The Digital Choice and Freedom Act looks like a Good Thing, - detailed analysis over at lawmeme . Some of its clauses are a little odd:
It is now necessary to restore the traditional balance between copyright holders and society, as intended by the 105th Congress. Copyright laws in the digital age must prevent and punish digital pirates without treating every consumer as one.
They don't define the term 'digital pirate', though as this is in the rhetorical preamble that is I suppose understandable. I'd be a lot happier if the loaded terms 'pirate' and 'consumer' weren't in this bit. How about 'It is now necessary to restore the traditional balance between copyright holders and society, as intended by the 105th Congress. Copyright laws in the digital age must prevent and punish unfair republication without treating every customer as a thief.
A "digital work" is any literary work (except a computer program), sound recording or musical work, or a dramatic work, motion picture, or other audiovisual work, in whole or in part in a digital or other nonanalog format.
Why does this definition explicitly exclude computer programs from it's ambit, and what is another nonanalog format?
(a) USE OF LAWFULLY OBTAINED DIGITAL WORKS. Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement of copyright for a person who lawfully obtains a copy or phonorecord of a digital work, or who lawfully receives a transmission of a digital work, to reproduce, store, adapt, or access the digital work
(1) for archival purposes, if all such archival copies are destroyed or rendered permanently inaccessible in the event that continued possession of the work should cease to be rightful; and
(2) in order to perform or display the work, or an adaptation of the work, on a digital media device, if such performance or display is not public.
This is good, but it is not clear that 'adapting' includes editing or incorporating it in another work. What I'd really like to see is an explicit statement that would allow derivative works that require a full lawfully obtained copy of the original work to be purchased to be distributed. This would legitimise a great deal of creative work already being produced, such as additional commentary tracks for DVDs to 'mash-up' mixes and other kinds of media collage that currently are in a grey area
Thursday 3 October 2002
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