Files distributed by the JMRI and used by the defendants
constituted CMI and that by removing some of the information in the files and making copies of
the files, the defendants had violated Section 1201(b). The defendants brought a motion to
dismiss the claim.^1306
(^1303) Id. at 1194-99.
(^1304) Id. at 1202 n.17 (“The Court is not attempting to define or specify what types of non-digital works are covered.
Rather, under the particular facts of this case – that is, in the absence of any facts demonstrating that a
technological process was utilized in connection with either applying the copyright information to the fabric or
in removing such information or in subsequently distributing the design – the Court is not persuaded that the
copyright information on the FEATHERS fabric warrants coverage by the DMCA.”) (emphasis in original) &
1203 n.18 (“Although the Court is persuaded to some extent by the reasoning set forth in the IQ Group decision,
the Court does not find it necessary to define the scope of § 1202 as definitively as the IQ Group court did (i.e.,
that the provision applies only to copyright management information that functions ‘as a component of an
automated copyright protection or management system’).”) (quoting IQ Group, 409 F. Supp. 2d at 598).
(^1305) Id. at 1201-02.
(^1306) Jacobsen v. Katzer, 609 F. Supp. 2d 925, 928 & 934 (N.D. Cal. 2009).