A Behind-The-Scenes Look At How DRM Becomes Law: "Cory Doctorow looks at the back room dealing that allowed entertainment companies and electronics companies to craft public policy on digital rights management."

FindLaw: Viacom Files Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Against YouTube and Google Over Unauthorized Use Of The Company's Shows: Viacom International, Inc. v. YouTube, Inc., YouTube, LLC, and Google, Inc., March 13, 2007.

Press release: "U.S. Representatives Rick Boucher (D-VA) and John Doolittle (R-CA), today introduced the Freedom And Innovation Revitalizing U.S. Entrepreneurship Act of 2007 (FAIR USE Act) to protect the fair use rights of users of copyrighted material and thereby enable consumers of digital media to use it in ways that enhance their personal convenience. The legislation contains several improvements to the Digital Media Consumer's Rights Act, similar legislation which the lawmakers introduced in the 108th and 109th Congresses. Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) is an original cosponsor of the legislation."

CDT press release: "Evaluating DRM: Building a Marketplace for the Convergent World" tackles the complicated subject of copyright protection technology, offering a clear set of metrics for consumers and product reviewers to consider when evaluating DRM-protected devices and services. The goal of the paper is to educate users about what questions to ask to determine how various DRM applications may affect their ability to use movies, music, games and other media."

Electronic Frontier Foundation: Unintended Consequences: Seven Years under the DMCA, April, 2006. This document is version 4. (15 pages, PDF, and HTML version)

Circumventing Competition: The Perverse Consequences of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (PDF, 28 pages), by Timothy B. Lee

Lessons from the Sony CD DRM Episode, February 14, 2006 (27 pages, PDF), by J. Alex Halderman and Edward W. Felton.

"The All Party Parliamentary Internet Group (APIG) [held] an oral evidence session [February 2, 2006] at the House of Commons, as part of its public inquiry on Digital Rights Management(DRM)...The inquiry...is seeking to establish how consumers, artists and the distribution companies should be protected in a continually evolving market place...Regrettably, this session will not be open to the public but a full transcript of the sessions will be made publicly available when the final report is published in April."

Efficient Process or "Chilling Effects"? Takedown Notices Under Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Summary Report, Jennifer M. Urban, Director, Intellectual Property Clinic, University of Southern California and Laura Quilter, Non-Resident Fellow, Samuelson Clinic, University of California, Berkeley. [Links and Law]

Senate Draft of the Digital Content Protection Act of 2006

Related to yesterday's posting, Digital Rights Management: A Guide for Librarians, see Campus Copyrights and Responsibilities: A Basic Guide to Policy Considerations (39 pages, PDF), AAU, ARL, American University Press.

Digital Rights Management: A Guide for Librarians, by Mike Godwin (44 pages, PDF)

Press release: "Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott today sued Sony BMG Music Entertainment as the first state in the nation to bring legal action against SONY for illegal 'spyware.' The suit is also the first filed under the state's spyware law of 2005. It alleges the company surreptitiously installed the spyware on millions of compact music discs (CDs) that consumers inserted into their computers when they play the CDs, which can compromise the systems."

Related documents and resources:

Acquiring Copyright Permission to Digitize and Provide Open Access to Books, Published by the Council on Library and Information Resources and Digital Library Federation, (72 pages, PDF)

Related references to Google's announcement that Print Program scanning will resume, along with clarifications on the programs goals:

Descriptive metadata for copyright Status, by Karen Coyl:

Federal Register, October 3, 2005: Exemption to Prohibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access Control Technologies. Copyright Office, Library of Congress. Notice of inquiry.

UK digital rights group sets up - "The main aims of the Open Rights Group are: to foster a grassroots community of campaigning volunteers; to connect journalists and the press with digital rights experts and activists."

USAToday.com reports on new copyright protection products that debut at 10 colleges this fall, in the form of CDs, DVDs and even a USB drive, that limit the creation of multiple copies of course materials.

Via this excellent Resource Page on Copyright and Licensing Digital Materials by Therese A. Clarke Arado, a link to Lolly Gasaway's PowerPoint presentation, Copyright Permissions for Multimedia, from the AALL 2005 annual conference.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Project on Digital Broadband Content published a new Report on Digital Music: Opportunities and challenges (132 pages, PDF):

From the EFF, Federal Appeals Court Scraps FCC's Broadcast Flag Mandate

Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property Oversight Hearing on Digital Music Interoperability and Availability, April 6, 2005.

Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property Oversight Hearing on Digital Music Interoperability and Availability, April 6, 2005.

Judiciary Committee Leaders Issue Statement on H.R. 107, the Digital Media Consumers’ Rights Act.

Hearing today: H.R. 107, The Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act of 2003, Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection.

Information Cannot Be Owned by Jean Nicholas Druey, April 2004:

Discussion led by Frederic Haber, General Counsel for the Copyright Clearance Center, on Digital Rights Management.

From the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF): Unintended Consequences: Five Years under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

On September 16, Sen. Sam Brownback introduced the Consumers, Schools, and Libraries Digital Rights Management Act of 2003.

Cem Kaner, Professor, Department of Computer Sciences, Florida Institute of Technology, posted on his blog the text of ten suggested principles that comprise a "Software Customer Bill of Rights" which he authored in an effort to "restore integrity and trust -- and consumer confidence, consumer excitement, and sales - in this stalled marketplace."

From Library Journal (reg. req'd): Fair Use Under Fire - ALA's copyright expert gives her take on the challenges digital rights management presents for end users - and librarians:

Storing e-text for centuries describes the LOCKSS (for "lots of copies keep stuff safe") project for permanent publishing on the Web, which is the brainchild of Stanford University librarian Vicky Reich and researcher David Rosenthal.

A Safer System for Home PC's Feels Like Jail to Some Critics. "As PC makers prepare a new generation of desktop computers with built-in hardware controls to protect data and digital entertainment from illegal copying, the industry is also promising to keep information safe from tampering and help users avoid troublemakers in cyberspace."

For related information, see my recent posting, Microsoft and Privacy Initiative.

From today's Washington Post, Overview: Short History of Copyright in the Digital Age, Internet Sparks a Copyright Fire. From the battles between the entertainment industry, "fair use rights" advocates, consumers and copyright holders, this article touches on the complex, high-stake issues, legislative initiatives and key players making news in this arena.

From PBS OnlineNewsHour:

See this recent paper authored by 12 CalTech scientists, Fast TCP: From Theory to Experiments, which details their work, demonstrated through a number of controlled and public experiments, that allows users to download text, images and video from the Internet at "6,000 times the capacity of the ordinary broadband links."

DVD-CCA v. Bunner, on appeal before the California Supreme Court, involves the posting of free software for the DeCSS code (to decrypt DVDs) by Andrew Bunner on his website. Prior to the beginning of this case in 2000, the DeCSS code had been published widely on sites around the world. According to SFGate.com, "California Attorney General Bill Lockyer joined the movie industry in contending that the DeCSS code was simply a burglary tool designed for breaking, entering and stealing a trade secret -- the industry-owned code designed to prevent unauthorized playback of movies recorded on digital versatile discs, or DVDs." See also this posting on the case from Freedom to Tinker.

Mark Stamp provides a thorough, enlightening commentary on DRM, examining applications, value and the associated controversy on the topic as it impacts commercial and consumer users in the areas of privacy and copyright.

U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston, Northern District of California, in a hearing of 321 Studios v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (C-02-1955.e), is reported to be substantially persuaded in favor of copyright holders as she considers whether it is fair use for consumers to continue to purchase and use a $50 (after rebate) DVD duplication software application which the movie industry contends circumvents the DMCA and should be banned. See my previous post on 321 Studios, and this Reuters article on new industry lawsuits against five more companies that market DVD copying software.

This New York Times article, Library's robot is a real page-turner, available via the International Herald Tribune, describes a fascinating, ambitious, costly, technically challenging and also interesting from the perspective of fair use, project underway at the Stanford University Libraries. Using a robotic book scanner from 4DigitalBooks™, the libraries are undertaking projects to digitize their bound materials, but are also working on unbound materials as well. For more details, see this May 7 report from Stanford (pdf) - Robotic Book Scanning at the Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources: Report on the Status of Digitization Facilities and Services for Bound Library Materials. In addition, here is a link to a November 26, 2001 article from the Wall Street Journal Europe on this digital robot.

From Duke University School of Law, the Winter/Spring 2003 issue of Law & Contemporary Problems has 13 full-text articles on public domain issues, including Mapping the Digital Public Domain: Threats and Opportunities and Reconciling What the First Amendment Forbids with what the Copyright Clause Permits: A Summary Explanation and Review. The articles and essays in the issue result from the Conference on the Public Domain, Duke Law School, November 9—11, 2001.

