alt Hacker News> Correct, but the DMCA has an explicit exception for this kind of thing.
That has never been examined or declared, as the DMCA exemptions are much narrower than they appear. The reverse engineering exemption, for example, does not cover the right to make a product that interfaces with the original - only to examine the technology to build your own product.
An obvious example of this is DVDs, which have the same exemptions. The US PTO, and the US Librarian of Congress (who has the power to make DMCA exemptions) are unequivocally clear that a private copying exemption does not exist in their view. This is also why the EFF has been begging every 3 years for the last... two decades... to make such an exemption, and has failed.
The reversing clause doesn't, but the law does.
It's "declared" specifically in the Act, here:
(1)Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), a person who has lawfully obtained the right to use a copy of a computer program may circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a particular portion of that program for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and that have not previously been readily available to the person engaging in the circumvention, to the extent any such acts of identification and analysis do not constitute infringement under this title.
(2)Notwithstanding the provisions of subsections (a)(2) and (b), a person may develop and employ technological means to circumvent a technological measure, or to circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure, in order to enable the identification and analysis under paragraph (1), or for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, if such means are necessary to achieve such interoperability, to the extent that doing so does not constitute infringement under this title.
(3)The information acquired through the acts permitted under paragraph (1), and the means permitted under paragraph (2), may be made available to others if the person referred to in paragraph (1) or (2), as the case may be, provides such information or means solely for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and to the extent that doing so does not constitute infringement under this title or violate applicable law other than this section.