Copyright Office Conducts Proceedings on Exemption to Prohibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems

The Copyright Office is conducting this rulemaking proceeding mandated by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which provides that the Librarian of Congress may designate certain classes of works as exempt from the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works when such circumvention is done to engage in noninfringing uses of works in the designated classes. The designations will remain in place for a period of three years.

The purpose of this proceeding is to determine whether there are particular classes of works as to which users are, or are likely to be, adversely affected in their ability to make noninfringing uses due to the prohibition on circumvention of access controls. This page contains links to published documents in this proceeding as well as the entire record of this proceeding.

The Notice of Inquiry in this fifth anticircumvention rulemaking requested written proposals to designate classes of works from all interested parties, including representatives of copyright owners, educational institutions, libraries and archives, scholars, researchers and members of the public, in order to elicit evidence on whether noninfringing uses of certain classes of works are, or are likely to be, adversely affected by this prohibition on the circumvention of measures that control access to copyrighted works. Those proposals have been posted.

The entire records of the previous anticircumvention rulemakings are available. The first rulemaking concluded in2000. The second concluded in 2003, the third in 2006, and the fourth in 2010.

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