Why did the Digital Millennium Copyright Act make bypassing digital protections illegal?

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was enacted to address the challenges posed by the digitalization of content, which enabled the near-cost-free reproduction and large-scale distribution of copyrighted works.1

To protect intellectual property in this environment, copyright holders sought both legal and technological remedies, such as digital rights management (DRM). The DMCA prohibits the development and distribution of technologies designed to bypass these protections, as well as the act of circumventing DRM to access copyrighted material.1

By banning the circumvention of these digital locks, the law aims to prevent unauthorized copying and sharing of protected works over computer networks and telecommunications networks. However, this has sparked significant controversy, as critics argue that such measures can infringe upon the rights of consumers to repair or modify products they own, such as software-enabled machinery.1