An overview of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA) supplements the Copyright Act of the United States. The DMCA is the enabling legislation required to implement two international treaties of 1996; namely, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) copyright Treaty and the World Intellectual Property Organization Performances and Phonograms Treaty. These treaties provide protection of copyrighted works on an international level. Participating countries must give equal protection to citizens of their country as well as to citizens of participating member countries. In addition, the DMCA addresses other copyright related issues. The objective of this article is to address the impact of the DMCA on educational institutions. The analysis focuses on the movement toẃard webcasting of material by institutions and their faculty. More specifically, as more faculty utilized the capability of the Internet a possibility arises that copyrighted material is broadcast without the copyright owner's permission. And the age-old question of whether an exception exists must be answered. Does fair use apply in light of DMCA? If so, to what extent and what hurdles must one overcome.