The impact of DRMs on personal use expectations and fair dealing rights

This study undertakes a review of fair dealing provisions in Australian copyright law and compares our fair dealing rights with the fair use rights under American law. It examines the impact of eight DRM systems providing music and films online on users' expectations of personal use and fair use of copyrightable material. Users of copyright information in whatever form - print, digital material, music, films and so on - hold certain expectations about their rights to use and copy that information and to communicate it to others. The fact that users may have no legal right to undertake any of these actions as they have not sought the approval of the copyright owner does not undermine the fact that users hold these expectations and have acted on them for many years without repercussion in a number of circumstances. Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems now have potential to remove from users the ability to use, copy and communicate copyright material without permission. This study finds that DRMs, for the most part, grant users rights to copyright digital content which exceed those permitted by the Copyright Act.