{"id":86,"date":"2002-05-06T10:05:00","date_gmt":"2002-05-06T18:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/?p=86"},"modified":"2007-12-30T17:05:12","modified_gmt":"2007-12-31T01:05:12","slug":"unintended-consequences-three-years-under-the-dmca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/?p=86","title":{"rendered":"Unintended consequences: three years under the DMCA"},"content":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/www.eff.org\/IP\/DMCA\/20020503_dmca<\/wbr>_consequences.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

An excellent paper on the chilling effects of the 1999 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. I've excerpted the executive summary below:<\/p>\n

Since they were enacted in 1998, the \"anti-circumvention\" provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (\"DMCA\"), codified in section 1201 of the Copyright Act, have not been used as Congress envisioned. Congress meant to stop copyright pirates from defeating anti-piracy protections added to copyrighted works, and to ban \"black box\" devices intended for that purpose.<\/p>\n

In practice, the anti-circumvention provisions have been used to stifle a wide array of legitimate activities, rather than to stop copyright piracy. As a result, the DMCA has developed into a serious threat to three important public policy priorities:<\/p>\n

Section 1201 Chills Free Expression and Scientific Research.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Experience with section 1201 demonstrates that it is being used to stifle free speech and scientific research. The lawsuit against 2600 magazine, threats against Princeton Professor Edward Felten\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s team of researchers, and prosecution of Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov have chilled the legitimate activities of journalists, publishers, scientists, students, programmers, and members of the public.
\n
\nSection 1201 Jeopardizes Fair Use. <\/strong><\/p>\n

By banning all acts of circumvention, and all technologies and tools that can be used for circumvention, section 1201 grants to copyright owners the power to unilaterally eliminate the public\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fair use rights. Already, the music industry has begun deploying \"copy-protected CDs\" that promise to curtail consumers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 ability to make legitimate, personal copies of music they have purchased.<\/p>\n

Section 1201 Impedes Competition and Innovation.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rather than focusing on pirates, many copyright owners have chosen to use the DMCA to hinder their legitimate competitors. For example, Sony has invoked section 1201 to protect their monopoly on Playstation country from playing games legitimately purchased in another.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This document<\/a> collects a number of reported cases where the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA have been invoked not against pirates, but against consumers, scientists, and legitimate competitors. It will be updated from time to time as additional cases come to light. The latest version can always be obtained at www.eff.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/www.eff.org\/IP\/DMCA\/20020503_dmca_consequences.pdf An excellent paper on the chilling effects of the 1999 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. I've excerpted the executive summary below: Since they were enacted in 1998, the \"anti-circumvention\" provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (\"DMCA\"), codified in section 1201 of the Copyright Act, Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=86"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=86"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=86"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=86"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}