How is the general public affected by the DMCA?
Conspicuously missing from the exemptions provided for circumvention activities is the average consumer’s right to use and explore the products and services they purchase. The only provisions aimed at consumers directly, exempt the circumvention of: a) technologies that collect personal information (the privacy exemption); and, b) technologies used to protect minors from access to certain web sites. These exemptions, like the others, are extremely narrow. For example, the privacy exemption only allows circumvention to defeat the data collection activity of the technical protection measure. If by defeating the data collection element you defeat other aspects of the technical protection measure you?ve exceeded the scope of the exemption. More importantly for the average individual, there is no equivalent provision explicitly permitting the development or use of devices that could perform such operations. In other words, while the law allows people to engage in circumvention activities in
