Opinion ID: 787580
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Access and Protection

Text: 77 Congress crafted the new anticircumvention and anti-trafficking provisions here at issue to help bring copyright law into the information age. Advances in digital technology over the past few decades have stripped copyright owners of much of the technological and economic protection to which they had grown accustomed. Whereas large-scale copying and distribution of copyrighted material used to be difficult and expensive, it is now easy and inexpensive. The Reimerdes court correctly noted both the economic impact of these advances and their consequent potential impact on innovation. Congress therefore crafted legislation restricting some, but not all, technological measures designed either to access a work protected by copyright, § 1201(a), or to infringe a right of a copyright owner, § 1201(b). 78 Though as noted, circumvention is not a new form of infringement but rather a new violation prohibiting actions or products that facilitate infringement, it is significant that virtually every clause of § 1201 that mentions access links access to protection. The import of that linkage may be less than obvious. Perhaps the best way to appreciate the necessity of this linkage—and the disposition of this case—is to consider three interrelated questions inherent in the DMCA's structure: What does § 1201(a)(2) prohibit above and beyond the prohibitions of § 1201(b)? What is the relationship between the sorts of access prohibited under § 1201(a) and the rights protected under the Copyright Act? and What is the relationship between anticircumvention liability under § 1201(a)(1) and anti-trafficking liability under § 1201(a)(2)? The relationships among the new liabilities that these three provisions, §§ 1201(a)(1),(a)(2),(b), create circumscribe the DMCA's scope—and therefore allow us to determine whether or not Chamberlain's claim falls within its purview. And the key to disentangling these relationships lies in understanding the linkage between access and protection. 79 Chamberlain urges us to read the DMCA as if Congress simply created a new protection for copyrighted works without any reference at all either to the protections that copyright owners already possess or to the rights that the Copyright Act grants to the public. Chamberlain has not alleged that Skylink's Model 39 infringes its copyrights, nor has it alleged that the Model 39 contributes to third-party infringement of its copyrights. Chamberlain's allegation is considerably more straightforward: The only way for the Model 39 to interoperate with a Security+ GDO is by accessing copyrighted software. Skylink has therefore committed a per se violation of the DMCA. Chamberlain urges us to conclude that no necessary connection exists between access and copyrights. Congress could not have intended such a broad reading of the DMCA. Accord Corley, 273 F.3d at 435 (explaining that Congress passed the DMCA's anti-trafficking provisions to help copyright owners protect their works from piracy behind a digital wall). 80 Chamberlain derives its strongest claimed support for its proposed construction from the trial court's opinion in Reimerdes, a case involving the same statutory provision. See Reimerdes, 111 F.Supp.2d at 304. Though Chamberlain is correct in considering some of the Reimerdes language supportive, it is the differences between the cases, rather than their similarities, that is most instructive in demonstrating precisely what the DMCA permits and what it prohibits. 81 The facts here differ greatly from those in Reimerdes. There, a group of movie studios sought an injunction under the DMCA to prohibit illegal copying of digital versatile discs (DVDs). Reimerdes, 111 F.Supp.2d at 308. The plaintiffs presented evidence that each motion picture DVD includes a content scrambling system (CSS) that permits the film to be played, but not copied, using DVD players that incorporate the plaintiffs' licensed decryption technology. Id. The defendant provided a link on his website that allowed an individual to download DeCSS, a program that allows the user to circumvent the CSS protective system and to view or to copy a motion picture from a DVD, whether or not the user has a DVD player with the licensed technology. Id. The defendant proudly trumpeted his actions as electronic civil disobedience. Id. at 303, 312. The court found that the defendant had violated 17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(2)(A) because DeCSS had only one purpose: to decrypt CSS. Id. at 319, 346. 82 Chamberlain's proposed construction of the DMCA ignores the significant differences between defendants whose accused products enable copying and those, like Skylink, whose accused products enable only legitimate uses of copyrighted software. Chamberlain's repeated reliance on language targeted at defendants trumpeting their electronic civil disobedience, id. at 303, 312, apparently led it to misconstrue significant portions of the DMCA. Many of Chamberlain's assertions in its brief to this court conflate the property right of copyright with the liability that the anticircumvention provisions impose. 