Anticircumvention

Anticircumvention refers to legal provisions and activities aimed at preventing the circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works or other protected content. In practice, anticircumvention laws target the creation, sale, or use of tools or services designed to defeat access controls such as digital rights management (DRM), encryption, license verification, or hardware-based protections. The term is commonly used to describe regimes that treat circumventing access controls as illegal, even if the eventual use of the content might be lawful.

In the United States, anticircumvention is primarily defined by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), especially Section 1201. The act makes it illegal to bypass a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work and also prohibits producing, trafficking in, or distributing devices or services primarily designed to circumvent such measures. The law provides for exemptions to permit certain noninfringing activities, determined periodically by the Librarian of Congress, such as accessibility uses, preservation, or encryption research, under specific conditions.

Internationally, anticircumvention obligations are addressed through treaty instruments like the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty, which require member states to provide legal protection against circumvention of access controls. National implementations vary, reflecting a balance between protecting rights holders and allowing legitimate uses.

Debates around anticircumvention center on the need to prevent piracy and protect investment in digital content versus concerns that broad protections can hinder legitimate activities, such as accessibility for disabled users, interoperability, security research, and data portability. Proponents emphasize the role of access controls in encouraging innovation, while critics call for clearer exemptions and narrowly tailored enforcement.