Topic: New DMCA Rules

[MysterD]

Update - July 28, 2010:
ArsTechnica on a federal court now ruling in favor of jailbreaking your Iphone and circumventing DRM under the 'fair use' definition.

News/Links/Info:
From Kotaku - Handful of new rules added to the DMCA.

[Cobra951]

Good news, though they are very narrowly defined exceptions.  Guess what?  I made a compendium of short clips from all my DVDs, and I lost it because of a hard drive crash!  You may quote me.

[scottws]

Well that does seem to be good news that they are relaxing some of the (stupid) law and not completely ruling with an iron fist.  But like Cobra said, these exceptions are very narrowly designed.

Also, how fucking stupid are people?  One guy in the comments seemed to think that the de-CSS exception allowed him to copy whole DVDs and give them to friends.  Can he not read?  I thought it was very clear that only short clips of the source were permissible.

[idolminds]

As much as I don't like really broad language in laws, I don't like how specific some of these are. Like custom firmware for phones...why not custom firmware for freaking anything? I have CFW on my PSP...is that legal? Well, this doesn't cover it.

(4) Video games accessible on personal computers and protected by technological protection measures that control access to lawfully obtained works, when circumvention is accomplished solely for the purpose of good faith testing for, investigating, or correcting security flaws or vulnerabilities, if:
(i) The information derived from the security testing is used primarily to promote the security of the owner or operator of a computer, computer system, or computer network; and
(ii) The information derived from the security testing is used or maintained in a manner that does not facilitate copyright infringement or a violation of applicable law.

So you can only bypass game DRM to...test it or improve it? I don't really understand this.

[MysterD]

So you can only bypass game DRM to...test it or improve it? I don't really understand this.

Legalese is such a pain-in-the-ass to try and read.

I think what it's saying is you can bypass DRM, if the DRM will cause the stability of your PC's software/OS and hardware to go out the window - i.e. think old-school Starforce has done to numerous HD's, CD's in the drive, destroyed game CD/DVD discs, and the SF drivers opening up security holes in Windows, etc.

That's what I think Number 4 on Kotaku's list of new DMCA Laws is saying - if I'm reading that correctly.

[MysterD]

ArsTechnica on a federal court now ruling in favor of jailbreaking your Iphone and circumventing DRM under the 'fair use' definition.

Oh, stuff's getting REAL interesting now...

[scottws]

That is huge!!!  The one thing that burned me up the most about the DMCA is that it trampled all over and made illegal fair use as established by courts in the past.  This court basically bitch-slapped the law back into its rightful place.

[MysterD]

Damn right, this is huge - HUGE, HUGE!

Now that a Federal court has ruled "Fair use" as part of going along w/ the DRM circumventing and IPhone jailbreaking, this is going EVEN further now. This is really going to upset some major corporations - i.e. Apple and UbiSoft.

I bet companies that have made $-galore off copy-protection schemes and invested $-galore into developing their own copy-protection schemes - Sony (w/ Securom), Tages, StarForce, etc - probably don't like this news, either.

I wouldn't be surprised if this all goes to The Supreme Court, some-time down the line.

[Cobra951]

Fantastic.  Too bad it's only a Court of Appeals.  This needs to be the ruling of the Supreme Court.  It's very encouraging regardless.

You see what it takes to get justice, though, right?

When MGE learned about this circumvention, it sued PMI, which had been bought out by General Electric in 2001. MGE charged PMI with copyright infringement . . .

Big boys with big pockets who can properly defend themselves and force the courts to right the major wrongs.

Awesome.  If you live in Mississippi, Texas or Louisiana, this is now law (if Wikipedia isn't lying to me).  Everywhere else in the country, it's a powerful precedent for future law, unless the Supreme Court rules otherwise.  I love it when my day starts out so well.