DMCA gets update with new exemptions, fair use finally take seriously?

[admin]

The US DMCA has been updated with five new exemptions, by The Library of Congress, and there are some significant changes that will be welcomed by users, but perhaps not big business and content owners.

The first exemption is to do with phones, specifically jailbreaking iPhones and similar activities. This means it will be legal to jailbreak your iPhone, despite protestation from Apple who want to lock in users to its apps platform.

E-Books also get a taste of fair use, with DRM breaking now legal for the purposes of text-to-speech services. President Obama previously lobbied for this exemption, despite heavy resistance from the pro RIAA/MPAA members of congress, including members of his own party.

Hacking gaming DRM is also now allowed, but only for testing, investigative purposes, specifically relating to security flaws and the like. So if SecuROM ever tries to rootkit your system, then hacking it to make it go away will be fine, as long as you're not doing it for the purpose of copyright infringement.

And if some product has a DRM that is no longer supported, then hack away.

And finally coming back to the main topic of this forum/website, DVDs. Sorry, ripping DVDs is mostly still illegal, unless for educational purposes (teachers and students), or for criticism or comment (filmmakers). Backups are still illegal under the DMCA.

So while these five changes are significant, especially the jailbreaking exemption, these still don't really go far enough. How hard would it be to simply make DRM breaking legal as long as it isn't used for copyright infringement?

More:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/201933/what_new_dmca_copyright_loopholes_mean_to_you.html?tk=hp_new

[admin]

The MPAA is disgusted at these changes, particularly the one that allows DRM protected clips to be ripped for criticism or comment, by documentary film-makers, for example.

MPAA spokesperson Elizabeth Kaltman also praised the DMCA, calling it something "which has fostered greater access to more works by more people than at any time in our history.".

Lawyer Chris Perez of Donaldson & Callif welcomed the new changes. "To make social, political or cultural critiques, filmmakers need to quote from copyrighted material such as motion pictures," he said. "It's well established that this type of use is permitted by the fair use doctrine in copyright law, but the DMCA was preventing it."

More:

http://www.homemediamagazine.com/legal-news/mpaa-pans-ruling-dvd-copying-20162