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

[Henry Lowood]

It's a shame really.  The system is bonkers here in restricting the 
exemption to use for a particular kind of research; why not define 
research as a class of activity and allow a more general and easily 
applicable set of uses that does not force artificial decision-making on 
the part of libraries.  This researcher can utilize the exemption, this 
researcher cannot, does not strike me as a full solution.  The root 
cause is probably the application system, which practically invites 
narrow-interest, or maybe specific is a better word, applications like 
this.  (In fairness, there were also some fairly general exemptions, 
too, mostly related to phone software, but those were not particularly 
relevant to game preservation.)

Henry

On 8/4/2010 10:36 AM, Andrew Armstrong wrote:

>  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."

>>

>>

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-- 
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