Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tex Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff dot com. Pathan, everyone, and welcome to text Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm We're going to talk about
Speaker 1: a super fun topic today. We are both repped up.
Speaker 1: It is the d m c A, the Digital Millennium
Speaker 1: Copyright Act of nineteen Yes, uh yeah. The reason we're
Speaker 1: covering this, obviously is because the d m c A
Speaker 1: is one of those things a lot of people cite,
Speaker 1: uh in various uh discussions online, things about you know
Speaker 1: what what pertains to copyright law of that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: and we thought it might be helpful to actually go
Speaker 1: through and talk about this this what it actually is,
Speaker 1: what it actually says, and some of the ways that
Speaker 1: it has interacted with with us in in the real world,
Speaker 1: the hypothetical real world that I keep hearing about and
Speaker 1: don't actually we see all that often. No, that's because
Speaker 1: we play a little halo. But yeah, now they the
Speaker 1: the whole reason we're tackling this again is that it's
Speaker 1: it's you know, when we talk about piracy, and we
Speaker 1: talked about copyright, and we talk about intellectual property and
Speaker 1: safe haven. Most of that has to do with the
Speaker 1: various copyright laws, at least here in the United States
Speaker 1: that we have several copyright laws, but a lot of
Speaker 1: it refers back to the d m c A. And
Speaker 1: the reason why the d m c A is even
Speaker 1: a thing is because once we started entering the digital era,
Speaker 1: the landscape changed dramatically. All right. So before the digital era,
Speaker 1: when everything was analog, you could make copies of stuff,
Speaker 1: but it tended to be uh slow. It tended to
Speaker 1: take a lot of effort on the part of the
Speaker 1: person making the copy. It was not easy for your
Speaker 1: average person to make a copy of something and then
Speaker 1: distributed it right for you, you know. For for example,
Speaker 1: before digital books, in order to make a copy of
Speaker 1: a book, you had to either um, you know, put
Speaker 1: it on a copy machine, or in olden days, break
Speaker 1: into a printing press room or hold hold some monks
Speaker 1: at crossbow point and say illuminate the script faster. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was not easy. And so while there were protections
Speaker 1: in place to keep intellectual property under the the ownership
Speaker 1: of the person who created it or the entity that
Speaker 1: owned the rights to it, because of course we all
Speaker 1: know the copyright holder is not necessarily the person who
Speaker 1: actually made yes, but anyway, there were laws in place
Speaker 1: to protect that property. But you know, the it was
Speaker 1: pretty easy to combat the any sort of piracy just
Speaker 1: because it was it was a lot of trouble to
Speaker 1: pirates stuff. Uh. You know, I can remember back in
Speaker 1: the day when I was a little kid occasionally using
Speaker 1: a cassette recorder to copy a song that was playing
Speaker 1: on the radio. So yeah, okay, so right. But but
Speaker 1: until right until U cassette's both video and audio came out,
Speaker 1: it wasn't so much an issue. No, no, And and
Speaker 1: in fact, the various industries that have an interest in
Speaker 1: distributing and producing and distributing media very much opposed things
Speaker 1: like cassettes and video tapes. But eventually the government said, no,
Speaker 1: the benefit of this outweighs the the potential threat to
Speaker 1: your industry, and in many ways they were They were
Speaker 1: very much right, because again it just was not easy
Speaker 1: to circumvent that stuff. But once we get into the
Speaker 1: digital era, now you're talking about the ability to take
Speaker 1: information zeros and ones is ultimately what we're talking about here.
Speaker 1: You could take information and you can make copies of
Speaker 1: it relatively easily and distribute it relatively easily, especially once
Speaker 1: the Internet internet became so now now we're in an
Speaker 1: era where you could have a book published and someone
Speaker 1: could take a digital version of that book, strip away
Speaker 1: any sort of copyright protection that happens to be there,
Speaker 1: and distribute it freely to whomever they like. And obviously
Speaker 1: the various publication industries, music industries, movie television, all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, they were very much concerned about this,
Speaker 1: and and rightfully so, because if it is easier to
Speaker 1: get at the material by pirrating it than by buying it,
Speaker 1: that's what people are gonna do. Well. Sure, and there
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of contention about that, you know,
Speaker 1: studies and pretty informal studies as if you have the
Speaker 1: people have done about how being able to preview something
Speaker 1: for free actually increases sales on that paid object. Sure,
Speaker 1: but there's there's a lot of anecdotal evidence that says
Speaker 1: that pirates tend to buy more stuff than anyone else does.
Speaker 1: So in other words, like a pirate will will download
Speaker 1: a torrent of a movie or a television show, really
Speaker 1: enjoy it, and then go out and buy a copy
Speaker 1: of it because they want to have that legitimate copy.
