Speaker 1: Welcome to tex Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and a lot of all things tech and it's time
Speaker 1: for another tech Stuff classic episode. This one originally published
Speaker 1: on May one, two thousand thirteen, and it is titled
Speaker 1: what is the d m c A. Let's find out.
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: talk 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, uh,
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 slow. It tended to take
Speaker 1: a lot of effort on the part of the person
Speaker 1: making the copy. It was not easy for your average
Speaker 1: person to make a copy of something and then distribute
Speaker 1: it right for you you know. For for example, before
Speaker 1: digital books, in order to make a copy of a book,
Speaker 1: you had to either um, you know, put it on
Speaker 1: a copy machine, or in the olden days of break
Speaker 1: into a printing press room or hold some monks at
Speaker 1: crossbow point and say illuminated 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 created yes, but anyway, there were laws in
Speaker 1: place to protect that property. But you know, the it
Speaker 1: was pretty easy to combat 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. Soak, right, But have been until right
Speaker 1: until U cassettes both video and audio came out, it
Speaker 1: wasn't so much an issue, no, no, And and in fact,
Speaker 1: the various industries that have an interest in distributing and
Speaker 1: producing and distributing media very much opposed things like cassettes
Speaker 1: and video tapes. But eventually the government said, no, the
Speaker 1: benefit of this outweighs the potential threat to your industry,
Speaker 1: and in many ways they were They were very much right,
Speaker 1: because again it just was not easy to circumvent that stuff.
Speaker 1: But once we get into the digital era, now you're
Speaker 1: talking about the ability to take information. Zeros and ones
Speaker 1: is ultimately what we're talking about here. You can take
Speaker 1: information and you can make copies of it relatively easily
Speaker 1: and distribute it relatively easily, especially once the internet Internet
Speaker 1: became a thing. And yeah, so now now we're in
Speaker 1: an era where you could have a book published and
Speaker 1: someone could take a digital version of that book, strip
Speaker 1: away 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 pirating it than by buying it,
Speaker 1: that's what people are going to do. Well, sure, 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: there's there's a lot of anecdotal evidence that says that
Speaker 1: 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: that has all the bells and whistles. Right, Although publishers
Speaker 1: are starting to take steps these days, you know, and
Speaker 1: letting you preview more and more of songs online or
Speaker 1: or access and things through something like Netflix so that
Speaker 1: you can really check something out and see if it's
Speaker 1: something that you're interested in purchasing before you right, and
Speaker 1: Amazon has a lending library, so but all of these
Speaker 1: things are kind of subscription based, so you're still paying
Speaker 1: into a system. It's just now you're you've gotten a
Speaker 1: lot more options instead of just I want to buy
Speaker 1: this 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 wipe Out Performances and Phonograms Treaty. And
Speaker 1: so this was also to kind of help make a
Speaker 1: united front and on the global scale of copyright holders
Speaker 1: versus the evil, nasty, horrible pirates who are going to
Speaker 1: destroy everything from within. Yeah, those those Wipeo treaties were
Speaker 1: introduced in the d m c A was originally sponsored
Speaker 1: by Republican Howard Koble of North Carolina in the US House.
Speaker 1: YEP and uh. And it went through several revisions, a
Speaker 1: few iterations that ended up adding some interesting things which
Speaker 1: we will get to. Uh wait to get to it.
