New DMCA case: ACLU protects right to study filtering software

[Declan McCullagh]

This is especially relevant to the list for two reasons:

* It seeks to inject a First Amendment analysis into a legal challenge to 
the DMCA. If successful on its limited grounds (filtering software), it 
would set a precedent useful in broader challenges.

* The suit claims, as I note toward the end of my article, that two 
existing legal protections don't amount to much. First, it says that the 
Library of Congress' Oct. 2000 exemption for filtering software research 
doesn't cover publishing decryption code. Second, it says that the DMCA's 
reverse engineering exemption is too narrow to apply.

-Declan

---

http://news.com.com/2100-1023-946266.html?tag=politech

    ACLU lawsuit targets copyright law
    By Declan McCullagh
    July 25, 2002, 6:30 AM PT

    WASHINGTON--The American Civil Liberties Union plans to file a lawsuit
    on Thursday in an attempt to overturn key portions of a controversial
    1998 copyright law.

    The suit asks a federal judge to rule that the Digital Millennium
    Copyright Act (DMCA) is so sweeping that it unconstitutionally
    interferes with researchers' ability to evaluate the effectiveness of
    Internet filtering software.

    By suing on behalf of a 22-year-old programmer who's researching the
    oft-buggy products, the civil liberties group hopes to prompt the
    first ruling that would curtail the DMCA's wide reach.

    After the DMCA was used to intimidate Princeton professor Ed Felten
    and his colleagues into self-censoring a presentation last year, the
    law became an instant magnet for criticism. But so far, every judge
    has upheld the DMCA's broad restrictions on the "circumvention of
    copyright protection systems."

    This case will be different, the ACLU hopes, because it features a
    sympathetic plaintiff, Ben Edelman, and because it involves the
    socially beneficial act of critiquing software that is frequently used
    in public schools and libraries. Edelman had testified as an expert
    witness in a case the ACLU brought against a federal law that
    compelled public libraries to install filters.

    [...]


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