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Librarian of Congress Posts DMCA Exemptions
MrNerdHair writes "The Librarian of Congress has posted a list of exemptions from the DMCA (also obtainable in PDF here.) Works falling in four 'classes' may be considered exempt from Section 1201 of the DMCA's prohibition against 'circumvention of a technological measure which effectively controls access to a work.' Among the list are blacklists of sites used in programs such as NetNanny and cracks to bypass dongles on abandonware. All in all, a very interesting read ..." Not just interesting: as Robin Gross writes, "Unfortunately, the ruling leaves the vast majority of consumers unable to access their own property, such as skipping commercials on DVDs, playing CDs in their PCs, and reading eBooks on PDA's without violating the DMCA." Update: 10/29 15:19 GMT by T : Take a look at Seth Finkelstein's site for an idea of how being pushy can sometimes be helpful; Finkelstein has loudly pushed for the importance of DMCA exemptions, including in Congressional testimony.
The ruling seems to be very clueful. It appears that the LOC has spoken, and the bottom line is that "fair use" isn't defined as "anything I want it to be".
Really there should be a list of things that ARE covered by the DCMA so that companies can't blidning through the DCMA around everytime they feel threatended.
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The US Librarian of Congress has created the following four narrow exemptions from the DMCA's general ban on circumvention for the next three-years:
1. Compilations consisting of lists of Internet locations blocked by commercially marketed filtering software applications that are intended to prevent access to domains, websites or portions of websites, but not including lists of Internet locations blocked by software applications that operate exclusively to protect against damage to a computer or computer network or lists of Internet locations blocked by software applications that operate exclusively to prevent receipt of email.
2. Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete.
3. Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and which require the original media or hardware as a condition of access.
4. Literary works distributed in ebook format when all existing ebook editions of the work (including digital text editions made available by authorized entities) contain access controls that prevent the enabling of the ebook's read-aloud function and that prevent the enabling of screen readers to render the text into a specialized format
Windows 95 is considered obsolete and unsupported by Microsoft, right? And doesn't that end many questions on MAME?
I can't wait for the next round of exceptions.
+&x
You license the content.
If I buy a DVD of a movie, I want to be able to skip there damn promos. I don't want the disc or player telling me that I HAVE TO WATCH THEIR ADVERTISEMENTS.
It's asine. It would, according to the DVD spec, be possible for them to produce a movie which would not allow you to pause, fast forward, or rewind.
What if I want to get up and take a piss?
If I transfer that DVD to something like VHS, so that I can pause it to get up and take a piss, I AM A CRIMINAL. This has nothing to do with stopping piracy.
Unfortunately no. Section 2 & 3 specifically state (emphesis mine):
2. Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete.
3. Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and which require the original media or hardware as a condition of access. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.
So this says you are allowed to bypass and DRM or other copy protection necessary to access the software if it is no longer feasable to do it legally... BUT you must own the software in the first place to do this. Otherwise it could still be considered piracy.
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"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
Doesn't matter. Basically, this means that if you bought a NES game, and the NES is no longer on the market, you can write a program that allows you to use the game you bought in another way (like an emulator, for example).
It does not invalidate the copyright on the game, and allow you to redistribute the rom, or to download the rom from somewhere else. It just lets you get at what you have bought to be used in a way the maker didn't design for you.
Using the term "abandonware" which people connect with downloading roms you have not purchased an original cartridge or software license for only confuses the issue.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
That's BS, it's not like copyright infringement has been or was any worse than it was before the digital age. The only things that changed were hard economic times and the copyright holders believing they now had the technical means to control their works in ways that were never before possible. When they found out that the technical means were there, but that their money couldn't buy enough technical prowess to keep these new controls in place, they lobbied for laws so that they could.
This has never been about people infringing copyright, it's about control and maximizing profit. These changes came about as a result of it being technology possible to restrict buyers this way, NOT as a result of people needing to be restricted.
I see this as a ploy to respond to those who have been screaming to get this horrible law overthrown for several years. To the casual person who doesn't know what a horrible piece of legislation the DMCA is, this could look like some kind of compromise possibly giving the law more credibility. If the LOC projects the impression that they want to work with opponents of the law and make it "better" while avoiding further legal action, maybe they hope that will give the law a better reputation with the public. In reality it is a realization that the DMCA's days are numbered and a pathetic attempt to appease the courts to keep it in place.
