ACLU challenging '98 copyright law
AOL TW punished
July 26, 2002
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act came under fire Thursday when the American Civil Liberties Union filed legal papers that effectively would declare key elements of the 1998 law unconstitutional.
In what the organization said was the first challenge of its kind, the ACLU asked a federal court in Massachusetts for a declaratory judgment confirming that First Amendment and fair-use rights outweigh the DMCA.
The action stems from the efforts of computer researcher Benjamin Edelman to examine a program manufactured by N2H2 Inc. of Seattle that blocks access to specific Web sites. Edelman wanted to determine which Web sites were specified, but N2H2 refused to release its list. Digging into the encrypted software to find the information, which Edelman would like to do, is prohibited by the DMCA.
"This irrational rule is chilling important scientific research in violation of the First Amendment," said Ann Beeson, litigation director of the ACLU's technology and liberty program and lead counsel in the case.
Although the DMCA provides a limited exception for accessing lists of blocked Web sites, Beeson said the exception is meaningless because another provision prohibits anyone from writing the software tools necessary to access the lists.
Edelman was one of the expert witnesses in the ACLU challenge to the Children's Internet Protection Act. The court overturned the law, which tied library funding to the mandated use of blocking programs. The case is being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The ACLU said the lawsuit has relevance not only for researchers but for all consumers. It also noted that N2H2 is one of the vendors competing for the contract to supply Saudi Arabia with blocking technology to prevent its citizens from accessing sites about religion, health, education, humor and entertainment that the Middle Eastern government deems unacceptable.
Several points made in the ACLU's action echo the DeCSS case, in which eight movie studios and the MPAA sued 2600 magazines and related others for publishing information that bypassed DVD encryption. In November, the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the First Amendment and the fair-use arguments, ruling that the DMCA was "consistent with the limitations of the First Amendment."
In what the organization said was the first challenge of its kind, the ACLU asked a federal court in Massachusetts for a declaratory judgment confirming that First Amendment and fair-use rights outweigh the DMCA.
The action stems from the efforts of computer researcher Benjamin Edelman to examine a program manufactured by N2H2 Inc. of Seattle that blocks access to specific Web sites. Edelman wanted to determine which Web sites were specified, but N2H2 refused to release its list. Digging into the encrypted software to find the information, which Edelman would like to do, is prohibited by the DMCA.
"This irrational rule is chilling important scientific research in violation of the First Amendment," said Ann Beeson, litigation director of the ACLU's technology and liberty program and lead counsel in the case.
Although the DMCA provides a limited exception for accessing lists of blocked Web sites, Beeson said the exception is meaningless because another provision prohibits anyone from writing the software tools necessary to access the lists.
Edelman was one of the expert witnesses in the ACLU challenge to the Children's Internet Protection Act. The court overturned the law, which tied library funding to the mandated use of blocking programs. The case is being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The ACLU said the lawsuit has relevance not only for researchers but for all consumers. It also noted that N2H2 is one of the vendors competing for the contract to supply Saudi Arabia with blocking technology to prevent its citizens from accessing sites about religion, health, education, humor and entertainment that the Middle Eastern government deems unacceptable.
Several points made in the ACLU's action echo the DeCSS case, in which eight movie studios and the MPAA sued 2600 magazines and related others for publishing information that bypassed DVD encryption. In November, the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the First Amendment and the fair-use arguments, ruling that the DMCA was "consistent with the limitations of the First Amendment."
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