Recent Uses of Software and the DMCA

One of the motivations for enacting the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), 17 U.S.C. '1201 et seq., was the acknowledgement by Congress of “the ease with which pirates could copy and distribute a copyrightable work in digital form was overwhelming the capacity of conventional copyright enforcement to find and enjoin unlawfully copied material.” See, Universal City Studios v. Corley, 273 F.3d 429 (2d Cir. 2001). Among the provisions created to redress this rampant infringement were the prohibitions against: 1) removing copyright management information (CMI); and 2) circumventing technological measures in place to prevent infringement. See, 17 U.S.C. ”1202(c), 1201(a). CMI is defined in the DMCA as information communicated with a copyrighted work which identifies the nature of the copyright. In one notable case involving CMI, a news organization was found to have violated the DMCA by knowingly distributing pictures with CMI that included authorship credit attributed to the wrong photographer. These two DMCA prohibitions are included in a broader category of protections afforded copyright holders called digital rights management (DRM), which is an access control technology used to prevent misuse of copyrighted works.