Saturday 7 November 2015

EFF says ..... Victory! From Jailbreaking Phones to Fixing Your Car, Users' Rights to Tinker Reaffirmed

This from the EFF, updating the earlier and somewhat brief report by the CopyKat

"In a major victory for digital rights, the Librarian of Congress granted all of the DMCA exemptions that EFF and our supporters requested. Quick refresher: the DMCA as written creates legal uncertainty around circumventing technical restrictions on copyrighted works, and directs the Librarian of Congress to grant special, temporary exemptions every three years.

The new exemptions mean that the following types of technological tinkering are explicitly lawful, at least for the next three years:

- Jailbreaking cell phones, tablets, and other portable computing devices to run third party software;

- Ripping DVDs and Blu-ray video that you own in order to create fair use remixes and analysis;

- Preserving video games and running multiplayer servers after publishers have abandoned them;

- Security research and modification and repairs on cars (and tractors!).

We're thrilled with this outcome. At the same time, a critical long-term solution is to eliminate the need for this onerous rulemaking process by reforming the broken law that threatens these activities in the first place."

And even more here! https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/victory-users-librarian-congress-renews-and-expands-protections-fair-uses

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