DMCA: March 2007 Archives

I heard Lessig talk here in Austin a few weeks ago and he said at that time that he expected Section 512's fundamental deal, not just the subpoena provision, to be attacked by the content community in the next year. He also cautioned that the ISPs were not as organized on this issue as the content industries were, and he thought it possible that basic limitations on liability could go down unless they did get organized. In this NY Times Op-Ed piece, Make Way for Copyright Chaos - New York Times, he notes that not only can the battle take place before Congress, but increasingly, before the Supreme Court. That's what Viacom is asking the courts to do: adjust the deal that everyone was happy with in 1998, but that Viacom no longer likes today.

What seems equally disturbing to me is that these are pretty brutal tactics for what was fundamentally a negotiation of the relative values of content and promotion on the Web. This is all about a business model, probably one that won't even be relevant in a few years given the fast pace of change online.

Putting a much finer point on it than I did yesterday, Larry Downes compares the escalating efforts to rein in file sharing to various revolutions of the past: The revolution will be televised...on YouTube | Stanford Center for Internet and Society. He admits he's jet-lagged as he writes this, but that's one of the interesting things about being able to blog from anywhere at any time. Our first reactions are a lot more colorful than our polished drafts. I, for one, appreciate seeing the color from time to time, especially about a subject that can be as gray as copyright.

Microsoft has made headlines a lot lately. The release of Vista, a new Book Search interface, a scathing attack on Google earlier this week before an AAP gathering in NY, and now, this NY Times article, Searching for Michael Jordan? Microsoft Wants a Better Way - New York Times, featuring Microsoft's efforts to improve its statute in the world of online search.

I saw an interesting connection among these headlines. I've been reading about how Vista packs the biggest DRM accommodating punch of any operating system ever (Google search on something like Vista drm to get a feel for the commentary), the speech before the AAP painted Google as cavalier about copyright and MS as totally supportive of the publishing industry, and the stats in the NY Times piece show that Microsoft is near the bottom of the heap regarding the use of, and lack of recent growth of, its search features.

These pieces look like parts of a very aggressive campaign to claw its way out of its own 20th Century niche, taking no prisoners, no holds barred. It has all the hallmarks of a political campaign, including the mudslinging. Tim O'Reilly chides MS and insists it is bigger than this, that we expect more out of a player of this size. Larry Lessig believes MS is just plain wrong about Google's cavalier attitude. I certainly agree with Lessig's sentiments, but as for whether we can expect more from MS, I don't know. Perhaps MS is just as much a victim of its business model as Holly wood and the publishers are of theirs (O'Reilly's comments again, in another entry)?

I wonder whether in working together as they must have, to implement such powerful DRM controls in Vista, whether they may actually impair their own progress towards more efficient business models in the future. In fact, I often think about DRM in the context of the old adage, "give them enough rope and they'll hang themselves." Many of the commentaries about Vista's DRM suggest that it's like a suicide note... Only time will tell.

Evan Brown has a succinct explanation of the various parts of the new FAIR USE Act, the bill introduced in Congress last week that would make several changes to the anti-circumvention provisions to allow certain uses that have become problematic over the 8 years those provisions have been in place: InternetCases.com -- Evan Brown, Chicago intellectual property and Internet attorney. He provides a link to the bill so you can read along as he explains.

He also points out 2 problems with the bill, but not the biggest problem of all -- its likelihood, or lack there of, of getting passed. Still, this bill in some form or another has been and I bet, will continue to be introduced in every legislative session until some day, anti-circumvention is going to be modified in some ways. It may not happen until those who use DRM have given up on it in favor of other business models...

The RIAA threw down the gauntlet to their partners in fighting copyright infringement this week. Illegal downloads of MP3 files have been a problem for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). In a highly debated strategy which was commenced this past week, the RIAA has asked colleges and universities to forward a letter to students as a prequel to the RIAA filing suit against the student. Litigation against the student could only commence once the RIAA has filed a John Doe lawsuit to obtain the identity of a student, but this is not made clear in the RIAA letter. The identity of the student could only be produced if the school has retained the computer logs long enough to allow them to match a time, date, and IP address with the alleged act of infringement.

To date, colleges and universities have been good partners in the battle against illegal downloads, doing their best to educate students about copyright infringement and encouraging the students to use legal music download services such as iTunes. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) schools that provide internet service to their students are granted immunity from charges of copyright infringement if they are merely acting as a conduit. In order to retain this immunity, the schools as Internet Service Providers are required to educate their users about copyright law, and to also have a policy in place to deal with repeat infringers of copyright law.