Slashdot Mirror

Here are some OS's that I think are interesting. I'm not sure if these are the official sites or not...but they should be interesting to read about (actually, most of them are REALLY cool)

Interesting FAQ: comp.os.research FAQ
Chorus Distributed OS paper
The Amoeba Distributed OS (check out the papers... I think many of the links are broken
Microsofts Rialto OS

If a company is able to arbitrarily go against their posted privacy policy, then consumers should be able to do the same in reverse for any other similar type of contract. IE, I should be able to click on one of Microsoft's "I Agree" buttons on one of their click-through licenses, and then feel free to go against it at a whim. They are both equally valid contracts, [ ... ]

Incorrect. There is a big fat hairy difference between overt representations and mutually-agreed contracts.

The ad you see in the paper for a hard disk at Fry's is not a contract; the vendor has not entered into a binding agreement to sell you the item at the advertised price. That agreement happens at the cash register. Nevertheless, it is illegal to advertise a particular price, and then refuse to sell at that price (or claim they're out of stock and try and sell you a different piece of merchandise). Such an action is called bait-and-switch, and is rightly prosecuted by the FTC as fraud.

Shrinkwraps, OTOH, claim to be a "contract" constraining your ability to use the merchandise you just bought and paid for. These are monsterously unethical instruments whose legality is still in serious question. See my lengthy editorial on why they shouldn't be taken seriously.

You are attempting to conflate advertised store policy with a binding contract. I am certain that contract law and the fine points of assent to contracts will not be an issue in this case, nor will they be raised by the FTC. This is a straightforward issue of "bait-and-switch" -- consumer fraud.

As for shrinkwraps, the sooner they are abolished, the better.

Schwab

I was away from my Mac earlier this week, so I didn't get to post in the previous discussion. Here's my $.02 :

1. My favorite NNTP client is a descendant of NewsWatcher, open source for Mac
2. My favorite Telnet client is a descendant of NSCA Telnet, open source for Mac
3. Want other examples? Try VersionTracker. And here's some more.
4. Want to write your own? Apple gives you the tools.

The History of Mechanical Computers

Early Calculators

Zuse

Very nice piece, Michael. Allow me to chime in with my own editorial on the subject.

Just one nit: "Ordinary people" have been purchasing software over the counter for well over twenty years, not ten. I can still remember seeing Brøderbund's "Apple Panic" hanging on a peg in ComputerLand.

Think what you will of Jerry Pournelle, the fact is that, in the early 1980's, he was one of the best known and most respected commentators on the computer industry. When he first encountered shrinkwrap "licenses", he minced no words in proclaiming such documents absolute bullshit. (This is a guy who writes for a living, so he knows what copyright lets him do.) So, for the last twenty years, it's been no secret to the software publishers that these so-called "contracts" are not taken seriously by anyone.

Unfortunately, there are a few stumbling blocks standing in the way of a sane resolution to this issue. The first is that, according to the Uniform Commercial Code, software is not a "good" and therefore is not subject to the normal rules applying to retail sales. The second is that, sadly, there are several court decisions that have allowed these "contracts" to stand. Check out badsoftware.com for more details than you can stomach.

The publishers have all their ducks lined up in a row (lawyers, warped court decisions spanning 20 years, bought-and-paid-for politicians), so I fear the only way to fix this is via a massive PR campaign. Direct people to this and other advocacy sites. Tell your friends, especially those who aren't computer literate. You'll have litle trouble convincing them this is nonsense. In fact, I daresay the only people you'll get an argument out of are software lawyers.

In the meantime, if you find yourself saddled with a machine absent a proper installation CD, return it to the place of purchase and complain loudly. Sadly, it's the only club we have to wield right now, so let's make the most of it.

Schwab

The problems with this proposal is that it will suffer the same problems as any free good provided by the government.

1. It is not actually free. People will pay for it through taxes. People will also have to pay for all that lovely government bureaucracy that goes along with it. (That, according to David Friedman, makes government-provided services cost about twice as much as those provided by the private sector.)
2. If there's no pricing, there's no incentive for individuals to limit their own usage. The government will have to start rationing. So hardworking entrepreneurs trying to sell their wares on the net will get as much time as the slackers surfing for porn and wacking off. Perhaps even more time depending on how rational the rationing scheme is.
3. And let's not even talk about how wonderful tech support will be from a government agency!

Also, I wonder how much benefit raw internet access brings to people in a third world country. Anyone have any direct experience with this?

Why doesn't Costa Rica do something cool like a rebel outpost on the fringes of cyberspace?

-- Diana Hsieh

Oh well... here it is.
Add your own, and spread this far and wide:

ftp://ftp.u.washington.edu/public/arobs /css
ftp://sun.rl.odessa.ua/pub/decss
http://130.111.75.63:142
http://216.35.100.9/ma/kdawson/deecessess
http://24.114.168.235/public/css.htm
http://24.15.107.67/DeCSS
http://24.6.244.114/DeCSS
http://2600.dk/mirrors/css
http://334.se2600.org
http://DVDoutrage.Tripod.com
http://MSD.dyndns.org
http://alcor.concordia.ca/~sd_fort
http://amergeisaphreak.netfirms.com
http://andrewstern.freeservers.com/decss
http://artun.ee/~rommi/css
http://benyossef.com/freedom
http://bigpoppa.adsl.alpha1.net/decss
http://briefcase.yahoo.com/clcktwr
http://briefcase.yahoo.com/klflatt
http://budice.ancients.net/decss
http://budsmoker.com/sites/decss
http://bur-jud-118-039.rh.uchicago.edu/d vd
http://cant-stop-us-all.freehosting.net
http://chaz.fsgs.com/misc/DvD
http://chemlab.org/~dvd
http://cherryville.org/dvd
http://come.to/intelex
http://cs.unca.edu/~dillzc/decss
http://css.choppy.com/data
http://cssalgorithm.8m.com
http://cybertrippin.net
http://cymorg.bizland.com/index2.html
http://dB.org/dvd
http://dandruff.cs.unm.edu/~bap/DeCSS
http://darklord.darkthrone.com/users /smith/dvd
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~homeyd/DVD
http://dcwi.com/~wench/decss
http://debian.mps.krakow.pl/mirror/css http://decss.8m.com
http://decss.cx
http://decss.cyvoid.net
http://decss.fall0ut.com
http://decss.freeservers.com
http://decss.freeshell.org
http://decss.fzylogic.net
http://decss.htmlplanet.com
http://decss.netfirms.com
http://decss.z-man.org
http://decss_files.tripod.com
http://decssmirror.homestead.com
http://deelbeson.detour.net
http://dephile.hypermart.net
http://dephile.hypermart.net/dvdinfo.html
http://developer.dnepr.net/dvdcss
http://dialug.org/html/decss.html
http://dirtass.beyatch.net
http://dlsf.org
http://dogh ousepages.lycos.com/collecting/midnightrider/DVDEn crypt.html
http://donotsueme.freeservers.com
http://donotsueme.homepage.com
http://dosdemon.yi.org/decss
http://dsl129.drizzle.com:2001/downloa ds/DVD
http://dvd.coolpeople.dhs.org
http://dvd.k4dwi.net/dvd
http://dvd.loathe.com
http://dvdcopy.cjb.net
http://dvdcrack.homepage.com
http://dvdcss.newmail.ru
http://earendel.gt.ed.net/dvd
http://ebmedia.net/dvd
http://elknews.netpedia.net/dvd
http://fairuse.freeservers.com
http://freedecss.50megs.com
http://freemymind.homepage.com
http://freeshell.org/~simm
http://friko6.onet.pl/war/mkochano
http://ftp.yodanet.schwaebischhall. de/pub/DeCSS
http://ftso.org/decss
http://geocities.com/donquix0te
http://geocities.com/dontquit222
http://go.to/decss
http://go.to/nairos_dvd
http://hammer.prohosting.com/~deepbleu http://heavymusic.8m.com
http://heky.org/dc
http://home.att.net/ ~phreakonaleash/ccs_mirror--screw_the_feds
http://home.clara.net/bangor/DeCSS
http://home.cyberarmy.com/drj/DeCSS
http://home.cyberarmy.com/enac/dvden crypt.html
http://home.earthlink.net/~kaos_inc
http://home.earthlink.net/~rocketrob
http://home.earthlink.net/~snagnbytz
http://home.monet.no/~christel/dvd.html
http://home.onestop.net/lakitu/mirror
http://home.pacbell.net/pfconces
http://home.postnet.com/~wsl3/DeCSS
http://home.primus.com.au/ratzmilk
http://home.rmci.net/bert/dvd
http://home.rmci.net/bert/fuckthelawyers
http://home.sol.no/~craphead/DVD
http://home.worldonline.dk/~loadfree/CSS
http://homepage.dtn.ntl.com/paul.chan
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~cbunton
http://imezok.tripod.com/Untitled.txt
http://imprint.uwaterloo.ca/dvd
http://inferno.tusculum.edu/~neil/decss
http://internettrash.com/users/linuxdvd
http://intfreedom.homepage.com
http://io.spaceports.com/~decss
http://isupport2600.8m.com
http://jackvalenti-ismyhoe.tripod.com
http://jadin.virtualave.net
http://jump.to/decss
http://jupiter.spaceports.com/~decss
http://kb5kjn.karco.org/~alpine/DVD
http://kesagatame.tripod.com
http://kevins.ne.mediaone.net/~kevins/dvd
http://killer.radom.net/~shoggoth/dvd.ht ml
http://linux.uci.agh.edu.pl/~outlaw/ decss.html
http://loogham.2y.net/decss
http://magic.hurrah.com/~fireball/dvd
http://mail.sirak.org
http://matt.frogspace.net/css
http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/jwhite80 55/DeCSS
http://members.home.net/dgweb
http://members.hometown. aol.com/_ht_a/MysticJTY/myhomepage
http://members.theglobe.com/Greed yMan/greedy.html
http://members.tripod.co.uk/SneakyBat
http://members.tripod.com/donotsueme
http://members.tripod.com/donquix0te
http://members.tripod.com/ny2600
http://members.tripod.com/r-sobin/dvd
http://members.tripod.com/~Denney/DeCSS
http://members.tripod.com/~baloney97/dvd
http://members.tripod.com/~lucvdb/decs s.html
http://members.tripod.com/~sk8or311
http://members.xoom.com/CaitSith16/DeC SS.htm
http://members.xoom.com/LinuxDVD
http://members.xoom.com/NiKeX
http://members.xoom.com/amateursoft
http://members.xoom.com/arjicle
http://members.xoom.com/chapter3/Mamma No.htm
http://members.xoom.com/freedvdinfo
http://members.xoom.com/get_decss
http://members.xoom.com/iamkeenan/master
http://members.xoom.com/iox
http://members.xoom.com/maud123/Home/C SS.htm
http://members.xoom.com/mogreen/decss
http://members.xoom.com/nyc2600
http://members.xoom.com/phireproof
http://members.xoom.com/s_o_sam/help.html
http://members1.chello.nl/~o.seibert/DeC SS
http://merlinjim.freeservers.com/dvd
http://mikedotd.penguinpowered.com/deccs
http://mikedotd.penguinpowered.com/decss
http://mikepark.org
http://mpaasucks.homepage.com
http://natara.freeservers.com/decss/ decss.html
http://ndez.bizland.com/css-auth
http://neil.gotlinux.org
http://netmanor.iboost.com/zachgoss/s imm.html
http://nomoredvd.tripod.com
http://ny2600.iwarp.com
http://nycsoftware.com/MirrorList.asp
http://osiris.978.org/~brianr/css
http://pages.hotbot.com/arts/weknow
http://pages.hotbot.com/edu/silex/mir ror.html
http://pcmania.bg/9-99/mortyr/_vti_ cnf/_vti_pvt
http://people.mn.mediaone.net/bojay/sl ashdot
http://people.mn.mediaone.net/si mulacrum/decss.htm
http://people.ne.mediaone.net/cy berwave/DeCSS.html
http://people.ne.mediaone.net/dantepsn http://personalweb.smcvt.edu/wtaylo r/decss.html
http://planeta.clix.pt/DJ_AmAzInG/DVD
http://primate.net/DVD
http://pyrrhic.8m.com/DeCSS
http://quintessenz.at/q
http://rha.housing.niu.edu/~davebb/css- auth
http://rlk.ch.utoledo.edu/DVD
http://sadennes.is.dreaming.org/hanadu http://saturate.org/decss.asp
http://saturn.spaceports.com/~brainz/DVD
http://screw_MPAA.tripod.com
http://sektor1.dhs.org/decss.html
http://sites.onlinemac.com/beback
http://sites.uol.com.br/decss
http://smokering.org
http://st-bart.net
http://strange.8k.com
http://stunman.iwarp.com
http://stuweb.ee.mtu.edu/~krcalh oo/DeCSS/DeCSS.htm
http://sweet.as/decss
http://tatooine.fortunecity.com/moorco ck/337
http://telnet.stealth.kirenet.com/~star /dvd
http://the.wiretapped.net/wt/dvd
http://theannux.homestead.com/decss.html
http://thesanitarium.n3.net
http://ts1.online.fr/dvd
http://underground.pl/dvd
http://users.1st.net/roundhere/decss
http://users.1st.net/roundhere/decss /index.htm
http://users.bigpond.net.au/nf/dvd
http://users.pandora.be/glenn.plas/dvd http://vandenborre.org
http://vedaa.tripod.com/decss.html
http://w1.1634.telia.com/~u163400190
http://wakeupthe.net/dvd
http://warpedreality.members.easyspace.c om
http://website.lineone.net/~kellypink/D eCSS
http://werewolf12.cjb.net
http://wildsurge.a2000.nu/decss
http://wiw.org/~drz/css
http://wusn-members.xoom.com/ambisagrus
http://www.19f.org/dvd.html
http://www.2600.org.au/dvd.html
http://www.UnderTheStairs.com
http://www.adulation.net/css
http://www.agybby.com/dvd
http://www.algonet.se/~skeleton/other.ht ml
http://www.alltel.net/~ledwards/css.htm
http://www.amerisuk.com/~carbon/css.html
http://www.angelfire.com/biz5/revblack http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/drug me
http://www.angelfire.com/ga3/acidlocke http://www.angelfire.com/hiphop/rawkus http://www.angelfire.com/in/sight
http://www.angelfire.com/mb/DVDoutrage http://www.angelfire.com/movies/DeCss
http://www.angelfire.com/movies/dvdiss http://www.angelfire.com/movies/mpaasucks
http://www.angelfire.com/nh/panzah
http://www.angelfire.com/ny3/ny2600
http://www.angelfire.com/or2/buzzkill
http://www.angelfire.com/pe/sh3/deccs
http://www.angelfire.com/pokemon/decss http://www.angelfire.com/punk/DeCSS/DeCSS
http://www.angelfire.com/punk/freedom
http://www.angelfire.com/scifi/dblagbro
http://www.angelfire.com/sk2/braindamage
http://www.angelfire.com/tx3/winger s/decss.html
http://www.angelfire.com/vt/bigbrother http://www.angelfire .com/wa2/phederalphelony/breakingnews.html
http://www.angelfire.com/wy/leggosfun /dvd.htm
http://www.angelfire.com/yt/mpaasucks
http://www.angelfire.com/zine/DeCSS
http://www.artnotart.com/anne/decss.html
http://www.asleep.net/dvd
http://www.asylum.webprovider.com
http://www.auntfloyd.com/DeCSS
http://www.auracom.com/~rhomac/dvd
http://www.azillionmonkeys.c om/qed/recess_for_css.html
http://www.best.com/~drumz/decss
http://www.bugbbq.org/decss
http://www.capital.net/~mazzic
http://www.charm.net/~dutch
http://www.chello.nl/~f.vanwaveren
http://www.cognitronics-tech.com
http://www.conspiracynow.com/theories/d ecss
http://www.constant.demon.co.uk
http://www.copkiller.org
http://www.corecomm.net/~davebb/css-auth
http://www.corova.com/dvd
http://www.cpinternet.com/~jhanson
http://www.crosswinds.net/oakland/~ahrendt/Lawyers _are_scu m-sucking_pigs [...]
http://www.crosswinds.net/~dvdcrack
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS
http://www.cs.tu-berlin.de/~feise/DeCSS
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/dvd.htm
http://www.csl.mtu.edu/~pdl athro/filez/DeCSS/DeCSS.html
http://www.ct2600.org/2600-DVD.html
http://www.cybertrippin.net
http://www.cyperspace.org/~multicom
http://www.december.ndo.co.uk
http://www.deforest.org/CSS
http://www.deprecated.org
http://www.dgw3.com/dvd
http://www.discountwebhost.com/decss
http://www.divisionbyzero.com/decss
http://www.dodgenet.com/~nickz/decss
http://www.ductape.net/~alpha/decss
http://www.duffbrew.com/decss
http://www.execpc.com/~unicorn/dvdmirr or.htm
http://www.firstlight.net/~clarka/decss
http://www.flypop.com
http://www.fortunecity.com/skyscrap er/coax/1107
http://www.fortunecit y.com/skyscraper/motorola/1415/decss.htm
http://www.fortunecity.com/vic torian/parkwood/95/DVD
http://www.frankw.net/decss
http://www.free-dvd.org.lu
http://www.freebox.com/zcedri
http://www.freeyellow.com/members8/mpa aidiot
http://www.fsp.com
http://www.futureone.com/~damaged
http://www.geekbits.com/decss
http://www.geocities.com /CollegePark/3807/2600Tribute.html
http://www.geocities.com/Ongakka/rebel. html
http://www.geocities.com/Pipeline /Curb/1232/DeCSS
http://www.geocities.com/Res earchTriangle/Station/2819
http://www.geocities.com/Shapierian
http://www.geocities.com/Silic onValley/Hardware/6188
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconV alley/Modem/4192
http://www.geocities .com/SiliconValley/Ridge/3727/2600/dvd.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Silic onValley/Software/3971
http://www.geocities.com/Silic onValley/Software/8762
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/5258/de css.html
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Exhi bit/5771/decss
http://www.geocities.com/ SunsetStrip/Underground/3587/dvd
http://www.geocities.com/Ti mesSquare/Dome/4021/dvd.html
http://www.geocities.com/cold_dvd
http://www.geocities.com/corporatemin dcontrol
http://www.geocities.com/dba3297
http://www.geocities.com/decss2
http://www.geocities.com/decss_2000
http://www.geocities.com/decss_forever http://www.geocities.com/decss_mirror
http://www.geocities.com/djph3ad/decss http://www.geocities.com/donquix0te
http://www.geocities.com/duck_ohm
http://www.geocities.com/dvdcracked
http://www.geocities.com/dvdfightback
http://www.geocities.com/dvdrevolution http://www.geocities.com/dvdsuit/dvd
http://www.geocities.com/dvdthings
http://www.geocities.com/epoxy_css
http://www.geocities.com/fairusedecss
http://www.geocities.com/fr33dvd
http://www.geocities.com/getyourdvd
http://www.geocities.com/ghaniali
http://www.geocities.com/iwantdvd
http://www.geocities.com/k4dwi/dvd
http://www.geocities.com/k4wi/dvd
http://www.geocities.com/ma dasian2000/decss_mirror.html
http://www.geocities.com/mastaflame
http://www.geocities.com/meluchwj
http://www.geocities.com/mydefiance
http://www.geocities.com/necready433
http://www.geocities.com/necready433/dvd
http://www.geocities.com/neurosis_dvd
http://www.geocities.com/opendvdecss
http://www.geocities. com/siliconvalley/computer/2303/DVD.html
http://www.geocities.com/soho/studios/67 52
http://www.geocities.com/solidex
http://www.geocities.com/verruktesten
http://www.geocities.com/warrdragon_2000
http://www.geocities.com/watice2
http://www.geocities.com/whackmol
http://www.geocities.com/xtridzz
http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~awirth1/decss
http://www.glue.umd.edu/~castongj
http://www.hackunlimited.com/dvd
http://www.hakor.com/DVD
http://www.hellnet.org.uk/decss.htm
http://www.hobbiton.org/~tpm
http://www.hote.qc.ca/dvd
http://www.hotsoupmedia.com/decss
http://www.idrive.com/decss/web
http://www.iinet.net.au/~matlhdam/DeCSS
http://www.image.dk/~mbp
http://www.imsoelite.com/dvd
http://www.infa.abo.fi/~raine/pub/ software/DeCSS
http://www.ironbrick.com/decss
http://www.ismokecrack.com
http://www.jabberwocky.eyep.net/decss.ht ml
http://www.k4dwi.net/dvd
http://www.kentroad.demon.co.uk/decss
http://www.kiss.uni-lj.si/~k4ef1890/css
http://www.kki.net.pl/~rsr66/css
http://www.koek.net/dvd
http://www.krackdown.com/decss
http://www.lemuria.org/DeCSS
http://www.lifesolo.com/bin
http://www.linuxnerd.net/decss
http://www.linuxstart.com/~kv ance/projects/decss.html
http://www.linuxstart.com/~sys_admin
http://www.lockpicking.nl/decss
http://www.mafkees.com/dvd
http://www.mayday2000.org.uk/decss.htm http://www.members.tripod.com/dkdecss
http://www.mindspring.com/~coueys
http://www.mindspring.com/~stonethrower
http://www.multimania.com/sxpert/decss http://www.mykle.com/DVD
http://www.myshed.net/dvd
http://www.nacs.net/~vodak/dvd
http://www.netby.net/Oest/Hva lfiskegade/jana/css.html
http://www.netspace.net.au/~gromit
http://www.networksplus.net/blogg
http://www.neurosis.org/dvd
http://www.nsnva.pvt.k12.va.us/~abc
http://www.ntsmedia.com/decss
http://www.nvhs.nl/decss
http://www.nwu.edu/people/ldb/decss.html
http://www.oblivion.net/~amar/css
http ://www.oksanen.net/ville/this_is/under/Finnish/jur isdiction/otherstuff.htm
http://www.olen.net/deCSS
http://www.oz.net/~tvaughan
http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~jer24
http://www.penismightier.com/weisha upt/dvd.html
http://www.pepper-land.net
http://www.philter.com/DVD
http://www.pippy.itgo.com
http://www.posexperts.com.pl/people /wrobell/css
http://www.projectbullshit.com/decss.html
http://www.projectgamma.com/deccs
http://www.qix.net/~pheonix/decss.html http://www.ratol.fi/~asiipola
http://www.reapers.org
http://www.redgnatt.homestead.com
http://www.redrival.com/chimx/computer s.html
http://www.robotslave.net
http://www.rpi.edu/~jettea/dvd.html
http://www.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/~marsie http://www.scwc.net/DeCSS
http://www.sealteamsix.com/phagan
http://www.sk3tch.com/freedecss
http://www.smackfu.com/decss
http://www.spin.ch/~rca/decss
http://www.stanford.edu/~drumz/decss
http://www.stupendous.org
http://www.subcor.com
http://www.swcp.com/~ampere
http://www.tar.hu/decss
http://www.teamnismo.com/2600
http://www.underwhelm.org/decss
http://www.users.on.net/johnm/DeCSS
http://www.uwm.edu/~zachkarp
http://www.vent-soft.com/dvd
http://www.vexed.net/CSS
http://www.visi.com/~adept/liberty
http://www.vulgar.net/dvd
http://www.warren-wilson.edu/~echerry/dvd
http://www.webnx.com/tuna
http://www.webzsite.com/decss
http://www.wizardworkshop.com
http://www.wolfpaw.net/~decss
http://www.worldcity.nl/~frank/dvd
http://www.wwcn.org/~grit/free
http://www.xs4all.nl/~oracle/dvd
http://www.xs4all.nl/~rasch/dvd
http://www.zeal.net/~pyro/DeCSS
http://www.zip.com.au/~zzz/dvd
http://www.zone.ee/DeCSS
http://www3.50megs.com/dvd4free