-You may license this sig for only $6.99.
Agreed.
This is all about protecting a business model that political, social, and technological changes has rendered depreciated.
Take a look at the upheaval AC power created, and the underhanded, illegal and unethical (by today's standards) tactics used by "big business" to protect that monopoly.
The old saw about "...who ignore history..." has never been truer.
On a tangental note, I'm curious to know what happens to the copyrights of old games made by companies that no longer exist. For instance, I own copies of the old Sanctuary Woods games Wolf and Lion; Sanctuary Woods (later renamed Theatrix) went out of business years ago, however; what happened to those rights? Who owns them? Does anyone own them? Is distributing copies of these CDs now legal? (I'm aware that being sued for distributing them if not is highly unlikely; I'm more interested with the actual legality than the likelihood of retribution.) The same case is true for the old Exidy games and countless games made by companies now long gone.
Bít, zabít, jen proto, ze su liska!
So, if they make an ebook available for $5 without read-aloud, but make a special edition available for $200,000, this exemption does not apply.
In fact, the exemption says nothing of the availability of a read-aloud edition. If a publisher were to create one single edition and sell the only license to his nephew, then it will no longer be the case that "all" existing ebook editions have read-aloud disabled and you would not be able to circumvent the access controls. Even though no read-aloud version is available to you, one does exist so you are SOL.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
So I can't watch DVD's in my Mandrake box? Or in my Xbox Media Center (should I decide to build one)
Oh my! What should I do about all these awful copies of DeCSS all over the Internet?
Um, so sorry, but no one is going to tell me what I can or can not do with property that I posess. It's mine, I paid for it, I traded CASH for property. I buy property, I don't license it. Licenses are invalid and un-enforceable anyway, just ask SCO. I'll take any and everything apart I own and study it and tell people about it as I see fit.
I always have and I always will.
When I was 5 years old a kid game me a 9 transistor pocket radio circa 1966 that was broken. I fixed it by taking other radios apart and seeing how they were put together.
This DMCA is bullshit designed to keep the elite few at the top in total control.
It stiffles innovation and creativity.
A hell of a lot of inventions were the spawn of someone trying to improve upon an existing design. You stop people from doing that and you are killing progress.
DMCA is a draconian and oppressive tool that keeps the rich, rich and the dumb, dumb.
It's all about the almighty dollar. Greed makes the world go around..
This is NOT off topic at all.
It's dead nuts ON topic.
It's the future that WILL be if we keep allowing all these bullshit draconian "laws" to not be passed in the first place, but are allowed to remain in place and give birth to other more oppressive "laws"..
If you can't see this coming you are blind.
Go back to your ball game and your beer, we can manage the revolution without you..
"I think any competent programmer would tell you that any software copy-protection method, and nearly any hardware copy-protection method CAN be circumvented. Therefore it became necessary for those methods to have some force of law behind them."
I won't let this degrade into a "did! did not!" debate. But if copyright infringement got worse PROSECUTE. Copyright infringement was ALREADY illegal. The only extension the DMCA added of significance is that it's now illegal to circumvent protective measures EVEN WHERE THEY EXTEND WELL BEYOND the limited controls given by copyright.
Remember the RIAA nor the musicians own the music, the people own the music. The people have said thankyou for their contribution by giving them LIMITED control for a LIMITED period of time over LIMITED aspects of OUR property.
Personally I think we need a new DMCA, toss out the old one, copyright holders (myself included, I have copyrights for books, poems, source code, and web content) should lose copyright if they choose technological protections in place of it. They should be mutually exclusive, either you depend on the law and press for it to be enforced, OR you depend on vigilante self enforcement.
A good case for this would be Discreet's 3DS Max R3.x. It used a parallel port hardware dongle made by Rainbow. The dongles were exceedingly fragile and would blow out (thus rendering the software useless) quite often. The problem was so bad that eventually Discreet set up a web page to automate the process of entering complaints and getting new dongles sent out.
