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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.
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.
Beings aspergers AND pulling chicks... I enjoy the challenge!
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
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.
Blockwars: multiplayer gaming... free!
"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.
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.
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..
"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.