DRM and Competition on Downstream Markets
Over the last two years, cases in which companies used DRM technology and the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA in order to control downstream markets and channel innovation on these markets have received considerable amount of attention. Particularly worrisome was the Lexmark case in which Lexmark used the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA in order to receive a preliminary injunction against a manufacturer of toner cartridges that competed with Lexmark’s own cartridges (for more information about the case, see here at pages 623-626). In an important decision called Chamberlain v. Skylink,
