Is It Ever Legal—or Ethical—to Remove DRM?

Whatever you think astir Digital Rights Management software, it's hard to reason with the information that it's annoying. Such exertion exists, successful theory, to support the intelligence spot of the companies that make music, movies, and games, but it tin besides get successful the mode of you enjoying books, music, and videos the mode you privation to.

Say, for example, that you bought a clump of books connected the Amazon Kindle level but aboriginal decided you wanted to power to a Kobo instrumentality (or vice versa). The DRM systems connected some platforms are designed to forestall you from migrating your books from 1 level to the other, meaning you mightiness request to wage again conscionable to work a publication connected the Kobo you already paid for connected the Kindle.

Software exists that tin region this DRM. It requires doing immoderate probe and jumping done immoderate method hoops, but it could prevention you from having to bargain the aforesaid media a 2nd time. But is it legal?

Illegal, but Unlikely to Be Enforced

Let’s rip disconnected the Band-Aid: The enactment of removing DRM from immoderate benignant of copyrighted enactment is broadly amerciable successful the US nether section 1201 of rubric 17, United States Code, which was passed with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act successful 1998.

The regularisation is beauteous intelligibly written: “No idiosyncratic shall circumvent a technological measurement that efficaciously controls entree to a enactment protected nether this title.”

I asked to Derek Bambauer, a instrumentality prof astatine the University oregon Florida who specializes successful net law, cybersecurity, and intelligence property, whether determination are immoderate exceptions to this. Bambauer tells maine determination is precise small ineligible ambiguity here.

“Exceptions are successful there, but they're truly narrow,” helium says, emphasizing that First Amendment arguments thin not to enactment wherever intelligence spot is concerned.

But volition removing DRM from a record you paid for extremity up with you going to jailhouse oregon being sued? Maybe not, says Bambauer, arsenic companies typically don't fuss pursing it.

“We each benignant of casually interruption copyright constantly,” helium says, mentioning that the photocopied comic strips connected his bureau doorway are technically a violation. With finite resources, the owners of intelligence spot elemental can't writer everyone. “Companies thin to lone spell aft radical who are distributing copyrighted works with others.”

“If the DRM removal is conscionable for idiosyncratic consumption, it's hard to detect,” Bambauer says, “and it's not worthy it for companies spell aft that. One, the euphony manufacture tried that, and it was a horrible failure. And two, it's conscionable a batch easier to spell aft the creators and distributors of the tools.”

And that's what companies do: effort to unopen down oregon artifact the organisation of bundle that removes DRM from files. Bambauer says this is the crushed astir of specified bundle tends to beryllium made by radical extracurricular the US and is distributed connected websites extracurricular US jurisdiction. He besides emphasized that sharing files with others aft removing the DRM is acold much apt to pull lawsuits from companies.