World-Information.Org

Recent "Digital Copyright" Legislation: U.S.

DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act)

The debates in the House and Senate preceding the signing into law of the DMCA by U.S. President Clinton in October 1998 indicated that the principal object of the Act is to promote the U.S. economy by establishing an efficient Internet marketplace in copyrighted works. The DMCA implements the two 1996

WIPO treaties (WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty and

WIPO Copyright Treaty) and addresses a variety of issues that arose with the increased availability of content in digital form. The Act 1) creates a series of "safe harbor" defenses (which are subject to a variety of conditions that must be met) for certain common activities of ISPs (Internet Service Provider), 2) bars the circumvention of

technological protection measures that protect copyrighted works, 3) prohibits the distribution or provision of false

copyright management information with the intent to induce or conceal infringement, 4) establishes an exemption for making a copy of a computer program for purposes of maintenance or repair, and 5) contains provisions concerning the "webcasting" of sound recordings on the Internet and the making of (digital) copies of copyrighted works by nonprofit libraries and archives.

A full-text version of the DMCA is available from:
The Library of Congress: Thomas (Legislative Information on the Internet):

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/z?cp105:hr796:

Moreover the U.S. Copyright Office provides a memorandum, which briefly summarizes each of the five titles of the DMCA (pdf format):

http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/legislation/dmca.pdf

The DMCA has been criticized for not clarifying the range of legal principles on the liability of ISPs and creating exceptions to only some of the provisions; therefore giving copyright owners even more rights.

Among the variety of comments on the DMCA are:

Lutzker, Arnold P.: Primer on the Digital Millennium: What the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Copyright Term Extension Act Mean for the Library Community.

http://www.arl.org/info/frn/copy/primer.html

Lutzker & Lutzker law firm and the Association of Research Libraries: The Digital Millennium Copyright Act: Highlights of New Copyright Provision Establishing Limitation of Liability for Online Service Providers.

http://www.arl.org/info/frn/copy/osp.html

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How the Internet works

On the Internet, when you want to retrieve a document from another computer, you request a service from this computer. Your computer is the client, the computer on which the information you want to access is stored, is called the

server. Therefore the Internet's architecture is called client-server architecture.

A common set of standards allows the exchange of data and commands independent from locations, time, and operating systems through the Internet. These standards are called communication protocols, or the Internet Protocol Suite, and are implemented in Internet software. Sometimes the Internet Protocol Suite is erroneously identified with

TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol).

Any information to be transferred is broken down into pieces, so-called packets, and the Internet Protocol figures out how the data is supposed to get from A to B by passing through routers.

Each packet is "pushed" from router to router via

gateways and might take a different route. It is not possible to determine in advance which ways these packets will take. At the receiving end the packets are checked and reassembled.

The technique of breaking down all messages and requests into packets has the advantage that a large data bundle (e.g. videos) sent by a single user cannot block a whole network, because the

bandwidth needed is deployed on several packets sent on different routes. Detailed information about routing in the Internet can be obtained at

http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/~jphb/comms/iproute.html.

One of the Internet's (and of the Matrix's) beginnings was the

ARPANet, whose design was intended to withstand any disruption, as for example in military attacks. The ARPANet was able to route data around damaged areas, so that the disruption would not impede communication. This design, whith its origin in strategic and military considerations, remained unchanged for the Internet. Yet the design of the ARPANet's design cannot be completely applied to the Internet.

Routing around depends on the location of the interruption and on the availability of intersecting points between networks. If, for example, an E-mail message is sent from Brussels to Athens and in Germany a channel is down, it will not affect access very much, the message will be routed around this damage, as long as a major Internet exchange is not affected. However, if access depends on a single backbone connection to the Internet and this connection is cut off, there is no way to route around.

In most parts of the world the Internet is therefore vulnerable to disruption. "The idea of the Internet as a highly distributed, redundant global communications system is a myth. Virtually all communications between countries take place through a very small number of bottlenecks, and the available bandwidth isn't that great," says Douglas Barnes. These bottlenecks are the network connections to neighboring countries. Many countries rely on a one single connection to the Net, and in some places, such as the Suez Canal, there is a concentration of fiber-optic cables of critical importance.

