Tell the Copyright Office: Copyright Law Shouldn't Punish Research and Repair; Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), 10/11/16

Corynne McSherry, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF); Tell the Copyright Office: Copyright Law Shouldn't Punish Research and Repair:

"In enacting the “anti-circumvention” provisions of the DMCA, Congress ostensibly intended to stop copyright “pirates” from defeating DRM and other content access or copy restrictions on copyrighted works and to ban the “black box” devices intended for that purpose. In practice, the DMCA anti-circumvention provisions haven’t had much impact on unauthorized sharing of copyrighted content. Instead, they’ve hampered lawful creativity, innovation, competition, security, and privacy.

In the past few years, there’s been a growing movement to reform the law. As locked-down copyrighted software shows up in more and more devices, from phones to refrigerators to tractors, more and more people are realizing how important it is to be able to break those locks, for all kinds of legitimate reasons. If you can’t tinker with it, repair it, or peek under the hood, then you don’t really own it—someone else does, and their interests will take precedence over yours.

It seems the Copyright Office has heard those concerns. As part of an ongoing study, it’s asking for comments (PDF) on whether it should recommend that Congress enact a series of permanent exemptions to the law for several important and useful activities, including security research and repair."

Proposed Update to Copyright Rules Eases Barriers to Security Research; National Journal, 4/20/15

Kaveh Waddell, Comic Book Resources; Proposed Update to Copyright Rules Eases Barriers to Security Research:

"Researchers who hack into everything from thermostats to Facebook so they can identify and help patch security holes may get a little assistance from Congress.

Legislation proposed last week would change copyright law to make it easier for these security researchers—not malicious hackers—to find and expose software vulnerabilities without getting in trouble for it.

The 1998 Digital Millenium Copyright Act made it illegal to get around technology protections—that includes ripping DVDs, copying video games, and in some cases, even jailbreaking your own smartphone. One provision of the act offers exemptions for certain activities. Ostensibly, security research is one of those activities, but the way the law is set up makes it difficult to get exemptions for research, critics say...

The bill likely faces an uphill battle."