August 2002 Public Policy Computer Graphics Column

Introduction

Laurie Reinhart

Our column begins with Bob Ellis' discussion of the SIGGRAPH Public Policy Program, followed by Myles Losch's piece on "Copyright Issues: Who Designs Computers and Software?." Then Bob discusses suggestions for Broadband "Killer Apps." Next is the "Tutorial on Copyright and Implications for Computer Graphics" by Barbara Helfer, SIGGRAPH Vice President, which also appears in the published Public Policy Course Notes for the 2002 conference. This is followed by Myles' report on the CFP2002 Conference and Broadband Access.

The SIGGRAPH Public Policy Program

Bob Ellis
August 2002

The mission of the SIGGRAPH Public Policy Program is to provide visibility of relevant public policy information, such as proposed legislation, to SIGGRAPH members and others in the computer graphics technical community and to provide information on the implications of technology to the non-technical community, including policy makers and funding agencies. We do so by this column, our web site (http://www.siggraph.org/pub-policy), serving as a catalyst for studies on computer graphics research topics, participation in conferences addressing policy issues, conducting issues surveys, writing white papers and working with ACM public policy groups, such as USACM. Our activities are performed by an all volunteer group; we have no professional staff support for public policy.

I have some excellent assistance. Myles Losch provides us with expertise in the areas of telecommunications policy and digital aspects of intellectual property issues. David Nelson is our webmaster. Laurie Reinhart provides editorial support and assists David with the website. In addition, Laurie also plays a major role in putting this column together and providing visibility for policy activities at our annual conference.

We have developed special emphasis on several issues. In our most far-reaching project, we have been working with the computer graphics research community on defining a study of computer graphics research topics. Currently, SIGGRAPH has provided seed funding to the National Research Council (NRC) to perform a study. Mike McGrath, with help from Jim Foley, has played a major role in this activity. (See "Research Challenges in Computer Graphics" in our February 2001 column at http://www.siggraph.org/pub-policy/CGColumn-02-2001.html)

We have placed special emphasis on the interaction of computer graphics and the Internet. Our first (and only to date) white paper was on computer graphics and the Internet; copies may be found on our web site. Believing that broadband Internet access is a necessity for successful computer graphics on the Internet, we have commented extensively on the technology and issues associated with services such as Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) and cable modems (http://www.siggraph.org/pub-policy/CGColumn-0599.html). Long before the popular press commented on the security and privacy aspects of these services, we were alerting SIGGRAPH members (http://www.siggraph.org/pub-policy/CGColumn-1199.html).

Computer graphics and intellectual property (IP) issues have also been important. In particular, digital copy protection schemes in use with DVD technology and proposed for digital TV, strengthen the rights of owners of IP and may limit the rights of consumers under fair use concepts and home recording rights.

At SIGGRAPH 2001 we organized both a tutorial and a panel. The course was a survey of policy issues that affect computing with emphasis on those issues of particular relevance to computer graphics. The panel was on the new world of intellectual property and featured people who could take an objective view of the situation and propose solutions that may satisfy both users and creators of IP. Myles Losch made a significant contribution to the course material and David Nelson served as co-organizer for the panel.

At SIGGRAPH 2002 we have two tutorial courses. The first, "Introduction to the Impact of Public Policy on Computer Graphics" is an updated version of our SIGGRAPH 2001 tutorial. Speakers are Barbara Simons (USACM Co-Chair and ACM Past President) and myself with significant contributions from Myles Losch. Our new tutorial, "Intellectual Property, Copyright, and Digital Rights Management for Computer Graphics" is a result of our highly successful 2001 panel on the same subject. Speakers are Barbara Simons and Dan Burk (a legal scholar from the University of Minnesota) who were both on last year's panel.

At SIGGRAPH 2001 there was a very successful BOF session. At that session, Mark Banas volunteered to set up an email distribution list. This has been done. (See "SIGGRAPH Public Policy Email List" in our May 2002 column at http://www.siggraph.org/pub-policy/CGColumn-05-2002.html). Although activity as been light, we are hopeful that it's usefulness will increase.

Copyright Issues: Who Designs Computers and Software?