Speaker 1: Has all the bells and whistles, right, Although publishers are
Speaker 1: starting to take steps these days, you know, and letting
Speaker 1: you preview more and more of songs online or or
Speaker 1: or access and things or something like Netflix, so that
Speaker 1: you can really check something out and see it's something
Speaker 1: that you're interested in purchasing before you right, and Amazon
Speaker 1: has a lending library. So but all of these things
Speaker 1: are kind of subscription based, so you're still paying into
Speaker 1: a system. It's just now you're you've gotten a lot
Speaker 1: more options instead of just I want to buy this
Speaker 1: site unseen and hopefully I will like it. But anyway,
Speaker 1: so the d m c A was was this series
Speaker 1: of tweaks to existing law in the United States, and
Speaker 1: itself was not just a brand new law. It was
Speaker 1: really to add amendments to existing law in the US,
Speaker 1: and it was trying to bring US law into alignment
Speaker 1: with world the world intellectual property treaties from two of
Speaker 1: them in particular, one called the Wipeo Copyright Treaty and
Speaker 1: one called the Wipeo Performances and Phonograms Treaty. And so
Speaker 1: this was also to kind of help make a united
Speaker 1: front and on the global scale of copyright holders versus
Speaker 1: the evil, nasty, horrible pirates who are going to destroy
Speaker 1: everything from within. Yeah, those those WIDEO treaties were introduced
Speaker 1: in n six seven. The d m c A was
Speaker 1: originally sponsored by Republican Howard Koble of North Carolina in
Speaker 1: the US House. Yep and uh. And it went through
Speaker 1: several revisions, a few iterations that ended up adding some
Speaker 1: interesting things which we will get to. Um can't wait
Speaker 1: to get to it. I am just chomping at the
Speaker 1: bit to get to the end of this podcast. It finally,
Speaker 1: it finally passed in October when then President Bill Clinton
Speaker 1: signed it yep, signed into law. So let's kind of
Speaker 1: start talking about what is actually in the d m
Speaker 1: c A. It's divided into five titles or five sections,
Speaker 1: and the first two titles are the ones that have
Speaker 1: the most interesting content from where we are, so we're
Speaker 1: gonna we're gonna really constrain those first two titles, but
Speaker 1: don't worry, the other three will get covered because title
Speaker 1: five is a doozy alright. So title one, this is
Speaker 1: from a summary of the d m c A. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna just read the little blurb verbatim. The white
Speaker 1: bo copyright and performances in phonograms Treaties Implementation Act of
Speaker 1: implements the White bo Treaties, and so it amends US
Speaker 1: law to provide appropriate references and links to the White
Speaker 1: Bow Treaties. It also prohibits their convention of technological measures
Speaker 1: used by copyright owners to protect their works, such as
Speaker 1: dr M. That I added these such as DRM. By
Speaker 1: the way, that's not in the original language. It is
Speaker 1: very important. Yes, adds civil remedies and criminal penalties for
Speaker 1: violating the prohibitions. So, in other words, this is the
Speaker 1: part of the d m c A that makes it
Speaker 1: illegal to try and get around copy protection. So if
Speaker 1: that copy protection is something that's physically part of a
Speaker 1: device that plays digital media, or if it's something that's
Speaker 1: within the digital media itself so software based. Uh, this
Speaker 1: by by the definition of the d m c A
Speaker 1: illegal to circumvent that in any way unless unless there
Speaker 1: are certain circumstances in play. Right and its specifically UM
Speaker 1: covers unauthorized access, but not unauthorized copying only for fair use.
Speaker 1: Right unauthorized copy is still covered if it's not for
Speaker 1: fair use. So that that raises the question what is
Speaker 1: fair use. Fair use is this concept where you are
Speaker 1: allowed to use someone else's work, some other copyrighted work
Speaker 1: in very specific specific circumstances, such as if you were
Speaker 1: providing commentary about that work. So let's say, for example,
Speaker 1: that Lauren and I wanted to take something that had
Speaker 1: been published and copyrighted. Uh, and it's about technology, and
Speaker 1: we wanted to really critique it and explain it and
Speaker 1: explore it and and add to it with our own
Speaker 1: point points of view. Uh, And we wanted to quote
Speaker 1: an entire page of that work. Well, as long as
Speaker 1: we're doing it responsibly, and we are actually providing commentary
Speaker 1: that adds to the discussion, as long as we're not
Speaker 1: just broadcasting this back out at you for free, whereas
Speaker 1: normally you would have to pay to get it. As
Speaker 1: long as you know we're adding enough to it to
Speaker 1: make it fair use, Yeah, that would be fair use.
Speaker 1: And so you'll you'll often hear people say, oh, like
Speaker 1: with music, you could play about fifteen seconds of music
Speaker 1: and then that's fair use. No, there is actually not
Speaker 1: a definition of how much work you can quote or
Speaker 1: play that remains free. Like your your your intent and
Speaker 1: your ability to make money off of the product is
Speaker 1: definitely in a lot of consideration. The consideration here. For
Speaker 1: for example, there was a case in two thousand seven
Speaker 1: Stephanie Lens versus Universal Move Music Corporation, which was really interesting.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of cutting into the middle of the meat here,
Speaker 1: but but I wanted to bring this up. We're talking
Speaker 1: about fair use because this was a This was a
Speaker 1: woman who uploaded a picture of her thirteen month old
Speaker 1: baby dancing to princes let's go crazy onto YouTube, UM
Speaker 1: have fun times for everybody, right. It was a twenty
Speaker 1: nine second clip, and Universal told YouTube to take it down.
Speaker 1: They said, this violates copyright law. She did not ask
Speaker 1: for permission to Prince to to use that song. Take
Speaker 1: it down. They did take it down, and she she
Speaker 1: soon Universal for UM legal fees to contact YouTube to
Speaker 1: get it back up, and also for just just messing
Speaker 1: with your life, and and and and the judge ruled
Speaker 1: in that particular case that that it was fair use,
Speaker 1: and that also UM companies really do need to check
Speaker 1: that fair use isn't being broken before they ask for
Speaker 1: content to be removed. Yeah, you'll often hear about that too.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a I don't I didn't write down
Speaker 1: this particular instance, but I know for a fact that
Speaker 1: it happened because I know some of the people who
Speaker 1: are involved. UH this Weekend Text Tech News Today, Uh,
Speaker 1: The The That's a show that's done with Sarah Lane,
Speaker 1: Tom Merritt and i Azactar Leo Reports Network. They did
Speaker 1: a a show that at one point they were talking
Speaker 1: about a video that was also a copyright of work,
Speaker 1: and so part of that their show is both an
Speaker 1: audio podcast and a video podcast. You can get it
Speaker 1: in either format, and the video podcasts also get uploaded
Speaker 1: to YouTube. YouTube ended up taking that one down when
Speaker 1: they got a request from the owner of the video,
Speaker 1: even though it was very much evident that this was
Speaker 1: a case where it was fair uses in play because
Speaker 1: they were providing commentary about the video itself. They weren't
Speaker 1: just playing the video. It was all about uh, really
Speaker 1: analyzing it and talking about it in a way that
Speaker 1: was was transformative. And uh it took quite some time
Speaker 1: to get that turned around. On YouTube's defense, I will
Speaker 1: say that if they don't act quickly, bad things can
Speaker 1: happen to YouTube. But we'll get into that. That's a
Speaker 1: little bit later into the m c A. UH title
Speaker 1: one also covers some other stuff. One thing it says
Speaker 1: is that if you are talking about public domain public domains.
