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The article focuses on a declaration filed by the U.S.-based Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in the federal court as of October 2001 regarding Felten v. Recording Industry Association of America case. Researcher Edward Felten and his fellow researchers at Princeton University, had entered a contest sponsored by Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), inviting people to attempt to crack certain technologies they were considering for use in their computer system. These technologies were defeated by Felten and his fellow researchers in the challenge. The paper of the researchers "Reading Between the Lines: Lessons From the SDMI Challenge," presented by them in a symposium in August 2001, is threatened under the anticircumvention provisions of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The concern of ACM in this regard, is that one of ACM's primary goals is, in submitting a declaration to minimize the possibility of being a defendant in some future anticircumvention case. The declaration describes ACM, its scholarly activities relating to publishing and the holding of conferences, and the potential implications of the anticircumvention provisions of the DMCA on what ACM does.

The article focuses on issues of interest to the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) members. The ACM chapters, which will host the ACM 1981 Annual Conference from November 9 to 11, 1981 in Los Angeles, California, will sponsor a professional development seminar after the conference. A call has been issued for participation in the Office Automation Conference to be held from April 5 to 7, 1982 in San Francisco, California. The 9th Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, to be held from July 26 to 30, 1982 in Boston, Massachusetts, has issued a call for papers.

The article reports on developments concerning the activities of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in the United States as of February 1971. ACM has responded to the dip in employment of computer professionals by initiating a program of professional placement seminars. Each seminar consists of three segments: a presentation by the seminar director; a panel discussion by placement and employer personnel followed by a question and answer period; and mock interview sessions conducted on an individual basis between panel members and attendees. Patrick C. Fischer has accepted from Editorial Board Chairman Eric Weiss appointment as Editor-in-Chief, Special Publications. Editor-in-Chief M. Stuart Lynn has announced that, to encourage interest in computer technology among college undergraduates, Communications will annually sponsor a Student Paper Competition.

This article focuses on a declaration filed by the U.S.-based Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in federal court regarding the legal challenge to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in the Felten v. RIAA case, as of October 2001. In the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court of New Jersey by a number of computing researchers led by Princeton University computer scientist Edward Felten, the plaintiffs are asking the court to rule portions of the DMCA unconstitutional, arguing its broad prohibitions on disseminating information and technology restrict freedom of speech as protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The declaration was filed in support of Felten and others to help the court understand the practical effect of the issues at stake in this case. ACM is also concerned that, in addition to harming the progress of research, the risk of legal liability under the DMCA threatens ACM's publication and sponsorship of professional conferences that might include scientific papers assessing the strengths and weaknesses of computer and data security measures.