--- begin forwarded text X-Sender: kaye@popd.ix.netcom.com X-Priority: 2 (High) Date: Mon, 01 Sep 1997 14:22:54 -0700 To: From: Kaye Caldwell <KCaldwell@commerce.net> Subject: WIPO Implementing Legislation Mime-Version: 1.0 Sender: member-sponsored-owner@commerce.net Precedence: bulk +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ This message was addressed to: member-sponsored@lists.commerce.net +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ TO: CommerceNet Members A member company has asked that we consider whether CommerceNet joins in the concern, as expressed by the Online Banking Association, that some provisions of HR 2281, the legislation implementing the WIPO treaties, undermine the objectives of the SAFE bill and have a negative effect on the development of encryption technologies. Specifically their concern is that Section 1201(a) will effectively prohibit encryption research and development in that it prohibits the manufacture and use of decryption technologies, which are used to test encryption technologies and make them more secure. They suggest that section (a) needs to be redrafted to prohibit the use of decryption technology to obtain unauthorized access to encryption works. My recommendation is that CommerceNet join in this concern and the recommendation for resolving it. Please let me know if your companies have any objection to CommerceNet doing so. Additional background information is available below. - Kaye Caldwell CommerceNet Policy Director ================= Background Information ========================== For reference, HR 2281 is available at: ftp://ftp.loc.gov/pub/thomas/c105/h2281.ih.txt Section 1201(a) states: `(a) VIOLATIONS REGARDING CIRCUMVENTION OF TECHNOLOGICAL PROTECTION MEASURES- (1) No person shall circumvent a technological protection measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. `(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof that-- `(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological protection measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; `(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological protection measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or `(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person for use in circumventing a technological protection measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. `(3) As used in this subsection-- `(A) to `circumvent a technological protection' means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological protection measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and `(B) a technological protection measure `effectively controls access to a work' if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work. ============= End of Background Information ========================== =================================== Kaye Caldwell, Policy Director CommerceNet http://www.Commerce.net E-mail: KCaldwell@Commerce.net Phone: (408) 479-8743 Fax: (408) 479-9247 =================================== ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent by a majordomo-based automatic list manager. Subscriptions to and archives of this list are available to CommerceNet members, partners, and invited guests. For further information send a mail message to 'member-sponsored-request@lists.commerce.net' with 'help' (no quotations) contained in the body of your message. --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/