Speaker 1: I am just chomping at the bit to get to
Speaker 1: the end of this podcast. It finally, it finally passed
Speaker 1: in October when then President Bill Clinton signed it YEP,
Speaker 1: signed into law. So let's kind of start talking about
Speaker 1: what is actually in the d m c A. It's
Speaker 1: divided into five titles or five sections, and the first
Speaker 1: two titles are the ones that have the most interesting
Speaker 1: content from where we are, So we're gonna we're gonna
Speaker 1: really concern those first two titles, but don't worry, the
Speaker 1: other three will get covered because title five is a
Speaker 1: doozy alright. So title one, this is from a summary
Speaker 1: of the d m c A. So I'm gonna just
Speaker 1: read the little blurb verbatim. The White Bow Copyright and
Speaker 1: Performances in Phonograms Treaties Implementation Act of implements the White
Speaker 1: Bow Treaties, and so it amends US law to provide
Speaker 1: appropriate references and links to the White Bow Treaties. It
Speaker 1: also prohibits circumvention of technological measures used by copyright owners
Speaker 1: to protect their works, such as dr M that I added,
Speaker 1: such as d r M by the way, that's not
Speaker 1: in the original language. That is very important. Yes, adds
Speaker 1: civil remedies and criminal penalties for violating the prohibitions. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, this is the part of the d
Speaker 1: m c A that makes it illegal to try and
Speaker 1: get around copy protection. So if that copy protection is
Speaker 1: something that's physically part of a device that plays digital media,
Speaker 1: or if it's something that's within the digital media itself,
Speaker 1: so software based, it is, by by the definition of
Speaker 1: the d m c A illegal to circumvent that in
Speaker 1: any way unless unless there are certain circumstances in play
Speaker 1: right and its specifically covers unauthorized access, but not unauthorized
Speaker 1: copying only for fair use. Unauthorized copy is still covered
Speaker 1: if it's not for fair use, So that that raises
Speaker 1: the question what is fair use. Fair use is this
Speaker 1: concept where you are allowed to use someone else's work,
Speaker 1: some other copyrighted work in very specific specific circumstances, such
Speaker 1: as if you were providing commentary about that work. So
Speaker 1: let's say, for example, that Lauren and I wanted to
Speaker 1: take something that had been published and copyrighted, UH and
Speaker 1: it's about technology, and we wanted to really critique it
Speaker 1: and explain it and explore it and and add to
Speaker 1: it with our own point points of view. UH, and
Speaker 1: we wanted to quote an entire page of that work. Well,
Speaker 1: as long as we're doing it responsibly and we are
Speaker 1: actually providing commentary that adds to the discussions as long
Speaker 1: as we're not just broadcasting this back out at you
Speaker 1: for free, whereas normally you would have to pay to
Speaker 1: get it, as long as you know we're adding enough
Speaker 1: to it to make it fair use, Yeah, that would
Speaker 1: be fair use. And so you'll you'll often hear people say, oh,
Speaker 1: like with music, you could play about fifteen seconds of
Speaker 1: music and then that's fair use. No, there is actually
Speaker 1: not a definition of how much work you can quote
Speaker 1: or or play that remains free. Like your your intent
Speaker 1: and your ability to make money off of the product
Speaker 1: is definitely in a lot of 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 the East 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: fun times for everybody, right. It was a twenty nine
Speaker 1: 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 you know, just
Speaker 1: just messing with your life, and and and and the
Speaker 1: judge ruled in that particular case that it it was
Speaker 1: fair use, and that also UM companies really do need
Speaker 1: to check the fair use isn't being broken before they
Speaker 1: ask for content to be removed. Yeah, you'll often hear
Speaker 1: about that too. I mean there's a I don't I
Speaker 1: didn't write down this particular instance, but I know for
Speaker 1: a fact that it happened because I know some of
Speaker 1: the people who are involved. Uh. This Weekend Text Tech
Speaker 1: News Today, Uh The The that's a show that's done
Speaker 1: with Sarah Lane, Tom Merritt and i Azactar on Leo
Speaker 1: Reports Network. They did a a show that at one
Speaker 1: point they were talking about a video that was also
Speaker 1: a copyright of work. And so part of their show
Speaker 1: is both an audio podcast and a video podcast. You
Speaker 1: can get it in either format, and the video podcasts
Speaker 1: also get uploaded to YouTube. YouTube ended up taking that
Speaker 1: one down when they got a request from the owner
Speaker 1: of the video, even though it was very much evident
Speaker 1: that this was a case where it was fair uses
Speaker 1: in play because they were providing commentary about the video itself.
Speaker 1: They weren't just playing the video. It was all about
Speaker 1: uh really analyzing and talking about it in a way
Speaker 1: that was was transformative and uh As it took quite
Speaker 1: some time to get that turned around. On YouTube's defense,
Speaker 1: I will say that if they don't act quickly, bad
Speaker 1: things can happen to YouTube. But we'll get into that.
Speaker 1: That's a little bit later. Into a title one also
Speaker 1: covers some other stuff. One thing it says is that
Speaker 1: if you are talking about public domain public domains, another
Speaker 1: thing we need to talk about public domain is when
Speaker 1: you have a work that has existed longer than copyright
Speaker 1: protection will cover that work. So it varies from country
Speaker 1: to country. So for example, let's just say what will
Speaker 1: make a hypothetical example. Let's say that a country protects
Speaker 1: any copyright of work for twenty years. After a work
Speaker 1: has existed for more than twenty years, it enters into
Speaker 1: the public domain, meaning anyone can use it any way
Speaker 1: they like. You can publish as many you can take
Speaker 1: that work. You could print out your own copies so
Speaker 1: you can distribute them freely. You could run down the
Speaker 1: street laughing like a maniac and chucking copies at people's heads. Uh,
Speaker 1: people say 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 the there's a certain mouse
Speaker 1: that has had a large amount of influence on this
Speaker 1: particular subject. Yeah, it's very true. Disney has been very
Speaker 1: active in keeping uh you know, adding more years to
Speaker 1: what would be considered copyright. And then there's the question
Speaker 1: of well, can we transfer it so that even after
Speaker 1: the copyright holder has passed away or maybe the company
Speaker 1: turns into something else, like, can we keep it so
Speaker 1: that those rights continue can be transferred to the next Yeah.
