The Digital Millennium Copyright Act Put to the Test
In 1998 Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to protect digital works. One provision of the Act is specifically designed to provide protection against circumvention of technological measures used by copyright owners to protect their works. Section 1201 of Title 17 of the United States Code states, in part: (A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. The prohibition contained in the preceding sentence shall take effect at the end of the 2-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this chapter. (
The prohibition contained in subparagraph (A) shall not apply to persons who are users of a copyrighted work which is in a particular class of works, if such persons are, or are likely to be in the succeeding 3-year period, adversely affected by virtue of such prohibition in their ability to make noninfringing uses of that particular class of works under this title, as determined under subparagraph (C). Thus, the law provides different levels of protection for circumvention of access to a protected work and for circumvention of copy protection technology on works which are otherwise accessible.
Along comes digg.com. The owners of digg.com have announced that they will no longer attempt to remove posts which provide the bypass code for copy protection on HD-DVDs despite the cease and desist letters they have received. Look for a Napsteresque battle. Will websites be able to avoid liability for publishing infromation that enables the public to pirate copyrighted materials? One thing is for sure, by using the code on his bolg, Digg's founder Kevin Rose probably did not help his company's case any.
The prohibition contained in subparagraph (A) shall not apply to persons who are users of a copyrighted work which is in a particular class of works, if such persons are, or are likely to be in the succeeding 3-year period, adversely affected by virtue of such prohibition in their ability to make noninfringing uses of that particular class of works under this title, as determined under subparagraph (C). Thus, the law provides different levels of protection for circumvention of access to a protected work and for circumvention of copy protection technology on works which are otherwise accessible.Along comes digg.com. The owners of digg.com have announced that they will no longer attempt to remove posts which provide the bypass code for copy protection on HD-DVDs despite the cease and desist letters they have received. Look for a Napsteresque battle. Will websites be able to avoid liability for publishing infromation that enables the public to pirate copyrighted materials? One thing is for sure, by using the code on his bolg, Digg's founder Kevin Rose probably did not help his company's case any.
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