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Comment by oliwarner | Hacker News Reader

A copyright law seems an odd place to start. This is computer misuse.

The DMCA is a bit overly broad to be considered just a copyright law. For example, just breaking encryption on a DVD is technically illegal regardless of whether you then go on to do something otherwise illegal (make and sell bootlegs) or perfectly legal (make a space-shifted backup copy on your hard drive).

IIRC this was an intentional handout to media companies who were angry that ripping CDs is perfectly legal. They had to find a way to make doing the same with DVDs illegal.

Those provisions are specifically for the breaking or circumvention of technical measures designed to prevent copyright infringement.

I don't see a parallel here.

They've been twisted to support almost anything, for example repairing your tractor is illegal because of this same law. But I agree this is just plain old hacking under a plain old reading of the CFAA and doesn't need any twists.

> for example repairing your tractor is illegal because of this same law.

No it's not. There has never been a case establishing that, and it's absurd on its face. The protection measures that the law makes illegal to break must control access to a copyrighted work, and you can't copyright functionality.

You see, they made it so you can't repair your tractor without circumventing a technological copy protection measure, which is illegal under DMCA 1201.

Has this been litigated, or is it just something tractor manufacturers have cooked up in the hopes that it'll stand up in court? Because I seem to recall printer manufacturers doing something similar with refilling toner cartridges and losing.

Any protection measure that gates repairability cannot be said to control access to a copyrighted work.

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