Digital Millennium Copyright Act. (DMCA)
MOSCOW, Russia (AP) - Bill Gates was arrested late Thursday evening at Moscow International Airport. Gates, co-founder of the Microsoft Corporation (MSFT), was returning to the US after attending a software conference in Moscow. Sources indicate the NKVD arrested Gates on charges pursuant to an alleged violation of Russian software law. The charges were reportedly filed by the Russian software firm Camah, presumably in response to the recent release of Microsoft Advanced eBook Processor. (This software allows users to convert Camah eBook texts into other formats.) As a foreign national, Gates was denied bail.
"Yeah, right." you think. "That's absurd. It could never happen. A U.S. citizen arrested in Russia for violating a Russian law while in the United States." Unfortunately, change the names, swap the roles of Russia and the United States, and it happened quite recently. How? Thanks to a 60 page piece of legislation known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. (DMCA)
To understand the DMCA, we must understand what it was designed to do. The name gives away a few clues. Obviously it deals with copyrights, and things digital. And at the the core of any discussion of copyright is the concept of intellectual property. Without getting mired in legal jargon, let us consider an example.
Pretend you're a musician. (I'll leave it up to you to decide if you're starving or not) Simplifying things greatly, there are really only two things you have to do to produce an album. The first is coming up with the lyrics and the music. This is your intellectual property. Second, you need to record and make copies of your music. (Unless you went with "starving" above) These copies are physi...
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...ca.org (Mar 2002).
Boucher, Rick (D-VA) "Time to rewrite the DMCA" Jan 29, 2002 http://news.com.com/2010-1078-825335.html (Mar 2002)
"Exemption to Prohibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access Control Technologies" Feb 17, 2000 http://www.acm.org/usacm/IP/dmca.exemption.htm (Mar 2002)
"Digital Millennium Copyright Act Status And Analysis" Mar 19, 2001 http://www.arl.org/info/frn/copy/dmca.html (Mar 2002)
"US Copyright Office Summary of the Digital Millennum Copyright Act of 1998" December 1998 http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/legislation/dmca.pdf (Mar 2002)
Ferguson, Niels "Censorship in action: Silenced by the DMCA" Aug 29, 2001 http://www.macfergus.com/niels/dmca/ (Mar 2002)
Samuelson, Pamela "Anticircumvention Rules: Threat to Science" Sep 14, 2001 http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/293/5537/2028 (Mar 2002)
Olaudah Equiano was a freed slave living in London who made it his life person to abolish the British slave trade. His knowledge and training of the English language allowed him to grow into one of the key figures in the movement to abolish the slave trade in England. Although many scholars acknowledge his incredible talent, there has been evidence in the recent years that may question his reliability as a first-hand account. There is evidence to support that Equiano may have been born in South Carolina. This evidence does not make him a valid source of information about the slave trade and leads his audience to question his statements.
In comparison to other slaves that are discussed over time, Olaudah Equiano truly does lead an ‘interesting’ life. While his time as a slave was very poor there are certainly other slaves that he mentions that received far more damaging treatment than he did. In turn this inspires him to fight for the abolishment of slavery. By pointing out both negative and positive events that occurred, the treatment he received from all of his masters, the impact that religion had on his life and how abolishing slavery could benefit the future of everyone as a whole; Equiano develops a compelling argument that does help aid the battle against slavery. For Olaudah Equiano’s life journey expressed an array of cruelties that came with living the life of an
In 1998, the United States Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Congress intended the bill to update US copyright laws to deal with digital media. They believed that digital media such as DVDs would be pirated in large numbers due to the fact that digital copies should appear exactly as the original. The solution was encryption and the DMCA was enacted to protect the copyright on digital media that is encrypted. A year later a program called DeCSS emerged, capable of decrypting the encryption of DVDs. The first challenge of the DMCA began, as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) brought suit against individuals who were trafficking the software on the Internet. The ongoing court case raised serious issue about the Internet and the digital age, including topics such as HTML linking, source code as protected free speech, and the consumer's right to fair use.
Alexander The Great , With the courage of a tiger and the ferocity of a Lion, Alexander III swept through Eastern Europe and Asia. Alexander the Great as he would be called was believed to a descendant of the God's! He was a military genius because his battles throughout Asia Minor, against Darius, the King of the Empire of Persia, would bring him fame, fortune, and eternal glorification as the greatest king to have ruled in all of history. The Macedonian king's level of intelligence, the amount of land that he acquired, and the fact that he was a military genius, is some of the most important aspects to the life of Alexander the Great.
An option that copyright owners have considered toward protecting their works from circulating in P2P networks is to use a variety of technological tools to prevent piracy. Such tools would be capable of blocking, decoying and redirecting the connections of unauthorized copyrighted file transfers. However, federal and state laws such as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of ...
