The DMCA made bypassing an ebook lock its own offence

The 1998 law and the Copyright Office's own rulemaking record separate anti-circumvention from infringement itself.

Historical event

October 28, 1998

First source published

December 1, 1998

Site publication

September 18, 2026

The record

President Clinton signed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act into law on 28 October 1998, a date confirmed both by the Copyright Office's own summary of the statute and by Congress's own legislative record, which shows the bill became Public Law No. 105-304. The Office's summary states the Act implements two 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization treaties and is organised into five titles, of which Title I adds a new Chapter 12 to the Copyright Act, including Section 1201's anti-circumvention rules.

What the documents show

The Copyright Office's summary draws a distinction that matters for any reader of a DRM-locked ebook: Section 1201 separates measures that control access to a work from measures that control copying of it, and the summary states the statute “does not prohibit the act of circumventing a technological measure that prevents copying,” because copying may be a fair use, while it does prohibit circumventing an access control, because fair use is not a defence to unauthorised access. Trafficking in circumvention devices or services is restricted for both categories. The summary also documents built-in exceptions: nonprofit libraries, archives and educational institutions may circumvent an access control “solely for the purpose of making a good faith determination” about whether to obtain authorised access, and Section 1201(a)(1) establishes what the Office's own current rulemaking page describes as an ongoing triennial process, now in its tenth cycle, through which the Librarian of Congress grants renewable exemptions for specific classes of works.

Why it stays interesting

The record matters to a reader or a library because it explains why removing a DRM lock from a legitimately purchased ebook can be unlawful even when the underlying use of the text would itself be fair use. This is the structural point worth carrying forward, read directly from the statute's own distinction: the DMCA created a second, separate offence layered on top of copyright infringement, and the periodic exemption process exists precisely because Congress anticipated that a flat prohibition would occasionally block noninfringing uses it had not foreseen in 1998.

What to read next

A reader could next check the record of the DAISY Consortium's 1996 founding, whose accessible-format standard later intersects with Section 1201 exemptions for print-disabled readers, or the record of Hachette v. Internet Archive, a 2023 ruling that tested a different boundary of the same copyright framework the DMCA amended.

• Does a given use involve circumventing an access control, a copy control, or neither, under the statute's own categories?
• Has the activity in question been granted a current triennial exemption, and when does that exemption expire?
• Does a library or archive's use fall within Section 1201(d)'s specific good-faith exception?

The DMCA's signing date is fixed; the law's practical reach is not, since each triennial rulemaking can narrow or widen what counts as lawful circumvention without any change to the statute's original text.

Sources & reading trail

States the DMCA was signed into law on 28 October 1998, its five titles, and Section 1201's access-control/copy-control distinction and exceptions.

Source published: 1 December 1998 · Retrieved: 16 September 2026

The Copyright Office's living rulemaking page describes the ongoing triennial exemption process, now in its tenth cycle, with exemptions renewed for three-year periods.

Source published: Not established · Retrieved: 16 September 2026

Congress's own legislative record confirms the bill became Public Law No. 105-304.

Source published: Not established · Retrieved: 16 September 2026

Reports, filings, records and studies establish the entry; the reading of why it stays interesting is Chapter Ledger editorial analysis. This retrospective draft does not imply the site published on the event date.

Continue reading

• A 1976 law moved fair use into the statute for the first time
• Libraries built their lending case on owning, not licensing
• A federal court found library ebook scanning was not fair use
• Browse the complete the ledger archive

Published September 18, 2026, not on the date of the event described.