Can You Violate Copyright Law With a Magic Marker?
By Brendan I. KoernerPosted Monday, June 3, 2002, at 6:09 PM ETSony is selling CDs outfitted with Key2Audio, a technology that prevents you from burning a copy on your home computer or converting the songs into MP3 files. Hackers, in turn, are foiling Key2Audio by scribbling on the discs with felt-tip pens. Are they running afoul of federal copyright laws?
Yes, but the feds won't be crashing down doors in search of pre-teens ripping off Shakira's latest opus. Section 1201 of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes it illegal to circumvent any copy-protection scheme. Since Key2Audio was designed to prevent piracy, the Magic Marker trick qualifies as such a measure.
Yet most hackers needn't fear the DMCA's stiff criminal penalties, which include up to 10 years behind bars and $1 million in fines. A circumventer is unlikely to be prosecuted unless he's caught selling the copied CDs.
Those who spread the Magic Marker method via Internet news groups or articles are on shakier legal ground, however. Section 1201 also includes a broadly worded "trafficking provision" that forbids the dissemination of copyright-shirking methods. Writers who describe the method could be prosecuted if their work is judged to have no raison d'être other than to aid budding pirates. Slate and other media outlets are in the clear, but the geeks who first shared the felt-tip techniques on alt.music news groups could be in hot water.
Bonus Explainer: Another player in the Key2Audio drama who could feel the DMCA's wrath is the smart-ass who recently tried to sell a Sharpie marker on eBay. Describing the marker, he wrote, "For the purpose of scribbling on Sony CDs." That could be construed as trafficking a circumvention device, another no-no according to Section 1201.
Next question?
Explainer thanks Wendy Seltzer of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School.
Reader Comments From The Fray:
Why is the expert Explainer consulted so sure that the media (e.g. Slate, Reuters) is in the clear for revealing the story about magic markers? After all, 2600 Magazine, which is media in the exact same sense Slate is, lost its case (linking to the DeCSS software). Furthermore, DeCSS has a very important non-infringing use: to allow Linux users who legally purchased a DVD to play it on their own computer…
It would be fun for some activist musician to sue Reuters for DMCA violation, though. I am astounded that the media are taking the DMCA lying down: we're about to see a wave of bogus "copy protection" techniques, and evidently the people behind them plan to make it a crime for anyone to reveal that the emperor has no clothes.
--Joe Buck
(To find or answer this post, click here.)
If current trends continue, intellectual property laws will become a total sham. Rather than lobbing thermonuclear penalties at dope-addled teenies who pirate a CD, people who work in the content business need to improve their means of delineating and protecting what is rightfully the property of an artist/author.
Another problem arises because no one respects the idea of intellectual property. Everyone tries to cheat in high school, so why not copy someone's thesis or book as well? We are surrounded by a society where copying is condoned until you are caught. In that environment, intellectual property becomes a laughable concept that is on the way out.
Changing attitudes and improving technology might work; going after internet weenies that post hacking instructions will only make our copyright laws more laughable. Convictions against chat-room pirates will never hold up in court.
--SDH
(To find or answer this post, click here.)
The only intellectual property thieves are the people who sample other people's music, writing and movies. Copying a CD or DVD is a way to sample the movie or disc and then keep it as a backup once you go out and buy the industry packaged version. Fans of a movie or disc will go out and buy the store bought versions just for the packaging extras such as booklets, and cover art on the disc as well as the packaging itself. The copying controversy has gone on way too long: it started with cassette players (people will ever buy the store bought version, and the music biz is still going strong), continued with VCR's (same argument as above) and CD's and soon enough DVD's (also with the same lame ass arguments.) Remember the entertainment is for the fans and these companies should stop trying to alienate them. Lastly, the people who copy and never buy a store copy were probably never going to anyhow, and all these artists and execs should be thankful for the extravagant lifestyles they are allowed to live thanks to the fans.
--Elric
(To find or answer this post, click here.)
I can picture in my mind a circus trial of someone being prosecuted by Sony for violating their Key2Audio protection. When the defendant gives his side of the story he explains how he violated Sony Copyrights by copying music or video using his Sony CDRW and a Blank Sony Disc.
"Gee your honor....I thought I had the go ahead to do this with my Sony DRU120A DVD Burner ($499), using a Sony DMR47 blank DVDR disc ($10). After all, Sony made them and sold them to me. They willfully took my money and got richer from me and my copying buddies. Didn't they get enough money for all that copying equipment I bought from them?"
--Rog
(To find or answer this post, click here.)
(6/5)
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Reader Comments From The Fray:
Why is the expert Explainer consulted so sure that the media (e.g. Slate, Reuters) is in the clear for revealing the story about magic markers? After all, 2600 Magazine, which is media in the exact same sense Slate is, lost its case (linking to the DeCSS software). Furthermore, DeCSS has a very important non-infringing use: to allow Linux users who legally purchased a DVD to play it on their own computer…
It would be fun for some activist musician to sue Reuters for DMCA violation, though. I am astounded that the media are taking the DMCA lying down: we're about to see a wave of bogus "copy protection" techniques, and evidently the people behind them plan to make it a crime for anyone to reveal that the emperor has no clothes.
--Joe Buck
(To find or answer this post, click here.)
If current trends continue, intellectual property laws will become a total sham. Rather than lobbing thermonuclear penalties at dope-addled teenies who pirate a CD, people who work in the content business need to improve their means of delineating and protecting what is rightfully the property of an artist/author.
Another problem arises because no one respects the idea of intellectual property. Everyone tries to cheat in high school, so why not copy someone's thesis or book as well? We are surrounded by a society where copying is condoned until you are caught. In that environment, intellectual property becomes a laughable concept that is on the way out.
Changing attitudes and improving technology might work; going after internet weenies that post hacking instructions will only make our copyright laws more laughable. Convictions against chat-room pirates will never hold up in court.
--SDH
(To find or answer this post, click here.)
The only intellectual property thieves are the people who sample other people's music, writing and movies. Copying a CD or DVD is a way to sample the movie or disc and then keep it as a backup once you go out and buy the industry packaged version. Fans of a movie or disc will go out and buy the store bought versions just for the packaging extras such as booklets, and cover art on the disc as well as the packaging itself. The copying controversy has gone on way too long: it started with cassette players (people will ever buy the store bought version, and the music biz is still going strong), continued with VCR's (same argument as above) and CD's and soon enough DVD's (also with the same lame ass arguments.) Remember the entertainment is for the fans and these companies should stop trying to alienate them. Lastly, the people who copy and never buy a store copy were probably never going to anyhow, and all these artists and execs should be thankful for the extravagant lifestyles they are allowed to live thanks to the fans.
--Elric
(To find or answer this post, click here.)
I can picture in my mind a circus trial of someone being prosecuted by Sony for violating their Key2Audio protection. When the defendant gives his side of the story he explains how he violated Sony Copyrights by copying music or video using his Sony CDRW and a Blank Sony Disc.
"Gee your honor....I thought I had the go ahead to do this with my Sony DRU120A DVD Burner ($499), using a Sony DMR47 blank DVDR disc ($10). After all, Sony made them and sold them to me. They willfully took my money and got richer from me and my copying buddies. Didn't they get enough money for all that copying equipment I bought from them?"
--Rog
(To find or answer this post, click here.)
(6/5)