Speaker 1: So so there are a lot of issues with that. Well.
Speaker 1: The title one of d m c A tells us
Speaker 1: that the the rules about public domain revert to the
Speaker 1: country of origin of that work. So if the work
Speaker 1: was produced in uh, say, France, then whatever France, as
Speaker 1: the rules are for public domain, would be in play,
Speaker 1: no matter where else in the world you might be,
Speaker 1: or well, in this case, in the United States, because
Speaker 1: DMC only covers the US. Clearly right right in the
Speaker 1: United States, is not adding jurisdiction of the entire world here,
Speaker 1: they are not. However, an important part of that title
Speaker 1: one is that um it names the US as a
Speaker 1: member country of of WIPO, and it really is, and
Speaker 1: says that it provides equal protection to any other member
Speaker 1: country of WIPO in the United States, any any work
Speaker 1: from Yeah. So in other words, it's supposed to apply
Speaker 1: the same rules and same rigor for any copyrighted work
Speaker 1: that's under threat from a WHIPPO country as it would
Speaker 1: for anything that's from the United States. So no preferential
Speaker 1: treatment for US versus non US. And also with this
Speaker 1: public domain issue, you defer to the rules of the
Speaker 1: country of origin. So whichever country produced said work, that's
Speaker 1: the rules that apply for public domain um and the
Speaker 1: whole unauthorized access versus unauthorized copying. There are some exemptions
Speaker 1: that are allowed, but they are pretty specific. For one thing,
Speaker 1: law enforcement, intelligence and other governmental agencies are exempt from
Speaker 1: Title one, so uh, the you know, the FBI doesn't
Speaker 1: have to worry about following these rules that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Other exceptions apply to nonprofit library, archive, and educational institutions
Speaker 1: that wish to obtain authorized access to works. So again, uh,
Speaker 1: the access still has to be authorized. They can't circumvent
Speaker 1: and it can't just do it all will and nially
Speaker 1: they have to ask, right, but they can make copies
Speaker 1: if it's for archival purposes. So in that sense, because
Speaker 1: I remember there's two sections here. There's the access and
Speaker 1: then there's the actual copying, because there's been a lot
Speaker 1: of questions about that, uh and and the about the
Speaker 1: you know, making things like a gadget that could circumvent uh,
Speaker 1: the access block part that's illegal, But creating a gadget
Speaker 1: that can get around the copy protection is not illegal.
Speaker 1: That'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 miners, 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 d r M on something and that DRM,
Speaker 1: as part of what it does besides protecting the copyrighted work,
Speaker 1: would also gather information about you, you can you can
Speaker 1: then circumvent because because they consider that the dissemination of
Speaker 1: the private information is worse than circumventing the DRM. And finally,
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: copyright protection, uh, that have only limited commercially significant purpose
Speaker 1: or use other than to circumvent, or are marketed for
Speaker 1: use in circumventing our big no nose under tital one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this is some interesting stuff. So again, really
Speaker 1: it's the access is 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 pay
Speaker 1: wall to get at the stuff, because that's how about access. Now,
Speaker 1: if you if you don't have a paywall, if you
Speaker 1: can freely access it, or you've paid to get through it,
Speaker 1: then making the copy, that's more of a question of
Speaker 1: do you fall under one of those exemptions? Right right? Uh?
Speaker 1: It does also say maybe you were getting to this one,
Speaker 1: but I thought that this one was particularly interesting. It
Speaker 1: It says that it does not and will never mandate
Speaker 1: that the design of products be be such that they
Speaker 1: specifically prevent the creation of devices made to circumvent themselves.
Speaker 1: It gets a little a little complicated and timey wimy
Speaker 1: wibbly wobbly, doesn't it. It does, But but it's really
Speaker 1: to protect companies and say say that if you're designing products,
Speaker 1: then it's not your problem if someone creates something that
Speaker 1: can circumvent it. One other thing that title one covers.
