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Re:Not yet... by Anonymous Coward · 2000-08-30 00:26 · Score: 3 · on More Threats From The MPAA

Series Of Links by Lucabrasi · 2000-08-30 00:23 · Score: 1 · on More Threats From The MPAA

This is a snippet from the MPAA letter being passed around.

The district court granted a permanent injunction against

(1) posting on any Internet site, or in any other way manufacturing, importing or offering to the public, providing, or otherwise trafficking in DeCSS or any other technology primarily designed to circumvent CSS, and

(2) linking any Internet web site, either directly or through a series of links, to any other Internet web site containing DeCSS.

...through a series of links...

Ok, so here we have the Yahoo Violation. So let's shut them down to start with, after all they fall under the "series of links" criteria. I'm sure this would be the case for virtually all search engines out there.

But as I haven't had enough coffee yet, I'll leave it to you to investigate.

Since the web is, by nature a "series of links" I guess it's time to pull the plug, oh well it's been fun. Think I'll go to the beach...

"Who is that free thinking anarchist?" - C. Montgomery Burns

Here's a clickable link to EFF DVD Legal Fund by goingware · 2000-08-25 15:12 · Score: 5 · on Hollywood Says If You Support Open Source, You're ...

If you want to join the Electronic Frontier Foundation and support the side of truth and justice in the DVD case, click here:

https://www.eff.org/support/joineff.html

And if you want to read about why this matters, click here:

http://www.goingware.com/decss

It's not about watching movies on Linux anymore.

It's about your right to say what you want in a free society. Eric Corley is a member of the press, and 2600's web site is his publication. Judge Kaplan has just permanently enjoined Corley from practicing unrestrained journalism.

Who Wants To Be a Criminal? by Platinum+Dragon · 2000-08-25 12:38 · Score: 3 · on Hollywood Says If You Support Open Source, You're ...

Let me see if I follow this logic:

By providing a link to this, this, or even this, I'm committing an injurious act to interests in the state of California.

Never mind that I legally purchased every single one of my DVDs. Never mind that I legally purchased the necessary hardware to play those DVDs, and that the DVD CCA got their cut from my purchases. Never mind that DeCSS "circumvents" CSS the same way entering my password "circumvents" the /etc/shadow file on my computer.

By aiding and abetting an open source programmer, I'm working to steal the intellectual property of Hollywood? I injured consumer electronics and computer manufacturers in California (whose products I legally purchased in order to be able to use the software player LiVid and the CSS decrypter DeCSS)?

If I have, then come get me .

Thanks for the MLK quote; My own soapbox speech by goingware · 2000-08-25 11:37 · Score: 2 · on More DeCSS Time-Warner Hypocrisy

"One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws." -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Thanks for the quote. I added it to the page and added a few words of my own on why I think this is important:

I want to make it clear that while I feel the Content Scrambling System is annoying and a violation of antitrust laws, and the Digital Millenium Copyright Act is a violation of established Supreme Court precedent of authorizing Fair Use, the reason I have provided this page in protest is specifically because Judge Kaplan's decission in the 2600 case is a violation of constitutional rights.
While the Motion Picture Association and Jack Valenti are at fault here, the greater fault lies with Judge Kaplan in failing in his sworn duty to uphold the United States Constitution.
Judge Kaplan's decision represents a far greater danger than the ability to view digital movies where you want on the operating system of your choice, or even to be able to share them over the Internet. It represents a danger to your security to rest safe in your bed at night, knowing that you are safe to say what you wish without fear of oppression by your government.
Judge Kaplan, if you are reading this, I want you to understand that America's founding fathers fought and died in bloody battles to put a stop to men like you.

Irony by Igmuth · 2000-08-23 12:20 · Score: 1 · on More On Kaplan's Ruling Making Links Illegal

The ironic thing is that if the judge rules that non-HTML address are also illegal, would this mean that the judge violated his own ruling by with his Memorandum Opinion because it contians the address dvd-copy.com which has an analysis of the CSS encryption system on it?

How to obtain DeCSS by gasull · 2000-08-23 05:38 · Score: 2 · on More On Kaplan's Ruling Making Links Illegal

DeCSS can be obtained, for example, here, but there is a list of mirrors here.

I don't mind if what I have written is illegal. I have freedom of speech.

Copyright Protection? by zelyan · 2000-08-23 05:02 · Score: 1 · on More On Kaplan's Ruling Making Links Illegal

THE COURT: Just a minute. Before we get carried away in the minutia of 512(c). What 512(c) provides, if I'm reading it correctly, is a limitation on liability for infringement of copyright. Am I correct?

MR. KATZ: Yes, your Honor.

THE COURT: Your clients are not being sued for infringement of copyright. They're being sued for violation of Section 1201. Right?

MS. GROSS: But 1201 is designed to protect copyrighted work.

THE COURT: Maybe so, but it's not infringement of copyright. Isn't that true, counsel?

It's like the Marx brothers in that transcript! In case you missed it, here's Goldstein's response to it.

