Sometimes news events make your point better than you ever could. That was the case this year as we completed the triennial rulemaking cycle of requesting exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's (DMCA)'s restrictions on circumventing DRM. The process of requesting an exemption is unnecessarily long and difficult, in a number of ways: the Copyright Office demands extensive evidence from those seeking exemptions, exemptions don't “roll over” to the next cycle – even if they're unopposed, and the resulting rules are too limited in scope. Still, EFF participates and has been able to secure some important victories—laying the groundwork for fair uses like jailbreaking phones or ripping DVDs for non-commercial remixes. But given the length of the process—we submitted our first filing in this year's proceeding over a year ago, and began researching well before that—it's not always obvious which issues will…
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