Myles Losch

Our last two columns ("Computer Graphics," February and May, 2002) noted attempts by copyright holders to protect their revenues by legally restricting the architecture of computers and software, thus curtailing the public's ability to replicate copyrighted works. By the spring of 2002, the original proposal (known as SSSCA) had been replaced by a bill in the U.S. Senate, S.2048 or CBDTPA (the "Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act"). A series of related legislative hearings, including testimony from affected industries, revealed sharp disagreements.

Movie studios demanded technological constraints on unlicensed Internet transmission of entertainment, but several home electronics and computer firms warned that consumers' rights could be trampled, and the technical autonomy of science-based professions undermined (a centuries-old issue). For example, an electronics maker "said the [proposals] would go beyond simply safeguarding intellectual property and prevent consumers from copying a [TV] program on one DVD burner and playing that disc on another digital video device elsewhere in their home."

More details on such concerns are at: http://www.newsalert.com/bin/story?StoryId=CpmD_qbWbqvrusdaYmq

ACM's U.S. Public Policy Committee, USACM, made clear its reservations in a letter that appears below.

With no consensus, legislative analysts said the CBDTPA stood little chance of quick passage. But it helped to put pressure on a (nominally) less sweeping private negotiation, in which movie studios and television networks sought similar restrictions on electronics and software in the guise of a "broadcast flag."

This would let copyright holders prevent the public from (e.g.) recording free digital TV programs in an open format or sending them via the Internet, even when copyright laws allow it ("such as," a journalist noted, "including excerpts from a digital TV broadcast in a [school] homework assignment submitted by e- mail."). As this column was written, there appeared to be substantial U.S. government support for imposing a broadcast flag, backed by criminal penalties for any equipment maker or software author who failed to honor it.

Should that occur, the convergence of television and computing (as detailed in SIGGRAPH's introductory public policy courses at the 2001 and 2002 annual conferences) could be significantly hindered and/or delayed, and public acceptance of digital television as a whole put in doubt.

Moreover, the impact of such a change in technology policy would extend far beyond copyright issues. On a U.S. Senate website that was briefly opened to public comment, this observer noted that "proponents [of computer and software design mandates] seek a stealthy replacement of computers (as known for over half a century) by pseudo-computers, hard-wired with the policy preferences of politically influential groups. If (as an old advertising slogan put it) computers are 'power tools for the mind,' the implications for intellectual freedom - a basic human right - are grave."

For additional commentary on CBDTPA from ACM's Washington, DC Public Policy office, see http://www.acm.org/membernet/stories/cbdtpa.html

USACM Letter on CBDTPA (S.2048)

March 29, 2002

The Honorable Ernest F. Hollings
Chairman
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
SR-254 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Chairman Hollings:

As the Co-Chairs of USACM, the U.S. Public Policy Committee of the Association for Computing Machinery, we are writing to express the profound concerns of the computing community regarding the recent introduction of S.2048, the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA).

Although we are aware of the challenges to copyright protection imposed by computing and communications technology, USACM is utterly convinced that the solution is not to be found in legislation imposing limits on the technology that may be developed, purchased, or used by law-abiding citizens. Furthermore, respected scientists and technologists, including many USACM members, have concluded that the CBDTPA will threaten the ability of individuals to engage in critical research, interfere in the otherwise legal exchange of ideas and information fundamental to innovation, seriously restrict the quality of computing education, and undoubtedly threaten national security.

Virtually every significant computing device in use today transmits, copies, or displays digital information. While the CBDTPA-imposed restrictions seek to prevent copyrighted work from being copied from one place on a disk or the network to another, the far-reaching restrictions would also interfere with literally thousands of other legal, non-infringing uses of digital computing, including:

• distribution of open source software for use in education and research
• creation of a student project to learn about operating systems
• distribution of an urgent software patch to fix a serious security flaw
• transmission of security alerts to law enforcement agencies
• dissemination of anti-cancer drug research results funded by the US government
• personal speech by individuals using Internet telephony to communicate
• legitimate and legal speech, as in the posting of mail in support of a political candidate
• free on-line performances of music or poetry by the legitimate copyright holder.

This interference is certain under the CBDTPA because there is no way to reliably distinguish protected content from everything else. In addition, this overly broad approach seeks to criminalize many activities rather than narrowly focusing on infringement with criminal intent.

