Overview of the legal provisions


Enacted in 1998, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) responded to the exigency of increasing copyright infractions, particularly due to the growing ease of information sharing. In essence, it functions as an extension of copyright law and was incorporated into Title 17 of the U.S. Code. The legislation is divided into five titles, the first of which implements two treaties from the 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and includes the infamous provisions that proscribe circumvention. The second title addresses the liability of internet service providers, while the third exempts copies of computer programs for computer maintenance. Title IV covers a number of miscellaneous copyright issues, including those related to education; and finally, Title V establishes the “Vessel Hull Design Protection Act”, creating new standards for the design of vessel hulls (U.S. Copyright Office). Hotly contested by groups claiming that sharing restrictions hinder advancements, the DMCA was implemented with the intention of protecting the rights of copyright owners. The DMCA has played a large role in the prosecution of piracy cases, as the internet has spawned numerous websites illegally distributing films, television shows, music and software; even vidding, which involves an individual publishing a set of selected clips to a soundtrack, has come under scrutiny.


 

Provision I-WIPO Copyright and Performances and Phonograms Treaties Implementation Act of 1998

 

The DMCA’s first provision, entitled the “WIPO Copyright and Performances and Phonograms Treaties Implementation Act of 1998” contains two parts, the second of which is considered the most controversial component of the DMCA. The first section modified U.S. copyright law to include works produced in the countries that participated in the WIPO Copyright Treaty caucus held in December 1996 (think.org). WIPO is a specialized agency of the United Nations and according to its mission statement is "dedicated to developing a balanced and accessible international intellectual property system, which rewards creativity, stimulates innovation and contributes to economic development while safeguarding the public interest." These additions merely added technical definitions and references to the treaties within the text.

 

The second section contains the so-called “anti-circumvention” provisions (wikipedia.org). According to the text of the legislation, circumvention is defined as descrambling a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner”(Harvard). There are two types of security measures that copyright owners may employ, both of which are addressed under this provision, and are illegal to circumvent. The first of which is an access control, which is defined as something that must be bypassed to obtain access to a work, like a password or encryption. Not only is it a violation to circumvent access controls, but also to provide tools to others that would help them do this (like linking to a site, bypassing a log-in screen, or distributing passwords). The second is a copy control, which involves whether a protected material can be copied, how many copies can be made, and how long you can have possession of the work. The DMCA prohibits the manufacture and distribution of programs that can circumvent copy control securities; however, it is oddly not a direct violation of the DMCA to engage in the act of circumventing copy controls, but that falls under traditional copyright law. These provisions thus attempt to protect copyright owners and prevent the unauthorized duplication of copyrighted material. According to an August 2004 paper published by the Congressional Budget Office that addressed copyright issues in digital media, “Like the purchaser of a movie ticket, an Internet consumer would have to obtain the copyright owner’s authorization to view the movie by paying for the decryption key needed to view the digitized video file” (Congressional). The DMCA also forbids the manufacturing or trafficking of products that are designed to elude technologies designed to protect copyrighted material. The enactment of this statute resulted in the necessity to change numerous products in order to make them compliant. For example, within 18 months of the DMCA’s ratification, all analog videocassette recorders had to be designed in accordance with Macrovision technologies, which prevented unauthorized copying of analog videocassettes and some analog signals (U.S. Copyright Office).

 

Exemptions

Like most statutes, exceptions to the anti-circumvention rules exist, though each has a lengthy set of conditions that must be met in order to be legally exempt. To begin, law enforcement, intelligence-seeking and other circumvention acts deemed necessary by the government are acceptable (MIT). Furthermore, nonprofit library, archive and educational institutions are typically exempt, as are reverse engineering efforts, which would involve an individual lawfully obtaining a right to use a copy of a computer program in order to ensure it can concurrently run with other software. In order to identify vulnerabilities in online encryption, it may be necessary to try superseding the encryption; thus, such research would be tolerable under Title I. Furthermore, courts are granted the ability to circumvent protection measures that are necessary in protecting minors or to block technologies that may be collecting personal data about individuals. Finally, if an individual is testing the security of computers and has prior authorization, circumvention, or hacking, of access would be acceptable. Every 3 years, the Library of Congress is required to reexamine these exemptions to ensure that circumvention measures are not preventing the "fair use" of copyrighted work. On Nov. 27, 2006, the Library of Congress published its most recent exemptions (the largest number enacted yet); therefore a full list follows, with the newest additions italicized:

 

 

 

 

Punishment for violating Title I

Copyright owners could file a civil lawsuit in federal court if the misuse of their protected property is covered under the DMCA. A plaintiff could potentially acquire a monetary settlement in addition to statutory damages if the judge rules in his or her favor. Defendants could face imprisonment or stiff fines up to $500,000 for first offenses and $1,000,000 thereafter (MIT).

 

 

Provision II-Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA)

 

This section benefits online service providers, OSPs, freeing them from paying monetary damages if they are compliant with the removal of content, made available through them alleged to be a copyright infringement (wikipedia.org). In addition to granting them immunity from the innocuous transmission of copyrighted material, an OSP cannot be held legally responsible for the storage or linkage to such material, unless they refuse to remove it (MIT). In order to obtain this “safe harbor”, an OSP must follow a set of outlined procedures, involving an immediate removal, dubbed a “take down”, of the alleged copyright-infringing materials, notifying the responsible of its removal and disclosing the identity of the offenders to the copyright owner if issued a subpoena (Harvard). An example of how the takedown procedures would work follows (wikipedia.org):

 

  1. Alice puts a copy of Bob's song on her AOL-hosted website.
  2. two Bob, searching the Internet, finds Alice's copy.
  3. three Bob, searching the Internet, finds Alice's copy.
  4. four Charlie, Bob's lawyer, sends a letter to AOL's designated agent (registered with the Copyright Office) including:

 

 

  1. five AOL takes the song down.
  2. six AOL tells Alice that they have taken the song down.
  3. seven Alice now has the option of sending a counter-notice to AOL, if she feels the song was taken down unfairly. The notice includes

 

 

 

Provision III-Computer Maintenance Competition Assurance Act

 

This provision is essentially a modification of pre-existing copyright law, allowing those who repair computers the ability to make ephemeral copies of software while working on the machine. It is assumed that the copies are only kept as long as necessary and destroyed afterwards.

 

Provision IV-Miscellaneous Provisions

 

According to the MIT Office of Intellectual Property Counsel, Title IV “contains six miscellaneous provisions, relating to the functions of the Copyright Office, distance education, exceptions in the Copyright Act for libraries and for making ephemeral recordings, "webcasting" of sound recordings on the Internet, and the applicability of collective bargaining agreement obligations in the case of transfers of rights in motion pictures.” Again, these provisions clarified and added to pre-existing copyright law.

 

Provision V-Vessel Hull Design Protection Act” (VHDPA)

 

This provision is interesting because it relates to specifically the drafting of boat hull designs. While it does not seem to fit the context of the intellectual property addressed in the previous titles, it indeed has a place within the DMCA, as such designs were not covered within previous copyright law and demanded protection for owners. According to the U.S. Copyright Office summary, “A design is protected under the VHDPA as soon as a useful article embodying the design is made public or a registration for the design is published.”1 An application for protection must be made within two years of the initial public appearance, and after approval, the design will remain protected for 10 years.