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DMCA Exemption Time
jvillain writes "Contentagenda notes that the Copyright Office is taking submissions for exemptions to the DMCA. They do this every three years. There's a description of the six exemptions made last time to give you some ideas. So fire up the keyboard and let the Copyright Office know what needs to be changed. If you don't get in now, it'll be another three years before you can try again."
I decided to copy the text of TFA:
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Paul Sweeting
Paul Sweeting is the editor of ContentAgenda.com and a columnist for Video Business. He has covered the home entertainment industries since 1985 for Billboard, Variety, Publishers Weekly and other leading business publications. He is based in Washington, DC.
It's DMCA exemption time! - October 6, 2008
Get those anti-circumvention exemptions ready kids! It's time for the Copyright Office's triennial review of Section 1201(a)(1) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, in which the Register of Copyrights makes recommendations to the Librarian of Congress about granting temporary exemptions to the ban on circumventing encryption on certain classes of works. The federal register notice is here. Congress added the triennial review to the DMCA as a fail-safe mechanism, in case it turned out that the blanket ban on circumvention was "unduly burdening" fair use of certain types of work. The exemptions are only good for three years, however, and must be reapplied for with each review.
The last rulemaking, in 2006, resulted in six exemptions:
1. Audiovisual works included in the educational library of a college or universityâ€(TM)s film or media studies department, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of making compilations of portions of those works for educational use in the classroom by media studies or film professors.
2. Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive. 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.
3. Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete. A dongle shall be considered obsolete if it is no longer manufactured or if a replacement or repair is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.
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 either of the bookâ€(TM)s read-aloud function or of screen readers that render the text into a specialized format.
5. Computer programs in the form of firmware that enable wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telephone communication network, when circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network.
6. Sound recordings, and audiovisual works associated with those sound recordings, distributed in compact disc format and protected by technological protection measures that control access to lawfully purchased works and create or exploit security flaws or vulnerabilities that compromise the security of personal computers, when circumvention is accomplished solely for the purpose of good faith testing, investigating, or correcting such security flaws or vulnerabilities.
Written comments recommending exemptions are due in the Copyright Office December 2, 2008. A notice of proposed rulemaking will be issued later in December based on those recommendations, and final comments are due February 2, 2009.
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
... the exemptions are temporary but the law is permanent.
An exemption should be made for copying within a single device (HD to RAM, for example) or between devices owned by the same person. If I can wish for anything here, make an exemption for any copying without distribution.
Can anyone tell me: how strong does encryption have to be to make breaking it illegal?
Say I create an "encryption algorithm" for images which when it comes down to it does nothing more than invert the image, is anyone selling software which can "break" my encryption now breaking the law?
What if I use nothing more than thousand year old classic like a Caesar cipher to encrypt my media- Is any kid who writes a trivial program to crack such ciphers(specific to my media or not) then breaking the law?
Is thinking about breaking encryption illegal? Is it limited to digital devices or is it illegal to write down a mathamatical formula on paper which can be used to break an encryption scheme?Is it illegal to give the formula to people? How about emailing it to people? How about if the formula is written in a manner than can be parsed by a computer? Or if it's simply example source code for such a program with no executable? that same source code compiled?
Where's the line?
It would be really nice if there were a broad exemption with something about Fair Use of content by media's purchasers. But I wouldn't expect that to come from the FCC but instead a court, since Fair Use arose from Common Law.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
not to say that i actually support Real Media, but for once they made a useful application for people. so lets add this exception:
"Software circumvention of protection can be allowed for personal use in the event that no more then one copy is made and the new copy adds a new and at least equivalent layer of protection. This added protection must not be obsolete and must allow for an identical and identifiable copy."
I dont think that is TOO opened ended, and it would give legit dvd-decryption a boost, as well as make "overcopying" identifiable, at least to a piece of software, a particular DVD or CD, or a user or computer.
they say it is often more relevant then the comment above, all we know is its called the Sig!
According to exemption 6 on the list only CDs can legally be bypassed. That seems awfully ignorant being that Blu-ray, HD-DVD, and even DVD protections pose far greater threats to computer security. Besides, that restricts an owner from having full access to his hardware should really be ruled unconstitutional as a seizure violation. Sure, it is the media distrubuters implement this, but the DMCA is even worse than Kelo vs. City of New London when it comes to the government making it okay for one person to deprive another of the use of their property.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Am I right in thinking that some printer companies use the DMCA to go after those that make compatible cartridges?
If that's true, then I think it's daft and an abuse of the act. If it carries on, we'll have electronics small enough that sheets of paper will start being compatible with specific printers...
With a number of well known brands closing their DRM servers (Walmart, Yahoo!), it ought to be legal to remove the DRM from the audio tracks which they sold. (Really, it ought to be mandatory for the company to do it.)
There's already an exception for computer software which is no longer supported. I think we need an exception for computer software that requires a potentially expensive phone call to activate. Needs a better argument than EA are idiots though. Having to call and explain why you've installed 3 times already doesn't sound such an onerous task until you have to actually do it.
Guess that depends on what you mean by "full access"? One could argue that if it meets it's primary purpose. e.g. Cars go from point A to point B, CD players play music, DVD players play video, etc. Then reasonable access has been provided. The fact that you can use all of the above to cause blunt force damage to others shouldn't be enshrined into law.
I can take my car apart piece by piece if I wanted to and reassemble it to my liking without breaking any laws. Why? Because my car is my property. Having "reasonable access" to something is no where even close to being the same as owning something.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
(Sorry if this is redundant, I haven't had time to read submissions yet. I'm evil! Downmod me!)
Something like "Any material which has been legitimately purchased, where the purpose is to view/hear/otherwise use said material."
Another one:
Copying for personal backup, not to be redistributed. If they redistribute the copy, or even just carelessly allow an unencrypted version of something previously encrypted to go into the wild, they would be exposed to the full consequences of the DMCA, say.
Liberty uber alles.