[KLUG Advocacy] The TEACH Act...

[randall perry]

At 03:09 PM 1/2/2003 -0500, you wrote:


>Comments, anyone? I got this via my ACM internal contacts...
>
>The TEACH Act is a new law that updates copyright law regarding the use of
>copyrighted works in distance learning.  There is a comment period being
>conducted at this time, should any SIG be interested in offering input.
>
>BACKGROUND
>
>The Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization Act or TEACH Act,
>would completely revise Section 110(2) of the U.S. Copyright Act, and
>copyright works, while permitting educations to use those materials in
>distance education.
>
>TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS OF THE TEACH ACT
>
>1) Limit access to enrolled students to the extent technologically
>feasible. (Feasible is not define)
Currently this is accomplished through logins (like on Blackboard), but cannot do anything to prevent someone from keeping information beyond that period.

>2) Provide technological controls on storage and dissemination of digitized
>information, which must include technical measures to prevent "retention of
>the work in accessible form by recipients of the transmission ...for longer
>than the class session." "Technical measures must be applied to prevent
>recipients of the content from engaging in unauthorized further
>dissemination of the work in accessible form." No definition of class
>session is provided.
Class session (I would assume) would be for that week's material.  Taking away a student's right to review before an exam doesn't sound logical.  If they mean session by term or semester, then I don't see how that would work either.  (DRM has a lot of hurdles to cover)
Like Bryan said awhile back, as long as an analog loop exist (and EVERYTHING boils down to analog, right ;) )  you can circumvent DRM measures.  Example, If I am able to view it on my screen right now, what is to keep me from doing a screen capture...or using a TV out to capture it to VCR...or using a camera to take a picture of the screen.

>Conditions: Institutions must use technical controls that manage delivery,
>terms of accessibility, and realistic abilities of students to download or
>share copyrighted content.
Technical solutions to control nontechnical problems?  Plagerism is a people problem, not technical (it's the mentality of the student you should want to change, not their technical means to access the content).  In putting technical restrictions on learning tools, you face the same battle that we are with security and terrorism.  What liberties must be sacrificed to _feel_ more secure?

>Protection is offered to the institution in the event that a Hacker gains
>unauthorized access and violates these provisions of the bill.
Protection to the Institution from being sued by the copyright owner?


>3) No Interference with existing technical measures. This addresses
>anti-circumvention of existing DRM technology that is applied to
>copyrighted work that is made available electronically by educational
>entities.
>
>4) Limited temporary retention of copies. This would limit the length of
>time that copyrighted material may be made available electronically.
>Further the institution may not maintain the information on a network or
>system that is accessible by anyone other than the "anticipated recipient."
More pushing of DRM strategies like those of Palladium (latin for castration)

>5) Limited long-term retention of copies by amending Section 112 of the
>Copyright Act by address the issue of "ephemeral recordings." This allows
>institutions to maintain copyrighted works in storage outside of the access
>of others unless allowed under the provisions of the act.
Isolated cold storage.  That reminds me...
Much like Bill Gates secretely owns an arts preservation society that puts paintings into cold storage.  The initial front of the organization was to "digitally preserve" classical works of art.  The artwork was purchased and stored while the digital versions have yet to be released.  Maybe he is going to pull a Joe Stalin and have himself inserted into all of the historical documents and paintings.  Look! Its Bill Gates rowing G. Washington in that boat!  I found the orginal article in one of my graphic designer mags...quick! to the archives!


Check out this suggestion as the ultimate DRM tool:
  http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/weblog/view/wlg/1540

Randall Perry