Sort of, `(B) a technological measure `effectively controls access to a work' if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.
However, as ROT13 is not limited to just protecting copy-write works and is reversible you could have an effective tool with other works. (A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof;http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c105:1:./temp/~c105eDJ...:
On the other hand, if you only apply ROT13 to part of a file then it probably does qualify for protection.
yes, it's very stupid. Also, DMCA (from what i read, IANAL) overrides the fair use clause of doing reverse engineering for compatibility, so you can trivially sue somebody for reverse engineering your protocols/interfaces by just doing a token rot13 on it and then claiming that the reverser is circumventing DRM.
I am not a lawyer or legal expert, and to my knowledge rot13 hasn't been tested in the courts. DeCSS has though, and the code is 434 bytes, or you can brute force a key in seconds on a modern system (per Wikipedia). That was litigated, interestingly, and some people may remember 2600 got sued over it.
I think it is, by reading the DMCA. I personally believe that would not withstand a rebuttal.
The material cited in this case can also be seen as a subject of the "right to repair" laws in the USA, so in light of other laws that stand along with the DMCA, the DMCA may have some "environmental limitations" (sorry)
I don't know if they could claim damage for loss of trade secrets because Ford distributed the information far and wide on their own.
