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A L S O__T O D A Y Court puts new Net censorship rules on hold -- for now By Janelle Brown First ruling in "CDA II" case goes the way of law's opponents 21st Log "Star Wars" trailer: The bootleggers strike back - - - - - - - - - - T A B L E__T A L K Is free software finally gaining ground in the OS wars? Discuss Linux vs. NT and others in the Digital Culture area of Table Talk - - - - - - - - - - R E C E N T L Y Let's Get This Straight By Scott Rosenberg Windows on the wane? Open source and information appliances squeeze the PC from both sides (11/19/98) The return of the queen of cyberpunk By Andrew Leonard Science fiction novelist Pat Cadigan watches her imagined futures turn real (11/18/98) Top of the frag heap By Janelle Brown Can one Quake player's pixel-pounding success turn gaming into a true pro sport? (11/17/98) Soweto online By Andrew Leonard Where millions don't have plumbing or telephones, who needs the Net? (11/16/98) "Griffin & Sabine's" letters go digital By Scott Rosenberg "Ceremony of Innocence" CD brings a postcard romance to your screen (11/13/98) - - - - - - - - - - BROWSE THE 21ST FEATURES ARCHIVES - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - S A L O N E M P O R I U M FREE! 12-ounce bag of Salon Blend with a purchase of $30 or more. While supplies last.

A new copyright law bans tools that "circumvent" copy protections. Does that make cutting and pasting illegal? BY PETER WAYNER | The end of this legislative year was a great time for Hollywood studios, recording companies and similar big corporate content mills. At the end of October, the White House and Congress finally approved a controversial new copyright law called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that includes changes the so-called content industry has long lobbied for: Among other things, the law makes it illegal to "circumvent" copyright controls. The ban covers not only the making of an illegal copy, but also the creation of tools that might help you make such copies. The victory dance is likely to be short-lived, however -- because the content companies are about to discover that they're also the new law's main victims. These companies may love the part of the law forbidding illegal copies, since they're the main copyright holders. But the restrictions on tools are going to be a major headache for the artists in their stables. Content manipulation tools on the market -- like Adobe Photoshop, Avid's video editing software or many sound-editing programs -- will become less useful and begin to disappear, and the ones remaining will become more expensive. Fritz Attaway, general counsel for the Motion Picture Association of America, says everyone in his organization is celebrating several long years of hard work to convince Congress that the legislation was necessary. When asked about the negative effects of the bill, he said, "I don't really see a downside." But real life laws rarely have such simple Hollywood outcomes. How can the content industry be both victor and victim in this crazy case of regulation gone wild? Think about how artistic works are created: First, artists sit down with some tools; then they think deeply about the human condition and grouse a bit about how the world doesn't understand their perfect vision; then, when the deadline looms, they produce a work of some kind. The tools they use may be paint brushes, pencils, paper, videotape machines, film and a zillion other media -- including computers. Every one of these tools can be used to make illicit copies. But the last is the one that upset Hollywood and the content conglomerates. The lawyers for the content rights holders realized that computers make it easy to produce perfect copies. Meddlesome kids were starting to use computers to make digital copies of songs over the Internet in much the same way that kids used to make cassette tapes. Of course, the content industry lawyers didn't stop to think that their own artists used the same tools as those punk kids. In fact, the content mills might even do more cutting and pasting than the rest of the world put together. "Films are released first in theaters, then after some time they're released on home video, then pay-per-view, then pay channel, then free TV. That's the distribution chain that lasts anywhere from two to four years depending on the film," Attaway says. "The reason that the distribution to the home comes so late on the distribution chain is because there's no way to date to prevent copying." The content industry's solution is to push Congress to make laws against the business of making tools that can make copies. Now, thanks to the new law, anyone who makes a tool with the "primary purpose" of circumventing a copyright protection mechanism will face fines of "not less than $200 or more than $2,500 per act of circumvention, device, product, component, offer, or performance of service, as the court considers just." People who do this for commercial gain face fines of up to $1 million and up to 10 years in prison. Hollywood is clearly taking aim at people like the garage electronics wizards who produce devices that descramble premium cable television services. The gadgets, which are often sold illicitly, make it possible to get HBO, Showtime or other expensive signals without paying for them. As the Internet evolves, there are bound to be more scrambling systems put in place, and Hollywood wants to be ready to prevent digital brigands from circumventing them. But in this process Hollywood never really bothered to think much about who is really doing the most "circumvention" -- or what a tool for "circumvention" really is. N E X T_P A G E .|.Cut and paste -- go to jail?