In a 34 page decision released this afternoon that surprised many, the entertainment industry at the top of the list, Judge Stephen V. Wilson (Central District of California) "denied a request to shut down Internet song-swapping services Grokster and Morpheus." The judge wrote, "It is undisputed that there are substantial noninfringing uses for (the) Defendants' software." See this Reuters article for more information. Also see RIAA reacts badly to court's file share ruling which states, "What makes this judgment even more interesting is the implication for ISPs. This judge has effectively ruled that those who have no direct control of the use of their services cannot be held responsible for any misuse of those services."

From News.com, Are file traders next? the author predicts that this defeat for the music industry will only result in an accelerated effort to sue individuals who have allegedly engaged in copyright infringement using P2P apps.

Once again Judge John D. Bates (United States District Court for the District of Columbia) has ruled (55 page pdf) that Verizon Internet Services must reveal, within fourteen days, the name of an anonymous customer accused of using a peer-to-peer file sharing application (KaZaA) to pirate copyrighted songs. The judge's earlier ruling of January 21 also ordered Verizon to release the customer data, but the company sought a stay and continued to battle the RIAA, who contended the DMCA allowed them to subpoena customer data from ISPs based soley upon on an allegation of copyright infringement.

Verizon's senior vice president and deputy general counsel, John Thorne, stated in this press release, "We look to the Court of Appeals to decide this case in a narrow manner that avoids a chilling effect on Internet users' private communications, such as e-mail, instant messages or surfing the Internet."

Cary Sherman, President of the Recording Industry Association of America, stated, "A federal district court has again affirmed that the law which provides copyright holders with a process to identify infringers is both Constitutional and appropriate."

See the Center for Democracy & Technology statement on the decision here, and the response from the Electronic Frontier Foundation here.

Joe Clark, author of Building Accessible Websites, published a white paper on Accessibility implications of digital rights management in which concludes, "Digital rights management, as currently designed, will harm people with disabilities and others who rely on accessibility features."

See also Fiddling with the Internet Dials: Understanding Usability.

All the Rave: The Rise and Fall of Shawn Fanning's Napster, was reviewed in the Sunday Washington Post as "a richly reported behind-the-scenes account of the rise and fall of Napster Inc., the online music-swapping phenomenon." From the Boston Globe, see also this article by the book's author, Joseph Menn, The Man Who Hijacked Napster, adapted from his book.

On April 18, the DOJ filed a brief with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that supports the RIAA's case against Verizon to compel the release of personal customer data of an individual who allegedly engaged in Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) violations through file swapping. The DOJ contends the government's position is a defense of the constitutionality of the DMCA. Verizon has sought to quash the court' subpoena as it "violates the constitutionally protected rights of free speech and due process of Internet subscribers." (quote is from this New York Times article.) See also this Wall Street Journal article and this Washington Post article for more background.

Two recent articles focusing on the digital rights controversy merit noting: The Pirates Among Us: "The entertainment industry is battling the illegal distribution of copyrighted music and movie files-and will stop at nothing to enlist your help."

Pirates and Posses: The Battle over Digital Copyright by James L. Gattuso, Bruce Mehlman, Alec French, Gary Shapiro, Heritage Lecture #785. "The blessing of the digital age is that you can make an infinite number of perfect copies of any one piece of content at a very, very low cost. The curse is that you can make an infinite number of perfect copies of any content without paying for it." The authors suggest the following remedies:

From Reuters, this announcement that the new trial of Jon Johansen has been scheduled for December 2. He posted to the Web the code to facilitate mass copying of DVDs, and his first trial ended in an acquittal.

Copyright Versus Consumers' Rights: How Companies are Using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to Thwart Competition, March 25. From the article: "Unlike in prior DMCA disputes, the object of Lexmark's DMCA claim is not to prevent piracy of a copyrighted work. Instead, it is to prevent rivals from offering cheaper cartridges for Lexmark's printers. This is not copyright protection, but profit protection."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) launched a Breaking News page to notify readers about specific digital rights related issues that the organization is tracking.

S.692, A bill to require the Federal Trade Commission to issue rules regarding the disclosure of technological measures that restrict consumer flexibility to use and manipulate digital information and entertainment content. Sponsor: Sen Wyden, Ron [OR] (introduced 3/24/2003). See Wyden's press release here.

