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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