Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
You are, I believe, the only person on the planet to adopt this interesting interpretation of the law  . |
Well, not that I believe everything I read on Wikipedia, but it's quite clear that the article on the DMCA agrees with me, so clearly I am not the only person on the planet to think so:
The arrest of Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov in 2001, for alleged infringement of the DMCA, was a highly publicized example of the law's use to prevent or penalize development of anti-DRM measures.[13] While working for Elcomsoft in Russia, he developed The Advanced eBook Processor, a software application allowing users to strip usage restriction information from restricted e-books, an activity legal in both Russia and the United States. (bolding added.)
Nor would I expect every lawyer to agree with my reading of the statute. After all, if we all agreed, how would we make a living?
The thing is, as far as I know, there have been NO prosecutions brought against private users stripping DRM for purely personal use. Do you know of any? I don't think there are even any civil actions that have been filed under such circumstances, although there have been threats of such.
And either fortunately (for users) or unfortunately (for the state of the law) there aren't going to be any prosecutions or lawsuits, because
how would anyone ever know or be able to prove that any private user stripped the DRM?
Be that as it may, I am here to tell you that in my career, I have recommended prosecutions to the Department of Justice, and have personally tried non-criminal fraud cases. I know what the standards of proof are, and I know what government lawyers are willing to do - and not do. In order for someone to be prosecuted criminally under this statute, he'd have to collect all the evidence himself and send it to the US Attorney, along with a signed confession. And even if he did, it's my view that the US Attorney would decide that there's no prosecutable crime.
But one of the problems with the DMCA is that it creates an environment in which ordinary people are restrained from doing things which are perfectly legal, because they don't really know how to read the law, and are understandably unwilling to risk violating it.