Reply #35: there are a multitude of copyright laws

[northzax]

I am not a lawyer, full disclosure.

The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) was passed in 1996 to attempt to deal with electronic piracy and bring the US into compliance with several WTO agreements we are party to. Is does not address the issue of what is, or what is not copyrighted, beyond a recognition that it only applies if a copyright is registered. What it does deal with is violations of copyright law using computers. Basically, it splits people into two sections, accessers and providers. The way it gets you, basically, is that music comes to you encoded in a certain way, with a certain license. Using a computer to violate or change the encoding or violate the terms of agreement that came with the digital media violated DMCA, whether that is by breaking encryption or emailing the file. doing this for profit in any way is a criminal violation, pursued by the government in criminal court; doing it for any non-commercial purposes is a civil violation, which is pursued by the company in court.