Copyright law in the United States has extended copyright terms incrementally since the initial 14+14 year terms established in 1790, with the average term growing from 32 years in 1973 to 95 years today due to numerous extensions. Digital rights management uses code to prevent digital copying, though some copying may be legitimate, while the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 made interfering with DRM a crime. Key questions around regulating technologies like peer-to-peer and derivative works consider who benefits from regulation versus non-regulation.

1. Copyright