[sklyarov-chicago] List of online resources to learn more about DMCA

Thu, 6 Sep 2001 12:03:58 -0500

This came in on August 10 from the patents mailing list maintained by
Greg Aharonian (http://www.bustpatents.com).

-- 
albert chin (china@thewrittenword.com)

-- snip snip

    --  LIST OF ONLINE RESOURCES TO LEARN MORE ABOUT DMCA

One of the members of the IEEE IP committee sent this out - it is an
interesting list of DMCA resources on the Internet.

                                      ====

    As we begin a discussion of copyright in the digital age and, in
particular, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, I'm providing some
background material for the discussions.  I'm including only the
applicable government documents, trying to avoid the propaganda from
both sides.

http://www.loc.gov/copyright/title17/92chap12.html  The
     anticircumvention and rights management provisions of the DMCA.

http://www.loc.gov/copyright/title17/92chap5.html#512  The service
     provider safe harbor provisions of the DMCA.

The legislative history of the DMCA:

  Senate Report 105-190  ftp://ftp.loc.gov/pub/thomas/cp105/sr190.txt
  House Report  105-551  ftp://ftp.loc.gov/pub/thomas/cp105/hr551.txt
                         ftp://ftp.loc.gov/pub/thomas/cp105/hr551p1.txt
                         ftp://ftp.loc.gov/pub/thomas/cp105/hr551p2.txt
  Conference Report      ftp://ftp.loc.gov/pub/thomas/cp105/hr796.txt

http://www.mpaa.org/Press/00-08117.pdf
    Universal City Studios v. Reimerdes, the only court decision discussing
    the DMCA anticircumvention provisions, now on appeal to the Second
    Circuit.

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/doc/ipnii/
     The 1995 Clinton Administration (primarily Bruce Lehman) White
     Paper "Intellectual Property and the National Information
     Infrastructure - The Report of the Working Group on Intellectual
     Property Rights"

http://www.wipo.int/treaties/ip/copyright/copyright.html
     The WIPO Copyright treaty, which contains the following two
provisions:

Article 11 - Obligations concerning Technological Measures

Contracting Parties shall provide adequate legal protection and effective 
legal remedies against the circumvention of effective technological 
measures that are used by authors in connection with the exercise of their 
rights under this Treaty or the Berne Convention and that restrict acts, in 
respect of their works, which are not authorized by the authors concerned 
or permitted by law.

Article 12 - Obligations concerning Rights Management Information
(1) Contracting Parties shall provide adequate and effective legal remedies 
against any person knowingly performing any of the following acts knowing, 
or with respect to civil remedies having reasonable grounds to know, that 
it will induce, enable, facilitate or conceal an infringement of any right 
covered by this Treaty or the Berne Convention:

    (i) to remove or alter any electronic rights management information 
without authority;
    (ii) to distribute, import for distribution, broadcast or communicate
to the public, without authority, works or copies of works knowing that 
electronic rights management information has been removed or altered 
without authority.

(2) As used in this Article, "rights management information" means 
information which identifies the work, the author of the work, the owner of 
any right in the work, or information about the terms and conditions of use 
of the work, and any numbers or codes that represent such information, when 
any of these items of information is attached to a copy of a work or 
appears in connection with the communication of a work to the public.

http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/dat/2001/l_167/l_16720010622en00100019.pdf 

Directive 2001/29/EC of The European Parliament and of The Council of
22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and
related rights in the information society.  The provisions like the DMCA are:

Article 6 - Obligations as to technological measures

1. Member States shall provide adequate legal protection against the 
circumvention of any effective technological measures, which the person 
concerned carries out in the knowledge, or with reasonable grounds to know, 
that he or she is pursuing that objective.

2. Member States shall provide adequate legal protection against the 
manufacture, import, distribution, sale, rental, advertisement for sale or 
rental, or possession for commercial purposes of devices, products or 
components or the provision of services which:
(a) are promoted, advertised or marketed for the purpose of circumvention 
of, or
(b) have only a limited commercially significant purpose or use other than 
to circumvent, or
(c) are primarily designed, produced, adapted or performed for the purpose 
of enabling or facilitating the circumvention of, any effective 
technological measures.

3. For the purposes of this Directive, the expression 'technological 
measures' means any technology, device or component that, in the normal 
course of its operation, is designed to prevent or restrict acts, in 
respect of works or other subject-matter, which are not authorised by the 
rightholder of any copyright or any right related to copyright as provided 
for by law or the sui generis right provided for in Chapter III of 
Directive 96/9/EC. Technological measures shall be deemed 'effective' where 
the use of a protected work or other subject-matter is controlled by the 
rightholders through application of an access control or protection 
process, such as encryption, scrambling or other transformation of the work 
or other subject-matter or a copy control mechanism, which achieves the 
protection objective.

Article 7 - Obligations concerning rights-management information

1. Member States shall provide for adequate legal protection against any 
person knowingly performing without authority any of the following acts:
(a) the removal or alteration of any electronic rights-management information;
(b) the distribution, importation for distribution, broadcasting, 
communication or making available to the public of works or other 
subject-matter protected under this Directive or under Chapter III of 
Directive 96/9/EC from which electronic rights-management information has 
been removed or altered without authority, if such person knows, or has 
reasonable grounds to know, that by so doing he is inducing, enabling, 
facilitating or concealing an infringement of any copyright or any rights 
related to copyright as provided by law, or of the sui generis right 
provided for in Chapter III of Directive 96/9/EC.

2. For the purposes of this Directive, the expression 'rights-management 
information' means any information provided by rightholders which 
identifies the work or other subject-matter referred to in this Directive 
or covered by the sui generis right provided for in Chapter III of 
Directive 96/9/EC, the author or any other rightholder, or information 
about the terms and conditions of use of the work or other subject-matter, 
and any numbers or codes that represent such information. whose services 
are used by a third party to infringe a copyright or related right.