Uh... it depends how you interpret the DMCA. It's all a matter of what that something is.
Basically, under the DMCA you can reverse engineer only where and when it is necessary to achieve interoperability and when there are no other ways provided to achieve said interoperability; you have to ask first of course. And when you have reverse engineered, then be very careful to ensure that the results of that do not break any copyright law before distributing them (argh; if you remember, the argument regarding CSS was 'trade secret', and MS cut off the guy who uploaded the XBox firmware pretty quickly on copyright grounds).
Furthermore, the DMCA only permits reverse engineering for program to program interoperability. Reverse engineering for program to data interoperability, or indeed any other reason whatsoever, is not covered; since last time I looked, DVDs and the like were 'data' not 'program', then I would be very surprised if it would be legal to reverse engineer to get it to work.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
posting as me this time :-)
Date: 2006-03-24 01:00 pm (UTC)Basically, under the DMCA you can reverse engineer only where and when it is necessary to achieve interoperability and when there are no other ways provided to achieve said interoperability; you have to ask first of course. And when you have reverse engineered, then be very careful to ensure that the results of that do not break any copyright law before distributing them (argh; if you remember, the argument regarding CSS was 'trade secret', and MS cut off the guy who uploaded the XBox firmware pretty quickly on copyright grounds).
Furthermore, the DMCA only permits reverse engineering for program to program interoperability. Reverse engineering for program to data interoperability, or indeed any other reason whatsoever, is not covered; since last time I looked, DVDs and the like were 'data' not 'program', then I would be very surprised if it would be legal to reverse engineer to get it to work.
See Universal Studios vs Corley...