Wikipedia talk:Education program archive/University of California, Berkeley/Politics of Digital Piracy (Spring 2013)/Week 6 assignment

= Week 6: Digital Rights Management (DRM) and DMCA =

Watch Pirate Bay movie
The film "The Pirate Bay- Away From Keyboard" can be found here. Or alternatively you can watch it in sections on YouTube or go to whatever "illegal" site you may use and download it.

Please note that this film was licensed under a Creative Commons License, but there were some interesting technicalities involved in the licensing to have it be made available under CC licensing. This scenario can be read about here. We will be discussing the film next week, so take some notes and bring some question and comments.

Wikipedia Research Project Assignment

 * Next week we will begin individually discussing your projects, so please come to class prepared to bringing 1. the topic you are considering, or maybe 2 that you are debating 2. what you will add to the article (if it already exists) or what the general layout of your page will look like 3. At least two sources that you will be using to reference this topic.


 * Please remember that citations are a hugely important part of the legitimacy of Wikipedia, and just like research papers in any of your other classes, any information that is not your idea MUST be cited. This is also a good way to determine if an article needs some revision. Is it lacking citations?  If so, it could be your project to go and search for references to legitimize that source.


 * The list of some ideas for topics is at the bottom of the class Week 5 assignment Talk Page found here.

Required Reading

 * “DMCA”, EFF


 * Pamela Samuelson, "Toward More Sensible Anti-Circumvention Regulation”, UC Berkeley.


 * 121011/ “ ‘Online Thug’ DMCAs Critic’s Site Off The Internet Over 16-Word Quote” TorrentFreak.

Suggested Reading

 * “AGCOM Sector Inquiry on Copyright” Section 2.2 (pg 31-33)

Reading Response
If you are in Group B, please post your reading responses here by selecting the 'editing' option at the top of the page. This could also be a good opportunity to get a little practice in Wikipedia formatting. Try making your title bold, or indenting, or making sub-sections ect. And don't forget to sign with 4 tildes at the end of your response.

In some ways that I feel that DMR is overreaching because they are given the ability to take digital media that is available to the public and basically dictate the way we are able to use and handle the way we want to use the media. In the instances that I feel most important when it comes to high specialized government documentation that the DMR should step in to insure the public safety of our Country but in many of the cases the anti-circumvention measures have not been successful and have done little to stop internet piracy. I believe that fair use shouldn’t be only a defense to copyright infringement but also be illustrated to the public as way of not deterring the public but showing them other ways to use the media legally. Chadyy (talk) 21:22, 25 February 2013 (UTC)Chadyy

The construction and execution of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) truly represents the current situation on copyright protection, in which the media industry presents a much stronger voice to push their anti-circumvent agendas in ways that most benefit their interests; while other groups such as consumers and cryptography research community remain disorganized and unheard. Such imbalance in force potentially poses a serious risk social, legal, economic and technical injustice The case of Barthsnotes.com close down as it used a quote from Charlie Flowers’ facebook demonstrates one example in which DMCA was misapplied, which severely affected the free speech and the integrity of journalism. Through the case, we can see that because the DMCA was established and executed by one side that has deep interests in digital anti-circumvention, the law is fundamentally biased as it pays neither regards nor considerations to the other side of the table including journalists and users of Barthsnotes.com. Pphan1991 (talk) 06:17, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

The DMCA is too ambiguous and is only serving beneficially mostly towards the media industry, thus the regulations do not provide justice to all situations or works. I really dislike the fact that under these regulations firms cannot circumvent encryptions even if it is allegedly a highly destructive virus on a computer, thus, it may risk their content and material for their firm. This is unjust because this law is protecting the encryption instead of the firm. The acts under the DMCA are not balanced and are getting in the way of other professions due to their ambiguity versus a general rule of protecting all sorts of copyrighted material. In the case of Richard Bartholomew, his site being shut down is completely unfair as journalism consists of basically criticizing other peoples ideas or bringing out other groups' viewpoints. Journalism is noneffective without evidence and juicy quotes of the sort Bartholomew presents in his blog posts. Pringles012 (talk) 20:54, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

The DMCA is a vice on the creativeness of society. The reason being is that by creating so many laws and obstacles for new forms of art to be created it stagnates any possibility of new art forms to be created in society. Going back to an early response, although for the artists this may protect their art so that they can get as much "fruit" from their labor, however, the length of time that something exists as property of the company and disables the public from utilizing it in more creative ways is unfair to individuals that use the music (bits of it at that) to create new forms that we haven't hear of yet. Ergo, in the case of Richard Bartholomew and his site being shut down, in short, it is wrong. ORambo (talk) 00:31, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Reading Response
On the matter of possible punishments for jailbreaking and/or unlocking phones: This gets into some more interesting effects of antipiracy law which restrict not only your ability to use "information property" (such as data, files, etc.) but also your physical property. Despite the fact that you completely own your physical phone, laws such as these allow companies to nevertheless still control what you can do with it - despite you being the owner. This is also interesting when contrasted with other nations polcies - many places, such as europe, strongly encourage the ability to unlock phones, and most phones can be mixed and matched with different sim cards or plans. And some nations, such as chile have even "mandated" that cell phones be unlocked. I think this especially highlights the fact that such anticopy laws are so centered around certain companies' right to profit. Adrianvallence (talk) 23:06, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Current Events
Group A, please post your current events here, sign your user name, and be ready to discuss them in class. In order to make the title of the article a link, do as follows: [www.thisisthelinktomycurrentevent.com "My Current Event"] Please note that there is just one space between the link and the quotation mark enclosing the title. As with the reading response, just sign your name next to you article by typing four of these: ~ (4 tildes).

“Six Strikes” Anti-Piracy Scheme Starts Monday MarkDavidoff UCB (talk) 10:05, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

"RIAA Slams Google For Anti-Piracy Fail" Kaylaholderbein (talk) 19:33, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

"Issues of IP law with 3D printing" Gloudas (talk) 23:53, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Editingcontent2 (talk) 00:01, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

"Is it illegal to unlock a phone?"RKan (talk) 00:50, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

"The Pirate Bay leaves Sweden for friendlier waters" Jimmyslope (talk) 18:05, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

"Microsoft, VF, CIAA, Nolo, RIAA : Intellectual Property"Radeonhead (talk) 18:15, 26 February 2013 (UTC)Benjamin Porter [http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/18/business/technology-russian-company-cleared-of-illegal-software "Nintendo Wants to Hunt Down Game Pirates and Block Websites" Melconser (talk) 22:14, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

http://www.aallnet.org/main-menu/Advocacy/copyright/drm.htmlFredy2012 (talk) 23:56, 26 February 2013 (UTC)(fredy)

"Copyright Alert System" IanElli (talk) 00:18, 27 February 2013 (UTC) "TECHNOLOGY; Russian Company Cleared Of Illegal Software Sales" 136.152.190.246 (talk) 01:43, 27 February 2013 (UTC) "TECHNOLOGY; Russian Company Cleared Of Illegal Software Sales"Sheeveed (talk) 01:47, 27 February 2013 (UTC)