They are practically asking for Streisand Effect... if you distribute your key with the software, then whatever form it is in, I would not consider it "private" at all!
I won't even get into how I think GitHub is being overly courteous to media companies by extending takedown ability for alleged Section 1201 violations. I'm firmly convinced the only remedy the DMCA offers for that is via the courts, and that the takedown process explicitly requires the identification of infringing material, not circumvention tools.
Fair Use is about using copyrighted content, which is widely shackled behind DRM. Any court can easily see that in order to exercise your right to use that content in a Fair Use sort of way, you must break the DRM. Therefore, the existence and availability of DRM-breaking tools is a necessary condition for Fair Use to be exercised at all in conjunction with the modern media landscape.
IANAL
Could you cite the law you're referring to here please?
The UK CDPA as amended to follow the EU's Marrakech directive seems to say anything that prevents you from exercising your Fair Dealing rights to make content accessible for disabled people is void if it contradicts these rights. This seems necessarily to allow for circumvention of DRM (for people with disabilities and specific registered companies) but that also appears to mean production of circumvention means needs to be legal otherwise such accessibility will be impossible.
It's absent because RIAA's intent is not stated. They did a blanket takedown, unprompted. As far as I can tell they never requested any particular modification. IIRC the only hint that it might be related is a mention that the rolling cipher algorithm that YouTube-dl "circumvents" was ruled to be DRM under German law.
However, the bulk of the DMCA seems to be leveled at the marketing of ytdl as a circumvention tool, citing unit tests containing metadata referencing RIAA-owned content (unit tests, apparently, are now part of 'marketing,' I guess.)
This is definitely untested in court but I won't be surprised if it is indeed part of marketing. The problem with the tests is that they do download the video, even if it is a small amount and since ytdl does not reject the video for downloading at all it is technically infrigment, probably without a valid fair use defense. If ytdl has actively rejected that (for example if the test units are specifically to prevent downloading those types of videos), they may have a stonger defense against RIAA claims.
It's a right because where it applies there is no tort. Like an allowed right of way over private property. Yes, if a you have someone abusing your rights by filling frivolous suits then "it's a defence", of course it is they're trying to assert a right they don't have.
Such needless couching of public rights in an authoritarian way is really offensive to the purposes of copyright, which is granted by the public - the demos - to private parties. It's not a natural right, and so yes, under Fair Use there is no right being infringed that a valid claim of tort can be made for; so one does have a right to do those things.
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/09/technology/09steal.html
Two years later, their case was dismissed :
https://www.generation-nt.com/drm-stopdrm-dadvsi-justice-loi... (fr)
They were considered as 'irresponsible' due to 'either psychological issues, force majeure or legitimate self-defense".
(Note that they even seem to have shared the DMCA infringing software on their website.)
There is no such thing AFAIK.
> It is important to be clear about what the fair use doctrine is not. Fair use is not a right. It is a defense. [...]
It's not hard to find more links explaining the same thing (e.g., see http://www.copyhype.com/2013/08/why-copyright-is-a-right-and...), but I'm happy to be proven wrong...
But yes, even rights defined in the law can and do get redefined, newly introduced or removed.
The copyright holder could prevent you from copying it by never distributing it, but that doesn't mean you don't have a right to fair use, it only means you don't have the ability to exercise that right. Much the same as you can't exercise freedom of the press if you can't afford a printing press (or any modern equivalent).
It might be physically impossible for you to have an abortion, e.g. because you're infertile, but that doesn't mean you don't have a right to one under existing precedent.
In a normal world, I can only do one of these. Either I take the money, and render services or goods OR I don't take the money, and then don't render the services. But in RIAA/DMCA/GEMA/...-Crazytown you get to charge people AND actively avoid delivering anything.
It really is a ridiculously one-sided law that gives all power to private media entities.
Fair use is not a right. It's a defence. You're still infringing copyright, but this is an infringement that they cannot punish. Importantly, law makers see fair use as a restriction of the rights of the copyright holder, not as a right granted to users of that IP.
People have always known that DMCA interferes with these defences. See for example this from 2001: https://repository.uchastings.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl...
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work ... is not an infringement of copyright.
I think both the USA and UK DDAs allow copying as part of production of accessible content.
Honestly though, I'm not sure how this fits with "circumvention" the wording (UK) appears to allow it.
This was a change that I am assuming was added before any complaint could be mounted about this use case for fear of striking more of the DMCA down than just that provision that was modified.
This is your brain on DRM.
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http:/...
Predates so-called "Streisand Effect"
DeCSS was released in 1999; Mecha Streisand episode of South Park was 1998.
They are invalid. It's interesting since it implies copyright itself must be invalid.
All intellectual property is data, information, a collection of bits... Also known as a number. Copyrighted works are actually just numbers. Really big numbers. Creators are just trying to discover those numbers through their labor.