Advanced Copyright Law on the Internet

natural person who seeks to gain access to the work protected, or if the measure in the normal
course of its operation or the work it protects, collects or disseminates personally identifying
information about the person who seeks to gain access to the work, without providing
conspicuous notice of such collection or dissemination to such person and the capability to
prevent or restrict the same, and the circumvention is carried out solely to prevent such collection
or dissemination. If a technological measure is disclosed to a user as not being capable of
collecting or disseminating personally identifying information, then the exception of Section
1201(i) does not apply.

(11) Security Testing

Section 1201(j) provides that it is not a violation of the prohibitions of Sections
1201(a)(1)(A) and 1201(a)(2) if a person is engaged in “security testing,” which is defined to
mean accessing a computer, computer system, or computer network solely for the purpose of
good faith testing, investigating or correcting a security flaw or vulnerability with the
authorization of the owner or operator, provided that such act does not otherwise constitute a
violation of applicable law (including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986).

(12) Copy Restrictions To Be Built Into VCRs and Camcorders

Section 1201(k) dictates that certain technological capabilities be built into consumer
analog video cassette recorders (VCRs) and camcorders (professional analog video cassette
recorders are exempted) to protect certain analog television programming and prerecorded
movies. Specifically, effective 18 months after enactment of the DMCA, most formats of
consumer analog^1019 VCRs and camcorders must contain one of two forms of copy control
technology in wide use in the market today – either the “automatic gain control technology”
(which causes distortion in the images upon playback) or the “colorstripe copy control
technology” (which causes distracting visible color stripes to appear through portions of the
viewable picture in normal viewing mode). Effective immediately, Section 1201(k) also
prohibits tampering with these analog copy control technologies to render them ineffective. The
Conference Report accompanying H.R. 2281^1020 states that Congress intended this Section to
prohibit the manufacture and sale of “black box” devices and software “hacking” that defeat
these copy control technologies.

Section 1201(k) defines certain specific encoding rules that such devices must implement
in order to preserve the capability to perform long-standing consumer home taping practices.
Specifically, such devices cannot limit the copying of traditional broadcasts of programming
through basic or extended basic tiers of programming services, although they may limit the
copying of pay-per-view, near video-on-demand or video-on-demand transmission, or content

(^1019) Page 68 of the Conference Report states, “The conferees also acknowledge that numerous other activities are
underway in the private sector to develop, test, and apply copy control technologies, particularly in the digital
environment. Subject to the other requirements of this section, circumvention of these technologies may be
prohibited under this Act.”
(^1020) H.R. Rep. No. 105-796, at 78 (1998).