Cyberlaw: Intellectual Property in the Digital Millennium

For nearly three hundred years, copyright laws have targeted those who illegally copy protected works. Today the legal framework also takes aim at those who defeat protective technologies. Cyberlaw: Intellectual Property in the Digital Millennium is the definitive guide to the revolution in copyright law brought about by the need to protect against piracy and unauthorized copying on the Internet.

This newly updated law book explains the anti-circumvention and anti-trafficking rules of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the Act's provisions for protecting copyright management information (CMI), and its attempts to reduce Internet service providers' exposure to primary and secondary liability for copyright infringement. It parses the anti-trafficking rules and discusses in detail how several courts have failed to apply the rules correctly to complex technologies. It also explains how these rules derived from the emerging “federal common law” of copyright and how the still-developing federal common law may make resort to these rules unnecessary.

Cyberlaw: Intellectual Property in the Digital Millennium analyzes how the common-law rules of secondary liability for copyright infringement, as affected by the Supreme Court's Grokster decision, work in the context of the Internet, and how statutory overlays have complicated their operation. Finally, the book discusses the background and origins of—and the treaties underlying—the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and its substantive provisions, including the special subpoena power, the special cause of action for fraud relating to infringement notification, and their relationship to state and other federal law.

Cyberlaw: Intellectual Property in the Digital Millennium explores not only the rules, but also their intricate exceptions and the distinct civil causes of action and criminal sanctions for violating them. It clarifies the complex rules governing copy-control technologies, including the gray areas, and explores possible challenges to the law under the First Amendment, the Due Process Clause, and the Patent and Copyright Clause. Emerging case law in the field of copyright and Internet law is incorporated throughout.