The copyright office issued new exemptions on the DMCAs anti-circumvention rule today. The new rules say that it is not a violation of the DMCA to rip lawfully obtained DVDs and remix clips from those DVDs for noncommercial purposes, jailbreak your phone, unlock your phone to use with other wireless carriers, crack lawfully obtained video games to investigate security flaws, crack lawfully obtained computer programs protected by dongles that are no longer available or working, and crack lawfully obtained ebooks that block read-aloud functionality or screen readers.

If you did any of those things before, the DMCA made you a criminal. Now you’re not.

These rules are based on the fact that access control measures (DRM) diminish “the ability of individuals to use copyrighted works in ways that are not infringing.” Fair use. But why don’t they just come out with a rule that says all fair use is exempt from the anti-circumvention law? Why limit it to these specific cases?

U.S. Copyright Office - Anticircumvention Rulemaking