National Journal: Copyright Office Hears Filtering Arguments
From http://nationaljournal.com/pubs/techdaily/pmedition/tp030411.htm#2
Intellectual Property
Copyright Office Weighs Permitting Decryption of Web Filters
by Drew Clark
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A panel of five Copyright Office officials questioned the three witnesses from many perspectives at the first hearing in a tri-annual review to consider potential DMCA exemptions. The law permits exemptions if the Copyright Office believes lawful public access to works that do not violate copyrights have been blocked.
Finkelstein said decryption of software like N2H2's Bess is necessary for examining categories of Web sites that the software blocks. Decryption has found, for example, that N2H2's database of blocked sites includes various types of "loophole" sites, including those that provide language translation, use technology to mask users' identities and cache copies of other Web sites.
"Without this exemption, [researchers] are constrained to do this investigation blindfolded," said Finkelstein, who said he is one of about a half-dozen researchers in the field. He has published his work on his Web site. "They have to go back through a minefield, probing individually" to see if a given is blocked by what Finkelstein called "censorware."
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By Seth Finkelstein | posted in censorware , dmca | on April 12, 2003 11:58 PM (Infothought permalink) | Followups
