[game_preservation] This is really the last snippet on the DMCA exemption - I promise

[Andrew Armstrong]

  Yes, the Ars article addresses this security-testing exemption, but as 
Jerome said it perhaps doesn't apply so much to actual preservation and 
more permanent bypassing of such measures (and they damn well do need to 
be bypassed...).

I'd say continue posting ;) I'm not an American so quite honestly I 
don't know much about the relevant laws, but am instead investigating 
the UK and EU equivalents when I find spare time (or rather, it's on my 
to do list ;) ). Perhaps going over the limitations and laws for our 
group - or if we had some lawyer able to comment on the situation - 
would be very cool though since legalese is so vastly hard to read.

Andrew

On 04/08/2010 18:17, Henry Lowood wrote:

> One last bit from the exemption application from U. Michigan. It 

> directly addresses use for preservation.

>

> "2. Availability for Use of Works for NonProfit Archival, 

> Preservation, and Educational Purposes

>

> After a TPM‐encumbered, PC‐accessible work is released, security risks 

> are likely to

> increase over time as new problems are found. Unfortunately, the 

> motivation of the

> publisher of the work to mitigate the risks is based primarily on the 

> economic return of

> selling more copies of the work. As soon as the cost of fixing 

> security flaws exceeds the

> potential profits of increased sales, the publisher is likely to stop 

> releasing fixes.

> Alternatively, the publisher could simply go out of business. However, 

> the unfixed security

> flaws leave consumers still using the work vulnerable to attack. Thus, 

> using such a work

> safely in the long run will require some unofficial method of 

> correcting security flaws.

> Without an exemption to the DMCA to allow security researchers to 

> continue to investigate

> works that are no longer supported by their publishers yet still 

> prevalent in the wild, the

> use of older works will become increasingly fraught with security risks."

>

>