Need references: term paper on DMCA

Shadowfire

Alright, I'm taking a business law class, and IP came up as one of the potential topics for our term paper/presentation. Being the computer nerd that I am, all of the issues that have been coming up with the DMCA, articles I've been reading, etc... I figured this would be a great topic. I'm planning on discussing the DMCA itself, and the effects it has had on the industry and on consumer rights.

That said, I need some help with references. I know where to find all of the "boo DMCA" articles... EFF, Chilling Effects, Ars Technica, etc. How about the "hooray DMCA" articles and info? I need to be fairly impartial, and show every side here, so aside from going straight to the RIAA/MPAA websites, where should I be looking?

Sevorak

Do you have academic databases accessible to you through your school library? Those would be the best places for you (or anyone else) to look for reputable, peer reviewed articles on any subject. These are also the sources your professor will look at most favorably. Ars Technica and the like are ok sources, but articles that have been published in actual periodicals are much better for professional level papers.

kaliyama

Go to the law library, or whatever the major reference library is, and search law reviews for relevant articles - there will be many. LexisNexis is probably better and more prevalent than westlaw if you're at a reference library, and will have full electronic copies of the articles you'll search + find.

Kalkino

There will be acres of academic work on this topic - a lot of the discussion and thought that resulted in the DMCA goes back 20 or more years

RUNN1NGMAN

Yeah, you should definitely be looking for law journals and other scholarly journals. The only thing you should be using blogs for is pointing you towards "real" references.

A national newspaper (basically Washington Post, LA Times, or NY Times) or print magazine would also be an acceptable reference because those are fact-checked. I don't know of any website that goes through the rigorous fact-checking that print "MSM" goes through (and print still gets things wrong).

There's a Harvard professor named Charles Nesson who basically lives and breathes all things involving digital rights. You could look for articles by him.

saggio

Michael Geist at the University of...Ottawa (?) Could be University of Toronto. He's Canadian, but he's a leading expert on copyright law in the anglosphere. He blogs extensively about the DMCA, and ACTA, the secret treaty which both Canada and the U.S. are participating in. He almost certainly would have some scholarly articles about these issues. His name would be a good place to start on JSTOR, for instance.

Talondel

The law library is definitely the place to start. Once you're there look for a looseleaf called Nimmer on Copyright. The whole thing is about 8 volumes, but if you look under Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the index it will tell you where in the rest of the set to find pretty much everything you ever wanted to know about the DMCA, including it's legislative history, court cases interpreting the act, etc.

Basically, if the question has something to do with Copyright, Nimmer on Copyright has the answer, or it doesn't exist.

ViolentChemistry

Shadowfire wrote: »

Alright, I'm taking a business law class, and IP came up as one of the potential topics for our term paper/presentation. Being the computer nerd that I am, all of the issues that have been coming up with the DMCA, articles I've been reading, etc... I figured this would be a great topic. I'm planning on discussing the DMCA itself, and the effects it has had on the industry and on consumer rights.

That said, I need some help with references. I know where to find all of the "boo DMCA" articles... EFF, Chilling Effects, Ars Technica, etc. How about the "hooray DMCA" articles and info? I need to be fairly impartial, and show every side here, so aside from going straight to the RIAA/MPAA websites, where should I be looking?

I read an article not too long back on Wired.com that talked about how without the DMCA sites like Youtube and Google Image Search would be walking piles of litigation, the whole cease-and-desist-order first requirement has been a huge plus for the development of the internet.

Shadowfire

Talondel wrote: »

The law library is definitely the place to start. Once you're there look for a looseleaf called Nimmer on Copyright. The whole thing is about 8 volumes, but if you look under Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the index it will tell you where in the rest of the set to find pretty much everything you ever wanted to know about the DMCA, including it's legislative history, court cases interpreting the act, etc.

Basically, if the question has something to do with Copyright, Nimmer on Copyright has the answer, or it doesn't exist.

I don't know if we have access to a law library - this is a community college in the sticks of Vermont. However, I may be able to use the library at the law school in South Royalton (only about 30 miles away). Otherwise, the volumes for this book apparently cost $2036. ;-)

Thank you all for the advice. I know exactly where to start looking now.

Kalkino

What about online journal access? I haven't seriously studied since 04, but even far before that point the online journals were the best source for this kind of research