13.4 Digital Millennium Copyright Act


13.4    Digital Millennium Copyright Act

Usage control and digital watermarking techniques do not provide a complete solution to the problems of intellectual property protection in the digital world. Consequently, many content providers and vendors started to lobby Congress for protective legislation during the 1990s. The effort resulted in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that passed the Congress on October 12, 1998. [2] Two weeks later, the President of the United States signed the Act into law. [3]

The DMCA was originally designed to implement the Copyright Treaty [4] that was signed in December 1996 at a World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) conference held in Geneva. However, the DMCA goes far beyond the requirements of the WIPO, and adds criminal and civil provisions against the development, sale, trafficking , or even discussion of methods and tools to reverse-engineer or circumvent any technology used to protect copyright. As an effect on the DMCA, it is no longer possible in the academic community to openly study and discuss usage control and digital watermarking technologies.

As of this writing, the DMCA is under legal challenge in several U.S. courts. Grounds for the challenges include the claim that it imposes prior restraint on speech and writing, which is a violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Nevertheless, the DMCA has strong influence on other countries , and many governments are trying to put in place similar legislation.

[2] http://www.loc.gov/copyright/legislation/hr2281.pdf

[3] The DMCA was signed by the former President Clinton.

[4] The text of the WIPO Copyright Treaty is available, for example, at http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/iclp/wipo1.html.




Security Technologies for the World Wide Web
Security Technologies for the World Wide Web, Second Edition
ISBN: 1580533485
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 142
Authors: Rolf Oppliger

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