[free-sklyarov] WIPO Regulations

[Austin Hook]

Re: WIPO language   (caution: IANAL)

Condensing (cutting and pasting) to the critical point (see original
quoted text at the bottom):

> (1) Contracting Parties shall provide effective legal remedies against
> any person knowingly altering any electronic rights management
> information [while also] knowing that it will facilitate an
> infringement of any right covered by this Treaty or the Berne
> Convention

However, if rights management information is merely the author and
copyright ownership information, along with a list of the rights that are
intended to be conveyed, then so long as that information is not damaged,
it is not necessary under WIPO to forbid removing associated encryption or
usage crippling technology.

The thrust of it seems to make illegal the act of the first person who
removes the copyright ownership or terms of use information, and doing
that so to cause the material to get into circulation without the
copyright information being attached.  It doesn't seem to worry about
transformations that do not alter the "[Copy]rights Management
Information" (CMI), even if they facilitate a second person doing such a
nasty thing.  It's the stage at which the CMI itself is damaged, rather
than the technological protections surrounding it, where legal action is
called for.

So I don't see how creating software that will remove the technological
protections binding the CMI to the work has to be forbidden in order to
comply with the WIPO treaty.

In particular, passing out encrypted copies of copyrighted works, where
copying in encrypted form is permitted, is OK, and distributing anything
else with it, or independently of it, such as an alternate reader or
decrypter, does not in itself, remove any CMI.

Looking closer, the wording (quoted below), seems to focus on "removing
CMI ...to facilitate", rather than "facilitating removing CMI". The (i)
and (ii) clauses are intended to precede the word "facilitate", because
they are to be substituted where the words "following acts" occur in the
preceding paragraph, and the those words precede the word "facilitate". =20
(Think MAKEFILE or two pass compiler.)

Obviously the DMCA in the USA can expand the intent of WIPO, in it's own
corrupted incarnation.  However, at least other countries need not follow
such an extreme path, if the language below is the crux of the WIPO
treaty.

Austin Hook
Calgary

On Mon, 30 Jul 2001, Jon O . wrote:

> I think this is the WIPO Regulation that resulted in the DMCA:
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> Someone was asking about it...
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> WIPO Copyright Treaty:
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> http://www.wipo.int/eng/diplconf/distrib/94dc.htm
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> Article 12=20
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> Obligations concerning Rights Management Information=20

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> (1) Contracting Parties shall provide adequate and effective legal
> remedies against any person knowingly performing any of the following
> acts knowing, or with respect to civil remedies having reasonable
> grounds to know, that it will induce, enable, facilitate or conceal an
> infringement of any right covered by this Treaty or the Berne
> Convention:

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> (i) to remove or alter any electronic rights management information
> without authority;

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> (ii) to distribute, import for distribution, broadcast or communicate
> to the public, without authority, works or copies of works knowing
> that electronic rights management information has been removed or
> altered without authority.

> (2) As used in this Article, =93rights management information=94 means
> information which identifies the work, the author of the work, the
> owner of any right in the work, or information about the terms and
> conditions of use of the work, and any numbers or codes that represent
> such information, when any of these items of information is attached
> to a copy of a work or appears in connection with the communication of
> a work to the public. [See the agreed statement concerning Article 12]
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> http://www.wipo.int/eng/diplconf/distrib/94dc.htm
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