Speaker 1: Another thing we need to talk about public domain is
Speaker 1: when you have a work that has existed longer than
Speaker 1: copyright protection will cover that work. So it varies from
Speaker 1: country to country. So, for example, let's just say what
Speaker 1: will make a hypothetical example. Let's say that a country
Speaker 1: protects any copyright of work for twenty years. After a
Speaker 1: work has existed for more than twenty years, it enters
Speaker 1: into the public domain, meaning anyone can use it any
Speaker 1: way they like. You can publish as many you could
Speaker 1: take that work. You could print out your own copies.
Speaker 1: You could distribute them freely. You could run down the
Speaker 1: street laughing like a maniac and chucking copies at people's heads.
Speaker 1: Uh that sometimes around band booked week with with Mark
Speaker 1: Twain properties for example, you could get arrested for some
Speaker 1: form of assault and battery that way, but you won't
Speaker 1: be arrested for distributing copyright at work. Because it's in
Speaker 1: the public domain. You can do whatever you like with it. Again,
Speaker 1: the amount of time that a work exists before it's
Speaker 1: in public domain varies by country to country, and in
Speaker 1: the United States, for example, that number keeps going up
Speaker 1: because we have some pretty powerful people who are saying like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we we really want to keep snow White for example, Yeah,
Speaker 1: even though it published in there's a certain mouse that
Speaker 1: has had a large amount of influence on this particular subject. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very true. Disney has been very active in keeping
Speaker 1: uh you know, adding more years to what would be
Speaker 1: considered copyright. And then there's the question of well, can
Speaker 1: we transfer it so that, uh, even after the copyright
Speaker 1: holder has passed away, or maybe the company turns into
Speaker 1: something else, like, can we keep it so that those
Speaker 1: rights continue can be transferred to the next Yeah. So
Speaker 1: so there are a lot of issues with that. Well,
Speaker 1: the title one of dmc A tells us that the
Speaker 1: the rules about public domain revert to the country of
Speaker 1: origin of that work. So if the work was produced
Speaker 1: in uh, say, France, then whatever France's rules are for
Speaker 1: public domain would be in play no matter where else
Speaker 1: in the world you might be, or well, in this case,
Speaker 1: in the United States, because DMC only covers the US. Clearly,
Speaker 1: right right in the United States, is not adding jurisdiction
Speaker 1: of the entire world here. They are not. However, an
Speaker 1: important part of that title one is that um. It
Speaker 1: names the US as a member country of of WIPO,
Speaker 1: and it really and says that it provides equal protection
Speaker 1: to any other member country of WIPO in the United
Speaker 1: States any any work from Yeah. So in other words,
Speaker 1: it's supposed to apply the same rules and same rigor
Speaker 1: h for any copyrighted work that's under threat from a
Speaker 1: WIPO country as it would for anything that's from the
Speaker 1: United States. So no preferential treatment for US versus non US.
Speaker 1: And also with this public domain issue, you defer to
Speaker 1: the rules of the country of origin. So whichever country
Speaker 1: produced said work, that's the rules that apply for public
Speaker 1: domain UM and uh the the whole unauthorized access versus
Speaker 1: unauthorized copying. There are some exemptions that are allowed, but
Speaker 1: they are pretty specific. For one thing, law enforcement, intelligence
Speaker 1: and other governmental agencies are exempt from Title one, so
Speaker 1: uh the you know, the FBI doesn't have to worry
Speaker 1: about following these rules that kind of thing. Other exceptions
Speaker 1: apply to nonprofit library, archive, and educational institutions that wish
Speaker 1: to obtain authorized access to works. So again, uh the
Speaker 1: access still has to be authorized. They can't circumvent and
Speaker 1: they can't do it i'll will and nilly, they have
Speaker 1: to ask, right, but they can make copies if it's
Speaker 1: for archival purposes. So in that sense, because I remember
Speaker 1: there's two sections here. There's the access and then there's
Speaker 1: the actual copying, because there's been a lot of questions
Speaker 1: about that, UH, and and the about the you know,
Speaker 1: making things like a gadget that could circumvent uh, the
Speaker 1: access block part that's illegal. But but creating a gadget
Speaker 1: that can get around the copy protection is not illegal.
Speaker 1: It's just the access part that you have to worry about.
Speaker 1: And again it's not illegal, but you have to use
Speaker 1: it in very specific circumstances to not get in trouble.
Speaker 1: Other exceptions include reverse engineering for computer programmers. So if
Speaker 1: you're trying to make a computer program that can be
Speaker 1: interoperable with an existing program, then you can start making
Speaker 1: copies of the existing program in an effort to learn
Speaker 1: how it works so that you can make sure that
Speaker 1: your new software works seamlessly with the old software. That's
Speaker 1: really what that was there to protect. Encryption research is protected,
Speaker 1: so UH, if your work is designed to analyze, evaluate,
Speaker 1: and improve encryption technologies, you're protected also for the protection
Speaker 1: of miners. So if there's any technology that's designed to
Speaker 1: limit access to materials that you know are considered to
Speaker 1: be harmful to minors, but it would otherwise violate part
Speaker 1: of Title one, those are exempt from the Title one
Speaker 1: issues as well. And then there's personal privacy, which is
Speaker 1: if the technology that was used to protect a work
Speaker 1: would gain or disseminate unauthorized information about a quote natural
Speaker 1: person unquote, it can be circumvented. So if you were
Speaker 1: to put DRM on something and that DRM, as part
Speaker 1: of what it does besides protecting the copyrighted work, would
Speaker 1: also gather information about you, you can you can then
Speaker 1: circumvent because because they consider that the dissemination of the
Speaker 1: private information is worse than circumventing the DRM. And finally, UH,
Speaker 1: security testing is also exempt from this. So uh yeah,
Speaker 1: any devices that are primarily designed or produced to circumvent
Speaker 1: h copyright protection, uh, that have only limited commercially significant
Speaker 1: purpose or use other than to circumvent or are marketed
Speaker 1: for use in circumventing our big no nos under Title one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this is some interesting stuff. So again, really
Speaker 1: it's the access that's the big deal here. Copying. Copying
Speaker 1: is still a problem. You know, you can't just copy
Speaker 1: like crazy. You have to be able to justify it
Speaker 1: under those rules I was talking about. But the access
Speaker 1: is definitely a big issue. So in other words, if
Speaker 1: something is behind a paywall, you can't circumvent the paywall
Speaker 1: to get at the stuff, because that's talking about access. Now,
Speaker 1: if you if you don't have a paywall, if you
Speaker 1: can freely access it um or you've paid to get
Speaker 1: through it, then making the copy, that's more of a
Speaker 1: question of do you fall under one of those exemptions?
