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  may take are for the courts to say. It is better that they begin to do so rather than continuing to invoke the fiction that the text of the statute alone commands their contradictory decisions.

B. Possible Criticisms
The mode of analysis sketched out in the preceding section, which generally contemplates construing the DMCA in the light of the broader corpus of copyright law and with particular attention to the fair use doctrine, might plausibly be attacked as either unduly lax or unduly confining. Neither objection, it seems to me, ought to obscure its potential advantages in achieving rationality and coherence of judicial doctrine under the DMCA.

First, construing the DMCA in light of the broader purposes of copyright poses no real risk that unchecked judicial activism will thwart legislative intent. My recommendation is not that the courts make up for themselves a set of policies and purposes for the DMCA, but rather that they seek guidance from a comparatively well-developed body of analytically related copyright jurisprudence. Construing related statutory texts harmoniously is a familiar exercise well within the courts’ institutional competence. And many interpretive theories recognize the propriety of consulting broader statutory purposes as aids to determine the meaning of an enacted text. Congress spoke in copyright language and was thinking copyright thoughts in the DMCA, and it