The Legality of Our Project

We will be going with the "legal" approach using the clause in the DMCA that allows DRM circumvention for academic purposes. However, examples of legitmate research being stymied by the DMCA will be dicussed, including the lawsuits filed by the Secure Digital Music Initiative against a Princeton University research team. These lawsuits never reached the courts (some being settled), however, the legal nature of the threat and the burden that it places on researches is certainly a matter of interest to us in our iTunes research. Whether or not they have a justifiable case, a group with a lot of money can threaten small researchers with the DMCA suits to "shut them up" because of the researchers' fears of being involved in a financially costly legal battle, even if they are in the right. This is a pretty immoral thing to do with laws in my opinion, but it happens all the time, perhaps our ethicist will delve into that issue further. Other cases include Chamberland vs. Skylink and Universal vs. Reimerdes, two of the first uses of the DMCA in court.

As another matter of interest, I will be looking at the ways in which the DMCA violates the standards of copyright use upheld before it was enacted, and at congressional intent in passing the DMCA vs. its actual consequences. In essence, deciding if the DMCA is a "bad law" in a stricter sense than "we all hate it".

-- Katie