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The turn in what some have called the ‘digital moment’ and others have interpreted as the ‘digital dilemma’ has collapsed the distinctions between media producers and media consumers. Digitalisation, the movement of information by means of binary digits or ‘bits’, has meant that all forms of media can be easily manipulated, thereby undermining the ways in which copyright works both to promote creativity and to control copying. Digital media has the potential to collapse many of the distinctions that analogue media upheld and around which copyright has historically been formulated. This chapter examines why digital media have such far-reaching consequences for media rights and how governments and media industries have attempted to maintain regulation of the digital environment through new legislation and technological means. First, the chapter looks at exactly why digital media pose a threat. It then focuses on digital lives, digital rights management, the WIPO Copyright Treaty, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998 and the Copyright Directive. It also discusses copyright issues involving DVDs and descrambling of content-scrambling systems.

This chapter address technologies that are collectively known as Digital Rights Management (DRM). DRM is a set of software-based tools implemented by copyright holders, device makers, and retailers to monitor and restrict consumer behavior. For example, after the Supreme Court took the side of consumers and affirmed the legality of the VCR, Hollywood threw its weight behind the DVD, an encrypted format that allowed studios to dictate the design and functionality of playback devices. These and other forms of technological self help are strengthened by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which prohibits the bypassing, disabling, or otherwise circumventing the digital locks that DRM represents. But the DMCA has largely failed to prevent circumvention, and many copyright holders have recognized that the restrictions imposed by DRM discourage consumers from buying encumbered products. Moreover, as the Sony rootkit incident demonstrates, DRM puts consumer security and privacy at risk.

Chapter 1 explores regional lockout’s assemblage of technology, distribution, regulation, and culture through the DVD region code. In order to preserve traditional market segmentation practices, Hollywood convinced consumer electronics manufacturers to develop a DRM system wherein DVDs and DVD players are assigned a numerical “region code” based on their respective geographic territories. The codes in the software and hardware must match before the DVD will play. Chapter 1 details the DVD region code’s history, showing how the system was put in place and governed through complex negotiations and alignments among content creators, electronics manufacturers, and governing bodies. The chapter argues that the system is not only a hard-nosed form of technological and distributional control but also a system of symbolic global representation that clusters certain territories together and ranks those clusters within economic and cultural hierarchies.

This chapter discusses the copying process, a major concept in the digital software culture. It focuses on the emerging trends and technological advancements of the copying process. The rest of the chapter comprises a detailed discussion on the elements and works involved, starting from the early times to the modern age and the ways in which the copy routine impacted the software studies. The conclusion states that digital copying copes with the digital rights management techniques; it also describes the relationship between the network and communication areas.

Although tracking via social media platforms is widely recognized, as demonstrated by the Cambridge Analytica/Facebook scandal in 2018, other forms of tracking are less well known. Devices such as computers, cameras, and mobile phones can be identified by indicators such as screen size, software versions, and installed fonts. This is called ‘browser fingerprinting’. Commercial software can ‘fingerprint’ web browsers and analyse use without users’ knowledge, even when these users are aware enough to block browsing cookies and/or use virtual private networks (VPNs). This raised significant interest and concern from the engineering community which prompted a number of initiatives within standards-developing organizations (SDOs). This chapter covers case studies detailing work to mitigate the evasion of personal privacy in protocol development within the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). It demonstrates how SDO work is flanked and supported externally by academics, digital rights groups, and wider civil society organizations.