Alex Macgillivray, Larry Lessig and I helped with a 1201 rulemaking comment on behalf of the Internet Archive. Because much of the software donated to the Archive is stored on degrading media in obsolescent formats, the Archive needs to replicate the software onto new storage media and migrate it to new formats. Access controls that require the presence of an original prevent this archival storage -- imposing more restrictions than exist on analog donations to archives. We argued that the proposed exemption, permitting circumvention of such access controls, restores the proper balance by enabling lawful preservation of what an archive has lawfully obtained.

The Copyright Office is expected to post all "compliant" comments.

If this sounds like a narrow exception to a very broad law, that's because we were constrained by the Librarian's narrow interpretation of his power to issue exemptions, as stated in the Notice of Inquiry.