The Technical and Legal Dangers of Code-Based Fair Use Enforcement
The Technical and Legal Dangers of Code-Based Fair Use Enforcement JOHN S. ERICKSON, MEMBER, IEEE, AND DEIRDRE K. MULLIGAN Invited Paper Digital rights management (DRM) mechanisms, built upon content providers the ability to reliably and deterministically trusted computing platforms, promise to give content providers the impose rules on end-user experiences with information ability to reliably and deterministically impose rules on end-user resources ranging from literary works and scholarly pub- experiences with information resources ranging from literary lications to a vast array of entertainment content. These works and scholarly publications to a vast array of entertainment content. These mechanisms are able to constrain the user’s local mechanisms are able to constrain the user’s local interaction interaction with content by ensuring that only a predefined range with content by ensuring that only a predefined range of of content behaviors may be invoked, by only authorized agents in content behaviors may be invoked, by only authorized only authorized hardware, software, and network environments. agents in only authorized hardware, software, and network DRM represents just the first wave of a class of technologies that environments. aspire to not only implement copyright-protecting usage controls on DRM represents just the first wave of a class of technolo- computing devices, but increasingly to take on the enforcement of a broader set of organizational and public policies. When technical gies that aspire to not only implement copyright-protecting mechanisms for policy enforcement are strengthened by laws and usage controls on computing devices, but increasingly to take other governmental controls that stipulate their use—and penalize on the enforcement of a broader set of organizational and their avoidance or circumvention—end-user freedoms are at risk of public policies.
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