Microsoft has filed a lawsuit against hackers who the software giant claims stole proprietary source code that disables digital rights management (DRM) software.
The suit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Seattle, alleges 10 "John Does" broke into Microsoft systems to steal code that helped create a publicly available program called FairUse4WM, which removes file-sharing restrictions from Windows Media 10 and 11 files, according to published reports.
Online music services, such as Napster, use Windows DRM to prevent the copying and distribution of copyrighted music.
The apparent lead hacker, who goes by the alias Viodentia, said in a web posting that the FairUse4WM program was his own creation and that he denies stealing any Microsoft source code, published reports said.
A Microsoft spokesperson said today that the company has not released a statement on the suit.
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