Movie Studios Press Congress in Digital Copyright Dispute

["Hamaker, Chuck" <cahamake@email.uncc.edu>]

Movie Studios Press Congress in Digital Copyright Dispute
By AMY HARMON, NewYorkTimes.com, July 29, 2002

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/29/technology/29DIGI.html?ex=1028606400&en=94
df446b371f9517&ei=5040&partner=MOREOVER

"The entertainment industry's campaign to rally Congressional support for
new methods of copyright enforcement is yielding results." "a draft Senate
bill, originally intended to update laws that outlaw the counterfeiting of
holograms and other measures used by software producers to guarantee the
authenticity of CD's, has quietly been expanded to cover movies, music and
other consumer products. Should that bill become law, a consumer who
removed a watermark from a DVD or electronic book to send it over the
Internet could be liable for fines up to $25,000. Internet providers are
worried that they could be held responsible for material using their
networks if someone had disabled the authentication mechanism.  The bill,
which was offered by Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, is
being viewed by some technology companies as a back-door attempt by
Hollywood to push through broad copy-protection legislation that was
widely criticized when it was packaged in a bill by Senator Ernest F.
Hollings of South Carolina earlier this year. The draft contains no
provisions for removing a watermark for research or to use excerpts of
protected material for satire or commentary, which has customarily been
viewed as acceptable under copyright law. "

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