This announcement brought to you by the DeCSS Polar Bear.

I just finished taking intermediate micro, and one thing that I came away with is that libertarians spend way too much time explaining away how public goods will be provided, and all the efficiency arguments, and way too little time on antitrust.

Anti-trust is probably the biggest weakness on the economic side of libertarian theory. The biggest weakness overall is probably what do you do with children? I mean, babies are supposed to be pretty much property, but adults are supposed to be free to do whatever they want. So can a 16 year old refuse to go to church?

The first thing to say about anti-trust is that it isn't as big a problem as people think it is. Sure, we're getting overcharged for CDs, but most of that is just a transfer from consumers to record companies, but money never actually disappears from the economy, so the stockholders in record companies have more money to spend. This is becoming more obvious to people now than in the past, because people are starting to realize that big companies aren't own by rich megalomaniacs (they just run them), but by retirement funds, mutual funds, and that guy down the hall who doesn't have any kids to support.

But there is an actual loss caused by incorrect incentives for the number of CDs produced. You buy less CDs because they're too expensive. It's hard to estimate what this is. A figure mmy econ professor gave was that these Dead-Weight Losses add up to about 1% of the economy, according to a study in the 1950s. There are a lot of reasons this is so small. One is that most things you buy aren't controlled by an oligopoly. Another is that the number of CDs sold at oligopoly prices isn't that much different than the number under a competetive industry.

The one that probably offers the most hope to libertarians is that it's very hard to keep a cartel going. OPEC is around 10 members, and they have trouble keeping everyone in line (remember, OPEC is "legal"). In the music industry, it's probably fairly easy for the producers to keep the price a little above the competetive price, because there isn't much incentive to try to sell more CDs by lowering the price from $17 to $15 when your total cost with all the middlemen is $13, since you wouldn't necessarily sell twice as many CDs at the lower cost. But if the cost is $13, and the cartel price is $25, you've got a lot of room to make some money. Drop the price to $20 and you can make $7/CD on a higher number of CDs. So the higher the price is, the harder it is to keep the cartel going.

The other libertarian argument is that a lot of cartels couldn't exist without favors from government. Some that I can think of specific to record companies would be:
1. Government will go to a lot of trouble to prosecute copyright violations, and the violater will be severely punished. The punishment is out of line with the damage.
2. The government will prohibit sale of stuff that might impact the record companies income, like taxing recordable media, or DCMA enforcement against Apex (regionless DVD player).
3. Copyright is a government granted monopoly. Perhaps copyright could be modified to require everyone (including the copyright holder) to license the work in question at the going rate, and then revenues go back to the copyright holder.

One that isn't specific to record companies is that the government allows for companies to commit criminal acts with no liability for the management. This tends to encourage very large corporations. It might be necessary to keep the capital markets working, but there might be other ways to do it.

I'm actually an anarchist, and think that the existence of government is itself immoral, but I think there's a lot of room for improvement even without doing away with government. Some of the above may be unconsciously stolen from David Friedman's Law's Order, on the economic analysis of law. It's available online at http://www.best.com/~ddfr/

--Kevin

ome on, get real. Business is all about financial success. "Ethics" only counts when it happens to coincide with making money, as with Red Hat at the present time. If a CEO, or any employee, gets a crazy idea in his head that he or she is going to be all sweet and nice, to the detriment of the bottom line, he or she will not last long (except in cases of e.g. nepotism).

It's funny you should mention scroll bars. I have to use a Windows NT 4.0 box at work, and one of the things that drives me absolutely around the twist (apart from the random lockups) is the behaviour of Windows' scroll bars. They act like ordinary control widgets, and deactivate if you move the mouse too far from them. In other words, if you want to scroll down you have to keep the pointer within a few tens of pixels of the scroll bar in the X direction, or the thumb pops back up to where you started scrolling! Argh! Why can't it just read the Y position?

Personally, I prefer the old Athena scroll bars, as seen in XTerm, with the left/right click to move down/up by different amounts and the middle button to free scroll. I get the impression you're talking about the *look* of the scroll bars, rather than the functionality when you say `how about putting in GTK scrollbars everywhere' (paraphrase) -- this is modifiable by third-party libraries such as Xaw3D -- scroll down the page to see more alternative sets. These changes can be made without recoding applications!

In order to use GTK code changes would be required to all applications with scrollbars. This would be a nightmare, and besides, GTK doesn't have X resources so you can't so easily modify widget behaviour.

It's a shame that X didn't provide an attractive widget set in the first place (or, alternatively, that Motif was, and is, so expensive). Motif, with its rich configuratbility via resources seems cleaner to me in many ways thatn GTK. I presume this will be fixed in later GTK releases, and I hope to see support for X resources at some point...

I've begun to ramble now, so I'll stop, but I'll just round off by saying that vanilla X is almost certainly more configurable than you're giving it credit for.

Once again, allow me to shamelessly plug my editorial putting the case against shrinkwrap "licenses".

There is, sadly, a ton of case law supporting this garbage. This despite the fact that the crushing majority of people in the US alone have no idea what a shrinkwrap "license" is, let alone the specious legal reasoning on which they stand. Thus, while the law may be on their side, I believe public opinion can be marshalled to our side fairly easily, since the ethical issues and "common sense" are fairly clear here.

Start telling your friends and neighbors about this stuff, especially if they are not computer-savvy. It's the newcomers to the digital realm who stand to be screwed the most by this.

BTW, striking down shrinkwraps as unenforceable would not affect Open Source licenses (GPL, BSD, etc.). Shrinkwraps operate off an entirely different principle.

Schwab

I'm sorry but that review was pretty much biased.

I think the reviewer himself made that pretty clear near the top with his disclaimer:

First, in the interest of full disclosure, a comment or two about the reviewer. I do not currently use a WinCE device. I used a Palm III from August 1998 until just last week, when I upgraded to a new TRGpro (a PalmPilot clone that looks almost identical to a Palm IIIx, but has PalmOS 3.3, 8 MB RAM, the new Palm screen with reverse backlighting, and a type II CompactFlash slot). I am also the Secretary for the DePaul Linux Users Group at DePaul University, Chicago. There is no love lost between me and Microsoft, and I would be perfectly happy to see the company broken up, but I do acknowledge that, on occasion, Microsoft has done something useful or beneficial.

If you read the page as a summary of the first, brief impressions a TRGpro user received as he looked at two new PocketPC devices, you'll likely be less disappointed. It's not an exhaustive, objective comparison, and from what the disclaimer says, it's not meant to be.

The writer prefers the smaller size, longer battery life, and slightly increased speed Palm devices provide. In contrast, you want something "like [your] home PC", and that's the PocketPC platform. I own neither a Palm or Windows CE/PocketPC device, but I am researching my options in preparation for buying one. At the moment, I'm leaning toward a Palm device, but I'm interested to read more of why Windows CE/PocketPC devices are better, if you're willing.

Thus far I've found the Palm devices more interesting because precisely because they're smaller and lighter. I decided these were my priorities after looking at the notebook computer I use: a Compaq Contura Aero 4/33c. Though dating from early 1995 and boasting only 486SX-33, 20MB of RAM, and a 640x480x16 display, the Aero is small, weighs only 4 lbs., and gives me more than 4 hours of use off one battery. I have no need for sound, don't need more than 16 colors for a Linux console, and certainly don't want to lug more than 4 lbs. around with me. If I had the cash, I might replace my Aero with a late model Libretto to shed some more weight, but it's not worth it right now. Anyway, to me I think I'd be happier with a small, lightweight Palm device than a PocketPC, but I may not be considering everything I should.

As a side note, am I the only one who keeps typing "Poqet PC" instead of "PocketPC"? Maybe not too many others remember the Poqet PCs.

Go read this economic analysis of IP law

... and if that did not work... the bare URL:

http://www.best.com/~ddfr/Academic/Standards/Stand ards.html

Moscow is effectively an anarcho-capatalist system. As is the drug world.

Does mr Friedman have any evidence to back his views?

There are a lot of other relevant published articles on his website, especially the academic publications page and the libertarian writings page.

