By 1998 the US had passed its Digital Millennium Copyright Act. And partly because the US generates so much copyrightable material, and partly just because it’s the US and is a little pushy on the world stage, the DMCA became the de facto way of handling copyright protections on the internet around the world.
But what is it? Why did we need the DMCA or the WIPO copyright treaty at all?
Let’s help you Know a Little more about the DMCA.
Featuring Tom Merritt.
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Episode transcript:
It’s April 26, 1970. Joe Cocker is playing live at the Fillmore. The Jackson 5’s ABC is dominating the charts In Novo Mesto, Slovenia, little Melanija Knavs is born. And after three years of planning, the World Intellectual Property Organization has begun operations. The purpose of the specialized agency is to provide a place for countries to work together on their various intellectual property laws and rules. Copyright is of course the most well known type of intellectual property these days but it also includes trademarks and patents and such. WIPO is meant to be a clearing house. A place to try to harmonize. I’ll respect your patents if you respect mine etc. In fact its first big achievement is the Patent Cooperation Treaty which to oversimplify, made filing a patent in one country equivalent to filing in all. Now different countries still had latitude to approve or deny patents according to their own laws, but it made things a lot simpler.
WIPO made lots of other treaties and systems to make it easier to handle trademarks and service marks. It created mediation and arbitration to help resolve disputes between countries over these kinds of matters.
And in September 1995 it took up the digital agenda. Copyright came to the fore. And somehow. Some way, WIPO agreed on new rules faster than it almost ever agreed on anything. By December 1996 there was a diplomatic conference to approve the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty.
Those two treaties brought countries together to agree on how to handle digital copyright protection. Each country then had to pass its own law to implement the treaty.
By 1998 the US had passed its Digital Millennium Copyright Act. And partly because the US generates so much copyrightable material, and partly just because it’s the US and is a little pushy on the world stage, the DMCA became the de facto way of handling copyright protections on the internet around the world.
But what is it? Why did we need the DMCA or the WIPO copyright treaty at all?
Let’s help you Know a Little more about the DMCA.Continue reading “About the DMCA (Updated)”
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