Since they were enacted in 1998, the “anti-circumvention†provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCAâ€), codified in section 1201 of the Copyright Act, have not been used as Congress envisioned. Congress meant to stop copyright pirates from defeating anti-piracy protections added to copyrighted works, and to ban “black box†devices intended for that purpose…
In practice, the anti-circumvention provisions have been used to stifle a wide array of legitimate activities, rather than to stop copyright piracy.
Link: eff.org