Further restrictions on technological innovation will harm our overall economic growth and threaten our national security. While the provisions of the CBDTPA would place restrictions on technology and innovation in the U.S., non-U.S. inventors and other foreign individuals will not be bound by this statute. Thus, they will be free to investigate powerful hardware and software. At the least, this will allow (some of) them to make illicit copies of copyrighted material for redistribution in the U.S. At the worst, it means that they will be able to innovate in ways that our domestic researchers and educators will not, leading to a loss of technological standing. It also means they may be able to craft information warfare tools that we cannot counter or investigate because of domestic restrictions.

The CBDTPA makes several mistaken assumptions. For instance, there are many reasons why the U.S. public has been slow to adopt broadband technology: lack of entertainment-based programming is not the only cause, and may not be a major factor. As another instance, the CBDTPA appears to be based on mistaken understanding about what is possible to accomplish with copyright protection technology. Mandating security system standards for use by general-purpose computers, devices, and software will do little to protect content as current copy protection schemes that have undergone serious public scrutiny have been demonstrated to be ineffective. Attempting to achieve the technology mandates as proscribed by the CBDTPA will require additional hardware and compatible software to be imbedded in general purpose computers, resulting in increased costs to consumers and the degradation of product functionality and performance.

Entertainment is only one, relatively minor use (compared to all uses) of networks and computing technology. Legislating constraints on technology to aid any minority interest has the potential to cause widespread and severe damage to society at large. As a publisher with a large digital library, ACM has major interests in copyright, as do our members. We are concerned about the protection of our property, but we are addressing this challenge through the investigation of new business models and methods better suited to a "wired" world. Just as the introduction of photocopiers and videotape led to the development of new markets rather than the collapse of old industries with a perceived risk, we believe that the digital capabilities we all already depend on can lead to new markets and opportunities for those willing to make the effort. That future cannot be achieved by erecting artificial barriers, penalizing law-abiding citizens and their activities, sacrificing our technological advantages, and entrenching a minority position at the expense of the American public.

The USACM is pleased to offer our technical expertise to assist policy-makers in the development of computing and information technology policy. Please contact the ACM Public Policy Office at (202) 659-9711, if you have any questions or if we can be of assistance.

Sincerely,

Barbara Simons, Ph.D.
Eugene H. Spafford, Ph.D.

Co-Chairs
U.S. ACM Public Policy Committee (USACM)
Association for Computing Machinery

cc: Members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation

Broadband `Killer Apps`

Bob Ellis
(With contributions from Myles Losch)
August 2002

Judging by all the policy activity associated with "making the Internet safe for movies" (e.g., the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act) one would get the impression that downloading movies is the "killer app" for broadband Internet services. But I don't think so.

The reason I don't think downloading movies is the broadband killer app is because there are other well established means for getting movies at home: video rentals, libraries, Internet ordering/postal service delivery, etc. Plus, using the Internet is inherently an interactive activity and I don't believe there are any new features that would make watching a movie an interactive activity.

Note that we are not talking about HDTV. Again for all the attempts to make it otherwise watching TV is a passive activity for most people and that includes watching movies.

I am also talking about the general public. Most computer graphics professionals have high-speed Internet connections at their place of employment and many of us are early adopters of new technology for our personal use.

So why should we care about the general public's use of the Internet? We need to care because widespread adoption of broadband Internet services will make the results of our efforts more widely available and in demand.

For a long time I've thought that the perfect broadband killer app would be better and more graphical user interfaces. Recently there has been renewed comment on "beyond the desktop" UI metaphors. These would be great to have when accessing websites. The "where am I" problem is even greater on the web than it is on a stand-alone computer. Note that better UIs would put a strain on today's servers to keep response times short.

Myles Losch suggested another: real time, bi-directional personal video. I promptly dubbed this "Internet videophone". Myles responded with ways it was different (see below).

This started me thinking. Perhaps the (a?) broadband killer app is the personal sharing of pictures (and eventually videos). With digital photography becoming widely available, I know many people would like to share their photos with friends and family. The easiest way to do this is by email attachments (as opposed to setting up a website, etc.), but a large set of photos would soon result in long downloads via dial-up, even for screen resolutions. Of course many people would probably like to send high-resolution pictures so the recipients could print them. If this was successful, I'm sure sharing home videos would be next.

I'm interested in any ideas you might have. And remember, we're talking about the general public here, not professional computer users such as ourselves.

If readers have an opinion let me know. Or more importantly, become a user of our email list and share your ideas with others.

