How Could The Anti-Circumvention Provisions of the DMCA Limit Reverse Engineering?
Section 17 U.S.C. 1201, the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA, prohibits circumvention of “technological protection measures” that “effectively control access” to copyrighted works. The law also prohibits trafficking in tools that are primarily designed, valuable or marketed for such circumvention. In other words, section 1201 creates a potential legal obstacle for a researcher or coder if a software vendor employs mechanisms that control the way copyrighted software or other materials can be accessed or used. Many people think of section 1201 as prohibiting cracking digital rights management schemes (DRM). However, the language of section 1201 prohibits more than breaking traditional “copy-protection” mechanisms applied to DVDs and digital video downloads. It also prohibits breaking “access controls”. Software vendors have argued, or are likely to argue, that techniques such as authentication handshakes, code signing, code obfuscation, and protocol encryption all qualify as “t
Related Questions
- Doesn the DMCA allow reverse engineering for compatibility, for example to allow playing of a DVD on a Linux operating system-driven personal computer?
- Is the reverse engineering of a technological protection measure illegal under the DMCA?
- How Could The Anti-Circumvention Provisions of the DMCA Limit Reverse Engineering?
