SFLC Asks US Librarian of Congress for DMCA Exemption

“The Software Freedom Law Center has announced that it has filed comments with the US Librarian of Congress, asking for an exemption to the DMCA, so that users can legally control their own devices. Specifically, SFLC ‘asks that the Librarian of Congress exempt from 17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1)’s prohibition on the circumvention of access control technologies, for the period 2012-2015, computer programs that enable the installation and execution of lawfully obtained software on a personal computing device, where circumvention is performed by or at the request of the device’s owner’. That’s legalese for ‘When you buy a device, you ought to be able to control what goes on it and be allowed to run legal software of your choosing on your own device’.”