Moscow is effectively an anarcho-capatalist system. As is the drug world.

Does mr Friedman have any evidence to back his views?

There are a lot of other relevant published articles on his website, especially the academic publications page and the libertarian writings page.

Presumably he means David Friedman, son of Milton and author of the classic The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism.

If you haven't heard of him yet, you've missed a lot. David Friedman is the foremost thoughtful advocate for anarchocapitalism. His home page refers to a lot of good stuff he has written. Here's a limited index of ideas.

Presumably he means David Friedman, son of Milton and author of the classic The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism.

If you haven't heard of him yet, you've missed a lot. David Friedman is the foremost thoughtful advocate for anarchocapitalism. His home page refers to a lot of good stuff he has written. Here's a limited index of ideas.

Presumably he means David Friedman, son of Milton and author of the classic The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism.

If you haven't heard of him yet, you've missed a lot. David Friedman is the foremost thoughtful advocate for anarchocapitalism. His home page refers to a lot of good stuff he has written. Here's a limited index of ideas.

You presume that the purpose of the government is to protect the powerless from the predations of the powerful. How does this happen? What mechanism is there to create political power from nothing?

What you need to acknowledge is that the powerless are powerless in BOTH the market and the government. All that the government can do is make the situation worse by using force.
-russ
p.s. he means David D. Friedman.

And a good SciFi novel here and there as well. FM Busby's Demu Trilogy comes to mind. Good read.

For those wanting to find out more about the economics of intellectual property, I recommend the this analysis. The piece is about standards, but the first two sections give a very helpful discussion about the economic rationale for and meaning of IP law.

For info on how another mental disability can improve intelligence and creativity, check out The Gift of Dyslexia by Ronald D. Davis. (Oh, you want a URL? Try the Davis web site or stuff I wrote about it.)

The following is a list of all the mirrors from the 2600 site.

Slashdot has long been one of the best true forums for free speech in the world. Link to this comment. Post that link on your website and everywhere. CmdrTaco archives these comments indefinitely, right? Lets see the MPAA take on Slashdot, Andover, and the ACLU (who I'm assuming would back you guys up) BTW: When I click the "Post Anonymously" button, is there any way to retrieve my IP address, or my login info? I sure as hell hope not. Big risk I'm taking here for the sake of free speech... but we gotta do what we gotta do. Right?
ftp://ftp.u.washington.edu/public/arobs /css
ftp://sun.rl.odessa.ua/pub/decss
http://130.111.75.63:142
http://216.35.100.9/ma/kdawson/deecessess
http://24.114.168.235/public/css.htm
http://24.15.107.67/DeCSS
http://24.6.244.114/DeCSS
http://2600.dk/mirrors/css
http://334.se2600.org
http://DVDoutrage.Tripod.com
http://MSD.dyndns.org
http://Winmac.tripod.com/DECSS/decss.zip
http://alcor.concordia.ca/~sd_fort
http://alsscan.webjump.com/DeCSS.zip
http://alsscan.webjump.com/DeCSS.zip
http://amergeisaphreak.netfirms.com
http://andrewstern.freeservers.com/decss
http://artun.ee/~rommi/css
http://benyossef.com/freedom
http://bigpoppa.adsl.alpha1.net/decss
http://briefcase.yahoo.com/clcktwr
http://briefcase.yahoo.com/klflatt
http://budice.ancients.net/decss
http://budsmoker.com/sites/decss
http://bur-jud-118-039.rh.uchicago.edu/d vd
http://cant-stop-us-all.freehosting.net
http://chaz.fsgs.com/misc/DvD
http://chemlab.org/~dvd
http://cherryville.org/dvd
http://come.to/intelex
http://cs.unca.edu/~dillzc/decss
http://css.choppy.com/data
http://cssalgorithm.8m.com
http://cybertrippin.net
http://cymorg.bizland.com/index2.html
http://dB.org/dvd
http://dandruff.cs.unm.edu/~bap/DeCSS
http://darklord.darkthrone.com/users /smith/dvd
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~homeyd/DVD
http://dbzauctions.tripod.com/decss.zip
http://dcwi.com/~wench/decss
http://debian.mps.krakow.pl/mirror/css
http://decss.8m.com
http://decss.cx
http://decss.cyvoid.net
http://decss.fall0ut.com
http://decss.freeservers.com
http://decss.freeshell.org
http://decss.fzylogic.net
http://decss.htmlplanet.com
http://decss.netfirms.com
http://decss.z-man.org
http://decss_files.tripod.com
http://decssmirror.homestead.com
http://deelbeson.detour.net
http://dephile.hypermart.net
http://dephile.hypermart.net/dvdinfo.html
http://developer.dnepr.net/dvdcss
http://dialug.org/html/decss.html
http://dirtass.beyatch.net
http://dlsf.org
http://dogh ousepages.lycos.com/collecting/midnightrider/DVDEn crypt.html
http://donotsueme.freeservers.com
http://donotsueme.homepage.com
http://dosdemon.yi.org/decss
http://dsl129.drizzle.com:2001/downloa ds/DVD
http://dvd.coolpeople.dhs.org
http://dvd.k4dwi.net/dvd
http://dvd.loathe.com
http://dvdcopy.cjb.net
http://dvdcrack.homepage.com
http://dvdcss.newmail.ru
http://earendel.gt.ed.net/dvd
http://ebmedia.net/dvd
http://elknews.netpedia.net/dvd
http://fairuse.freeservers.com
http://freedecss.50megs.com
http://freemymind.homepage.com
http://freeshell.org/~simm
http://friko6.onet.pl/war/mkochano
http://ftp.yodanet.schwaebischhall. de/pub/DeCSS
http://ftso.org/decss
http://geocities.com/donquix0te
http://geocities.com/dontquit222
http://go.to/decss
http://go.to/nairos_dvd
http://hammer.prohosting.com/~deepbleu
http://heavymusic.8m.com
http://heky.org/dc
http://home.att.net/ ~phreakonaleash/ccs_mirror--screw_the_feds
http://home.clara.net/bangor/DeCSS
http://home.cyberarmy.com/drj/DeCSS
http://home.cyberarmy.com/enac/dvden crypt.html
http://home.earthlink.net/~kaos_inc
http://home.earthlink.net/~rocketrob
http://home.earthlink.net/~snagnbytz
http://home.monet.no/~christel/dvd.html
http://home.onestop.net/lakitu/mirror
http://home.pacbell.net/pfconces
http://home.postnet.com/~wsl3/DeCSS
http://home.primus.com.au/ratzmilk
http://home.rmci.net/bert/dvd
http://home.rmci.net/bert/fuckthelawyers
http://home.sol.no/~craphead/DVD
http://home.worldonline.dk/~loadfree/CSS
http://homepage.dtn.ntl.com/paul.chan
http://homepage.interacces s.com/~mycroft/decss/DeCSS.zip
http://homepages.go.com/homepages /4/0/3/403_error
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~cbunton
http://imezok.tripod.com/Untitled.txt
http://imprint.uwaterloo.ca/dvd
http://inferno.tusculum.edu/~neil/decss
http://internettrash.com/users/linuxdvd
http://intfreedom.homepage.com
http://io.spaceports.com/~decss
http://isupport2600.8m.com
http://jackvalenti-ismyhoe.tripod.com
http://jadin.virtualave.net
http://jump.to/decss
http://jupiter.spaceports.com/~decss
http://kb5kjn.karco.org/~alpine/DVD
http://kesagatame.tripod.com
http://kevins.ne.mediaone.net/~kevins/dvd
http://killer.radom.net/~shoggoth/dvd.ht ml
http://leeroy.webjump.com/DeCSS.zip
http://linux.uci.agh.edu.pl/~outlaw/ decss.html
http://logical-solutions.com.au/DeCSS.zip
http://loogham.2y.net/decss
http://magic.hurrah.com/~fireball/dvd
http://mail.sirak.org
http://matt.frogspace.net/css
http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/jwhite80 55/DeCSS
http://members.home.net/dgweb
http://members.hometown. aol.com/_ht_a/MysticJTY/myhomepage
http://members.theglobe.com/Greed yMan/greedy.html
http://members.tripod.co.uk/SneakyBat
http://members.tripod.com/donotsueme
http://members.tripod.com/donquix0te
http://members.tripod.com/ny2600
http://members.tripod.com/r-sobin/dvd
http://members.tripod.com/~Denney/DeCSS
http://members.tripod.com/~baloney97/dvd
http://members.tripod.com/~lucvdb/decs s.html
http://members.tripod.com/~sk8or311
http://members.xoom.com/CaitSith16/DeC SS.htm
http://members.xoom.com/LinuxDVD
http://members.xoom.com/NiKeX
http://members.xoom.com/amateursoft
http://members.xoom.com/arjicle
http://members.xoom.com/chapter3/Mamma No.htm
http://members.xoom.com/freedvdinfo
http://members.xoom.com/get_decss
http://members.xoom.com/hairfro/DeCSS.zip
http://members.xoom.com/iamkeenan/master
http://members.xoom.com/iox
http://members.xoom.com/maud123/Home/C SS.htm
http://members.xoom.com/mogreen/decss
http://members.xoom.com/nyc2600
http://members.xoom.com/phireproof
http://members.xoom.com/s_o_sam/help.html
http://members1.chello.nl/~o.seibert/DeC SS
http://merlinjim.freeservers.com/dvd
http://mikedotd.penguinpowered.com/deccs
http://mikedotd.penguinpowered.com/decss
http://mikepark.org
http://mpaasucks.homepage.com
http://natara.freeservers.com/decss/ decss.html
http://ndez.bizland.com/css-auth
http://neil.gotlinux.org
http://netmanor.iboost.com/zachgoss/s imm.html
http://noc.res.cmu.edu
http://nomoredvd.tripod.com
http://ny2600.iwarp.com
http://nycsoftware.com/MirrorList.asp
http://osiris.978.org/~brianr/css
http://pages.hotbot.com/arts/weknow
http://pages.hotbot.com/edu/silex/mir ror.html
http://pcmania.bg/9-99/mortyr/_vti_ cnf/_vti_pvt
http://people.mn.mediaone.net/bojay/sl ashdot
http://people.mn.mediaone.net/si mulacrum/decss.htm
http://people.ne.mediaone.net/cy berwave/DeCSS.html
http://people.ne.mediaone.net/dantepsn
http://personalweb.smcvt.edu/wtaylo r/decss.html
http://planeta.clix.pt/DJ_AmAzInG/DVD
http://primate.net/DVD
http://pyrrhic.8m.com/DeCSS
http://quintessenz.at/q
http://rha.housing.niu.edu/~davebb/css- auth
http://rlk.ch.utoledo.edu/DVD
http://sadennes.is.dreaming.org/hanadu
http://saturate.org/decss.asp
http://saturn.spaceports.com/~brainz/DVD
http://screw_MPAA.tripod.com
http://sektor1.dhs.org/decss.html
http://sites.onlinemac.com/beback
http://sites.uol.com.br/decss
http://smokering.org
http://sophien.webjump.com/css-auth_tar. gz
http://st-bart.net
http://strange.8k.com
http://stunman.iwarp.com
http://stuweb.ee.mtu.edu/~krcalh oo/DeCSS/DeCSS.htm
http://sweet.as/decss
http://tatooine.fortunecity.com/moorco ck/337
http://telnet.stealth.kirenet.com/~star /dvd
http://the.wiretapped.net/wt/dvd
http://theannux.homestead.com/decss.html
http://thesanitarium.n3.net
http://ts1.online.fr/dvd
http://underground.pl/dvd
http://users.1st.net/roundhere/decss
http://users.1st.net/roundhere/decss /index.htm
http://users.bigpond.net.au/nf/dvd
http://users.pandora.be/glenn.plas/dvd
http://vandenborre.org
http://vedaa.tripod.com/decss.html
http://w1.1634.telia.com/~u163400190 /DeCSS.zip
http://wakeupthe.net/dvd
http://warpedreality.members.easyspace.c om
http://website.lineone.net/~kellypink/D eCSS
http://werewolf12.cjb.net
http://wildsurge.a2000.nu/decss
http://wiw.org/~drz/css
http://wusn-members.xoom.com/ambisagrus
http://www.19f.org/dvd.html
http://www.2600.org.au/dvd.html
http://www.UnderTheStairs.com
http://www.adulation.net/css
http://www.agybby.com/dvd
http://www.algonet.se/~skeleton/other.ht ml
http://www.alltel.net/~ledwards/css.htm
http://www.amerisuk.com/~carbon/css.html
http://www.angelfire.com/biz5/revblack
http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/drug me
http://www.angelfire.com/ga3/acidlocke
http://www.angelfire.com/hiphop/rawkus
http://www.angelfire.com/in/sight
http://www.angelfire.com/mb/DVDoutrage
http://www.angelfire.com/movies/DeCss
http://www.angelfire.com/movies/dvdiss
http://www.angelfire.com/movies/mpaasucks
http://www.angelfire.com/nh/panzah
http://www.angelfire.com/nh/panzah/DeC SS.zip
http://www.angelfire.com/ny3/ny2600
http://www.angelfire.com/or2/buzzkill
http://www.angelfire.com/pe/sh3/deccs
http://www.angelfire.com/pokemon/decss
http://www.angelfire.com/punk/DeCSS/DeCSS
http://www.angelfire.com/punk/freedom
http://www.angelfire.com/scifi/dblagbro
http://www.angelfire.com/sk2/braindamage
http://www.angelfire.com/tx3/winger s/decss.html
http://www.angelfire.com/vt/bigbrother
http://www.angelfire .com/wa2/phederalphelony/breakingnews.html
http://www.angelfire.com/wy/leggosfun /dvd.htm
http://www.angelfire.com/yt/mpaasucks
http://www.angelfire.com/zine/DeCSS
http://www.artnotart.com/anne/decss.html
http://www.asleep.net/dvd
http://www.asylum.webprovider.com
http://www.auntfloyd.com/DeCSS
http://www.auracom.com/~rhomac/dvd
http://www.azillionmonkeys.c om/qed/recess_for_css.html
http://www.best.com/~drumz/decss
http://www.bugbbq.org/decss
http://www.capital.net/~mazzic
http://www.charm.net/~dutch
http://www.chello.nl/~f.vanwaveren
http://www.cognitronics-tech.com
http://www.conspiracynow.com/theories/d ecss
http://www.constant.demon.co.uk
http://www.copkiller.org
http://www.corecomm.net/~davebb/css-auth
http://www.corova.com/dvd
http://www.cpinternet.com/~jhanson
http://www.crosswinds.net/oakland/~ahrendt/Lawyers _are_scu m-sucking_pigs [...]
http://www.crosswinds.net/~dvdcrack
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS
http://www.cs.tu-berlin.de/~feise/DeCSS
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/dvd.htm
http://www.csl.mtu.edu/~pdl athro/filez/DeCSS/DeCSS.html
http://www.ct2600.org/2600-DVD.html
http://www.cybertrippin.net
http://www.cyperspace.org/~multicom
http://www.darkkingz.com/DeCSS.zip
http://www.december.ndo.co.uk
http://www.deforest.org/CSS
http://www.deprecated.org
http://www.dgw3.com/dvd
http://www.discountwebhost.com/decss
http://www.divisionbyzero.com/decss
http://www.dodgenet.com/~nickz/decss
http://www.ductape.net/~alpha/decss
http://www.duffbrew.com/decss
http://www.execpc.com/~unicorn/dvdmirr or.htm
http://www.firstlight.net/~clarka/decss
http://www.flypop.com
http://www.fortunecity.com/skyscrap er/coax/1107
http://www.fortunecit y.com/skyscraper/motorola/1415/decss.htm
http://www.fortunecity.com/vic torian/parkwood/95/DVD
http://www.frankw.net/decss
http://www.free-dvd.org.lu
http://www.freebox.com/zcedri
http://www.freeyellow.com/members8/mpa aidiot
http://www.fsp.com
http://www.futureone.com/~damaged
http://www.geekbits.com/decss
http://www.geocities.com /CollegePark/3807/2600Tribute.html
http://www.geocities.com/Ongakka/rebel. html
http://www.geocities.com/Pipeline /Curb/1232/DeCSS
http://www.geocities.com/Res earchTriangle/Station/2819
http://www.geocities.com/Shapierian
http://www.geocities.com/Silic onValley/Hardware/6188
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconV alley/Modem/4192
http://www.geocities .com/SiliconValley/Ridge/3727/2600/dvd.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Silic onValley/Software/3971
http://www.geocities.com/Silic onValley/Software/8762
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/5258/de css.html
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Exhi bit/5771/decss
http://www.geocities.com /SunsetStrip/Towers/1379/DeCSS.zip
http://www.geocities.com/ SunsetStrip/Underground/3587/dvd
http://www.geocities.com/Ti mesSquare/Dome/4021/dvd.html
http://www.geocities.com/cold_dvd
http://www.geocities.com/corporatemin dcontrol
http://www.geocities.com/dba3297
http://www.geocities.com/decss2
http://www.geocities.com/decss_2000
http://www.geocities.com/decss_forever
http://www.geocities.com/decss_mirror
http://www.geocities.com/djph3ad/decss
http://www.geocities.com/donquix0te
http://www.geocities.com/duck_ohm
http://www.geocities.com/dvdcracked
http://www.geocities.com/dvdfightback
http://www.geocities.com/dvdrevolution
http://www.geocities.com/dvdsuit/dvd
http://www.geocities.com/dvdthings
http://www.geocities.com/epoxy_css
http://www.geocities.com/fairusedecss
http://www.geocities.com/fr33dvd
http://www.geocities.com/getyourdvd
http://www.geocities.com/ghaniali
http://www.geocities.com/iwantdvd
http://www.geocities.com/k4dwi/dvd
http://www.geocities.com/k4wi/dvd
http://www.geocities.com/ma dasian2000/decss_mirror.html
http://www.geocities.com/mastaflame
http://www.geocities.com/mavic007/decss .zip
http://www.geocities.com/meluchwj
http://www.geocities.com/mydefiance
http://www.geocities.com/necready433
http://www.geocities.com/necready433/dvd
http://www.geocities.com/neurosis_dvd
http://www.geocities.com/opendvdecss
http://www.geocities. com/siliconvalley/computer/2303/DVD.html
http://www.geocities.com/soho/studios/67 52
http://www.geocities.com/solidex
http://www.geocities.com/verruktesten
http://www.geocities.com/warrdragon_2000
http://www.geocities.com/watice2
http://www.geocities.com/whackmol
http://www.geocities.com/xtridzz
http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~awirth1/decss
http://www.glue.umd.edu/~castongj
http://www.hackunlimited.com/dvd
http://www.hakor.com/DVD
http://www.hellnet.org.uk/decss.htm
http://www.hobbiton.org/~tpm
http://www.hote.qc.ca/dvd
http://www.hotsoupmedia.com/decss
http://www.idrive.com/decss/web
http://www.iinet.net.au/~matlhdam/DeCSS
http://www.illiterate.net/DeCSS.zip
http://www.image.dk/~mbp
http://www.imsoelite.com/dvd
http://www.infa.abo.fi/~raine/pub/ software/DeCSS
http://www.ironbrick.com/decss
http://www.ismokecrack.com
http://www.jabberwocky.eyep.net/decss.ht ml
http://www.k4dwi.net/dvd
http://www.kentroad.demon.co.uk/decss
http://www.kiss.uni-lj.si/~k4ef1890/css
http://www.kki.net.pl/~rsr66/css
http://www.koek.net/dvd
http://www.krackdown.com/decss
http://www.lemuria.org/DeCSS
http://www.lifesolo.com/bin
http://www.linuxnerd.net/decss
http://www.linuxstart.com/~kv ance/projects/decss.html
http://www.linuxstart.com/~sys_admin
http://www.lockpicking.nl/decss
http://www.mafkees.com/dvd
http://www.mayday2000.org.uk/decss.htm
http://www.members.tripod.com/dkdecss
http://www.mindspring.com/~coueys
http://www.mindspring.com/~stonethrower
http://www.multimania.com/sxpert/decss
http://www.mykle.com/DVD
http://www.myshed.net/dvd
http://www.nacs.net/~vodak/dvd
http://www.netby.net/Oest/Hva lfiskegade/jana/css.html
http://www.netspace.net.au/~gromit
http://www.networksplus.net/blogg
http://www.neurosis.org/dvd
http://www.nsnva.pvt.k12.va.us/~abc
http://www.ntsmedia.com/decss
http://www.nvhs.nl/decss
http://www.nwu.edu/people/ldb/decss.html
http://www.oblivion.net/~amar/css
http ://www.oksanen.net/ville/this_is/under/Finnish/jur isdiction/otherstuff.htm
http://www.olen.net/deCSS
http://www.oz.net/~tvaughan
http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~jer24
http://www.penismightier.com/weisha upt/dvd.html
http://www.pepper-land.net
http://www.philter.com/DVD
http://www.pippy.itgo.com
http://www.posexperts.com.pl/people /wrobell/css
http://www.projectbullshit.com/decss.html
http://www.projectgamma.com/deccs
http://www.qix.net/~pheonix/decss.html
http://www.ratol.fi/~asiipola
http://www.reapers.org
http://www.redgnatt.homestead.com
http://www.redrival.com/chimx/computer s.html
http://www.robotslave.net
http://www.rpi.edu/~jettea/dvd.html
http://www.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/~marsie
http://www.scwc.net/DeCSS
http://www.sealteamsix.com/phagan
http://www.sent.freeserve.co.uk/css -auth.tar.gz
http://www.sk3tch.com/freedecss
http://www.smackfu.com/decss
http://www.spin.ch/~rca/decss
http://www.stanford.edu/~drumz/decss
http://www.stupendous.org
http://www.subcor.com
http://www.subnetsystems.com/decss/dec ss.zip
http://www.swcp.com/~ampere
http://www.tar.hu/decss
http://www.teamnismo.com/2600
http://www.underwhelm.org/decss
http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/ree ds/decss.zip
http://www.users.on.net/johnm/DeCSS
http://www.uwm.edu/~zachkarp
http://www.vent-soft.com/dvd
http://www.vexed.net/CSS
http://www.visi.com/~adept/liberty
http://www.vulgar.net/dvd
http://www.warren-wilson.edu/~echerry/dvd
http://www.webnx.com/tuna
http://www.webzsite.com/decss
http://www.wizardworkshop.com
http://www.wolfpaw.net/~decss
http://www.worldcity.nl/~frank/dvd
http://www.wwcn.org/~grit/free
http://www.xs4all.nl/~oracle/dvd
http://www.xs4all.nl/~rasch/dvd
http://www.zeal.net/~pyro/DeCSS
http://www.zip.com.au/~zzz/dvd
http://www.zone.ee/DeCSS
http://www3.50megs.com/dvd4free

