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Originally Posted by TuxGirl
IANAL either, but when I looked at the details of the DMCA, my understanding of it was that it prohibited *all* DRM circumvention unless explicitly allowed. The list of allowed exemptions is available on wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMCA#An...ion_exemptions, and there is more information here: http://www.copyright.gov/1201/
From what I see here, personal use is not allowed. Now, as far as I understand, nobody has been prosecuted for removing DRM for personal use, but that does not mean that it's allowed. |
DRM protects copyrighted material; removing DRM for acts that *are not a violation of copyright* should be fine.
Personal use & format shiftings are legally blurry; while the Sony Betamax case hinged on the right of people to record (format-shift) TV presentations for personal use, it wasn't quite officially codified as not-a-copyright-violation. (And there was no DRM in the way of those; nobody questioned whether the material was copyrighted.)
In the case of DRM locking a public-domain book, there's no copyright violation to hinge the DRM-removal crime on. In the case of DRM preventing fair use--that's less clear. Whether fair use is a special exemption to copyright law (and therefore wouldn't be allowed) or outside the scope of copyright law (and therefore should be) is debated by lawyers. (Is fair use an affirmative defense--I tresspassed on your property, but it's okay because I had a good enough reason?--or not part of the law--I didn't tresspass on your property at all; this is a legally-required easement?)
It's not likely to matter to ebooks, directly, which interpretation finally holds; the legal cases are going to be about music & videos.