[PeterisP]

What do you mean by the "(and similar legislation worldwide)" ? DMCA is a USA-specific limitation that goes way beyond what the rest of the world has; USA has had some success pushing something like that to a few other countries through transatlantic trade treaties, but as far as I understand, most of the world does not have DMCA-like legislation; it's not universal in the way that Berne convention is. For example, EU copyright law explicitly permits reverse engineering of any software you own, and if it's needed for the purposes of interoperability you're allowed to distribute modifications to copyrighted works without permission from the author.

[Benjamin_Dobell]

DanBC's comment contains useful information. The EU issued a Copyright Directive, thus all member states were told to implement compatible laws.

As pertains to Latvia specifically (I apologise if my Github <-> HN username assumption is inaccurate), then the relevant laws are implemented under "Copyright Law, Chapter XI, Section 68".

We also still have laws in Australia that permit reverse engineering for the purpose of interoperability. This is what I meant above where I wrote:

> To clarify, none of the reverse engineering stuff is the issue.

The problem is these laws are superseded when circumvention of technological measures pertaining to copy protection is involved.

[PeterisP]

True, I had missed the Information Society Directive which adds the restrictions on circumventing effective technological measures. The big problem is in the interaction between these parts of copyright law and the other parts which limit the copyrights; so even if you have the right to do something yourself, then the distribution of these "circumvention measures" is prohibited by this. Sad.

[DanBC]

The WIPO copyright treaty in 1996 told countries to implement laws to prevent circumvention of technical means to protect copyrights.

https://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/wct/summary_wct.html

> The Treaty obliges Contracting Parties to provide legal remedies against the circumvention of technological measures (e.g., encryption) used by authors in connection with the exercise of their rights, and against the removal or altering of information, such as certain data that identify works or their authors, necessary for the management (e.g., licensing, collecting and distribution of royalties) of their rights ("rights management information").

This got written into many local copyright laws.