: 
Global Law Working Papers
2005 Series
GLWP 08/05
Author
Li Luo
Global Research Fellow (2004-2005)
Title
Abstract
Copyright holders are increasingly employing technological measures to protect their copyrighted materials. In China, wide attention first surrounded the legal issue about technological measures as a result of KV300L++ in 1997. At the international level, the interests of right holders in reinforcing barriers to infringement in the form of technological controls are more widely recognized. Both WIPO Treaties of 1996 adopted anti-circumvention rules and require the signatory nations to provide "adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies against the circumvention of effective technological measures." This paper analyses and compares the U.S. and EU models of anti-circumvention rules. It finds that even though the EU anti-circumvention rules are modeled after the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act, they differ in some significant respects, especially in defining the exceptions to the legal protection of technological measures. After examining some impacts of the anti-circumvention rules on the public and consumers, the paper provides a critical review of the Chinese anti-circumvention rules and offers some recommendations on how to overcome the ambiguities of the Chinese anti-circumvention rules, emphasizing that China should take affirmative measures to ensure that the public interest is protected. In the final section of the paper, the author concludes that although technological measures are efficient instruments of copyright law enforcement especially in the digital era, they should not replace the law.
Contact Information
luoli@nyu.edu
