USA Leads the way in Copy Protection.
Running at 20% the USA has the lowest software piracy rate in the world.
Is this because Americans are just naturally more law abiding than say the British, or New Zealanders, or the Swiss?
Well maybe, but it could also have something to do with the whole raft of legislation in place in the US around the area of computer usage and intellectual property protection.
Techrepublic’s recent article on “10 ways you might be breaking the law with your computer” makes fascinating reading. Amongst the 10 potential legal pitfalls listed are four relating to copy protection.
First the article discusses the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This Act passed by Bill Clinton in 1998 is the USA’s implementation of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s treaties. The Act, which many computer users will have heard of, makes it a criminal offence to breach any kind of technological copy protection – even if you do so without actually infringing anyone’s copyright.
So a geek who spends her time cracking DRM just for the fun of it, will have committed a criminal offence even if she never makes pirate copies to hand out to her friends and family.
Another legacy of the Clinton administration is the No Electronic Theft Act. Before this Act was passed software copyright violations could not generally be prosecuted in the criminal courts, unless it could be proved that the infringement was committed for commercial ends. If commercial motive could not be proved the matter was treated as civil, with the copyright holder being required to bring a case to court himself in order to see justice.
Now, under the Act, infringement of software copyright is a federal offence which is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. These penalties can apply regardless of whether any copy protection measures have been breached, or whether any financial benefit has been derived from the theft.
Last on the list and returning to the copyright front, the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act (Pro IP Act), came into force in 2008. This Act imposes stricter penalties for copyright infringements and also gives the authorities the power to seize the property of people suspected of software piracy or other forms of intellectual property theft. This sounds fine in theory, but when you look at the way these powers are exercised in relation to those suspected of drug crime – where property is often not returned after a case is dropped or a defendant acquitted, the whole prospect could start to look a little scary.
The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is still at the negotiation stage and negotiations are very much in secret. The treaty will be between the USA, EU, Canada, Australia, Switzerland and many Middle and Far Eastern countries.
The section that will impact on copy protection is “Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights”. Sources say that provisions of this section of the treaty may include forcing ISP’s to hand over information on customers suspected of software piracy, without the need for a warrant, and powers to allow customers officials to conduct random searches of laptops, MP3 players and smartphones for illegally downloaded software, music and movies.
The treaty is thought by some to be a way for governments to bring into force anti – software piracy measures which they would have difficultly passing thought their own domestic legislative channels. It is currently a highly contentious topic within the industry with the strong opinions being expressed both for and against.
This is a real belt and braces approach copy protection and protecting the livelihoods of software developers and publishers.
There are those who will view such a strong and comprehensive approach to copy protection as an infringement on the liberties of computer users. But at SL.tv we recognise that such measures are needed to protect the intellectual property of our software developers and publishers.
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