Just over a year after winning several exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) anti-circumvention provisions (which saw jailbreaking cell phones acknowledged as fair use), the Electronic Frontier Foundation is now trying to expand those exemptions. This time around it's interested in gaining something similar for those who want to mod their videogame consoles.
A request for this, along with three other issues, was filed this week. Exemptions are considered by the Copyright Office during a rulemaking process which takes place every three years. The exemption is for the DMCA's "prohibitions on 'circumventing' digital rights management (DRM) and 'other technical protection measures' used to protect copyrighted works." The EFF and many others feel these rules are not used properly, hence the need to seek this out in the first place.
"The DMCA is supposed to block copyright infringement. But instead it can be misused to threaten creators, innovators, and consumers, discouraging them from making full and fair use of their own property," said EFF Intellectual Property Director Corynne McSherry. "Hobbyists and tinkerers who want to modify their phones or video game consoles to run software programs of their choice deserve protection under the law. So do artists and critics who use short excerpts of video content to create new works of commentary and criticism. Copyright law shouldn't be stifling such uses - it should be encouraging them."
The filing, which can be read its entirety here (PDF), summarizes the issue: "Modern video game consoles are increasingly sophisticated computing devices. They are capable of running not only games, but entire computer operating systems. However, all three major video game manufacturers -- Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo -- have deployed technical restrictions that force console purchasers to limit their operating systems and software exclusively to vendor-approved offerings, even where there is no evidence that other options will infringe copyrights.
"This severely constrains not only consumer choice and the value of the console to its owner, but also the incentives for independent developers to create copyrightable systems and software that would expand the marketplace for these devices and promote the progress of science and the useful arts in these areas."
It goes on to outline how the PlayStation 3 originally offered Linux (and other third-party OS) support before it was removed in a firmware update early last year.
"To overcome this sudden and dramatic limitation and restore their consoles to full functionality, console owners, hobbyists, security experts, and software developers created methods of jailbreaking to decrypt and modify the PS3's firmware to enable it to interoperate with lawfully obtained third-party operating systems and software. However, their efforts to gain control over the device have occurred under the threat of litigation by console manufacturers."
The EFF is non-profit group founded in 1990 that defends consumers' digital rights. If its name sounds familiar, it might be because it's one of two charities, along with Child's Play, you can choose to send money to when purchasing one of the Humble Indie Bundle promotions, including the current Humble Introversion Bundle.
Should it succeed, as we would hope, it would be good news for those wishing to run homebrew games on their systems, install third-party operating systems on PS3, and play a European copy of Xenoblade Chronicles on a North American Wii (although that won't be an issue for much longer).
Should the EFF win the exemptions it is seeking, it won't be for almost another year that we find out. Hearings won't take place until the spring and a decision won't come until next October.
Source: Boing Boing (via Joystiq)
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