Decherney, Peter. "From Fair Use to Exemption." Cinema Journal 46.2 (Winter 2007), forthcoming.

This article makes an interesting argument on whether exemptions from the DMCA can be made when fair use is harmed, particularly making a plea to the US Copyright Office to exempt media professors to make clips from DVDs for class use without the action (at the time of petition) considered illegal. Exemption always exists alongside fair use, and while the DMCA allows for exemptions to certain provisions, it does not exempt fair use. The DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision prohibits bypassing of the digital encrypted media, or DRM, needed to make clips from DVDs—thus, making copies is illegal even if use of the copy is considered fair use. DRM restriction interferes with scholarship and teaching, and media educators should have the right to teach university students with clips from DVDs without limiting education. The four other DMCA exemptions similarly are constructed as being a category of work limited by technology; thus, this appeal should not be any different as it is likewise a class of work defined by its interaction with an institution, a library. Naturally, the advancement of technology constantly transforms copyright policy, and the crucial step indicated is that copyright norms existing now will determine the future of fair use, and currently we are in a state of fluid academic use appealing for a culture of permission without breaking DMCA regulations. "Exemptions are not a substitute for fair use."

This article makes an interesting argument on whether exemptions from the DMCA can be made when fair use is harmed, particularly making a plea to the US Copyright Office to exempt media professors to make clips from DVDs for class use without the action (at the time of petition) considered illegal. Exemption always exists alongside fair use, and while the DMCA allows for exemptions to certain provisions, it does not exempt fair use. The DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision prohibits bypassing of the digital encrypted media, or DRM, needed to make clips from DVDs—thus, making copies is illegal even if use of the copy is considered fair use. DRM restriction interferes with scholarship and teaching, and media educators should have the right to teach university students with clips from DVDs without limiting education. The four other DMCA exemptions similarly are constructed as being a category of work limited by technology; thus, this appeal should not be any different as it is likewise a class of work defined by its interaction with an institution, a library. Naturally, the advancement of technology constantly transforms copyright policy, and the crucial step indicated is that copyright norms existing now will determine the future of fair use, and currently we are in a state of fluid academic use appealing for a culture of permission without breaking DMCA regulations. "Exemptions are not a substitute for fair use."