HEARINGS ON 1201(a)(1) RULEMAKING ANNOUNCED; REPLY COMMENTS ON COPYRIGHT OFFICE WEBSITE (71 FR 9302)

The Copyright Office is announcing hearings in connection with its Section 1201 rulemaking proceeding to determine 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 of access controls. The hearings will be held at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., on March 23 and March 24, 2006, and at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., on March 29 and 31, 2006, and April 3 and 4, 2006. Requests to testify must be received by March 10, 2006. For further information, go to the Copyright Office website at

http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2006/71fr9302.html

In regards to the DVD-Jon case, it was argued in the Norwegian courts not in US courts. I don’t know if Norwegian law even has the legal concept of ‘fair use’. DVD-Jon was acquitted on all charges because he owned the DVDs that he decrypted and according to Norwegian law one can make copies of data for personal use.

Here is a small paragraph about the DMCA from a CNET article “The DMCA makes it a crime to offer for sale products that circumvent digital copy protections, including encryption schemes, the issue at stake in the ElcomSoft case. Other provisions create penalties for creating and distributing such tools, raising protests from programmers that the law could, among other things, bar academic research and inhibit open discussion of encryption technology, including in news reports. Last year, in a major ruling favoring the film industry, a federal appeals court ordered a Web site to remove links to code capable of cracking encryption on DVDs, citing the DMCA.” http://news.com.com/2100-1023-978176.html

The EFF has a whole page on the unintended consequences of the DMCA as well which is an interesting read.
http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/unintended_consequences.php

There’s one difference with what I am trying to do. I am not trying to circumvent the protection. I am trying to figure out how devices talk to WMC so that they can talk to me to. For example, the Xbox 360 would exclusively talk only to WMC on the PC and no other UPnP media server. Is it illegal for me to reverse-engineer the protocol and build a fake WMC?