Challenge to Copyright Law’s Hacking Ban Faces Dubious Panel (1)

D.C. Circuit judges expressed skepticism over arguments made by a pair of computer scientists who claim a law prohibiting hackers from bypassing technology which protects copyrighted material unconstitutionally restricts speech.

Johns Hopkins University cryptographer Matthew Green and Andrew Huang, an electrical engineer and hacker, argued a provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act violates the First Amendment. But a panel at the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit expressed skepticism about the link between free speech and prohibiting the circumvention of security devices.

The two computer scientists sued in 2016 for a court order blocking the ...