Vol 7 No 1 - Roger Williams University School of Law

circumventing a TPM in order to look at a program to identify andanalyse those elements necessary to achieve interoperability inthe name of reverse engineering, but only to the extent permittedby copyright law, most commonly where a right to reverseengineer under the fair use doctrine is available.298 Thus, thevalue of interoperability and digital diversity was seen inReimerdes as being of less importance than the copyright ownersexclusive right to reproduction or to control access. This was ahard case and this type of fact scenario needs much more thought.However, to prevent the porting of informational products todifferent platforms stifles diversity and allows one entity tocontrol the structure or architecture for disseminating informationand constructing meaning. Is this acceptable? Obviously a verybroad right to reverse engineer given as an exception to copyright(or circumvention?) law reduces the incentive for developingsoftware or content. However, this must be balanced against theneed for interoperability and digital diversity in softwarearchitecture.2993. Fair Use: NapsterFair use was also unsuccessfully argued in the recent Napsterdecision, although many would argue that this is a case in whichthe social benefits of the user outweigh the economic arguments ofcopyright protection.300There have been a number of decisions concerning what isknown as “mp3.” Mp3 is a format/software that allows digitizedmusic to be compressed and digitally distributed without losingsound quality.301 The recording industry throughout the world298. See, e.g., RealNetworks, Inc. v. Streambox, Inc., 2000 WL 127311 (W.D. Wash.2000); Sony Computer Entm’t of Am., Inc. v. Gamemasters, 87 F. Supp. 2d 976 (N.D.Cal. 1999).299. See Lessig, supra note 42.300. See Fred von Lohmann, Peer-to-Peer File Sharing and Copyright Law AfterNapster, Cal. Law., Jan. 2001, at 42, available athttp://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/Napster/20010309_p2p_exec_sum.html (last visited Nov. 17,2001).301. See Recording Indus. Ass’n of Am. v. Diamond Multimedia Sys., Inc., 180 F.3d1072, 1073-74 (9th Cir. 1999).Until recently, the Internet was of little use for the distribution of musicbecause the average music computer file was simply too big: the digitalinformation on a single compact disc of music required hundreds of computerfloppy discs to store, and downloading even a single song from the Internettook hours. However, various compression algorithms (which make an audio