[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by llreader

One interesting question is, if copying is violating copyright, and DRM (and the DMCA) are violating fair use, why is one declared a criminal offense and the subject of a massive PR campaign, while the other is enshrined into law?

Also because US courts have ruled that 'fair use' doesn't actually include, y'know. Fair use. At least not as understood by mere humans. IANAL, but see Universal City Studios v. Corley, on DVDs:

We know of no authority for the proposition that fair use, as protected by the Copyright Act, much less the Constitution, guarantees copying by the optimum method or in the identical format of the original. Although the Appellants insisted at oral argument that they should not be relegated to a “horse and buggy” technique in making fair use of DVD movies, the DMCA does not impose even an arguable limitation on the opportunity to make a variety of traditional fair uses of DVD movies, such as commenting on their content, quoting excerpts from their screenplays, and even recording portions of the video images and sounds on film or tape by pointing a camera, a camcorder, or a microphone at a monitor as it displays the DVD movie. The fact that the resulting copy will not be as perfect or as manipulable as a digital copy obtained by having direct access to the DVD movie in its digital form, provides no basis for a claim of unconstitutional limitation of fair use.

See also United States. v. Elcom, which dealt specifically with e-books, in which the judge decided that:

...the DMCA does not eliminate fair use, although it might make it less convenient.

Also Atari vs. Nintendo:

since “to invoke the fair use exception, an individual must possess an authorized copy of a literary work,” the creator of the transformative work can simply look at that copy while creating his transformative work, which should not require circumvention in violation of Section 1201(a)(1).