Legal Definitions - circumvention

Circumvention, in the context of U.S. copyright law, refers to the act of bypassing, avoiding, removing, deactivating, or impairing a technological measure or device that controls access to a work protected by copyright.

Essentially, it means defeating a digital lock or protection mechanism that a copyright holder has put in place to prevent unauthorized access to or copying of their creative work, such as software, movies, music, or e-books. U.S. law generally prohibits such actions.

Here are some examples to illustrate this concept:

• Digital Rights Management (DRM) on E-books: Imagine a person purchases an e-book that is protected by Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology. This DRM prevents the e-book from being copied, printed, or converted to other formats without authorization. If the person then uses a specialized software tool to strip away this DRM protection, allowing them to freely copy the e-book, convert it to a different file type, or share it, they would be engaging in circumvention. The DRM is the technological measure, and the act of removing it bypasses the control the copyright holder intended.

• Encryption on Streaming Video: A company offers a subscription service for streaming movies and TV shows, using advanced encryption and proprietary software to ensure that content can only be viewed within their platform and cannot be downloaded or saved. If a third-party developer creates an application that can decrypt and download these streaming videos, making them available offline or outside the service's control, that application facilitates circumvention. The encryption and proprietary streaming technology are the protective measures, and the application's function is to bypass or impair them to gain unauthorized access to the copyrighted video files.

• Software Activation Keys: A software company sells a popular design program that requires users to enter a unique activation key and periodically connect to an online server to verify their license. This system is a technological measure designed to prevent unauthorized copying and use. If a hacker develops a "crack" or modified version of the software that allows it to run perfectly without ever needing an activation key or connecting to the verification server, this "crack" enables circumvention. It bypasses the technological controls put in place by the software company to protect their copyrighted program.