Clinical Student Goes Before Copyright Office to Change Federal Law
Blake Reid (’10), a student in Colorado Law’s Glushko-Samuelson Technology Law and Policy Clinic, is headed to Washington, DC, to stand before the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress in a triennial rulemaking proceeding. Reid is representing Alex Halderman, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan. The proceeding is directed toward considering exemptions from the anti-circumvention measures of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Reid and Halderman, with the help of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Colorado Law Professors Paul Ohm, Harry Surden, and Brad Bernthal, are seeking an exemption from the DMCA for good-faith security research on PC-based digital rights management systems.
In support of the proposed exemption, Reid and Halderman have garnered the endorsement of many academic and professional security experts from institutions and companies such as Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, RSA, Google, and AT&T. Reid and Halderman have also submitted a related filing to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) advocating for better disclosures to consumers about digital rights management and security issues, and plan to participate in hearings in front of the FTC later this spring.