Digital Copyright Basics

History of copyright

Back in 1980 copyright law didn’t cover software and software companies were hoping that congress would pass the law to turn digital products from cheap to copy products to wealth to copy products. The copyright law provides legal control of digital copying. In 1980, congress passed the law to give express copyright protection to software. This law is a legal tool to protect digital content against unauthorized copying of software.

The nature of a copyright

Copyright is a legal right in order to control coping digital content. This law governs selling copies and distributing. Encouraging expression and creation is the purpose of this law. This purpose will be reached by granting a legal monopoly on performing work, copying and distributing.

US copyright covers;

·         Literary work

·         Computer programs

·         Musical works and sound recording

·         Choreography

·         Visual arts

·         Motion picture

·         Architectural works

Copyright covered works in the form of digital products and any business that communicates is affected by this law.

Computer programs:

As stated above computer programs are covered by copyright law. These programs are a set of instructions or statements which are used in computer directly or indirectly. These programs can be written in any computer language. Also these programs can be a combination of the other programs.

Musical works

Music recording has two different copyright;

1.       The composition: covers musical notes and words.

2.       The sound recording (master recording copyright)

Exclusive right under copyright

1.       Reproduction

2.       Distribution

3.       Public performance: the right to play, perform, display copyright work in public

4.       Derivatives: the right to create works based on a work

How to get a copyright

To get a copyright, the work needs to be gotten in to some fixed form. For digital content, fixed form could mean printout, storage on a network, Rom chip, hard drive or diskette. Copyright is secured automatically when work is recorded in some reasonably personably persistent form for the first time.

Duration of copyright protection

For works;

Ø  By individual authors; it last for the life of the author plus 70 years.

Ø  By employees of a company; it last 95 years.

Public domain

The works which are not subject to copyright like the works that their copyright has been expired and their copyright need to be renewed are in the public domain. These works can be copied, published or derivative without permission.

Infringement

Infringement is violation of the rights of a copyright holder. Under US law, there are several different kinds of infringement.

§  Direct infringement

§  Contributory infringement

§  Vicarious infringement

§  Inducing infringement

Derivative works

Derivative work is a work based on another work for example writing a software game program based on a novel without getting permission of the novel copyright holder. A derivative software program could be;

1.       An update, new version or new release of an existing program.

2.       A “localized” version of program with foreign language context.

3.       A “port” of a program into a different software operating system.

4.       A program substantially derived from another computer program.

5.       A program based on another medium

Work made for hire

Effect of US copyright law;

Ø  If a work is developed by an employee, the program will belong to the employer and employer is considered the author

Ø  Is a work is developed by an independent contractor, the independent contractor owns the work unless a contract says.

The first sale rule

The first sale rule is another copyright act and its concept is; if you sell a copyrighted work, you cannot control the resale of that work. This rule is not good for digital contents. To avoid this rule for digital goods, licensing is used. For example if you license a digital work to someone and both agree that the work cannot be transferred to another person without your permission.

Copy Protection Technology and Anticircumvention Law

Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was an important collection of amendments to the copyright which congress passed it in 1998. DMCA made it illegal to circumvent copyright-protection technology or to distribute or sell programs or devices for defeating such protections.

Digital Rights Management Technology and Anticircumvention

ü  If someone wants to control the use or copying of his/here digital work, he/she does not have to rely solely on the law. He/she can use technology. A well known technology called DRM (Digital Rights management) which include:

ü  Software solutions; to limit use or copying of programs of digital works.

ü  Hardware devices; are required for use of a software product

ü  “Watermarking” technology to detect illegal copying

ü  Encryption schemes; to access to digital content, it require “keys”

ü  Web based software; to permits viewing of web content, but it doesn’t allow to save or print the content.

ü  On line passwords; to have access to unavailable content.

Anticircumvention Law Concepts

Some basis concepts of anticircumvention law under DMCA are:

·         “Access control measures”; to forbid or permit access to a copyright content.

·         “Copy Control Measures”; to control copying.

·         “Access control circumvention devices”; hardware methods, services or software to defeat access control measures and other than to circumvention, have limited commercially significant purpose or use.

·         “Copy control circumvention devices” methods, services or hardware software to defeat copy control measures and other than to circumvention, have limited commercially significant purpose or use.

What is illegal under Anticircumvention Law?

Under DMCA these are illegal:

ü  To circumvent an access control measure

ü  To build, import, or distribute any access control circumvention device or copy control circumvention device.

Also it is illegal to remove intentionally from a copyrighted work any “copyright management information” like, the name to the author, the title of a work or other identifying information.

Reference:

Landy, Gene, K. (2008). The IT/Digital Legal Companion, A Comprehensive Business Guide to Software, IT, Internet, Media and IP law. Published by; Syngress Publishing, Inc.