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University of Michigan Law School

2002

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Paradigm Shifts And Access Controls: An Economic Analysis Of The Anticircumvention Provisions Of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Melissa A. Kern Jun 2002

Paradigm Shifts And Access Controls: An Economic Analysis Of The Anticircumvention Provisions Of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Melissa A. Kern

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note addresses the broadened scope of protection granted to copyright holders under the anticircumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA). This broadened scope extends to copyright holders the right to control access to their works, diminishing the consumer's 'fair use" of those works that previously served as a defense to alleged copyright infringements. While access controls are supported by economists who believe they are useful in correcting market inefficiencies and excluding free riders, this Note suggests that access controls cannot correct all market inefficiencies. Furthermore, such access controls deny access and use of copyrighted material …


Toward A "New Deal" For Copyright In The Information Age, Pamela Samuelson Jan 2002

Toward A "New Deal" For Copyright In The Information Age, Pamela Samuelson

Michigan Law Review

Jessica Litman believes the public needs a very good copyright lawyer, and if I have not mistaken her intentions, she is volunteering for the job (pp. 70-73). A century of Congressional deference to industry-negotiated compromises has produced, she argues, a copyright law that is both incomprehensible and unfair. This incomprehensibility might be tolerable if copyright law governed only commercial relations among industry participants, all of whom have copyright counsel. To the extent that copyright law applies to the conduct of ordinary persons, its incomprehensibility presents serious difficulties. Moreover, to the extent that copyright law makes illegal many ordinary activities of …