IEEE-USA Intellectual Property Committee

DIGITAL MILLENNIUM COPYRIGHT ACT
(DMCA) ARCHIVE

Legislative | Judicial | Executive Branch | International

The following is a collection of reference materials related to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, provided for the information of IEEE-USA Intellectual Property Committee and other interested IEEE members.

Legislative Materials

DMCA Anticircumvention and rights management provisions
http://www.loc.gov/copyright/title17/92chap12.html

DMCA service provider and safe harbor provisions
http://www.loc.gov/copyright/title17/92chap5.html#512

DMCA legislative history:

Senate Report 105-190
ftp://ftp.loc.gov/pub/thomas/cp105/sr190.txt 

House Report 105-551
ftp://ftp.loc.gov/pub/thomas/cp105/hr551.txt
ftp://ftp.loc.gov/pub/thomas/cp105/hr551p1.txt
ftp://ftp.loc.gov/pub/thomas/cp105/hr551p2.txt

Conference Report
ftp://ftp.loc.gov/pub/thomas/cp105/hr796.txt

Judicial Materials

• Universal City Studios v. Reimerdes (D.Ct. SDNY)
  http://www.mpaa.org/Press/00-08117.pdf 

The only court decision discussing the DMCA anticircumvention provisions, now on appeal to the Second Circuit.

Executive Branch Materials

The 1995 Clinton Administration (primarily Bruce Lehman) White Paper "Intellectual Property and the National Information Infrastructure - The Report of the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights"

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/doc/ipnii/

National Telecommunications and Information Administration (U.S. Dept. of Commerce)
http://www.ntia.doc.gov

• Report to Congress: Study Examining 17 U.S.C. Sections 109 and 117 
  Pursuant to Section 104 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
  http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/occ/dmca2001/cover.htm

U.S. Copyright Office
http://www.loc.gov/copyright

• The Copyright Office DMCA Sec. 104 study (Evaluation of the Impact of Copyright Law and Amendments On Electronic Commerce and Technological Development)
  http://www.loc.gov/copyright/reports/studies/dmca/dmca_study.html
• The joint Copyright Office/Department of Commerce study on the effect of the DMCA on encryption research.
  http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/reports/studies/

• The Library of Congress rulemaking on permissible circumvention devices under the DMCA.
  http://www.loc.gov/copyright/1201/anticirc.html

• The joint Copyright Office/Department of Commerce study on Section 109 (first sale) and 117 (computer programs) for digital works (note:  report was to be submitted to Congress on May 1, 2001; at the present time no report has been submitted).
  http://www.loc.gov/copyright/reports/studies/dmca/dmca_study.html

• Testimony of the Register of Copyrights before the House Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property on September 16, 1997, regarding the bills that became the DMCA.
  http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/docs/2180_stat.html

International Materials

• The WIPO Copyright treaty
  http://www.wipo.int/treaties/ip/copyright/copyright.html

The WIPO contains the following two provisions: 

Article 11 - Obligations concerning Technological Measures Contracting Parties shall 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 or the Berne Convention and that restrict acts, in respect of their works, which are not authorized by the authors concerned or permitted by law.

Article 12 - Obligations concerning Rights Management Information:

(1) Contracting Parties shall provide adequate and effective legal remedies against any person knowingly performing any of the following acts knowing, or with respect to civil remedies having reasonable grounds to know, that it will induce, enable, facilitate or conceal an infringement of any right covered by this Treaty or the Berne Convention: (i) to remove or alter any electronic rights management information without authority; (ii) to distribute, import for distribution, broadcast or communicate to the public, without authority, works or copies of works knowing that electronic rights management information has been removed or altered without authority.

(2) As used in this Article, "rights management information" means information which identifies the work, the author of the work, the owner of any right in the work, or information about the terms and conditions of use of the work, and any numbers or codes that represent such information, when any of these items of information is attached to a copy of a work or appears in connection with the communication of a work to the public.

The European Parliament and The Council
http://europa.eu.int/index_en.htm

• Directive 2001/29/EC of The European Parliament and of The Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society. 
  http://europa.eu.int/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexapi!prod!CELEXnumdoc&lg=EN&numdoc=32001L0029&model=guichett

The provisions like the DMCA are: 

Article 6 - Obligations as to technological measures:

1. Member States shall provide adequate legal protection against the circumvention of any effective technological measures, which the person concerned carries out in the knowledge, or with reasonable grounds to know, that he or she is pursuing that objective. 

2. Member States shall provide adequate legal protection against the manufacture, import, distribution, sale, rental, advertisement for sale or rental, or possession for commercial purposes of devices, products or components or the provision of services which: (a) are promoted, advertised or marketed for the purpose of circumvention of, or (b) have only a limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent, or (c) are primarily designed, produced, adapted or performed for the purpose of enabling or facilitating the circumvention of, any effective technological measures. 

3. For the purposes of this Directive, the expression 'technological measures' means any technology, device or component that, in the normal course of its operation, is designed to prevent or restrict acts, in respect of works or other subject-matter, which are not authorised by the rightholder of any copyright or any right related to copyright as provided for by law or the sui generis right provided for in Chapter III of Directive 96/9/EC. Technological measures shall be deemed 'effective' where the use of a protected work or other subject-matter is controlled by the rightholders through application of an access control or protection process, such as encryption, scrambling or other transformation of the work or other subject-matter or a copy control mechanism, which achieves the protection objective. 

Article 7 - Obligations concerning rights-management information:

1. Member States shall provide for adequate legal protection against any person knowingly performing without authority any of the following acts: (a) the removal or alteration of any electronic rights-management information; (b) the distribution, importation for distribution, broadcasting, communication or making available to the public of works or other subject-matter protected under this Directive or under Chapter III of Directive 96/9/EC from which electronic rights-management information has been removed or altered without authority, if such person knows, or has reasonable grounds to know, that by so doing he is inducing, enabling, facilitating or concealing an infringement of any copyright or any rights related to copyright as provided by law, or of the sui generis right provided for in Chapter III of Directive 96/9/EC. 

2. For the purposes of this Directive, the expression 'rights-management information' means any information provided by rightholders which identifies the work or other subject-matter referred to in this Directive or covered by the sui generis right provided for in Chapter III of Directive 96/9/EC, the author or any other rightholder, or information about the terms and conditions of use of the work or other subject-matter, and any numbers or codes that represent such information. whose services are used by a third party to infringe a copyright or related right.

• Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000 on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market ('Directive on electronic commerce')
  http://europa.eu.int/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexapi!prod!CELEXnumdoc&lg=EN&numdoc=32000L0031&model=guichett

Key Contacts

Chair:  Lee Hollaar, hollaar@cs.utah.edu
Staff:  Bill Williams, bill.williams@ieee.org