>> > Are ‘key recovery tools’ illegal somewhere? Tools for circumventing >> > digital restristions measures definitely are. >> >> If you use them on files you legally own, they are legal. They will be >> illegal for cracking content for which you should not have access. > > Another way of saying that is: The tool isn't legal or illegal. It is > specific *actions* by persons that is restricted by law. > >> The tool cannot differentiate, it can only do its job. > > Likewise, AFAIK the law doesn't make a tool illegal, only specific > actions.
May I ask again, what law (what jurisdiction) are you talking about. I am not familiar with North American laws, but there *is* a law prohibiting distribution of DRM-circumvention tools, for instance, in the Ukraine: ,----[ Law on copyright and related rights ] | Section V. Protection of copyrigh and related right | | Article 50. Violation of copyright and related rights | | Violations of copyright and (or) related rights, that give grounds for | seeking remedy in court, are: | | ... | | e) any actions to deliberately circumvent technical measures of | copyright (or related rights) protection, in particular: making, | distributing, importing with the purpose of distributing, and using | tools for such circumvention; | | ... `----(translation mine, cf. original at [0]) [0] http://zakon4.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/3792-12/page3 > I believe there are > actively-enforced patents on DVD-CSS that prohibit distribution of, for > example, free software that opens files encrypted with that scheme. If > the Debian Project distributes such a tool, it *is* violating an > actively-enforced law. As far as I know, libdvdcss2 is a bruteforcing tool. There could be no patents on brute-force.
