I think it is important to correct an error I made in my response to Texas Instruments' DMCA takedown order. I wrote:

I did not include specific information, such as the numeric keys, which might have facilitated [the violation of Texas Instruments' Intellectual Property.]

Then later:

I sympathize with your position Mr. Foster. In fact, the post you asked me to remove predicted that Texas Instruments might pursue legal action against the people who are attempting to violate their intellectual property. However, I am not one of those people and I ever expected to receive a legal threat from you.

Although I did not include the numeric keys in my post, I would not have been facilitating the violation of TI's IP even if I had done so. I think that Jennifer Granick has made a clear and correct case in her blog post about this controversy that Texas Instruments does not have a legitimate intellectual property interest in those keys.

The keys are not intended to protect TI's copyrights, they are intended to prevent interoperability with TI's hardware. The DMCA provides a exemption for reverse engineering to achieve interoperability. This exemption was specifically intended to prevent companies from making the sort of claims that TI has made in this instance.

In order to have a competitive and innovative technology marketplace its important that we protect the right of third parties to built unauthorized interoperable software. The alternative would see bogus claims of "copyright infringement" used to prevent third parties from building technology that supports even the most trivial protocols and interfaces. Myriad powerful peripherals, systems, and software would be eliminated from the marketplace.

The bottom line is that TI is using claims of copyright infringement in a context that has absolutely nothing to do with copyright, and they are wrong to do so.

RE: My Response to the DMCA notice I received from Texas Instruments