2 Comments for What Effect Has The Digital Millennium Copyright Act Had On Fair Use?

• 1. Steadima  |  July 8th, 2009 at 9:32 am

  The DMCA is bad law. It offers some protections to content providers perhaps but went to far. One the worst provisions and also one of the most criticized is the issue of encryption. The DMCA made it illegal to break the encryption of digital material. Creating tools (software or hardware) to break it is also illegal. Just having the tools or linking to sites that provide them is also prohibited. This has a substantial effect on fair use. Fair use allows copying for various purposes (a separate discussion). Fair use is a check and balance on copyright law. Also, while copyright lasts a long time, it does ultimately end and material falls into the public domain.
  Enter the DMCA. Now, content creators can simply lock up their material by adding encryption. So, you might be allowed to copy something for educational purposes or a backup or copy something completely that’s in the public domain but you can’t because it’s illegal to decrypt it to get at it in the first place. It’s a problem that lawmakers are beginning to realize -at least a little- as they just made an allowance for professors to assemble material from DVD’s for educational purposes.
  There may be challenges to this aspect of the law in the future as the logic of it violates the constitution – which says copyright shall be limited. If the encryption lasts forever, and it’s illegal to break the encryption then it sort of follows that it’s being protected forever. Note: I am not a lawyer.

• 2. Terry  |  July 8th, 2009 at 2:13 pm

  It significantly damaged the application of fair use. The DMCA makes it illegal to copy a DVD that you have purchased if it has copy protection software built into it. Previously you were allowed to copy as a backup or to use on other media, any recording you had purchased, provided you did not use the copy to broadcast the content, or to sell/give away to others.

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