The Electronic Frontier Foundation gets another victory as the US Copyright Office came down with a ruling thatrenewed exemptions to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act such as jailbreaking your phone and remixing copyrighted video.
The renewals and adjustments to the DCMA rules are revisited every three years by the Copyright Office in order to keep up with the constantly evolving technological landscape.
EFF Intellectual Director Corrine McSherry hailed the ruling as a great defense of free speech and customer ownership rights, saying this about video remixing:
Remix videos are thriving on YouTube and other sites, offering dynamic criticism and commentary on popular movies as well as popular culture.
While the jailbreaking of phones is upheld, the Copyright Office declined to provide the same exemptions to video game consoles and tablets, saying that the term “tablet” is currently ill-defined, and jailbreaking consoles may lead to more copyright infringement. Which, yeah.
Plus, there’s the unintended consequence of nerds hacking their 360 so that they can mess with you in Assassin’s Creed, a game in which I consistently accuse everyone who isn’t me of OMG HAX. (I’m not very good at the AC. “Welcome to the AC, bitch.” I don’t know, I’m still tired from my Halloween party.)
The EFF is unsurprisingly disappointed that the ruling didn’t extend to tablets and consoles, and want these exemptions to extend to all gadgets that consumers may own.
So, I’m pretty much done talking about this — instead, I’m just going to post some Mike Relm, because what he does is still totally legal thanks to the EFF and the Copyright Office.
Ye-yeah.
Question: What video remix is your favorite?
