Blackboard makes e-book deal with Barnes & Noble

ap ^ | Wednesday July 14, 2010, 4:44 pm EDT

[BenLurkin]

Blackboard Inc., a provider of software to educational institutions, said Wednesday it is working with Barnes & Noble Inc. to get the bookseller's titles into its e-book store for students.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Blackboard said it will work with Barnes & Noble to allow students to buy electronic textbooks and other course-related materials from its Blackboard Learn site.

The companies will also work to make Blackboard content work with Barnes & Noble's forthcoming Nookstudy e-reader software for computers.

Blackboard shares rose 64 cents to close at $39.33.

[antiRepublicrat]

Back in 2003, two student security researchers were going to present a paper on the security of Blackboard's products. The day before the security conference, Blackboard got an ex parte order (the researchers didn't know if it, couldn't defend themselves) to block their presentation on the basis of the DMCA, trademark, trade secret and hacking laws.

This is a system that Blackboard avertised as secure. Blackboard actually demanded of the conference organizers:

...that you immediately cease and desist from any facilitation of the use of its name and marks in any manner, and that you remove all references to Blackboard and its Transaction System from any website, power point presentation, seminar handouts, or any other promotional materials…

The company actually thinks it has the power to silence all public discussion of it and its products. The two researchers may have done some not-so-good things in the course of their research, but the issue here is freedom of speech to discuss what they found.

Even stranger is the abuse of legal doctrines and laws.

• Trademark? It's perfectly legal to mention a company's name and show its logo when giving a presentation about that company. There was no intention to misrepresent. They actually claimed counterfeit goods. What counterfeit goods?
• Trade secret? How can publishing information figured out during research of a product violate trade secrets laws? The whole idea of a trade secret is that it's only useful as long as it's secret. If you don't want to rely on secrecy, especially if someone can reverse-engineer your product, then get a patent. That's what they're for.
• DMCA? They reverse-engineered and cracked a security mechanism used to secure transactions. It was not designed or used to protect copyrighted works. This is yet another DMCA abuse.

And what's worse in the end, Blackboard learned of this research because the researchers contacted them, showing the gross security flaws, and imploring the company to fix its products. What was the reaction? Not to fix, but to suppress.