Type: Clinical Project, Testimony
Year: 2006
Samuelson Clinic Director Deirdre Mulligan and Clinic student Aaron Perzanowski testified before the Copyright Office as part of its triennial DMCA Anti-Circumvention rulemaking proceeding. Mulligan and Perzanowski, joined by Clinic client Professor Ed Felten, argued in support of their proposed exemption to the DMCA, which would permit circumvention of access controls on Compact Discs if the protection measures employed create or exploit security vulnerabilities that threaten users’ computers or the integrity of the network generally. The exemption proposal was spurred by legal uncertainty for security researchers like Professor Felten and Alex Halderman who discover and expose risks such as those recently introduced by First4Internet’s XCP rootkit and SunnComm’s MediaMax technology. The proposal would also permit music fans to take steps to protect their machines without risk of potential liability under the DMCA.