Digital Millennium Copyright Act, anti-circumvention provisions

Section 1201 prohibits circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a copyrighted work. It functions as an escalation point rather than a scraping-specific rule: it is invoked once a target has put up a technical access barrier and a collector defeats it, the same fact pattern that also triggers Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and state computer-misuse exposure once notice and continued access or circumvention are shown, as in Facebook v. Power Ventures.

Section 1201 was added by title I of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Pub. L. 105-304, approved October 28, 1998, and took effect on that date; a two-year delay in Pub. L. 105-304 applied only to the Librarian of Congress's rulemaking exemptions under subsection (a)(1), not to the anti-trafficking prohibitions this document discusses.