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Post-infringement technologies allow the owners of copyrighted works to identify infringements and thus enhance enforcement of

intellectual property

rights and encompass systems such as:

Steganography

Applied to electronic files, steganography refers to the process of hiding information in files that can not be easily detected by users. Steganography can be used by intellectual property owners in a variety of ways. One is to insert into the file a "digital watermark" which can be used to prove that an infringing file was the creation of the copyright holder and not the pirate. Other possibilities are to encode a unique serial number into each authorized copy or file, enabling the owner to trace infringing copies to a particular source, or to store

copyright management information.

Agents

Agents are programs that can implement specified commands automatically. Copyright owners can use agents to search the public spaces of the Internet to find infringing copies. Although the technology is not yet very well developed full-text search engines allow similar uses.

Copyright Litigation

While not every infringement will be the subject of litigation, the threat of litigation helps keep large pirate operations in check. It helps copyright owners obtain relief for specific acts of infringement and publicly warns others of the dangers of infringement.

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Problems of Copyright Management and Control Technologies

Profiling and Data Mining

At their most basic

copyright management and control technologies might simply be used to provide pricing information, negotiate the purchase transaction, and release a copy of a work for downloading to the customer's computer. Still, from a technological point of view, such systems also have the capacity to be employed for digital monitoring. Copyright owners could for example use the transaction records generated by their copyright management systems to learn more about their customers. Profiles, in their crudest form consisting of basic demographic information, about the purchasers of copyrighted material might be created. Moreover copyright owners could use search agents or complex data mining techniques to gather more information about their customers that could either be used to market other works or being sold to third parties.

Fair Use

Through the widespread use of copyright management and control systems the balance of control could excessively be shifted in favor of the owners of

intellectual property. The currently by copyright law supported practice of

fair use might potentially be restricted or even eliminated. While information in analogue form can easily be reproduced, the protection of digital works through copyright management systems might complicate or make impossible the copying of material for purposes, which are explicitly exempt under the doctrine of fair use.

Provisions concerning technological protection measures and fair use are stated in the

DMCA, which provides that "Since copying of a work may be a fair use under appropriate circumstances, section 1201 does not prohibit the act of circumventing a technological measure that prevents copying. By contrast, since the fair use doctrine is not a defense e to the act of gaining unauthorized access to a work, the act of circumventing a technological measure in order to gain access is prohibited." Also the proposed EU Directive on copyright and related rights in the information society contains similar clauses. It distinguishes between the circumvention of technical protection systems for lawful purposes (fair use) and the circumvention to infringe copyright. Yet besides a still existing lack of legal clarity also very practical problems arise. Even if the circumvention of technological protection measures under fair use is allowed, how will an average user without specialized technological know-how be able to gain access or make a copy of a work? Will the producers of copyright management and control systems provide fair use versions that permit the reproduction of copyrighted material? Or will users only be able to access and copy works if they hold a digital "fair use license" ("fair use licenses" have been proposed by Mark Stefik, whereby holders of such licenses could exercise some limited "permissions" to use a digital work without a fee)?

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Bureaucratic data bunkers

Among the foremost of the data bunkers government bureaucracies. Bureaucracies are the oldest forms of bunkers and are today deeply engrained in modern societies. Bureaucracies have always had the function of collecting and administering the data of subjects. What make this process more problematic in the age of ICT is that a lot more data can be collected, they can be collected in clandestine ways (e.g. in surveillance situations), and the can be combined and merged using advanced data mining technologies. In addition, there is a greater rationale for official data collecting, as a lot more data is required for the functioning of public administration as in previous periods, as societies rush to adopt increasingly complex technologies, above all ICTs. The increasing complexity of modern societies means that an increasing number of bureaucratic decision is taken, all of which require a calculation process. Complexity, viewed through government spectacles, generates insecurity - a great deal of the bureaucratic activity therefore revolves around the topic of security.

