# DMCA **Stub.** The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), enacted 1998, is the foundational US digital-copyright law. Its most consequential provision for this vault is Section 1201, the "anti-circumvention" rule, which makes it illegal to bypass [[Digital Rights Management]] and technological locks — even for otherwise-lawful purposes like repairing or modifying your own device. This is the legal backbone of the [[Right to Repair]] fight: manufacturers can wrap repair-blocking locks ([[Parts Pairing]], [[Firmware]] restrictions) in DRM, after which breaking them to fix your own property becomes a potential federal offense. Repair advocates must petition the Copyright Office every three years for narrow exemptions — a recurring flashpoint where intellectual-property law overrides traditional physical-property rights. ## See Also - [[Digital Rights Management]] — what §1201 protects from circumvention - [[Right to Repair]] · [[Parts Pairing]] · [[Firmware]] — the practices the law shields