If I am reading this right the government can archive copies but the consumer can't?
Librarian of Congress James H. Billington today reveals new exceptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that address the legality of jailbreaking your Apple products, unlocking your cell phone, and bypassing computer game digital rights management systems.
As part of his unending penance, every three years James H. Billington determines if there are any classes of work that require an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 2000's prohibition against bypassing copyright protection mechanisms. Based on recommendations from the Register of Copyrights, whom we rather like, Billington has issued six new exemptions that affect the way play with our digital media.
So did anyone read that paragraph? I think it just allows the Library of Congress to archive not the consumer.
I'm not quite clear on what happened here. No new law passed, right? This is just a ruling revising the ten year old DMCA. The Librarian of Congress can do that? If so, that guy has juice!
marurun wrote: We’re not going to rubber stamp your horrible decisions.
Mod_Man_Extreme wrote: this means that companies like Sony can't block access to stuff like Other OS or restrict functionality artificially
Sure they can. It's just no longer illegal for you to reverse it. May still void your warranty, get you banned from their network, etc. This exemption protects you only from criminal prosecution under the DMCA, which is seldom done anyway. Nothing to see here really.
Also, there was already an exemption in the law for law enforcement and intelligence. So the USAF/PS3 thing wouldn't be affected by it.
There's still the lawsuit against sony going on. If that case ends up favoring the consumers, it'll be almost as good as there being a law against it.
Golgo 14 wrote:I'm not quite clear on what happened here. No new law passed, right? This is just a ruling revising the ten year old DMCA. The Librarian of Congress can do that? If so, that guy has juice!
Well it is the Library of Congress, rightfully should be able to preserve everything.
Just ironic that consumer legally is not allowed the same personal archiving DRM free freedom.
Can of worms now opened.
CRTGAMER, I don't see anything in that paragraph that limits the exemptions to the library of congress. The library of congress is who decides what exemptions we get, but they're not limited to the library of congress. Honestly, I think it's a little disturbing that they let the library of congress write laws. That's the job of elected officials.
We are prepared to live in the plain and die in the plain!
Hatta wrote:CRTGAMER, I don't see anything in that paragraph that limits the exemptions to the library of congress. The library of congress is who decides what exemptions we get, but they're not limited to the library of congress. Honestly, I think it's a little disturbing that they let the library of congress write laws. That's the job of elected officials.
Hope you are right, just seems the exemptions part only allows Library of Congress to do their job of preserving everything.
CRTGAMER wrote:
Well it is the Library of Congress, rightfully should be able to preserve everything.
Just ironic that consumer legally is not allowed the same personal archiving DRM free freedom.
Can of worms now opened.
I have some friends who are IP lawyers, and one who works for the Library of Congress. I don't know the exact details, but you are more or less correct. You still aren't supposed to burn copies of your DVDs.
I think you're conflating two different issues. Making copies is prohibited by the Copyright Act, not the DMCA. The DMCA prohibits circumvention of copyright protection measures, whether or not any copies are made. This is an exemption to the DMCA, not the copyright act.
We are prepared to live in the plain and die in the plain!
Here's the thing: does this mean that once I get and download my game, i can then download a program that removes all of the DRM and it's legal? That sounds to me like the most beneficial outcome of this deal.
Dylan wrote:Here's the thing: does this mean that once I get and download my game, i can then download a program that removes all of the DRM and it's legal? That sounds to me like the most beneficial outcome of this deal.
No, I do not believe this is the case. I think you can only circumvent DRM for the purpose of investigating or fixing security problems.
