DMCA and Students
Music Downloading
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act has several components of interest to students. The first concerns music sharing and downloading and the second makes anti-circumvention or even the discussion of anti-circumvention a felony criminal act.
According to copyright law, a person is able to make a personal copy for his or her own use. The problem comes with file sharing systems that use one's personal copies to share with other users. When the RIAA or a recording company, through their own checking software, finds a computer that has sharing activity, they may issue a Cease and Desist Order to the ISP provider. On campus, Cal Poly is the ISP provider, but off campus the ISP provider could be AOL, CompuServe, etc.
At Cal Poly and other universities eligible for "Safe Harbor" privileges, the student is advised to stop immediately. If the student complies, nothing further happens to the university or the student. Private ISP providers are required to name the "offenders" and the recording industry has been sending Cease and Desist notices and/or subpoenas directly to the individuals. Increasing pressures are being put on universities to also give up the names of individuals.
Anti-Circumvention
Anti -circumvention and the criminal penalty imposed by the DMCA are the other parts of the law of special interest to students and academia.
In order to control access to and control the making of copies, companies making CDs have resorted to copy protection devices embedded in the CD. The DMCA makes it illegal to circumvent the device, even if the copy is legal and the device itself is malfunctioning and does not permit the customer to play the CD.
However, the law is more extensive than just outlawing the disabling of an anti-copying device, and outlaws reverse engineering a coded (encrypted) computer security system, outlaws the distribution of a reverse engineering program, and outlaws the altering of a computer program or product works. How could this affect faculty and students? A good example is the case of a computer science professor at Princeton who was threatened with a lawsuit by the RIAA and SDMI if he presented a paper showing a successful reverse engineering program. In 1998, a group of computer security experts signed the WIPO Letter From the InfoSec Community letter concerned that the DMCA might "criminalize many current university courses and research in information security, and severely disrupt a growing American industry in information security technology."
Selected Web Sites for DMCA Information
- UCLA Online Institute for Cyberspace Law and Policy Digital Millennium Copyright Act
- This site gives an overview of the main points of the DMCA and a link to the full text of the DMCA.
- Electronic Frontier Foundation. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Archive
- The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is Internet civil liberties nonprofit organization based in San Francisco. The EFF has archived all major white papers, legal cases, articles, etc. in its efforts to "protect the public against the DMCA".
- RIAA
- Homepage of the recording industry, Recording Industry Association of America. Has their viewpoint in support of the DMCA and documents supporting their views. Reports on the effects of music piracy to the recording industry and to recording artists. Has an FAQ section on downloading and uploading music.
- Boycott-Riaa
- Rebuts RIAA arguments. Also provides background materials, links, news, and essays.
- Motion Picture Association of America Homepage
- The MPAA and their special Respectrights.org web site explain their support of the DMCA and their fight against movie piracy. Headed (until his recent retirement) by Jack Valenti, former special assistant to President Lyndon Johnson, the MPAA has been particularly effective in convincing U.S. Congressmen and Senators to vote for anti-piracy bills.
- Educause Current Issues: DMCA Guide
- Explains educational issues of the DMCA affecting libraries, teachers, classes and access for the disabled.
- Chilling Effects Clearinghouse
- Product of Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, University of San Francisco, and University of Maine Law School Clinics. Explains Internet copyright law. Publishes Internet Cease and Desist Letters to show direction of Internet copyright infringement complaints.
- New Media, New rights, and Your New Dissertation An online book by copyright guru Kenneth A. Crews at Indiana University that has been adopted as the standard by many research universities. Shortened and adapted versions are at these web sites:
