Success in the DMCA triennial

October 31, 2024

Software Freedom Conservancy is proud to announce its successful work in the latest triennial DMCA exemption process to stand up for the rights of FOSS developers. This week, the Copyright Office granted all of the exemptions we requested, according to the final rule Exemption to Prohibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access Control Technologies. Due to these rulings, the LoC renewed the DMCA exemptions SFC established for the jailbreaking of routers and smart TVs, and for investigating copyleft compliance. Our executive director, Karen Sandler, also successfully participated in a coalition of medical device researchers in a request to renew the exemption for medical devices. SFC's Director of Compliance, Denver Gingerich, also participated and gave testimony during the hearings (for Computer Programs—Repair, led by iFixit and discussed below) when the LoC was looking for expert opinion.

In their rule making, the Librarian of Congress fully summarized our submission regarding license investigations, concluding that we "demonstrated personal knowledge and experience regarding the exemption."

Jailbreaking of routers + smart TVs

This is technically two separate exemptions, one for routing equipment and one for smart TVs, but the Copyright office referred to them together in their ruling, showing that we are making progress in advocating for the critical need for consumers to retain control of their own equipment across different types of devices. The exemptions allow the so called jailbreaking of these devices for alternative firmware that extends the lifetime of the devices as well as expands software capabilities. We are especially happy to receive this exemption for our member project OpenWrt, a critically important piece of software. Another exemption was for "smart televisions" which "includes both internet-enabled televisions, as well as devices that are physically separate from a television and whose primary purpose is to run software applications". This is great news for streaming devices which have alternative firmwares and also the whole swath of free software that can run on such devices. Protecting consumers from "planned obsolescence" by extending the lifetime of their devices, as well as protecting our freedoms by allowing us to run our own software on the devices.

License investigation

We're also proud of the exemption for circumvention of technological measures for purposes of investigating and confirming violations of FOSS license. To see the Library of Congress recognize the importance of protecting software licensing shows just how far we've come in terms of FOSS advocacy. This explicitly allows license investigation to continue, and we at Software Freedom Conservancy hope that others will take up the cause of holding device manufacturers accountable to their use of copyleft and other FOSS licensed software so that people can exercise their software freedom rights. This ruling, regrettably, continues to disallow such investigation into video game consoles, but we believe that, with persistence, the LoC will come to see that these general purpose computers that happen to play video games, also require the same kind of exemptions. This renewed exemption is vitally important to the future of free software, as without understanding what software is running on our devices, we are unable to guarantee that licensing terms are met, that newcomers are informed that they have rights with respect to their software and our freedoms for using free software are preserved.

Medical devices

Our Executive Director Karen Sandler, along with Hugo Campos and Jay Radcliffe, filed for DMCA exemptions to medical devices which was submitted and defended by the USC Gould School of Law. The request was signed by Karen, and cited the difficulty she had accessing the information on her defibrillator during 2023. This exemption dovetails with requests made by small companies seeking to gain the right to repair medical equipment during this triennial process, which were also successful.

Onwards

Seeing the Librarian of Congress continue to grant our exemptions shows that the work we are doing is being received well by governmental entities. Without such advocacy, the power corporations have over our technology would be reducing innovation, harming our freedom, and stifling our voices. The work that SFC does in protecting and defending digital rights is expansive and this policy work is just one way that we are dedicated to defending our rights.

We would also like to point out that iFixit filed an exemption for "Computer Programs—Repair of Motorized Land Vehicles, Marine Vessels, or Mechanized Agricultural, Vehicles or Vessels" which helps protect the software right to repair for vehicles including farm equipment like tractors. In an increasingly software driven world, the importance of protecting all our technology incredibly vital. Our relationship with iFixit and various right to repair organizations has shown how important this kind of intersectional approach to activism and advocacy is.

Many thanks for our General Counsel, Rick Sanders, who drafted and shepherded these filings.