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[FYI] (Fwd) FC: Will this column land me in federal prison under the DMCA?
------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Thu, 02 Jan 2003 10:52:18 -0800
To: politech@politechbot.com
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject: FC: Will this column land me in federal prison under the DMCA?
Send reply to: declan@well.com
http://news.com.com/2010-1028-978636.html
Perspective: Will this land me in jail?
By Declan McCullagh
December 23, 2002, 4:00 AM PT
WASHINGTON--It's not every day that I fret about committing a
string of federal felonies that could land me in prison until
sometime in 2008.
But right now I'm wondering about whether the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act (DMCA) means that I might get an all-expenses-paid
vacation to Club Fed.
It turns out that software company executives like the ones at
ElcomSoft, whom a federal jury acquitted on Dec. 17 on charges of
violating the DMCA, aren't the only people who might want to have
a defense lawyer on retainer. Journalists might be affected too.
Our story starts with the Transportation Security Administration
(TSA) Web site, which has an area called "Security and Law
Enforcement" featuring four password-protected Microsoft Word
documents. No password is necessary to download those encrypted
documents, but a password is required to open and read them.
According to the brief descriptions on the TSA Web site, the four
files cover airport security procedures, the relationship between
federal and local police, and a "liability information sheet." A
note on the site says this "information is restricted to airport
management and local law enforcement." (Who knows? Maybe the
sure-to-be-convincing reasoning behind banning those deadly nail
clippers will be revealed.)
Anyway, a confidential source recently gave me what I believe is
the correct secret password to the documents.
But here's the catch, and it's a pretty silly one: If I type the
password into Microsoft Word or even tell you what it is, I could
be liable for civil and criminal penalties under the DMCA. Section
1201 of the law contains two prohibitions: First, "no person shall
circumvent a technological measure" that controls access to
copyrighted information, and second, no one may publish
information such as a password that's designed to circumvent "a
technological measure that effectively controls access" to a
copyrighted document.
[...]
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