Often we can see the name DMCA Protected on our browser page. What does this mean? The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, is a legislative act that was passed on May 14, 1998 by the US Senate as a response to the demands of the information society, and, interestingly, it was approved unanimously, without any objection. Moreover, the document during its development increased in volume by almost ten times, which indicates its immense importance for the American state.
Why was DMCA Protected adopted , what happened? As soon as the number of users of the World Wide Web grew enormously to hundreds of millions, when each of these users could easily and free download whatever he wanted, the copyright holders began to suffer serious losses. This situation also affected the state’s economy, where a fifth of budget revenues came from providers of intellectual services. DMCA Protected brought this mess to an end.
DMCA Protected: what is it, the main points
Firstly, the framework of civil liability was established. The intruder could now foresee the results of his activities and should be ready to suffer punishment, which, I must say, is by no means formal. Secondly, a ban was established on circumvention of protective equipment ("anti-piracy" equipment). And thirdly, funds were made that made such a violation possible.
Positive results
After the law came into force, the provider ceased to be liable for the actions of its users, if he immediately took the required measures, did not receive financial compensation from the unlawful actions of the violator, and did not have a statement from the copyright holder. It is clear that under such conditions, the existence of video hosting is impossible, since their owners would only deal with the settlement of lawsuits.
On top of this, providers are no longer responsible for caching information. True, this moment in our time has not yet been settled in most legislations of world states.
DMCA Protected - what is it? Negative moments
One such is the numerous notices from DMCA of copyright infringements to major global search engines. Such notifications are often false, but you must respond to them without fail, and this brings companies a lot of costs. In addition, there is still no liability measure for such a false signal.
In addition, the act introduces serious criminal liability - up to a ten-year prison sentence. Although there are still no clear restrictions on the dissemination of information on the Internet in the world community, the legislator simply equated intellectual property with physical property, which, of course, is far from proportional and not equally socially harmful.
And one more minus: a lot of Internet resources evade responsibility in offshore zones. They are registered on other domains and have their servers in states more tolerant of "pirates" than the United States.
Summary
Having analyzed the pros and cons of the law, we can say that it establishes a balance between Internet users and copyright holders.
It is important to say about DMCA Protected that this legislation is not only opposed to copying, but also prohibits distortion of information that spreads across the Internet. Unlike tangible media, it is very difficult to determine the source of information on the network. This will require a long study of search engine cache. Therefore, one of the main tasks of the Copyright Law in the digital age was the establishment of a system for fixing the content of the source, establishing its author, and then introducing legal responsibility for purposefully changing and falsifying the initial data.
Even with all its disadvantages, the appearance of such a project is a positive development in the information community. But it is very important not to infringe on the interests of all participants in the Internet community.
North American lawmakers are currently working on a new project called Stop Online Piracy Act. This legislation will replace the DMCA. And SOPA will further tighten the sentence for Internet pirates.
We hope that this article has given you an exhaustive answer to the question of what DMCA Protected means and why this law was adopted.