From Myles Losch:

AT&T's failure (in 1964 and later) to gain consumer acceptance for video telephony, has led most analysts to assume that no commercially interesting demand exists for such services in the residential market. But I here propose that when (perhaps a decade or two hence) the necessary broadband transmission and switching upgrades have been made to the developed nations' telecom infrastructures, bi-directional real-time video will become a popular residential broadband service.

Yet such two-way video won't be a "killer app" for two reasons. First, as explained below, demand will always fall short of AT&T's original hopes, which rested in part on mistaken ideas about consumer attitudes and behavior. Second, for technical and economic reasons neither today's public Internet, nor existing broadband access options like DSL and cable modems, can meet customers' quality expectations for the service described here. Thus later generations of network technology will likely be required, and this means that we are not discussing a service, which could drive consumer acceptance of first-generation residential broadband access.

Turning to the public's attitudes and behavior, AT&T's critics correctly argue that visual privacy concerns were underrated when assessing demand for home videophones. This factor reduces, but does not negate, the service's appeal, provided that users have full control over whether and when they are visible to others, and that price, quality, ease of use, etc. are perceived favorably.

The other main behavioral factor which has reduced the service's appeal since the mid-20th century, is that extension, cordless, and cellular phones have successively increased people's ability and (together with time pressures) their inclination, to "multitask" while using the telephone at home. Thus it has become routine to phone while engaged in unrelated tasks that, if visible to one's conversation partner, would be distracting and/or privacy-invasive. Again, this reduces -- but by no means eliminates -- videophone demand.

Service quality (at attractive prices) is, as noted above, a key prerequisite for broad acceptance. This does not mean HDTV or DVD quality; indeed, analog camcorders have long provided a fully adequate standard for comparison. But unfortunately, today's public Internet and broadband access facilities have difficulty meeting that standard, especially for real-time bi-directional transmission. The reasons include bandwidth asymmetry ('upstream' vs. 'downstream'), latency, delay jitter, audio/video synchronization glitches, and other distracting artifacts.

It is likely, however, that technical advances and the ongoing modernization of network infrastructure will allow such limitations to be overcome, perhaps in part with alternative (non-Internet) backbone technologies resembling Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM).

To sum up, AT&T's early videophone service did not fail chiefly because (as some assert) it was fundamentally misconceived, and wrong in principle. Rather, coming as it did before fiber optic transmission, efficient video compression, the digital revolution, etc., it was a 'da Vinci helicopter': visionary, and grossly premature from a technological standpoint [also Motorola's satellite telephone or Babbage's computers - RAE/ML]. Moreover, unrealistic demand forecasts compounded the failure, intensifying the disrepute which has clung to the service ever since.

Perhaps that is just as well if, as suggested above, even four more decades of rapid technical progress have not yet enabled a successful service of this type to be launched. Indeed some of that progress, as previously noted, has continued to erode potential demand for video telephony. But to this observer, the reality of that demand and the inevitability of services to satisfy it, are not in doubt.

Tutorial on Copyright and Implications for Computer Graphics

Barb Helfer
Helfer & Associates
ACM SIGGRAPH Vice President

Copyright -- we hear about it in the electronic world all the time, but just what is it and how was it established? The power to grant and regulate copyright is given to the U.S. Congress by the Constitution; therefore copyright is a federal law. The law, though it may be interpreted differently from one federal judicial circuit (region) to another, is uniform from state to state.

Section 102 of the U.S. Copyright Statute states that, "Copyright protection subsists in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known, or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device."

So we have some terms that need to be defined:

"Original" A work is considered original, if the idea can be traced to the author, and not copied from someone else's work. This doesn't mean that the work is unique, novel, or good. A work can still be considered original if it has some preexisting work embedded in it, but only the part which is original falls under the newer work's copyright protection.

"Works of authorship" They run the gamut from literary work to sound recordings. Some examples of authorship are as follows:

Written works- newspapers, magazines, novels, poems, computer programs Musical works- songs, instrumental pieces, advertising jingles, sound effects Performance or choreographic works- dancing, theater, mime Images- photographs, graphics, paintings, sculptures Films, multimedia projects, training videos, television shows, animation Sound recording- music, lyrics, and sounds

"Fixed" The law defines "fixed" as, "Sufficiently permanent or stable enough to be perceived, reproduced, copied, or communicated for a period of more than transitory duration." This means anything from writing it down on a piece of paper to loading it into RAM on your computer.

