This was a paper I wrote for the third year of my Computer Science bachelor degree in 2004. It’s obviously relatively old now, but the DMCA still exists and I thought I might post it here – researching the paper was how I was introduced to the DMCA, and I was reminded of it when posting the previous article on a new Swedish law
With the advent of the ‘information age’, unauthorised reproduction of copyrighted works has become far easier. The tools to reproduce such material in any desired form are freely available, as are tools to distribute this material to others all over the world. Piracy is commonplace, with use of interned-based file sharing systems such as Kazaa and eDonkey becoming vastly widespread. 2003 revealed software piracy losses of $341 million AUD in Australia, and $6,496 million AUD in the United States (Australian Institute of Criminology).
In an environment where, feasibly, only one individual needs to purchase a copy of a work to enable the whole world to gain access, various industries – such as the music, film and software industries – are growing increasingly concerned.
An international treaty drafted by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), defined a requirement that participating parties “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…” (WIPO Copyright Treaty, Article 11). In order to implement this requirement, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was signed into U.S. law on October 28, 1998.
The controversial act, labeled by some as unconstitutional and a threat to public liberty and free speech, states that “No person shall circumvent a technological protection measure that effectively controls access to a (protected work)” (DMCA, Section 103). It constitutes a protection of software that restricts access to copyrighted material, and outlaws any effort to circumvent this software.
Since coming into effect, the DMCA has been frequently drawn upon for purposes outside of the original expected scope of the Act. In several instances, it has been used by companies to suppress the publication of research into security flaws in their products. Prominent security and cryptology researchers are now choosing to leave their fields out of fear of the DMCA, and security conferences are leaving the U.S. for safer countries.
The DMCA has been used by Sony to maintain a monopoly over production of Playstation console games, Adobe and the U.S. Government have attacked a Russian company for writing software that enables eBooks to be read on braille displays, and a student has been taken to court after submitting a post online explaining that holding down the Shift key disables copy protection on some audio CD’s.
Contrary to the expectations of Congress, the DMCA, as stated by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, “Chills free expression and scientific research”, “jeopardizes fair use”, and “impedes competition and innovation” (EFF, ‘Five Years under the DMCA’).
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Mandatory internet filtering in Australia
This is copied from an email I recently sent out to everyone in my address book
Mandatory internet filtering – I actually thought this issue was over with, but it appears I was wrong.
If you’re not already aware of the issue (which is probably unlikely), there’s a factsheet from GetUp
The latest news here is that the secret blacklist (which is secret – Freedom of Information laws have been modified to deny any kind of public oversight) has been leaked, and contains all kinds of nasty stuff, but also a fair amount of relatively benign stuff: “a slew of online poker sites, YouTube links, regular gay and straight porn sites, Wikipedia entries, euthanasia sites, websites of fringe religions such as satanic sites, fetish sites, Christian sites, the website of a tour operator and even a Queensland dentist.” The Age
The general concern is that this would be a secret, unaccountable system, a ‘loaded gun’ that could too-easily be subverted (Thailand’s internet content was originally intended just to filter out child pornography, but is now apparently used to silence sites that criticise the royal family). No western democracy has gone down this path before. Already it has been reported that there’s very little accountability to the blacklist administration process (“They have absolutely no review process whatsoever; the decision to ban content is final, and there is no judicial oversight. The decision is made by a single ACMA staffer, even someone part of a graduate process…” The Age)
That’s the worst of it – there’re other issues about the filter raising the cost of Internet access, and slowing down the Internet ‘up to 87%’.
GetUp has a petition in progress – I recommend that you sign it, if you feel so inclined:
If you’re as angry about this stuff as I am, I recommend writing a letter to Senator Conroy, as well (I wrote this one). His email address is minister@dbcde.gov.au.
Wikileaks, the website set up to hold documents submitted anonymously by whistleblowers, has apparently been brought to its knees by the huge number of requests from people looking at the leaked blacklist. Does anyone else find it hilarious that the very content the government has been trying to censor has now had a huge spotlight focused on it? Oh, man…
The summary on the Wikileaks page regarding the ACMA’s blacklist is worth a read, too. “…History shows that secret censorship systems, whatever their original intent, are invariably corrupted into anti-democratic behavior.”