As computers become smaller, faster, and more affordable, they are transforming nearly every aspect of American life, giving us access to millions of digital books, songs, and movies. And machines — from phones to cars and even medical devices — are smarter, safer, and more efficient thanks to computers and the software that powers them. With these advances come important policy questions, including how best to simultaneously promote innovation and the free flow of information while protecting intellectual property.
Every three years, the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) shares its views with the United States Copyright Office regarding proposed exemptions from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s (DMCA) prohibition against circumventing copyright protection technologies. These exemptions are vital to enabling innovation and free expression in the digital age. They help students learn by making fair use of clips from movies, make e-books accessible to the print-disabled, and allow changing the settings on mobile phones so that they can be used with different wireless carriers.
Today, the Acting Librarian of Congress, adopting the Copyright Office’s recommendations, issued the latest set of exemptions. The exemptions continue to permit many important activities, such as enabling the use of screen readers and other assistive technologies with e-books. A number of existing exemptions were expanded, allowing circumvention to enable network portability (“unlocking”) and third-party software compatibility (“jailbreaking”) for tablets, wearables, and other devices in addition to mobile phones. The Acting Librarian also increased the scope of exemptions for using clips from motion pictures for a range of creative and educational purposes, allowing individuals to utilize clips from Blu-Ray discs in some circumstances, and giving the same protections to instructors teaching Massively Open Online Courses alongside teachers in more traditional settings.
Importantly, there are also new exemptions covering emerging areas where access controls have increasingly become an issue. New exemptions cover a range of security research activities, as well as vehicle repair; playing and preserving old video games; and using 3D printers with third-party feedstock. While we are still reviewing the details of these new exemptions, and particularly the scope of the new exemption for good-faith security research, these appear to be positive steps toward enhancing cybersecurity, ensuring the right of all Americans to repair vehicles they own, and encouraging innovation.
We appreciate the improvements the Copyright Office made to facilitate its rulemaking process and develop a more clear and extensive record, and we encourage stakeholders to continue to engage to facilitate further improvements in the future. Although there are areas where there may be work left to do to fuel innovation and inform policymakers and the public, the exemptions issued today substantially improve the ability to make non-infringing uses of copyrighted works and advance the President’s goal of promoting the free flow of information over a ubiquitous, open, and affordable Internet.