Quote:
Originally Posted by ApK
Harry, you have neglected to cite all the exemptions to the anti-circumvention provision, nor did you mention that the 5th circuit federal court has already ruled that
breaking DRM when there is no violation of copyright is not enough to trigger the anti-circumvention provision of the DMCA:
"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 DMCA prohibits only forms of access that would violate or impinge on the protections that the Copyright Act otherwise affords copyright owners... 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."
-- http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions...21-CV0.wpd.pdf
That pretty clearly and unambiguously says to me that if you strip DRM just to read a book you're entitled to read, that's OK. If you strip DRM to get rights you shouldn't have then that's a violation.
Why are you trying to make people think that you have some first hand knowledge that this is against the law when the courts seem be saying it's not?
ApK |
Thanks for posting the cite. That's a very interesting case, and makes some subtle distinctions that I am going to have to ponder a bit. I am not at all sure that I agree with the court's conclusion concerning the dongle. They seem to be saying that since the dongle did not perform a DRM function, it is not a violation to circumvent it. One thing I think I might disagree with is the conclusion that the dongle does not perform a DRM function.
I do agree with the court's statement that the DMCA is intended to protect copyright, and that any DRM that is circumvented to access material which is not protected by copyright does not violate the law. But remember that this particular thread is about library lending, and the question is whether it is fair use to circumvent DRM on a book that the library owns, and is subject to a contractual relationship between the library and the borrower. In this context, the library has, in the lending transaction, made it clear that it is not conveying to the borrower all of the fair use rights the library has - such as to access the contents for more than X number of days. OTOH, the borrower's fair use rights might not be constrained by that.
Consider whether a thief has fair use rights to the content of a book he has stolen. The court's decision implies that the thief would have such rights. But I think that this implication is
dicta - that is, not necessary to the decision and therefore not any kind of precedent.
Because what this case holds, I think, is that there is no evidence that the defendant ever actually circumvented anything - it just used something on which the DRM had already been circumvented, possibly by someone else - and it's not illegal to do that.
A very subtle decision, indeed.