At the Crossroads: Law and Technology Moot Court
Friday, April 21, 2006

The digital revolution in information technology is several decades old. But some of the technological promises of that revolution are yet to be fully realized. This is most apparent, and most contentious, in the area of High Definition Television (HDTV). HDTV was conceived more than 30 years ago but is just now becoming widely available, partly through "technology forcing" by the Federal Communications Commission. Still, many in the broadcasting and entertainment industries threatened to withhold or delay the provision of High Definition content to over the air, unencrypted digital TV broadcasting, citing a concern that trustworthy technological and legal means of protecting copyrighted material are not yet in place.

In response to these industry concerns, the FCC has adopted a technology mandate (the "Broadcast Flag") for protecting digital broadcast television. Content producers and broadcasters will be able to embed a digital code that will mark particular programming "to be protected from unauthorized redistribution." Starting July 1, 2005, all digital TV broadcast receiving devices sold in the U.S. will have to detect this flag and employ a content protection or digital rights management (DRM) system.

The Broadcast Flag and related DRM and content protection technologies are protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which imposes civil and criminal liability on persons who "circumvent" such technologies. Because no consumer-grade DRM technology has yet survived circumvention, the DMCA is increasingly being used to provide legal protection for digital content.

Students, even at such prestigious institutions as Caltech and Loyola, commonly engage in "academic pursuit of circumvention knowledge" (sometimes called "hacking"). This process of testing DRM systems is a critical facet of computer security research. One such (hypothetical) episode provides the basis for the fifth annual At the Crossroads conference and mock trial. A student, his professor and school administration are prosecuted under the DMCA, but assert both technological and constitutional defenses to their innovative "learning exercises." Defendants are ably represented by a team of students from Caltech and Loyola. The prosecution is similarly constructed. Each side will present their arguments and expert witnesses.

The struggle over the appropriate balance for intellectual property law is at the center of the 21st century information economy, and provides the backdrop for our Fifth Annual At the Crossroads conference and mock trial. Admission is free.