Court Rules That Bypassing Dongle Is Not a DMCA Violation

tcrown007 sends along an appeals court ruling that, for once, limits the reach of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's anti-circumvention clause. "MGE UPS makes UPS systems and software that are protected by hardware dongles. After the dongles expired, GE bypassed the dongles and continued to use the software. MGE sued, won, and has now lost on GE's appeal. Directly from the court's ruling (PDF): "Merely bypassing a technological protection that restricts a user from viewing or using a work is insufficient to trigger the DMCA's anti-circumvention provision... The owner's technological measure must protect the copyrighted material against an infringement of a right that the Copyright Act protects, not from mere use or viewing.' Say what? I think I just saw a pig fly by."

Comments

Re:This opens a lot of doors

[s0litaire]

Think it's more like Linux users will be able to use "open source" programs to play Blu-Ray disks legally.

As it stands, it's illegal to rip/copy the Blu-Ray to another format for storing or viewing.

However this ruling makes it legal to break the encryption just for the purposes of playback. (The intended function of the disk is for playback).

But what do I know! IANAL!

Re:If this precedent holds...

[Pharmboy]

It doesn't matter if the DVD says "no copying" if he is making copies that qualify as "fair use", which would take precedence. DMCA isn't about copying anyway, it is about bypassing security encryption. The judge appears to be saying "yes, they used the software illegally and are subject to fine, but using a crack to get around a dongle is not a DMCA violation by itself.".

In otherwords, if you copy your DVD using any method, then they can still sue you for infringement but is likely not a DMCA violation if you are doing so simply to USE the DVD (fair use). If you did it to make copies to sell, that might be a different case. In short, if you are breaking encryption for your applications that qualify under fair use, thus perfectly legal (make a personal backup copy of a disk you already own, or to create a critique, to parody but not satire, for education, etc.) then there is a good chance that you won't be found to be in violation of the DMCA. Keep in mind, IANAL and even being legally in the right can put you in the poorhouse defending yourself here in the good old USA.