17 U.S.C. § 1002 — Incorporation of copying controls

(a) A person may not import, make, or distribute a digital audio recording device or digital audio interface device unless it conforms to one of these systems: (1) the Serial Copy Management System; (2) a system with the same functional characteristics that requires copyright and generation-status information to be accurately sent, received, and acted on between devices using that system and devices using the Serial Copy Management System; or (3) another system that the Secretary of Commerce certifies prohibits unauthorized serial copying.

(b) The Secretary of Commerce must establish a procedure for verifying, when an interested party petitions, whether a system meets subsection (a)(2)'s standards.

(c) A person may not import, make, or distribute a device, or offer or perform a service, whose main purpose or effect is to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or otherwise get around any program or circuit that implements all or part of a system described in subsection (a).

(d)(1) A person may not encode a digital musical recording of a sound recording with inaccurate information about the category code, copyright status, or generation status of the source material.

(d)(2) Nothing in this chapter requires a person who imports or makes digital musical recordings to encode a recording with information about its copyright status.

(e) This chapter does not require a person who transmits or otherwise communicates a sound recording in digital format to the public to transmit or communicate information about the recording's copyright status. But if that person does transmit or communicate that information, the person must do so accurately.