Amy Harmon's article of August 13, 2001 in The New York Times deals with the inequality posed by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and furthermore, shows how it does not make any sense.  Harmon's article artistically obfuscates the purpose and legitimacy of the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA, showing that everyone from law experts, to Congressmen, to computer science experts, down to average consumers do not understand why their traditional copyrights are stripped away because of new technologies.  Harmon points out the biggest paradox of the DMCA: it estends rights to consumers, but doesn't allow them to exercise those rights.

Economically, Harmon's article shows how the United States Congress jumped off the deep-end with regards to economic thought, and basically stripped away any right of ownership of ordinary citizens, rather choosing to allow dominant corporations to limit what consumer's can do with the material that they purchase, and increasing the potential economic rent that they can make from their massive consolidation of content.

Harmon's article also chronicles the arrest of Dimitri Sklyarov, the Russian computer scientist who was arrested in the United States during a layover in Las Vegas for bypassing the encryption on Adobe e-books in order to permit consumers to make copies of their purchases. The right to make a copy for personal use--something guaranteed by the fair use doctrine--has been stripped away by anti-circumvention provisions, leaving consumers confused, and wary to stay in the market for content.

Harmon's piece shows the frustrating and difficult transition from fair use to anti-circumvention.  She notes that now there is no device that can distinguish between fair and unfair use, and the government simply assumes the worst of its citizens. This article chronicles the dangers of the government's assumption that consumers in the United States are crooks, when they really seek to fuel the industry for content, while also exercising their due rights.

This source is an article written by Daniel Caruso which appeared on the 'Technology' page of the New York Times on January 19, 1998 amidst the hype over the Clinton Administration's push for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The article outlines the general dissent that occurred over the passage of the bill, which at the time was referred to as the "World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaties Implementation Act", hyped up by the Clinton Administration as a necessary step for the United States to take to align itself properly with the international community.  Intellectuals and 'cyberspace' law experts came down strongly against the act, as many thought that it would limit technological innovation, and others thought that it was an illegal disruption of fair use.  The author makes it clear to the reader that the fact that information that should be available by law would be stripped away if the owner of the copyright somehow technologically encoded it.

Although this article may seem to be old news with the benefit of ten years of retrospect, it is the type of polemic that gives a look into the mindset of Americans as the legislation was being negotiated and passed.  Clearly, at the time there was much more limited use of information technology, and people were still using print versions of content.  It is also quite fascinating that the law would be used to limit access to information in a time of growing interconnectedness.  Furthermore, the author notes that the controversial anti-circumvention provisions enable content owners to receive favorable terms in renting or selling their property.  The Clinton administration tried to sweep the provisions in as necessary protocol for accordance with an international treaty; however, this article calls into light that the interests of the legislation are aligned against the public interest, and rather with those of large corporations.  This type of impassioned defense against the legislation shows that had the Clinton Administration and Congress been more transparent with its content and intent, it may not have passed so easily.  This provides a dimension to my paper that is lacking in the journal articles.