1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act

1335 Words3 Pages

1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act

Right before a movie starts in your theatre, you’re subjected to many advertisements. One that always stood out was the piracy campaign ad which gave a perspective on the downloading of movies from an off set worker. His distinctive message was that, movie stars are paid exorbitant amounts of money but the on and off set workers are not. By downloading the movie or “screener” in advanced, you’re really hurting the people behind the magic. So what does this have to do with us? Under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act it states that copyright holders can send cease-and-desist letters to Internet providers when subscribers are discovered sharing unauthorized material. Has our privacy been violated? This paper will present some cases but more importantly: attempt to conclude whether the government has crossed the line.

Chapter P-21 is our Canadian privacy act, “An Act to extend the present laws of Canada that protect the privacy of individuals and that provide individuals with a right of access to personal information about themselves.” (Department of Justice, 2004) Upon reading through all the exemptions and exceptions I found no claim to the exception of piracy. So when Verizon wireless advised their subscribers to obtain legal assistance against the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), this sparked the issue of whether the handing over of the list had violated the privacy act. It was best put by one of the anti-piracy organizations (Business Software Alliance), “Advances in new technology are dependent upon strong intellectual property protection.” (BSA) Creations of the mind such as: inventions, literary and artistic works used in commerce have begged the ...

... middle of paper ...

...-11-privacy_x.htm

Legal Day. “Internet Piracy” November 2004.

18 Nov. 2004 http://www.legalday.co.uk/current/piracy.htm

Mark, Ward. “Call to legalize file-sharing with taxes” 21 September 2004.

18 Nov. 2004 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3674270.stm

Stefanie, Olsen. “Hollywood’s new lesson for campus file swappers” 19 April 2004.

18 Nov. 2004 http://news.com.com/21001027_35194341.html?tag=macintouch

Wikipedia. “Digital Rights Management” 20 November 2004.

20 Nov. 2004 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management

World Intellectual Property Organization. “About Intellectual Property” 2004

18 Nov. 2004 http://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/

World Intellectual Property Organization. “Why the music industry has nothing to celebrate” 27 Jul. 2000

18 Nov. 2004 http://dir.salon.com/tech/col/rose/2000/07/27/napster_shutdown/index.html

Open Document