New DMCA exemptions

["John B. Matthews" <nospam@nospam.com>]

The United States Code, title 17, section 1201(a)(1)^1 prohibits the 
circumvention of technological measures that control access to 
copyrighted works. The Copyright Office has establised several new 
exemptions to this law that may interest the Apple II community^2.

In particular, The Librarian of Congress granted two exemptions for 
otherwise non-infringing uses in connection with obsolescent 
computers:

2. Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have 
become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a 
condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose 
of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by 
a library or archive. A format shall be considered obsolete if the 
machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that 
format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available 
in the commercial marketplace.

3. Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to 
malfunction or damage and which are obsolete. A dongle shall be 
considered obsolete if it is no longer manufactured or if a replacement 
or repair is no longer reasonably available in the commercial 
marketplace.

^1 http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap12.html#1201
^2 http://www.copyright.gov/1201/

-- 
John Matthews
jmatthews at wright dot edu
www dot wright dot edu/~john.matthews/