J

Copyright Protection? by zelyan · 2000-08-23 05:02 · Score: 1 · on More On Kaplan's Ruling Making Links Illegal

THE COURT: Just a minute. Before we get carried away in the minutia of 512(c). What 512(c) provides, if I'm reading it correctly, is a limitation on liability for infringement of copyright. Am I correct?

MR. KATZ: Yes, your Honor.

THE COURT: Your clients are not being sued for infringement of copyright. They're being sued for violation of Section 1201. Right?

MS. GROSS: But 1201 is designed to protect copyrighted work.

THE COURT: Maybe so, but it's not infringement of copyright. Isn't that true, counsel?

It's like the Marx brothers in that transcript! In case you missed it, here's Goldstein's response to it.

J

Other coverage by ardran · 2000-08-23 03:35 · Score: 4 · on More On Kaplan's Ruling Making Links Illegal

I am a little confused why a single article like this (even one by the esteemed Mr. McCullagh) gets posted. There's been plenty of other coverage of this in other media, much of it just as pro-DeCSS:

And so on. Also, Emmanuel Goldstein posted his comments on the decision on 2600 a couple days ago (I'm not sure if that's showed up on /. yet...)

EFF To Help AOL? by dale@redhat.com · 2000-08-22 01:40 · Score: 2 · on AOL Sued for Creating Gnutella

Now, will the EFF step up to the plate and help AOL with free lawyers to help fight this injustice like they did 2600 Magazine???

Re:I'm getting a little suspicious by JWhitlock · 2000-08-21 22:37 · Score: 1 · on 2600's Response to the DeCSS Decision

I thought something similar for a while. Except that the result is not just insulting, but damaging.

Back when this whole thing started, Judge Kaplan ordered 2600 to remove the DeCSS code from the web site. Emmanuel Goldstein made a hard decision to comply with the order. The alternative would have been to practice civil disobedience, to refuse and get himself thrown in jail. Although it may have made people think of King or Ganhdi, it was more likely that the MPAA and Valenti would have successfully spun it in their favor. The media was certainly leaning that way, anyway, so 2600 had to appear to be fighting the good fight, keeping it nice and legal.

The same injunction scared off most of the other defendants, into settling separately and keeping themselves out of court. This ruling will now prohibit linking, despite the fact it may not hold up in a higher court. With the ruling, the MPAA has the clout it needs to go after other sites, which will probably bow out and let 2600 do all the fighting.

Judge Kaplan's decision gave the impression that the MPAA won, which gives them the freedom to say all sorts of things , such as that the DMCA has been proven to be constitutional, that DeCSS is only a tool for piracy, and that the 2600 group are just hackers, like the hackers that brought us the Melissa and Love Bug viruses. In the minds of many non-technical citizens (which is still the voting majority), as well as lawmakers, this is now the truth.

This is not a judge wimping out, or a sly tactical move. This move ignores the big issues (copyright, reverse engineering, Free Speech), and delivers a victory to the MPAA and corporate interests. It gains the MPAA a large slice of public opinion, and makes the opposition feel a little more desperate. Maybe Kaplan isn't hoping for the higher-ups to make the decision for him, but instead for some pissed-off teenager to start doing rash things, like breaking into the MPAA site, or posting movies to his web page with a message like "F**K MPAA! I USED DeCSS TO CRACK THE MATRIX! POWER TO 2600!", so that the MPAA will actually have evidence that DeCSS was used for pirating.

I hope 2600 wins the next round, and eventually in the Supreme Court, but I'm sure he's aware that his own fans may be his biggest liability. I hope they can restrain themselves.

"and it's hard to see the writing through the flames." - Flaming Lips

Re:He just doesn't get it. by juju2112 · 2000-08-21 05:47 · Score: 1 · on 2600's Response to the DeCSS Decision

I agree with the principle of "punish the crime, not the tool," but it's not that simple here. DVD-CCA developed CSS and licenses it, just like Microsoft developed Windows and licenses it to people. If you reverse engineer their tool and distribute the source code, you're violating their intellectual property.

I thought that reverse engineering was legal? Well i'm not exactly a lawyer, that's just the impression I had.

Besides that, an encryption algorithm basically comes down to a mathematical formula. Why does the government allow the DVD-CCA to license a mathematical formula? I mean, can i get 2 + 2 = 4 licensed?

Ideas should just not be considered property -- and it shouldn't be illegal to disseminate them.

Yes, but judges aren't there to apply common sense, they're there to apply the law. It's true, no pirating was actually occurring, and MPAA was just conjuring this image of a future where all movies are pirated in order to show the court theoretical damages. That's bullshit. But legally MPAA was still right.

I guess we agree there. But shouldn't the laws be founded in common sense? When the law doesn't make sense, the judges should rule them unconstitutional.

Not true, personal character is often pivotal to a case, and intent was pivotal to this one. If they had been legitimate cryptography researchers and their intent was to analyze CSS to aid in further encoding schemes, then they would have been legally in the right. But if they were just a newsletter for hackers and skript kiddies, then they were legally in the wrong. The judge (and I) decided they were the latter.

