Section 102 gives the act its name, which is based on the requirements of the WIPO Copyright Treaty concluded at Geneva, Switzerland, on 20 December 1996.
It modifies US copyright law to include works produced in the countries which sign the following treaties: Section 103 provoked most of the controversy which resulted from the act.
Because it does not affect the underlying substantive copyright protections, the Act can be viewed as merely changing the penalties and procedures available for enforcement.
Because it grants safe harbors in various situations for research, reverse engineering, circumvention, security, and protection of minors, the Act in many ways limits the scope of copyright enforcement.
Jon Johansen and two anonymous colleagues wrote DeCSS, a program that did this decryption, so they could watch DVDs in Linux.
The Norwegian courts ultimately acquitted Mr. Johansen because he was acting consistent with interoperability and he could not be held responsible for others' motives.
[1] Dmitry Sklyarov, a Russian programmer was jailed under this law when he visited the U.S., because he had written a program in Russia which allowed users to access documents for which they had forgotten the password.
aibohack.com, a website which distributed tools to make Sony's AIBO robotic pet do new tricks, like dance jazz.
A company selling mod chips for Sony PlayStations, which allowed the systems to play video games from other countries, was raided by the US government and their products were seized under this law.
Lexmark sued Static Control Components which made replacement recycled toner cartridges for their printers under this law.
Lexmark initially won a preliminary injunction, but that injunction was vacated by the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.The Chamberlain Group sued Skylink Technologies for creating garage door openers that opened their own garage doors under this law.
(The lawsuit is ongoing, though the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has issued a ruling casting serious doubt on Chamberlain's likelihood of success.)
Prof. Edward Felten and several colleagues, were threatened with a lawsuit under this law if they presented a paper at a technical conference describing how they participated in the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) decryption challenge.
Princeton student J. Alex Halderman[1] was threatened by SunnComm under this law for explaining how Mediamax CD-3 CD copy protection worked.
The Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator, LLC sent violation notices to a number of sites who had published the encryption key to HD-DVDs.
Large industry associations like the MPAA and RIAA say the law is necessary to prevent copyright infringement in the digital era, while a growing coalition of open source software developers and Internet activists argue that the law stifles innovation while doing little to stop copyright infringement.
They also note that the severe ambiguities in the law, its difficulty in enforcement, and its numerous exceptions make it ineffective in achieving its stated goal of protecting copyright holders.
Opponents of the law charge that it violates the First Amendment on its face, because it restricts the distribution of computer software, like DeCSS.
For example, John Wiley & Sons changed their mind and decided not to publish a book by Andrew Huang about security flaws in the Xbox because of this law.
Opponents also argue that the law might be read to give full control to copyright holders over what uses are and are not permitted, essentially eliminating fair use.
Copyright Office launched a public appeal for comments on the DMCA in order "to determine whether there are particular classes of works as to which users are, or are likely to be, adversely affected in their ability to make noninfringing uses due to the prohibition on circumvention of access controls".