A copyright lawsuit against a man who posted instructions on how to print unlimited copies of coupons has been dropped. The defendant, John Stottlemire, posted to his website this week that he had reached a settlement with Coupons, Inc. after a year-long legal battle over the digital coupons, and that Coupons would not be able to file another similar action against him.
In late 2007, Stottlemire posted instructions to tenbucks.net detailing how to perform a number of registry key modifications under Windows that would allow users to print unlimited online coupons offered by couponsinc.com. Without the "hack," users are technologically limited to printing only one coupon apiece.
Coupons, Inc. was unimpressed by Stottlemire's postings and filed a lawsuit against him, alleging that he violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by instructing users on how to circumvent the company's copy-protection scheme. Coupons even went so far as to compare Stottlemire to the infamousDVD Jon and his never-ending DRM-cracking efforts.
