[dvd-discuss] Re: Another Poster Child for DeCSS?

[Roy Murphy <murphy(at)panix.com>]

Michael A. Rolenz wrote:

> Artech (www.artechhouse.com) has republished the M.I.T. Radiation 
> Laboratory Series on a searchable CDROM(s). For those not aware,this 
> was a 28 volume set of books put out in the late 40s describing the 
> research done at the Radiation laboratory on development of radar 
> during WWII. It encompases radar systems engineering, radiowave 
> propagation, control theory, microwave design, waveguides. Basically, 
> it's THE CLASSIC source and many of the volume are still in print but 
> not all.The authors are a whos who (e.g., Nichols on servomechanism). 
> Since the work was done under government contract and so was the 
> writing of the books, they explicitly stated that they would enter the 
> public domain at some point (decades ago). So...what's the status 
> under the DMCA? Is a copy of the CD infringement or if protected by a 
> flimsy DRM?

If there is no copyrighted material on the CD, any DRM may be 
circumvented unless there is a license agreement accompanying the CD 
which attempts to disallow such. Anyone releasing such a CD would be 
foolish not to include *some* copyrighted material even if it is only an 
introduction or annotation so that the DRM *would* fall under the DMCA. 
It is unclear if it is permissable to circumvent the DRM to access the 
on the PD portion iof that circumvention allows acess to the copyrighted 
portions as well. It is still illegal to traffic in circumvention tools.