For our protection, let's be very scrupulous in our discussions of this topic, keeping in mind the
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act. For those not familiar with the Act, general highlights are as follows:
- Makes it a crime to circumvent anti-piracy measures built into most commercial software.
- Outlaws the manufacture, sale, or distribution of code-cracking devices used to illegally copy software.
- Does permit the cracking of copyright protection devices, however, to conduct encryption research, assess product interoperability, and test computer security systems.
- Provides exemptions from anti-circumvention provisions for nonprofit libraries, archives, and educational institutions under certain circumstances.
- In general, limits Internet service providers from copyright infringement liability for simply transmitting information over the Internet.
- Service providers, however, are expected to remove material from users' web sites that appears to constitute copyright infringement.
- Limits liability of nonprofit institutions of higher education -- when they serve as online service providers and under certain circumstances -- for copyright infringement by faculty members or graduate students.
- Requires that "webcasters" pay licensing fees to record companies.
- Requires that the Register of Copyrights, after consultation with relevant parties, submit to Congress recommendations regarding how to promote distance education through digital technologies while "maintaining an appropriate balance between the rights of copyright owners and the needs of users."
- States explicitly that "[n]othing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use..."
I'm not excluding any discussion of copying (other than what our Forum Rules prohibit), and I want to make sure we don't encourage anything that might infringe on the Act.