The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998

Within the last couple of decades, the amount of information passing through network lines has increased at a staggering rate. More homes are being filled with personal computers and organizations are adding new workstations daily to meet corporate demands. With such growth in the tech sector, the increased accessibility to electronic media had skyrocketed. Photos, music, games, and productivity software use to take time and actual work to make duplicates- prior to the Internet boom. To copy a vinyl record to a blank cassette tape took just as long as if listening to the complete album itself. The mass reproduction and distribution of tapes with illegal copies of music and movies did not cause much concern for the studios as the technology was archaic and the quality was not like the original. The start of digital pirating created new legislation and the digital media industry has changed in the face of it. Software was the first digital media to be widely copied with and without the Internet. Most people copying software from the beginning and even today had usually used the excuse that the software was expensive and copying it for personal use was therefore justified. Some had made copies to sell in the black markets world wide causing large financial losses to the software industry. Even universities, government agencies, and companies were just as guilty copying and redistributing unauthorized copies software. It was inevitable that something had to be done to combat the large unauthorized distribution of copyright materials. Digital Millennium Copyright Act was born.

What is Digital Millennium Copyright Act and why was it necessary? There is no question that the Internet combined with digital media would create new rules governing the use and legality of it. According to www.people.iup.edu, DMCA became necessary due to: Growth of the “Digital Environment”, Digital copies are “perfect”, Question of Online Service Provider Liability, and “Harmonization” with...