Federal Judge: OK to Break DRM for Fair Use [Copyright]

The federal government rarely hands fair use proponents cheerful news-usually it\’s quite the alternative. But a judge of the 5th Circuit Appeals Court has ruled that circumventing DRM for non-infringing purposes isn\’t illegal, contrary to years of precedent.

Judge Emilio Garza\’s ruling is a rare rebuke of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which since 1998 has made it illegal that you can break or otherwise mess with DRM on stuff you already own with the intention to enjoy them the style you might want to. But \” Merely bypassing a technological protection that restricts a user from viewing or using a work is insufficient to trigger the (Digital Millennium Copyright Act\’s) anti-circumvention provision,\” Garza countered.

According to the law as it stands, ripping a replica protected DVD with software that bypasses the disc\’s DRM-although you simply would like to watch the digital copy to your own laptop, for your own couch, on your own apartment-is entirely illegal. This part of the DMCA flies inside the face of the overall notion of fair use-the legal concept that provides you the best to record last night\’s Mad Men premiere or rip a CD.

As Boing Boing points out, this situation is very significant because the defendant is none except for General Electric, which cracked software encryption keys to perform maintenance on equipment it owned. Whether or not the case is appealed further-that could potentially send it to the Supreme Court-remains inside the hands of the plaintiff, MGE UPS Systems. But as history has shown us, sometimes it takes the resources and clout of a megacoporation to impress legal change, as was the case with Sony\’s watershed \” Betamax Case\” in 1984. [Courthouse News Service via Boing Boing]

Illustration by Sam Spratt. Look at Sam\’s portfolio and become keen on his Facebook Artist\’s Page.

Source

This post is tagged: break, copyright, drm, Fair, federal, judge, use