During the late seventeen hundreds former slave, Olaudah Equiano, began his autobiography. In the introduction he clarifies his reason for writing the account; informing his audience that he does not seek fame and fortune and is merely a humble man who wishes to persuade the audience to promote the abolition of slavery and to articulate the horrors of enslavement. Equiano provides a voice for those who were not allowed to advocate for themselves and their rights. He aims to eradicate the idea that slaves are second class versions of a human beings that are treated as objects, diminishing their worth and personal value. Equiano pursues this goal by blending his belief of religion, slavery, and personal adventure with a complexity that appeals
...ke swine, so that we were at last obliged to lift them into the boat, and carry them on shore by force” (144). He uses the argument that the white people would have done nothing but sit there and drown if it wasn’t for them. In a way, all the credit for them being saved is because of the black slaves on the ship. Though whites are supposed to be superior in intelligence according to European culture, they sat around stupidly not assisting in saving their own lives. By creating this action, he is showing how perceived notions can be equal no matter what the race.
The Internet has most publicly impacted Copyright legislation and thus this essay will focus on it specifically. Copyrights are ìoriginal works of authorship in any tangible medium of expression, Öfrom which the work can be perceived, reproduced or otherwise communicated, either directly or withÖ aidî (Bird, p.86). Not only has its existence and understanding been heightened by the general public, but violations against it have ìincreased on the Internet as far as its use and what is being used.î (Medieval Romance, p.1) ìNever before has it been so easy to violate a copyright ownerís exclusive right to copy.î (Bird, p.86) The Internet has increased piracy, it has changed legislation for both creators and infringers, it is been the precursor for harsher punishments to violators, and it has clouded jurisdiction principles.
In Equiano 's personal slave narrative, The Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Equiano uses distinguishing first person pronouns, thought provoking rhetorical questions, and eye-opening, harsh diction to flip the idea that the African people act backwards and barbaric. Equiano does so by demonstrating his personal exceptionalism through his literacy to show that truly the white people remain backwards and barbaric because of their hypocrisy. The contradiction of the perceptions of white and African people that Equiano demonstrates in his slave narrative shows that the savagery of African people is a misconception. The misconception of the perceptions of the African people makes the reader fully grasp the need to abolish
The slave narratives written by Olaudah Equiano and Frederick Douglass, were important pieces of literature, helping to bring to the life the harsh realities of slavery. Equiano and Douglass, documented their experiences as slaves, to in hopes to connect with white audiences, showing them the immorality and hypocrisy of slavery. While both writers aimed to highlight the inhumanity of slavery, hoping it would lead to abolishment, Douglass and Equiano had different approaches. Both writers were influenced by different eras: Equiano’s writing is influenced by the Enlightenment Period, while Douglass was influenced by Romanticism. Comparing the styles, Douglass’ narratives are stinging, while Equiano’s narrative seems to be more appeasing. However, this has more to do with the influences of their time, than the character of either man. Contrasting styles of both men, echoes the contrasting philosophies of Romanticism and Enlightenment; different but one paves the way for the next.
Before any discussion on the actions of MPAA can be broached, it is necessary to deliver a brief historical primer on the intellectual property laws, in particular copyrights. To begin with, a copyright is used to protect creative rather than industrial forms. No formal registration is required to gain protection of a creation. The only requirement is that creation must be expressed, that is, an idea or knowledge in and of itself is not copyrightable, only the expression of the idea.[2]
ACLU Press Release: 07-25-02 – In Legal First, ACLU Sues Over New Copyright Law; Says Blocking. 25 July 2002. 19 Sept. 2002 .
Abstract: In 1995 Lance Rose and Esther Dyson wrote articles in Wired Magazine expressing polarized views on the future of copyright law and copyright infringement. This essay reviews those articles, analyzes each article's accuracy as defined by current trends years later.
Copyright, in its first form, was first introduced in 1710 with a British statute of Anne. Since this time copyright laws have changed to remain current, and have grown into an international agreement by many countries around the globe.
With the emergence and growth of the internet, intellectual property laws are much harder to enforce and many people are saying that they are outdated and obsolete. Intellectual property allows you to own your ideas, thoughts, and creativity as you would own a piece of tangible property. The human mind is a creative tool that comes up with ideas, designs, schemes, and inspirations of all kinds. Intellectual property views these ideas as being property. The ideas must also have commercial value and be a tradable commodity otherwise there would be no point to protect it. Intellectual property is basically the ownership of ideas. If one were to write a novel, for which the idea was conceived in there mind, they could copyright that novel so that no other person could steal that idea and write another novel on it. Copyright is a type of intellectual property. The main types of intellectual property are patents, trademarks, trade secrets, and copyrights. There are many issues arising about copyright and intellectual property due to the technological advances in the past ten years or so.