While Discreet is on R6 of Max now (with software based licensing schemes), R3 is still a valid product and can be used on modern hardware. A lot of motherboards don't have parallel ports, though. And, even for those that do, Discreet doesn't support R3 any more. They won't replace dead dongles. I don't think that Rainbow is around any more, either. So, when (not if, because it will happen) your dongle goes PFFFFT you will probably be out of luck.
Now the LoC is saying that in such an instance downloading, or creating, a hack to 3ds max R3 that circumvents the dongle check would be allowable. That is a good thing.
it's about controling distribution. Take Nintendo for instance. They fight tooth and nail to keep import games out of Europe so they can keep prices high there. Ditto for japan and American DVDs (although why anyone would want the crap we spew is beyond me). DRM has less to do with keeping you from sharing music files and more to do with keeping you locked in to whatever system of distribution content providers please. Soon they'll have the holy grail of distribution methods: home audio-video juke boxes and pay-per-use.
That can't happen without legally enforced DRM. Not because of illegal sharing, but because without that DRM, none of this crap would fly in the free market (divx anyone?). Americans are stupid about a lot of things (politics, environment, energy use) but not about our TVs.
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(3)... A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.
As eBay has many Atari 2600, Colecovision, Intellivision, etc. systems listed, is anything really *not available*?
Similarly, is a program that was introduced on 5 1/4" floppies, and then taken off the market, considered a "format no longer manufactured"?
Yes, but remember -- what constituted copyright infringement ALSO expanded. People haven't fundementally changed, the law has.
Law can mold social norms -- as with desegregation. Or it can be destroyed by daring to conflict with social norms -- as with prohibition.
In either event, attempting to flaunt the norms of society -- the norms that seem to indicate that no one considers individual non-commercial infringement to be a big deal -- is difficult and costly and time consuming.
I think it's going to turn out to be like prohibition. That no one will respect copyrights that they personally feel are unfair, that this will tend to cause them to dislike copyrights generally even if they'd otherwise accept having them, that enforcement will prove unpopular and impractical, and that ultimately copyright interests will lose because they got too greedy.
Desegregation was tough too, but at least there was a moral reason to support it. (though this was true of prohibition as well) Copyright has nothing to do with morality. I think it's doomed.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
...just don't buy it. I mean seriously, can I get a witness from someone, anyone here?
If you can't handle the fact that you're not legally allowd to fiddle with a DVD to get around commericials that have been inserted in there, why are you buying DVDs? Yes, it's stupid, and it should be fought hard, but why are you people buying DVDs in the meantime?
I don't buy music on CDs because I don't care for the copy protection regime, and I'd rather not have some idiot corporate lawyer looking for a test case try to eat my life. It's easier, and they can't legally touch me for not buying stuff. I couldn't care less if anyone calls me unpatriotic. Whooptie doo. I can call them the reincarnation of Adolph Hitler, but just because it's personally insulting doesn't make it true, or worth more than the lungfull of air it took to spew it. I truly do not understand why people allow themselves to be railroaded into things, if they hate those things so much.
Just don't buy DVDs or CDs. Watch ones your simple minded sheep friends have at their house. Stops you from watching the idiot box all day, at worst. There is stuff that is released in a format that conforms to your wishes. Find it, use it, and patronize the people who produce it, and punish the big guys by, horror of horrors, NOT SPENDING YOUR MONEY ON THEIR STUFF.
It's also might be legal to traffic in DeCSS, if there are many CSS-protected DVDs that contain PD material.
Yes, but with one difference. You can use a Xerox machine to copy something that you wrote. You can use a p2p tool to distribute stuff that is legal for you to distribute. But you can't use DeCSS to remove CSS protection from a DVD that contains PD material, becauseBecause there aren't any DVDs like that. You don't have one. You probably don't know how to make one, either (I sure don't).
People got so excited over DeCSS, that nobody ever thinks of the opposite: a CSS tool. We need to manipulate the media supply to create more CSS-protected works, that either contain PD material, or that contain copyrighted material where the holder has authorized circumvention. Doing enough of this, would cause trafficking in DeCSS to become legal, because the tool's primary purpose would be less clear.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.