The Argument for Crackable Media

rubberbando writes "Wired is running a story about how the US Copyright Office is looking for input about a law that will allow some media to be legally cracked. This is aimed at certain uses such as cracking an ebook so that a blind person can use reading software with it and older software that requires a hardware dongle that no longer works." From the article: "The DMCA forbids cracking of copy-protected or encrypted digital media, with certain exceptions. When the law was passed, Congress mandated the register of copyrights revisit the anti-circumvention section every three years to make sure consumers have proper access to materials they purchased -- even if content creators have them locked down. If the copyright office finds instances where copy protection prevents fair use of the work, then those copy protections can be legally circumvented." We reported on the other side of the coin yesterday.

Comments

pretty broad: all media

[Anonymous Coward]

so with all the failed attempts at bulletproof DRM and anticopying, is there actually any UNcrackable media?

Re:Fair Use?

[rolfwind]

How is the DMCA even constitutional? It should take more than a act of congress because this rips apart all common sense property rights on which all other rights are based on (oh wait, the Supreme Court just shit on that back in June). If you don't have property rights, like dominos, everything else falls.

Why shouldn't I be able to read or "bypass" what I own like the 1 and 0s on DVD/CDs/etc? Laws like the DMCA chill me because manufactures can put whatever in their variety of products and if someone tries to look into them they wave the DMCA and say "Ah, ah, don't go their bad boy!" How is the customer even supposed to protect themselves from bad products (faulty engineering, back_doors, worms, etc.) If feels Big_Brotherish. Or like Britain. (I think they had a restriction on reading frequencies not "meant" for you since WW2.)

If the secrets within products shouldn't be known (or bypassed), don't sell it.

I'm all for it.

[Spacejock]

I just recieved a Las Vegas season 2 boxed set from overseas. (Original) Ep3 and Ep6 don't work, and Ep2 and Ep5 have skips (It's a double-sided disk, and there's obviously a load of bad sectors.) Sending it back is not really an option - two more lots of international postage will cost more than the boxed set did in the first place.

The point is, using a freely-available program I was able to extract all of side one to my hard drive and watch episode 3. Episode 6 is beyond saving, from the look of it, but I haven't given up yet.

I'm not copying disks to sell or pirating anything, all I'm doing is using a third party tool to watch something I paid for which is otherwise unwatchable.