DMCA: Difference between revisions
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Greatly reviled by the Internet and computer savvy, for two reasons:
* 17 USC 1201, which makes it illegal to circumvent [[DRM|access-control technology]], even for otherwise legal purposes. Playing [[DVD
** This part of the DMCA requires that the Library of Congress grant exceptions every three years, but limitations on the exceptions, both in the letter of the DMCA and in the way it has been interpreted, make this useless for consumers (see [http://w2.eff.org/IP/DMCA/copyrightoffice/DMCA_rulemaking_broken.pdf this PDF link] from the Electronic Frontiers Foundation). (Note that the exceptions are often misinterpreted. Doing something covered by an exception doesn't violate the DMCA, but it can still be illegal for other reasons; even with an exception, you can't pirate stuff.)
** [http://arstechnica.com/software/news/2010/07/court-breaking-drm-for-a-fair-use-is-legal.ars As of July 2010], removing the DRM for personal usage is now fair use.
* The DMCA clause of concern to internet posters is 17 USC 512, or the takedown provisions. These state that online service providers cannot be sued for copyright violation if they promptly take down copyright-violating material and are not liable to the customer for doing so. The customer can send a counter-notification, if they are aware that they can, but the material will be down for at least 10 days, and the legal burden is much lower on presumed copyright owners than on customers.
Because the law gives providers an incentive to always believe the presumed copyright owner and gives the customer little defense against false accusations, it's often abused by corporations and other organizations to force the takedown of material that doesn't violate copyright; the worst cases (on occasion) take down public domain items or copylefted material. It's theoretically an offense to file a false takedown notice, but to date, only one person has ever sued for such "misrepresentation," and the copyright owner has been fighting tooth and
On the bright side, at least a notice has to be filed by ''someone'' before anything gets taken down. It's because not everyone files takedown notices for everything, and because action must be taken to enforce copyrights, that [[Fanfic]] and other unauthorized Derivative works can exist on the internet with any permanence. If the ISPs could get sued for [[Fanfic]] their users post, there wouldn't be any [[Fanfic]] on most of them. (This is why some varieties of [[Real Person Fic]] are hard to find. [[Real Person Fic]] risks, not copyright infringement, but libel, and the DMCA doesn't override the libel laws.)
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