Previous Politech message: http://www.politechbot.com/p-03811.html --- http://www.steptoe.com/WebDoc.nsf/LawNet-Main/Main A little-noticed anticounterfeiting bill has suddenly blossomed into a potentially sweeping digital rights management tool. The bill, S. 2395, originally tinkered with existing statutory provisions that outlaw counterfeiting of the tokens, including holograms, that are used by software producers to guarantee the authenticity of CDs containing valuable programs. The original version of S. 2395 simply updated existing law to include other authentication features. But in markup on July 18, the Senate Judiciary committee greatly expanded the bill. It now covers movies, music, and other consumer products; it allows content owners to bring private suits against violators and to collect up to $25,000 in automatic damages for each violation; and it expands the scope of the law to cover not just tokens but also digital features used by content owners to make sure that copies are not infringing in any way the intellectual property rights of the owners. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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