The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act was the largest change to the Copyright Act that attempted to address copyright in the digital environment. It was and remains controversial in its provisions and its effects. Some of the important things the DMCA does:
-provides some protection to Internet Service Providers (ISPs)
-instructs ISPs to comply with notice and takedown requests to be eligible for this protection
-makes it a crime to circumvent copyright access except in narrow circumstances
-gives copyright owners the right to control access to works in which they own copyright
Digital Rights Management
The term Digital Rights Management (DRM) refers to software that is used to restrict access or uses of a digital work. Another synonymous term used is "Technical Protection Measure." I've occasionally heard DRM referred to as "digital restrictions management." The argument for the latter terminology is that DRM goes beyond protecting the rights of copyright holders. It ignores and restricts the rights of users. DRM itself is afforded protection in the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Anti-circumvention
Although the act itself maintains in section 1201(c) that "nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title," many believe that this measure strongly affects fair use, first sale, and other rights.
One of the parts that has been troubling to academics, libraries, researchers, and some technology industries is the anti-circumvention provision. One reason is that this particular part of the DMCA makes fair use difficult or impossible with certain works. The technology cannot determine if a given use is fair, because fair use is decided on a case-by-case basis based on a number of criteria that technology cannot measure. Another reason is this clause has the potential of making "limited times" indefinite.
Anti-copying technologies prohibit the copying of materials. It is illegal to circumvent the technologies except in specific circumstances, as mentioned. The technologies don't allow ANY kind of copying, even copying that would ordinarily be available under copyright exemptions or fair use. Additionally, since there is no requirement for an expiration date, the technologies could theoretically last past the copyright of the work itself, even when the work should be in the public domain.
Our uses of digital works are more restricted then our uses with analog works.
Dmitry Sklyarov and circumvention
Elcomsoft is a Russian software company that creates security and password related software. One of their product was the Advanced eBook Processor, which converted files from Adobe's proprietary eBook technology to pdf format, which was less restrictive in its uses (it could be copied, excerpts could be taken, etc.) Dmitry Sklyarov was a programmer for Elcomsoft. He was invited to present at DefCon, a famous hacker's convention, and so traveled to the US to do so. When he was about to leave the US, he was arrested for producing software (the eBook Processor) that was a circumvention device. Although Adobe had initially informed the FBI about the software, they withdrew their support for the lawsuit against Sklyarov, but the Department of Justice decided to continue. Sklyarov was not allowed to return home until he agreed to testify against his employer for the Department of Justice. Sklyarov ended up testifying for both the prosecution and the defense before a jury. Elcomsoft was found not guilty because the jury determined that they were not willfully infringing. Electronic Frontier Foundation Site related to the case
Professor Felten and the Secure Music Digital Initiative (SDMI)
SDMI was a consortium of music and technology industries that was attempting to create copyright protection for audio files. When they developed a watermarking technology, a system that puts a "watermark" in an audio file for identification, the group challenged the public to break the protection. Someone did within three weeks. Professor Edward Felten of Princeton and a group of researchers defeated the technology and were going to present their results at the International Information Hiding Workshop that year. SDMI, the RIAA, and one of the SDMI companies reacted by sending a threatening letter to Professor Felten, stating that the paper would violate the DMCA and threatened a lawsuit. Professor Felton and his colleagues withdrew the paper. Felten, with the aid of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) sued the groups seeking a declaratory judgment that the DMCA violated the freedom of speech. The groups backed down, and the suit was dismissed without judgment. Professor Felten has since presented the paper, and was not sued.
Story on Felten from Princeton
Professor Felton gave a copyright-related lecture called Rip, Mix, Burn, Sue. It's very much worth watching if you're interested in copyright. He also has a very informative blog called Freedom to Tinker.
About You
You are viewing this site with an unrecognized browser on a machine running an unrecognized platform.
Your IP address is 38.107.191.113.
