End of July, the US Copyright Office and the Librarian of Congress have announced six new exemptions that authorize circumventing protection measures as defined by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
- It is possible to extract from a DVD (protected by CSS) small video sequences to create a new work, for criticism or education purpose. In other words, DVD is treated like book. Fair use allowed citing extracts of books.
- Making mobile phone applications interoperable with other handsets. This was in theory already covered by fair use.
- Jail breaking phones in order to be used on other carrier networks.
- Circumventing video games for the purpose of good faith testing for, investigating, or correcting security flaws or vulnerabilities; this is good news for security researchers.
- Circumventing computer programs protected by dongles if they are bugged or obsolete.
- eBooks if no edition allow access to speak aloud function or special formats displaying (in clear for impaired people)
I don’t know enough about the US regulatory system to assess that it is equivalent to an evolution of the DMCA or just a recommendation. IN any case, it is always the judge who has the final words. Any US lawyer who may answer this question?