DMCA Exemptions Desired To Hack iPhones, Remix DVDs

An anonymous reader writes "For copyright activists, Christmas comes but once every three years: a chance to ask Santa for a new exemption to the much-hated Digital Millennium Copyright Act's prohibitions against hacking, reverse engineering and evasion of Digital Rights Management (DRM) schemes protecting all kinds of digital works and electronic items. Judging from the list of 20 exemptions requested this year [19 shown], some in the cyber-law community are thinking big. The requests include the right to legally jailbreak iPhones in order to use third party software, university professors wishing to rip clips from DVDs for classroom use, YouTube users wishing to rip DVDs to make video mashups, a request to allow users to hack DRM protecting content from stores that have gone bankrupt or shut down, and a request to allow security researchers to reverse engineer video games with security flaws that put end-users at risk." Reader MistaE provides some more specific links to PDF versions: "Among the exemption proposals is a request from the Harvard Cyberlaw Clinic to allow circumvention of DRM protection when the central authorization server goes down, a request from the EFF to allow circumvention to install third party programs on phones, as well as a request for ripping DVDs for non-commercial purposes. There were also several narrow requests from educational institutions to rip DVDs for classroom practices."

Comments

How about this

[MikeRT]

Make DRM breaking illegal only when there is criminal intent, such as to share reproductions with others or to sell bootlegs...

Re:How about this

[Anonymous Coward]

but that makes too much sense!

Re:How about this

[pitchpipe]

It's a good goddam thing they be askin' The Santa instead of me, 'cause I'd break their fuckin' legs.

Regards,

Mafiaa

Re:How about this

[evanbd]

Sharing reproductions is not necessarily copyright infringement. Copyright infringement is usually not a criminal matter. Using correct and precise terminology is important to having an informed debate, as opposed to losing without the debate happening by letting your opponents set the terms.

Why is it that geeks have no trouble using the precise, correct terms when writing code, but so commonly fail to transfer that precision to other areas where it is equally important?

Re:How about this

[impaledsunset]

That would be just meaningless. And well, it will would render the anti-circumvention clause completely useless. That sounds like a very good reason to do it, I'm all for it.

Re:How about this

[FredFredrickson]

Most of those requests are stupid, and don't dig down to the core of the issue. They all are asking for special circumstances to do various fair-use related activities.

The exception needs to be "except for in fair-use situations."

Imagine ripping DVDs being illegal unless you're only going to make a mashup video for youtube? Sure that's part of fair-use, but if that's all you ask for, and that's what they grant, then we're all retarded. What the hell are these people thinking?

So many times people try to fight fires at the top of the flames, and wonder why they never go out. Talk about slippery slopes, eh? See? We're fair! We can remove your right of second sales, because look- we agreed to dvd rips for youtube mashups only!

GAAAAAWD! I get so angry. I need some pie brb.

Re:How about this

[MistaE]

Dude, I don't you get it.

As far as our government is concerned right now, ripping DVDs IS illegal when doing so circumvents the CSS, which is a violation of the DMCA. Everything that is being asked for is CURRENTLY illegal under the DMCA, regardless of what you or many other wishful thinking nerds believe. I don't understand why asking for these exemptions are a slippery slope -- how can you give up rights that you currently don't have under the law?

Now I understand your frustration, because it really is unfortunate that this is where we're at. But we don't succeed by ignoring the laws. We succeed by working with them, compromising, and then, hopefully, overcoming them with logic, common sense, and hopefully the backing of the American populace.

For example, one of the exemptions listed was for Media Film Studies education. The exemption was granted in 2006 and was a boon to that academic industry. This year, they are arguing that their 2006 exemption was so successful and necessary that they are asking to expand the exemption to encompass even more uses. They used clear factual examples, compelling legal arguments, and logic to show the LOC that it is necessary to expand their rights, and I hope that they get it.

To some (or most) these may seem like small potatoes sure, but they're a legitimate foot in the door. The odds of an exemption being granted that simply asks for something as broad as "everything that is under fair-use" is extremely unlikely. But, if we continue to succeed at these exemptions and show Washington that this is where the people are heading, this is what society needs, and these are the reasons why we are having issues, maybe that becomes one more brick in the wall to convince them that the DMCA is not a good idea.

Re:How about this

[MikeBabcock]

You're right, and so's the GP. The GP is right about how the law is written, but you're right about how the courts have chosen to interpret it.

Luckily, some judges have seen fit to ignore the letter of the DMCA and given people the right to do what they should always have been allowed to do.

Asking for these exemptions might cause the government to realize what total idiocy the DMCA is though.

how about

[Coraon]

having the DMCA only apply when and if the person or persons infringing are intending to do so for a profit. That would make the DMCA a law I could get behind.

