It made me proud to write for the IEEE’s Internet Computing Magazine when I read this arstechnica piece:
IEEE just says NO to the DMCA.

Here’s the New Scientist article that explains more of the details:
Controversial copyright clause abandoned.

The excerpt below is from the New Scientist article:

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), which publishes 30 per cent of all computer science journals worldwide, is to stop requiring authors to comply with a controversial US digital copyright law.

The IEEE produced a new set of conditions for publication at the beginning of 2002. These required that authors’ work must not contravene the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Many academics believe the DMCA discourages scientists from publishing valuable research through fear of legal action. The DMCA prohibits “any technology, product, service, device, component or part” that circumvents digital copy protection systems. This includes the software encryption designed to stop people making copies of music or video files, for example. Scientists say the Act means that just producing research on a copy protection system could land them in legal trouble.