This study tracked changes in the availability of the "DeCSS" software tool on the Internet during the trial proceedings for the U.S. civil case, Universal City Studios v. Corley. Although the results show a general decline in the availability of web pages posting DeCSS, the results are ambiguous with regard to the availability of web pages that link to DeCSS. More broadly, the results show that U.S. based posting and linking persisted in the face of civil penalties based on Corley during the study period.

In Corley, the courts ruled against the possession and distribution of "DeCSS," a piece of software that decrypts the access and copying controls embedded in Digital Video Discs (DVDs). The courts found that DeCSS violated the anti-circumvention and anti-trafficking provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and enjoined the defendants in that case from posting DeCSS on web sites, or linking to DeCSS on secondary web sites.

We investigated trends in the availability of DeCSS to typical Web users as the lawsuit progressed through a 17-month period. Our study investigated: a) Whether the progression of the lawsuit was accompanied by a decrease in the availability of websites posting DeCSS, b) Whether the progression of the lawsuit was accompanied by a decrease in the availability of websites posting DeCSS, c) How long a typical DeCSS posting would remain available before being removed, d) The geographical location of the web host of the sites posting DeCSS.

We collected data about the availability of DeCSS posting and linking by running queries on the Alta Vista search engine at four sampling dates during the period of the trial (January 2001, September 2001, February 2002, June 2002). At each date, we used two query methods (an anchor query and a URL query).

Both queries showed an overall decrease in the availability of web pages posting the DeCSS software, but not an outright elimination of posting pages. For example, using one query method, the number of sites fell from 27 to 21 sites during the study period. In the data from the second query method the number of sites fell from 24 to 10.

The two sets of data provided contradictory evidence about the availability of web pages linking to DeCSS on secondary web sites. In the data from one query, the number of web sites that linked to DeCSS on secondary pages increased during the study period, rising from 4 to 7 pages. However, in the data from the other query the number of linking pages decreased from 36 to 9.

In order to collect data about the length of time DeCSS posting would remain available, we developed a list of all DeCSS posting sites from the first query date (27 web sites). During each subsequent sampling date, we checked back on each of these web sites to see if they still posted a web page with the DeCSS software. Results show that seven home pages retained their posted DeCSS (3 U.S./5 non-U.S.) for the entire 17-month study period.

In order to collect data about the geographical location of the web hosts of DeCSS posting and linking pages, we ran a "trace route" search on each URL using Neotrace and Whois. Data showed that the number of pages posting or linking to DeCSS from U.S. registered Internet Protocol addresses remained higher than the number of pages posting or linking to DeCSS from non U.S. Internet Protocol addresses.

The data from this study suggest that although posting sites are becoming less available to the general Internet searcher, U.S. based web sites continue to post and link to DeCSS. More broadly, the data show that the Corley case did not bring an immediate stoppage of all U.S. based DeCSS posting and linking activity, despite threat of civil penalties.

About the Author(s)

Kristin Eschenfelder is an Assistant Professor in the School of Library and Information Studies and a member of the University of Wisconsin Communications Technologies Research Cluster and Science and Technology Studies Program. Her research focuses on the social shaping and social impacts of web sites.

Anuj Desai is an Assistant Professor in the Law School and a member of the University of Wisconsin Communications Technologies Research Cluster. His research examines international copyright issues.

Early in the life of The Pew Internet and American Life Project, we established ourselves as an impartial source for research on intellectual property and the Internet. Our reports on downloading music in 2000 and 2001 identified key characteristics of those who use the Web as a source of music and documented the rapid growth of this activity in America. However, although much research has been done - by PIP and others - on how the average Internet user views file-sharing activities, and how digital piracy might be impacting the intellectual property industries, there has not been a significant quantitative study that chronicles artists' perspectives on these issues. Because many artists have relinquished ownership of their copyrights in order to secure ample promotion and distribution of their art, their voices are often underrepresented or misrepresented in the public debate on intellectual property and the Internet.

Furthermore, there has been little inquiry into how Internet access might be impacting artists' everyday lives and careers. Sparse qualitative data is available through organizations such as the NEA (see the "Artists in American Life Colloquia" series available at: www.nea.gov) that chronicles isolated instances of artists turning to the web to exhibit, communicate and collaborate, but little of this research has been quantified. The Urban Institute is currently conducting a study of American artists that does quantitatively address basic measures of Internet usage, however, its primary focus is on analyzing the organizational support structure for artists in the U.S., rather than presenting a detailed picture of technology's impact on the creative community.

In light of this research gap, this paper will reveal new insights on how new information technologies are being used by artists to display, promote and sell their work online, create content for the Internet, network and collaborate with other artists, communicate with audiences via the Internet, and access tools online that facilitate the creative process. In addition, it will present the views of artists on key legislative issues concerning intellectual property and the control of creative content. The paper will utilize data from a Spring 2003 Pew Internet & American Life Project telephone callback survey of self-identified artists and will address the following questions:

· Has the Internet generally helped or hurt artists' careers, or has it not made any difference? · Has the Internet improved artists' ability to network with other artists and communicate with their audiences? · How actively do artists contribute to the creative landscape of the Internet by posting creative content to websites, blogs, file-sharing networks and other online communities? · How might the Internet provide inspiration for artists' work-whether it is in the form of research, collaboration, or sampling? · How familiar are artists with various copyright laws and rules and how they apply to digital media? · Do artists think that copyright laws should apply in the same way to digital media as they do otherwise? · What do artists think about current policy issues regarding copy protection technology, copyright term length, and the disabling of file-sharing activities?

