| . | An interesting arguement is going on in USA on an alleged violation of the Copyrights Act applicable to digital media. The case is between the movie industry and one Mr Eric Corely in the southern district court. Mr Corely has been didtributing a software program DeCSS which enables the user to break the encryption on a DVD meant to block copying. The movie industry claims that the distribution of the program is violative of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The defendent has put up a claim that he needs to be protected under the "Freedom of speech provision since according to his lawyers, a software is "Expressive speech". A moot point to consider is whether law should prevent production and distribution of any software just because it helps in the reading of a copyrighted material. If so, what prevents law to prevent a "Browser " which helps us to read and copy "htm" documents some of which may be copyrighted. Another point to consider is the extent of responsibility that an owner of a copyrighted material has to exercise tohis material being "read" by a device which he wants to avoid. A similar situation arises in the case of what may be classified as "hacking tools". However, the differentiation of a tool as "Hacking Tool" or "Security Tools" is as tricky as classifying a gun as a "Policeman's tool" or a "Terrorist's tool". If technology has to progress, no barriers are to be placed on the invention of tools such as DeCSS or Napster or for that matter any other tool that may incidentally be used for "Hacking". While it is unfortunate that the devices may be misused by some to the detriment of the society, more harm would come by banning the devices and the enterprise that it represents. |
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