LawFont.com

Yesterday, Engadget carried an interview with Viodentia (the guy who cracked Microsoft’s DRM). Today, it is reporting that Microsoft is now suing him for copyright infringement. He is one of 10 unidentified defendants (called “Does”, as in “John Doe”). In the lawsuit, Microsoft will seek to get discovery of documents which will allow the identification of the defendants.

Interestingly, according to this CNet story, a Microsoft spokesman says that (a) Viodentia actually got access to some of Microsoft’s source code for Windows Media software and (b) incorporated some of it into his program. No further details are given, but it will be interesting to see how this plays out. In particular, whether Viodentia did indeed get access to actual source code, or whether he is just really good at reverse engineering Microsoft’s object code (which, although hard, strikes me as the easier of the two possibilities).

UPDATED: Today, Viodentia released an updated version of his program. Engadget asked him about the charge of using Microsoft’s source code; his response was that he was “utterly shocked” by the charge:

“I didn’t use any Microsoft source code. However, I believe that this lawsuit is a fishing expedition to get identity information, which can then be used to either bring more targeted lawsuits, or to cause other trouble.”