Speaker 1: Right right? Uh? It does also say maybe you were
Speaker 1: getting to this one, but I thought that this one
Speaker 1: was particularly interesting. It does. It says that it does
Speaker 1: not and will never mandate that the design of products
Speaker 1: be be such that they specifically prevent the creation of
Speaker 1: devices made to circumvent themselves. It gets a little little
Speaker 1: complicated and timey wymy wibbly wobbly, doesn't it um, It does,
Speaker 1: But but it's really to protect companies and say say
Speaker 1: that if you're designing products, then it's not your problem
Speaker 1: if someone creates something that can circonvent it. One other
Speaker 1: thing that title one covers. It actually says that the
Speaker 1: provision prohibits rights holders, meaning people who own copyright to material.
Speaker 1: It prevents them from applying the copyright prevention or copyright
Speaker 1: circumvention prevention technologies to free television and basic and extended
Speaker 1: Basic tier cable broadcasts, meaning that you can't put copyright
Speaker 1: protection on stuff that is freely distributed in any way.
Speaker 1: So you could not put some sort of copy protection
Speaker 1: over over the air broadcast because of the very nature
Speaker 1: of how it's distributed. Okay, so so share So, so
Speaker 1: if you wanted to record something that was airing on PPS,
Speaker 1: then do it. You could do that. Yeah, anything that
Speaker 1: was on any sort of over the air transmission, you
Speaker 1: would be you would It doesn't fall fall under the
Speaker 1: umbrella of d M c A as as opposed to
Speaker 1: a lot of other digital transmissions or cable transmissions that
Speaker 1: which are here. Here's another thing, like, if that same
Speaker 1: same program that you would have gotten over the air
Speaker 1: on an antenna and you want to record it on
Speaker 1: your your home system, if it's perfectly okay under that circumstance,
Speaker 1: it's not perfectly okay if that same program is being
Speaker 1: distributed over the internet. Interesting, huh, Because it's two different
Speaker 1: means of distribution. It has nothing to do with the content,
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with whether or not it's in
Speaker 1: their copyright, has everything to do with the method of distribution.
Speaker 1: What a crazy world we live in. Do you have
Speaker 1: anything else to say about title one, Lauren, anything else? Um?
Speaker 1: Because it gets crazier from here on out. It does
Speaker 1: get crazier. Now. There's a lot of interesting court cases
Speaker 1: that have come up about what it means to be
Speaker 1: an owner versus a life and see versus a user
Speaker 1: of any of these pieces of media, especially one case
Speaker 1: in two thousand seven Timothy S. Verner versus Autodesk, and
Speaker 1: Verner sued Autodesk because he had been buying all of
Speaker 1: the software from garage sales and selling it on eBay
Speaker 1: and um some of that. One of these things that
Speaker 1: was included was a program called autocat, owned by Autodesk.
Speaker 1: It's a computer assisted design sure um. The user agreement
Speaker 1: in in AutoCAD says that it's you are a licensee
Speaker 1: and that your license to use this as non transferable.
Speaker 1: So whoever buys it, that's who. That's But Verner said
Speaker 1: it wasn't his fault that someone had sold it to
Speaker 1: him at a garage sale and that he should therefore
Speaker 1: have the right to sell it on eBay, and an
Speaker 1: Autodesk said not. And that is interesting. I mean, what
Speaker 1: do you do because the person who sold it, the
Speaker 1: too verner, as essentially the one who's violating that licensing agreement, right,
Speaker 1: But but the courts, the courts upheld out at desk.
Speaker 1: They said, they said, no, because you have entered into
Speaker 1: a legal agreement period, you are responsible for what you do.
Speaker 1: It's weird. I would have said that the person who
Speaker 1: entered the legal agreement was the one who originally bought
Speaker 1: the software, not him, because if he bought it from
Speaker 1: a garage sale, he did not clearly buy it from
Speaker 1: any retailer that was Autodesk. So it's interesting to me,
Speaker 1: not that I'm contesting what you're saying, but it's interesting
Speaker 1: to me that the court would say that because you know,
Speaker 1: they basically ruled that he was never a legitimate owner. Okay,
Speaker 1: got so, So therefore, because he's not a legitimate owner,
Speaker 1: he cannot be a reseller. Cannot be a reseller. Christ
Speaker 1: you know, this is one of those things where it
Speaker 1: kind of it's it brings up that whole idea of
Speaker 1: the right of first sale which is, if you buy something,
Speaker 1: then you have the right to sell it off to
Speaker 1: someone else. The digital era has really changed that as well,
Speaker 1: because you can sell something that's digital and that that's
Speaker 1: the entire that's the entire you that I'm talking about
Speaker 1: with license c R a user versus an owner. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: I and you can understand autodesks point. They might say, well,
Speaker 1: how can we be certain that other than you know,
Speaker 1: through registration, how can we be certain that the copy
Speaker 1: of the of AutoCAD has been white from all the
Speaker 1: computers that the original owner had. So if I bought AutoCAD,
Speaker 1: hypothetically the key wouldn't work, yeah, right, which again, uh,
Speaker 1: the problem is that there are programs out there that
Speaker 1: will generate new keys. Yeah, so you can circumvent it,
Speaker 1: which you're not supposed to do. But yeah, so this
Speaker 1: is interesting. That's interesting that it goes all the way
Speaker 1: down to selling stuff on eBay, right. Yeah. On a
Speaker 1: grander scale, this is the same kind of issue that
Speaker 1: has to do or or title one anyway has to
Speaker 1: do with why unlocking your cell phone is illegal, Because
Speaker 1: disabling the DRM software in a cellphone that that locks
Speaker 1: it to a single carrier is illegal. So you can
Speaker 1: jail break your phone, but you can't you cannot unlock it. Well,
Speaker 1: you're you're you're allowed to. You're littled to jail break
Speaker 1: it to install software, but not unlock it for moving
Speaker 1: it from one to another. And this is a thing
Speaker 1: that once every three years, the Library of Congress sits
Speaker 1: down and reviews complaints that people have submitted to them
Speaker 1: about various bits of legislation and dan law. And during
Speaker 1: one of these, uh, one of these tricycles what are
Speaker 1: they called, try any ill trannial reviews? I like tricycles better.