Re:Jailbreaking

[FredFredrickson]

The act of circumventing ANY protection scheme is what the DMCA outlawed. Jailbreaking an Iphone could be construed as such.

Even better

[SanityInAnarchy]

Make it legal, always, period.

There are already laws against the criminal things you've suggested. I really don't see why it should also be illegal to break DRM with the intention of doing that -- why should the intention matter at all? Maybe you broke it with the intention of watching it on your Mythbox, and later got the idea (independently) of using the cracked version for something criminal?

No, that's all needlessly vague and complex. If you want to make it hurt more to pirate stuff, change those laws -- which wasn't even a criminal offense until recently, but rather, a civil matter.

Think about that -- it is a federal crime to crack the DRM. It's merely a civil offense to redistribute the music. One goes on your record, the other doesn't. WTF?!

Tag says it all: justrepealit. Or, if you're going to ask for exemptions, don't ask for such pathetically small ones -- are iPhones mentioned specifically? Why can't I crack an iPod Touch, then?

Re:Fist Prose

[camperdave]

Rocky hammered on his opponent, his fists writing a soliloquy of destruction on Apollo's face. Each blow was a finely crafted metaphor of pain. Shifting his focus to the abdomen, Rocky pummelled paragraph after paragraph up and down Apollo's ribcage. After finishing the body of his exposition, he topped it off with a climactic sentence to the jaw. Apollo went down for the count.

Playing Movies on Free Operating Systems?

[gQuigs]

Is someone at least requesting it?

I suppose if we get an exception we could play both DVDs and BluRays on Linux.. legally. Well except for the codecs, but shh.

Which is bullshit

[Moryath]

If I put up a sign next to a shitty restaurant saying "Do not patronize restaurant X, the food is crap", that's my free speech right.

If a city puts in a new highway that means less people drive down a service road that was previously the highway, and a number of businesses don't get as much impulse "I think I'll stop there" business, they either adapt or move or die, they don't get recompense.

Nothing should be different with DRM. DRM is a method by which the companies try to infringe on the CONSUMER'S right to fair-use activities like space-shifting, nothing more. DRM itself should be illegal.

Rip clips from DVDs

[Jason Levine]

I'd want to expand on this one: "university professors wishing to rip clips from DVDs for classroom use"

Make it: "Allow home users to rip DVDs for personal use"

So if you rip the video off of the DVD to put it on your home media server, you're fine. If you rip a bunch of children's DVDs to compile a single DVD with your kid's favorite episodes, you're ok. Basically anything you do where the video doesn't leave your "personal zone" would be allowed. Things like sharing clips, classroom use, or YouTube mashups would be a separate exemption.

Then, perhaps, we could get set top boxes that would take DVDs in, rip them to an internal hard drive, and allow home users to choose from hundreds or thousands of movies without handling any discs. As any parent with little kids will tell you, you want to keep the discs away from kids' hands, but keep them in reach enough that you can access them quickly and easily. A set top box like this would be ideal.

Re:The test of whether one supports copyright:

[CorporateSuit]

Do you want to do your job for free? Do you want to not get paid for any work you do? If not, then you support copyright restrictions. Because violation of copyright is exactly the same thing as hiring someone but not paying them.

I get paid when I work. I don't get paid today because I worked 4 years ago for one week, and people still benefit [sic] from what I did. Violation of copyright says "You did you job, good job. Now get over it and get BACK to work like the rest of mankind!" and not "I don't think you should get paid for what you do."

I have zero sympathy for those untalented hacks who spent a whole week in a recording studio and now want me to feed them, their whores, and their children for the rest of their pathetic lives. If they want to eat, they need to go out and win bread like the rest of us!

"Abandonware" should also include version antics

[grandpa-geek]

I've had two situations in which I had a legally-obtained older version of software for which the provider had dropped support, which included dropping support for the DRM built into the products.

In one case, you had to call in, give them your product ID and get a DRM key. I wanted to move the product from an older machine to a newer one. I called in and they told me they had dropped support, including handling the DRM keys, and to buy their new product. The old product served my needs, and the new one had improvements that were useless to me. Luckily, one tech support person was nice and told me where I could find the DRM key value in the old installation, that I hadn't yet deleted. Had I needed to reinstall for any reason, I would have been stuck.

In another case the DRM required either an internet connection or printer access during installation. This was not explained in the installation instructions. I was installing software on a new machine and hadn't yet set up either internet or printer. With that (early) DRM, if you didn't go through the procedure at installation time, there was no opportunity to do it later. The provider later came out with other versions and dropped support for this version. I moved on to using a FOSS product, so I never tried to resolve the issue, but I have a useless copy of that particular software. It didn't set me back any cost, because I had won a copy of the product in a drawing at a trade show booth for people who sat through a demo of something.

If DRM support is dropped for a version of a product, it should be treated as an abandoned product, even if the DRM is maintained for later versions.