EFF Seeks to Prevent Prosecution of Security Researcher Via DMCA Section 1201 Lawsuit

The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a preliminary injunction request Thursday in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, aimed at blocking the federal government from prosecuting Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute assistant professor Matthew Green for his planned publication of a book documenting his security research on computer systems. Green’s publication of the book could constitute illegal circumvention of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act Section 1201’s ban on circumvention of technological protection measures, EFF said in its filing. EFF requested the preliminary injunction in connection with its July lawsuit against the federal government seeking to end enforcement of Section 1201 (see 1607210015). “Section 1201 imposes strong restrictions on the fair use of copyrighted works, paired with a rigid speech-licensing scheme that offers little real protection for such uses,” EFF said. “Dr. Green’s situation perfectly illustrates how Section 1201 has subverted the traditional contours of copyright, and why it cannot survive constitutional scrutiny.”