Digital Rights Management Issues of Concern to Library Community
There has been a great deal of activity on DRM issues with much more
expected prior to the Congressional adjournment in early October. In
March 2002, Senator Ernest Hollings (Chair, Committee on Commerce,
Science, and Transportation, D-SC) introduced the "Consumer Broadband
and Digital Television Promotion Act" (S. 2048; see earlier coverage).
In April, Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE) introduced the "Anticounterfeiting
Amendments of 2002" (S. 2395) to "prevent and punish counterfeiting and
copyright piracy." The bill would prohibit "trafficking in, and
tampering with, authentication features" such as a hologram, watermark,
certification, or other means of assuring the authenticity of physical
and digital materials. The original legislation only applied to physical
objects, and did not raise concerns. However, when the bill was marked
up in July, it was expanded to include digital products. The library and
education communities are concerned about S. 2395 because it could
create liabilities for activities that are currently legal under
copyright law, such as distribution of distance education materials and
the exchanges of information between faculty and students now deemed
fair uses. In addition, the bill would amend the U.S. criminal code,
subjecting users of copyrighted works to unprecedented criminal and
civil penalties. The bill was approved by the Senate Committee on the
Judiciary without hearings or a report. Just before the August recess,
there was an attempt to pass the bill in the Senate by unanimous
consent. Because a number of public and private sector organizations and
entities expressed serious reservations about the bill, it was not
considered by the Senate. For a detailed explanation of the library
community's concerns about DRM issues, see the ALA Digital Rights Issues
page and the ARL DRM information page, <http://www.arl.org/info/frn/copy/DRM.html>.
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