DMCA is so weird. Anything can be a circumvention device. XOR. Harsh wording with an if then.

bragr a day ago | parent | next [-]

I started to think about this like physical locks and that made it seem less weird. You don't need a great lock to communicate "this is a private space" and there's no "but your honor is was a crappy lock" defense to trespassing. Circumventing bad copy protection still establishes intent to circumvent so you're still in trouble.

▲

gizmo686 a day ago | parent [-]

Notably, neither lockpicks nor lockpicks are illegal.

By making circumvention itself illegal the DMCA gives the producer to essentially invent new IP law.

Want to take a DVD you bought while vacationing in China and play it back home in the US. That is perfectly legal. However, if the DVD has even the flimsiest form of region locking, you would need to circumvent them, which is a crime.

▲

bragr a day ago | parent | next [-]

>Notably, neither lockpicks nor lockpicks are illegal.

As someone with lockpicks and practice locks, sure. But as soon as I pick someone else's lock without permission, it very much is a crime.

▲

wolrah a day ago | parent | next [-]

> But as soon as I pick someone else's lock without permission, it very much is a crime.

Right, but no one's installing a modchip on someone else's Switch without permission. No one's stealing Blu-rays to rip. I'd actually challenge you to find any DMCA anticircumvention claim where the people accused of violating it were doing things to hardware or media they didn't own or have permission from the owner to access.

▲

alterom a day ago | parent | prev [-]

>But as soon as I pick someone else's lock without permission, it very much is a crime.

The analogy is broken and doesn't apply.

The better analogy would be someone installing a lock on your property which you have the right to enter and use, and you going to jail for breaking the lock.

In real world, of course you can break someone's lock without permission when they put it on your property without getting your permission to do it.

And you buying property means the locks are no longer someone else's. They are yours to pick, cut off, melt, or throw into volcanoes.

▲

amanaplanacanal a day ago | parent [-]

Nowadays, it wouldn't be your property, you just licensed it from the manufacturer.

	▲	alterom 15 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Even so. If your landlord decides to put an extra lock on the unit you're renting, breaking that lock is not a crime. It's a rental contract violation, maybe, depending on jurisdiction. Your landlord may try to charge you for the cost of the lock if you destroy it. Picking the lock to get access to the property you are legally entitled to have access to is not a crime.

▲

cluckindan a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Lockpicks are illegal to possess in some jurisdictions (locksmiths obviously exempt)

▲

bitwize a day ago | parent | prev [-]

In Illinois, owning lockpicking equipment without a locksmith license is prima facie evidence of intent to break into someone's home. You can be charged with attempted burglary just for having the lockpicks.

▲

kay_o a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is an intent thing. A protected auth checksum verification step could be the number of letters in the packet and still count, it is not a technical provision

Circumventing a xor by xoring it back is still attempted circumvention.

▲

AnthonyMouse a day ago | parent [-]

The "arguing in favor of a bad law by saying they'll just look at your intent" thing is completely invalid for the DMCA because your intent is the thing they don't care about. That's why it's such an absurd law.

Suppose you commit unambiguous copyright infringement. Then they could already sue you regardless of whether there is any circumvention and anti-circumvention is completely redundant. It has no actual purpose that exceeds what you would get from presuming willful infringement if someone had to circumvent copy protection and then having different penalties for willful and unintentional infringement.

But now suppose you don't commit copyright infringement. You make a fair use copy of the work. Completely different intent. They don't care. It's crazy.

Where this gets really wild is the prohibition on circumvention tools.

Suppose the copyright expires on a work previously under copyright. Happens all the time. You now have a bunch of works with a "technological protection measure" preventing you from copying them, even though they're not copyrighted. Your intent is now to publish a tool to help everyone remove the DRM from those public domain works. But maybe the same DRM is also used on other works that are still under copyright -- and you may not even know that. So does your intent matter or not?

▲

kay_o a day ago | parent [-]

To clarify by intent I mean whether the intent was to circumvent or not wrt strength of technical DRM not whether the intent was to use it fairly or not; nothing to do with morals or ethics. I make no comment on whether it is right, just, or absurd.

	▲	AnthonyMouse a day ago \| parent [-]
		When people say intent matters, what they generally mean is intent to do something wrong. It implies that having no malicious intent would exculpate you. Applying it exclusively to the intent to do something innocuous is... I believe the technical term is cheating. And does the DMCA have even that as an intent requirement? Suppose you tell your local AI to copy something without even knowing that it has any DRM, and it does. Is that still a violation? Obvious loophole if it isn't, but intent requirement 100% fully absent if it is.

▲

cowlevel a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Programmer runs into the fact the law runs on intent and actual happenings rather than the form of a thing, gets confused.

Anything can be a murder weapon too. Kitchen fork. Rubber ducky.

▲

actionfromafar a day ago | parent [-]

Yes, I agree with all that. But we accept that reverse engineering is often a correct, honest, morally legit thing to do. But tape on a padlock made of paper onto the thing and suddenly you are criminally liable for repairing your tractor.

▲

cowlevel a day ago | parent [-]

It's morally correct to go back in time and kill baby Hitler, but you'd still be charged with murder.

	▲	actionfromafar 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I didn't know what to make of this. To onlookers it would be a baffling and cruel action. (Also some would say, it would not be morally correct, because the baby didn't do anything wrong.) But repairing ones' tractor should hardly elicit such reactions.