Circumventing DRM isn't illegal everywhere.
As you were saying?
Circumventing Copyright Controls
You may come across digital works that contain copyright controls, such as digital rights management (DRM) technology or a software copy protection system. As a general matter, you should not circumvent these copyright controls, or you may face civil and criminal penalties under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
The DMCA prohibits circumventing access-control measures.
17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1). For example, if you cannot watch a particular copyrighted DVD on your laptop because of an encryption system, the DMCA makes it unlawful for you to bypass this access-control measure. Access-control measures may also be found on eBooks, Internet streaming platforms, and password-protected sections of websites, among other things. Note that there is no ban on the act of circumventing copy-control measures, but it is illegal for anyone to provide you with the technological tools to do so. In any event, some copyright holders merge access-control and copy-control measures in the same DRM system, making it impossible to circumvent copy-controls (which is not prohibited) without circumventing access-controls (which is prohibited).
The DMCA also prohibits trafficking in devices or tools that help other people circumvent access-control and copy-control measures.
17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(2), (b). "Trafficking" means making, selling, giving away, or otherwise offering these devices or tools to the public. Beware: you can "traffic" in circumvention tools simply by posting them on your website or linking to other websites that host them. For example, in 1999 a Norwegian teenager created a software program called "DeCSS" that allowed users to circumvent CSS, the encryption technology used by movie studios to stop unlicensed playing and copying of commercially distributed DVDs. A number of websites posted the source and object code for DeCSS on the Internet, and other websites linked to them. The Second Circuit held that hosting and linking to the DeCSS code violated the DMCA's anti-trafficking provisions, and that this application of the DMCA did not violate the First Amendment. See
Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Corley, 273 F.3d 429 (2d Cir. 2001). This decision is controversial, and it is not clear that other courts would necessarily follow its reasoning. Nevertheless, it illustrates how risky it is to host or even link to devices or tools that enable others to break access- and copy-controls.
Fair use is not a defense to a prohibited act of circumvention or trafficking. It does not matter that you or someone else has to circumvent DRM in order to make fair use of a copyrighted work. This is one of the reasons that the DMCA is so controversial.
Do I care if we break that law? NO!
Do I care about people downloading content that was taken from disc or streaming platforms? NO!
