Re: Bug#156287: Advice on Drip (ITP #156287)

[bts@alum.mit.edu (Brian T. Sniffen)]

tb@becket.net (Thomas Bushnell, BSG) writes:

> bts@alum.mit.edu (Brian T. Sniffen) writes:
>
>> Your interpretation would make the access-circumvention provision
>> almost useless: it would mean it only mattered when preventing access
>> to illegally copied works.  Which, hey, is a reasonable law.  Neat.
>
> No, it would also mean that you can't make an access-circumvention for
> a *copy protection* scheme.  The point is that CSS isn't a
> copyprotection scheme, not at all.

You keep snipping the relevant text: do you think your argument can't
stand up next to evidence?  Let my try this again:

CSS is an access control mechanism.  The fair use doctrine is a
defense to copyright infringement.  The DMCA makes circumvention of
access control mechanisms illegal.  That law also says nothing in the
DMCA contravenes the fair use doctrine.

The ban on use of circumvention devices for copy-prevention schemes is
probably toothless, given the fair use doctrine.  However, the
following activities banned by the DMCA are not copyright
infringement, and so fair use is not a defense for them:

  * Trafficking in access-control circumvention devices.

  * Accessing a protected work.

Fair use would normally allow you to do either of these things.
Neither of them is copyright infringement, though, so the DMCA
effectively bans them.

-Brian

-- 
Brian T. Sniffen                                        bts@alum.mit.edu
                       http://www.evenmere.org/~bts/