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DMCA Exemptions Desired To Hack iPhones, Remix DVDs

Posted by timothy on from the what's-on-the-shortlist dept.

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."

5 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. How about this by MikeRT · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    1. Re:How about this by evanbd · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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?

    2. Re:How about this by FredFredrickson · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
  2. Even better by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

    --
    Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
  3. Which is bullshit by Moryath · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.