Now that we know what is copyright protected, what isn't?

• Ideas
• Facts
• Titles
• Names
• Short Phrases
• Blank Forms
• Compilations such as the phone book, because they lack originality
• Federal Government documents and publications, though they need to be attributed
• Processes and systems described in copyrighted works
• Public Domain works

You as a copyright owner have five exclusive rights:

The Right to Make Copies- this is the right to copy or duplicate your work.

The Right to Make Derivative works- you can modify your original work to make a new work.

The Right to Distribute- the ability to decide how you will distribute your work to the public. This can be in the form of selling, leasing, renting or lending.

The Right to Perform a Work in Public- you have the right to decide the public venue for your work to be shown, read, or performed.

The Right to Display- this right allows you to show a copy of your work in a public venue or transmit it to the public.

The duration of copyright protection depends on when a work was created, who created it, and when it was first distributed.

Any work published before December 31, 1922 is now considered public domain (i.e., no longer protected by copyright). For works that were published between January 1, 1923 and December 31, 1968, there was a copyright term of 28 years with the author then being able to apply for another 28-year term. This was not an automatic renewal, so if the author did not apply for the renewal, those works are also in the public domain. For works published between January 1, 1923 and December 31, 1977, which display proper notice, these works are protected for 95 years. For works created before December 31, 1968 but never published, the term is the life of the author plus 70 years or until December 31, 2002, whichever provides longer protection.

The Copyright Act of 1976 changed the term of protection, from a publication- based term to an author's life plus 70 years. Works created on or after January 1, 1978, when the Copyright Act of 1976 took effect, have copyright protection for the life of the author plus 70 years. If the work is considered a "work for hire" then the term of protection is 75 years from when it was first published, or 100 years from when it was first created.

So we have another term, "work for hire". Normally the person/s who creates the work has the copyright protection. This is true except when an employee within the framework of his/her job responsibilities creates a work. If it is, then the employer holds the copyright on the work because it is considered "work for hire".

Now that you know what your rights are, let's look at the infringement side of the coin. In the past twenty years the use of copy machines, faxes, computers, scanners, video digitizers, and the like has made copying of material easy. Just because you have the knowledge and equipment to copy materials doesn't make it a legal practice. As a rule of thumb, if it isn't your work, you need to ask for permission to use it. There are a few exceptions, such as materials in the public domain, facts or ideas from a protected work, and government documents.

FAIR USE

The Internet has raised issues as to whether materials are in the public domain or whether they have copyright protection. The common fallacy is that the web is public domain. While some of the material on the web might be public domain, most of it is copyright protected. Unless an author has specifically put the work into the public domain, or the term of copyright (which I discussed earlier) has expired, it is copyright protected. Don't let yourself be fooled that Disney, Time Warner, TNT, or any of the major brokers of intellectual property would be pleased for you to use their work. Their trailers and promos are on the web to give individuals accessibility, not to have you take and use these works as you see fit and violate their rights in the process.

For works published on or after March 1, 1989, the use of a copyright notice has become optional for the author. Anything created after that date is automatically protected whether it has a notice or not. If you don't see the symbol, it doesn't mean that it isn't protected. Of course registering with the U.S. Copyright Office gives people notice that the work is protected, and it also helps when one wants to recover damages, legal fees, etc. after a lawsuit is filed. The law allows for penalties up to $100,000 per offense, so abuse of another's copyright is a major violation.

Even if you only copy a "small" amount of a document, you could still be infringing the copyright, particularly if that "small" amount is the major thrust or focus of the piece. It doesn't matter if you give credit to the author for taking this small portion of the piece. There is a legal difference between plagiarism and copyright infringement, and it usually shows up in the monetary award. Nonetheless, you should always give attributions to the source materials you quote or adapt.

So how do you go about getting copyright permission? Normally copyright permission is obtained in one of two ways, either getting a license, which is limited and specific to the work and how it will be used, or through an "assignment", in which all intellectual property rights of a work are transferred to the party wanting to use it. For musical works especially, two places to start in obtaining rights would be Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) http://www.bmi.com/home.asp and The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) http://www.ascap.com.

