While Canada is still weeks or months from new legislation (hence the 30 Days of DRM project), Australia's Attorney General has just released draft anti-circumvention legislation. Australia faces different circumstances from Canada since its free trade agreement with the U.S. requires new laws by the end of the year. The […]
Post Tagged with: "anti-circumvention"
Major Record Labels Adopt ACS
That said, there are at least two bigger points worth making.
The Swiss Take on DRM
Canada is not alone in dealing with DRM. Urs Gasser has an interesting post on a current Swiss anti-circumvention legislative proposal which covers some of the same issues I'm tackling with 30 Days of DRM.
30 Days of DRM – Day One: Linking Copyright and Anti-Circumvention (Markets)
So what are anti-circumvention provisions? They are provisions that grant legal protection to technological protection measures (TPMs). In plainer English, traditional copyright law grants creators a basket of exclusive rights in their work. TPMs or digital locks (such as anti-copying technologies on CDs) effectively provide a second layer of protection by making it difficult for most people to copy works in digital format. Anti-circumvention legislation creates a third layer of protection by making it an infringement to simply pick or break the digital lock (in fact, it even goes further by making it an infringement to make available tools or devices that can be used to pick the digital lock). Under the DMCA, it is an infringement to circumvent a TPM even if the intended use of the underlying work would not constitute traditional copyright infringement.
This broad legal protection for TPMs has raised numerous issues over the past eight years.
Hundreds of Canadian Artists Call for Balanced Copyright
More than 500 Canadian art professionals have formed a new coalition to call on the government to take a balanced approach to copyright reform. Appropriation Art: A Coalition of Arts Professionals, includes arts organizations from Alberta, BC, Quebec, Ontario, and Saskatchewan along with hundreds of artists from across Canada. The […]