[conspire] (forw) The US Government Just Liberated Your iPhone

Mon Jul 26 14:58:46 PDT 2010

Best news I've heard in a decade

On Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 12:24:38PM -0700, Rick Moen wrote:
> "The DMCA does not forbid the act of circumventing copy controls."
> (This does not legalise all circumvention of copy prevention, but does
> vindicate the claim many of us have been making that preventing fair
> use through copy prevention technology should _not_ be legally
> enforceable.)
> 
> 
> ----- Forwarded message from Beth W <badastrum at gmail.com> -----
> 
> Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2010 12:17:37 -0500
> From: Beth W <badastrum at gmail.com>
> To: skeptic <skeptic at lists.johnshopkins.edu>
> Subject: The US Government Just Liberated Your iPhone
> 
> http://gawker.com/5596601/the-government-just-liberated-your-iphone
> 
> A landmark U.S. Copyright Office decision says it's now OK to
> "jailbreak" your iPhone and install unauthorized software, which Apple
> claimed was illegal. Also, you can now crack DVDs and e-books. It's
> the summer of data liberation; go nuts!
> 
> 
> http://www.copyright.gov/1201/2010/Librarian-of-Congress-1201-Statement.html
> 
> Statement of the Librarian of Congress Relating to Section 1201 Rulemaking
> 
> Section 1201(a)(1) of the copyright law requires that every three
> years I am to determine whether there are any classes of works that
> will be subject to exemptions from the statute’s prohibition against
> circumvention of technology that effectively controls access to a
> copyrighted work.  I make that determination at the conclusion of a
> rulemaking proceeding conducted by the Register of Copyrights, who
> makes a recommendation to me.  Based on that proceeding and the
> Register’s recommendation, I am to determine whether the prohibition
> on circumvention of technological measures that control access to
> copyrighted works is causing or is likely to cause adverse effects on
> the ability of users of any particular classes of copyrighted works to
> make noninfringing uses of those works. The classes of works that I
> designated in the previous proceeding expire at the end of the current
> proceeding unless proponents of a class prove their case once again.
> 
> This is the fourth time that I have made such a determination. Today I
> have designated six classes of works. Persons who circumvent access
> controls in order to engage in noninfringing uses of works in these
> six classes will not be subject to the statutory prohibition against
> circumvention.
> 
> As I have noted at the conclusion of past proceedings, it is important
> to understand the purposes of this rulemaking, as stated in the law,
> and the role I have in it. This is not a broad evaluation of the
> successes or failures of the DMCA. The purpose of the proceeding is to
> determine whether current technologies that control access to
> copyrighted works are diminishing the ability of individuals to use
> works in lawful, noninfringing ways. The DMCA does not forbid the act
> of circumventing copy controls, and therefore this rulemaking
> proceeding is not about technologies that control copying. Nor is this
> rulemaking about the ability to make or distribute products or
> services used for purposes of circumventing access controls, which are
> governed by a different part of section 1201.
> 
> In this rulemaking, the Register of Copyrights received 19 initial
> submissions proposing 25 classes of works, many of them duplicative in
> subject matter, which the Register organized into 11 groups and
> published in a notice of proposed rulemaking seeking comments on the
> proposed classes.  Fifty-six comments were submitted.  Thirty-seven
> witnesses appeared during the four days of public hearings in
> Washington and in Palo Alto, California. Transcripts of the hearings,
> copies of all of the comments, and copies of other information
> received by the Register have been posted on the Copyright Office's
> website.
> 
> The six classes of works are:
> 
> (1)  Motion pictures on DVDs that are lawfully made and acquired and
> that are protected by the Content Scrambling System when circumvention
> is accomplished solely in order to accomplish the incorporation of
> short portions of motion pictures into new works for the purpose of
> criticism or comment, and where the person engaging in circumvention
> believes and has reasonable grounds for believing that circumvention
> is necessary to fulfill the purpose of the use in the following
> instances:
> 
> (i) Educational uses by college and university professors and by
> college and university film and media studies students;
> 
> (ii) Documentary filmmaking;
> (iii) Noncommercial videos
> 
> (2) Computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to
> execute software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for
> the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications,
> when they have been lawfully obtained, with computer programs on the
> telephone handset.
> 
> (3) Computer programs, in the form of firmware or software, that
> enable used wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless
> telecommunications network, when circumvention is initiated by the
> owner of the copy of the computer program solely in order to connect
> to a wireless telecommunications network and access to the network is
> authorized by the operator of the network.
> 
> (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.
> 
> (5) Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to
> malfunction or damage and which are obsolete.  A dongle shall be
> considered obsolete if it is no longer manufactured or if a
> replacement or repair is no longer reasonably available in the
> commercial marketplace; and
> 
> (6) Literary works distributed in ebook format when all existing ebook
> editions of the work (including digital text editions made available
> by authorized entities) contain access controls that prevent the
> enabling either of the book’s read-aloud function or of screen
> readers that render the text into a specialized format.
> 
> All of these classes of works find their origins in classes that I
> designated at the conclusion of the previous rulemaking proceeding,
> but some of the classes have changed due to differences in the facts
> and arguments presented in the current proceeding.  For example, in
> the previous proceeding I designated a class that enable film and
> media studies professors to engage in the noninfringing activity of
> making compilations of film clips for classroom instruction.  In the
> current proceeding, the record supported an expansion of that class to
> enable the incorporation of short portions of motion pictures into
> documentary films and noncommercial videos for the purpose of
> criticism or comment, when the person engaging in circumvention
> reasonably believes that it is necessary to fulfill that purpose.  I
> agree with the Register that the record demonstrates that it is
> sometimes necessary to circumvent access controls on DVDs in order to
> make these kinds of fair uses of short portions of motion pictures.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> 
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> 
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> 
> ----- End forwarded message -----
> 
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"> I'm an engineer. I choose the best tool for the job, politics be damned.<
You must be a stupid engineer then, because politcs and technology have been attached at the hip since the 1st dynasty in Ancient Egypt.  I guess you missed that one."

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