When you are making your demo reel and sending it to prospective employers, don't be caught with material that isn't your work. It makes you as well as the educational institution you graduated from look bad. If you have done "work for hire", ask your employer if they will allow you to use their work for your portfolio. It is the fair and legal way.

What is fair use? It is a term that is thrown around in academic circles all the time, but what actually is fair use? From District Judge Pierre N. Leval's opinion in New Era Publications International vs. Henry Holy and Co., 695 F.Supp. 1493 (S.D.N.Y., 1988) on fair use, he states, "Our statute and our judge-made law talk about the subject. They mention factors, but give no standard. And those factors are stated in an opaque and uninformative way. We are told for example to look at the purpose and character of the secondary use and at the nature of copyrighted work. 'What about them?' you may ask. We are not told. We are told to look at the amount of the taking and the effect on the market. 'How much is too much?' We are not told. *** Our understanding of the doctrine has made very little progress over 300 years." Now with the Internet, Section 107, which grants fair use, in the US Copyright Statute gets muddied even further.

How do we use materials for classes, professional presentations and any event in which promotion of learning is foremost? First, check with your institution's business or legal department on the guidelines that they have in place for you. With the advent of the web, e-commerce, and distance education classes, most organizations have a policy on what they advise you to do. There is a provision called "the good faith fair use defense" [17 USC 504 (c)(2)], which applies to a person who believes they have acted reasonably in their copying of material and felt it was fair use. But if you have not followed the guidelines your organization has supplied to you, this defense goes out the window. So check.

While Section 107 does not negate the provisions of the copyright holder granted in Sections 106 and 106A, the code allows for the reproduction of protected works for the purpose of news reporting, teaching, scholarship, criticism, and comment. There are four factors, which must be considered when talking about fair use:

• The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes.
• The nature of the copyrighted work.
• The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relationship to the copyrighted work as a whole.
• The effect of the use upon the potential market for the copyrighted work.

What do those factors mean to us?

The first one takes into account whether the work is for commercial or educational purposes, while not guaranteed; the preference will be given to those works that have a non-profit, educational slant. It also looks to see if it is for criticism, comment, new reporting, parody, teaching, scholarship, or research. If it falls into one of these categories it is easier to use the fair use defense. Lastly, the first provision looks to see if the new work supplants the original work, adds value to the original work thereby altering the message, intent, and nature of the original piece.

The second factor basically says that some copyrighted works are of more value and therefore need to be protected differently. The law looks at the original work and determines where on the copyright spectrum the work resides.

Item number three is not a ratio value. It doesn't say that taking 20% of a work is OK, but 21% can land you in the middle of a copyright suit. Sometimes using any of the work would not be considered fair use. This portion of the code takes not only quantity of the material copied but quality as well, how much of the original work plus the consideration of what is needed to serve the objective use.

Lastly, the fourth provision takes into account what impact the use of the work has on the original's marketability, as well as the marketability of the derivative works. In the case of Sony Corporation of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. (Supreme Court of the United States, 1984. 464 U.S. 417, 104 S. Ct. 774, 78. L. Ed2d 574), which dealt with whether the selling of VTR's to the general public constituted violation of copyright laws, the justices ruled that fair use allowed recording a broadcast TV program by the general public because they could not view the program as it was being televised, and therefore were using the concept of time shifting to be able to watch the program at a time that was convenient to them. Universal was unable to prove that their commercial value was decreased by this practice of time shifting. This case in fact showed that there was a market to be gained by selling or renting copyrighted material to persons who could not watch the programs during their original airing.

Here are some basic guidelines, which are based on The Conference on Fair Use (CONFU - http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/dcom/olia/confu/index.html) Final Report and can be applied to course packs, distance learning, digitizing, and research copies.

• Limit the amount that you copy from an article, journal, or book
• Limit the number of charts, graphs, or illustrations you use
• Incorporate performances of others' work only if the institution possesses a legal copy of the work
• If it is available in a digitized form, buy it or license it. Don't ever use anything that can be purchased.
• If it not available for purchase, limit access to peer conferences and to students enrolled in a class. Take the works offline as soon as the course is finished.
• Making multiple copies and distributing them is ill advised.

There are several things that you must do when using these materials. Always include any copyright notice on the original work and appropriately give attribution to the source of the materials.

