The act of avoiding, breaking or otherwise bypassing protections on digital content and technology.
Many digital or electronic resources, including online databases, software and more, come with built-in protections which in theory prevent illegal copying or impermissible uses. For example, DVDs may have a “region code” embedded in their data that prevents them from being played on DVD players from different parts of the world. Likewise, software may have added code, or encryption, which prevents it from being copied.
Although these technological barriers may arguably help to protect illegal copying or use of content, they can also get in the way of legitimate uses, such as playing a DVD on a Linux-based player, or making an archival copy of software. A user who wants to do these things will therefore have to circumvent, or break, the protection measures. However, this is illegal to do in many countries.
Notably, in the United States, Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (1998) specifically forbids circumvention of technological protection measures, and even makes it illegal to sell or own anything that facilitates circumvention.
Laws like Section 1201 are controversial, because from one perspective, the protections a law like this facilitates are parallel to, and can last longer than, those offered by copyright. This arguably defeats the purpose of copyright law’s limited duration protections, violates copyright’s implicit bargain with the public and harms the public domain.