3 Weeks To Christmas: Still Time To Ask Govt. For Permission To Rip Apart Entertainment

By Eriq Gardner

There are many things that those in the hard-core technology community detest about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and near the top of the list are the rules that prohibit any reverse engineering of DRM protections.

Over at News.com, Chris Soghoian runs down some of the highlights of the list of things people wish they could hack. The U.S. Copyright Office publishes a list of exemptions requested. They include "the right to legally jailbreak iPhones to use third-party software, university professors wishing to rip clips from DVDs for classroom use, YouTube users wishing to rip DVDs to make video mashups, a request to allow users to hack DRM protecting content from stores that have gone bankrupt or shut down, and a request to allow security researchers to reverse-engineer video games with security flaws that put end users at risk."

EFF has more to say about the subject too.

The Copyright Office has invited public comment on these requested exemptions and will meet in March to discuss any grants. For now, Slashdot is calling the requests "a chance to ask Santa for a new exemption" this holiday season.