Opinion ID: 787580
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Statutory Structure and Legislative History

Text: 59 The specific statutory provision here at issue is § 1201(a)(2) of the DMCA. The structure of the DMCA follows logically from the textual provisions distinguishing circumvention from infringement. The provisions relevant to circumvention are all in a new chapter of the Copyright Act, Chapter 12, titled Copyright Protection and Management System. Violators may be subject to the new civil penalties of § 1203 and the criminal penalties of § 1204, but they are not necessarily liable for copyright infringement. 60 The Second Circuit, as a precursor to its constitutional analysis, summarized the statute's history and structure: 61 The DMCA was enacted in 1998 to implement the World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty (WIPO Treaty), which requires contracting parties to provide adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies against the circumvention of effective technological measures that are used by authors in connection with the exercise of their rights under this Treaty or the Berne Convention and that restrict acts, in respect of their works, which are not authorized by the authors concerned or permitted by law. 11 Even before the treaty, Congress had been devoting attention to the problems faced by copyright enforcement in the digital age. Hearings on the topic have spanned several years.... This legislative effort resulted in the DMCA. 62 The Act contains three provisions targeted at the circumvention of technological protections. The first is subsection 1201(a)(1)(A), the anticircumvention provision. This provision prohibits a person from circumvent[ing] a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under [Title 17, governing copyright].... 63 The second and third provisions are subsections 1201(a)(2) and 1201(b)(1), the anti-trafficking provisions.... Subsection 1201(a)(1) differs from both of these anti-trafficking subsections in that it targets the use of a circumvention technology, not the trafficking in such a technology. 64 The DMCA contains exceptions, ... [ id. 1201(d),(f),(g)]... creates civil remedies, id. 1203, and criminal sanctions, id. 1204. It specifically authorizes a court to grant temporary and permanent injunctions on such terms as it deems reasonable to prevent or restrain a violation. Id. 1203(b)(1). 65 Corley, 273 F.3d at 440-41 (footnote appears as text in original; internal footnotes from original omitted). 66 Here, as in Corley, the primary statutory clause at issue is § 1201(a)(2) of the DMCA, though other subsections of § 1201 are also implicated. Unlike the Second Circuit in Corley, which provided only enough of the statutory construction to address constitutional challenges, however, we must construe the full boundaries of anticircumvention and anti-trafficking liability under the DMCA. We must determine the Congressional intent embodied in the statute's language, and then enforce the correctly construed statute to the facts at hand. See United States v. Clark, 454 U.S. 555, 560, 102 S.Ct. 805, 70 L.Ed.2d 768 (1982). 67 Because the DMCA is a complex statute creating several new causes of action, each subject to numerous exceptions, we must also ensure that our construction makes sense given the statute's entirety. We must therefore consider briefly the relationship among the liabilities created under §§ 1201(a)(1), (a)(2), and (b). Statutory structure and legislative history both make it clear that § 1201 applies only to circumventions reasonably related to protected rights. Defendants who traffic in devices that circumvent access controls in ways that facilitate infringement may be subject to liability under § 1201(a)(2). Defendants who use such devices may be subject to liability under § 1201(a)(1) whether they infringe or not. Because all defendants who traffic in devices that circumvent rights controls necessarily facilitate infringement, they may be subject to liability under § 1201(b). Defendants who use such devices may be subject to liability for copyright infringement. And finally, defendants whose circumvention devices do not facilitate infringement are not subject to § 1201 liability. 68 The key to understanding this relationship lies in § 1201(b), 12 which prohibits trafficking in devices that circumvent technological measures tailored narrowly to protect an individual right of the copyright owner while nevertheless allowing access to the protected work. Though § 1201(b) parallels the anti-trafficking ban of § 1201(a)(2), there is no narrowly tailored ban on direct circumvention to parallel § 1201(a)(1). This omission was intentional. 69 The prohibition in 1201(a)(1) [was] necessary because prior to [the DMCA], the conduct of circumvention was never before made unlawful. The device limitation in 1201(a)(2) enforces this new prohibition in conduct. The copyright law has long forbidden copyright infringements, so no new prohibition was necessary. The device limitation in 1201(b) enforces the longstanding prohibitions on infringements. 70 S.Rep. No. 105-90 at 12 (1998). 71 Prior to the DMCA, a copyright owner would have had no cause of action against anyone who circumvented any sort of technological control, but did not infringe. The DMCA rebalanced these interests to favor the copyright owner; the DMCA created circumvention liability for digital trespass under § 1201(a)(1). It also created trafficking liability under § 1201(a)(2) for facilitating such circumvention and under § 1201(b) for facilitating infringement (both subject to the numerous limitations and exceptions outlined throughout the DMCA). 13 72 The importance of rebalancing interests in light of recent technological advances is manifest in the DMCA's legislative history. Though the Supreme Court has recognized that interim industrial developments may erode the persuasive effect of legislative history, New York v. FERC, 535 U.S. 1, 23, 122 S.Ct. 1012, 152 L.Ed.2d 47 (2002), Congressional intent evident in relatively recent legislation like the DMCA may provide useful context in interpreting the statutory language. Though we do not resort to legislative history to cloud a statutory text that is clear, Ratzlaf v. United States, 510 U.S. 135, 147-48, 114 S.Ct. 655, 126 L.Ed.2d 615 (1994), we nevertheless recognize that words are inexact tools at best, and hence it is essential that we place the words of a statute in their proper context by resort to the legislative history. Tidewater Oil Co. v. United States, 409 U.S. 151, 157, 93 S.Ct. 408, 34 L.Ed.2d 375 (1972). 73 The most significant and consistent theme running through the entire legislative history of the anticircumvention and anti-trafficking provisions of the DMCA, §§ 1201(a)(1),(2), is that Congress attempted to balance competing interests, and endeavored to specify, with as much clarity as possible, how the right against anti-circumvention would be qualified to maintain balance between the interests of content creators and information users. H.R.Rep. No. 105-551, at 26 (1998). The Report of the House Commerce Committee concluded that § 1201 fully respects and extends into the digital environment the bedrock principle of `balance' in American intellectual property law for the benefit of both copyright owners and users. Id. 74 The crux of the present dispute over statutory construction therefore stems from a dispute over the precise balance between copyright owners and users that Congress captured in the DMCA's language. 75 Defendants argue ... that the DMCA should not be construed to reach their conduct [or product] ... because the DMCA, so applied, could prevent those who wish to gain access to technologically protected copyrighted works in order to make... non-infringing use of them from doing so.... Technological access control measures have the capacity to prevent fair uses of copyrighted works as well as foul. Hence, there is a potential tension between the use of such access control measures and fair use, [as well as the much broader range of explicitly noninfringing use].... As the DMCA made its way through the legislative process, Congress was preoccupied with precisely this issue. Proponents of strong restrictions on circumvention of access control measures argued that they were essential if copyright holders were to make their works available in digital form because digital works otherwise could be pirated too easily. Opponents contended that strong anticircumvention measures would extend the copyright monopoly inappropriately and prevent many fair uses of copyrighted material. Congress struck a balance.... 76 Reimerdes, 111 F.Supp.2d at 304 (citations omitted). We must understand that balance to resolve this dispute.