[NetBehaviour] Internet Archive Helps Secure Exemption To The Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
marc
marc.garrett at furtherfield.org
Fri Dec 1 13:26:25 CET 2006
Internet Archive Helps Secure Exemption To The Digital Millennium
Copyright Act.
Thanks to the hard work of two great law school students of Peter Jaszi
of American University, Jieun Kim and Doug Agopsowicz, the Internet
Archive and other libraries may continue to preserve software and video
game titles without fear of going to jail. This is a happy moment, but
on the other hand this exception is so limited it leaves the overall
draconian nature of the DMCA in effect. A total of more than $50,000 of
pro-bono lawyer time has been spent to just affect this exemption and
its continuation. We hope that Congress, and other governments, will
pass more balanced copyright laws to allow at least libraries, archives,
research and scholarship to flourish without the current dark clouds of
litigation.
More formally, Internet Archive has successfully advocated for an
exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”). The DMCA
prohibits circumvention of technological measures employed by or on
behalf of copyright owners to protect their works (“access controls”).
Specifically, 17 U.S.C. §1201(a)(1)(A) provides, in part, that “No
person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively
controls access to a work protected under this title.” In order to
ensure that the public will have continued ability to engage in
noninfringing uses of copyrighted works, such as fair use, subparagraph
(B) limits this prohibition. It provides that the prohibition against
circumvention “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 three-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
in a rulemaking proceeding.
more...
http://www.archive.org/iathreads/post-view.php?id=82097
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