83 Chamberlain relies upon the DMCA's prohibition of fair uses... as well as foul, Reimerdes, 111 F.Supp.2d at 304, to argue that the enactment of the DMCA eliminated all existing consumer expectations about the public's rights to use purchased products because those products might include technological measures controlling access to a copyrighted work. But Chamberlain appears to have overlooked the obvious. The possibility that § 1201 might prohibit some otherwise noninfringing public uses of copyrighted material, see, e.g. RealNetworks, Inc. v. Streambox, Inc., No. 2:99CV02070, 2000 WL 127311, at , 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1889, at , (W.D.Wash., Jan.18, 2000); Reimerdes, 111 F.Supp.2d at 323, arises simply because the Congressional decision to create liability and consequent damages for making, using, or selling a key that essentially enables a trespass upon intellectual property need not be identical in scope to the liabilities and compensable damages for infringing that property; it is, instead, a rebalancing of interests that attempt[s] to deal with special problems created by the so-called digital revolution. Aimster, 334 F.3d at 655. 84 Though Reimerdes is not the only case that Chamberlain cites for support, none of its other citations are any more helpful to its cause. In three other cases, Lexmark International, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc., 253 F.Supp.2d 943, 969 (E.D.Ky.2003), Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc. v. Gamemasters, 87 F.Supp.2d 976 (N.D.Cal.1999), and RealNetworks, 2000 WL 127311, 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1889, the trial courts did grant preliminary injunctions under the DMCA using language supportive of Chamberlain's proposed construction. None of these cases, however, is on point. In Lexmark, 253 F.Supp.2d at 971, the trial court ruled that the defendant's conduct constituted copyright infringement. In Sony, 87 F.Supp.2d at 987, the plaintiff's allegations included both trademark and copyright infringement, and the defendant conceded that its product made temporary modifications to the plaintiff's copyrighted computer program. In RealNetworks, the defendant's product allegedly disabled RealNetworks' copy switch, RealNetworks' technological measure designed to let the owner of copyrighted material being streamed over RealNetworks' media player either enable or disable copying upon streaming. RealNetworks, 2000 WL 127311, at , 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1889 at . The court stated explicitly that the avoidance of the copy switch appeared to have little commercial value other than circumvention and the consequent infringement that it enabled. Id. at , 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1889, at . In short, the access alleged in all three cases was intertwined with a protected right. None of these cases can support a construction as broad as the one that Chamberlain urges us to adopt, even as persuasive authority. 85 Furthermore, though the severance of access from protection appears plausible taken out of context, it would also introduce a number of irreconcilable problems in statutory construction. The seeming plausibility arises because the statute's structure could be seen to suggest that § 1201(b) strengthens a copyright owner's abilities to protect its recognized rights, while § 1201(a) strengthens a copyright owner's abilities to protect access to its work without regard to the legitimacy (or illegitimacy) of the actions that the accused access enables. Such an interpretation is consistent with the Second Circuit's description: [T]he focus of subsection 1201(a)(2) is circumvention of technologies designed to prevent access to a work, and the focus of subsection 1201(b)(1) is circumvention of technologies designed to permit access to a work but prevent copying of the work or some other act that infringes a copyright. Corley, 273 F.3d at 440-41 (emphasis in original). 86 It is unlikely, however, that the Second Circuit meant to imply anything as drastic as wresting the concept of access from its context within the Copyright Act, as Chamberlain would now have us do. Were § 1201(a) to allow copyright owners to use technological measures to block all access to their copyrighted works, it would effectively create two distinct copyright regimes. In the first regime, the owners of a typical work protected by copyright would possess only the rights enumerated in 17 U.S.C. § 106, subject to the additions, exceptions, and limitations outlined throughout the rest of the Copyright Act—notably but not solely the fair use provisions of § 107. 14 Owners who feel that technology has put those rights at risk, and who incorporate technological measures to protect those rights from technological encroachment, gain the additional ability to hold traffickers in circumvention devices liable under § 1201(b) for putting their rights back at risk by enabling circumventors who use these devices to infringe. 87 Under the second regime that Chamberlain's proposed construction implies, the owners of a work protected by both copyright and a technological measure that effectively controls access to that work per § 1201(a) would possess unlimited rights to hold circumventors liable under § 1201(a) merely for accessing that work, even if that access enabled only rights that the Copyright Act grants to the public. This second implied regime would be problematic for a number of reasons. First, as the Supreme Court recently explained, Congress' exercise of its Copyright Clause authority must be rational. Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186, 205 n. 10, 123 S.Ct. 769, 154 L.Ed.2d 683 (2003). In determining whether a particular aspect of the Copyright Act is a rational exercise of the legislative authority conferred by the Copyright Clause ... we defer substantially to Congress. It is Congress that has been assigned the task of defining the scope of the limited monopoly that should be granted to authors ... in order to give the public appropriate access to their work product. Id. at 204-05, 123 S.Ct. 769 (citation omitted) (emphasis added). Chamberlain's proposed construction of § 1201(a) implies that in enacting the DMCA, Congress attempted to give the public appropriate access to copyrighted works by allowing copyright owners to deny all access to the public. Even under the substantial deference due Congress, such a redefinition borders on the irrational. 88 That apparent irrationality, however, is not the most significant problem that this second regime implies. Such a regime would be hard to reconcile with the DMCA's statutory prescription that [n]othing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title. 17 U.S.C. § 1201(c)(1). A provision that prohibited access without regard to the rest of the Copyright Act would clearly affect rights and limitations, if not remedies and defenses. Justice Souter has remarked that [n]o canon of statutory construction familiar to me specifically addresses the situation in which two simultaneously enacted provisions of the same statute flatly contradict one another. We are, of course, bound to avoid such a dilemma if we can, by glimpsing some uncontradicted meaning for each provision. Reno v. American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Comm., 525 U.S. 471, 509, 119 S.Ct. 936, 142 L.Ed.2d 940 (1999) (Souter, J., dissenting). Chamberlain's proposed construction of § 1201(a) would flatly contradict § 1201(c)(1)—a simultaneously enacted provision of the same statute. We are therefore bound, if we can, to obtain an alternative construction that leads to no such contradiction. 89 Chamberlain's proposed severance of access from protection in § 1201(a) creates numerous other problems. Beyond suggesting that Congress enacted by implication a new, highly protective alternative regime for copyrighted works; contradicting other provisions of the same statute including § 1201(c)(1); and ignoring the explicit immunization of interoperability from anticircumvention liability under § 1201(f); 15 the broad policy implications of considering access in a vacuum devoid of protection are both absurd and disastrous. Under Chamberlain's proposed construction, explicated at oral argument, disabling a burglar alarm to gain access to a home containing copyrighted books, music, art, and periodicals would violate the DMCA; anyone who did so would unquestionably have circumvent[ed] a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under [the Copyright Act]. § 1201(a)(1). The appropriate deterrents to this type of behavior lie in tort law and criminal law, not in copyright law. Yet, were we to read the statute's plain language as Chamberlain urges, disabling a burglar alarm would be a per se violation of the DMCA. 90 In a similar vein, Chamberlain's proposed construction would allow any manufacturer of any product to add a single copyrighted sentence or software fragment to its product, wrap the copyrighted material in a trivial encryption scheme, and thereby gain the right to restrict consumers' rights to use its products in conjunction with competing products. 16 In other words, Chamberlain's construction of the DMCA would allow virtually any company to attempt to leverage its sales into after-market monopolies—a practice that both the antitrust laws, see Eastman Kodak Co. v. Image Tech. Servs., 504 U.S. 451, 455, 112 S.Ct. 2072, 119 L.Ed.2d 265 (1992), and the doctrine of copyright misuse, Assessment Techs. of WI, LLC v. WIREdata, Inc., 350 F.3d 640, 647 (7th Cir.2003), normally prohibit. 91 Even were we to assume arguendo that the DMCA's anticircumvention provisions created a new property right, Chamberlain's attempt to infer such an exemption from copyright misuse and antitrust liability would still be wrong. We have noted numerous times that as a matter of Federal Circuit law, [i]ntellectual property rights do not confer a privilege to violate the antitrust laws. But it is also correct that the antitrust laws do not negate [a] patentee's right to exclude others from patent property. CSU, L.L.C. v. Xerox Corp., 203 F.3d 1322, 1325 (Fed.Cir.2000) (citations omitted). In what we previously termed the most extensive analysis of the effect of a unilateral refusal to license copyrighted expression, id., among our sister Circuits, the First Circuit explained that: [T]he Copyright Act does not explicitly purport to limit the scope of the Sherman Act.... [W]e must harmonize the two [Acts] as best we can. Data Gen. Corp. v. Grumman Sys. Support Corp., 36 F.3d 1147, 1186-87 (1st Cir.1994). Our previous consideration of Data General led us to conclude that it was consistent with both the antitrust and the copyright laws and is the standard that would most likely be followed by the Tenth Circuit. CSU, 203 F.3d at 1329. 92 Because nothing in Seventh Circuit law contradicts Data General, we similarly conclude that it is the standard that the Seventh Circuit would most likely follow. The DMCA, as part of the Copyright Act, does not limit the scope of the antitrust laws, either explicitly or implicitly. The Supreme Court 93 has considered the issue of implied repeal of the antitrust laws in the context of a variety of regulatory schemes and procedures. Certain axioms of construction are now clearly established. Repeal of the antitrust laws by implication is not favored and not casually to be allowed. Only where there is a plain repugnancy between the antitrust and regulatory provisions will repeal be implied. 