LISNews: Librarian News

Wired.com has this interesting article on the how the Digital Mellennium Copyright Act of 1998 is holding up.
\"The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 was supposed to clear up copyright issues in the Internet era.

That hasn\'t exactly happened. Instead, there have been a series of lawsuits between the recording and motion picture industries, private companies and individual users, seeking clarification on how intellectual property is protected as music and video moves to the digital world.\"
\"The fact that several issues have been raised –- including DeCSS and reverse engineering, Napster and music piracy, and webcasting rights -- should not be a surprise, experts say. The DMCA was intentionally written to be vague so that the courts and the copyright office could later determine the details.

\"With copyright legislation, there are very strong political interests, and the only way to get things through Congress is to leave the statutes gray,\" said John Potter, director of the Digital Media Association. \"At the time the DMCA was going through Congress, the National Association of Broadcasters and the Recording Industry Association of America agreed to support the legislation with the understanding that there would be some kind of legal confrontation between the two sides once the law went into effect.\"