There is one other thing that you must do when you use copyrighted materials for your class. If you plan to use the materials on a regular basis you need to obtain permission from the copyright holder. My professor, Sheldon W. Halpern, at The Ohio State University Law School, stressed that "immediacy" was at issue with fair use. If you found an article and you wanted to use it for a class or conference that was to be held in the next few weeks, then it could be considered fair use. But using that same article the following term or the following year was not considered fair use. If you have time to track down the copyright holder, you need to do so.

To summarize, if the work is not yours, ask for permission. It usually isn't hard, and it usually isn't difficult. You can rationalize all that you want about what you are doing, but infringement is infringement. Be judicious in the use of materials for classes and conferences, if they are available purchase or license them. If you want to use them long term, ask for the permission to use them.

If you are interested in learning more about copyright, two books that I would highly recommend are Kenneth D. Crews book called "Copyright Essentials For Librarians and Educators", and "Internet Law and Business Handbook: A Practical Guide" by J. Diane Brinson and Mark F. Radcliffe. If you want to see the case law which has shaped this provision of our Constitution, "Copyright Cases and Materials", by Sheldon W. Halpern, David E. Shipley, and Howard B. Abrams is a wonderful tool.

CFP2002 Conference and Broadband Access

Myles Losch

The SIGGRAPH Public Policy Program has long felt that the spread of ubiquitous, affordable broadband network access was important to the computer graphics community. Such access enables transmission of high quality digital imagery, supports advanced human interface technologies, and (as noted in this column's "Killer App" section) has other potentially enticing uses. Thus, in recent years I have organized a series of broadband access sessions at ACM's annual public policy conference, CFP (see http://www.cfp.org).

Most recently, at CFP2002 I led a 'Last-Mile' Broadband Access Roundtable, which was held as a Birds-of-a-Feather (BoF) session. It featured a lively two-hour discussion by an impromptu panel of policy specialists from Microsoft, the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA, a trade group), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and ACM's Washington, DC public policy office (described in the May 2002 edition of this column).

To open the BoF session I discussed the recent (U.S.) National Research Council (NRC) report on our topic, "Broadband: Bringing Home the Bits," which Bob Ellis reviewed for this column in May 2002 (http://www.siggraph.org/pub-policy/CGColumn-05-2002.html). NRC's study committee had noted various facets of competition among providers of residential broadband access, e.g. pricing, service design, network performance, technical support, and customer service. But largely absent from their analysis was a key concern of CFP conference attendees: business policy competition.

More specifically, other CFP sessions in recent years had made clear the significant differences among Internet providers (in both policy and its implementation) with respect to protecting (e.g.) users' online privacy and freedom, especially the freedom of expression. Given these differences, I suggested that users' interests could best be protected, not by any specific number of competing broadband access vendors, but instead by a regime featuring ease of market entry -- especially for small, lightly capitalized firms. This resembles the traditional situation in the business of providing Internet access over dialup telephone lines.

Other participants added their perspectives and experiences to the discussion. They noted (for example) how, since the attacks of September 11, 2001, U.S. Internet and telecom service providers have been deluged by government surveillance demands, especially following the passage of broad new anti- terrorism laws.

CFP2002 also addressed other themes of continuing interest to the computer graphics community. Particularly valuable was a full-day workshop on digital copyright, "Fair Use by Design."

This explored how, and to what extent, Digital Rights Management (DRM) and other copyright enforcement technologies might be made compatible (or not) with such traditional legal principles as fair use and the first sale doctrine. One challenge for technologists is the absence (arguably, the impossibility) of a clear definition for fair use. That, as one panelist noted, is 'a feature, not a bug' of U.S. law.

More details on CFP2002's coverage of copyright issues can be found at: http://www.acm.org/membernet/stories/copyright.html

Continuing a recent trend, this year CFP was both preceded and followed by nearby independent (non-ACM) meetings on closely related subjects. This enabled attendees to undergo a full seven-day 'intellectual battery recharge'. Immediately preceding CFP was the Workshop on Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PET2002), a two-day research meeting oriented toward cryptologists. On the day after CFP, Stanford Law School hosted a thought-provoking conference called "Digital Landscapes: Redrawing the Boundaries in Entertainment, Media and the Law." Each meeting shared a number of presenters (in addition to attendees) with CFP. Links to these related meetings appear on the CFP2002 website (http://www.cfp2002.org).