Speaker 1: It actually says that the provision prohibits rights holders, meaning
Speaker 1: people who own copyright to material. It prevents them from
Speaker 1: applying the be right prevention or a copyright circumvention prevention
Speaker 1: technologies to free television and basic and extended Basic tier
Speaker 1: cable broadcasts, meaning that you can't put copyright protection on
Speaker 1: stuff that is freely distributed in any way. So you
Speaker 1: could not put some sort of copy protection over over
Speaker 1: the air broadcast because of the very nature of how
Speaker 1: it's distributed. Okay, so so share So so if you
Speaker 1: wanted to record something that was airing on PPS, then
Speaker 1: do it. You could do that. Yeah, anything that was
Speaker 1: on any sort of over the air transmission you would
Speaker 1: be you would. It doesn't fall fall under the umbrella
Speaker 1: of d M c A as as opposed to a
Speaker 1: lot of other digital transmissions or cable transmissions that which
Speaker 1: are here. Here's another thing, like, if that same same
Speaker 1: program that you would have gotten over the air on
Speaker 1: an antenna and you wanted to record it on your
Speaker 1: 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. It interesting, huh, because it's two
Speaker 1: different means of distribution. It has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: the content, has nothing to do with whether or not
Speaker 1: it's in their copyright, has everything to do with the
Speaker 1: method of distribution. What a crazy world we live in.
Speaker 1: Do you have anything else to say about Title one, Lauren?
Speaker 1: Anything else? Um? Because it gets crazier from here on out.
Speaker 1: It does get crazier. Now. There's a lot of interesting
Speaker 1: court cases that have come up about what it means
Speaker 1: to be an owner versus a licensee 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 AutoCAD, 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 a you are a
Speaker 1: licensee and that your license to use this as non transferable.
Speaker 1: So whoever buys it, that's who. But Verner said it
Speaker 1: wasn't his fault that someone had sold it to him
Speaker 1: at a garage sale and that he should therefore have
Speaker 1: the right to sell it on eBay. And an Autodesk said,
Speaker 1: and it is interesting, I mean, what do you do
Speaker 1: because the person who sold it to Verner as essentially
Speaker 1: the one who's violating that licensing agreement. Right. But but
Speaker 1: the courts, the courts upheld out at desk. They said,
Speaker 1: they said, no, because you have entered into a legal
Speaker 1: agreement period, you are responsible for what you do. It's weird.
Speaker 1: I would have said that the person who entered the
Speaker 1: legal agreement was the one who originally bought the software,
Speaker 1: not him, because if he bought it from a garage sale,
Speaker 1: he did not clearly buy it from any retailer that
Speaker 1: was Autodesk. So it's interesting to me, not that I'm
Speaker 1: contesting what you're saying, but it's interesting to me that
Speaker 1: the court would say that because, as you know, they
Speaker 1: basically ruled that he was never a legitimate owner. Okay,
Speaker 1: So so therefore, because he's not a legitimate owner, he
Speaker 1: cannot be a reseller, cannot be a reseller Crescy. And
Speaker 1: this is one of those things where it kind of
Speaker 1: it's it brings up that whole idea of the right
Speaker 1: of first sale, which is if you buy something, then
Speaker 1: you have the right to sell it off to someone else.
Speaker 1: The digital era has really changed that as well, because
Speaker 1: you can sell something that's digital, and that that's the
Speaker 1: entire that's the entire issue that I'm talking about with
Speaker 1: licensee right, a user versus an owner? Right, Well, I
Speaker 1: 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, hypothetically,
Speaker 1: the key wouldn't work. Yeah, right, which again, uh, the
Speaker 1: problem is that there are programs out there that will
Speaker 1: generate new keys so that you can circumvent it what
Speaker 1: you're not supposed to do. But yeah, so this is interesting.
Speaker 1: That's interesting that it goes all the way down to
Speaker 1: selling stuff on eBay. Right. Yeah. On a grander scale,
Speaker 1: this is the same kind of issue that has to
Speaker 1: do or or Title one anyway has to do with
Speaker 1: why unlocking your cell phone is illegal because disabling the
Speaker 1: DRM software in a cellphone that that locks it to
Speaker 1: a single carrier is illegal. So you can jail break
Speaker 1: your phone, but you can't you cannot unlock it. Well,
Speaker 1: you're you're you're allowed to, you're little to jail break
Speaker 1: it to install software, but not unlock it for moving
Speaker 1: it from one character to another. And this is a
Speaker 1: thing that once every three years, the Library of Congress
Speaker 1: sits down and reviews complaints that people have submitted to
Speaker 1: them about various bits of legislation and law. And during
Speaker 1: one of these uh, one of these tricycle is what
Speaker 1: are they called, try any I'll try anial reviews. I
Speaker 1: like tricycles better. During during one of these tricycles, recently,
Speaker 1: the Library of Congress um of help this that that, yeah,
Speaker 1: that jailbreaking to another network is not legal because and
Speaker 1: I do not quote, but this is the gist of
Speaker 1: their argument. There are so many devices on the market
Speaker 1: these days that surely you can find one on the network.
