COPYCENSE

The Copyright Office is conducting a rulemaking proceeding mandated by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which provides that the Librarian of Congress may exempt certain classes of works from the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. The purpose of this rulemaking proceeding is to determine whether there are particular classes of works as to which users are, or are likely to be, adversely affected in their ability to make noninfringing uses due to the prohibition on circumvention of measures that protect access.

As a part of the rulemaking, interested parties were invited to submit comments in November 2005. These comments are available for viewing from our comments page.

The Copyright Office will be accepting reply comments from January 4, 2006, until 5:00 P.M. EST on February 2, 2006. Persons who oppose or support any exemptions proposed in the initial comments now have the opportunity to respond to the proposals made in the initial comments and to provide factual information and/or legal argument addressing whether a proposed exemption should be adopted. Since the reply comments are intended to be responsive to the initial comments, reply commenters must identify what proposed class they are responding to, whether in opposition, support, amplification or correction.

As with initial comments, reply comments should first identify the proposed class, provide a summary of the argument, and then provide the factual and/or legal support for their argument. This format of class/summary/facts and/or legal argument should be repeated for each reply to a particular class of work proposed.

Commenters are strongly encouraged to submit comments well in advance of the deadline to allow sufficient time to correct any format defects and resubmit comments before the deadline.

U.S. Copyright Office. Rulemaking on Exemptions from Prohibition on Circumvention of Technological Measures that Control Access to Copyrighted Works. Jan. 5, 2006.

See also:

U.S. Copyright Office. Comments on Jonathan Band on Behalf of the Library Copyright Alliance and Music Library Association. (.pdf, 69 KB) Dec. 1, 2005.

U.S. Copyright Office. Comments of Brewster Kahle on Behalf of the Internet Archive. (.pdf, 537 KB) Dec. 1, 2005.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.