Speaker 1: During during one of these tricycles recently, the Library of
Speaker 1: Congress um up help this that that, yeah, that jailbreaking
Speaker 1: to another network is not legal because and I do
Speaker 1: not quote, but this is the gist of their argument.
Speaker 1: There are so many devices on the market these days
Speaker 1: that surely you can find one on the network. Blame
Speaker 1: the victim, why don't you? Wow? I definitely feel a
Speaker 1: sting on this one. But then again, I bought my
Speaker 1: phone unlocked already, because I bought a phone that was
Speaker 1: designed to be unlocked, so that you could buy it
Speaker 1: and then put it on whichever network that's still legal.
Speaker 1: By the way, companies can choose to offer up an
Speaker 1: unlocked device. You just cannot take a device that has
Speaker 1: been locked and then unlock it. Yeah, there's a there's
Speaker 1: a bit of authorization again in this issue. Yea. So well,
Speaker 1: you know what, there's a lot more to talk about
Speaker 1: with the d m c A. But before we do,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick moment to thank our sponsor. Alright,
Speaker 1: getting back into the d m c A, we're ready
Speaker 1: to move on to title two. And I know some
Speaker 1: of you are thinking there are five titles here, how
Speaker 1: long is this going to go? But really, titles one
Speaker 1: and two are the big ones, and the other ones
Speaker 1: are well, you know, we'll touch on them, but they
Speaker 1: won't be quite as extensive. So Title two is the
Speaker 1: Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act, which creates limitations on
Speaker 1: liability for online service providers for copyright and fringement when
Speaker 1: engaged in certain types of activities. So this is of
Speaker 1: course where the term safe harbor comes from. Is this
Speaker 1: title too of the d m c A. So safe
Speaker 1: harbor is essentially this idea that if you are an
Speaker 1: online service provider, and that could be anything from an
Speaker 1: Internet service provider, you know, an I s P to
Speaker 1: a platform that people use on the internet, like like Tumblr, YouTube.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly that if you provide that service, you are
Speaker 1: not necessarily monetarily liable for any sort of copyright infringement
Speaker 1: that's being performed by the users of your platform. But
Speaker 1: there are again very specific rules in play. It's not
Speaker 1: that you're a given free license. You can't just sit
Speaker 1: there and say safe harbor, safe harbor, I'm okay. You
Speaker 1: have to actually, uh, you know, show that you are
Speaker 1: one unaware that the stuff is going on, and too,
Speaker 1: you cannot be benefiting from the fact that infringement is
Speaker 1: going on, right And and furthermore, if a company contacts
Speaker 1: you and says, hey, this thing is on your site,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's copyright infringement, please take it down, you
Speaker 1: have to do that. You have to respond very quickly.
Speaker 1: And that's one of the reasons why we see these
Speaker 1: these things happen where YouTube will pull something very quickly
Speaker 1: because they have to under the rules of d m
Speaker 1: c A if they received that notification. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: probably several big cases against YouTube that are all about
Speaker 1: copyright infringement. Viacom has a huge case, which is which
Speaker 1: is still going on, that was filed in two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven of our contention of hundred and sixty thousand
Speaker 1: clips that had been viewed fIF one point five billion
Speaker 1: times um and and they were basically saying YouTube you um,
Speaker 1: I'll quote from it. Because YouTube directly profits from the
Speaker 1: available availability of popular infringing works on its site, it
Speaker 1: has decided decided to shift the burden entirely onto copyright
Speaker 1: owners to monitor the YouTube site on a daili or
Speaker 1: hourly basis to detect infringing videos. So Viacom saying, hey,
Speaker 1: this should not be our job, and YouTube saying, hey,
Speaker 1: it shouldn't be our job either. There's seven two hours
Speaker 1: worth of material being uploaded every minute. There's no one
Speaker 1: who can sit there and go over every single frame
Speaker 1: of every single video that's always being submitted to this service. Um.
Speaker 1: And that's basically what the court said. They threw it
Speaker 1: out without even being tried in it came back actually
Speaker 1: in April, there was a reversal. The the court said
Speaker 1: that basically a reasonable jury could have found that that
Speaker 1: YouTube was aware of what was going on and just
Speaker 1: not taking steps right. Yes, and and that's that's one
Speaker 1: of the things under d m c A is that
Speaker 1: if the the service providers aware of it, they have
Speaker 1: to take steps to prevent it. Now again, if it's
Speaker 1: something where it comes under fair use, that's where it
Speaker 1: gets money. Again. Yeah, because I mean, like it's it's
Speaker 1: not it's not YouTube's job to determine what is fair
Speaker 1: use and what is not, uh, and the up the
Speaker 1: the copyright holder is supposed to at least take the
Speaker 1: into consideration before taking steps. But ultimately, fair use is
Speaker 1: something that's decided in a court of law. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's it's all down to does the
Speaker 1: copyright holder want to take the steps to actually uh
Speaker 1: prosecute someone, and then the court decides if it was
Speaker 1: fair use or not. That's that's the real problem with
Speaker 1: fair use is that it's really something that's decided after
Speaker 1: a court case. Um if it if no court case happens.
Speaker 1: So if a copyright holder never comes after you for
Speaker 1: the way you've used something, you could argue that's because
Speaker 1: it's fair use. But legally speaking, that's not the determination.
Speaker 1: It's just that no one came after you. That doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that they won't come after you some time in
Speaker 1: the future. This is the fun part of copyright law, right,
Speaker 1: So let's talk about some of the things that that
Speaker 1: the limitations on liability cover for copyright infringement this whole
Speaker 1: safe harbor idea. One of them is transitory communications. Now,
Speaker 1: this limits the liability of a service provider when all
Speaker 1: the provider is doing is acting as a data conduit.
