Recent DMCA ruling & Electronic Frontier Foundation Victory

A recent Fifth Circuit ruling held that circumventing technological protections does not violate the Digital Millenium Copyright Act if the user was engaged in otherwise permissible things with the text/object, such as time-shifting or educational use of quotations. (See http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/07/23/29099.htm for an article about the case). Because I have not yet read the full opinion, I am skeptical that - despite the optimistic headlines - that the Supreme Court will agree. I certainly would anticipate that this ruling will be appealed and the copyright industries will do whatever they can to lessen the impact of it.

I would urge similar caution to the Electronic Frontier Foundation's victory regarding jailbreaking and video-remixing. (See http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2010/07/26). Again, we will see if these victories are permanent or only temporary. I am skeptical that there will not be some sort of lobbying effort to overturn this decision. In the meantime though, I urge all you film makers to get out there and get your critical documentaries out now while you can!