Many of you would probably agree that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which criminalizes (among other things) circumvention of copyright protection measures, is a flawed piece of legislation that stifles innovation and tramples on people’s digital rights. Well, starting November 2, you can let the US Copyright Office know what you think.

Every three years, as mandated by the DMCA, the US Copyright Office decides whether there are “particular classes of works as to which users are, or are likely to be, adversely affected in their ability to make noninfringing uses due to the prohibition on circumvention” (see this notice of inquiry). In other words, between November 2 and December 1, 2005, the Copyright Office will solicit comments from the public about what sort of exemptions should be made in the DMCA.

Of course, there are a number of limitations that can prevent an exemption from being granted, including the following (as discussed by the EFF):

• Exemptions can’t be granted for the distribution of tools of circumvention.
• The activity for which the exemption is being granted can’t infringe copyright.
• The exemption would have to apply to a “class” of copyrighted works, not particular non-infringing uses. You can’t, for example, get an exemption for “classroom uses” of DVDs.

The EFF DeepLinks post also contains links to some good guides about understanding the requirements, like Seth Finkelstein’s guide to winning DMCA exemptions. So start thinking about what to say to the Copyright Office and other ways to reform the DMCA.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 29th, 2005 at 3:18 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.