Quote:
Originally Posted by nelsonescorcio
Harry, could you please name a country where you are sure DRM removal (for personnal, non lucrative use) is illegal?
Because I have - as a jurist -, serious doubts that there are a single...
I mean, to be illegal it is not enough someone saying so (even if it is a publishing house).
I am serious. Could you please name one country and the law you may be breaching if you remove DRM?
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It is definitely illegal in Germany as well as the US. The US has had the Digital Millenium Act in place for several years now which explicitly prohibits hacking protection mechanisms and Germany has recently introduced a similar law which makes it illegal to circumvent any form of copyright protection. I have followed the discussion there for a while since I am afraid that they might adopt a similar law here and it's pretty bad. With that law in place it is illegal to sell or even distribute any kind of software which allows the user to get around protection which basically makes it even illegal to watch DVDs on linux systems or transfer your own CDs to your mp3 player (if the CDs are copy protected).
The problem with that law is that it is still legal to make personal copies of the CDs, DVDs or software one owns (for personal use, only) but as you are not allowed to get around the copy protection it's essentially rendering your right to copy useless.