this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2024
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The federal government recently passed two bills into law, C-244 and C-294. These make it not a copyright violation to break or bypass a digital access control to software/hardware you ~~own~~ have legitimate access to, for the purposes of diagonstics/maintenance/repair, and interoperability respectively. Article from The Sarnia Observer

iFixit has applauded the move but says it still keeps bans on the sale and sharing of tools designed primarily for digital lock bypass.

What are your thoughts?

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[–] tunetardis@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 hours ago

Good to hear. I'm cautiously optimistic. Has Michael Geist weighed in on this yet?

[–] SendMePhotos@lemmy.world 5 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Interesting... But what if the tos/Eula state that reverse engineering gets your incense revoked, then you aren't a legitimate user/owner anymore, right?

[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

If you have to reverse engineer it to fix something that should be working that isn't or to get it to interface with another program, as far as I read it it should be allowed. If it's against their T&C they might be able to revoke the license or terminate the contract, but you wouldn't have contravened copyright under these new rules so it would be harder to pursue legal action against you.

Example if someone is trying to get a game they purchased to work on Linux, then they can break or bypass the TPM, DRM, or anti-tamper if it won't run on Linux because of it, or to debug or fix a crash. The most they could do in response is take away the thing you bought and go after you if you solicited tools to bypass the DRM. They also aren't obligated to make it easy to bypass.

[–] _bcron_@lemmy.world 9 points 4 hours ago

Not Canadian, but it makes sense. You paid the money, you are authorized to access the contents, and you're attempting to access the contents for valid reasons. But the big thing: no one was harmed and there were no damages from doing such a thing. They got paid

[–] Sundial@lemm.ee 5 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Is it right to repair only for agricultural equipment? Or does it extend to common everyday electronics as well?

[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 6 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

It's not restricted to any industry which is good news.

[–] Sundial@lemm.ee 4 points 5 hours ago

So it's generic enough to set a precedent for other items/industries? That's good news. These kinds of things would help. I wish we take similar steps like the EU where they make it a law to simplify repairs and stating the life expectancy of certain products.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 3 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I see a problem with the term "that you own". Basically all software is not owned, just licensed.

[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 7 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

Was paraphrasing a bit, the verbiage in C-294 is "a lawfully obtained computer program" so it can be just licensed to you. Not a lawyer so take from it what you will. Edited my post