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The EFF wins three DMCA exemptions
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has announced that it
has won three exemptions to the DMCA's anti-circumvention rules as part of
the regular, three-year process. These include cellphone unlocking, fair
use of DVD content, and, happily, liberating locked-down phones. "In
its reasoning in favor of EFF's jailbreaking exemption, the Copyright
Office rejected Apple's claim that copyright law prevents people from
installing unapproved programs on iPhones: 'When one jailbreaks a
smartphone in order to make the operating system on that phone
interoperable with an independently created application that has not been
approved by the maker of the smartphone or the maker of its operating
system, the modifications that are made purely for the purpose of such
interoperability are fair uses.'"
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It's great that they got these exceptions, but... Posted Jul 26, 2010 16:13 UTC (Mon) by brouhaha (subscriber, #1698) [Link] ...it's a complete crock that they need to. It shouldn't be necessary to prove that a particular activity is fair use, it should be up to the copyright owner to prove that it isn't.Apparently copyright is now like taxes, in that we have no presumption of innocence in either.
It's great that they got these exceptions, but... Posted Jul 26, 2010 16:51 UTC (Mon) by josh (subscriber, #17465) [Link]
Indeed. Read the section in the linked PDF about how universities might have a need for increased quality, but K-12 institutions can live with screen capture software or pointing a camera at the screen. And read the section about rejected rulings near the end, in particular the section on Netflix DRM that compares it to previous arguments about playing DVDs on Linux, previously rejected three times because apparently it's OK for DVD manufacturers to force Linux users to buy a hardware DVD player or a Windows box. As though cost was the only factor stopping them from doing so.
The EFF wins three DMCA exemptions Posted Jul 26, 2010 16:29 UTC (Mon) by freemars (subscriber, #4235) [Link] Does fair use of DVD content extend to fair use of Blu-Ray content?
The EFF wins three DMCA exemptions Posted Jul 26, 2010 17:03 UTC (Mon) by jrn (guest, #64214) [Link]
I think it only applies to accessing DVDs, but I am not sure. See http://www.copyright.gov/1201/ and http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap12.html#1201
The EFF wins three DMCA exemptions Posted Jul 26, 2010 17:19 UTC (Mon) by kfiles (subscriber, #11628) [Link]
These exemptions are *very* specific, and the language of that exemption applies only to "Motion pictures on DVDs that are lawfully made and acquired and that are protected by the Content Scrambling System."
So no BluRay, HD-DVD, no AACS or BD+; just DVD with CSS.
The EFF wins three DMCA exemptions Posted Jul 26, 2010 19:34 UTC (Mon) by lkundrak (subscriber, #43452) [Link] From Tom Callaway via Twitter: "No, we still can't include libdvdcss in Fedora. Yes, I asked."
The EFF wins three DMCA exemptions Posted Jul 26, 2010 20:15 UTC (Mon) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link]
Did he give a reason?
The EFF wins three DMCA exemptions Posted Jul 26, 2010 20:27 UTC (Mon) by freemars (subscriber, #4235) [Link] Did he give a reason? In 140 characters? I believe it's because the exemption pretty specifically excludes things we might think are "fair use" -- such as watching your DVD in your home.
scope of exemptions Posted Jul 28, 2010 0:23 UTC (Wed) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link] Exemptions are only allowed to exempt actual acts of circumvention, not distribution of circumvention devices.
scope of exemptions Posted Jul 29, 2010 12:09 UTC (Thu) by pdundas (subscriber, #15203) [Link]
But how do these acts of [permitted] circumvention take place if the necessary circumvention devices are not distributed?
scope of exemptions Posted Jul 29, 2010 19:10 UTC (Thu) by foom (subscriber, #14868) [Link]
Someone outside the US (not covered by the DMCA) distributes the device.
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