Court: breaking DRM for a “fair use” is legal

“A federal appeals court has just ruled that breaking through a
digital security system to access software doesn’t trigger the
“anti-circumvention” provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright
Act. Any other interpretation of the DMCA, declared the United
States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, would permit
infringement liability for tapping into a work simply to “view it
or to use it within the purview of ‘fair use’ permitted under the
Copyright Act.”

“The ruling is already being hailed as another victory for fair
use, following Monday’s Library of Congress decision giving wide
approval to iPhone jailbreaking and DVD CSS circumvention on
similar grounds.

“Dongle this

“MGE UPS Inc. manufactures power backup devices for various
medical systems and other devices. Company technicians use software
to calibrate these systems automatically, but the code searches for
an external security “dongle” attached to the laptop. No dongle
with updated hardware key, no software launch.”

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