Reverse Engineering DRM on CDs Deemed Lawful
http://www.betanews.com/article/Reve...l/1164744535/1
Excerpts from the article:
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In a stunning announcement yesterday, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington listed an unprecedented six scenarios in which such measures are now considered permissible and non-infringing. One of these scenarios, in explicit detail, permits engineers to circumvent (read: "crack") security provisions on audio CDs, in order that they may prevent harm to personal computers in which they may run.
Billington's recommendation to Congress may soon be enacted into law by future legislation with little chance of opposition. As a result, content publishers may become unable to invoke the Digital Millennium Copyright Act as ammunition against security engineers who seek to expose flaws, perhaps not only in CD copy protection schemes, but in similar DRM schemes as well.
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Originally Posted by The Article
Also among the denied were requests to exempt cases where individuals move legally-purchased digital media from one DRM format to another ("space-shifting"); cases where Linux users can't view specially-coded DVDs and work to resolve such problems; cases where DVD owners living in one country would like to see a movie sold in another (the classic region-coded DVD request); cases where a program developed for one operating system for one reason or another won't run in another operating system; and at least one request to exempt absolutely all works addressed by the DMCA, on the grounds that the act unfairly infringes upon consumers' rights.