• The EDS site comments that

  cats aren't exactly herding creatures

• They validly comment that cats are not particularly "uniform."

  Much like the mythical "geek" group, as well as, as you observe, "Christians."

The big problem (as opposed to other, "small" problems), is that cats aren't herding creatures. And while I may not be "cat people," it's fair to say that "geek people" are similarly resistant to "herding."

The EDS commercial makes the mistake of suggesting that it is vaguely sensible to try to herd cats. The problem is that it's not even faintly sensible. Neither cats nor geeks "herd" well. Trying to do so is going to lead to managerial disaster.

And fielding a "geek candidate" is not going to be good for other than the small subset of "geeks" that go along with the particular geek's position.

And some ( David McCusker, of OpenDoc/Bento/IronDoc "fame" comes particularly to mind...) seem so independently-minded that the "lobbies" are not likely to represent them at all.

And actually, the commonly-recognized minorities of women and whatever is the politically-correct way today of referencing people that are definitely not melatonin-deficient that likely have roots in Africa, but which may not have any connection to America are not perfectly uniform in their needs and attitudes either...

First of all, I will say that I am heavily biased toward the laissez faire side of the argument. But there is a fundamental problem with a resource that can be accessed from anywhere and whose value can easily be diminished by someone willing to despoil it (jamming). If it were possible for everyone who wanted to be heard to do so, without cost to anyone else, that would certainly be a desirable goal. But there isn't nearly enough bandwidth for that.

How should we decide who gets it? Does it belong to the highest bidder? And for how long. Can the first person to apply for bandwidth get it? We would have frequency squatting. How can we decide on the value of new uses vs. older established ones? Do we push out marginal radio stations to make room for stations that will pay more for the frequency? I certainly don't have all of the answers to these questions.

However, moving towards a market where the people who have the frequencies can sell the bandwidth is a partial solution. An excellent, and lengthy, discussion about the complexities of allocating property rights can be found here in David Friedman's forthcoming book Law's Order: An Economic Account. Perhaps the most enlightening point, is that from the point of view of economic efficiency it doesn't matter who the property rights are awarded to (assuming it isn't a stubborn codger who won't deal with anyone no matter how much it may hurt him). You will get the same outcome, with the only difference being the profit that the guy who originally holds the property rights makes. If the FCC sells that to the highest bidder, that money goes to the FCC. No worse that any other solution since they regulated the right into existance.

Cyberspace has also highlighted the differences between intellectual property and other kinds. "If you 'take' my idea," writes Lawrence Lessig in his book Code, "I still have it. If I tell you an idea, you have not deprived me of it. An unavoidable feature of intellectual property is that its consumption, as the economists like to put it, is 'non-rivalrous.' Your consumption does not lessen mine. Ideas, at their core, can be shared with no reduction in the amount the 'owner' can consume. This difference is fundamental, and it has been understood since the founding."

Cyberspace has also highlighted the differences between intellectual property and other kinds. "If you 'take' my idea," writes Lawrence Lessig in his book Code, "I still have it. If I tell you an idea, you have not deprived me of it. An unavoidable feature of intellectual property is that its consumption, as the economists like to put it, is 'non-rivalrous.' Your consumption does not lessen mine. Ideas, at their core, can be shared with no reduction in the amount the 'owner' can consume. This difference is fundamental, and it has been understood since the founding."

By the way, are you guys going to be at CGE2K?

I'll give you a firm 'maybe' on this. If we are, it will likely only be on the last day for a specific roundtable on Sunday morning.

When I know for sure, I guess I'll post the details to the site if you want to say hi :)

Ah, also, thanks to you and to so many others for your kind comments!

Stephanie Wukovitz Musician/Coder Scatologic

Check out some picks: Official Battlesphere homepage

Atari Jaguar info site: Jagu-Dome

I'm not what you'd call a club maven, but of all the SOMA clubs I've been to, DNA Lounge was one of the nicest. I was there for Club Slick one year, and was very favorably impressed.

Frankly, I have very limited sympathy for the new area residents. There was a reason their precious, quaint SF loft was (relatively) affordable. They knew there was an all-hours club nearby when they bought the place; why are they suddenly acting all surprised?

I've had the same dream as JWZ, except with me, it was a coffee shop up in Marin. I lacked the money and business acumen to realize it. So I'm pleased to see JWZ pursuing the same goal: Preserving what he thinks is important.

Schwab

First off, have a good laugh at this.

Since I put that Web page up four years ago, I've learned something: One guy can't do it alone.

This seems obvious, but the popular political process in this country doesn't acknowledge it. The only political race that gets any attention at all is the Presidential race. But by him/herself, President can do nothing; the entrenched professional politicians will ignore him/her if she doesn't toe the party line (whatever it may be this week). The Lewinski "scandal" proved this beyond any further doubt.

The House and Senate (and the Committees populated by their membership) are where all the legislation gets proposed, drafted, debated and -- yes -- purchased by corporate interests. Thus, it seems to me that the more pressing issue facing American voters this year is not the Presidential race, but the election for your Representative and Senator.

We need smart, new people in Washington; the political equivalent of a computer hacker (the good kind). Know someone who's intelligent, of good character, and capable? Convince them to run for office. We need their sk1llz most desperately right now.

On a rant,
Schwab

Online Hitchiker's Guide at Douglas Adam's Website

Oh, and I'm convinced that the "terrible nerd" from his other game, Bureaucracy, is a result of his prophetic abilities and is actually Bill Gates.

After all, he was right about 42:

Article: Hitchiker's Guide Was Right! 42 It Is!

Something you might want to consider then next time your government talks about 'wonderful foreign trade opportunities with China.'

I certainly understand the gut reaction to the situation. However, trade restrictions generally hurt people on the side that is maintaining the restriction. This assertion follows from the arguments presented in Chapter 19: Applications - Conventional and Unconventional of David Friedman's book, Price Theory: An Intermediate Text. Exchange of reliable information is essential to economic efficiency. As a result, free trade tends to develop channels for the exchange of information, regardless of the desires of anyone besides the participants. In the end, it will benefit both sides and make both sides more free.

Something you might want to consider then next time your government talks about 'wonderful foreign trade opportunities with China.'

I certainly understand the gut reaction to the situation. However, trade restrictions generally hurt people on the side that is maintaining the restriction. This assertion follows from the arguments presented in Chapter 19: Applications - Conventional and Unconventional of David Friedman's book, Price Theory: An Intermediate Text. Exchange of reliable information is essential to economic efficiency. As a result, free trade tends to develop channels for the exchange of information, regardless of the desires of anyone besides the participants. In the end, it will benefit both sides and make both sides more free.

I believe Venus' L5 point is where Venus Equilateral was placed.

>OTOH, while IANAL,
o to h and while you anal?
please explain yourself.
Xah
xah@best.com
http://www.best.com/~xah/PageTwo_dir/more.html

As much as I love the EFF, having attended the trial I can see why we lost:

They said their stuff was stolen. We argued that we should be able to get away with it.

"Their secret wasn't protected enough" "They waited too long" "They knew it'd be broken" "They don't know for sure we got it from Xing" "Maybe they don't really have the right to sue us!"

Note, we didn't argue some greater good that is served by the taking, nor the harm implied by enforcing a unilateral license agreement upon a captive audience. We didn't claim they had no right to deprive us of rights, hell, we didn't claim a single right at all. This is coming out a hell of alot more bitter than it should, but I think this loss will make us stronger in the long run.

They proved they lost something. We tried to prove...something. I'm not sure.

Here's my summarization of the plaintiff's case. I'm not going to continue this document, but rather work on something completely different--something that directly addresses just exactly what the DVD CCA is trying to take away from us.

I'll be honest: I'm not happy with the way this turned out, and if I wasn't so crammed for time(I literally just secured long term housing for myself around 20 hours ago), I wouldn't even post this. But C'est La Vie.

DVD Redux: The Plaintiff's Complaints
=====================================
A Courtroom Analysis by Dan Kaminsky
effugas@best.com
http://www.doxpara.com

After receiving a rude awakening from the Linux community--and, make no mistake, it's us they're fighting--the DVD Copy Control Association today stepped up their efforts to restrict the further release of the codes necessary to play a CSS-encoded DVD disc. Last time, they walked into court with the presumption of victory on their lips. This time, they fought with far more intensity. But with far more time to prepare, so did we.

As of the writing of this summary, it remains to be seen who will prevail.

For sheer lack of time(and because I have no idea if anyone wants me to finish), I will restrict my analysis to the opening case of the plaintiffs.

The plaintiff's case seemed dedicated to addressing the wounds it received at the TRO(Temporary Restraining Order) hearing. Extensive evidence was offered justifying the claim that the DeCSS code was derived from Xing--a fact not extensively challenged online, but a core doubt raised by the defense at the TRO hearing. Posts on Slashdot were quoted *heavily* by the plaintiffs as an attempt to prove that the Linux community was on notice that it would be illegal to decrypt the video stream.

Yes, this means that Ye Olde Anonymous Coward has been entered into the court record. Numerous comments from many parties to that discussion, including AC's, that contradicted the plaintiff's case and notified developers of their rights to reverse engineer were however conveniently ignored by the plaintiff. Such examples of distorted reality propped up all throughout the hearing; quite annoying, to say the least.