Speaker 1: Blame the victim, why don't you? Wow? I definitely feel
Speaker 1: a sting on this one. But then again, I bought
Speaker 1: my phone unlocked already, because I bought a phone that
Speaker 1: was designed to be unlocked so that you could buy
Speaker 1: it and then put it on what's your network. That's
Speaker 1: still legal. By the way, companies can choose to offer
Speaker 1: up an unlocked device. You just cannot take a device
Speaker 1: that has been locked and then unlock it. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a there's a bit of authorization again in this issue. Guys,
Speaker 1: I gotta deal with a copyright strike. While I do that,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break to thank our sponsors. All right,
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 infringement when engaged
Speaker 1: in certain types of activities. So this is of course
Speaker 1: where the term safe harbor comes from. Is this title
Speaker 1: too of the d m c A. So safe harbor
Speaker 1: is essentially this idea that if you are an online
Speaker 1: service provider, and that could be anything from an Internet
Speaker 1: service provider, you know, an I s P. To a
Speaker 1: platform that people use on the Internet, like like Tumblr
Speaker 1: or YouTube, yeah, exactly, that if you provide that service,
Speaker 1: you are not necessary, serially, monetarily liable for any sort
Speaker 1: of copyright infringement that's being performed by the users of
Speaker 1: your platform. Right. But there are again very specific rules
Speaker 1: in play. It's not that you're a given free license.
Speaker 1: You can't just sit there and say safe harbor, Safe harbor,
Speaker 1: I'm okay. You have to actually, uh, you know, show
Speaker 1: that you are one unaware that the stuff is going on,
Speaker 1: and two you cannot be benefiting from the fact that
Speaker 1: infringement is going on, right And and furthermore, if a
Speaker 1: company contacts you and says, hey, this thing is on
Speaker 1: your site. It's it's it's copyright infringement. Please take it down.
Speaker 1: You 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 receive 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: seven of very contention of hundred and sixty thousand clips
Speaker 1: that had been viewed fifty one point five billion times
Speaker 1: 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 so many two
Speaker 1: hours worth of material being uploaded every minute, there's no
Speaker 1: one who can sit there and go over every single
Speaker 1: frame of every single video that's always being submitted to
Speaker 1: this service. Um. And that's basically what the court said.
Speaker 1: They threw it out without even being tried in it
Speaker 1: came back actually in April there was a reversal. The
Speaker 1: court said that basically a reasonable jury could have found
Speaker 1: that the YouTube was aware of what was going on
Speaker 1: and just not taking steps, right, Yes, And then that's
Speaker 1: that's one of the things under d m c A
Speaker 1: is that if the the service providers aware of it,
Speaker 1: they have to take uh steps to prevent it. Now again,
Speaker 1: if it's something where it comes under fair use, that's
Speaker 1: where it gets money again because yeah, because I mean,
Speaker 1: like it's it's not it's not YouTube's job to determine
Speaker 1: what is fair use and what is not. Uh, and
Speaker 1: the the the copyright holder is supposed to at least
Speaker 1: take that into consideration before taking steps. But ultimately, fair
Speaker 1: use is something that's decided in a court of law.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's it's it's all down to
Speaker 1: does the 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 uses, that it's really something that's decided after a
Speaker 1: 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 sometime in the future.
Speaker 1: This is the fun part of copyright law, right. So
Speaker 1: let's talk about some of the things that that the
Speaker 1: limitations on liability cover for copyright infringement, this whole safe
Speaker 1: harbor idea. One of them is transitory communications. Now, this
Speaker 1: limits the liability of a service provider when all the
Speaker 1: provider is doing is acting as a data conduit. In
Speaker 1: other words, all they're doing is allowing information to pass
Speaker 1: from one entity to another entity. They're not they're not
Speaker 1: taking part in whatever the content is. Uh, They're just
Speaker 1: essentially they're the pipes, and if you are the one
Speaker 1: who owns the pipes, you cannot be held responsible monetarily
Speaker 1: for any copy right infringement material that passes along there
Speaker 1: as long as you are not complicit in that transaction.
