Consensus, Not Command: A Smarter Approach to Standard Technical Measures

This paper explores a little-known facet of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA, that outlines a voluntary and consensus-driven process for adopting “standard technical measures,” or STMs, that enable copyright identification and enforcement. The paper examines the technological, legal, and economic factors that have weighed against STMs and highlights the success of the current decision-making model in avoiding impractical, costly, and harmful technology mandates. Learn more in our accompanying blog post by paper author and Public Knowledge Policy Counsel Nicholas P. Garcia and press statement.