english computer misuse act the section on the english computer misuse act is completely utterly wrong this law protects computer users from unauthorized access to the data on their own computers treating the owner of the computer as the owner of the data thus it criminalizes attacks on other people's computers it has nothing to do with protecting copyright holders from unauthorized access performed by a user on his own computer therefore the example of the music cd is right off target indeed the cma probably affords protection in the opposite direction sony's cd rootkit drm could well be illegal under the cma