The data presented in this paper will provide important contextual information to further ground the ongoing international debate over copyright, intellectual property, and the Internet. Furthermore, it will broaden the scope of user studies and lay the groundwork for future research in this field. The Pew Internet and American Life Project also plans to conduct subsequent studies that involve more detailed inquiries into the behaviors and opinions of musicians, writers, and other artist subgroups.

About the Author(s)

Mary Madden is a Research Specialist for the Pew Internet and American Life Project in Washington, D.C. She is a contributing author of "The Internet Goes to College: How Students are Living in the Future with Today's Technology," and "One Year Later: September 11 and the Internet." She is also the principal author on two forthcoming reports from PIALP. She holds a Master's degree in Communication, Culture and Technology from Georgetown University and a Bachelor's degree in English from The University of Florida.

In this paper I address the viability of the current global intellectual property rights (IPR's) regime specifically focusing on copyright issues and the ever-expanding Internet. I contend that the will and the technology exist, at the level of the individual Internet user, to ignore institutional or governmental demands for adherence to expanding IPR's embodied in international law. This is the case primarily because Netizens do not share the ideological vision of intellectual property that is embodied in the law. To understand why this is so we must divide Internet copyright violators into two general categories: casual infringers and toolmakers. "Casual infringers" are the average Internet users who frequently download and upload proprietary digital media from sharing communities such as peer-to-peer networks, Usenet newsgroups, or Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channels. These millions of individuals are in constant copyright violation, and we must ask ourselves why they continue to violate intellectual property law when they are otherwise moral, law-abiding citizens. The "toolmakers" are those who are ideologically or culturally committed to situated notions of fair use, free speech or, more commonly, to a hacker ethic of "free information." Toolmakers are those that make, use and distribute the tools needed to circumvent copyright protections facilitating media exchange on the Internet. Local hacker cultures come into conflict with copyright regulations imposed from "outside" the Net. Because various groups within the Internet are able to deploy their technological resources to circumvent both legal and technological restraints without fear of capture or punishment, mass violations of copyright law are occurring across the Internet. In the month of June 2002, for example, a user who monitored certain Usenet groups could have downloaded the full compliment of Adobe imaging products, many commercial films that premiered that month prior to the actual release dates, Windows XP including "cracking software" that turns off the "activation" feature, most commercial video games released in the past 3 months (also including "cracks") as well as a host of other audio, video, and software products. While it is evident that organizations with vested interests in copyrights over intellectual property have the determination and the resources to mount both legal and technological campaigns against illicit digital copying, the process will certainly become increasingly costly. As the Internet expands across the globe, with more people gaining more efficient and reliable access, it will only become more difficult to enforce the current intellectual property regime on the Internet at the level of the individual. From a policy standpoint, I choose to see the current IPR regime as both globally and virtually expansionist. The current IPR regime has been crafted without support from those that it intends to regulate and the local cultures (in this case hacker cultures) will pose significant resistance to implementation of laws that go against local norms. The response from media and software companies has been to lobby for regulation and to develop counter technologies to circumvention tools. I propose that such investment in regulation and technology may not be necessary or desirable, since it is still unclear whether individual copying significantly impacts the industries in question and since it is unclear what effect continuously over protective IPR regulation may have on the overall nature of the Internet. What is clear, however, is that current trends to hyper-regulate behavior on the net will result in 1) the creation of institutionally imposed systems of law that are far removed from what individuals are willing to recognize as legitimate and 2) the creation of technologies that are dangerously undemocratic in design. I propose a re-evaluation of the process of IPR regulation on the Internet to include all stakeholders, more democratically recognizing all interests and possible alternative notions of IPR's.

About the Author(s)

I have my masters in physiology and am currently a doctoral candidate in Science and Technology Studies. I am work with the Center for Cultural Design at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute focusing on issues of policy design in global and virtual contexts. My interests include intellectual property rights on the Internet, indigenous peoples intellectual property rights in biotechnology, and global policy design.

The Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization (TEACH) Act, passed in November 2002, provides long-anticipated clarification of the terms and conditions of the use of copyrighted materials in digital learning environments. While the TEACH Act is beneficial in its recognition of the growth of distance education, it seems limiting in its level of control over the distribution and restrictions on use of educational materials on the Internet. While the Act was pitched as a projection of well-established Fair Use rights into distance education settings, it may ultimately have the perverse effect of functionally narrowing the range of activities understood as Fair Use. In this presentation I will look at the effect of the TEACH Act on the academic freedom of distance educators; to do so I will study its conditions, limitations, benefits, and implications on ownership and control of intellectual property distributed on the Internet. This presentation discusses the implications of the law's rigorous conditions and requirements on the academic freedom of distance educators. The focus of the Act is on institutional behaviors, and not the actions of instructors. The new law calls on each educational institution to create policy, rather than relying on accidental circumstances or well-meaning intention, to meet its requirements. Its provisions require that universities

About the Author(s)

Jessica Reyman is a Ph.D. student in the Rhetoric Department at the Univ. of Minnesota. She currently teaches technical communication courses delivered via the Internet, and is also active with training faculty in distance education at the Univ. of Wisconsin-Stout and at the Univ. of Minnesota. Her research interests lie in intellectual property rights as they relate to digital learning environments. She is currently exploring the implications of the "open course" movement and the effects of current copyright on academic freedom.