Matthew Russotto wrote:
Here's where you get to a VERY fine point of the law. There are two parts of the DMCA which forbid circumvention. One forbids circumvention to obtain access. The other forbids circumvention to exercise some exclusive right of the copyright holder (which would include copying). The exemption covers the former but not the latter. So while making the archival copy is legal, and circumventing the protection to obtain access is legal, circumventingthe protection to make the archival copy is not legal.
I would think that legally you could also argue, that since I have theright to access the work and I have the right to create an archive copy, a right explicitly granted for software, that I also have the right to circumvent for the explicit purpose of exercising the right to create an archive copy. After all you are not circumventing a exclusive right of the copyright holder, but exercising your explicit right to make archival copies. You could even stretch the point and be able to create tools to allow you to exercise your rights, especially for obsolete systems.