At this point, the Plaintiff's case turned truly bizarre. While the DVD CCA fell over itself to say it wasn't actually invoking the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which may only be invoked in federal court, it made arguments under the act as a means to express and provide a perspective upon the Public Policy of the United States of America and, indeed, the 171 signing nations of the WIPO treaty. The relevance, argued the plaintiffs, was that since California's Uniform Trade Secret Act spoke of improprietity and not unlawfulness, the established public policy of the country should be used as the standard of what is proper and what isn't.

I must admit, I wasn't aware that playing a DVD qualified as a particularly unamerican activity. It might explain the civil disobedience campaigns(tshirts/contests) that the plaintiffs were so utterly disturbed by, however. Anyway, one wonders about the public policy the courts are supposed to apply when there's absolute consensus outside of Hollywood that individuals should be able to A) Play their own videos, B) Sell their own CDs, and C) Record their own TV Shows while still remaining good, patriotic Americans.

The case then moved into the International realm. Much noise has been made of the fact that reverse engineering of this type is generally quite legal in Norway, and indeed Europe as a whole. Both sides presented experts on the topic; needless to say, the opinions were not identical. pretty much claiming their expert made a more convincing argument than our expert. The plaintiff's expert, a Norwegian lawyer, claimed that the general law prohibiting unauthorized access to another individual's property, and particularly another person's data, should be applied in this case. On its face, this seems rather strange, since this case is about preventing a person from accessing data contained within their own physical property--the lawfully purchased DVD disc. But that's just my opinion.

The defendant's expert, claimed the plaintiff, was far more circumspect and wishy-washy, saying in effect that it could go either way and that the issue was undecided in norwegian courts. Since the plaintiff's answer was definitive and the defendant's answer was less so, the former ought to be considered more valid than the latter.

Returning to the core facts of the case, the plaintiffs reasonably argued that of all the defendants, none had provided an alternative source of the data aside from the Xing rip. Furthermore, the applicable law stated that prevention of *further* disclosure of a fact discovered after the usage to be a trade secret was an acceptable remedy, and since they weren't suing for anything more than such restraint(no damages, real or punitive), an injunction would specify the exact relief the law provided for. Since the defendants were on notice anyway, by both the passage of the DMCA and through "pervasive Slashdot discussions", this wouldn't be a surprising or inappropriate occurance.

Next, the plaintiff's primary counsel addressed the Linux interoperability argument. Given that a Linux developer would be willing to accept the arguably onerous terms of the CSS license(among which is that no imported DVDs may be playable, and that the source code be heavily closed and encrypted), the DVD CSS would be more than happy, he argued, to provide legal access for Linux users to play DVDs. Since IBM and Intel are both heavily invested in Linux, they argued, the means exists for a Linux DVD license to be signed.

The plaintiffs then trotted out the obligatory Coca Cola example: McDonalds sells Coke products, but Burger King only sells Pepsi. Just because you want Coke at Burger King, doesn't mean you get to steal the syrup off the truck, or break into Coca Cola headquarters and steal the formula. (I was unaware any DVDs had been stolen at gunpoint from UPS, or that Eric S. Raymond had led a crack commando team into the heart of Santa Clara for Operation LiViD-By-Any-Means-Necessary.) Because of this willingness, stealing the trade secret could not constitute appropriate self-help under the exceptions granted for interoperability. Sony's successes against the emulation community were raised, and the point that there was no fair use of trade secrets was made.

At that point, a new attorney for the plaintiff came up and began arguing against the EFF's extensive 1st amendment case. The EFF pointed out that the DVD CCA is seeking prior restraint against news sources(Slashdot itself is a named party), and that people merely want their traditional free speech rights to be enforced. Three responses were made: First, that the theft of trade secrets does not constitute a traditional usage of free speech rights. Second, that the defendants were not news sites(Slashdot?), and even if they were, they still couldn't post trade secrets. Finally, that the posting went beyond discussion--actual code was either directly there or being linked to.

The plaintiffs provided an example of what they'd like the judge to rule. It'd be acceptable to them for the San Jose Mercury News to provide commentary and analysis on the topic of the DVD decryption system, but to actually publish or link to the broken system would be a violation of trade secret law in their eyes. (As the defense later noted, such a linking has already taken place.)

In an interesting move, the plaintiffs used the Bernstein precedent that code is a form of speech to defend their position: The government was trying to suppress Bernstein's publication of his own encryption code. This is about a judge suppressing 200 John Doe's republication of someone else's encryption code. Of course, that implies that the code being republished was, in fact, someone elses--an access key does not a software product make, particularly when, as Sega v. Accolade decided, stripping the access key from a piece of software is the necessary to make other software interoperable.

The plaintiffs are continuing to attack even mere linkers--the whole concept of "instant access" to infringing sites scares the DVD CCA. One would think that the downsides of implicating the New York Times(as the defense pointed out) would override the advantages of a bit more protection against spurious links, but perhaps the DVD CCA sees things differently.

One thing the DVD CCA took particular offense to was the claim that the defendants were, in fact, helping them out by exposing the weakness of their system. They rather reasonably noted that, if the defendants were looking to help the CCA out, they could have sent an email, perhaps a real letter. Selling T-Shirts and running contests wasn't helpful.

On a sad note, the plaintiff's case concluded with some of the more vitriolic fear mongering and inappropriate references I have seen in quite some time. Beginning by claiming that the defense was trying to dismantle the entire IP system, massive(and rather irrelevant) hacks against military bases funneled through stolen Pac Bell internet account information, as well as the recent CDUniverse credit card scandal, were brought up as what could only be termed as character assassination against the "hackers" of the defense. Then, with the size of the DVD industry paraded in front of the judge as the sole reference to the irreperable economic damage that DeCSS and Linux players must surely create, the plaintiff made the entirely valid point that while the hacker community has embraced DeCSS, LiViD, and other CSS cracking systems, the mainstream has not yet adopted such tools. But what of the harms, should a mainstream that fought bitterly against record "spoiler systems" and has spent the last twenty years making audio mix tapes using their cassette recorders?

The direct harms that the DVD association brought to bear were summed up in a quote, in which it was stated that without legally backed copy protection, no media format(such as DVD Audio) could ever be good enough for Hollywood. And perhaps this is true. Manufacturing costs, the splurge of spending that accompanies repurchasing of previously owned content, now New And Improved, maybe even the profits from the conflicted interest consumer electronics divisions(Sony) just wouldn't be enough. Without the ability to technologically mandate what the courts would never accept--government enforced regional sale restrictions, arbitrary demands on DVD player manufacturers, a ban on personal backups and "mix DVDs"--perhaps we'd never see the big studios agree to new formats.

Oh well, I'm off to go play an 8-Track and catch some sleep, secure that they'll never give me a better quality music format for me to play with...

More next time, if you like.

Yours Truly,

Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com

david freidman has also written a response to a "non-libertarian faq".

Individuals interested in my editorial on the subject can find it here.

Very good article. I hope you don't mind if I rip it off wholesale and post it on slashdot. The more people who read it the better. I figure one less click means a few thousand more people will see it :)

By Reading This Article, You Agree To Subscribe To This Magazine for 25 Years... The Semi-Agnostic Pedestrian Theatre of the Aggressively Confused Somnambulist presents:

I had the good fortune to have this article published in the November 1996 issue of Microtimes, a free computer magazine distributed in the San Francisco Bay area. I used to link directly to the article on their Web site. Unfortunately, shortly after Microtimes was acquired by another publisher in 1998, they erased from their Web server all back-issues published prior to the transition.

The article is reproduced below, as I submitted it to then-editor Mary Eisenhart. Virtually the only modification she made was to give it the title: "Shrinkwrap Licenses: Threat or Menace?"

You know, you don't actually own any of your software. The software tools that let you accomplish your day to day work, in which you may have invested thousands of dollars, don't actually belong to you. And they can be taken away from you, at any time, for any reason, without notice or refund.

At least, that's what most computer industry lawyers would like you to believe.

It has to do with a little thing called a "license agreement." You know, the ones printed in Flyspeck 3 Condensed on the envelope containing the floppies that say, "Opening this package/using this software shall indicate that you have read, understand, and agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement." I place the term "license agreement" in quotes because no one I know (who isn't a lawyer) has ever taken these things seriously or treated them as a legitimate, binding contract.

Have you ever read one of these things? They're insidious. What's more disturbing is that they're virtually everywhere. It's been rare that I've seen a software package that didn't have one of these things attached to it. They're even starting to show up on shareware.

And what's most fascinating about these things is: They don't seem to accomplish anything. There's nothing covered in these documents that isn't already covered by law. At best, they're redundant. At worst, they're an abridgement of common sense and fairness.

Back when computers were Big Iron, purchasable only by large organizations which typically had an on-site programming staff, the software market was extremely tiny (only a few hundred customers or so), and license agreements made a lot of sense. The company availing itself of the software would agree to not take it apart or modify it, not give copies to other potential customers, and other restrictions. In return, however, the company would typically receive some form of continuing service, e.g. for a periodic lease fee (monthly, yearly, whatever), the vendor would supply the customer with regular updates and support, both on- and off-site.

Shrinkwrap "licenses" no doubt owe their heritage to these lease agreements. However, the marketplace has changed radically since then. Customers now number in the millions, and copyright law has been explicitly extended to cover computer software. One single illicit copy no longer represents a significant fraction of the market, and is now forbidden anyway by copyright law. Further, the mechanics of procuring software have changed. You had to first contact the vendor and negotiate a lease before you could get your hands on the software, so you knew beforehand what you were getting into. Today, software is sold over the counter, and is handled and treated just like any other retail purchase.

Many of the reasons which originally caused software licenses to be drafted no longer exist. Moreover, the change in the way software is procured makes the validity of any attendant "license" highly questionable.

Let's go through an imaginary license point by point (I've taken some creative liberties here and there, but the main thrust of most such documents is preserved):

"This is an agreement between MegaHuge Software Company, Ltd. ("Company") and you, the purchaser ("Hapless Sucker"). By opening the package or by using the software, you indicate that you have read, understand, and agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. If you do not agree to these terms in full, return the software unopened to the place of purchase for a full refund."

These "licenses" are typically printed on a sheet of paper or an envelope contained inside the box, hidden from view. When you purchase the software, you have no way of knowing the specific terms and conditions of the agreement inside, or even that there are terms and conditions attached to your purchase above and beyond those imposed by law.

When you make a purchase, you make some fairly basic and perfectly valid assumptions about in whom title to your purchase vests. The "agreement" inside seeks to nullify these assumptions after the fact. This alone calls into serious question the enforceability of any such document.

Further, contracts (for a license agreement is a contract) are traditionally negotiated on a one-to-one basis, and terms and conditions are retained or rejected as the negotiations progress. Shrinkwrap "licenses" are take-it-or-leave-it affairs, with zero negotiation. Courts generally frown on such practices, preferring instead to support contracts where both parties entered into an equitably negotiated agreement, fully informed, in good faith.

Given the everlasting and rather draconian covenants such "agreements" seek to impose, it seems common sense that a reasonable individual would insist on explicit negotiation. Let's take a look at some of these covenants:

"The Software, manual contents, and all accompanying materials both printed and recorded on disk, are and remain the property of the Company."

Here is where the vendor seeks to remove ownership from you, despite the fact that you may have just paid hundreds of dollars for the program.

"The Company hereby grants a non-exclusive license to the Hapless Sucker to execute and use the Software on a single computer system."

Assuming the agreement were valid, this is what you, in fact, would have purchased: The right to use the software, not the software itself.

There is no precedent for this kind of consumer transaction outside of explicitly negotiated contracts. Let's assume you went out and bought a CD. What have you purchased? Not a "license to use" as the software lawyers would have you believe, but the actual, physical CD, and all the bits on it. It's yours to do with as you please. You can't perform it publicly, or give or sell copies to anyone, of course, as that violates copyright law. But beyond that, you can have at it as you will. The same is true for books. You don't own a "license to read," you own the book. Same thing with videotapes. You can't make or distribute copies, but you can do virtually anything else.

Software is no different. It's information recorded on a medium, just like CD's, books, and videotapes. It's protected by copyright law, just like CD's, books, and videotapes. And it's your property.

In a clumsy attempt to offer you some rights, most "agreements" have a paragraph stipulating copying privileges:

"The Hapless Sucker may not make copies of the Software, except as necessary to load the Software into the computer's temporary memory for execution, or to make backup copies for archival purposes only. The Hapless Sucker will inscribe upon all archival copies the Company's copyrights and trademarks. The Software may not be transmitted from one computer to another over a network, nor over any other form of electronic connection. The accompanying printed manuals may not be copied under any circumstances, nor may they be reduced to electronic form, nor stored in a retrieval system, nor faxed, nor bent, folded, mutilated, or spindled, nor may those obnoxious yellow highlighters be applied to the pages for the purposes of making the manual more intelligible. The Hapless Sucker may retain a copy of the manual in his or her brain only for the purposes of using the Software."

Okay, let's get serious. For the sake of argument, I presume most of us can agree that copying software is bad. What such paragraphs seek to do is prevent you from using the software "unfairly," e.g. if you have two computers, you really ought to buy two copies of your screen blanker for them. But it gets a little fuzzier for other things, like word processors. If you have a desktop machine at home, and take a laptop with you on the go, is it ethical to buy only one copy of CostlyWord 5.1 and install it on both machines, or are you morally obligated to purchase two? After all, you're not likely to be using both machines at the same time, and no one else ever uses the machine you're not using... So where's the line?

As important as this subject is, shrinkwrap "agreements" do not help to clarify these issues. In fact, they often confuse it. In the above example, is it legit to copy the software to your hard disk? Hey, that's a real, honest-to-God copy of the software, which is expressly forbidden by the "agreement." But wait! Maybe you could regard the floppies you bought as the archival copy, and the copy on the hard disk as the "real" one. The agreement doesn't say anything about that. But then, the copy you'd be making to the hard disk wouldn't be the actual archival copy, and making anything other than an archival copy is verboten...

US copyright law, on the other hand, has tons of case law relating to "fair use." While the term's meaning is still muddy in the digital domain, recent cases suggest that "fair use" of digital material is likely to be interpreted in the same light as have all other intellectual properties in the past. "Fair use" is sufficiently broad to allow the individual reasonable flexibility in using copyrighted works, while still admirably protecting the rights of the copyright holder.

Of all the restrictions laid out in shrinkwrap "licenses," this one causes me the most ire:

"The Hapless Sucker understands and acknowledges that the Software contains methods, techniques, mechanisms, copyrighted material, trade secrets, easter eggs, evidence of incompetent programming, and other intellectual properties that are and shall remain proprietary to the Company, and to protect them, the Hapless Sucker agrees to not inspect, analyze, disassemble, reverse-engineer, decompile, artistically interpret, or by any other means reduce the Software to human-perceivable form, nor may the Hapless Sucker modify the Software in any manner."

I'm a software engineer. I make my living by writing software. I have done this all my professional life with the expectation that people would take apart my software and learn from it. In return, I expect the same treatment.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not looking to steal ideas wholesale. Disassembling software is a gargantuan undertaking, and I can better spend my time inventing new things. But every so often, I see a thing I want to learn more about, and take the thing apart to see how it works. I've been doing this since I was old enough to walk (much to my parents' dismay). If it was interesting and mechanical, it eventually had a screwdriver applied to it. I even put everything back together properly.

This has been true for as long as I can remember. Now that I'm old enough to buy my own gadgets (with credit cards yet), I see no reason why anything should have changed. I can (and have been known to) take apart my stereo, my telephone, my clock radio, even my computer. So where do these guys get off telling me I can't take apart my software?

