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Legal Cases

The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s impact litigation has set important precedents for the treatment of rights in cyberspace. Our attorneys work to defend free speech online, fight illegal surveillance, advocate for users and innovators, protect privacy, and support freedom-enhancing technologies.

EFF has taken on the federal government, the FCC, the world's largest entertainment companies, and major electronics companies, among others. We work with advocates worldwide to create a global digital environment that upholds human rights and we continue to take on cutting-edge legal cases to protect and enhance user rights. To read more about our work, visit our Legal Victories page.

Legal Case

1-800 Contacts v. WhenU

Trademark law at its heart is intended to protect consumers from confusion -- for example by preventing Pepsi from passing off its cola as Coca-Cola. Increasingly however trademark owners are trying to use their trademarks in ways that actually harm consumers by restricting their access to information from and about...
Legal Case

2000 DMCA Rulemaking

EFF's comments to the Copyright Office on the topic of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and its anti-circumvention provisions. February 17, 2000 EFF's reply comments to the Copyright Office responding to the arguments advanced by corporate intellectual property holders who support the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA...
Legal Case

2003 DMCA Rulemaking

In 2003 EFF applied for four exemptions to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) asking the Copyright Office to allow consumers to:Play copy-protected audio CDs that malfunction to prevent playbackView foreign region-coded DVD movies on U.S. playersFast-forward through unskippable commercials prior to movies on DVDsPlay and make full use of...
Legal Case

2006 DMCA Rulemaking

EFF did not file for DMCA exemption requests in 2006. Instead we explained why the rule-making process is fundamentally broken and unable to protect consumers.
Legal Case

2009 DMCA Rulemaking

In the 2009 rulemaking EFF won three critical exemptions protecting the important work of video remix artists iPhone owners and cell phone recyclers from legal threats.
The first proposal was aimed at protecting the video remix culture currently thriving on Internet sites like YouTube. The filing asked for...
Legal Case

2012 DMCA Rulemaking

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act prohibits "circumventing" digital rights management (DRM) and other "technological measures" used to protect copyrighted works. While this ban was meant to deter copyright infringement, many have misused the law to chill competition free speech and fair use. Every three years the U.S. Copyright Office...
Legal Case

2015 DMCA Rulemaking

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) limits the circumvention of software that's designed to restrict access to copyrighted works. Unfortunately, such a blanket restriction can chill competition, free speech, and fair use. In an attempt to mitigate those harms, every three years the U.S. Copyright Office holds a...
Legal Case

2016 Internet Archive NSL

In this case, the Internet Archive pushed back against a formerly secret national security letter (NSL). Represented by EFF, the Archive informed the FBI that it did not have the information the agency was seeking and pointed out that NSL included misinformation about how to contest the accompanying gag order...
Legal Case

2018 DMCA Rulemaking

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) limits the circumvention of software that's designed to restrict access to copyrighted works. Unfortunately, such a blanket restriction can chill competition, free speech, and fair use. In an attempt to mitigate those harms, every three years the U.S. Copyright Office holds a...
Legal Case

2021 DMCA Rulemaking

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) limits the circumvention of software that’s designed to restrict access to copyrighted works. Unfortunately, such a blanket restriction can chill competition, free speech, and fair use. In an attempt to mitigate those harms, every three years the U.S. Copyright Office holds a...
Legal Case

20th Century Fox v. Cablevision

Most people assume that consumers have a fair use right to time shift television to watch at a later time. As a result lots of companies now sell digital video recorders (DVRs) that enable you to do this including TiVo and it's generally accepted that selling DVRs is perfectly legal...