Stanford Center for Internet and Society

Cellphone users try to wrest some of carriers control - The Boston Globe

News: In a great article (which I'm asking for permission to post in full) by Louis Trager for Communications Daily, Tracfone is claiming that I received personal favoritism from the Copyright Office. I. Received FAVORITISM. From the COPYRIGHT OFFICE! Stop laughing and keep reading.

Today, the Copyright Office issued new rules allowing people to circumvent technological protection measures on their cell phones in order to be able to switch carriers and use the phone on a different network.

Background:

In order to control the distribution and use of their works, copyright owners are increasingly using access and copy protection schemes in their digital works. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) [at 17 USC 1201] prohibits circumvention of these mechanisms, with only a few narrow statutory exemptions. However, the Copyright Office is allowed to issue new exemptions if you can prove that the statute burdens a non-infringing use and that an exemption won't overly harm copyright interests.