Speaker 1: In other words, all they're doing is allowing information to
Speaker 1: pass from one entity to another entity. They're not they're
Speaker 1: not taking part in whatever the content is. Uh, They're
Speaker 1: just essentially they're the pipes. And if you are the
Speaker 1: one who owns the pipes, you cannot be held responsible
Speaker 1: monetarily for any copyright infringement material that passes along there
Speaker 1: as long as you are not complicit in that transaction. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, if you're a service provider and you
Speaker 1: are not knowingly providing people the chance to send copyright
Speaker 1: infringed material back and forth, or you're not profiting from it,
Speaker 1: then you're not liable. But if you're profiting from it,
Speaker 1: then there's a problem. And that's one of the things
Speaker 1: against YouTube is that if YouTube is running ads against videos,
Speaker 1: then that means, yeah, they're profiting from those videos. So
Speaker 1: if the videos are videos that infringe upon something, then
Speaker 1: there's there's a case there for d m c A. Now, granted,
Speaker 1: most of the time, the first step is still saying
Speaker 1: take this down, and if YouTube does that, that's usually
Speaker 1: as far as it goes. But it's something to keep
Speaker 1: in mind. Next, have system caching that limits the liability
Speaker 1: of a service that retains data to send it later
Speaker 1: at the sender's discretion. So there are a lot of
Speaker 1: different ways of thinking about this. But imagine that you
Speaker 1: have scheduled something to post at a particular time. Well,
Speaker 1: a copy of that information maybe existing on a service
Speaker 1: provider's site. But uh, what you're saying is that if
Speaker 1: that materials copyrighted and it's unauthorized, it's an unauthorized copy.
Speaker 1: The system cannot be held responsible for holding that copy
Speaker 1: because they're really just fulfilling their end of a service. Again,
Speaker 1: same rules apply. They can't be complicit, they can't be
Speaker 1: profiting from it. Uh. Storage of information on systems or
Speaker 1: networks at direction of users. Same sort of thing. You
Speaker 1: have cloud storage. If if I have a cloud storage account,
Speaker 1: and the you know part of that is that I
Speaker 1: am trusting that my provider is not snooping in on
Speaker 1: all the stuff that I'm storing on my cloud storage.
Speaker 1: Then you know, you can't hold the cloud storage company
Speaker 1: responsible if I'm filling up my storage with you know,
Speaker 1: it can't be expected to look at all every single
Speaker 1: one of the files. When I put put my unauthorized
Speaker 1: discography of Britney Spears up there, they can't. You know,
Speaker 1: they're not held responsible for it. I should definitely hold
Speaker 1: responsibility for something like that if I were to ever
Speaker 1: do that, and I fully expect to be held responsible
Speaker 1: and also will never happen. Uh. Then there's the information
Speaker 1: location tools. So this is things like search engines. So
Speaker 1: if you were to type in something in a search engine,
Speaker 1: for example, you were interested in a particular television show,
Speaker 1: let's say I don't know Supernatural, and you were to
Speaker 1: type that in and some of the links that came
Speaker 1: back linked to things that were infringing copyright, the search
Speaker 1: engine would not be held responsible for those links unless again,
Speaker 1: it was violating those other rules. So in other words,
Speaker 1: you can't blame Google for putting a link up to
Speaker 1: material that infringes upon copyright because Google is not the
Speaker 1: one responsible for the material. It's just all it is supporting.
Speaker 1: It's just indexing links, that's all it's done, although it
Speaker 1: does do so with ads, So that makes me wonder
Speaker 1: if there's any kind of any of that sticky there.
Speaker 1: That's probably another issue. But again, and they're also told
Speaker 1: that if someone reports it, they are supposed to block
Speaker 1: access or take those links down. That that's raised a
Speaker 1: lot of ire in the various communities online about the
Speaker 1: idea of blocking links because it's talking about essentially breaking
Speaker 1: one of the fundamental parts of the Internet, or at
Speaker 1: least of the Web, if not the Internet anyway, that's
Speaker 1: a different discussion. Uh those are the four main areas
Speaker 1: where the liability is limited. Um. They also, it says
Speaker 1: section five twelve, which is the specific section of the
Speaker 1: uh the law that this uh the suppresses. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: says it also contains a provision to ensure that service
Speaker 1: providers are not placed in the position of choosing between
Speaker 1: limitations on liability on the one hand and preserving the
Speaker 1: privacy of their subscribers on the other. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: they are not supposed to be put into any kind
Speaker 1: of position where they have to identify someone when part
Speaker 1: of their business is all about hey, your private and
Speaker 1: respect of privacy. Yeah, so they are supposed to be
Speaker 1: allowed to remain free of that. Uh, but that even
Speaker 1: that has some issues so like. But essentially this is
Speaker 1: to to make sure that they remain in compliance with
Speaker 1: things like the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. So in other words,
Speaker 1: you're talking about there are two different laws here that
Speaker 1: kind of conflict with one another, which one has precedence
Speaker 1: in this case, the privacy holds up over the copyright violation. Uh.
Speaker 1: And really the reason why this whole section exists is
Speaker 1: to prevent companies from having to undergo massive amounts of
Speaker 1: expenses to defend themselves or also to endure excessive interference
Speaker 1: from copyright holders or from government officials. And uh so
Speaker 1: you know, the fact that this d m c A
Speaker 1: stuff is in a way, it's you could you could
Speaker 1: see it as a way of bending to the will
Speaker 1: of copyright holders. That's the way a lot of critics painted, right,
Speaker 1: like the d m c a A is just the
Speaker 1: government laying down in front of copyright holders. Right. But
Speaker 1: but this one, this one really actually works in the
Speaker 1: other direction in the favor of the service provide the
Speaker 1: service providers who are just just trying to do their
Speaker 1: jobs and are not necessarily There was a case in
Speaker 1: two thousand six Io Group felt a complaint against Vieo
Speaker 1: Networks for Vo Networks had a site that would let
Speaker 1: users transcode video into flash. Okay, sure, and and I
Speaker 1: a group was saying that View Networks users were trans
Speaker 1: transcoding videos into flash that that were copyright infringement. Okay,
Speaker 1: So that they were taking videos that were under copyright
Speaker 1: and through the process of transcoding them that was violating
Speaker 1: the copyright. Yes, And they said that They said that
Speaker 1: Vo was responsible for this because as as a transcoder,
Speaker 1: they were they were implicit and they were they were
Speaker 1: actually they were giving the people the ability to infringe
Speaker 1: just from the very nature of what the service was.
