Representative Tom Bliley in the House of Representatives (Cong. Rec. H7094-95) (daily ed. Aug. 4, 1998):
In our report, the Committee stressed that section 1201(a)(2) is aimed fundamentally at outlaying so-called "black boxes" that are expressly intended to facilitate circumvention of protection measures for purposes of gaining access to a work. This provision is not aimed at products that are capable of commercially significant noninfringing uses, such as the consumer electronics, telecommunications, and computer products—including videocassette recorders, telecommunications switches, personal computers, and servers—used by businesses and consumers everyday for perfectly legitimate purposes. Moreover, as section 1201(c)(3) makes clear, such a device does not need to be designed or assembled, or parts or components for inclusion in a device be designed, selected, or assembled, so as affirmatively to accommodate or respond to any particular technological measure.

Section 2101(b)(1) of H.R. 2281 makes it illegal to manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof that is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a protection measure that protects certain rights of copyright owners under title 17, United States Code; has only limited commercially significant purposes or uses other than to circumvent such a measure; or is marketed for use in circumventing such a measure. The Committee believes it is very important to emphasize that this section, like section 1201(a)(2), is aimed fundamentally at outlawing so-called "black boxes" that are expressly intended to facilitate circumvention of protection measures. Thus, this section similarly would not outlaw the manufacturing, importing, or distributing of standard videocassette recorders and computer products.

Under the bill under consideration today, nothing would make it illegal for a manufacturer of a product or device (to which section 1201 would otherwise apply) to design or modify the product or device solely to the extent necessary to mitigate a frequently occurring and noticeable adverse effect on the authorized performance or display of a work that is caused by a protection measure in the ordinary course of its design and operation. Similarly, recognizing that a technological measure may cause a problem with a particular device, or combination of devices, used by a consumer, it is our view that nothing in the bill should be interpreted to make it illegal for a retailer or individual consumer to modify a product or device solely to the extent necessary to mitigate a noticeable adverse effect on the authorized performance or display of a work that is communicated to or received by that particular product or device if that adverse effect is caused by a protection measure in the ordinary course of its design and operation. I might add that nothing in section 1202 makes it illegal for such a person to design or modify a product or device solely to the extent necessary to mitigate a frequently occurring and noticeable adverse effect on the authorized performance or display of a work that is caused by the use of copyright management information.

I wish to stress that I and other Members of the Committee on Commerce believe that the affected industries should be able to work together to avoid such problems. We know that multi-industry efforts to develop copy control technologies that are both effective and avoid such noticeable and recurring adverse effects have been underway over the past two years. We strongly encourage the continuation of those efforts, which should offer substantial benefits to copyright owners in whose interest it is to achieve the introduction of effective protection (and copyright management information) measures that do not interfere with the normal operations of affected products. We look forward to working with interested parties to the extent additional legislation is required to implement such technologies or to avoid their circumvention.