Submission... submitted!

That's right folks, I've just sent off a nice juicy email to the Federal Attorney General's Department seeking an exception to be created in the Copyright Regulations.

The exception sought is to allow folks making legitimate back-up copies of computer programs under section 47C of the Copyright Act 1968 to be protected from civil or criminal liability (by 'excepting' from being infringers), when they have to use a circumvention device to circumvent a technological protection measure (TPM).

That is, if I want to make a back-up copy (say, an ISO file) of Battlefield 2, I have to defeat EA's copy protection mechanism (the TPM) by using a special duplication/imaging program, for example Alcohol 120% or CloneCD. The programs are likely to be considered a circumvention device.

Therefore, in my opinion (it's always a matter of opinion until it goes to court) as the law now currently stands and as the law is proposed, the act of backing-up Battlefield 2 (although permitted under section 47C), is an infringement of copyright under Division 2A of the same Act.

So I'm merely asking the Attorney General to ensure that the protections afforded under section 47C are maintained, and shielded (i.e. 'excepted') from the liability provisions of Division 2A.

It's not written by a legal genius, it's simply written by a computer nerd. Eventually, they say all submissions will be published online. If they do that, I'll post the link on this blog.