Speaker 1: And the court ruled that that the process was automated
Speaker 1: and that therefore VO had no knowledge and like they
Speaker 1: could not know what the content was because the actual
Speaker 1: process of transcoding had nothing to do with a human
Speaker 1: being reviewing stuff and saying, hey, wait a minute, it was.
Speaker 1: It was really good, but a really important, clear cut
Speaker 1: case to prevent that kind of legal actions from being
Speaker 1: taken in the future. That makes a lot of sense,
Speaker 1: because I mean, YouTube had for a long time was
Speaker 1: always encoding videos into flash until you know, a couple
Speaker 1: of until started to switch over to HTML five. But
Speaker 1: same sort of thing. Yeah, and that that Viacom case
Speaker 1: is just kind of spinning in courts right now. Both
Speaker 1: sides are arguing that the other is burdened with the
Speaker 1: proof that that YouTube and therefore Google had no idea
Speaker 1: what was going on. And really, how do you prove
Speaker 1: that someone doesn't know something, right, You have to have
Speaker 1: evidence that they know. That's the only way you can prove.
Speaker 1: You can't prove a negative. But if you are able
Speaker 1: to prove that they did know and knowingly allowed it
Speaker 1: to happen, that would be the case. Well, let's move
Speaker 1: on to title three, which is mercifully short. It's the
Speaker 1: Computer Maintenance Competition Assurance Act, which creates an exemption for
Speaker 1: making a copy of a computer program by activating a
Speaker 1: computer for purposes of maintenance or repair. So essentially, this
Speaker 1: means that if you've got a computer and you need
Speaker 1: to do some work on it, like you need to
Speaker 1: repair it or do some maintenance work on it, and
Speaker 1: you've got programs on there already, you can go ahead
Speaker 1: and make copies of that stuff. For the purposes of
Speaker 1: doing this maintenance or repair work. But once all that
Speaker 1: work is done, you then must destroy the Yep. That
Speaker 1: was Title three. See how easy that was. Title four.
Speaker 1: Title four, Now this one's a little more wacky because
Speaker 1: it has six miscellaneous provisions relating to the functions of
Speaker 1: the Copyright Office, distance education, the exceptions, and the Copyright
Speaker 1: Act for libraries and for making ephemeral recordings, also webcasting
Speaker 1: of sound recordings on the Internet, and the Apple capability
Speaker 1: of collective bargaining agreement obligations in the case of transfers
Speaker 1: of rights and motion pictures. And it's just as exciting
Speaker 1: as it sounds. People. So in general, ephemeral recordings means
Speaker 1: that you can make a copy of material for broadcast purposes.
Speaker 1: So like a radio station, it might make a copy
Speaker 1: of all these different songs from various albums onto a
Speaker 1: new medium and use that for broadcast purposes. That's perfectly fine.
Speaker 1: Um again, but they can only keep it up to
Speaker 1: a certain length of time. I think it's like six months.
Speaker 1: Then you've got things like the Distance Education Study, which
Speaker 1: was really it was worded this way into the d
Speaker 1: m c A because the the you know, Congress wanted
Speaker 1: to explore ways to promote distance education to give people
Speaker 1: more opportunities for educational purposes. UM. So that was just
Speaker 1: really kind of put in there to say, let's put
Speaker 1: a placeholder here and really think about what this means.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't directly affect the d m c A
Speaker 1: in this case, but later legislation definitely does. Um the
Speaker 1: nonprofit libraries we've already kind of talked about. Webcasting was
Speaker 1: interesting because this ended up setting up certain rules that
Speaker 1: internet radio stations have to follow that terrestrial radio stations
Speaker 1: don't necessarily have to follow, and this has caused a
Speaker 1: lot of concern among both parties. Sure. Yeah, and this
Speaker 1: is why Pandora, for example, works the way that it does.
Speaker 1: If if if you've ever used Pandora, you know that, uh,
Speaker 1: it will never play a specific song that you that
Speaker 1: you tell it to play right off the bat. It
Speaker 1: has to to take a sample of similar songs and
Speaker 1: play them in a random order. It also cannot play
Speaker 1: a certain song more than more often than you know,
Speaker 1: a certain amount of time. Yeah, there's usually like the
Speaker 1: rules are kind of weird, Like there's one that says
Speaker 1: you cannot, uh, you cannot have this the same songs
Speaker 1: from the same album play in like a three hour period,
Speaker 1: or you can only do a certain number like it's
Speaker 1: it's really specific weird rules. Yeah, and it's it's why
Speaker 1: you can't skip too many songs at once because it
Speaker 1: might mess with the algorithm and force something to be
Speaker 1: randomly played sooner than right. Yeah. And then also there's
Speaker 1: even things about like like if you have a looping
Speaker 1: program that's broadcast on the internet, it has to be
Speaker 1: at least three hours long, Like you can't have a
Speaker 1: one hour Like let's say you made a playlist and
Speaker 1: it's about a one hour long playlist, you could not
Speaker 1: have that being looped on the internet because it's not
Speaker 1: long enough to meet these requirements. Also, of course, if
Speaker 1: you were playing anything that was under copyright, you would
Speaker 1: have to pay whatever the appropriate licensing fees were in
Speaker 1: order to have that. Uh and uh, and that's also
Speaker 1: an issue, but we won't you know. That's that's almost
Speaker 1: its own podcast really to cover all of those issues. Um.
Speaker 1: The motion pictures section has to do with residual payments
Speaker 1: that go out whenever a motion picture or movie, as
Speaker 1: some of us are, our film even if we're want
Speaker 1: to go old school super fancy. But you know there
Speaker 1: there are residual payments. They go out to the people
Speaker 1: who worked on a film whenever it's being broadcast or
Speaker 1: played or whatever. Uh. And so that had That's what
Speaker 1: that part of the title four had to do with it.
