Under the US's Digital Millennium Copyright Act, repairing tape drives is illegal without permission from the manufacturer, at least if the manufacturer has the foresight to use a copyrighted key code for the maintenance mode in the firmware. The court ruling gave tape drive manufacturer StorageTek an effective monopoly on service for all of its machines. And if something's illegal under US intellectual property law, chances are it'll be illegal under Australian intellectual property law if/when the free trade agreement is passed into law. (via bOING bOING)

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