Slow Start for Long-Awaited Easing of Copyright Restriction describes the challenges faculty are facing in their efforts to properly comply with copyright requirements for distance learning stipulated by the TEACH Act. The article includes a helpful guide for professors, Copyright Checklist for Online Courses, produced by North Carolina State University.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has been pursuing a high-profile campaign against P2P file sharing that stretches from college and university campuses to the cubicles of corporate America. On March 12, RIAA President Cary H. Sherman sent letters to 300 companies warning that "significant legal damages" could result from employers and employees who had already been identified via their IP addresses as having conducted music downloads using their respective corporate networks. AP reports that "the letters point out the copyright owners can collect up to $150,000 per song copied without permission, plus legal fees and profits earned by the infringer, and that the equipment used to make illegal copies can be confiscated. "

On March 13, the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property held an Oversight Hearing on "International Copyright Piracy: Links to Organized Crime and Terrorism" Links are as follows to the:Witness List, John Malcolm, Rich LaMagna, Joan Borsten Vidov, Jack Valenti.

Although not a focus of the hearing, campus-wide file sharing was mentioned. See this related article from IDG News in which Representative John Carter (R- TX) is quoted as stating, "I think it'd be a good idea to go out and actually bust a couple of these college kids... If you want to see college kids duck and run, you let them read the papers and somebody's got a 33-month sentence in the federal penitentiary for downloading copyrighted materials."

On March 4, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) introduced the Benefit Authors without Limiting Advancement or Net Consumer Expectations, or BALANCE Act, that mirrors the text of H. R. 5522, the Digital Choice and Freedom Act of 2002, introduced by Lofgren October 2, 2002.

From yesterday's press release: "This legislation would ensure that consumers are able to buy content that is compatible across platforms, thereby encouraging technological development and competition,".... Specifically, it will allow consumers to make backup copies and display digital works on their preferred digital media devices."

From Findlaw's Writ, the author of Should Universities Crack Down On Illegal Swapping? champions the position that "universities should take the lead in mounting free speech and "fair use" challenges to the application of NETA and the DMCA." See also my February 27 posting on this issue, P2P File Sharing on Campuses.

From the Digital Rights Management Conference, February 27- March 1, 2003, sponsored by the The Berkeley Center for Law and Technology: Lon Sobel, DRM as an Enabler of Business Models: ISPs as Digital Retailers, 18 Berkeley Tech. L.J. xx (forthcoming 2003) (Word, PDF, HTML).

See also this New York Times article, Pondering Value of Copyright vs. Innovation, reviewing the conference.

The Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property held an oversight hearing on "Peer-to-Peer Piracy On University Campuses," February 26, 2003. The following documents and testimony are available via their website: the Witness List, Statement of Chairman Lamar Smith, testimony of Molly Broad (President of the University of North Carolina), testimony of Hilary Rosen (Chairman and CEO, Recording Industry Associaition of America) testimony of Graham Spanier (President of the Pennsylvania State University), and testimony of Dr. John Hale (Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Director, Center for Information Security, The University of Tulsa).

According to Rosen's testimony, "More than 2.6 billion music files are illegally downloaded every month on unauthorized P2P systems. Of this number, a significant percentage of the transfers occur over campus networks."


See also Lawmakers Demand That Colleges Crack Down on Illegal File Sharing.

On February 21, Microsoft announced the Windows Rights Management Services For Windows Server 2003. The company also released a white paper, Microsoft Rights Management Solutions for the Enterprise: Persistent Policy Expression and Enforcement for Digital Information, that details new digitial rights management applications for the Windows OS. According to Microsoft, they have "combined and extended rights management technologies developed for use with music, eBooks, and videos to help safeguard enterprise information."

The Herald reports that implementation of the Windows Rights Management Services will raise the level of corporate monitoring of computer generated documents, and have a significant impact on how internal corporate documents and e-mails are used, disseminated, stored and purged. The software can "restrict who may view, copy or forward e-mails or sensitive information" and "can automatically delete files after they reach a certain expiration date."

See also CNet's article, Microsoft expands rights management tool, which highlights how a range of rights to documents within an organization can be established and closely regulated according to specific users, so as to ensure confidentiality and security.

The March 2003 issue of Scientific American includes an article, Some Rights Reserved, on the non-profit Creative Commons licensing project that promotes a new avenue of sharing copyrighted works while retaining different levels of rights of authorship. See my previous post on this topic here.

