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GitHub Wants to Get Rid Of the DMCA's Anti-Circumvention FUDErnesto Van der Sar, 12 Mar 06:54 PM US copyright law places broad restrictions on what

GitHub Wants to Get Rid Of the DMCA's Anti-Circumvention FUD Ernesto Van der Sar, 12 Mar 06:54 PM US copyright law places broad restrictions on what people are allowed do with copyrighted content. The U.S. Copyright Office regularly reviews these exemptions to Section 1201 of the DMCA, which generally prevents the public from 'tinkering' with DRM-protected software and devices. These provisions are renewed every three years after the Office hears input from stakeholders and the general public. This process also allows interested parties to suggest new exemptions. Exemptions For Good Faith Security Research In recent years we have covered exemptions for game archivists but there are many more on the table. This includes the ability for experts to bypass copyright restrictions to conduct good-faith security research. This exemption already exists but many people believe that it's rather limited in its current form, which reads as follows: Computer programs, where the circumvention is undertaken on a lawfully acquired device or machine on which the computer program operates, or is undertaken on a computer, computer system, or computer network on which the computer program operates with the authorization of the owner or operator of such computer, computer system, or computer network, solely for the purpose of good-faith security research and does not violate any applicable law, including without limitation the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986. This text used to be more restrictive and was adjusted three years ago, following a proposal from Computer Science & Engineering Professor Alex Halderman. This year, Halderman submitted a new proposal, trying to expand this exemption further and reduce the risk for security researchers. Among other things, the professor would like the word "solely" removed from the text, as well as the requirement that a device has to be "lawfully acquired" and that circumvention does "not violate any applicable law." GitHub Backs Halderman Proposal This proposal is currently being considered and this week various parties offered their support in letters submitted to the US Copyright Office. This includes developer platform GitHub which, following the RIAA/youtube-dl debacle, said it would get more involved in this process. According to GitHub, developers are often facing fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) with regard to legal issues. This may lead them not to start a project that could have benefited society as a whole. Source of FUD "Section 1201 is a source of FUD as applied to good faith security research. It can be asserted even when a court has decided that there is no copyright infringement of the underlying work," GitHub writes. "It's a reason why a developer can't be confident that there won't be repercussions for engaging in legitimate, non-infringing security research and related development activities. It's a reason why they might decide to do a different project, with less impact, that doesn't help make us all safer to the same extent." GitHub urges the US Copyright Office to focus the exemptions on eliminating FUD. Removing the requirement that all actions are "solely" for the purpose of good-faith security research is crucial. GitHub argues that as long as an activity is consistent with conducting good-faith security research, it should not matter if all steps are "solely" focused on security. "The Halderman et al. proposal draws clearer lines out of fuzzy lines in the current exemption, giving more certainty to researchers, academics, and enterprises conducting security research. It should be taken seriously," Github adds. Department of Justice Support The Halderman proposal is widely supported by developers and researchers, but there's also backing from less expected parties, such as the US Department of Justice. In a comment to the Copyright Office, the Department of Justice's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section agrees that it's a good idea to drop the requirement that circumvention does "not violate any applicable law". The DoJ argued against this three years ago, but it now agrees that this language is troublesome. "[W]e are now persuaded that replacing the existing requirement that research not violate 'any applicable law' with alternative explanatory language would provide equally sufficient notice of the need to comply with applicable law. "This change would also reduce the chance that potentially valuable research projects may be discouraged by fears by fears that inadvertent or minor violations of an unrelated law could result in substantial liability under the DMCA," the DoJ writes. Not a Free Pass to Violate Laws The DoJ still believes that researchers who intentionally violate the law should be held accountable. However, the current language is too broad and subjects researchers to all sorts of liabilities. "It thus may discourage valuable research projects that would otherwise be undertaken if researchers could be more certain the exemption would apply," the DoJ writes. These are strong words coming from the Department of Justice which will likely weigh strongly. However, the DoJ doesn't support the Halderman proposal in full. For example, the DoJ doesn't agree that the word "solely" should be removed from the exemption, nor does it see the need to strip the condition that a device has to be "lawfully acquired." — GitHub's comments to the Copyright Office can be found here (pdf) and the comments from the Department of Justice's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) are available here (pdf) From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. ZLibrary Domains Were 'Temporarily' Suspended Over Copyright Infringement Claims Ernesto Van der Sar, 12 Mar 10:56 AM While movie and music piracy tends to generate the most headlines, the publishing industry is facing similar issues. Pretty much every book or academic article is available online for free. ZLibrary Domain Suspensions In recent years, much attention has been focused on Sci-Hub but there are many other 'shadow libraries' as well. This includes ZLibrary, which is available through a variety of domain names. A few days ago, however, alarm bells went off. Seemingly out of nowhere, ZLibrary's b-ok.cc, b-ok.org, b-ok2.org and b-ok.xyz domains were all set to "clienthold" by their Chinese registrar "Now.top". This meant that they were no longer accessible. This is a serious issue and, according to ICANN, the clienthold status is uncommon and "usually enacted during legal disputes, non-payment," or when a "domain is subject to deletion." In this case, it was a legal issue, although that was initially unclear to the ZLibrary team. When we contacted the site earlier this week it informed us that the domains simply disappeared without any notification from the registrar. Harvard Business Publishing Complaint This isn't the first time the platform has run into domain issues. ZLibrary has been around for over a decade and it lost domain names on three previous occasions. To find out more, we reached out to the registrar Eranet, which operates under the Now.top brand. The Chinese company informed us that ZLibrary was contacted beforehand in the form of a takedown notice. Now.top received a DMCA notice from Harvard Business Publishing, listing several infringing publications that were posted on b-ok.cc. ZLibrary acknowledges this, but the site had no idea that this would result in an immediate domain suspension. "We receive more than 1000 emails a day, most of them are automatically processed. On March 5th we had an email from tnet.hk asking us to remove some Harvard Business Publishing stuff. These materials were removed from that domain," ZLibrary tells us. Suspensions Were Lifted Initially, ZLibrary assumed that the domains would be lost for good and the site started to point users to alternative domain names. However, as we were writing this article, things turned around. All of a sudden, the domain suspensions were lifted and ZLibrary regained full control over their domains. Again, this happened without any heads up or explanation from the registrar. CNNIC Rules Luckily, Eranet was willing to explain their policy in more detail. The company tells us that it has to abide by the rules of the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) which requires it to take swift action in response to copyright complaints. "As a registrar, we need to abide by CNNIC's rules. Once the website has illegal information, we must suspend the analysis within three days, and we will also inform the holder of the email processing. If the holder responds to the processing, we can apply for lifting the suspension," the registrar told us. And indeed, after the registrar confirmed that the infringing content had been removed, the suspension was lifted. While that is good news for ZLibrary, another copyright complaint to the registrar could easily take the domains offline again. Prepared For Future Problems ZLibrary appears to realize that domains shouldn't be taken for granted. The site is actively distributing its traffic to multiple domains, depending on people's location. This also helps to evade site blocking efforts. "Since last year we have been quite successfully implementing a set of measures to maximize traffic diversification. This allows us to work flexibly enough (although still far from perfect) and deal with blocking different domains or IP addresses in various countries," ZLibrary says. The 'shadow library' uses z-lib.org as the main entry domain at the moment, although that may change. While it's clear that running such an operation isn't without legal risk, the ZLibrary team is determined to keep on going. "We believe that knowledge, including scientific books and scientific articles, should be free and available to the public," ZLibrary says. 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