This month, Mexico rushed through a new, expansive copyright law without adequate debate or consultation, and as a result, it adopted a national rule that is absolutely unfit for purpose, with grave implications for human rights and cybersecurity.
The new law was passed as part of the country's obligations under Donald Trump's United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), and it imports the US copyright system wholesale, and then erases the USA’s own weak safeguards for fundamental rights.
Central to the cybersecurity issue is Article 114 Bis, which establishes a new kind of protection for "Technical Protection Measures" (TPMs) this includes rightsholder technologies commonly known as Digital Rights Management (DRM), but it also includes basic encryption and other security measures that prevent access to copyrighted software. These are the familiar, dreaded locks that stop you from refilling your printer's ink cartridge, using an unofficial App Store with your phone or game console, or watching a DVD from overseas in your home DVD player. Sometimes there is a legitimate security purpose to restricting the ability to modify the software in a device, but when you as the owner of the device aren’t allowed to do so, serious problems arise and you become less able to ensure your device security.
Under the US system, it is an offense to bypass these TPMs when they control access to a copyrighted work, even when no copyright infringement takes place. If you have to remove a TPM to modify your printer to accept third-party ink or your car to accept a new engine part, you do not violate copyright — but you still violate this extension of copyright law.
Unsurprisingly, manufacturers have aggressively adopte ..
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