ICSU (International Council of Scientific Unions) launched a new online global discussion forum focused on ensuring universal access to scientific knowledge. There are currently 26 articles posted on the site from authors around the world, and issues addressed include copyright, privacy, digital rights and the free and unfettered publication and distribution of scientific research via the Web.

Verizon has requested a stay in Judge John D. Bates' (United States District Court for the District of Columbia) ruling in favor of RIAA, compelling Verizon to release personal customer data on a subscriber who downloaded copyrighted music. See my previous post on this issue here.

As previously reported, college and university students are under growing scrutiny for downloading digital files using campus provided ISP access. Brown University is the latest institution in the news to formalize efforts to control the parameters of student use of file sharing applications. Keeping the DMCA (PDF) firmly in mind, and with an awareneess of their escalating bandwidth costs, the university is instituting an education program and implementing policies for the abuse of Internet privileges.

In related news, Rebecca Cohn of the California assembly introduced House Resolution No. 5--Relative to online piracy, adopted by committee on 1/28/2003. It states in part that the "Legislature further requests corporate, governmental, and educational institutions to implement employee policies and technical measures to ensure that their networks are not being misused to infringe copyrighted works.."

Copyright and piracy issues associated with file sharing are the subject of news articles, lawsuits and web forum discussion groups. Add another element to this mix: a company whose business is to monitor file sharing traffic from popular applications such as Kazaa and Morpheus. The company is called BigChampagne, and it tracks 25 million searches each day, conducted by an estimated 20 million individuals, noting downloads from specific artists and by individual song track. Despite their public battle against P2P music users, the music industry is very interested in monitoring the choices of this huge file sharing community.

Embrace file-sharing, or die is a new article from Salon, available free and in full-text (but requiring that you view ads in between pages). It is actually the text of a presentation made last week by John Snyder, president of Artist House Records, to the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) and the RIAA, supporting free music downloading as a means of generating new and stronger sales for the industry. It is a thoughtful, well documented and practical argument from a veteran music industry insider, and worth review.

The USPTO held a hearing yesterday in accordance with the requirements of the Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization Act of 2002 (known as the TEACH Act), Public Law 107-273. See my previous post here on this issue of protecting digitized copyrighted works that are used in distance education. Public comments from the Federal Register notice on the TEACH Act are here.

Verizon is appealing the district court's decision compelling the ISP to release customer data to RIAA in a copyright dispute concerning music downloading. According to Verizon's deputy general counsel, "If this ruling stands, consumers will be caught in a digital dragnet - not only from record companies alleging infringement of their copyright monopolies - but from anyone who can fill out a simple form."

The big-six music retailers, organized under the name Echo, have launched a new consortium to license and distribute digital music services.

Sharman Networks Ltd., owner of the file swapping application Kazaa, has responded to the January 23, 2003 order from the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California denying their motion to dismiss a copyright infringement lawsuit by the music and recording industries. Sharman filed its answer and counterclaims on January 27 in which it contends that the plaintiffs have "monoplize(d) the market for distribution of digital rights managed works."

"IP Justice is a new non-profit organization that works to promote balance in global intellectual property law and protect freedom of expression with digital media." An interview with Executive Director Robin D. Gross, an IP attorney formerly with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, was conducted by CNet.

A new lobbying organization, the Alliance for Digital Progress, representing industry and advocacy groups, launched their website and announced their agenda yesterday via a press release and press conference presented by President Fred McClure. The group is "opposed to government-designed and mandated technology to solve the problem of digital piracy," and seeks to create acceptable industry based resolutions rather than those stipulated by legislation such as the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act.

Judge John D. Bates, United States District Court for the District of Columbia, has ruled in favor of RIAA in their high profile case against Verizon to compel the ISP to provide personal data on customers' use and online distribution of music obtained using P2P downloading applications. See Recording Industry of America v. Verizon Internet Services, Misc. No. 02-323 Memorandum Opinion & Order, issued January 21, 2003.

RIAA's press release is here, and states in part that Verizon must now provide the name of a subscriber "who has illegally made available more than 600 copyrighted music files over the Internet."

Verizon's response is here, and states "This case will have a chilling effect on private communications, such as e-mail, surfing the Internet or the sending of files between private parties." Verizon will appeal the decision.

See also my post from October 19, 2002 for background on this case.

Chad Little, owner of Planet Replay, a P2P service that allows users to share TV shows they have digitally recorded using SonicBlue's ReplayTV, has issued a press release indicating the discontinuation of part of his website's service. This was done to protect the privacy of site users as a result of the entertainment industry's copyright suit against SonicBlue, for which he was deposed.

