The U.S. Copyright Office has issued a handful of exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that may benefit media professors, archivists, and other academics. Under certain circumstances, they will now be allowed to circumvent access-control technologies on various electronic media.

Under one of the six exemptions, all of which will expire after three years, professors of film and media studies can circumvent the access-control technology of DVD's in their libraries to use clips of films more easily in class.

Full Chronicle of Higher Education article 

Podcast of NPR All Things Considered program on the new ruling 

Text of full ruling