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EFF Challenges DMCA's Anti-Circumvention Provision
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati have teamed up to challenge provisions in U.S. copyright law that threaten harsh penalties for breaking “digital locks” guarding content such as music and software code. In a complaint filed last month at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, EFF and Wilson Sonsini seek to strike down parts of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), 17 U.S.C. '1201 et seq. (1998), that they say have stifled important work by creators and tinkerers. They allege the provisions, particularly '1201 of the DMCA, violate the First Amendment.
“The threat of enforcement of these provisions chills protected and non-infringing speech that relies on copyrighted works, including independent technical research into computer security systems and the discussion of that research, and accessing copyrighted works in order to shift the content to a different format, space, or time,” the 32-page complaint says. Green v. U.S. Department of Justice, 1:2016cv01492.
The case is sure to draw the ire of Hollywood and the recording industry, says Joseph Gratz, a partner at IP boutique Durie Tangri. It's also likely to provoke such Silicon Valley titans as Apple and Netflix that have raked in cash by creating systems that control the delivery of media. “The danger is ultimately that if you strike down through the fiat of the lawsuit ' the protection [under '1201], you really are threatening the creation, continuation, and development of continually new platforms for disseminating copyrighted content,” says Kelly Klaus of Munger Tolles & Olsen, who represents movie and recording studios.
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