Thursday, April 18, 2002

Engineering Institute Will Drop Form Pledging Adherence to Copyright Act By DAN CARNEVALE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers has bowed to public pressure and will no longer require authors who write for its journals to sign a form promising not to violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The requirement worried many scholars, who say the 1998 act is vaguely worded and difficult to enforce. The act has also been controversial among computer-science researchers and others because it prohibits distributing information about bypassing the copyright-protection technology that increasingly protects digital data. Cryptography scholars in particular say they are concerned about running afoul of the act's provisions in the course of their research. Refusing to publish papers by researchers who disagree with the law, opponents of the IEEE form say, could prevent important studies from being disseminated. For years, the institute had been requiring authors submitting scholarly work to sign a form in which they promised not to violate copyright law. In November 2001, IEEE changed the form to include the reference to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. But after more and more people expressed concern about the DMCA provision on the copyright form, institute officials decided to remove the reference. The change to the copyright form will most likely take place before the end of summer, after IEEE officials decide how to reword the document, said Bill Hagen, manager of intellectual-property rights for the institute. The stiff opposition and the perception that the institute was siding with the government rather than with researchers prompted the decision to remove the digital-copyright provision from the form. "It created the perception that IEEE is in favor of using the DMCA to stifle free speech, and that's not the case," Mr. Hagen said. The change in the copyright form does not absolve authors of their responsibility to abide by the digital-copyright act, Mr. Hagen said. "The DMCA is the law of the land," he said. "The law hasn't changed. We're only changing our reference to the law." Critics were happy to hear of the institute's decision. "Excellent," was the response from Wendy Seltzer, a fellow with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard University Law School. The act is poorly worded, Ms. Seltzer said, leaving many scholars unsure what research can be conducted or published when it concerns digital-copyright protections. Forcing researchers to sign a form promising to comply with the law was akin to IEEE's turning its back to its authors, she said. "One question it raised was whether the IEEE would be behind an author accused of violating the DMCA," Ms. Seltzer said. "It will be nice that they won't have to submit to compliance with a vague law." Background articles from The Chronicle: Judge Dismisses Digital-Copyright Lawsuit by Princeton Professor (12/14/2001) Libraries Criticize Federal Report on Digital-Copyright Law (9/14/2001) Legal Concerns Delay Publication of Research on 'Digital Watermarks' (2/9/2001) Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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