{
  "id": "RL31257",
  "type": "CRS Report",
  "typeId": "REPORTS",
  "number": "RL31257",
  "active": false,
  "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
  "versions": [
    {
      "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
      "id": 101022,
      "date": "2002-01-23",
      "retrieved": "2016-05-24T20:16:48.715941",
      "title": "Anticircumvention under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act: Universal Studios v. Corley",
      "summary": "In 1998, Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Title I implements\ntwo\n1996 World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) treaties, both of which contain language\nobligating member states to prevent circumvention of technological measures designed to protect\ncopyrighted works and to prevent tampering with the integrity of copyright management information. \n To this end, the Act adds a new chapter 12 to the U.S. Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. Sections 1201 -\n1205, entitled \"Copyright Protection and Management Systems.\" Section 1201(a)(1) prohibits any\nperson from circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a copyrighted\nwork, while the antitrafficking provisions of Section 1201(a)(2) and (b)(1) cover those who traffic\nin technologies designed to circumvent access control devices protecting copyrighted material from\nunauthorized copying or use. Civil remedies and criminal penalties are established.\n  Since enactment, the copyright protection and management provisions,  i.e.,  the\n\"anticircumvention\" provisions, have proven controversial. Critics argue that the DMCA has a\nchilling effect on rights of free speech. A university professor, Edward Felten, who decrypted\nsoftware protecting digital music was threatened with liability under the Act if he presented his\nfindings publicly. And a Russian computer programer, Dimitry Sklyarov, faced criminal charges\nunder the Act's anti-trafficking provision. Neither of these incidents, however, has resulted in a\ndefinitive judicial interpretation of the Act.\n  The Second Circuit Court of Appeals, however, in  Universal Studios v. Corley ,\n recently issued\na decision which establishes an analytical constitutional framework for the anticircumvention\nprovisions. This report examines this decision, which considers whether public dissemination of the\ncomputer code called DeCSS to descramble encryption of Digital Versatile Disc motion pictures may\nbe prohibited. In upholding a broad injunction prohibiting the posting or hyperlinking of DeCSS on\nthe Internet, the DMCA has survived its first constitutional challenge. \n  As the courts entertain more anticircumvention litigation, this report will be updated.",
      "type": "CRS Report",
      "typeId": "REPORTS",
      "active": false,
      "formats": [
        {
          "format": "HTML",
          "encoding": "utf-8",
          "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/RL31257",
          "sha1": "8b8faf4a92ea437b9484956930c5706c66df02c8",
          "filename": "files/20020123_RL31257_8b8faf4a92ea437b9484956930c5706c66df02c8.html",
          "images": null
        },
        {
          "format": "PDF",
          "encoding": null,
          "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/pdf/RL31257",
          "sha1": "12a21a6816048b39d011b4ed3f73291014fe0727",
          "filename": "files/20020123_RL31257_12a21a6816048b39d011b4ed3f73291014fe0727.pdf",
          "images": null
        }
      ],
      "topics": []
    }
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Constitutional Questions"
  ]
}