Copyright discussion of interest to educators

It is almost the beginning of a new school year so our thoughts are turning lightly to preparing new materials for our classes. One such thought should be the thorny issue of using materials that we did not create ourselves. Our rights to use others' materials without violating copyright laws can be complex and confusing, especially since the "fair use" right to use what exists in physical print or hardcopy is not the same as for what exists in digital media. This extra confusion is courtesy of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998.

A Web site, Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Status and Analysis, http://www.arl.org/info/frn/copy/dmca.ht... has many links on this somewhat disliked act. It includes a PDF link to the actual Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. This site is sponsored and copyrighted by the Association of Research Libraries. Another Web site, http://anti-dmca.org/, makes no bones about the problems of this act. It starts out with the assertion, "The DMCA is being used to silence researchers, computer scientists, and critics. Corporations are using it against the public. Public/College radio stations can no longer afford to webcast."

In case you do not sufficiently dislike this act, one that is potentially far worse is now working its way through the Senate. It would be to your benefit and to other educators' benefits to become familiar with this proposed legislation and let your representatives know how you feel about it. You can read a summary of it in a USA Today article; http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries... The problem is that the language is so broad that it could have almost unbelievably obnoxious consequences. Yet another article on this proposed legislation, Copying Programs Could be Outlawed; http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,ai... , talks about both sides of this legislation, both the intended good consequences and the possible bad consequences that would discourage innovation.

The key word in this act is "induce." Under this act, any company that produces anything that could conceivably "induce" others to illegally copy copyrighted content would be subject to draconian penalties. This could apply to makers of "PCs, copiers, scanners, cameras, VCRs, TiVos, portable music players, paper, pens, or pencils" as Scott Bradner wrote in "Is there a little devil on the way?" in Network World, 6/18/2004, page 22. This bill would declare open hunting season in which owners of existing content would be invited to shoot any new technology that worries them. This additional legal liability could seriously discourage funding for any new technologies in the entire digital media industry.

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