Durie said that under the studio's interpretation of the DMCA, a movie reviewer could be banned from excerpting a digital work, a prohibition that would violate free-speech laws. When the movie studios' attorney said that such fair use would not be banned, the judge asked, "Isn't it made more difficult? What about Siskel and Ebert?" Frackman sidestepped the question, saying that at least one of the famous movie reviewers seems to be doing quite well. "Ebert and whoever can still talk about what they want to talk about (and) can still play clips of what they want to talk about," he said. But he added that Ebert has no more of a right to make full copies of a movie than anyone else. At one point, the judge called on Department of Justice attorney John Zacharia to answer some questions about the DMCA. The attorney has weighed in on the side of the studios in an attempt to defend the constitutionality of the DMCA. Illston asked Zacharia to explain the conundrum of locking up copyrighted works behind encryption and then making the breaking of that encryption illegal, even after the copyrights on those works expire. The judge wondered if it would effectively extend copyrights to keep such works out of the public domain. Zacharia said it would not, because the copyright had expired. "But it's encrypted. If it doesn't stop being encrypted, it's still encrypted," Illston said, adding that such protected works still couldn't be legally copied.
See the Digital Rights News Section for the latest on copy protection, piracy, DVD recording and your rights online.
Let the editors know what you think in the Mailroom.
