Corellium Wins Partial Victory in Apple iOS Copyright Case

Security firm Corellium, which develops software that researchers can use to analyze Apple products, has won a partial victory in Apple’s lawsuit against it because a judge ruled that its creation of virtual iOS environments did not violate not Apple’s copyright.

Corellium has been creating iOS environments since 2017 that can run on desktop computers, to be used as a research and development tool. Apple sued Corellium in 2019, alleging that Corellium’s “real goal is to profit from its blatant violation” of iOS, and claiming that the company “encourages its users to sell any information it finds. [about system vulnerabilities] on the open market to the highest bidder. “

Earlier this year, Apple amended the complaint to include allegations that Corellium’s work violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) ban on bypassing or breaking DRM.

U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith of the U.S. District Court for South Florida released his ruling (PDF) in the case yesterday, dismissing Apple’s motion for summary judgment and awarding part, but not the entirety of Corellium’s request to that effect, believing that Corellium’s shares were fair use, but “material factual issues” remain.

Granted in part

Smith found Corellium on the copyright claim issue, determining that Corellium was not just cloning iOS as a way to compete with Apple, but genuinely using Apple’s work as the basis to create something new.

“Corellium makes several changes to iOS and incorporates its own code to create a product that serves a transformative purpose,” Smith wrote. “Therefore, Corellium’s profit motive does not compromise its fair use defense, especially given the public interest of the product.”

Apple also alleged that Corellium’s behavior “was totally inappropriate” and that the company had not acted in good faith. Smith, however, wrote that “Apple’s position is confusing, if not dishonest” because Corellium has a customer verification process and “has exercised its discretion to deny the Corellium product to those it suspects of using. the product for harmful purposes.

In short, the court “did not find a lack of good faith and fair dealing” on Corellium’s part, Smith said, and “further, taking into account all the necessary factors, the court finds that Corellium has fulfilled its fair use burden “.

Partially refused

Apple’s second claim that Corellium illegally bypassed its DRM under DMCA Section 1201 is trickier to deal with.

Under Article 1201, creating any sort of limit switch around a “technical measure which effectively controls access to a work” is in itself illegal – even if you have a very good reason, like the research or repair, to do so. Apple, as you would expect, has many the technological measures by which it protects iOS.

There are, however, exemptions in Section 1201. Every three years, the US Copyright Office reviews the list and may choose to add new exemptions. In 2015, for example, it became legal for researchers to hack voting machines and medical devices in controlled environments for the purpose of good faith security research.

There are Section 1201 exemptions for smartphones, but they are limited specifically to jailbreaking, for software interoperability reasons, and unlocking devices to move between carrier networks.

Even though Smith found that Corellium was engaged in fair dealing with respect to the copyright claim, he rejected the fair dealing argument with respect to claim 1201. “Here, if the court took Corellium’s position that fair dealing is a defense to Apple’s DMCA claim, it would effectively render Section 1201 meaningless, ”Smith wrote. “Therefore, Corellium may make fair use of iOS, but it is not exempt from any potential liability for allegedly using circumvention tools to illegally access iOS or parts of iOS.”

Legal proceedings related to the Section 1201 claim will therefore continue into the new year.