Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)

The DMCA is an act that criminalizes the breach of a copyright, as well as the production or dissemination of any technology that may be used to circumvent copyright laws. In other words, it defines the laws and penalties associated with creating, distributing, or possessing copyright material without explicit permission, which amounts to copyright infringement or piracy.

The DMCA was signed into law in 1998. It has had far-reaching effects on file sharing and has caused the recording industry, including the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), and the software industry to aggressively target pirates in an effort to stem the distribution of illegal material, such as audio and video files and software.

DCMA provides for copy protection to be built into various hardware devices like video recorders, media format like DVD disks, and software like media players.

DCMA makes provision to absolve Internet Service Providers (ISP) of blame even when their networks are being used for illegal activity, as long as they adhere to “safe harbor” guidelines, and promptly block access and track down offenders when they become aware of them.

DCMA also allows computer maintenance personnel to make temporary copies of software while they are working on a computer.

DMCA has been criticized for seeking to constrain the development of open source and furthering the closed technology model. DMCA gives copyright-holders legal rights to create closed technology models that do not allow competitors or users to interoperate or delve into them. This means that interested users cannot take apart or look into software to understand how it works. While this has the benefit of preventing illegal copying, it also prevents users from making their own modifications to improve the software, which is the philosophy of the open source movement. Many pieces of open source software have had their bugs fixed by interested users, but this would not be allowed under DMCA. Another criticism of DMCA is that most of the protection technologies stemming from it only hinder legitimate users while doing nothing to stop actual pirates.