Speaker 1: So in other words, if you're a service provider and
Speaker 1: you are not knowingly providing people the chance to send
Speaker 1: copyright infringed material back and forth, or you're not profiting
Speaker 1: from it, then you're not liable. But if you're profiting
Speaker 1: from it, then there's a problem. And that's one of
Speaker 1: the things against YouTube is that if YouTube is running
Speaker 1: ads against videos, then that means, yeah, they're profiting from
Speaker 1: those videos. So if the videos are videos that infringe
Speaker 1: upon something, then there's there's a case there for d
Speaker 1: m c A. Now, granted, most of the time, the
Speaker 1: first step is still saying take this down, and if
Speaker 1: YouTube does that, that's usually as far as it goes,
Speaker 1: but it's something to keep in mind. Next, you have
Speaker 1: system caching that limits the liability of a service that
Speaker 1: retains data to send it later at the sender's discretion.
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of different ways of thinking
Speaker 1: about this. But imagine that you have scheduled something to
Speaker 1: post at a particular time. Well, a copy of that
Speaker 1: information maybe existing on a service provider's site, but what
Speaker 1: you're saying is that if the materials copyrighted and it's unauthorized,
Speaker 1: it's an unauthorized copy, the system cannot be held responsible
Speaker 1: for holding that copy because they're really just fulfilling their
Speaker 1: end of a service. Again, same rules apply. They can't
Speaker 1: be complicit, they can't be profiting from it. Uh. Storage
Speaker 1: of information on systems or networks at direction of users.
Speaker 1: Same sort of thing you have cloud storage. If if
Speaker 1: I have a cloud storage account and the you know
Speaker 1: part of that is that I am trusting that my
Speaker 1: provider is not snooping in on all the stuff that
Speaker 1: I'm storing on my cloud storage, then you know, you
Speaker 1: can't hold the cloud storage company responsible if I'm filling
Speaker 1: up my storage with you know, it can't be expected
Speaker 1: to to look at all every single one of the files.
Speaker 1: When I put put my unauthorized discography of Britney Spears
Speaker 1: up there, they can't. You know, they're not held responsible
Speaker 1: for it. I should definitely hold responsibility for something like
Speaker 1: that if I were to ever do that, and I
Speaker 1: fully expect to be held responsible and also will never happen. Uh.
Speaker 1: Then there's the information location tools. So this is things
Speaker 1: like search engines. So if you were to type in
Speaker 1: something in a search engine. For example, you were interested
Speaker 1: in a particular television show, let's say I don't know Supernatural,
Speaker 1: and you were to type that in, and some of
Speaker 1: the links that came back linked to things that were
Speaker 1: infringing copyright. The search engine would not be held responsible
Speaker 1: for those links unless again, it was violating those other rules.
Speaker 1: So in other words, you can't blame Google for putting
Speaker 1: a link up to material that infringes upon copyright because
Speaker 1: Google is not the one responsible for the material. It's
Speaker 1: just it's just indexing links. Although it does do so
Speaker 1: with ads, so that makes me wonder if there's any
Speaker 1: kind of any of that sticky there. That's probably another issue.
Speaker 1: But again, and they're also told that if someone reports it,
Speaker 1: they are supposed to block access or take those links down.
Speaker 1: That that's raised a lot of ire in the various
Speaker 1: communities online about the idea of blocking links because it's
Speaker 1: talking about essentially breaking one of the fundamental part to
Speaker 1: the Internet, or at least of the Web, if not
Speaker 1: the Internet. Anyway, it's a different discussion. Uh, those are
Speaker 1: the four main areas where the liability is limited. Um.
Speaker 1: They also it says section twelve, which is the specific
Speaker 1: section of the UH the law that this UH the suppresses. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it says. It also contains a provision to ensure that
Speaker 1: service providers are not placed in the position of choosing
Speaker 1: between limitations on liability on the one hand and preserving
Speaker 1: the privacy of their subscribers on the other. So, in
Speaker 1: other words, they are not supposed to be put into
Speaker 1: any kind of position where they have to identify someone
Speaker 1: when part of their business is all about, hey, your privacy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they are supposed to be allowed to to remain
Speaker 1: free of that. Uh. But that even that has some
Speaker 1: issues so like. But essentially this is to to make
Speaker 1: sure that they remain in compliance with things like the
Speaker 1: Electronic Communications Privacy Act. So, in other words, you're talking
Speaker 1: about there are two different laws here that kind of
Speaker 1: conflict with one another, which one has precedence in this case,
Speaker 1: the privacy holds up over the copyright violation. Uh. And
Speaker 1: really the reason why this whole section exists is to
Speaker 1: prevent companies from having to undergo massive amounts of expenses
Speaker 1: to defend themselves or also to endure excessive interference from
Speaker 1: copyright holders or from government officials. And so you know
Speaker 1: the fact that this d m c A stuff is
Speaker 1: in a way it's you could you could see it
Speaker 1: as a way of bending to the will of copyright holders.
