They definitely are. Again, just the way they're defined under the Copyright Act, where it's between two computer programs, doesn't necessarily allow the flexibility and certainty they need. That's allowed some of the big OEMs to hide behind the Copyright Act, in part because of the definition of “interoperate” within the frame of the Copyright Act. But also, when we look at TPMs and the different exemptions that are out there to circumvent, it has to be more agile to better reflect how technology has changed and advanced.
It used to be that what was thought of as a written work was a play or a novel or music, but now, in the digital world, we're seeing that it is also code written for how machines are going to operate. The first thing you do when you hop into a tractor or combine now is to accept the user terms and conditions. You don't just turn a key and go anymore, right? You have to accept what it says. When you hit that “accept” in the machine, it says that you acknowledge that you do not own the software inside that machine. Therein lies part of the problem because copyright is based on ownership. If you don't own the software, you don't own a copy of it, and therefore basically you do not have the right to make a product interoperate. That's why we got the exemption included in this bill: to allow people to circumvent a TPM for the sole purpose of making a product interoperate with another product.