DMCA At Issue After Volkswagen Emissions Scandal

The software anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act may have delayed watchdogs from discovering Volkswagen’s cheating on air pollution emissions tests, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit digital civil liberties advocacy group, said in a Sept. 21 blog post.

Volkswagen AG recently admitted to setting pollution control software in over 500,000 of its diesel-powered vehicles in the U.S. to activate only when the car is undergoing official emissions testing. The company could be fined up to $18 billion183 DEN A-1, 9/22/15, 38 INER 1226, 9/23/15, 182 ECR, 9/21/15.

The blog post argued that independent ...