U.S. Copyright Office
Library of Congress
Comments on Rulemaking on Exemptions on Anticirumvention

This page contains comments submitted as a part of a rulemaking on exemptions from prohibition on circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works (read more details). The following comments were submitted in the first round of comments between Nov. 19 and Dec. 18, 2002.

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1  

Mark Wilkins

Class   Audiovisual works presented in digital format, when used by a participant in the original creation of such work in the assembly of a brief collection of excerpts for purposes of soliciting business or employment, commonly known as a "portfolio" or "demo reel."
     
Summary  
Comment   comment text (3 pages)
 
2  

Eric Eldred
Eldritch Press

Class   Literary works, including computer programs and databases, protected by access control mechanisms in which the mechanism controls access both to copyrighted works and to works not under copyright.
     
Summary  

Access to material in the public domain needs to be assured, even if the publisher restricts access by technological mechanisms used also for copyrighted works.

Comment   comment text (1 page)
 
3  

Owen P. Martin

Class   "open source" and "free" software and other works licensed under licenses such as the GNU GPL (General Public License).
     
Summary   Researchers need to be able to publish details of security holes in and fixes to open-source software in order to provide for a timely resolution of security and other problems.

Comment   comment text (1 page)
 
4  

Barry Klawans

Class   digital representations of musical works
     
Summary   The inability to create noninfringing copies of musical works can lead to the loss of works that are not commercially successful. Permanent barriers to creating noninfringing copies goes far beyond the constitutional copyright protection that protects works "by securing for limited times".

Comment   comment text (2 pages)
 
5  

Alik Widge

Class   Any digital-format work, including but not limited to Compact Discs (CDs) and Digital Versatile Discs (DVDs) which contain material not available in a comparable analog format at a price no more than ten percent (10%) higher than the cost of the digital work.
     
Summary  
Comment   comment text (2 pages)
 
6  

Ighmael Schwartz

Class   Music of all types used for personal medium transfer or backup archival methods
     
Summary  

Comment   comment text (1 page)
 
7  

Todd Colvin

Class   All classes of copyrighted works should be exempted under certain conditions.
     
Summary
Comment   comment text (2 pages)
 
8  

Anthony Burokas

Class   All Classes: literary works; musical works; dramatic works; pantomimes and choreographic works; pictorial, graphic and sculptural works; motion pictures and other audiovisual works; sound recordings; and architectural works.
     
Summary  

Comment   comment text (1 page)
 
9  

Ben Weiss

Class   Literary and Educational text contained in ebooks
     
Summary   Because some people have different physical requirements for reading, it is necessary for such disabled persons to gain access to the contents of ebooks we have purchased so we can actually read them. I am legally blind and have special requirements for reading not met by comercial ebook software.
Comment   comment text (2 pages)
 
10  

Michael A. Lowry

Class   Motion pictures on DVD
     
Summary  

Comment   comment text (1 page)
 
11  

John Vesper

Class   1) Music (CD) 2) Video (DVD) 3) Electronic Printed Media ("E-Books")
     
Summary  

Comment   comment text (1 page)
 
12  

William Noble

Class   written, human readable documents explaining the means of operation of and potential defects in a technical protection measure.
     
Summary  

Comment   comment text (1 page)
 
13  

Matthew T. Russotto

Class   Electronic books (literary works, possibly also containing pictorial works in the form of illustrations, in electronic form)
     
Summary  

Comment   comment text (3 pages)
 
14  

Michael A. Rolenz

Class

 

     
Summary  

Comment   comment text (8 pages)
 
15  

Ken Arromdee

Class

 

1. Audiovisual works on DVD protected by the Content Scrambling System (CSS).
2. Software and games that are played on video game machines.
     
Summary  

1. Users are heavily restricted from playing foreign DVDs, playing DVDs on Linux, or using features such as skipping commercials that are locked out by licensed DVD players, without circumvention.
2. Users are restricted from running unauthorized software and playing import games without being able to circumvent.

Comment   comment text (7 pages)
 
16  

Darrin Cardani
Buena Software, Inc.

Class

 

Tools which existed before and happen to be able to circumvent newer products access controls.
     
Summary  

Several companies are using well-known encoding schemes, rather than strong encryption, as access control. Tools that can circumvent these access controls already exist. Those tools should be exempt from the anti-circumvention clauses, as should any updates to those tools.

Comment   comment text (8 pages)
 
17  

Greg Trouw

Class

 

Anime and other such foreign works
     
Summary  

Comment   comment text (7 pages)
 
18   Marcia Wilbur
The Center for Electronic Law
Class

 

Non Threatening Circumvention of Software
     
Summary  

Where the encryption needs to be circumvented due to unavailability of password(s) caused by absence, death, or termination.

Comment   comment text (2 pages)
 
19  

Daniel McEnnis

Class

 

source code - human readable description and/or defintion of the behavior of a computer program that can be transformed into a format executable by computer hardware but effectively unreadable by humans.
     
Summary  

Comment   comment text (4 pages)
 
20  

Robin D. Gross
IP Justice

Class

 

     
Summary  

Comment   comment text (8 pages)
 
21  

Ernest Miller
LawMeme

Class

 

Ancillary audiovisual works distributed on Digital Versatile Discs (DVDs) using the Content Scrambling System (CSS) of access control.
     
Summary  

Comment   comment text (35 pages)
 
22  

Peter Suber
Earlham College

Class

 

     
Summary  

Comment   comment text (2 pages)
 
23  

Don R. Hanson II

Class

 

Data file formats, including but not limited to word processing-, image- and music file types.
     
Summary  

I believe there now exists a very real danger of losing data due to obsolete software or even file format versions.

Comment   comment text (8 pages)
 
24  

Christopher Lewis

Class

 

Data archival mechanisms
     
Summary  

Comment   comment text (2 pages)
 
25  

Brewster Kahle
Internet Archive, Creative Commons, and Berkman Center for Internet & Society

Class

 

Literary and audiovisual works embodied in software whose access control systems prohibit access to replicas of the works
     
Summary  

Comment   comment text (14 pages)
 
26  

Paul Schroeder
American Foundation for the Blind

Class

 

Literary
     
Summary  

The American Foundation for the Blind proposes an exemption for the class of works defined as "literary." We propose this exemption because currently deployed anti-copy technology does not support fair use of this class of works intended by Congress.

Comment   comment text (7 pages)
 
27  

Edward W. Felten

Class

 

     
Summary  

Comment   comment text (9 pages)
 
28  

John C. Vaughn
Association of American Universities, American Council on Education, and National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges

Class

 

     
Summary