That's generally incorrect. Circumvention is generally illegal, regardless of if you're using it for otherwise legal activities. Below I've included the relevan

That's generally incorrect. Circumvention is generally illegal, regardless of if you're using it for otherwise legal activities. Below I've included the relevant text from the law. In that specific example, though, you might have an argument that enforcement of the anti-circumvention provision violates the first amendment, like in [1] (but IANAL so I have no idea if this has already been argued/settled). Connecting this to your fair use point, fair use is part of what keeps copyright enforcement from violating the first amendment, but it's unclear how the Supreme Court would rule such an issue if it came in front of them. > No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. The prohibition contained in the preceding sentence shall take effect at the end of the 2-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this chapter. > (3) As used in this subsection— (A) to “circumvent a technological measure” means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and (B) a technological measure “effectively controls access to a work” if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work. You can see how the law is written so generally as to arguably include almost anything under the definition of "technological measure". [1] https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-asks-appeals-court-rule-dmca-anti-circumvention-provisions-violate-first https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-asks-appeals-court-ru...