[game_preservation] More good news re: DMCA

[Henry Lowood]

Thanks, Jerome.  The security exemption application did open the door 
just a teensy bit wider towards the end.  It seemed to suggest (and yes, 
a lawyer would have to look) that if you are stuck with a game that has 
SecuROM on it or such, you can circumvent, suggesting but not saying 
that you could make a copy without the vulnerability.   In other words, 
a kind of crack, but it really was vague as to the terms for doing 
this.  It talks about "correcting security flaws."  Yet, you're right, 
only "security researchers" are mentioned.  But what if I am working on 
the history of security technology or, even more broadly, on the history 
of games, would the library then not make the copy for me? That seems 
like a rather impractical solution for the library -- to make judgments 
about preservation/access based on the topic of interest to the researcher.

Henry

On 8/4/2010 10:21 AM, Jerome McDonough wrote:

>

> On Aug 4, 2010, at 11:35 AM, Henry Lowood wrote:

>

>> All (sending to both NDIIPP and IGDA groups):

>>

>> I just checked the Copyright Office's announcement, and it includes 

>> two other relevant exemptions:

>>

>> source: http://www.copyright.gov/1201/

>>

>> exemptions 4 and 5 are relevant to game preservation, though not big 

>> winners -- they open up some interesting doors. Depending on how 

>> "dongle" is definied, 5 could actually be quite helpful (similar 

>> language was in the old videogame exemption that expired). Also, and 

>> this is a stretch, I wonder if 4 might be a way to copy MMO 

>> server-side software, in that you would have to address the user 

>> authentication system?  To be honest, I'm not sure what a use case 

>> for that exemption would be. Any ideas?

>>

>

> I am not a lawyer, so you can take anything I say regarding the law 

> with an infinite supply of salt.  Now that we have that out of the way:

>

> The exemption to DMCA restrictions for the purposes of testing of 

> security of video games definitely does NOT stretch to making 

> preservation copies.  It's quite specific: it's for testing for 

> security flaws only, not a backdoor mechanism to enable librarians to 

> make preservation copies.  If you were to try to use it for that 

> purpose and ended up in court, you'd lose.  Badly.  The use cases 

> mentioned with respect to this exemption mentioned in the Federal 

> Register are things like SafeDisc and SecuROM, which were shown to 

> introduce security vulnerabilities on machines where they were 

> installed.  Testing for those vulnerabilities required compromising 

> the DRM system.  Basically, this exemption is to insure that security 

> researchers can engage in their work and find and report on 

> vulnerabilities without getting chucked into prison.

>

> On the dongle exemption, dongles were defined in the first rulemaking 

> under the DMCA back in 2000 as "hardware locks attached to a computer 

> that interact with software programs to prevent unauthorized access to 

> that software."  The more recent rulemaking is a little more 

> confining: "Dongles are a type of hardware that attach to either the 

> printer port or the USB port of a computer in order to make secured 

> software function."  So, dongles are pretty narrowly defined.  The 

> exemption is also narrowly defined.  It only applies when you have a 

> dongle that malfunctions or fails, and you can't find a replacement in 

> the commercial marketplace and the dongle cannot be readily repaired. 

>  If the dongle doesn't work because you upgraded your operating system 

> and the new operating system doesn't support the dongle, you're out of 

> luck: the exemption does not apply, as the dongle itself still works 

> fine.  The ruling is equally restrictive on the hardware side; it 

> would not recognize parallel ports as obsolete, as you can still 

> obtain a parallel port in the marketplace.

>

> So, I see very little reason for joy in these rulings from the point 

> of view of videogame preservation.  If you've got a dongle-protected 

> game and you can demonstrate that the dongle itself is dead and a 

> replacement isn't available, you can break DRM, but that's about it. 

>  And before anyone asks, I don't think the courts would smile on 

> people who demonstrate that the dongle is dead by leaving it in a 

> microwave for a few minutes.

>

>

> Jerome McDonough, Asst. Professor

> Graduate School of Library & Information Science

> University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

> 501 E. Daniel Street, Room 202

> Champaign, IL 61820

> (217) 244-5916

> jmcdonou at uiuc.edu <mailto:jmcdonou at uiuc.edu>

>

>

>

>

>


-- 
Henry Lowood
Curator for History of Science&  Technology Collections;
   Film&  Media Collections
HRG, Green Library, 557 Escondido Mall
Stanford University Libraries, Stanford CA 94305-6004
650-723-4602; lowood at stanford.edu; http://www.stanford.edu/~lowood

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