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ECA Plans Games-Related DMCA Showdown
Gamespot is reporting that the Electronic Consumers Association (ECA) has picked its first legal fight since vowing to step up lobbying efforts. The organization is going head-to-head with the Electronic Software Association (ESA), a long-time backer of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), by coming out in favor of H.R. 1201 (also known as the Fair Use Act of 2007). "If it became law, the Fair Use Act would create a variety of exemptions to the DMCA's prohibitions on circumventing anti-piracy measures. The Fair Use Act would make it legal to bypass anti-piracy measures in a handful of situations, for personal archiving; for researching, critiquing, or reporting on works of substantial public interest (if that is the sole reason for the circumvention); or to skip commercial or personally objectionable content. It would also create an exemption in copyright law for people who make and distribute equipment used to bypass copyright protection (like modchips), provided the device 'is capable of substantial, commercially significant non-infringing use.'"
"The expiry of a copyright should also expire any protection the DMCA grants"
Unless I am greatly mistaken (obligatory IANAL disclaimer), the DMCA provides that circumvention of mechanisms used to protect a copryighted work is illegal. By very definition, at the expiry of copyright, protection granted by the DMCA also expires, (as the DMCA does not outlaw circumventing protections placed on a work in the public domain).
Of course, whether or not it will be PRACTICAL to circumvent such mechanisms... or whether or not we will continue to see copyright term extensions (such that nothing actually falls into the public domain) are other questions entirely, but assuming all stays as it is now, you will be able to crack the encryption schemes on, say, your Lord of the Rings DVDs round about 2100 A.D. with no legal repercussions.