Goofball DMCA Threat

Well, I guess if no one licenses your product you can threaten to sue them into using it. That sounds like a winning strategy. Media Rights Technologies dropped cease and desist orders on Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, and RealNetworks. Their claim? The DMCA makes it illegal and prohibts the manufacture of any product or technology that will circumvent any technical method  of copyright protection and their product is not being used by these companies.

MRT asserts Apple, Microsoft, Real and Adobe have produced billions of these products without regard for the DMCA or the rights of American Intellectual Property owners, actively avoiding the use of MRT's technologies. Failure to comply with this demand could result in a federal court injunction to any of the above named parties to cease production or sale of their products and/or the imposition of statutory damages of at least $200 to $2500 for each product distributed or sold.

"Together these four companies are responsible for 98 percent of the media players in the marketplace; CNN, NPR, Clear Channel, MySpace Yahoo and YouTube all use these infringing devices to distribute copyrighted works," states MRT CEO Hank Risan. "We will hold the responsible parties accountable. The time of suing John Doe is over."

I'm surprised divine intervention, prima nocta, and the Patriot Act weren't mentioned in there somewhere. Those concepts are only slightly more arrogant.