Cory Doctorow reports on a hopeful sign that we might be able to get rid of one of the more pernicious aspects of the DMCA rules:
Section 1201 of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes it both a crime and a civil offense to tamper with software locks that control access to copyrighted works — more commonly known as “Digital Rights Management” or DRM. As the number of products with software in them has exploded, the manufacturers of these products have figured out that they can force their customers to use their own property in ways that benefit the company’s shareholders, not the products’ owners — all they have to do is design those products so that using them in other ways requires breaking some DRM.
The conversion of companies’ commercial preferences into legally enforceable rights has been especially devastating to the repair sector, a huge slice of the US economy, as much as 4% of GDP, composed mostly of small mom-n-pop storefront operations that create jobs right in local communities, because repair is a local business. No one wants to send their car, or even their phone, to China or India for servicing.
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Three states are considering “Right to Repair” bills that would override the DMCA’s provisions, making it legal to break DRM to effect repairs, ending the bizarre situation where cat litter boxes are given the same copyright protection as the DVD of Sleeping Beauty. Grassroots campaigns in Nebraska, Minnesota, and New York prompted the introduction of these bills and there’s more on the way. EFF and the Right to Repair coalition are pushing for national legislation too, in the form of the Unlocking Technology Act.
