Policy Observatory

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed petitions with the U.S. Copyright Office seeking to keep users who remix DVD content or jailbreak their devices from losing their legal safe harbors and to establish new rights for those who need to circumvent "access control" or "digital rights management" (DRM) technologies for activities such as conducting security research, repairing cars, and resuscitating old video games. The petitions were submitted as part of the complex, triennial rulemaking process that determines exemptions from Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
 

We live in an increasingly software-defined world, a trend which has both good and bad aspects. The recent revelation that Volkswagen has been selling cars that have been explicitly built to defeat emissions tests highlights one of the bad ones: software control makes the incorporation (and hiding) of antifeatures easy.

The article offers analyses into DRM, open software and the Internet of Things.

Portugal's parliament has approved a bill that will restrict how Digital Rights Management is applied to some creative works, including those in the public domain or funded by public entities. Even when DRM is present, citizens will be able to circumvent the protection for education and private copying purposes.