Re: A thought about H.R. 2281 - Anti circumvention

[Ann Okerson <aokerson@pantheon.yale.edu>]

Date: Mon, 08 Jun 1998 19:40:37 +0000
From: Edward Barrow <edward@plato32.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: A thought about H.R. 2281 - Anti circumvention


I'm not in a position to comment on the proposed legislation, but I can
talk about the thinking behind technical copyright protection systems.
Most of the proposed systems can permit any number of sets of access
rules, from the very restrictive (read once and destroy) to the very
liberal. One rule set widely proposed is the freely-transferable
single-user right, which could be lent and given just like a book. 

It is these sets or bundles of rights which will be *sold*, as indeed
they are now in licences, but with technical copyright protection
systems the licence conditions will be enforceable by machine. 

Rightsholders want to make money from their material, and they will
therefore adjust the bundle of rights sold to that demanded by the
customer. Although "read once and destroy" may be technically possible,
it is unlikely to be a very profitable bundle of rights to sell - except
possibly in the case of very valuable (say market-sensitive) information
which is currently protected by confidentiality rather than copyright. 

I agree that the kind of world depicted by Laurel would be undesirable,
although  I think it is possible to build a technical copyright
protection system which while not unbreakable, always costs more to
break than the value of the material it is protecting. But the market is
more powerful than the technology. Rightsholders - authors and
publishers - do not want to restrict reading, any more than readers want
it to be restricted, but those whose business it is to write or publish
do need to make money out of it. Wrapping their products up in
over-restrictive technical protection is unlikely to be the best way of
doing so. Although not directly comparable, the history of software
copy-protection devices tends to support this view.

Laurel Jamtgaard wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 4 Jun 1998, Rick Anderson wrote:
> >       Doesn't current copyright law exist to protect all information
> > (digital or otherwise) both before and after it's been distributed?
> 
> Yes it does but the copyright owner has a limited bundle of rights. A
> legal right to control who can access a work once the work has been
> distributed is not one of them.  As you described, 2281 creates a new
> right to control post-sale access.
> 
> > And if a digital book is sold with the understanding that it will only be read
> > twice before it self-destructs, it sounds to me like what you've got is a
> > rental agreement, not a purchase.
> 
> Just because the technology will prevent you from reading the book a third
> time doesn't mean that you entered into a contractual agreement not to
> read the book a third time.  But I agree that as a practical matter the
> technology can create what seems like a rental situation.
> 
> Imagine if all information were "rented" in this way and never purchased
> outright. The first-sale doctrine which enables the used book market,
> sharing of books between friends and family, and donations of books to
> libraries would be moot.  Uee of resources in libraries would be tracked
> in detail by the publishers enabling a per-use fee structure. Or the
> library patron number 3 would be out of luck because the library only paid
> for "two reads" of the book she wanted to look at.  Archiving would be
> impossible (or extremely expensive).
> 
> Is that the sort of world that the technical protection systems are
> leading us to?  I think yes and I think that the "access control right" in
> 2281 would bring us there faster and with no leeway for "fair use"
> principles.
> 
> Laurel

n:              Barrow;Edward
org:            Edward Barrow's Internet Copyright Pages
adr:            Brixton;;;;;;UK
email;internet: edward@plato32.demon.co.uk
tel;work:       +44(0)410 356 416

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