94 Gordon v. N.Y. Stock Exch., Inc., 422 U.S. 659, 682, 95 S.Ct. 2598, 45 L.Ed.2d 463 (1975). No such plain repugnancy separates the DMCA from the antitrust laws— unless we adopt Chamberlain's rather extreme proposed construction of its language. The recognition that the DMCA does not create a new property right drives the point home even further: plaintiffs alleging DMCA liability to protect their property rights are not exempt from other bodies of law. 95 Finally, the requisite authorization, on which the District Court granted Skylink summary judgment, points to yet another inconsistency in Chamberlain's proposed construction. The notion of authorization is central to understanding § 1201(a). See, e.g., S. Rep. 105-90 at 28 (1998) (Subsection (a) applies when a person has not obtained authorized access to a copy or a phonorecord that is protected under the Copyright Act and for which the copyright owner has put in place a technological measure that effectively controls access to his or her work.). Underlying Chamberlain's argument on appeal that it has not granted such authorization lies the necessary assumption that Chamberlain is entitled to prohibit legitimate purchasers of its embedded software from accessing the software by using it. Such an entitlement, however, would go far beyond the idea that the DMCA allows copyright owner to prohibit fair uses ... as well as foul. Reimerdes, 111 F.Supp.2d at 304. Chamberlain's proposed construction would allow copyright owners to prohibit exclusively fair uses even in the absence of any feared foul use. It would therefore allow any copyright owner, through a combination of contractual terms and technological measures, to repeal the fair use doctrine with respect to an individual copyrighted work—or even selected copies of that copyrighted work. Again, this implication contradicts § 1201(c)(1) directly. Copyright law itself authorizes the public to make certain uses of copyrighted materials. Consumers who purchase a product containing a copy of embedded software have the inherent legal right to use that copy of the software. What the law authorizes, Chamberlain cannot revoke. 17 96 Chamberlain's proposed severance of access from protection is entirely inconsistent with the context defined by the total statutory structure of the Copyright Act, other simultaneously enacted provisions of the DMCA, and clear Congressional intent. See Tidewater Oil, 409 U.S. at 157, 93 S.Ct. 408. It would lead to a result so bizarre that Congress could not have intended it. Central Bank, 511 U.S. at 188, 114 S.Ct. 1439. The statutory structure and the legislative history both make it clear that the DMCA granted copyright holders additional legal protections, but neither rescinded the basic bargain granting the public noninfringing and fair uses of copyrighted materials, § 1201(c), nor prohibited various beneficial uses of circumvention technology, such as those exempted under §§ 1201(d),(f),(g), (j). See Reimerdes, 111 F.Supp.2d at 323. 97 We therefore reject Chamberlain's proposed construction in its entirety. We conclude that 17 U.S.C. § 1201 prohibits only forms of access that bear a reasonable relationship to the protections that the Copyright Act otherwise affords copyright owners. While such a rule of reason may create some uncertainty and consume some judicial resources, it is the only meaningful reading of the statute. Congress attempted to balance the legitimate interests of copyright owners with those of consumers of copyrighted products. See H.R.Rep. No. 105-551, at 26 (1998). The courts must adhere to the language that Congress enacted to determine how it attempted to achieve that balance. See Gwaltney, 484 U.S. at 56, 108 S.Ct. 376. 98 As we have seen, Congress chose to create new causes of action for circumvention and for trafficking in circumvention devices. Congress did not choose to create new property rights. That is the choice that we have identified. It is not for us to resolve the issues of public policy implicated by the choice we have identified. Those issues are for Congress. Corley, 273 F.3d at 458. Were we to interpret Congress's words in a way that eliminated all balance and granted copyright owners carte blanche authority to preclude all use, Congressional intent would remain unrealized. 99 Congress chose words consistent with its stated intent to balance two sets of concerns pushing in opposite directions. See H.R.Rep. No. 105-551, at 26 (1998). 18 The statute lays out broad categories of liability and broad exemptions from liability. It also instructs the courts explicitly not to construe the anticircumvention provisions in ways that would effectively repeal longstanding principles of copyright law. See § 1201(c). 19 The courts must decide where the balance between the rights of copyright owners and those of the broad public tilts subject to a fact-specific rule of reason. Here, Chamberlain can point to no protected property right that Skylink imperils. The DMCA cannot allow Chamberlain to retract the most fundamental right that the Copyright Act grants consumers: the right to use the copy of Chamberlain's embedded software that they purchased.