Comment on The emulator that lets you play NES games in 3D has left early access on Steam
Jeffool@lemmy.world 21 hours agoAfter the DMCA passed there was a case of a judge finding it legal to bypass DRM to make backup copies, but illegal to distribute the software used to do so. I have no idea if there was ever further clarification or new law about this. That was like 20 years ago. It was part of a case going after the company who was making the software, but the name slips my mind. I’ll try to look it up if anyone cares enough.
PlasticExistence@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
I would be interested in that case if you find it. I spend a lot of time thinking about emulation and the surrounding stuff.
Jeffool@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
I get you! I was bigger into copyright some 20-30 years ago myself when we would’ve all been on Slashdot.
To that end, I was WRONG in my post, I think I was conflating two things, and for that, I’m sorry. I was certainly thinking in part about Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Corley (2001). That was the case that decided that the software DeCSS was illegal, and you could distribute the software. I was thinking that while the court did agree with Universal over the software, that it did not find that breaking DRM on a product you owned was inherently illegal. (I legit think this was a “take” at the time. Probably wouldn’t hold up in court these days, sadly.) And I did find that years later the Library of Congress offered exemptions for breaking DRM on some hardware (vehicles, medical devices,) but I believe even those were temporary and have since lapsed.
Sorry I spoke so surely about something I was wrong about.