Speaker 1: Now we get to title five, which my favorite of
Speaker 1: all the titles because it is the one that makes
Speaker 1: my brain explode. So I am going to tell you
Speaker 1: what Title five covers. And I promise this is not
Speaker 1: a joke. Now keep in right mind. This is the
Speaker 1: Digital Millennium Copyright Act. So the d m c A
Speaker 1: Title five says, the Vessel Hull Design Protection Act creates
Speaker 1: a new form of protection for the design of vessel hulls.
Speaker 1: And you might say, wait a minute, are you talking
Speaker 1: about And yes, I am talking about boats people. So
Speaker 1: it creates a new system for protecting original designs of
Speaker 1: certain useful articles that make the article attractive or distinctive
Speaker 1: in appearance. Uh. That means it's specifically about the aesthetic
Speaker 1: design of a boat hull. It is limited to the
Speaker 1: hulls of vessels no longer than two hundred feet. In
Speaker 1: the d m c A, well, it's it's it's not digital.
Speaker 1: It's a design. You could this could apply to something
Speaker 1: that's written on paper. There's nothing digital about this. It
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with the rest of the act.
Speaker 1: It is just about boats. Now. You know what makes
Speaker 1: me think. It makes me think that some old senator
Speaker 1: out there, And apologies to you, old senator, if you're
Speaker 1: the one who said this, but it clearly clearly these
Speaker 1: boats are for surfing the interwet I've seen. What I
Speaker 1: think is there was an old senator out there who
Speaker 1: was saying protecting against parrishy something pirashy, alright, piracy, let's
Speaker 1: protect the boats. And uh also probably said that the
Speaker 1: Internet is a series of tubes. Oh, it drives me crazy. This.
Speaker 1: By the way, if you were not from the United States, hey,
Speaker 1: this is how our law works. We have laws where
Speaker 1: occasionally you're reading through the law and something completely not
Speaker 1: connected to the rest of the law gets thrown in
Speaker 1: there for reasons that are probably best not explored because
Speaker 1: it will just make you despair over the state of
Speaker 1: affairs in the legal system in the United States. You know,
Speaker 1: they really wanted to pass it through. This was a
Speaker 1: big popular thing that was going on, and they figured
Speaker 1: they figured, you know, those kids with their with their
Speaker 1: Internet surfboards and there and their piracy are never going
Speaker 1: to notice, So do it now. I when I read it,
Speaker 1: I thought, this has got to be a joke. And
Speaker 1: I thought, there's no there's no other humor in this
Speaker 1: very long document that I'm reading. Why would this be
Speaker 1: the only thing. I just I don't get. It is
Speaker 1: so ridiculous. Okay, Well, and anyway, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of parts about the d m c A that make
Speaker 1: my brain angry and want me to go hulk smash.
Speaker 1: But this is this is probably the capper on it,
Speaker 1: both figuratively and literal lasons. It is the last of
Speaker 1: the five titles. So that's the d m c A, folks.
Speaker 1: That's the that. Those are the amendments to the existing
Speaker 1: law that all are there too to try and protect
Speaker 1: copyright owners from having their works stolen willie and or
Speaker 1: nilly across the interwebs. Um, there's a there's It's been
Speaker 1: under fire many many times for several of the passages
Speaker 1: within the d m c A. There have been lots
Speaker 1: of court cases that have challenged various parts of the
Speaker 1: d m c A with varying degrees of success. And
Speaker 1: of course there have been other proposed forms of law
Speaker 1: that kind of tied back into the d m c A,
Speaker 1: and some people say, well, why do we even why
Speaker 1: why is this law being proposed. We already have the
Speaker 1: d m c AU in effect in the United States,
Speaker 1: so therefore we should not pursue even more, Like, why
Speaker 1: why are you painting over this fence that has already
Speaker 1: painted painted extremely thoroughly, right, Yeah, this is no somehow
Speaker 1: into the air in the borders above the fence. It's
Speaker 1: no Tom Sawyer job here, folks. This is a very
Speaker 1: well painted We're bringing it back to Mark Twain very
Speaker 1: literary podcast today. So yeah, you know, it's kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: It's also kind of infuriating. Um I do understand the
Speaker 1: perspective of copyright holders and wanting to protect their property. Uh.
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily agree with how it's come about, but
Speaker 1: I totally agree with the desire to do so. Some
Speaker 1: measures clearly had to be made to prevent things like
Speaker 1: our Buddies and Napster from Yeah, and and again, like
Speaker 1: I still my argument is still that if you make
Speaker 1: something that's easy too for people to buy, and you know,
Speaker 1: and if you have guaranteed the quality of that product,
Speaker 1: then people will tend to buy it. If you can't
Speaker 1: do that or won't do that, then people are more
Speaker 1: willing to try and find, you know, underhanded means of
Speaker 1: getting access to that content. Uh. And I mean if
Speaker 1: you make it attractive enough, if it's priced fairly, and
Speaker 1: if it's if it again the quality is guaranteed, then
Speaker 1: a lot of people are going to say, well, I
Speaker 1: would rather buy it than run the risk of downloading amount,
Speaker 1: you know, some sort of virus to my computer from
Speaker 1: a torrent site because I have no real way of
Speaker 1: knowing if what I think I'm downloading is actually what
Speaker 1: I'm downloading. Yeah, even if legal penalties cannot deter you, Yeah,
Speaker 1: sometimes hackers cans can. Yep. Well, I guess that wraps
Speaker 1: up this discussion. I'm gonna go and dip my head
Speaker 1: in a bucket of water to cool down. Guys, if
Speaker 1: you have suggestions for upcoming episodes of tech Stuff, I
Speaker 1: highly recommend you get in touch with us. Our email
Speaker 1: address is text stuff at Discovery dot com, or you
Speaker 1: can drop us a line on Facebook or Twitter. Are handled,
Speaker 1: there is text Stuff H S. W And Lauren and
Speaker 1: I will taught you again, assuming we're not blocked by
Speaker 1: copyright really soon for moralness and bathans of other topics.
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