US Intellectual Property Law » Digital Millennium Copyright Act http://www.iplawintheus.com Copyrights, Trademarks, and Patents Mon, 28 Feb 2011 21:38:15 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 Digital Millennium Copyright Act http://www.iplawintheus.com/digital-millennium-copyright-act/ http://www.iplawintheus.com/digital-millennium-copyright-act/#comments Sat, 14 Nov 2009 04:36:05 +0000 Andrew http://www.iplawintheus.com/digital-millennium-copyright-act/ Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a post from: US Intellectual Property Law

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What is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)?

In October of 1998, two treaties of the WIPO, or World Intellectual Property Organization, were implemented into the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA. This act was voted, unanimously, into effect by the senate, and then signed into law by then-US President Bill Clinton.

The purpose of the act was to extend the reach of copyright laws so as to protect works distributed through the internet, though it also served to limit the liability that providers of online services can suffer for the actions of their users.

So for example, services like Limewire are completely legal. With Limwire, users can trade copyright protected content, even en masse, with thousands of people downloading a single illegal file. By the ruling of the DMCA, the owners of Limwire are not really liable for legal action, and the actual software itself is one hundred percent legal.

Why?

Because Limewire isn’t necessarily for the trading of copyright protected material, rather, Limewire is merely a channel where users can either trade legitimate, open source material, material that they own the copyright to, or… illegal material. Outlawing Limewire would violate personal liberties. Think of it like an alleyway. An alleyway might be home to muggers and thieves, but that’s not the alleyway’s fault. If someone wanted to outlaw alleyways, they’d be laughed out of Washington. We need alleyways for too many practical purposes, just as we can use Limewire for practical, legal, legitimate purposes. Whether the majority of users use Limewire to steal music or not is beside the point. Outlawing file sharing would not stop pirating of software or media, but it would stomp on the personal liberties of people who use Limewire and similar programs to legitimate ends.

The DMCA also goes on to protect certain people who need to copy data for legal, practical reasons, whether that data is copyright protected or not. For example, anyone repairing a computer is free to back all of that computer’s data up on a temporary drive so as to preserve important files in the event that the original computer’s hard drive gets fried or otherwise loses all of its essential data and software.

It’s interesting to note that certain parts of the law aren’t really finalized yet. For example: Linking to infringing content.

The DMCA is still undecided as to the legality of linking to content which infringes upon a copyright. For example, a website that focuses on the emulation of video games is allowed to provide emulators, which are not copyright infringing upon the original video game systems, but most will not provide links to websites which provide illegal ROM files of copyright protected video games for those systems.

In a number of lower-court decisions, we have seen the courts ruling against the website owner who links to infringing content, however, only within a fairly narrowly prescribed circumstance. One such incident where a website owner may be liable is when the website owner has been sent a warning or a cease and desist order already. Another instance would be when the files which the owner links to are designed for illegal purposes, such as to circumvent copy-prevention programs. Similarly, many websites, as their sole purpose, will link to copyright protected content so as to bypass copyright protection (ie, a website which does nothing but link to illegal copies of video game ROMs).

It’s interesting to note that people had actually been trading copyright protected files back and forth via the internet for years before any law was firmly in place. It’s said that technology moves much faster than the law. Likewise, record companies were pretty slow to catch on to the idea of using the internet to distribute music in a matter of seconds, and at reduced prices. Only now are we really seeing record companies picking up on this literal gold mine, over ten years after online music distribution came into popularity with independent musicians and media pirates.

Of course, let’s be clear on this; that the law was slow to figure out what was going on, and that music companies were slow to figure out how to capitalize on it, does not really justify copyright infringement. Wherever you stand on the ethics of copying and trading content without the copyright owner’s permission, you have to admit that that should hold true to your stance on trading content on the internet, too, no matter what the law says.

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