Why Anti-circumvention is a Problem: Some Examples

Why Is Anti-Circumvention A Problem: Some Examples
Vancouver Fair Copyright Coalition – v.1.1 September 8,2008
William G. McGrath

CURRENT VERSION for PUBLIC VIEW - DO NOT EDIT WITHOUT PRIOR DISCUSSION

I'm a politician and a whistle blower has leaked me an encrypted document protected by DRM. Anti-circumvention legislation will make it impossible for me to read this information and illegal for me to break the encryption or employ someone to do it. This freedom of speech issue also applies to journalists.

I operate a data recovery service. Business is booming with so many computers in use. Some hard drives always fail and the data on them has to be recovered. Some of this data is protected by DRM,and I have to circumvent those protections in order to recover the data. Anti-circumvention legislation will make it illegal for me to use, purchase or create the software I need to do this. Anti-circumvention legislation will destroy the data recovery industry.

I'm planning a business trip to Europe. I want to use my new Rogers cellphone with local providers while I'm away and so need to unlock the DRM on the software in my phone. Anti-circumvention legislation will make this illegal.

I own both Microsoft Zune and Apple iPod digital media players. I need to unlock content to shift it between the Microsoft WMA and Apple FairPlay formats so I can use my purchases on both machines. This will be illegal if anti-circumvention legislation is implemented.

I'm the system administrator for a large media company. Our movie reviewers use slices from DRM movies in their reviews. I have to backup the filesystems containing this content on a daily basis. Anti-circumvention legislation will make doing my job illegal.

I work at a radio station. Usually we move material from a CD to digital form before playing it on air, especially with programs recorded for use at a later date. Anti-circumvention legislation will make this illegal if the CD has DRM.

I'm a security consultant. Sometimes I'm hired to test the security on a company's server by breaking into it. I then make recommendations to improve security. Often I circumvent the copyrighted software built into computer devices. If this software is DRM, anti-circumvention legislation will make it illegal to perform this kind of computer security testing even for an employer. Criminals won't face such restrictions however.

I'm a musician and I use computers to analyze music – taking it apart for study, improvement and to create my own versions. Obviously, I have to unlock the DRM protected content in order to do this on the CDs I have purchased. Anti-circumvention legislation will make it illegal for me to do this.

I'm a computer hobbyist and a movie buff. I often watch movies on my laptop which uses the Linux operating system. Linux uses DeCSS to unlock movies with DRM protection. If anti-circumvention legislation becomes law, it will be illegal and impossible for me to watch videos I have purchased or rented with my computer. Isn't this discrimination?

I'm a first generation Canadian, and my relatives are always sending us videos from Germany. In order to watch these films, we have to circumvent the region encoding on these disks. Anti-circumvention legislation will criminalize such activity and make it impossible to import and view videos from other countries.

I'm a student doing research for a class project. I found an eBook in Europe which is perfect for my purposes, but it is DRM protected. Anti-circumvention legislation will make it illegal for me to use this material.

I'm an audiophile and recently copied my entire music collection onto a media centre I built using my old computer. I can now select music by genre, artist, mood, pace, date, location, style, and era. Of course I need to backup my collection, but anti-circumvention legislation will not permit this, nor will it allow me to copy future purchases containing DRM onto my computer.

I'm an engineer and design new products. I have to unlock parts catalogs, installation and instructions manuals, and standards information distributed on protected DRM media. Anti-circumvention legislation will make it impossible and illegal to do my job.

I'm the mother of three boys, the youngest a very curious three year old. We've always found it necessary to make multiple backup copies of all our Cds and DVDs to protect them from little fingers, and peanut butter. Anti-circumvention legislation will not allow this. What should we do in the future?

I'm an artist and I use video clips and images from the Internet in my work. Many of these images are DRM protected and purchased. Anti-circumvention legislation will not allow me to access this content in ways that allow me to modify it and create new works. This is an unacceptable restriction on artistic expression.

I'm a computer technician working in a big box store. Many people bring their computers into the store and want to upgrade their hard disk. We then copy the content of their old disk onto the new. Anti-circumvention legislation will make it illegal for us to copy software, music, movies or other DRM material from one disk to another.

I'm a music lover and have purchased a lot of DRM music online from Yahoo. They're going out of business now and shutting down their DRM server. Although I legally own this music I won't be able to access it in future. Anti-circumvention legislation will make it illegal to convert this content to other formats and play it.

I'm a corporate librarian and need to convert large amounts of information contained in many different proprietary file formats into vendor neutral formats so that it will be accessible many decades from now when current devices and vendors are no longer available. Anti-circumvention legislation will make it illegal to circumvent such formats since they are copyrighted. We will not be able to access the information we will need to do business in the future.

I'm a law student working for a judge. I need to access DRM material from several sources and cut and paste it into a larger report. Anti-circumvention legislation will make it illegal for me to access protected material in this way.

I'm an ordinary guy, and I have a music collection. I make copies of my favourite Cds and keep them on my boat and at my cabin. I also make mix tapes for use in the car on long trips. For this I often circumvent DRM. After all the Cds are my property. Anti-circumvention legislation will force me to purchase additional copies in future and won't allow me to make mix tapes of DRM content.

I'm a sports fan and I've recorded every Grey Cup, Superbowl and Stanley Cup Final game for the last twenty years. I like to have the boys over and replay the great ones. I understand that anti-circumvention legislation will make it illegal to maintain a personal library of television recordings and prevent me from making other recordings in future. Why can't I keep my library?

I'm a computer programmer and write programs for using DRM material – CD players, movie viewers, photo programs and so on. These programs decrypt DRM protections. Anti-circumvention legislation will criminalize my specialty. Who will write these programs in the future?

I'm a computer security researcher and need to have unrestricted access to hardware, software and content in order to investigate security issues. Anti-circumvention legislation will make purchasing, creating and using software that circumvents DRM in order to conduct security research a criminal act. Won't the criminals be pleased.

I'm a CEO and I'm responsible for my company's data. I'm concerned about the effect anti-circumvention legislation will have on my company. It seems this legislation will protect vendor's file formats so strongly that we won't be able to switch software products in the future. Doing so would involve converting data from one vendor's file format to another's. Anti-circumvention legislation will prevent us from doing this and thus effectively deprives us of vendor choice.

I'm a research assistant who is often asked by my supervisor to collect electronic materials for her later use. Mandatory DRM on electronic materials from the library will mean that I can't send her my results electronically, and the files I've downloaded will only be usable for five days.

I'm a university computer technician. I'm asked to recover accidentally deleted files for students and faculty all the time. Some of these files are encrypted, some DRM protected, and many are in proprietary file formats. Anti-circumvention legislation will make it illegal to recover such files and the data they contain, some of it irreplacable, will be lost forever.