Publications
The Impact of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
In 1998, Congress enacted the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the most sweeping amendment to copyright law since 1976. Proponents of the DMCA argue that its provisions bring copyright law into the twenty-first century, by providing important protections for internet service providers, and by creating necessary safeguards to protect the rights of copyright holders against the relentless onslaught of new piracy technologies. On their view, the provisions of the DMCA provide essential legal mechanisms for stemming a dangerous erosion of intellectual property rights enabled by the internet and the digitization of information and various entertainment media. Critics of the DMCA, on the other hand, assert that it is unnecessary at best, because existing copyright law is more than sufficient to deal with the proliferation of new technological platforms, and profoundly harmful at worst, threatening free speech and First Amendment rights by overextending the control of copyright holders over downstream uses of copyrighted works. According to such critics, the DMCA allows those with control over information to create pseudo intellectual property rights in works otherwise ineligible for protection and undercuts fair use and the first sale doctrine, both fundamental to democratic principles and a free society.
