[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Section 1201 (A) of the DMCA:

That seems pretty clear and unambiguous: "No person shall circumvent a technological provision that controls access to a work".

Where is the ambiguity in that? There's nothing in there saying "unless you've legally bought it".

Obviously I'm no lawyer, but I really don't see where there's any room for "interpretation" of what's a pretty bald statement.

I too am not a lawyer, but I have listened to presentations on this subject by eminent lawyers on both sides of the question.* As far as I recall there are three general areas of disagreement. First there are arguments over the precise meaning of the "effectively" in that statement. If the DRM has been cracked, is it "effective?" What if the DRM is simply ROT13? Or Igpay Atinlay? Secondly, there are arguments over the precise scope of the various exemptions and exceptions from the DMCA's rules that are given elsewhere in the text. And finally there are questions of how the concept of "fair use" plays into things.

It's important here to recall that in US courts "fair use" is a defense that permits certain actions that would otherwise be unlawful (w.r.t. copyright and maybe the DMCA). Note that fair use is outside the written law, but nevertheless legal -- a concept I find nearly as mindblowingly odd as the U.K.'s unwritten-but-enforceable constitution (assuming I got that right...).

The one thing that all of the various legal experts agreed on was that we won't actually know the outcome until an actual case goes through the courts. If then.

Xenophon

*We'll gloss over whether my non-lawyerly mind was up to the challenge of actually understanding those presentations, as well as the question of whether or not I correctly remember what was said. Even reviewing notes I took at the time, it's sometimes pretty tough to get the sense of the arguments -- especially from panel discussions with three or four lawyers who each disagreed with all the others.