[Committee-d] GPLv3-draft1 and anti-circumvention laws

[David Turner]

On Mon, 2006-03-13 at 19:50 +1100, Peter Eckersley wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> as discussed at last week's IRC meeting, I've written up a set of ideas
> that committee D may wish to look at for clarifying the DRM clause in
> GPLv3-draft1 and the way that it relates to anti-circumvention laws.
> 
> This document is available at:
> 
> http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~pde/gplv3-drm-proposals.pdf
> 
> it does not currently include citations to any of the comments submitted
> on -draft1, although there would be many of relevance.

We discussed this proposal on IRC today.  Rickerby and I think it is too
broad -- does anyone else have any comments?

One interesting thing to note is that the US DMCA thinks that an
"effective" access control measure (the thing you can't circumvent), is
one that appears in the ordinary course of operation.

So, this would be "effective"
<check for permission>; if <permission denied> then <do not copy>"

I proposed that the license simply define "ordinary course of operation"
to include modification.  I think this would have a lot of generally
useful effects -- it would explain what the license intends, and it
might affect the interpretation of patent clauses as well.  It could
maybe even live in the preamble.

Do others have issues with this?