The Video Protection Alliance (VPA) believes that everyone should be well informed when it comes to copyright and intellectual property laws and organizations. Brief summaries and links to a select number of laws and organizations are below. In addition, VPA recommends that you research and become familiar with all applicable laws on your own.

• Copyright Act of 1976 - The act and its subsequent amendments are the primary laws governing copyright in the United States. Among other things, the Act makes it illegal to copy and/or distribute copyrighted material without the express consent of the copyright owner. The Act allows for the copyright owner to recover monetary damages equal to actual damages plus any profits made by the infringing party or statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringement, as well as attorneys' fees.
      – Official Site: http://www.copyright.gov/title17/
  
  
• Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 - This Act implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Among other things, the Act criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures (commonly known as Digital Rights Management or DRM) that control access to copyrighted works, and it also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself. In addition, the DMCA heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet.
      – Official Site: http://www.copyright.gov/title17/
  
  
• EU Copyright Directive - The Directive is the European Union's implementation of the WIPO Copyright Treaty, to which the European Union is a party.
      – Official Site: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/legis/latest/chap1320.htm
  
  
• World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) - The Organization is one of the 16 specialized agencies of the United Nations. WIPO was created in 1967 to encourage creative activity and to promote the protection of intellectual property throughout the world.
      – Official Site: http://www.wipo.int

Did you know?

Some paid file-sharing programs lead people to believe that the software purchase authorizes the download or sharing of copyrighted materials. This is completely false. In most cases you are only paying for the file sharing software itself, not the rights to download, upload or share copyrighted materials. It's always a good practice to reference the user agreements and terms of use associated with your file-sharing software. What you find may surprise you.