I am a Master’s student in Stanford University’s Department of Computer Science thinking about pursuing a Ph.D.  However, on May 17, 2001, Professor Edward W. Felten came to campus and told the Stanford community a little “fairy tale” that provoked me to wonder whether I should pursue a law degree instead or at least along with a Ph.D. in Computer Science. 

On September 6, 2000, the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) issued "An Open Letter to the Digital Community," inviting researchers “to attempt to crack certain technologies [that would serve to inhibit casual copying of copyrighted music] they are considering for use in their system.  They set up a web site where music samples and some other information could be downloaded to aid in analyzing the technologies” [16].  Felten’s research group studied these technologies and found them to be ineffective in protecting music copyright.  The group submitted a paper with the technical details concerning how these technologies failed.  Two weeks before their paper was going to be published in a conference, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the SDMI threatened to sue Felten et al.  As a consequence, Felten and his coauthors withdrew the paper.

First, I will discuss my thoughts and reactions to Felten’s talk, including whether Felten’s research group breached their agreement with the SDMI, whether they were in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s (DMCA) anti-circumvention provision (used interchangeably with ‘Section 1201’ or simply ‘1201’), and implications of the DMCA on computer security and encryption research.  Second, I will address Section 1201 specifics, issues and implications, especially from a computer science student’s perspective.  Third, details and implications of the recently proposed Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA), a superset of the DMCA, will be discussed.  Fourth, I will address the challenge of preserving the balance that traditional copyright lawmakers worked so hard to establish, given our current technical climate.  Finally, I will conclude with the most important lesson I learned from Felten’s experience with the DMCA.