Speaker 1: That's the way a lot of critics painted, right, like
Speaker 1: the d m c A is just the government laying
Speaker 1: down in front of copyright holders, right. But this one,
Speaker 1: this one really actually works in the other direction in
Speaker 1: the favor of the service providers. Providers who are just
Speaker 1: just trying to do their jobs and are not necessarily
Speaker 1: There was a case in two thousand six IO Group
Speaker 1: failed a complaint against Video Networks for video Networks had
Speaker 1: a site that would let users transcode video into flash. Okay, sure,
Speaker 1: and and I a group was saying that view networks
Speaker 1: users were trans transcoding videos into flash that that were
Speaker 1: copyright infringement. Okay, So that they were taking videos that
Speaker 1: were under copyright and through the process of transcoding them
Speaker 1: that was violating the copyright. Yes, And they said that
Speaker 1: they said that VO was responsible for this because as
Speaker 1: as a transcoder, they were they were implicit in them.
Speaker 1: They were they were actually they were giving the people
Speaker 1: the ability to infringe just from the very nature of
Speaker 1: what the service was and the court ruled that the
Speaker 1: process was automated and that therefore Video had no knowledge
Speaker 1: and like they could not know what the content was
Speaker 1: because the actual process of transcoding had nothing to do
Speaker 1: with a human being reviewing stuff and saying, hey, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, it was a was a really good but
Speaker 1: a really important, clear cut case to prevent that kind
Speaker 1: of legal actions being taken in the future. That makes
Speaker 1: a lot of sense, because, i mean, YouTube had for
Speaker 1: a long time was always encoding videos into flash until
Speaker 1: you know, a couple of until started to switch over
Speaker 1: to HTML five. But same sort of thing. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that that Viacom case is just kind of spinning in
Speaker 1: courts right now. Both sides are arguing that the other
Speaker 1: is burdened with the proof that that YouTube and therefore
Speaker 1: Google had no idea what was going on. And really,
Speaker 1: how do you prove that someone doesn't know something, right,
Speaker 1: You have to have evidence that they did know. That's
Speaker 1: the only way you can prove. You can't prove a negative.
Speaker 1: But if you are able to prove that they did
Speaker 1: know and knowingly allowed it to happen, that would be
Speaker 1: the case. All right, Well, we've got a little bit
Speaker 1: more to say about the d m c A. But
Speaker 1: before we get into that, let's take another quick break. Well,
Speaker 1: let's move on to title three, which mercifully short, it's
Speaker 1: the Computer Maintenance Competition Assurance Act, which creates an exemption
Speaker 1: for making a copy of a computer program by activating
Speaker 1: a computer for purposes of maintenance or repair. So essentially,
Speaker 1: this means that if you've got a computer and you
Speaker 1: need to do some work on it, like you need
Speaker 1: to repair it or do some maintenance work on it,
Speaker 1: and you've got programs on there already, you can go
Speaker 1: ahead and make copies of that stuff for the purposes
Speaker 1: of doing this maintenance or repair work. But once all
Speaker 1: that work is done, you then must destroy the co Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was Settle three. See how easy that was. 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 applicability of
Speaker 1: collective bargaining agreement obligations in the case of transfers of
Speaker 1: rights in motion pictures. And it's just as exciting as
Speaker 1: it sounds people. So in general, ephemeral recording means that
Speaker 1: 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 that 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 cern among both parties. Sure. Yeah, and this
Speaker 1: is why Pandora, for example, works the way that it does.
Speaker 1: 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 the same songs from
Speaker 1: 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 rules. Yeah, and it's it's why you
Speaker 1: can't skip too many songs at once because it might
Speaker 1: mess with the algorithm and force something to be randomly
Speaker 1: played sooner than right. Yeah, and then you 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 the appropriate licensing fees were
Speaker 1: in order to have that. Uh and uh and that's
Speaker 1: also an issue, but we won't you know, that's that's
Speaker 1: almost 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 fansom, 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, or are you
Speaker 1: talking about and yes, I am talking about boats people.
