How To Win (DMCA) Exemptions And Influence Policy
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 08:07:11 -0800
From: Lee Tien
Subject: guide to DMCA "exemption" process -- 3 weeks left
To: Law & Policy of Computer Communications
EFF is pleased to present a guide to the DMCA "exemption" process.
http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/finkelstein_on_dmca.html
Under this process, the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress must make a triennial inquiry regarding adverse effects of the DMCA's prohibition on circumvention on "certain classes of works."
If adverse effects are shown, the office can "exempt certain classes of works from the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works." The exemptions only last 3 years.
The author, Seth Finkelstein, is one of the very few people who succeeded in arguing for an exemption (for the act of circumventing access/copy controls on censorware blacklists) in the last round (2000). [The Copyright Office received many comments and rejected the overwhelming majority of them; I think in the end only 2 or 3 exemptions were created.]
The upcoming round is the next one, for 2003. "Written comments are due by December 18, 2002."
This is about the only part of the DMCA that can mitigate its fell sway, so if you have any interest in the topic at all, it's well worth reading.
Lee
--
**********************************
Lee Tien
Senior Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
By Seth Finkelstein |
posted in activism
, censorware
, copyblight
, dmca
, infothought
, legal
|
on November 25, 2002 11:41 AM
(Infothought permalink)
| Followups
