On October 16, 2007, the Honorable Audrey B. Collins granted Ticketmaster a preliminary injunction forbidding RMG Technologies form using automated programs or "bots" to navigate Ticketmaster's website and purchase tickets.

RMG's technology allowed its customers to circumvent Ticketmaster's identification and security precautions, thereby allowing RMG's clientèle to purchase tickets faster than Ticketmaster's human clients, allowing for the mass purchase of tickets for resale value at much higher prices.

Interesting in this case, is that the Judge found that the harm done to Ticketmaster was not loss of sales (as RMG clients were purchasing all the tickets from Ticketmaster at full market value), bu the harm to goodwill and reputation, citing customer complaints about the unavailability of tickets.

Furthermore, the court also found grounds in the claim of Computer Fraud and Abuse Act(CFAA), citing that RMG "intentionally accesse[d] a computer without authorization or exceed[ed] authorized access, and thereby obtain[ed] information from any protected computer," 18 U.S.C. section 1030(a)(2)(c), or that RMG "knowingly cause[d] the transmission of a program... and ... cause[d] damage without authorization to a protected computer." This portion falls into previous rulings that use of a computer to the extent that it may cause harm or slow down a computer has been deemed a violation of the CFAA. However, because Ticketmaster failed to demonstrate a minimum of $5,000 in damages (which should have been a fairly easy step.) the court avoided ruling on the CFAAA claim as to the preliminary injunction, citing that RMG was sufficiently in breach of other claims that it was not necessary.

Lastly, we see again that a company which advertises that software or an application is able to circumvent any other companies protection measures, is going to get you into trouble. We first saw this type of ruling from the courts in Metro-Goldwyin-Mayer Studios Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd., 545 U.S. 913 (2005) where the courts ruled that because Grokster advertised that its application and file sharing techniques allowed second party individuals to violate copyright laws, Grokster was liable for "intentionally inducing or encouraging direct infringement, and infringes vicariously by profiting form direct infringement while declining to exercise a right to stop or limit it." Although this is not file sharing of media files as is the more common modern version of copyright infringement, a website is considered copyrighted material, and therefore circumventing protective measures to gain access to a copyrighted website will get you into trouble both with the DMCA and Copyright Law.

In the end, do not advertise that your application, software, or techniques circumvent protective measures, or allow for the violation of any law or right, including copyright.