How exactly do you get to be a "legitimate" cryptography researcher with a ruling like this? 2600 hasn't committed any other crimes at all. As far as intent, their intent was to publish the information because they found it interesting. In that sense, they were effectively serving the cryptography community by telling them(us)about it. Hmm.....maybe the definition of "legitimate cyroptography researcher" is WAY too fuzzy.

What they've stated is not neccessarily the truth. The code was written for Windows, not Linux, which is why the judge was so skeptical.

The code was written for Windows because, at the time, Linux did not support the filesystem used on DVDs. DeCSS was merely a stepping stone in the eventual creation of the DVD Linux player. The assertion that the purpose of developing DeCSS wan't for eventually making a Linux player is just silly.

But even if that was their intent, it's still not fair use, it's infringment upon DVD-CCA's product (CSS) and violation of the DMCA.

Well, this law is wrong. IMO, legal is not always equal to moral. How can we have fair use if all content is behind encryption?

Get DeCSS!
-- Blackthorne

Re:KARMA WHORE ALERT by Pontiac · 2000-08-21 01:42 · Score: 1 · on 2600's Response to the DeCSS Decision

do you think that the average Slashdot reader is too lazy or imbecile to notice and click on the article link in the story? This comment deserves a -1: Redundant at very least. Hairy_Potter is karma whoring.

If you had bothered to read a few posts you would have known that 2600.com was suffering from the mighty slashdot effect plus not everyone could even use that link because they are behind firewalls that won't let them through.

Pontiac

The Corporate States of America by juju2112 · 2000-08-21 00:38 · Score: 2 · on 2600's Response to the DeCSS Decision

I can't help but wonder if the internet can even survive its reaming by Corporate America.

In fact, why don't we make our official name 'C.S.' instead? Not the 'United States', but he 'Corporate States'! I mean...that should be the official name! Why not be honest about the whole thing? We all know who makes the decisions in this country, and it ain't 'the people'. Aw, hell, i'm moving to the Czech Republic.

Get DeCSS!
-- Blackthorne

Code Under the First Amendment by ATKeiper · 2000-08-17 03:55 · Score: 5 · on Ask The DeCSS Legal Team

Dear Mr. Garbus and Ms. Gross -

Judge Kaplan argued that computer code is "a matter of First Amendment concern. But computer code is not purely expressive." He goes further: "society must be able to regulate the use and dissemination of code in appropriate circumstances."

In other words, computer code is more than just speech, and as the courts have ruled since 1968, when laws "are limited to the noncommunicative aspect" of some form of conduct, they do not violate First Amendment protections.

This is a theme explored somewhat in a recent article in Salon (for which Mr. Garbus was interviewed, incidentally):

"... there is still no formalized legal definition for software. Is it a product subject to the same Uniform Commercial Code that would hold Maytag responsible if a washing machine electrocuted its user? Or because it can be repeatedly upgraded and changed, is it more like an ISP -- a service that's governed by the terms of a contract between its operator and user? Or is it speech, worthy of protection for its contribution to "an open exchange of ideas?" No single statute or decision spells this out."

While code certainly has an aspect that could be deemed speech worthy of protection (as Professor Touretsky movingly testified), it has nonexpressive aspects as well. That seems to be at the heart of Judge Kaplan's decision, and you will have to work hard to get around that on appeal.

Hence my questions to you:
1. What level of Constitutional protection does software or computer code deserve? Will you continue, in appeal, to take the hard line that computer code is purely speech?
2. I know this may be somewhat out of your purview as lawyers, but do you hold out any hope for legislative remedy? If so, how would you want Congress would alter the DMCA?
3. And, finally, what possible implications does Judge Kaplan's ruling have for other cases relating to the legal status of software, such as the storm brewing over business method patents on software?

Thanks for your time.

Yours,
Adam Keiper
The Center for the Study of Technology and Society
Washington, D.C.

The right defence, the wrong defendance by Money__ · 2000-08-17 02:36 · Score: 2 · on DVD/DeCSS: MPAA Wins In New York

Here's what we're up against, folks. From Judge Kaplan's ruling. Defendants, on the other hand, are adherents of a movement that believes that information should be available without charge to anyone clever enough to break into the computer systems or data storage media in which it is located.

Now we all know that reverse engineering, by itself, does not have any malice, so where does the judge get the above stated belief?

From 2600:
At last Kevin is free! and, associating the secret service with the natzi SS
I'll defend 2600 and their right to free speach to the last but, would it hurt to tone down the rhetoric a bit? If you get hit by lightning, you have a right to complain. If you, time after time, try to attract that lightning, you can't bitch when it strikes.For whom would you have more pitty?
1) A golfer gets caught in the rain with a club in his hand.
2) someone who waits for the rain before standing on the highest ground with 9 irons in both hands.
All I'm saying is 2600 could still provide the same content without all the wannbee hacker noise that attract snap judgments like the one made by the judge in this case.
WANTED The ideal defendant:
A middle aged soccer mom/hacker who used DeCSS to show her 6 year old daughter the Teletubbies DVD on daddies linux box. Then, "It's all about the children".