At 05:07 PM 5/29/2001 +0300, Sampo Syreeni wrote:
On Tue, 29 May 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>>Of course. But the question is still interesting when making the copy
falls
>>under fair use. Does DMCA protection somehow propagate to the decrypted
>>data?
>
>I don't see why it would. This really isn't a question that we need to
>speculate about; you should just read the text of the DMCA. Again, it seems
>to me that "traditional, boring" pre-DMCA copyright law would apply.
How about contributory involvement? Or something from '1202
(http://www.loc.gov/copyright/legislation/hr2281.pdf), like '1202(a)(2),
'1202(b)(2) or '1202(b)(3):
<quote>
' 1202. Integrity of copyright management information
(a) FALSE COPYRIGHT MANAGEMENT INFORMATION.
No person shall knowingly and with the intent to induce, enable,
facilitate, or conceal infringement --
(1) provide copyright management information that is false, or
(2) distribute or import for distribution copyright management
information that is false.
(b) REMOVAL OR ALTERATION OF COPYRIGHT MANAGEMENT INFORMATION.
No person shall, without the authority of the copyright owner or the law
(1) intentionally remove or alter any copyright management information,
(2) distribute or import for distribution copyright management information
knowing that the copyright management information has been removed
or
altered without authority of the copyright owner or the law, or
(3) distribute, import for distribution, or publicly perform works, copies
of works, or phonorecords, knowing that copyright management
information has been removed or altered without authority of the
copyright owner or the law,
</quote>
So one's guilt when making copies of certain digital materials may hinge
on whether one knew that the works had originally been protected by copyright
management information, but how is anyone to know if the original material
was protected (most/all of the tools to determine this are themselves illegal
to own.) Will the court's rule that all digital content henceforth is assumed
to be protected? Is this reasonable? I have seen at least one consumer
DVD from Hollywood with no such protection.
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