Speaker 1: So it creates a new system for protecting original designs
Speaker 1: of certain useful articles that make the article attractive or
Speaker 1: distinctive in appearance. Uh. That means it's specifically about the
Speaker 1: aesthetic design of a boat hull. It is limited to
Speaker 1: the holes of vessels no longer than two hundred feet
Speaker 1: in the d m c A. Well, it's it. It's
Speaker 1: not digital. It's a design. You could this could apply
Speaker 1: to something that's written on paper. There's nothing digital about this.
Speaker 1: It 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? Makes me think that some old senator out there,
Speaker 1: and apologies to you, old senator if you're the one
Speaker 1: who said this, but clearly, clearly these boats are for
Speaker 1: surfing the interweb. I've seen. What I think is there
Speaker 1: was an old senator out there who was saying protecting
Speaker 1: against parrishy something parish alright, parasity, let's protect boats. And
Speaker 1: uh also probably said that the Internet is a series
Speaker 1: of tubes. Oh, it drives me crazy. This. By the way,
Speaker 1: if you were not from the United States, hey, this
Speaker 1: is how our law works. We have laws where occasionally
Speaker 1: you're reading through the law and something completely not connected
Speaker 1: to the rest of the law gets thrown in there
Speaker 1: for reasons that are probably best not explored because it
Speaker 1: will just make you despair over the state of affairs
Speaker 1: 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 in there and their piracy are never going
Speaker 1: to notice. So let's I mean, if you do it now.
Speaker 1: I when I read it, I thought this has got
Speaker 1: to be a joke. And I thought, there's no there's
Speaker 1: no other humor in this very long document that I'm reading.
Speaker 1: Why would this be the only thing? I just I
Speaker 1: don't get. It is so ridiculous. Okay, Well, and anyway,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of parts about the d m
Speaker 1: c A that make my brain angry and want me
Speaker 1: to go hulk smash, But this is this is probably
Speaker 1: the capper on it, both figuratively and literal lasons. It
Speaker 1: is the last of the five titles. So that's the
Speaker 1: d m c A, folks. That's the that Those are
Speaker 1: the amendments to the existing law that all are there
Speaker 1: to uh to try and protect copyright owners from having
Speaker 1: their works stolen willie and or nilly across the interwebs. Um,
Speaker 1: there's a there's It's been under fire many many times
Speaker 1: for several of the passages within the d m c A.
Speaker 1: There have been lots of court cases that have challenged
Speaker 1: various parts of the d m c A with varying
Speaker 1: degree eas of success. And of course there have been
Speaker 1: other proposed forms of law that kind of tied back
Speaker 1: into the d m c A. And some people say, well,
Speaker 1: why do we even why why is this law being proposed?
Speaker 1: We already have the d m c A in effect
Speaker 1: in the United States, so therefore we should not pursue
Speaker 1: even more, Like why why are you painting over this
Speaker 1: fence that has already painted painted extremely thoroughly, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is no somehow into the air in the borders
Speaker 1: above the fence. It's no Tom Sawyer job here, folks.
Speaker 1: This is a very well painted We're bringing it back
Speaker 1: to Mark Twain very literary podcast today. So yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of interesting. It's also kind of infuriating. Um,
Speaker 1: but I do understand the perspective of copyright holders and
Speaker 1: wanting to protect their property. Uh. I don't necessarily agree
Speaker 1: with how it's come about, but I totally agree with
Speaker 1: the desire to do so. Some measures clearly had to
Speaker 1: be made to prevent things like our Buddies and Napster
Speaker 1: from Yeah, and again, like I still, my argument is
Speaker 1: still that if you make something that's easy too for
Speaker 1: people to buy and you know, and if you have
Speaker 1: guaranteed the quality of that product, then people will tend
Speaker 1: to buy it. If you can't do that or won't
Speaker 1: do that, then people are more willing to try and find,
Speaker 1: you know, underhanded means of getting access to that content.
Speaker 1: And that wraps up another classic episode of tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: Hope you guys enjoyed it. If you have any suggestions
Speaker 1: for future tech stuff topics, let me know by reaching
Speaker 1: out on Facebook or Twitter. I use the handle text
Speaker 1: stuff h s W for both, and I'll talk to
Speaker 1: you again relea so soon. Yeah. Text Stuff is an
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i Heart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.