I own books, music CD's, and videotapes. I can read my books, studying them for sentence structure, creative use of vocabulary, frequency of word usage, or simply absorb the printed message. I can listen to my CD's, noting chord progressions and rhythm patterns; or I can statistically analyze the digital signal, discovering how noisy the signal is, or finding how many soft errors are on the disc. I can watch my videotapes, noting camera angles, use of lighting, pacing of editing, use of background music; or I can advance frame-by-frame and discover exact timings for scenes or the precise velocities of objects, or look for subliminal messages. I can do all these things, and use the knowledge gained from these activities to my advantage in the future, within the confines of applicable law.

So why the hell do these guys think their software is any different?

It's my view that, in the future, computer literacy will include the very necessary component of understanding what software is, what it does, and how it works (or, more often than not, doesn't work). Most computer literacy courses these days simply teach basic operating skills without providing any underlying understanding. Many would argue that this is sufficient, observing that millions of people successfully operate cars every day without understanding how they work. This sufficiency falls down, of course, when the car malfunctions. Those with an underlying understanding stand a much better chance of repairing or temporarily patching the problem on their own. Others will wait patiently for a helpful motorist to stop, or call for help.

The point I'm trying to make is that people today are free to learn as much or as little about their car as they want, and car manufacturers don't seem to have any problem with this. On the other hand, by writing these "licenses," software companies seek to preclude any and all possibility of you learning how their software works. What purpose does this serve? Protection of intellectual properties? People are free to fiddle with their cars, and the auto industry shows no sign of imminent demise. Similarly, people are free to use their books, music CD's, and videotapes any way they wish, and their respective industries continue to grow at a healthy rate. Conversely, the presence of these "agreements" has not abated software piracy to any measurable degree, a practice to which the computer industry claims to lose billions of dollars a year (and still manages to grow at a healthy rate).

So what the hell is this clause for?

It gets worse:

"The Hapless Sucker expressly acknowledges and agrees that use of the Software is at the Hapless Sucker's sole risk. The Software and accompanying manuals and printed materials are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. The Company EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES AND/OR CONDITIONS, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, IMPLIED WARRANTIES, CONDITIONS OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR COMPATIBILITY WITH A PARTICULAR DECOR. THE COMPANY DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE FUNCTIONS CONTAINED IN THE SOFTWARE WILL MEET A PARTICULAR NEED, OR THAT THE FUNCTIONS WILL BE ERROR-FREE, THAT THE OPERATION OF THE SOFTWARE WILL BE RELIABLE, THAT THE DOCUMENTATION ACCURATELY DETAILS THE SOFTWARE'S OPERATION, THAT THE BITS ON THE DISK WERE RECORDED IN THE RIGHT ORDER, VOID WHERE PROHIBITED, YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY, THIS BAG NOT A TOY, NO USER-SERVICEABLE PARTS INSIDE, DO NOT TAKE INTERNALLY, DOES NOT ENABLE WEARER TO FLY, IF YOU'D LIKE TO MAKE A CALL, PLEASE HANG UP AND TRY AGAIN.

"UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES, INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE, SHALL THE COMPANY BE LIABLE FOR ANY INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES RESULTING FROM THE USE, MISUSE, OR INABILITY TO USE THE SOFTWARE, EVEN IF THE COMPANY HAD FOREKNOWLEDGE OF THE POTENTIAL FOR SUCH DAMAGES, OR MALICIOUSLY INCORPORATED THE POTENTIAL FOR SUCH DAMAGES.

"In no event shall the Company's liability to the Hapless Sucker exceed the amount paid by the Hapless Sucker for the Software (less taxes, restocking fees, handling surcharges, postage/shipping, and dealer's prep.)"

Delightful. They expect me to convey all sorts of covenants and guarantees and promises to protect their intellectual property rights unto perpetuity. But when it comes time for them to make some promises to me, they hold up their hands and back away and swear up and down (always in all caps, it seems) that they can't be held responsible for... well, anything. This, putting it kindly, strikes me as inequitable.

"This License is effective until terminated. The Hapless Sucker may terminate this License by destroying all copies of the Software and related documentation in his/her possession. This License will terminate immediately without notice if the Hapless Sucker fails to comply with any portion of this agreement. The Company may also terminate this license upon delivering written notice to the Hapless Sucker. Upon termination, the Hapless Sucker agrees to destroy all copies of the Software and related documentation in his/her possession. In no event shall any termination entitle the Hapless Sucker to a refund of any amounts paid for the Software. The Company also reserves the right to sue the Hapless Sucker's butt off for damages if the Hapless Sucker breaches this agreement. No act or failure to act on the part of the Company, including those arising out of negligence and/or malice, shall be construed to be a breach of this agreement on the part of the Company."

This basically means that, were the agreement valid, the vendor could legally force you to delete all copies of your software at their whim.

Consider this for a moment. Assume for the moment that all the "licenses" that came with your software were valid. Have you violated any of them? Even a little bit? It doesn't matter what you think; what would a lawyer think? How much of your software could be taken from you on such a basis, without one penny in compensation? Do you begin to see how dangerous these things could be if we were to even begin to regard these "agreements" as valid?

"This License constitutes the complete agreement between the Company and the Hapless Sucker governing the use of the Software, manual, and accompanying materials, and supersedes any and all prior such agreements, written, oral, or inhaled. No modification or amendment to this License shall be binding unless in writing and signed in blood by a duly authorized representative of the Company."

Again, the vendor seeks to alter the terms of your purchase after the fact. Further, while the vendor grants themself the freedom to impose terms and conditions upon you unilaterally, you are prohibited from enjoying the same freedom. (Note also that, as worded, a signature from the Company's representative is all that is required for an amendment to be valid; your signature is not required.)

If you read the hypothetical agreement above, you'll notice a couple more curious things. While you are expected to agree to many restrictions and obligations, the vendor labors under virtually none. You are expected to offer to the vendor your oath that you will do this, you will not do that, etc.; whereas the vendor is obliged to provide you with nothing but a "right to use" the software (which can be revoked at any time).

Such agreements specify a wide array of covenants which are possible for you to transgress (some all too easily), and the "license" stipulates the remedies at hand for the vendor. However, the converse is not true. There is virtually no way the vendor could violate the agreement, since the vendor warrants or provides nothing, except the "right to use." Further, there are no stated remedies available to you if the vendor should somehow violate the agreement.

What's more, if the vendor is indeed found liable to you, the liability is typically limited to the amount you paid for the software. However, if you are found to have breached the "agreement," no such limitations apply to you. The vendor can theoretically go after as much as they want.

The risks to the parties is grossly out of balance. The customer risks everything (their money, their liberty, their exposure to obscenely expensive legal proceedings); the vendor risks nothing. This, again, strikes me as highly inequitable.

There are some "license agreements" that are so poorly thought out that, were the agreement to be taken seriously, it would be impossible to use the accompanying software in a normal fashion.

One particular example is an "agreement" from Apple Computer that accompanies their Newton PDA and all software published for it. In it is the clause, "You may not electronically transmit the Apple Software from one device to another or over a network."

No more than a second's thought is required to discover how ludicrous this clause is. Much of the software published for the Newton is shipped on floppy disks and installed on the Newton using a "connection kit" that runs on a Mac or a PC. The Mac/PC is a device. The Newton is a device. The installation process involves the electronic transmission of the software (usually over a serial cable) from one device (the Mac/PC) to another (the Newton). (If you're installing from a Mac, you have the option of doing it over AppleTalk, which is a network.) Ta da! You've just violated the "agreement," and are now expected to destroy all copies of the software.

Yeah, right.

Software shipped on PCMCIA cards still doesn't save you, as a PCMCIA card is still a device. It doesn't matter that installation of the software is a perfectly normal, fair use; the above clause is an absolute statement, permitting no exceptions either explicitly or implicitly.

Contracts are very precisely worded documents that explicitly describe the intentions and obligations of the bound parties in excruciating detail. Such a flagrantly ridiculous clause as the one above would have been tossed out in the first round of negotiations. This is but one reason why binding contracts, particularly ones that seek to severely curtail your freedoms, are and should continue to be mutually negotiated instruments so as to prevent precisely this sort of thoughtless error.

If you're not happy with this state of affairs, there are several things you may be able to do to avoid these "agreements." Note that all these methods are theoretical, and haven't actually been tested (rather like the shrinkwrap "agreements" themselves).

If you support the existence of shrinkwrap "agreements" and their validity, and you encounter one you don't like, call up the vendor's legal department and request a renegotiation. Don't be surprised, however, if they won't talk to you. Some companies explicitly refuse to negotiate license terms with individual users. (It might be possible to interpret this as a refusal to negotiate in good faith.) If you can't get them to negotiate, or you can't agree to terms, then you might care to consider some of the remaining options.

Minors, of course, cannot be bound to written contracts without the consent of a parent or guardian, usually evidenced by a co-signature. If the parent or guardian refuses to grant consent, then no agreement exists. Check with your state's definition of the ages which constitute minority.

Without evidence (e.g. your signature) that you, in fact, purchased or installed the software, no proof can be offered that any contract was agreed to. Some packages ask you to enter your name and company when first installing the software, which then appear in the welcome dialog. You may similarly wish to enter a bogus name, or just random characters, to thwart attempts to prove it was you who actually opened/installed the software.

If yours is one of those packages that insist you click on a gadget to indicate acceptance of the "license," and you have some skill with low-level tools, you may care to explore the possibility of modifying the program such that the dialog never appears, or that the dialog text is changed to something with which you have no objection. You should perform such modifications before running the program for the first time, so that no evidence of a "pre-existing agreement" can be brought forth.

This is, of course, a dangerous practice, as any modification of the program may cause it to fail. If you're fortunate, such failure will be obvious. If not, the failure could be subtle and hard to detect. Further, depending on how hard the vendor has dug in their heels on this issue, the executable may be protected from modification by techniques similar to those that used to be employed for copy protection (a practice which, thankfully, is in diminishing use).

If you do manage to successfully modify the program, understand that you no longer have a copy of the software shipped by the vendor, but something different. In this light you can't, in fairness, expect them to continue to provide support (kind of like voiding the warranty on your TV).

Of all the available options, this one is by far the most troublesome and complicated. It does have the potential, however, of yielding the best results.

Before opening the envelope with the floppies, take the "agreement", get a pen, and draw a line through all the bits you don't like. Write your initials next to any and all changes you make. DO NOT strike out the phrase that reads, "By using the software, you indicate that you have read, understand, and agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement." If there's a clause forbidding changes unless signed by an authorized company representative, strike it out and initial it.

This process of striking out words and phrases and initialling them is in fact the actual, legally-approved method of making amendments to a contract (for such changes to be binding, the other party would be expected to also initial your amendments to indicate agreement, or offer a counter-proposal. This is all part of the negotiating process).

Now, take the modified agreement to a notary public and have it notarized. Have the notary also sign a testament to the effect that they witnessed the envelope containing the disks to be sealed when the amended agreement was notarized.

Then, open the disks.

By opening the disks, you have (in theory, mind) put the amended agreement in force between you and the vendor. This is predicated on the supposition that, if the vendor has the ability to unilaterally impose terms and conditions on your purchase after the fact, you therefore enjoy that same privilege.

Realistically, no such amended agreement would ever be tested in a court. However, if it were, the likely outcomes would be:

• The agreement was invalid in the first place. Because of the lack of negotiation, poor wording, gross imbalance of obligations, or other reasons, the court may choose to find that shrinkwrap agreements are not enforceable. Your software would therefore revert to the implied terms governing retail purchases of copyrighted works, and become your property.
• The agreement, having been amended, is invalid. Since there was no explicit negotiation between the two parties, the amended agreement is not enforceable. However, because you went to so much trouble to indicate you had problems with the agreement, the court would therefore be unlikely to let the original, unmodified agreement stand. Thus, the software would again revert to the implied retail purchase terms, and become your property; or the court would order the parties to enter a proper negotiation process.
• The modified agreement is valid. It is highly unlikely that a court would presume that a unilaterally imposed, un-negotiated ex-post-facto contract were valid and binding. However, if it were, the court would be unlikely to allow such a legal tool to be applied in an uneven way and would be forced, in the interests of judicial balance, to view a unilateral modification of such a contract to be equally valid.

I don't think it likely that the original, unmodified agreement would be upheld for the simple reason that such a decision would carry incalculably staggering implications. Yes, dumber things have happened in this country, but courts are, on the whole, very conservative. The more case law they have to work with, the more conservative they are with decisions. The idea that a court would, in a single decision, cast aside centuries of contract case law seems so completely improbable that I don't regard it as a realistic outcome.

As for the other possible outcomes, the most likely appears to be an order to enter a formal negotiation process. This isn't as bad as it may first seem. Such a decision would indicate that, if any user is unhappy with a "license," they can demand to negotiate and, by virtue of the court's decision, the vendor would be required to oblige them all. Not even Microsoft could withstand the financial drain resulting from hundreds of thousands of users demanding to negotiate individually. The economic reality of such an environment would likely force the vendor to drop the "agreement" entirely.

This is the least pleasant option, but voting with your dollars has helped stimulate a vast amount of change through history.

Return the software to the place you purchased it. Inform them why you're doing so. If enough people were to inconvenience enough retailers by doing this, the message would be loudly and clearly delivered to the vendors.

I have no doubt that some well-educated lawyer will accost me or this publication and explain at length in impenetrable detail why shrinkwrap "licenses" are valid, why they're enforceable, and why they're necessary.

This is not what this article is about. I am not, nor do I profess to be, a lawyer. I'm a software engineer. (Which profession is the more steeped in obscure arcana is left as an exercise for the reader.) This is about what's fair. This is about the kind of world in which I want to live.

I've been using and programming computers for 18 years, and have come to admire and respect many of the people who participate in the industry. Among many of my colleagues is an implicit understanding that what we do is supposed to benefit everyone, not just ourselves. Yes, it's nice that we make money doing this work, but we do our work with an eye toward how it can enrich the lives of everyone around us, either by entertaining them, educating them, or making their lives easier. We don't always agree on how this may best be accomplished, which is why we all work for different organizations. Nevertheless, to these ends, we give our best work, our best energy, for if we're fortunate, our work will survive us, and it had better be a damn good testament to who we were, and encourage others to follow the same path we chose.

Our path is one of openness, of sharing, of encouraging others to learn what we've learned so they can go forth and do amazing things, showing us new ideas and concepts we never thought of before, and that we can, in turn, return the favor; we help each other climb the tree, rather than step on one another.

On this path, in this world, there is little place for license agreements, and certainly no place for inequitable, un-negotiated, after-the-fact agreements. They do not help us move forward; they keep us where we are. They do not encourage us to learn; they smite us if we try. They do not give us leave to explore freely our knowledge and imagination; they indenture them. They abscond with our fortunes and our freedoms, and leave us only with a piece of buggy software.

Sorry. I won't buy into that. It's not the world I want to live in, and definitely not one I'm going to help build. Unfortunately, the legal profession, in conjunction with the courts, have given themselves leave to dictate our behaviors to us, and they are taking this stuff seriously.

This is why, through this article, I'm calling this to the attention of the community. It's an old issue, to be sure. Most people I know have handled the issue the same way I have; by ignoring it. But the lawyers I know take these things, as with all legal documents, quite seriously (they have to; it's their job), and without any counter-example or evidence of opposition, they will presume a document to be valid.

This, if for no other reason, should be cause to openly discuss and settle this issue once and for all. Ignoring it any longer can only damage our position and the future we hope to inhabit.

[Feedback] [Previous Page]

Copyright © 1996 Leo L. Schwab. All Rights Reserved.

Today, the DVD Copy Control Association and the EFF once again met in court, this time to argue for and against the ordering of a Preliminary Injunction against, basically, the entire Internet, forbidding further dissemination of DeCSS, the source code module that decrypts DVD MPEG streams. After today's hearing, there should be no doubt in anyone's mind that shrinkwrap license "agreements" are monsterously unethical and should on no account be allowed to stand.

It is worth noting up front that I am an adamant, vociferous opponent of these so-called "agreements", so I hope the reader will excuse some editorial bias. (Individuals interested in my editorial on the subject can find it here.) Also, events in court did not occur strictly in the order I will present; I will be grouping together related concepts to make them easier to compare.

