Software as Copyright Enforcement
On this page, you will learn how encryption is used for copyright enforcement.
Digital Rights Management (DRM)
IOC-1.F.3
Computers and the Internet support the free exchange of media, but they can also be used to prevent it. Many digital media are distributed in encrypted form. Buyers can't play the media without the software that decrypts them, and the software will only do so if certain conditions designed by the publisher are met. Maybe a file can only be played on a particular computer. Maybe there can't be two copies with the same serial number. Maybe the file times out on a particular date and can never be used again.
Digital Rights Management (DRM) software is a big change in the social contract. The whole idea of copyright is that eventually it expires and the work is in the public domain, freely copyable by anyone. But DRM allows publishers to have it both ways: they get copyright protection during the time when a work is most popular, and DRM gives them control over the content forever.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a US law that went into effect in 1998. It makes it a crime to figure out how to defeat DRM systems, whether or not a copyright is actually violated. It protects Internet service providers and website operators from third-party copyright violation penalties (for example, if you post a copyrighted video on YouTube, YouTube is not liable) provided that the operator (YouTube) removes the infringing material as soon as it is notified of the violation. If the original poster thinks the material does not violate a copyright, the burden is on them to prove it.
Are there any exemptions?
Temporary exemptions to the anti-circumvention part of the DMCA can be made by the Librarian of Congress for a three-year period (a surprising choice, since the Library of Congress previously wasn't involved in judging copyright issues), but any such exemption must be renewed by the Librarian every three years. Most such exemptions are made for technical reasons (e.g., to allow one piece of equipment to work with another piece of equipment from a different manufacturer), but there was great excitement in 2010 when the Librarian of Congress allowed people to jailbreak their cell phones.
Here two examples of manufacturers using the DMCA in creative ways, possibly not for purposes envisioned in the original copyright provisions.
- Printer Ink Cartridges: Printer manufacturers don't make much money when you buy a printer; competition drives prices down. Instead, they make profits when you buy replacement ink cartridges because you have to buy ones that fit the printer. Lexmark, a printer manufacturer, developed a technology by which printers would not use cartridges unless they provided a Lexmark digital signature. Another company reverse-engineered the cartridge and created their own cartridges that would work with Lexmark's printers. Lexmark sued under the DMCA, claiming a copyright violation because the other company copied the tiny program that provided the signature. Ultimately Lexmark lost; what they did was determined not to be a legitimate use of the DMCA.
- DVD Region Codes: The fine print on the back of a DVD case often says something like "this DVD is licensed for sale in North America." This restriction is enforced by DRM. Your DVD player knows what region of the world it's in. The purpose of this system is to allow film companies to sell DVDs cheaply in poor countries but charge more in rich countries. (Without region coding, people would import DVDs from the poor countries and resell them here. Region coding can also be used to allow different versions of a film to account for different censorship rules.) This system is protected by the DMCA.
Doesn't this violate free-trade?
Arguments have been made that region coding violates free-trade treaties that forbid most restrictions on exporting goods from one country to another. It would definitely be a treaty violation if the US government had invented region coding, but since it's a creation of private companies, the question has not been settled. But the DMCA law can be seen as though the government is enforcing the region coding, so some people argue that it is a treaty violation.
- People in poor countries have more limited access to technology than people in rich countries. Look up the "Digital Divide" to find out about this problem. Do you think DVD (and Blu-Ray, by the way) region coding contributes to the digital divide?