Donald Robertson's blog

Tell the U.S. Copyright Office that DMCA anti-circumvention rules are broken

The U.S. Copyright Office is taking comments on making some exemptions from the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions permanent.

Sign EFF's petition telling the U.S. Copyright Office that you support permanent exemptions. Even if you are outside the U.S. you can still sign the petition, and every voice counts.

It isn't just the DMCA that is broken beyond repair: Copyright Office refuses FSF comments

Activists helped the FSF hand-deliver a comment to the Copyright Office with over twelve-hundred co-signers calling for the repeal of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's (DMCA) anti-circumvention provisions and the triennial exemptions process, but the Copyright Office refused to accept the comment.

They're starting to listen: Copyright Office calls for comments over criticism of DMCA anti-circumvention provisions

After years of protesting against the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)'s anti-circumvention provisions and the broken process of gaining exemptions from it, the Copyright Office calls for comments on how to "improve" the system. But the system cannot be fixed. We need to end the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions now.

Environmental Protection Agency is yet another DRM Drone

We have written previously about the organizations and individuals who opposed exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's (DMCA) anti-circumvention provisions. These drones oppose the rights of users to backup, modify, and study the software and devices that we own. The DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions create legal penalties for simply accessing your software under your own terms, and raises those penalties even higher should dare to share the tools needed to do so. It creates real penalties for anyone who wants to avoid Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) controls. The granting of exemptions to these totalitarian rules is a broken and half-hearted attempt to limit the damage these rules bring, granting for 3 years a reprieve for certain specified devices and software.

DMCA exemption commenting process broken beyond repair

Every three years, supporters of user rights are forced to go through a Kafkaesque process fighting for exemptions from the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). We explain this process more fully in our announcement of the comments we filed this year. In short, under the DMCA's rules, everything not permitted is forbidden.

In DMCA anti-circumvention fight, we don't want exemptions, we want justice

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The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has one particularly draconian measure criminalizing the circumvention of digital restrictions management (DRM). This section, which appears in law as 17 U.S.C §1201 states that "[n]o person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work". This facet of the law completely violates users' rights to their own devices, and their legitimate use rights to copyrighted works.

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