In spite of the anti-bureaucratic rhetoric of most governments, these factors provides the bureaucracies with an increased hold on society. Foremost bureaucratic data bunkers include the following:

These are agencies that enjoy the privileged protection of the state. Those among them that operate in the field of security are further protected against public scrutiny, as they operate in an area to which democratic reason has no access.

What makes the data repositories of these institutions different from private data bunkers is their "official", i.e. their politically binding and definitive character.

CAE speak of the bureaucracy as a "concrete form of uninterruptible, official and legitimised memory."

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Intellectual Property and the "Information Society" Metaphor

Today the talk about the so-called "information society" is ubiquitous. By many it is considered as the successor of the industrial society and said to represent a new form of societal and economical organization. This claim is based on the argument, that the information society uses a new kind of resource, which fundamentally differentiates from that of its industrial counterpart. Whereas industrial societies focus on physical objects, the information society's raw material is said to be knowledge and information. Yet the conception of the capitalist system, which underlies industrial societies, also continues to exist in an information-based environment. Although there have been changes in the forms of manufacture, the relations of production remain organized on the same basis. The principle of property.

In the context of a capitalist system based on industrial production the term property predominantly relates to material goods. Still even as in an information society the raw materials, resources and products change, the concept of property persists. It merely is extended and does no longer solely consider physical objects as property, but also attempts to put information into a set of property relations. This new kind of knowledge-based property is widely referred to as "

intellectual property". Although intellectual property in some ways represents a novel form of property, it has quickly been integrated in the traditional property framework. Whether material or immaterial products, within the capitalist system they are both treated the same - as property.

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The Copyright Industry

Copyright is not only about protecting the rights of creators, but has also become a major branch of industry with significant contributions to the global economy. According to the

International Intellectual Property Alliance the U.S. copyright industry has grown almost three times as fast as the economy as a whole for the past 20 years. In 1997, the

total copyright industries contributed an estimated US$ 529.3 billion to the U.S. economy with the

core copyright industries accounting for US$ 348.4 billion. Between 1977 and 1997, the absolute growth rate of value added to the U.S. GDP by the core copyright industries was 241 %. Also the copyright industry's foreign sales in 1997 (US$ 66.85 billion for the core copyright industries) were larger than the U.S. Commerce Department International Trade Administration's estimates of the exports of almost all other leading industry sectors. They exceeded even the combined automobile and automobile parts industries, as well as the agricultural sector.

In an age where knowledge and information become more and more important and with the advancement of new technologies, transmission systems and distribution channels a further increase in the production of

intellectual property is expected. Therefore as copyright establishes ownership in intellectual property it is increasingly seen as the key to wealth in the future.

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Positions Towards the Future of Copyright in the "Digital Age"

With the development of new transmission, distribution and publishing technologies and the increasing digitalization of information copyright has become the subject of vigorous debate. Among the variety of attitudes towards the future of traditional copyright protection two main tendencies can be identified:

Eliminate Copyright

Anti-copyrightists believe that any

intellectual property should be in the public domain and available for all to use. "Information wants to be free" and copyright restricts people's possibilities concerning the utilization of digital content. An enforced copyright will lead to a further digital divide as copyright creates unjust monopolies in the basic commodity of the "information age". Also the increased ease of copying effectively obviates copyright, which is a relict of the past and should be expunged.

Enlarge Copyright

Realizing the growing economic importance of intellectual property, especially the holders of copyright (in particular the big publishing, distribution and other

core copyright industries) - and therefore recipients of the

royalties - adhere to the idea of enlarging copyright. In their view the basic foundation of copyright - the response to the need to provide protection to authors so as to give them an incentive to invest the time and effort required to produce creative works - is also relevant in a digital environment.

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Virtual cartels, oligopolistic structures

Global networks require global technical standards ensuring the compatibility of systems. Being able to define such standards makes a corporation extremely powerful. And it requires the suspension of competitive practices. Competition is relegated to the symbolic realm. Diversity and pluralism become the victims of the globalisation of baroque sameness.

