UK’s Implementation of the Anti-Circumvention Provisions of the EU Copyright Directive: An Analysis

The debate surrounding utilization of technological protection measures to secure copyrighted works in the digital arena has raised many an eyebrow in the past few years. Technological protection measures are broadly bifurcated into two categories: access control measures such as cryptography, passwords and digital signatures that secure the access to information and protected content, and copy control measures such as the serial copy management system for audio digital taping devices and content scrambling systems for DVDs that prevent third parties from exploiting the exclusive rights of the copyright owners. Copyright owners have been wary of the digital environment to exploit and distribute their works and therefore employ technological protection measures, whereas consumers and proponents of free speech favor the free and unrestricted access, use and dissemination of copyrighted works digitally

The Impact of Technical Copy Protection and Internet Services Usage on Software Piracy

Software piracy has recently gained enormous attention, not only in the context of P2P-networks. As one countermeasure against software piracy, publishers have been implementing Digital Rights Management systems such as technical copy protection measures into their software products. This paper examines the impact of different technical copy protection measures and Internet services usage on software piracy using data from an internationally organized online survey. The results show that technical protection measures fail to achieve their protection goals, as none of the studied protection measures completely avoids piracy. A higher level of copy protection does not always make a legal software installation more likely. In contrast, a low level of protection does not necessarily lead to intense illegal copying. P2P- and Chat-networks compromise the security of technical copy protections as they provide access to cracked software copies, fostering software piracy. Based on our results, we discuss the impact of our findings on the publishers\u27 anti-piracy strategy from an economic point of view and present possible security improvements for hardware- and software-based copy protections

Watermarking for Security in Database

Watermarking technology is used to embed copyright information in objects such as images, audio, video and databases. The increasing use of relational database systems in many real-life applications creates the need for database watermarking systems for protection of database. As a result, watermarking relational database system deals with the legal issue of copyright protection of database system. There are different types of databases like, Numerical and Categorical Databases. Working with numerical data is easier as compared to categorical databases which is much harder to work with. This report addresses a unique, robust copyright protection scheme for Relational Database. Watermark (Characteristic code) is a binary string calculated through the characteristic operation on the original database. A watermark is called robust if it resists a designated class of transformations. Robust watermarks may be used in copy protection applications to carry copy and access control information. The algorithm correlates characteristics according to the content of the databases, which can resist invertibility attack efficiently.Invertibility attack on database is being considered in this paper

Shareholder rights: a comparative study of codes around the world

This study examines and compares the protection of shareholder rights contained in corporate governance codes in select countries around the world. Corporate governance codes are meant to provide shareholders with protection against expropriation. These codes are typically non-binding and are self regulatory in most countries with the requirement to disclose if any deviations are made. Governance codes are categorized into four distinct systems: the Anglo-Saxon system, the Germanic system, the Latin system, and the Japanese system. This study reviews and compares the codes of ten countries within the four systems identified to determine the level of protection provided to shareholders.The original print copy of this thesis may be available here: http://wizard.unbc.ca/record=b143506

Fast Byte Copying: A Re-Evaluation of the Opportunities for Optimization

High-performance byte copying is important for many operating systems because it is the principle method used for transferring data between kernel and user protection domains. For example, byte copying is commonly used for transferring data from kernel buffers to user buffers during file system read and IPC recv calls and to kernel buffers from user buffers during \u27Write and-send calls. Because of its impact on overall system performance, commercial operating systems tend to employ many specialized byte copy routines, each one optimized for a different circumstance. This paper revisits the opportunities for optimizing byte copy performance by discussing a series of experiments run under HP-UX 9.03 on a range of Hewlett-Packard PA-RISC processors. First, we compare the performance improvements that result from several existing byte copy optimizations. Then we show that byte copy performance is dominated by cache effects that arise when source and target addresses overlap. Finally, we discuss the opportunities and difficulties associated with choosing appropriate source and target addresses to optimize byte copy performance

Fast Byte Copying: A Re-Evaluation of the Opportunities for Optimization

High-performance byte copying is important for many operating systems because it is the principle method used for transferring data between kernel and user protection domains. For example, byte copying is commonly used for transferring data from kernel buffers to user buffers during file system read and IPC recv calls and to kernel buffers from user buffers during \u27Write and-send calls. Because of its impact on overall system performance, commercial operating systems tend to employ many specialized byte copy routines, each one optimized for a different circumstance. This paper revisits the opportunities for optimizing byte copy performance by discussing a series of experiments run under HP-UX 9.03 on a range of Hewlett-Packard PA-RISC processors. First, we compare the performance improvements that result from several existing byte copy optimizations. Then we show that byte copy performance is dominated by cache effects that arise when source and target addresses overlap. Finally, we discuss the opportunities and difficulties associated with choosing appropriate source and target addresses to optimize byte copy performance

Two content protection schemes for digital items

Modern techniques make digital articles easy to copy and manipulate. Content protection systems aim at protecting the rights of producers and distributors. These mostly rely on data encryption, digital watermarking, and special-purpose devices. In this paper, we describe two content protection schemes, both of which make use of tamper-resistant devices and devicer dependent decryption keys. One of the schemes uses a modified El Gamal system, in the other one we combine watermarking with encryption

Bear Paw Regional Greenway-Comte Property Easement

Bear-Paw Regional Greenways successfully completed the tasks as outlined in the grant application and award from the New Hampshire Estuaries Project as of August 31st, 2003 for the project titled: Natural Resource Mapping and Land Protection Technical Assistance. The project included the completion of a series of Natural Resource Inventory maps that were produced using current statewide natural resource digital data. We worked with a consultant from the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests to produce a total of 40 different large format maps using geographic information systems. The maps produced included: aerial photos, water resource maps, significant wildlife habitat maps, natural resource co-occurrence maps, and tax map overlays. The maps were produced at both a regional scale that included all of the seven Bear-Paw towns, as well as maps in the series for each individual town. Bear-Paw received a full set of the regional maps and each of the seven member-towns received a full set of town-wide maps and one copy of the Regional Natural Resource Co-occurrence map. In addition to providing the towns with the large scale laminated map series, Bear-Paw provided each town with a CD containing all of the map data.In addition to the mapping assistance that was provided through the grant, Bear-Paw used the funding to provide direct technical and transactional assistance to towns and landowners to complete land protection projects in the region. The funds were used to pay for services of a land protection consultant who was hired to draft conservation easement language, an attorney to review all documents and assist at closing, other fees and transaction costs related to the projects, and to cover the cost of some of the time that Bear-Paw’s Executive Director spent on the land protection projects