Yesterday, the Librarian of Congress issued some rules clarifying the scope of the DMCA. For those who don’t keep track of this stuff, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act essentially reiterates that making and distributing illegal copies of copyrighted works is illegal. Furthermore, it makes devices that circumvent copy protection and Digital Rights Management (DRM) illegal. This has resulted in some amusing cases where permanent markers and computer shift keys are technically illegal. This is the law that got Dmitri Skylarov* in trouble a couple of years ago.
To be brief, there are 4 exemptions:
1) It is legal to publish a list of internet sites blacklisted by filtering software. This is considered crucially important for determining whether such filters work adequately without unduly restricting access. It is also vital for preventing ideological abuse of such filters, for example blacklisting materials on unpopular but legal political groups.
2) It is legal to circumvent a damaged, obsolete “dongle”. How annoying would it be to lose access to a possibly expensive computer program just because some little gizmo got broken and the company that made it is out of business!
3) It is legal to emulate obsolete programs that ran on obsolete hardware.
Go ahead, get out the old Apple II disks. Or, here’s something you might enjoy.
4) It is legal to circumvent copy protection of eBooks for the purpose of access by the handicapped. What Skylarov did is now unambiguously legal, so there.
One interesting aspect of these guidelines is that not one of them will cost copyright holders any money. Heck, two of the rules specifically deal with materials not for sale anywhere at any price. Indeed, the rule allowing circumvention for handicapped access may increase eBook sales.
DMCA is still an over-reaching behemoth of a law, and it still needs to be cut down to size. Nevertheless, these four guidelines are a good first step.
*If you are not familiar with this case, please feel free to read up. The way I used to explain it back in the day was that Skylarov was a Russian citizen arrested in the United States for violating a law of the United States while in Russia.