[x-pubpol] USA : EFF Launches Petition Campaign for Expanded DMCA Exemptions

[Joly MacFie]

https://www.eff.org/press/releases/help-protect-gadget-jailbreakers-and-video-artists-legal-threats

EFF Launches Petition Campaign for Expanded DMCA Exemptions

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is asking the
public to join the
campaign to keep and widen exemptions EFF obtained in 2010 to the Digital
Millennium
Copyright Act (DMCA) to help remove a cloud of legal uncertainty hanging
over folks who
modify electronic gadgets and make remix videos.


The exemptions EFF won for smartphones and remix videos in
2010 will expire if they are not renewed.  So in December, EFF filed
comments urging the
Copyright Office to not only renew the exemptions, but expand them.
 Specifically, EFF
asked that the office protect the "jailbreaking" of smartphones, electronic
tablets, and
video game systems - freeing them to run operating systems and applications
from any
source.  EFF also asked for legal protections for artists and critics who
use excerpts
from DVDs or Internet video services to create new, remixed works.

Now, the Copyright Office is asking for public comment on the proposed
exemptions and EFF
is seeking the public's help.  In EFF's Jailbreaking Is Not a Crime
campaign, you can sign
a letter written by author and hacker bunnie Huang, advocating for expanded
jailbreaking
exemptions to protect security researchers and other tinkerers and
innovators.  In the
Rip. Mix. Make. Campaign, you can join video artist, educator, and author
Kirby Ferguson
in calling for wider exemptions for breaking video encryption for creative
purposes.

Both campaigns are part of the official comment period of the Copyright
Office's
rulemaking process, convened every three years to consider exemptions to
the DMCA's
prohibitions on "circumventing" digital rights management and "other
technical protection
measures" used to protect copyrighted works.  In passing the DMCA, Congress
allowed the
Copyright Office to create certain kinds of exemptions to help mitigate the
harms the law
causes to legitimate, non-infringing use of copyrighted materials.



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