Court began promptly at 13:30, and counsel for plaintiff and defendant introduced themselves (the names went by too quickly for me to get most of them). Judge Elfving indicated that he would not render his decision today, but would rather consider the arguments and filings before him and render a decision at a future time. He was unwilling to commit to a specific date, but indicated that it would not be overlong. Judge Elfving then invited plaintiff's counsel to present their argument.

Jeffrey Kessler began his argument with the following question: Can a user extract trade secrets in violation of a shrinkwrap agreement? A lot of other arguments were presented, but it seemed to me that the DVD CCA's entire case proceeds from this single precept.

In order to prevail in a trade secret violation, the plaintiff must show:

• That a trade secret exists. Trade secrets must posess information, must derive value from their secrecy, and that the secret's owner must employ reasonable measures to protect that secret.
• The secret was misappropriated. CCA argues that "improper means" were employed to create DeCSS.

CCA's contention is that the reverse engineering employed to discover the CSS algorithm was prohibited by Xing's shrinkwrap license "agreement". (Kessler reiterated this point with some force throughout the proceeding.) Since the reverse engineering violated this contract provision, the algorithm discovered within was improperly obtained due to breach of contract, and is therefore a trade secret violation. DVD CCA therefore argues that they are entitled to a Preliminary Injuction forbidding further dissemination.

Kessler went to a lot of trouble establishing that the original source of DeCSS was Xing's player. An expert's affadivit asserts that the original DeCSS release contained only Xing's key, suggesting that it was the Xing player that had been reverse engineered. Presumably, by establishing Xing to be the original source, they can invoke Xing's "license" that prohibits inspection.

Kessler made the assertion that, even if the "clickwrap" license had somehow been avoided, it still applies and is in force, since the license stipulates that assent to the contract is made, not by clicking on "OK", but by installing and using the software.

Kessler also seemed to go to some lengths to attempt to establish when DeCSS made its first appearance, which appears to have been the binary-only release on 6 October, 1999 from the group M.O.R.E. (Masters Of Reverse Engineering). Subsequent to that, Stevenson's work (where he attacks the hash rather than the keys) appeared around 25 October, 1999. I presume he did this in an attempt to establish that any release subsequent to these dates "must" have come from the "improperly obtained" algorithms.

DVD CCA cited several court cases supporting their petition for a Preliminary Injuction, which were granted forbidding further dissemination of materials under dispute (notably, the Religious Technology Center (Scientology) vs. Netcom). Kessler further asserted that no court case has ever held reverse engineering to be proper.

Kessler also cited the recently effected Digital Millennium Copyright Act which, as a matter of "public policy", forbids reverse engineering. However, he went on to state that DVD CCA is not bringing suit under the DMCA; they are bringing suit under the Uniform Trade Secrets Act.

The plaintiffs also asserted that the "hacker community" clearly knew that DeCSS was obtained improperly, and proceeded to quote from postings in Slashdot discussion fora made back in July where random people opined that a DVD player for Linux might not be legal to develop. (There were no in-court mentions of Natalie Portman or hot grits.) Kessler asserts that this public discussion validates their claim that the defendants "should have known" DeCSS is illegal.

The plaintiff also stated that the fact people may have been trying to develop a DVD player for Linux is entirely beside the point. Moreover, he stated that DVD CCA was not discriminating against Linux, that they were more than willing to license CSS to any "credible party" who wanted to develop a DVD player.

Finally -- and I think this is fairly significant -- DVD CCA made the observation that, if this were a copyright case, there might be a provision for reverse engineering under the Fair Use doctrine. However, there is no such provision in Trade Secret law, and the reverse engineering is therefore improper.

Kessler then turned the floor over to Robert Sugarman, who proceeded to disparage the EFF's First Amendment arguments. He repudiated the assertion that the defendants were news sources, and that they should not be accorded the protections available to newspapers. He asserted that the defendants are doing much more than engaging in First Amendment-protected discussion on this issue.

He repudiated EFF's citation of the Bernstein case. Copyright was at issue in Bernstein; this is a Trade Secret issue.

He also likened the obtaining of the DeCSS algorithm to breaking into Coca Cola's inner sanctum and stealing a copy of their secret formula. (In fact, the analogy of Coke's secret formula figured prominently in the plaintiff's arguments.)

Then he dropped a small bomb and stated outright, in open court, that they seek to enjoin not only hosting of the DeCSS code, but links to the DeCSS code. He asserted that, because links provide "instant access" to the disputed material, they should be forbidden as well.

He attempted to discredit the Open Source (nee "Hacker") community's motives by bringing to the court's attention the DeCSS Distribution Contest, and Copyleft's new DeCSS t-shirts, painting it as juvenile and irresponsible.

For some reason, he also called attention to the recent cracking of PacBell's ISP accounts, and CDUniverse's credit card database. Presumably, he was trying to associate the criminal activities of these individuals with the activities of the defendants in the case, both of which "clearly" demand decisive action from the court.

Finally, Mr. Sugarman asserted that, if a Preliminary Injunction is not granted, the message it will send is:

• Theft of trade secrets is OK,
• IP law is no longer viable,
• It is "not safe" to publish in digital media.

These remarks by the plaintiff's counsel consumed about an hour and a half. Judge Elfving called a 15 minute recess, after which counsel for the defense began.

The first guy (whose name I did not catch) seemed to rely more on bombast and specious details than on concrete questions of ethics and law. Nevertheless, he did raise some interesting points.

The Scientology case was raised again, this time to point out that the Preliminary Injunction granted and affirmed in that case applied only to one person, not to the entire Internet. He went on to cite the cases of Sega vs. Accolade and Vault vs. Quaid, cases in which reverse engineering was upheld as permissible.

He asserted there was only one real defendant in this case, the one who allegedly did the "dirty deed": Mr. Johansen of Norway who originally developed and published DeCSS. If there is indeed a legitimate action that can be taken, it is solely against this individual.

He turned the plaintiff's Coca Cola analogy on its head by stating that one could buy a can of Coke, take it to a chemical analysis lab, figure out what it was made of, and publish the results. Such an act would be entirely proper under the Trade Secret Act under which DVD CCA is suing.

The defense also argued that trade secret law is a "relational tort," enabling an action of one party against another. It does not protect the secret itself.

He asked, "Where is Xing in this case?" If, as submitted, DVD CCA's license requires licensees to take reasonable measures to protect their trade secrets, then Xing has clearly failed in this obligation. Further, he asserted the DVD CCA does not provide code itself, but expects the individual licensees to develop compliant code. Therefore, any misappropriated technology belongs to Xing, not to DVD CCA.

Finally, he made a highly dubious assertion that there was no evidence submitted to establish that DVD CCA were the legitimately assigned licensors of CSS (which has been developed by Matsushita and Toshiba), and therefore were not empowered to bring this action. (This was readily debunked by the plaintiff during rebuttal.)

After he finished, Eben Moglen, Professor of Law from Columbia Law School took over. I don't think I overstate the issue when I say this guy absolutely kicked ass. Besides being a good orator, the man clearly understands technology as well as law. He's written a treatise on the issues of intellectual property in the digital age entitled Anarchism Triumphant: Free Software and the Death of Copyright.

Mr. Moglen basically proceeded to shred the plaintiff's arguments. He pointed out that DeCSS has nothing to do with wholesale copying; DVDs may be bit-for-bit duplicated and will play in any player without the use of DeCSS. He debunked the assertion of "irreparable harm" to the movie industry by doing some basic bandwidth math showing that downloading a 5.1 gigabyte movie will take you 30 hours (DSL speeds), and if you have a direct backbone connection, it'll take ten hours. Wholesale copying of movies in this manner is therefore not a realistic concern.

He raised the plaintiff's assertion that, while it may not be economically viable to copy movies today, these technologies will become cheaper and more available in the future. However, such theoretical future damages are not at issue; the court need only concern itself with what is happening now.

Mr. Moglen went on to describe CSS as extremely weak, and outlined Stevenson's novel attack against the cipher, which involves attacking the hash value to reconstruct the "title key" by which the MPEG stream may be decoded. In such a case, none of DVD CCA's keys are employed. The title key for any disc can be cracked on a Pentium-III in about 18 seconds. He drove home CSS's weakness by mentioning that Mr. Johansen of Norway is 15 years of age. Thus, the trade secret at issue must not have have been very secret, as it was literally child's play to discover it.

With all this, Moglen asserted that no cause of action remains because no trade secret remains. The "secret" in question was obtained by legitimate means, and Stevenson's subsequent work illustrates that none of DVD CCA's alleged secrets need be involved in decrypting a DVD. Had the DVD CCA acted more swiftly in restraining Mr. Johansen, they might have a cause for action. As it is, they've waited too long.

When he concluded, Moglen received light applause from the gallery as Judge Elfving asked for rebuttal from the plaintiffs.

Mr. Kessler assailed the work of Stevenson, saying that it proceeded from the improper DeCSS code by Johansen. Therefore, Stevenson's work, though novel, is "contaminated" by Johansen's alleged breach of the Xing "license", and the trade secret is still protected.

He argued against defense assertions that no license was in force, saying basically, "Yes, there was!" He attacked EFF's citation of the Sega case, stating that it was a copyright case, and that reverse engineering was held to be proper under Fair Use. This is a trade secret issue.

However, he went on to call attention to the DMCA again, stating that, as a matter of "public policy", reverse engineering is held to be improper. Then he flips again, and says they're not citing DMCA, only the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (which has no provisions for fair use).

Finally, the floor was turned over to Mr. Sugarman who (under pressure of time) characterized Professor Moglen's arguments as entertaining but irrelevant. All DVD CCA seeks, says Sugarman, is to take down the DeCSS code and all links to the DeCSS code. They are not seeking damages, nor are they seeking to quash discussion of the merits of the algorithm; only the trade secret itself.

Judge Elfving then thanked counsels, said there was a lot to think about, and would render his decision as soon as possible. Court was then adjourned at around 16:50.

My Analysis and Opinion:

We may readily concede that CSS was a trade secret, developed in secret, and made available under a comprehensive contract that obligated licensees to maintain the secrecy of the techniques used. It also seems fairly certain that the initial cracking of the CSS involved taking apart the Xing player and seeing how it worked. In order for this action to be a trade secret violation, Johansen's disassembly would have to be an improper use.

In order for it to have been improper, Johansen would have to be laboring under an obligation to maintain the secrecy of the Xing code and the CSS algorithm. The DVD CCA asserts that this obligation existed in the form of the shrinkwrap "agreement" which restricted, among other things, reverse engineering. So the DVD CCA's entire case hinges on whether shrinkwrap "licenses" are enforceable.

Let us put aside the fact that Johansen is Norwegian, where different laws and standards apply; and let us also put aside the fact that he is a minor, who likely can't be bound to contracts without parental consent (again, Norwegian law may differ on this point). Let us concentrate instead on this contract that, by the most tenuous forms of assent, may be considered in force and remove from the licensee a litany of valuable rights, including reverse engineering.

As I stated earlier, it is my adamant position that such documents are pure fiction; that they are not and should not be taken seriously. These instruments have little basis in law, and no basis whatsoever in simple ethics. They run counter to the real and reasonable expectations of consumers when they purchase software; that a sale has taken place, and they hold title to that particular copy of the software, subject to copyright restrictions. The "agreements" seek to alter the terms of the sale after the fact.

Further, these contracts attempt to escape vendors from the provisions of consumer protection laws, "lemon" laws, and remove from consumers their rights under Fair Use provisions of copyright law and, in some cases, the First Amendment (by forbidding discussion of benchmarks). And all one needs to do to assent to such onerous conditions is to, "install and use the software."

If A.H.Robins had attached such a license to its Dalkon Sheild, would it have been upheld? Would thousands of women around the country have found themselves unable to seek damages because they had "agreed" to hold A.H.Robins harmless? If Black&Decker attached such a license to its power saws saying you could only use Black&Decker saw blades, could it be enforced? We might concede they could cancel the warranty, but could they sue you for breach of contract, as DVD CCA has done over CSS?

Even if we were to presume such licenses are enforceable, how could they be said to apply to minors, who cannot be bound to contracts without parental consent? Must we then require that computer stores not sell software of any kind to anyone under age 18?

The idea is worse than ludicrous, it is offensive. No credible argument can be brought to bear that shrinkwrap licenses have any constructive use or benefit -- for consumers or publishers -- much less any foundation in ethics and basic human decency.

Some suggest that the "parade of horribles" that shrinkwraps enable has not happened, and is not likely to happen. I submit that a California corporation seeking a broad injunction, reaching beyond the borders of the state and even the country, to constrain domestic and foreign nationals from engaging in legitimate, ethical behavior to be a "horrible" that even the most paranoid among us could not have anticipated. There can be no further doubt that shrinkwrap licenses are a big, fat, ugly problem, and must not under any circumstances be allowed to stand.

Those who might suggest the GPL is weakened by such a position need not worry. While most commercial software "licenses" purport to constrain use, the GPL constrains copying. Absent a license of any kind, you still have the right to use your lawfully obtained software. You would not, however, have the right to make and distribute copies; the default conditions of copyright law apply. (This is true even if you're a minor.) Right to Use is concomitant with purchase; right to copy is not.

It is difficult to predict how the Judge will rule. Unlike the TRO hearing, the plaintiff was very well prepared. Both sides presented their arguments well. Judge Elfving stated that he wishes to be thorough, and will doubtless spend a good deal of effort considering the arguments. Still, both sides were articulate, and it will depend on who Judge Elfving chooses to believe, so the decision could go either way. Cross your fingers...

Schwab

Okay, I'm not the first one to point out that UCITA certainly won't hurt open source. It doesn't effect, and can't effect our model of transactions where nothing is hidden. I would even argue that a shrink-wrapped packaging of open source software that tried to limit the rights of the purchaser in any of the ways that UCITA would allow would not be open source. It would undermine the reputation in the open source community of the company selling it.

This brings me to my first point, which is best summarized by the word reputation, although it is broader than that. There is an interesting book that explores the value of reputation in ongoing relationships, Order Without Law by Robert C. Ellickson. The author explored the interaction of farmers and ranchers in Shasta County in situations involving both open and closed range laws. He discovered that the law made no difference. They lived by an iron-clad rule: neighbors don't sue neighbors. These were people who expected to have ongoing relationships with each other for years to follow. They settled their disputes by other means.

David Friedman also explores this in his upcoming book Law's Order: An Economic Account . He cites examples of communities that manage to achieve remarkable efficiencies through arbitration outside the courts and reputation. His commentary on the interaction of economics and law sheds a great deal of light on both subjects. For anyone interested in a thoroughly considered libertarian perspective on them that is not based on natural rights, I recommend his books. His web site has the complete contents of a couple of them along with selected chapters of others and many articles.

So what does this have to do with UCITA? Yes, it will be possible for companies to create draconian license agreements. But there are limits set on how bad these can get and which conditions they can enforce. Companies that have created de facto standards will have more control than small upstarts. With market share comes the power to marginalize small customers and market segments. But the contents of the license agreements will become widely known. And they are part of the purchase price. Software that I can't resell used costs me more than the same software that I can get $10 for in a couple of years when I'm done with it.

The little upstarts can undercut the market leaders even more effectively if they have the option of selling under a less restrictive license that doesn't hit them in the bottom line. They can sell at closer to the premium price and be more permissive in the use of their software. This already happens without the additional restrictions that UCITA makes possible.

As for open source software, we have the most open license conditions short of public domain. If you don't want to live with the restrictions of the licenses on commercial software, you turn to open source. If the commercial licenses get more restrictive, that will make them less appealing. One of the fundamental concepts of economics is that people enter into transactions voluntarily because they expect to gain from them. The bottom line is that both parties to the sale must expect to be better off because of it. That sets an upper limit on the price and other conditions that the seller can set. And it sets a lower limit that the buyer can expect.

