There is more than one interpretation of what does and doesn't violate the DMCA, and the 6th and Federal Circuits have taken one approach, which makes the DMCA

There is more than one interpretation of what does and doesn't violate the DMCA, and the 6th and Federal Circuits have taken one approach, which makes the DMCA less applicable to non-piracy activities, in Lexmark Int'l v. Static Control Components and Chamberlain vs Skylink, while the 9th circuit has taken an approach that makes a wider range of activities violate the DMCA in MDY Indus. LLC v. Blizzard Entm't, Inc. This is probably a major reason why Sony is trying to sue geohot in California (under the 9th Circuit) despite the fact that the claim that California has personal jurisdiction over him in relation to his Playstation activities is extremely weak. The plain text of the DMCA anti-circumvention clause is: "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title" Interpreting this as congress intended is difficult, because often, systems which prevent their owner from doing one thing will also try to prevent their owner from doing other legal activities - for example, installing their own operating system, developing their own homebrew games using only their own copyrighted material, repurposing hardware for purposes that the manufacturer never intended, and building compatible add-on products or accessories that compete with the original vendors products. I believe the intention of Congress was that circumventing the system only far enough to do one of the above, with the intention of doing one of the above, is not "circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected" - for that act to be complete, and the circumvention the act references to occur, the final step of accessing the copyrighted work needs to occur. The interpretation of the 9th circuit is, in my opinion, not what congress intended. Sooner or later the Supreme Court will hear one of these cases, and hopefully will agree with the 6th and Federal Circuits that the interpretation I gave above is correct.