DRM

The 2002 Computers, Freedom, & Privacy Conference (finishing up on April 19) includes a session on "Fair Use By Design". Included are discussions of

Here's the workshop overview:

Of expanding significance within the technological landscape are digital rights management tools. These tools raise a host of complex questions about the free exchange of information, individual privacy, freedom to publish and to innovate - questions, in other words, about the impact of technology on the exercise of legal rights. The workshop will explore the impact of digital rights management tools specifically on fair use. The workshop will use short framing presentations to stimulate dialogue among the participants and audience.

Although Digital Rights Management (DRM) software (e.g., digitial watermarking, etc.) has been discussed in many places, the discussion here include specific sessions on using DRM software to allow fair use, a unique proposition. - goto

CIO Insight has an article on Dorothy Denning's efforts (apparently successful) to tie copyright protection technologies to physical locations via the inclusion of GPS:

Working with a Hollywood movie executive and an Internet entrepreneur, Denning has invented a way to keep information scrambled until it reaches a precise location, as determined by GPS satellites. Armed with Denning's geo-encryption system, which she co-patented in 1998, only people in specified locations, such as movie theaters, living rooms or corporate conference rooms, would be able to unscramble the data.

Muddying the point here is that fact that Denning's invention is not copyright protection, but an endrun around copyright in the form of a high tech licensing agreement. Standard copyright notions like first sale and fair use could effectively be removed by preventing people in specific areas from even accessing content (even if it's content they've paid for). Says one of Denning's busines partners of the origins of the technology,