The ICT market is dominated by incomplete competition aimed at short-term market domination. In a very short time, new ideas can turn into best-selling technologies. Innovation cycles are extremely short. But today's state-of-the-art products are embryonic trash.

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Network Information Center (NIC)

Network information centers are organizations responsible for registering and maintaining the domain names on the

World Wide Web. Until competition in domain name registration was introduced, they were the only ones responsible. Most countries have their own network information center.

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Critical Art Ensemble

Critical Art Ensemble is a collective of five artists of various specializations dedicated to exploring the intersections between art, technology, radical politics, and critical theory. CAE have published a number of books and carried out innovative art projects containing insightful and ironic theoretical contributions to media art. Projects include Addictionmania, Useless Technology, The Therapeutic State, Diseases of Consciousness, Machineworld, As Above So Below, and

Flesh Machine.

http://www.critical-art.net

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Wide Application Protocol (WAP)

The WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) is a specification for a set of communication protocols to standardize the way that wireless devices, such as cellular telephones and radio transceivers, can be used for Internet access, including

e-mail, the

World Wide Web,

newsgroups, and

Internet Relay Chat (IRC).

While Internet access has been possible in the past, different manufacturers have used different technologies. In the future, devices and service systems that use WAP will be able to interoperate.

Source: Whatis.com

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Above.net

Headquartered in San Jose, USA, AboveNet Communications is a

backbone service provider. Through its extensive peering relationships, the company has built a network with the largest aggregated

bandwidth in the world.

http://www.above.net

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Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)

TCP and IP are the two most important protocols and communication standards. TCP provides reliable message-transmission service; IP is the key protocol for specifying how packets are routed around the Internet.

More detailed information can be found

here

http://www.anu.edu/people/Roger.Clarke/II/Pri...

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Alexander Graham Bell

b., March 3, 1847, Edinburgh

d. Aug. 2, 1922, Beinn Bhreagh, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada

American audiologist and inventor wrongly remembered for having invented the telephone in 1876. Although Bell introduced the first commercial application of the telephone, in fact a German teacher called Reiss invented it.

For more detailed information see the Encyclopaedia Britannica: http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/1/0,5716,15411+1+15220,00.html

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Local Area Network (LAN)

A Local Area Network is an office network, a network restricted to a building area.

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Internet Engineering Steering Group

On behalf of the

Internet Society, the Internet Engineering Steering Group is responsible for the technical management of the evolution of the architecture, the standards and the protocols of the Net.

http://www.ietf.org/iesg.html

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Vinton Cerf

Addressed as one of the fathers of the Internet, Vinton Cerf together with Robert Kahn developed the

TCP/IP protocol suite, up to now the de facto-communication standard for the Internet, and also contributed to the development of other important communication standards. The early work on the protocols broke new ground with the realization of a multi-network open architecture.

In 1992, he co-founded the

Internet Society where he served as its first President and later Chairman.

Today, Vinton Cerf is Senior Vice President for Internet Architecture and Technology at

WorldCom, one of the world's most important ICT companies

Vinton Cerf's web site: http://www.wcom.com/about_the_company/cerfs_up/

http://www.isoc.org/

http://www.wcom.com/

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DMCA

The DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) was signed into law by U.S. President Clinton in 1998 and implements the two 1996

WIPO treaties (WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty and

WIPO Copyright Treaty). Besides other issues the DMCA addresses the influence of new technologies on traditional copyright. Of special interest in the context of the digitalization of

intellectual property are the titles no. 2, which refers to the limitation on the liability of online service providers for copyright infringement (when certain conditions are met), no. 3, that creates an exemption for making a copy of a computer program in case of maintenance and repair, and no. 4 which is concerned with the status of libraries and webcasting. The DCMA has been widely criticized for giving copyright-holders even more power and damage the rights and freedom of consumers, technological innovation, and the free market for information.

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Industrial design

Industrial design refers to the ornamental aspect of a useful article which may constitute of two or three-dimensional elements. To be qualified for

intellectual property protection the design must be novel or original. Protection can be obtained through registration in a government office and usually is given for 10 to 15 years.

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