Deeplinks
Washington D.C.—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asked a federal appeals court to block enforcement of onerous copyright rules that violate the First Amendment and criminalize certain speech about technology, preventing researchers, tech innovators, filmmakers, educators, and others from creating and sharing their work.
EFF, with co-counsel Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to reverse a district court decision in Green v. DOJ, a lawsuit we filed in 2016 challenging the anti-circumvention and anti-trafficking provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) on behalf of security researcher Matt Green and technologist Andrew “bunnie” Huang. Both are pursuing projects highly beneficial to the public and perfectly lawful except for DMCA’s anti-speech provisions.
These provisions—contained in Section 1201 of the DMCA—make it unlawful for people to get around the software that restricts access to lawfully-purchased copyrighted material, such as films, songs, and the computer code that controls vehicles, devices, and appliances. This ban applies even where people want to make noninfringing fair uses of the materials they are accessing. The only way to challenge the ban is to go through an arduous, cumbersome process, held every three years, to petition the Library of Congress for an exemption.
While enacted to combat music and move piracy, Section 1201 has long served to restrict people’s ability to access, use, and even speak out about copyrighted materials—including the software that is increasingly embedded in everyday things. OEFF Asks Appeals Court to Rule DMCA Anti-Circumvention Provisions Violate First Amendment