The Chronicle: Colloquy: The question

THE QUESTION

One provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which was designed to update copyright law to encourage electronic commerce, makes it a crime to bypass an encryption device that limits access to copyrighted material, or to distribute decryption technology. Many computer-science professors, especially those who work on encryption issues, believe the provision is being used or could be used to limit their research and their ability to discuss their research with other scholars. They are calling for courts to throw out the law as unconstitutional. Some other scholars, however, say that the law is a necessary way to protect copyright in the digital age. Does the Digital Millennium Copyright Act violate the First Amendment and the academic-freedom rights of scholars?

For further information, see this background article:

2 Scholars Face Off in Copyright Clash (8/10/2001)

: 14 RESPONSES (New 8/31)

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