Reading 09: Reverse Engineering, Piracy

Readings

The readings for Tuesday, March 22 are:

Digital Millennium Copyright Act

  1. How Army of Darkness Is Like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act

  2. EFF - Digital Millennium Copyright Act

  3. 10 Years Later, Misunderstood DMCA is the Law That Saved the Web

  4. The Tyranny of Copyright?

Reverse Engineering / Circumvention

  1. Coders' Rights Project Reverse Engineering FAQ

  2. Software, reverse engineering and the law

  3. Soon It'll Be OK To Tinker With Your Car's Software After All

  4. The Copyright Rule We Need to Repeal If We Want to Preserve Our Cultural Heritage

  5. We Can't Let John Deere Destroy the Very Idea of Ownership

  6. No, You Really Can't

Piracy

  1. Music piracy is down but still very much in play

  2. Goodbye to Piracy

  3. Whatever Happened To The War On Piracy?

  4. Kanye West is reportedly considering legal action against The Pirate Bay

  5. Kanye West caught visiting Pirate Bay-possibly to download music software

  6. YouTube's complaint system is pissing off its biggest users

  7. For a few truly bad DMCA takedowns, YouTube offers to cover legal costs

Questions

Please write a response to one of the following questions:

  1. From the readings, what exactly does the DMCA say about circumvention and reverse engineering? What limitations or restrictions does it impose on users of copyrighted artifacts?

    • Is it ethical for companies to use DRM schemes to protect their intellectual property? Conversely, is it ethical for end users to circumvent these DRM schemes? For instance, is it moral to rip a CD or DVD from the physical media to a portable audio or video file? Is it moral to remove the DRM from the files you get from iTunes or Audible?

    • Is it ethical to reverse engineer or build circumention tools that allow end users to fix, modify, or extend copyrighted work? For instance, should car or tractor owners be able to circumvent the protections on the software in their vehicles? Should phone owners have the right to unlock their phone? Should researchers and developers be allowed to probe and reverse engineer software for bugs and security flaws?

  2. From the readings, what exactly the DMCA say about piracy? What provisions does it have for dealing with infringement? What exactly are the safe-harbor provisions?

    • Is it ethical or moral for users to download or share copyrighted material? What if they already own a version in another format? What if they were just "sampling" or "testing" the material?

    • Have you participated in the sharing of copyrighted material? If so, how did you justify your actions (or did you not care)? Moreover, why do you think so many people (regardless of whether or not you do) engage in this behavior even though it is against the law?

    • Does the emergence of streaming services such as Netflix or Spotify address the problem of piracy, or will are these services not sufficient? Is piracy a solvable problem? Is it a real problem?

Feedback

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns regarding the course, please provide your feedback at the end of your response.