[rpdillon]

Your comment confused me, but I'm very interested in what you're getting at.

> Circumventing a copy-prevention system without a valid exemption is a crime, even if you don't make unlawful copies.

Yep, this is the DMCA section 1201. Late '90s law in the US.

> Copyright covers the right to make copies, not the right to distribute

This is where I got confused. Copyright covers four rights: copying, distribution, creation of derivative works, and public performance. So I'm not sure what you were getting at with the copy/distribute dichotomy.

But here's a question I'm curious about: Can DMCA apply to a copy-protection mechanism that's being applied to non-copyrightable work? Based on my reading of https://www.copyright.gov/dmca/:

> First, it prohibits circumventing technological protection measures (or TPMs) used by copyright owners to control access to their works.

That's not the letter of the law, but an overview, but it does seem to suggest you can't bring a DMCA 1201 claim against someone circumventing copy-protection for uncopyrightable works.

> Whether or not model weights are copyrightable remains an open question.

And this is where the interaction with the wording of 1201 gets interesting, in my (non-professional) opinion!

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

Here is the relevant text in the law:

> No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

The inclusion of “work protected under this title” makes it clear in the law, though I doubt a judge would rule otherwise without that line. (Otherwise, I’d wonder if I could claim damages that Google et al. are violating the technological measures I’ve put in place to protect the specificity of my interests, because it wouldn’t matter that such is not protected by copyright law.)

Also not an attorney, for what it’s worth.

[roywiggins]

It seems clear from this definition especially:

> (A) to “circumvent a technological measure” means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner

In this case there is no copyright owner.

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

Right, that’s what I was getting at with my parenthetical. Obviously the work has to have an owned copyright in order to be protected by copyright law.

[rusk]

This is interesting. I wonder could you use it as a basis for “legally” circumventing a technology by applying it to non-copyrighted works.

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

If you mean that you might be able to decrypt a copyrighted work because you used that same encryption method on a non-copyrighted work, then definitely not. The work under protection will be considered. (Otherwise, I am unsure what you meant.)

[rusk]

From what I recall, it was the actual protection method that was protected by DMCA - when DVD protection was cracked it was forbidden to distribute a particular section of code so they just printed it on a Tee-shirt to troll the powers that be.

[roywiggins]

sorry, yes, reread your comment and dirty-edited mine