CS155a E Commerce Lecture 7 Sept 27 2001 Copyright Law DMCA and Online Content Distribution Acknowledgement V Ramachandran Provision For Copyright Law U S Constitution Article I Section 8 The Congress shall have Power Clause 8 To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries Question What is the ultimate purpose of copyright law Question What does exclusive right mean Limitations on Exclusive Rights 4 factors test for Fair Use Sec 107 The purpose and character of the use including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for non profit educational purposes The nature of the copyright work The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyright work as a whole The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors First Sale Rule Sec 109 When an owner sells a copy he relinquishes control over that copy but not the content The content cannot be reproduced illegally but the copy can be loaned sold or given to someone else Libraries Used book stores This works because physical entities are exchanged A person can t simultaneously give away and keep the same copy of a book Question Does this work for digital objects Consider the problem with software Copyright in the Analog World Copyright law controls copying Copying is a sensible concept for physical objects books records Copying is relatively hard Copies are often not perfect Private copying is limited and mass market copying is obvious Copy control is an effective means to an end Questions Does copying make sense in the digital world Is its regulation natural Copying in the Digital World Copying is an integral and natural part of computer operations Digital objects are easy to copy Relatively little cost and little time involved Copies can be of perfect quality A copied version can be indistinguishable and untraceable Questions Can we control digital copying If so what rights does this control give authors and inventors Are these the same exclusive rights that existing copyright law grants Other Relevant Issues Fair Use is a Defense Could a good TPS render it moot Private use copying may be harder to keep private in the digital world Private use modification needs to be considered For example do Linux users have the right to view DVDs for which they have paid full price Digital Video Disks DVDs Developed by movie studios and consumer electronics companies in 1995 Compatible with CDs Same size and thickness as CDs Up to 25 times the storage capacity as CDs TPS for DVDs includes CSS encryption content scrambling system R W able copy control marks e g copy freely one copy no copies Macrovision analog copy protection Other ingredients Studios Overall IP Management Strategy Use TPS to keep honest people honest Assume temporarily that lack of bandwidth will prevent large scale Internet distribution of movies Use courts aggressively to punish alleged violators of existing copyright laws and lobby heavily for new laws that favor rights holders Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998 Illegal except under narrowly defined special circumstances to circumvent effective technological protection measures Illegal to distribute circumvention tools Gives content owners a property right in TPS as well as the content that the TPS protects In SAT terms circumvention is to infringement as breaking and entering is to burglary Examples of Allowed Circumventions Nonprofits may circumvent to shop Law enforcement and intelligence agencies Reverse engineering to achieve interoperability Encryption research The researcher has to make a good faith effort to obtain authorization Protection of personally identifying information Techies Objection to DMCA What is an effective technological protection measure If a skilled hacker can break it is it effective If an average computer literate person can break it but few do is it effective Weakens incentives for content owners to pay for good IP management technology Shifts costs from content owners to society at large by shifting responsibility from TPSs to courts and police Exceptions for R D are vague DMCA vs Copyright Violations Questions What does the DMCA actually do to existing copyright law What happens to fair use Are there differences between violations of copyright law and violations of the DMCA DeCSS Violates DMCA DeCSS is software that reads CSSscrambled video from a DVD and writes unscrambled MPEG 2 video In effect DeCSS circumvents the TPS for DVDs Question Is CSS an effective copyprotection mechanism DeCSS Violates DMCA continued Magazine that published the DeCSS algorithm got sued Question Is this different from a reputable journal publishing research Question Is DeCSS different from a regular DVD player Questions Does DeCSS fit under any of the DMCA exceptions Where is the copyright violation Adobe eBook Processor Violates DMCA Adobe established one format for electronic books the eBook To use eBooks purchase and download them and view them using a special reader Adobe eBook software The eBook format contains provisions for publisher controls on Text to speech processing Copying to another device or making a backup Translating between formats Adobe eBook Processor Violates DMCA continued ElcomSoft a Russian company created AEBPR the eBook Processor AEBPR translates eBooks to Adobe PDF Software available for purchase on ElcomSoft s website and through a U S firm RegNow used for handling payments Dimitri Sklyarov one of the designers presented his methods at DEF CON a conference in the U S ElcomSoft s Product Webpage http www elcomsoft com prs html Adobe eBook Processor Violates DMCA continued Sklyarov was arrested for violating the DMCA by circumventing Adobe s protection built into the eBook format Question Does it matter that Sklyarov was working for a company Question Does it matter that the company is Russian and that its software is legal in Russia Adobe eBook Processor Violates DMCA continued Question Does the software simply allow fair use that was prevented by Adobe s format Does that even matter People can make backups of eBooks they bought and don t want to lose People can transfer copies to their laptop or handheld People with visual impairments can have the computer