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WIPO Implementing Legislation



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Date: Mon, 01 Sep 1997 14:22:54 -0700
To:
From: Kaye Caldwell <[email protected]>
Subject: WIPO Implementing Legislation
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This message was addressed to:  [email protected]
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TO: CommerceNet Members

A member company has asked that we consider whether CommerceNet joins in
the concern, as expressed by the Online Banking Association, that some
provisions of HR 2281, the legislation implementing the WIPO treaties,
undermine the objectives of the SAFE bill and have a negative effect on the
development of encryption technologies.

Specifically their concern is that Section 1201(a) will effectively
prohibit encryption research and development in that it prohibits the
manufacture and use of decryption technologies, which are used to test
encryption technologies and make them more secure.  They suggest that
section (a) needs to be redrafted to prohibit the use of decryption
technology to obtain unauthorized access to encryption works.

My recommendation is that CommerceNet join in this concern and the
recommendation for resolving it.  Please let me know if your companies have
any objection to CommerceNet doing so.

Additional background information is available below.

- Kaye Caldwell
CommerceNet Policy Director

================= Background Information ==========================
For reference, HR 2281 is available at:

ftp://ftp.loc.gov/pub/thomas/c105/h2281.ih.txt

Section 1201(a) states:

`(a) VIOLATIONS REGARDING CIRCUMVENTION OF TECHNOLOGICAL
    PROTECTION MEASURES- (1) No person shall circumvent a technological
protection
    measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this
title.

    `(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide
or otherwise traffic
    in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof
that--

        `(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of
circumventing a
        technological protection measure that effectively controls access
to a work protected
        under this title;

        `(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other
than to
        circumvent a technological protection measure that effectively
controls access to a
        work protected under this title; or

        `(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with
that person for use
        in circumventing a technological protection measure that
effectively controls access to
        a work protected under this title.

    `(3) As used in this subsection--

        `(A) to `circumvent a technological protection' means to descramble
a scrambled
        work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass,
remove,
        deactivate, or impair a technological protection measure, without
the authority of the
        copyright owner; and

        `(B) a technological protection measure `effectively controls
access to a work' if the
        measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the
application of
        information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the
copyright owner, to
        gain access to the work.
============= End of Background Information ==========================




===================================
Kaye Caldwell,  Policy Director
CommerceNet
http://www.Commerce.net
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: (408) 479-8743    Fax: (408) 479-9247
===================================
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Robert Hettinga ([email protected]), Philodox
e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
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