Its not the shift key per se, but its the Microsoft automount program that is the circumvention device. This company relies on the automount function as a technological access control measure to ensure application of the DRM libraries to a host computer.

The automount function includes a pre-existing circumvention method (the shift key) for preventing a CD from autoplaying upon mounting. Now that the automount function is being used as an access control, the circumvention code is now a circumvention device subjected to DMCA considerations when any “technology” related to it — in this case the research paper — is principally related to circumvention of an access control related to a right of the copyright holder.

Everyone is right, though, that this case will be the test case for DMCA constitutionality, and especially in light of the majority opinion in Eldred (so long as the law remains within the “traditional bounds of copyright law” first amendment analysis is limited). I would chomp at the bit to help work on a case like this — heck I would chomp at the bit to even be sued in a case like this.

-doogieh

p>Here’s the
DeCSS
case reference I wanted, footnote #135:

FN135. In their Post-Trial Brief, defendants argue that “at least some of
the members of Congress” understood

Research papers are arguably technology, not device.

I’ve just written about this problem with DMCA and speech and code == speech