DRM & DCMA

DRM & DCMA
In 2007 and 2008, an approximated 200 students from UC Irvine were apprehended for sharing copyrighted music, videos, games, TV shows and games illegally (Dos.uci.edu, 2015). According to the United States copyright act, sharing of digital, patented content is illegal. It was on this basis that several of the students were sued for violating this law. The lawsuit was filed by movie and music associations on behalf of the copyright owners (Dos.uci.edu, 2015). The music and movie industry takes it seriously when it comes to protecting their content. The reason behind this move by the industry is to protect the assets in the industry. The office of student conduct at UC Irvine also took stun measures and disciplined hundreds of students for their involvement in the violation of the copyright laws.
File sharing, especially peer-peer sharing of copyrighted works has been in constant increase. The sharing of data is an infringement of the Copyright Act. To curb this challenges, the Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998 to address challenges posed by online activities (Dos.uci.edu, 2015). The law protects through barring the unlawful distribution, reproduction or even performance of copyrighted works. To perform any of the actions above requires permission from the owner of the work. However, it is only under certain circumstances where the reproduction, distribution and performance do not qualify as illegal such as fair use. In the case of students sharing the files amongst themselves, the case is not appropriate use but categorized as unlawful since there is no permission from the owner of the works. It is a requirement of the Act that in cases such as the one of UC Irvine, the students are supposed to be subscribed to the service either individually or through the institution’s portal.
According to the judge who preceded over the case, the easiness of the reproduction, redistribution and sharing of content makes it tempting. The entertainment industry was mandated to monitor the networks of UC Irvine (Dos.uci.edu, 2015). The United States copyright law stipulates the student code of conduct.

















References

Dos.uci.edu,. (2015). Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) | UCI Office of Student           Conduct. Retrieved 4 April 2015, from http://dos.uci.edu/conduct/students/student-  dmca.php


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