Digital copyright

Laws that are presently used to protect the creators and vendors of digital information often predate the development of computer technology, and it is not clear which laws apply to digital information. Ways in which digital information differs from information in more traditional forms include [OTA94]:

digital works are easily copied, with no loss of quality
works can be easily transmitted to other users or be accessed by multiple users
works that are treated differently under current copyright law are essentially equivalent: text, video, audio are all series of bits
works are inaccessible to the user without hardware and software tools for retrieval, decoding, and navigation
material can be searchable, linked, and interactive

Cryptography can provide new means of protecting intellectual property in the digital world. However, this raises other important ethical and sociological issues: should there be free copies of information available for lend in libraries? If so, what prevents all users to take a free copy of the work.

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mtu@cs.hut.fi - 04 DEC 95