Global Copyright Protest? A Comparison of DeCSS Posting in the People´s Republic of China, Hong Kong, and the European Union

Author

Eschenfelder, Kristin R. ; Desai, Anuj C. ; Alderman, Ian ; Sin, Joanna ; Yi, Shen

Author_Institution

University of Wisconsin-Madison

fYear

2005

fDate

03-06 Jan. 2005

Abstract

This study explored the differences in DeCSS posting between EU member nations, the PRC, and Hong Kong. In particular, it sought to investigate the degree to which website authors in the EU, the PRC, and Hong Kong used DeCSS to protest changes in copyright law brought about by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Internet Treaties. Data were drawn from a country-restrict based sample of websites from the Google index in Spring 2004 and content analysis was conducted on each website. Results found little evidence of protest posting in PRC, some evidence in Hong Kong, and substantial evidence in the EU. Taken as a whole, the results do not provide strong evidence of global posting of DeCSS on websites in order to protest changes to copyright law. Rather, results suggest the value and meaning of DeCSS varies across different nations.

Keywords

Cascading style sheets; Computer hacking; DVD; IP networks; Intellectual property; Internet; Open source software; Partial response channels; Protection; Silicon compounds;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

System Sciences, 2005. HICSS '05. Proceedings of the 38th Annual Hawaii International Conference on

ISSN

1530-1605

Print_ISBN

0-7695-2268-8

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/HICSS.2005.287

Filename

1385505