This is the first time I've heard about this, and quite interesting to me as Article 12 of WIPO Copyright Treaty specifically requires signatories make circumvention of DRM protection devices illegal. This would seemingly be in contradiction to that. However, seems as the US, who were the driving behind this treaty, also provide exceptions/exemptions, I can see how the EU were able to justify any such contradiction.
That said, from the EU directive:
> Member States shall take appropriate measures to ensure that rightholders make available to the beneficiary of an exception or limitation provided for in national law in accordance with Article 5(2)(a), (2)(c), (2)(d), (2)(e), (3)(a), (3)(b) or (3)(e) the means of benefiting from that exception or limitation, to the extent necessary to benefit from that exception or limitation and where that beneficiary has legal access to the protected work or subject-matter concerned.
Additionally, not a lawyer or in Government, however, in my lay-mans reading of this directive, I'm seeing a lot of usages of the word "may". I'm (possibly incorrectly) interpreting this as meaning a Member State can introduce these copyright exceptions, not that it's mandated as the FSFE article states.
Yes but well at least a view (not many) years ago braking DRM for research purpose was fully legal in Germany as well as publishing the findings, through publishing tools which brake DRM was fully illegal.
That said, from the EU directive:
> Member States shall take appropriate measures to ensure that rightholders make available to the beneficiary of an exception or limitation provided for in national law in accordance with Article 5(2)(a), (2)(c), (2)(d), (2)(e), (3)(a), (3)(b) or (3)(e) the means of benefiting from that exception or limitation, to the extent necessary to benefit from that exception or limitation and where that beneficiary has legal access to the protected work or subject-matter concerned.
There are certain exceptions, in articles 1, 2, 3 and 4, which can be read at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL.... So there's not a blanket right to circumvent DRM; and nothing is spelt out that clearly.
Additionally, not a lawyer or in Government, however, in my lay-mans reading of this directive, I'm seeing a lot of usages of the word "may". I'm (possibly incorrectly) interpreting this as meaning a Member State can introduce these copyright exceptions, not that it's mandated as the FSFE article states.