See also this Washington Times article, Gadgets outpace laws in digital age, on the battle between the TV and movie industries and consumers over fair use issues involving ReplayTV and copying DVDs.

This Action Alert from the American Associaton of Law Libraries (AALL) Washington Affairs Office urges law librarians to contact the ABA House of Delegates as they consider Resolution 113G, proposed by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) that, "Approves the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (2002) promulgated by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws as an appropriate Act for those States desiring to adopt the specific substantive law suggested therein."

Prentice Hall has made the leap into open source publishing, in no small measure due to the impetus provided by Bruce Perens, author, programmer, researcher, and father of the open source movement.

He states on this site, "I've convinced Prentice Hall PTR to publish a series of books that have their text under Open Source licenses." Not surprisingly, it is called the Bruce Perens' Open Source Series, and will include 6 technical books that will be freely distributed on the web, and will not go out of print, under the terms of the Open Publication License.

Yesterday afternoon, the Recording Industry Association of America announced via this press release that "key members of the recording and technology industries" had reached an agreement on a set of principles as the foundation for their joint anti-piracy and copyright protection lobbying efforts in the 108th Congress. The agreement is a result of efforts by three organizations: RIAA, the Business Software Alliance, and the Computer Systems Policy Project, whose participants include all the major industry players - Microsoft, Dell, Apple, HP, and Adobe, among others.

The agreement titled, Technology and Record Company Principles, available in PDF, is a one page document comprising seven statements of principle. The Consumer Electronics Associations and the Computer and Communications Industry Association did not participate in this agreement, nor did the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which issued this press release.

With Microsoft making news today regarding their efforts against government use of open source software (OSS), this newly revised article, Making Copyright Ambidextrous: An Expose of Copyleft, is a useful resource on the history of OSS and associated licensing issues.

Via ZDNet there is news that Sharman Networks, the investment consortium based in Sydney, Australia that owns the popular and controversial P2P software Kazaa will fight the copyright infringement lawsuit brought against them in the U.S. District Court, Central District of California (CV 01-08541-SVW, CV 01-09923-SVW) by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, after the court issued a 46 page decision denying Sharman's motion to dismiss the case.

The CEO of Intel, Craig Barrett, spoke about digital rights at the 2003 International Consumer Electronics Show. His comments sought to strike a balance between fair use rights for consumers who legally purchase digital services and media, and appropriate punishment for those "who grossly violate anybody's content."

The source code for the Microsoft Reader e-book as been hacked and posted online by UK programmer Dan Jackson. The program is aptly named Convert Lit (for the .lit format), and removes Microsoft copy protections from files, thus allowing them to be read on competitiors' devices. Here is a link to the EU Copyright Commission Directive for reference.

Via Slashdot, here is a link to an interview on digital IP issues with Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Senior IP Attorney Fred Von Lohmann, conducted by TechFocus. Topics covered include Kazaa, DVRs, the impact of the DMCA and the need for legislative reform of the act, and balancing fair use with the rights of authors.

On January 7, teenager Jon Lech Johansen was acquitted by a Norweigan criminal court of charges related to creating a utility (DeCSS) that descrambled the code for DVD players, and publishing it on the Web.

For other articles on this decision, see CNN, The Register, BBC, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

Rep. Boucher of Virginia was the first to introduce a tech-related bill in the 108th Congress. The bill, called the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act (H.R. 107), is a twin to H.R. 5544, which he introduced on October 3, 2002. See my previous posting for a section-by-section description of H.R. 5544. H.R. 107 amends sections of the DMCA by allowing consumers to exercise fair use in the creation of duplicate copies of digital media that they have purchased.

The Home Recording Rights Coalition supports the new bill, and announced a January 11 press conference where the featured speaker will be Rep. Boucher.

Kazaa, the immensely popular P2P file swapping software that claims to have 163 million users worldwide, remains one-step ahead of law suits for infringement. The company's catch me if you can business operations model is purposefully convoluted and complex, stretching across three continents, according to this interesting BizReport article.

According to the Boston Globe, the DMCA will be the focus of increasing controversy and lobbying by industry and consumer advocates in 2003. The Business Software Alliance, one of the act's powerful backers, is fighting any expansion of consumer rights concerning the use of music and movie industry products, including legislation introduced by Rep. Boucher.

