Frequently Asked Questions

Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (PDF)

Comment filed by Peter Decherney, Katherine Sender and Michael X. Delli Carpini (PDF)

Reply comments submitted by Decherney, Sender and Delli Carpini (PDF)

Recommendation of the Copyright Office (PDF)

Federal Register Notice Announcing Exemptions (PDF)

US Copyright Office Anticircumvention Rulemaking

Harvard Law Digital Learning Case Study (doc)

International Communication Association

Society for Cinema and Media Studies

Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA) prohibits the circumvention of encryption on all digital media. It is violation of the DMCA, for example, to make a digital copy of a DVD, because doing so would require breaking the copy protection.

The Librarian of Congress has the power to create exemptions to section 1201 in order to protect fair use. Every three years, the Copyright Office reviews requests for exemptions and makes recommendations to the Librarian of Congress.

As a result of the 2006 round of exemption requests, the Librarian of Congress created an exemption for film and media studies professors who need to create clips for use in their classes. The exemption applies to any media stored in the library of a film or media studies department.

The official exemption is for:

Audiovisual works included in the educational library of a college or university’s film or media studies department, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of making compilations of portions of those works for educational use in the classroom by media studies or film professors.

Moving Forward

The exemption must be renewed and possibly modified in 2009. In order to keep the exemption, it is important to have feedback and information about its use. Please email Peter Decherney (decherney@sas.upenn.edu) or Katherine Sender (ksender@asc.upenn.edu) to give feedback on how the exemption works for you. Your comments will be invaluable when we reapply for the exemption in 2009.

Click here to view the DMCA Frequently Asked Questions page