Correct, the DMCA is about preventing people from making copies of music, movies, games, etc, and about preventing people from possessing copies of aforementioned music, movies, etc, that they shouldn't legally own. The argument made was this:

In breaking the EULA, you render your copy of the game illegal. You have an illegal copy of the game, therefore that is copyright infringement.

The court felt that this was pushing logic a little bit too far, and so threw that case out.

DMCA is about protecting intangible property in digital forms. Software is (controversially) protected by copyright (the prevailing wisdom was "How can you copyright an algorithm?" for many years). The DMCA specifically protects property owners abilities to protect themselves. The DMCA doesn't care if you grind up and snort your wow install disc because that doesn't impact anyone's ownership rights.

The twisted copyright you speak of is the same property right you speak of as well. Copyright isn't just the protection once the intangible property is created, it's also a main incentive to create the property, and an economic provision which affects pricing and the creators ability to wholesale.

You are correct in that the DMCA was put in place to protect the copyrights of digital media. The 9th circuit ruled that it applies to any form of circumventing a protection device whether it is for copyright infringement or not. The federal courts have ruled otherwise and that to violate the DMCA there also has to be copyright infringement. This will eventually end up in the US Supreme Court as they can't have conflicting precedents.

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j.h.gorton Dec 25th 2010 9:07PM

DMCA is about protecting intangible property in digital forms. Software is (controversially) protected by copyright (the prevailing wisdom was "How can you copyright an algorithm?" for many years). The DMCA specifically protects property owners abilities to protect themselves. The DMCA doesn't care if you grind up and snort your wow install disc because that doesn't impact anyone's ownership rights.
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To begin with, "intellectual property" is a conceptual crutch used to associate various rights to the concept of property. It is not "intangible property." While this works well to introduce the general connotations of associated rights to the layman, it frequently tends to mislead as well (although this is likley to the advantage of rights holders).

One example of confusion is mixing the concepts of patents, trademarks, and copyrights. Though they're all put in the "intellectual property" grab-bag, they are not interchangeable either conceptually or legally. And you've mistaken patents for copyright.

Copyright of computer programs - that is, the object code has was established in 1980 when the US modified the Copyright Code to define programs as literary works. The question here was never an issue of the algorithm but rather whether the object code was a fixed work as opposed to source code. The issue of algorithm comes in to the question of patent law. There is legal language against patenting abstract ideas. In this light, a software patent has to involve practical application. Software patents have been established in the 1990s but continue to come under criticism due to some inerrant issues with software patents.

What the DMCA does and does not do has been widely discussed for longer than the life of the law. Proponents will often describe it as a tool-set to protect works. Critics will point out ways the DMCA is abused and increased limitations of public rights due to the law. And make no mistake about it - the DMCA is not a law for consumer rights.