> You're talking about something that's out of copyright? Copyright law doesn't specify anything for out of copyright works.
Yeah, except no. Circumvention of effective protection measures is a separate crime from infringement. If you do it, except for certain specific exceptions, it's a felony punishable by up to five years in federal prison in the USA.
No, in the U.S., the anti-circumvention provisions only apply to works still protected by U.S. copyright. (The criminal violations are also only applicable to willful violations done for commercial advantage or private financial gain.) Generally speaking, the Copyright Clause only empowers Congress to create restrictions "for limited Times" -- even the anti-circumvention rules are probably subject to this.
Nimmer explains: "Section 1201’s limitation to works that are under U.S. copyright protection means that, to the extent a technological measure effectively controls access to public domain works, circumvention of that measure does not violate the statute. (But intermingling a small amount of current material into the collected works of Shakespeare could effectively undermine that status.) By the same token, to the extent that a work, currently protected abroad, resides in the U.S. public domain for formal or other reasons, then, as to it as well, circumvention of technological measures remains nonactionable (unless, again, some protected material were intermingled with it)." 4 Nimmer on Copyright § 12A.03 (2022)
Yeah, except no. Circumvention of effective protection measures is a separate crime from infringement. If you do it, except for certain specific exceptions, it's a felony punishable by up to five years in federal prison in the USA.