(4) Video games accessible on personal computers and protected by technological protection measures that control access to lawfully obtained works, when circumvention is accomplished solely for the purpose of good faith testing for, investigating, or correcting security flaws or vulnerabilities, if:
(i) The information derived from the security testing is used primarily to promote the security of the owner or operator of a computer, computer system, or computer network; and
(ii) The information derived from the security testing is used or maintained in a manner that does not facilitate copyright infringement or a violation of applicable law.
Well that is nice and...vague.
What could this mean for singleplayer games requiring an internet connection? A closed system would certainly be more secure. :idea:
Practically speaking, this probably doesn't change much. I mean, distributing cracks clearly facilitates copyright infringement. The way I see it, if I downloaded a crack and use it to play a game that I bought, I'm in the clear, but whoever is distributing the crack isn't.
Apparently there is a provision in the DMCA that every 3 years the librarian of congress has to decide if it is still valid or if changes should be made. The copyright office is in the library of congress hence why the librarian makes the decision.
Apparently it took them a year to make the changes they did so the next time they have to start reanalyzing is two years from now.
Why this change is because the librarian of congress felt it was a valid decision
Section 1201(a)(1) of the copyright law requires that every three years I am to determine whether there are any classes of works that will be subject to exemptions from the statute’s prohibition against circumvention of technology that effectively controls access to a copyrighted work. I make that determination at the conclusion of a rulemaking proceeding conducted by the Register of Copyrights, who makes a recommendation to me. Based on that proceeding and the Register’s recommendation, I am to determine whether the prohibition on circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works is causing or is likely to cause adverse effects on the ability of users of any particular classes of copyrighted works to make noninfringing uses of those works. The classes of works that I designated in the previous proceeding expire at the end of the current proceeding unless proponents of a class prove their case once again.
So evidently the Register of Copyrights suggested that this change be made and the Librarian agreed.
Well it seems like circumventing DRM for "fair use" i.e. you bought the thing so you can do whatever to the drm as you wish is now legal! Yah no more stupid grey area in the law. Makes soooo much sense. Glad the MPAA etc. will no longer be able to peddle the idea that breaking DRM on items you bought with your own money just to use on different media devices is not "copyright infringement" as they would like it to be. Obviously this doesn't mean you can then go and sell the thing or use multiple licenses for some software that requires a dongle without owning multiple dongles but it does remove the draconian interpretations around what is and isn't fair use of a product.
The gaming portion of the decision was prompted by a researcher's appeal:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/07/apple-loses-big-in-drm-ruling-jailbreaks-are-fair-use.ars
