DRM and the DMCA: Big news.

A little background.  The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) passed by a Republican-led Congress and signed into law by President Clinton, made it a violation of federal law, to break digital rights management (DRM).  So while the Fair Use Doctrine was still applicable specifically via digital technology per ruling by the Supreme Court in the Betamax ruling, Congress - prodded by copyright holders - made it illegal to break the DRM protecting digital content.

In my sensibility, this is called an end-around of the spirit of the Fair Use Doctrine.

Finally, a judge in the 5th Circuit in New Orleans has bucked the trend, and ruled similarly, that per Betamax, intent is crucial to the role of circumventing DRM.  Circumventing DRM should not in itself be considered illegal, as we have established Fair Use Doctrine that allows us to use digital content in a non-infringing way.

This is big news, as it gives judges a choice to follow the 5th Circuit, or to remain status quo, but it also gives us a chance for the DMCA's section on DRM to go before the Supreme Court and be reviewed.  With the conservative nature of the Court under Justice Roberts, the test will be, whether the justices believe (as they purport to believe) in settled law (aka Betamax ruling) or DRM's lock against fair use, per Congress' law.

via BoingBoing


Update @ 12:56pm - The EFF has been successful in getting the US Copyright office to grant 3 specific exemptions from breaking DRM:

1. You can jailbreak your phone to install the software that you want to install on your phone.
2. You can break the DRM on DVDs in order to rip excerpts for non-commercial use.
3. You can have your phone unlocked so that you may use your phone - once your contract has expired - on other carriers.

via BoingBoing