In a related article, today's New York Times reports on the the entertainment industry's increased use of digital rights software to prevent consumers from bypassing fees when they download music, movies and TV programs.

Wired details a DMCA dispute that is pitting ISP Verio against veteran thing.net communications from New York, a hybrid non-profit (serving the arts community) and for-profit telecom service. Thing.net hosted a site that lampooned Dow Chemical, using the company's trademark, resulting in the termination of their service by Verio.

Creative Commons, the non-profit organization whose focus is providing workable alternatives to current copyright laws for the digital world, has created a new public domain copyright license for web content. See their press release here,
and read about how the licensing process works from the perspective of an early adopter, pioneering attorney/blogger Denise Howell.

Cryptome.org purchased copies of court documents from the USA v. Elcom ebook copyright case and has made them available at no fee here. A jury found the Russian software company not guilty on December 16, 2002.

See also this News.com article for more details about the decision, as well as the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF) press release and archive of case-related links. Also, George Washington University law professor Orin S. Kerr's analysis of the decision is here.

The non-profit Center for Democrary & Technology is involved in keeping discussions of digital copyright issues front and center. The organization filed comments with the FCC concerning the escalating controvery over proposed copy protection systems for digital TV broadcasts for coypyright holders. They support the position that there must be a balance of the discretionary rights of consumers to use digitial products and services they have legitimately purchased.

Thousands of comments have been filed with the FCC over Notice of Proposed Rulemaking 02-231. These comments are searchable via the FCC's database here.

This Information Week article reports on the huge advantage recently gained by Sony Corp. in the arena of digital rights management (DRM). Their strong position was established as a result of a licensing agreement with ContentGuard Inc., owner of a significant portfolio of DRM patented technologies.

321 Studios has chosen to play David to Motion Picture Association of America's Goliath in the legal arena. This small company has released a software application for $99.99 that allows purchasers to easily make copies of DVD movies to blank DVDs. The MPA contends that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 prevents 321 Studios from a blatant circumvention of DVD encryption control technology, referred to as CSS (Content Scrambling System). 321 Studios argues fair use allows consumers to legitimately make a backup copy of any DVDs they have purchased for personal use.

The Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic at Boalt Hall is actively involved in educational efforts focused on privacy law, digital rights management and copyright issues.

The site maintains a BriefBank, to which public interest groups and legal scholars contribute briefs on law, technology and public policy. The site has a basic search engine (parties to the case and court of jurisdiction), and briefs are available in HTML. In addition, the site hosts conference materials and links to related sites sponsored by UC Berkeley. See their press release on an "Enforcing Privacy Rights" conference, held Nov. 15 and 16.

The battle between music CD publishers and consumers who are burning copies will continue unabated, due to quickly applied modifications in CD technology. This is according to Princeton University computer science student Alex Halderman, whose expertise on the subject has been widely acknowledged (check out his resume!) Alex will present his paper, Evaluating New Copy-Prevention Techniques for Audio CDs, at the Association for Computing Machinery Workshop on Security and Privacy in Digital Rights Management, November 18 in D.C.

The battle between music CD publishers and consumers who are burning copies will continue unabated, due to quickly applied modifications in CD technology. This is according to Princeton University computer science student Alex Halderman, whose expertise on the subject has been widely acknowledged (check out his resume!) Alex will present his paper, Evaluating New Copy-Prevention Techniques for Audio CDs, at the Association for Computing Machinery Workshop on Security and Privacy in Digital Rights Management, November 18 in D.C.

In a follow-up to my 10/22/02 posting on trusted computing, globetechnology.com addresses the issue of how PC users will increasingly be forced to comply with industry imposed digital rights management solutions if they want to use most of the applications on the PCs.

An interesting interview with Jeffrey Hunker, dean of the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University that focuses on what is at stake in the battle over digital rights management from the perspective of consumers and industry. Privacy, security, and revenue are key factors.

O'Reilly Network Weblogs published the transcript of the Digital ID World 2002 conference panel discussion on Digital Rights Management, featuring Appellate litigator and blogger Denise Howell.

DigitalConsumer.org is an advocacy group (that states a membership of 44,000) that is promoting a Consumer Technology Bill of Rights that supports the right of consumers to use their PCs to make and view copies of digital content (CDs, DVD's, TV broadcasts) for personal use. The site links to current news on files sharing, copyright in IP issues, as well as small library of organizational press releases.