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
A full-text version of the DMCA is available from:
The Library of Congress: Thomas (Legislative Information on the Internet):
Moreover the U.S. Copyright Office provides a memorandum, which briefly summarizes each of the five titles of the DMCA (pdf format):
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.
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.
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The Net consists of thousands of thousands of governmental and private networks linked together. No legal authority determines how and where networks can be connected together, this is something the managers of networks have to agree about. So there is no way of ever gaining ultimate control of the Internet. Although each of these networks is operated and controlled by an organization, no single organization operates and controls the Net. Instead of a central authority governing the Net, several bodies assure the operability of the Net by developing and setting technical specifications for the Net and by the control of the technical key functions of the Net as the coordination of the domain name system and the allocation of IP numbers.
Originally, the Net was a research project funded and maintained by the US Government and developed in collaboration by scientists and engineers. As the standards developed for ensuring operability ensued from technical functionality, technical coordination gradually grew out of necessity and was restricted to a minimum and performed by volunteers.
Later, in the 1980s, those occupied with the development of technical specifications organized themselves under the umbrella of the Internet Society in virtual organizations as the Internet Engineering Task Force, which were neither officially established nor being based on other structures than mailing lists and commitment, but nonetheless still serve as task forces for the development of standards ensuring the interoperability on the Net.
Since the late 80s and the early 90s, with the enormous growth of the Net - which was promoted by the invention of
Since the year 2000, a new model for technical coordination has been emerging: Formerly performed by several bodies, technical coordination is transferred to a single non-governmental organization: the Internet Coordination of Assigned Numbers and Names.
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Directive on Copyright and Related Rights in the Information Society
In November 1996 the European Commission adopted a communication concerning the follow-up to the Green Paper on
- the legal protection of computer programs
- rental right, lending right and certain rights related to copyright in the field of
- copyright and related rights applicable to broadcasting of programs by satellite and cable retransmission
- the term of protection of copyright and certain related rights
- the legal protection of databases
The proposal was first presented by the Commission in January 1998, amended in May 1999 and currently is at second reading before the Parliament. Final adoption of the Directive could take place at the end of 2000 or the beginning of 2001 respectively.
A full-text version for download (pdf file) of the amended proposal for a Directive on copyright and related rights in the Information Society is available on the website of the European Commission (DG Internal Market):
General critique concerning the proposed EU Directive includes:
- Open networks
The new law could require (technological) surveillance of communications to ensure enforcement. Also because Service Providers might be legally liable for transmitting unauthorized copies, the might in turn have to deny access to anybody who could not provide them with financial guaranties or insurance.
- Interoperable systems
The draft could negate the already established right in EU law for software firms to make their systems interoperable with the dominant copyright protected systems. This would be a threat to the democratic and economic rights of users.
- Publicly available information
It is yet unclear whether new legal protections against the bypassing of
Comments from the library, archives and documentation community on the amended Directive embrace:
The Library Association
EBLIDA (European Bureau of Library, Information and Documentation Associations)
Society of Archivists (U.K.) and Public Record Office (U.K.)
EFPICC (European Fair Practices In Copyright Campaign)
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Founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen and headquartered in Redmond, USA, Microsoft Corporation is today's world-leading developer of personal-computer software systems and applications. As MS-DOS, the first operating system released by Microsoft, before, Windows, its successor, has become the de-facto standard operating system for personal computer. According to critics and following a recent court ruling this is due to unfair competition.
For more detailed information see the Encyclopaedia Britannica:
An Extranet is an Intranet with limited and controlled access by authenticated outside users, a business-to-business Intranet, e.g.
Founded in 1982 and headquartered in Palo Alto, USA, Sun Microsystems manufactures computer workstations,
For more detailed information see the Encyclopaedia Britannica: