I built a 90.7kb tool that strips out Windows screen capture protection, but now I am concerned about whether I should make it open source. I’m worried it can be misused for piracy or to violate DRM policies.
I built it because I had a piece of software that wouldn’t let me copy text. I tried using Windows OCR to copy it, but it just showed a black screen.
The tool is great for personal use, but it can be misused, so I am concerned. Any thoughts on this? Will I get into legal trouble if I make it public on GitHub?
I don’t want to get into any trouble, so I need expert advice from someone who is experienced.
You’ve probably created something that would be considered a DRM circumvention device under the DMCA, so possessing it would be illegal unless it’s covered by one of the exceptions. If you think it might be, then you’re probably in a legal grey area as there isn’t case law settling whether the exceptions override the parts about DRM circumvention, but it’s fairly widely accepted that they probably do - DRM-era console emulators like Dolphin rely on it being legal to bypass the games’ DRM in order to interoperate with other computer systems, and no one’s been brave enough to sue them for that interpretation yet.
If it is illegal, the most likely outcome is just that someone does a DMCA takedown request and GitHub would take it down and that would be the end of that, which is pretty much the same thing as would likely happen if anyone didn’t like it but it was legal, as it’s easy to submit takedown requests, but hard to appeal them if they’re unjustified.