Another fundamental concept of economics is that most of the interesting activity happens at the margin. Pretty much every value in the study of economics has a corresponding marginal value. It is essentially the slope of the curve for that value at the current point the economy is at. In the case of the relationship of supply and demand, I am talking about the marginal demand. It answers the question of how much the demand will rise or fall with a small change in the price. As I pointed out, the price isn't just the number that appears on your receipt. It is the aggregate of the value of all of the terms. How many customers an overly restrictive license will drive away depends on two things. The first is the customers' evaluation of the cost of the terms. The second is the customers' demand curve. The terms of the license are under the control of the supplier. Everything else is in the hands of the customers or the competition.

UCITA is not a good thing. In fact, it may set conditions that violate the traditional idea of the conditions required to establish a valid contract. That is a legal issue I can't answer. But as I have pointed out, I think it may lack the teeth that some suppliers want and most detractors fear.

Okay, I'm not the first one to point out that UCITA certainly won't hurt open source. It doesn't effect, and can't effect our model of transactions where nothing is hidden. I would even argue that a shrink-wrapped packaging of open source software that tried to limit the rights of the purchaser in any of the ways that UCITA would allow would not be open source. It would undermine the reputation in the open source community of the company selling it.

This brings me to my first point, which is best summarized by the word reputation, although it is broader than that. There is an interesting book that explores the value of reputation in ongoing relationships, Order Without Law by Robert C. Ellickson. The author explored the interaction of farmers and ranchers in Shasta County in situations involving both open and closed range laws. He discovered that the law made no difference. They lived by an iron-clad rule: neighbors don't sue neighbors. These were people who expected to have ongoing relationships with each other for years to follow. They settled their disputes by other means.

David Friedman also explores this in his upcoming book Law's Order: An Economic Account . He cites examples of communities that manage to achieve remarkable efficiencies through arbitration outside the courts and reputation. His commentary on the interaction of economics and law sheds a great deal of light on both subjects. For anyone interested in a thoroughly considered libertarian perspective on them that is not based on natural rights, I recommend his books. His web site has the complete contents of a couple of them along with selected chapters of others and many articles.

So what does this have to do with UCITA? Yes, it will be possible for companies to create draconian license agreements. But there are limits set on how bad these can get and which conditions they can enforce. Companies that have created de facto standards will have more control than small upstarts. With market share comes the power to marginalize small customers and market segments. But the contents of the license agreements will become widely known. And they are part of the purchase price. Software that I can't resell used costs me more than the same software that I can get $10 for in a couple of years when I'm done with it.

The little upstarts can undercut the market leaders even more effectively if they have the option of selling under a less restrictive license that doesn't hit them in the bottom line. They can sell at closer to the premium price and be more permissive in the use of their software. This already happens without the additional restrictions that UCITA makes possible.

As for open source software, we have the most open license conditions short of public domain. If you don't want to live with the restrictions of the licenses on commercial software, you turn to open source. If the commercial licenses get more restrictive, that will make them less appealing. One of the fundamental concepts of economics is that people enter into transactions voluntarily because they expect to gain from them. The bottom line is that both parties to the sale must expect to be better off because of it. That sets an upper limit on the price and other conditions that the seller can set. And it sets a lower limit that the buyer can expect.

Another fundamental concept of economics is that most of the interesting activity happens at the margin. Pretty much every value in the study of economics has a corresponding marginal value. It is essentially the slope of the curve for that value at the current point the economy is at. In the case of the relationship of supply and demand, I am talking about the marginal demand. It answers the question of how much the demand will rise or fall with a small change in the price. As I pointed out, the price isn't just the number that appears on your receipt. It is the aggregate of the value of all of the terms. How many customers an overly restrictive license will drive away depends on two things. The first is the customers' evaluation of the cost of the terms. The second is the customers' demand curve. The terms of the license are under the control of the supplier. Everything else is in the hands of the customers or the competition.

UCITA is not a good thing. In fact, it may set conditions that violate the traditional idea of the conditions required to establish a valid contract. That is a legal issue I can't answer. But as I have pointed out, I think it may lack the teeth that some suppliers want and most detractors fear.

Okay, I'm not the first one to point out that UCITA certainly won't hurt open source. It doesn't effect, and can't effect our model of transactions where nothing is hidden. I would even argue that a shrink-wrapped packaging of open source software that tried to limit the rights of the purchaser in any of the ways that UCITA would allow would not be open source. It would undermine the reputation in the open source community of the company selling it.

This brings me to my first point, which is best summarized by the word reputation, although it is broader than that. There is an interesting book that explores the value of reputation in ongoing relationships, Order Without Law by Robert C. Ellickson. The author explored the interaction of farmers and ranchers in Shasta County in situations involving both open and closed range laws. He discovered that the law made no difference. They lived by an iron-clad rule: neighbors don't sue neighbors. These were people who expected to have ongoing relationships with each other for years to follow. They settled their disputes by other means.

David Friedman also explores this in his upcoming book Law's Order: An Economic Account . He cites examples of communities that manage to achieve remarkable efficiencies through arbitration outside the courts and reputation. His commentary on the interaction of economics and law sheds a great deal of light on both subjects. For anyone interested in a thoroughly considered libertarian perspective on them that is not based on natural rights, I recommend his books. His web site has the complete contents of a couple of them along with selected chapters of others and many articles.

So what does this have to do with UCITA? Yes, it will be possible for companies to create draconian license agreements. But there are limits set on how bad these can get and which conditions they can enforce. Companies that have created de facto standards will have more control than small upstarts. With market share comes the power to marginalize small customers and market segments. But the contents of the license agreements will become widely known. And they are part of the purchase price. Software that I can't resell used costs me more than the same software that I can get $10 for in a couple of years when I'm done with it.

The little upstarts can undercut the market leaders even more effectively if they have the option of selling under a less restrictive license that doesn't hit them in the bottom line. They can sell at closer to the premium price and be more permissive in the use of their software. This already happens without the additional restrictions that UCITA makes possible.

As for open source software, we have the most open license conditions short of public domain. If you don't want to live with the restrictions of the licenses on commercial software, you turn to open source. If the commercial licenses get more restrictive, that will make them less appealing. One of the fundamental concepts of economics is that people enter into transactions voluntarily because they expect to gain from them. The bottom line is that both parties to the sale must expect to be better off because of it. That sets an upper limit on the price and other conditions that the seller can set. And it sets a lower limit that the buyer can expect.

Another fundamental concept of economics is that most of the interesting activity happens at the margin. Pretty much every value in the study of economics has a corresponding marginal value. It is essentially the slope of the curve for that value at the current point the economy is at. In the case of the relationship of supply and demand, I am talking about the marginal demand. It answers the question of how much the demand will rise or fall with a small change in the price. As I pointed out, the price isn't just the number that appears on your receipt. It is the aggregate of the value of all of the terms. How many customers an overly restrictive license will drive away depends on two things. The first is the customers' evaluation of the cost of the terms. The second is the customers' demand curve. The terms of the license are under the control of the supplier. Everything else is in the hands of the customers or the competition.

UCITA is not a good thing. In fact, it may set conditions that violate the traditional idea of the conditions required to establish a valid contract. That is a legal issue I can't answer. But as I have pointed out, I think it may lack the teeth that some suppliers want and most detractors fear.

This is a copy of a Slashdot post I wrote elaborating on why I've chosen not to purchase Quake 3 due to their copy protection measures. The original post appears in the archived topic, Quake 1 GPL'd.

_____________________________________

I'm probably going to lose people because of the length of this post, but I'm going to try anyway, because this issue is very important to me. There are a lot of points in a lot of different messages, which I've collected and replied to in this single post. Throughout, I will use admittedly charged terms like 'foolish', 'silly', and 'childish'. I will justify the use of these terms in due course, so hang in there.

cliffski writes:
i must fundamentally disagree on the topic of id softwares right to use copy protection. [ ... ]

I am not disputing id's right to do anything. As creator of Quake, they have the absolute right to do anything they wish with it, including not release it at all. They don't owe us -- and we are not "entitled" to -- a single thing.

No. What I'm objecting to is the foolishness of adding copy protection at all. Digital media is a universe of infinite abundance, so how do you justify hoarding anything? Don't answer yet; I'll come back to this issue later...

nothing is [guaranteed] in the games world, especially when someone releases Unreal Tournament just before you!

It will be very interesting to compare sales figures of Unreal Tournament versus Quake 3 in about six months. UT simply has check-for-the-CD copy protection (which is still silly, but much less silly than cryptographic authentication).

if you belive that id have the right to benefit from their work, then they MUST have the right to enforce that protection.

Again, I'm not disputing their right to impose protection; I'm arguing that copy protection is socially unredeeming, and could lead to bigger problems down the road.

Copying games is theft, [ ... ]

No, it isn't. Theft is when you deprive somebody of their property, such that you now have it, and they don't. Copying creates a new instance; the original owner still has his/her original object. I covered this in my essay.

MrEd writes:
But it's not foolish to try and set up artifical barriers against software copying.

I contend that it is, precisely because it's artificial. Again, I'll justify this futher in a bit...

If they want to reap the rewards of all the hard work which they've put into it, they must prevent Quake III from suffering the same fate as Quake II, [ ... ]

The fate of Quake 2? Quake 2 sold millions of legitimate copies, and id Software made tens of millions of well-deserved dollars, even in light of the fact there were enormous numbers of unsanctioned copies. Seems to me they would want to repeat the fate of Quake 2.

jamesbulman writes:
The fact that the digital media makes it easy to copy things does not give you the right to copy those things.

Possibly not. But in a universe where there's infinite abundance, how can you justify, in social terms, demanding people not make copies?

Anonymous Coward writes:
First: Are you sure it's *one* server? Second: If the auth servers go down, they will be back up immediately.

id are certainly competent enough to keep their servers running. But if some nincompoop with a backhoe slices the fiber to their building, then you're hosed, and we're back to a single point of failure again.

I am afraid you represent the foolishness here. [Server-side authentication] has been done already, with huge success.

Just because a thing is technically possible or available doesn't make it a good idea. There are societal consequences here which most people haven't thought about.

"software piracy [sic] has become an enormous problem," without any hard data to back it up.

Is there any doubt about this fact?

Yes. Big fat doubts with green hair growing on them.

Fact: Software publishers continually lament "losing" billions of dollars a year to unsanctioned copying. They routinely refer to these unrealized revenues inaccurately as 'theft'. Yet these 'thefts' are never reported to their shareholders. Fiduciary duty requires thefts, especially of the magnitudes claimed, to be reported to shareholders in the company's financial statements. Since the "losses" from unsanctioned copying are never so reported, we may conclude that true 'theft' is not occurring.

Fact: Despite "losing" billions of dollars a year to unsanctioned copying, software companies, on balance, continue to post rising profits. Micros~1, which portrays itself as the industry's biggest victim of unsanctioned copying, has posted record earnings quarter after quarter for years. Thus, these "losses" are not really occurring.

Fact: No software company has ever been driven out of business due to unsanctioned copying of its products. Such business failures are due to poor quality products, poor management, or lack of business acumen.

Fact: Quoted figures on industry "losses" to unsanctioned copying are completely theoretical, based on idealized extrapolations of what-if scenarios. It is impossible to gauge the precise amount of unrealized sales because it requires measuring events (sales) that didn't happen. You'd have to fork() a copy of the universe where unsanctioned copying was impossible, and compare the results against the real universe. We must not take the SPA's numbers seriously; not only are their numbers, ultimately, made up, they refuse to even disclose how they made them up.

So, yes, the idea that "piracy" is a big problem is still very much open to debate.

Again you speak as if id were into charity.

Nowhere did I suggest id is into charity. Nowhere did I suggest that id should not be compensated handsomely for their work.

What I am suggesting is that, due to the infinite copyability of digital bits, the economic and social rules are different, and that copy protection is an attempt to force an old ruleset that, in the long term, cannot work. (Hang on, we're nearly there...)

The only ones who hate CD keys are warez puppies [ ... ]

...And people who want to keep the digital universe free and unfettered, so that its infinite abundance may be enjoyed by all.

As for being a w4r3z pUPpY, please be assured that, once Quake 3's copy protection is removed, I will be off to Fry's with my wallet so fast, you'll see a red shift on my butt.

Okay. Remember how I said I would try to justify all my weird claims up there? Here it comes:

I'd like you to indulge me for a moment, and use your imagination to picture what life might be like on the Starship Enterprise. More precisely, what would life be like where everyone had access to a matter replicator? What would society be like? What would the economy be like?

Let's take the economic consequences first. What happens to a market-based economy when you start handing out replicators? It collapses, that's what. A market-based economy relies on scarcity and inconvenience to operate. If you introduce a replicator, scarcity and inconvenience vanish, and suddenly you can't charge money for physical objects anymore, since your intended market is now simply copying them. Just ask your friend Brad to borrow his BMW for five minutes, stick it in the replicator, *ZAP*, and you get to have a BMW, too.

Okay, so what are the social consequences of this? Do we decide that copying objects is 'theft', or even unethical? Well, really, how can you make either claim? It isn't theft, because no one is deprived of anything. I also have a hard time seeing how it's unethical. If I copy your stuff, you are not diminished or deprived in any way; you still have all your stuff. It's just that now I have a copy of it, too. Why would that be a bad thing?

You may argue that such copying dilutes the value of your property. But if, on the Starship Enterprise, everyone has access to a replicator, then everyone's in the same boat (so to speak). Everything is copyable, and everyone has copies. Thus, the 'value' of your copy is not its relative scarcity (since scarcity doesn't exist), but how it enriches the quality of your life. You would select what to copy based not on what you could afford, but its utility, design, and its aesthetic qualities.

Let's say you were an artist in this future world, and you had just spent the last two years building a sculpture. Everyone you show it to thinks it's wonderful. Now, as the creator and owner of this sculpture, you have the right to demand that no one copy it. You may even be able to enforce this desire with force fields of some kind. But why would you do this? Why, with infinite abundance all around you, freely available to everyone, would you want to keep this fine creation to yourself? More importantly, how would the society around you view this behavior? Might they just possibly see it as foolish?

If a Star Trek universe is too abstract for you, let me offer a more familiar scenario: A schoolyard. There are plenty of balls for all the children to play with, all of them identical. Yet, invariably, some children will latch on to a particular ball and yell, "My ball!!" If someone tries to take it away from them, they will get upset. There they are, standing in the middle of an abundance of balls, all of which are free for them to grab, yet they will insist on a particular one being "theirs." We try to discourage this behavior in our children, because it's foolish.

The reason I bring these analogies into play is because the exact same forces are at work in the memories of our computers. Just as the crew of the Enterprise stand in the midst of infinite material riches, we stand in the midst of infinite digital riches. Therefore, the same economic and social consequences apply to digital works. Yes, you have the right to impose copy protection, and the technical means, but if, economically, it doesn't matter, and it makes you look socially foolish, why would you do it?

You're probably thinking I'm being disingenuous here. I'm not. I fully acknowledge that, as of this writing, the digital universe is a completely different thing from the physical universe. In the physical universe where we all live, we use the tool of the market-based economy to motivate people and get our basic needs met. Yet the digital universe heralds an age where this will no longer be true. The two universes are existing simultaneously side by side; how do we reconcile the two?

I haven't the faintest damned idea. We are still reacting to and building social models for this new universe. And this is why I feel that copy-protection is so wrong-headed. It's an expediency that potentially short-changes our replicator-laden future by causing the wrong social models to be built. The physical universe makes it a very compelling expediency, true, but it could have staggering consequences when the physical universe finally catches up and replicators appear (and they will appear; they're too cool not to).

So, if we were to acknowledge that copying is going to happen and that it's okay, how would we motivate people to create things in the first place, and compensate them for their work? This is the area that needs exploration, and I encourage everyone to think about it.

To be honest, I have no idea how our society would react to replicators. It may turn out that, as primates, we are biologically compelled to be territorial about things, even when it doesn't matter. We may decide that wholesale copying of physical objects is wrong. I don't know; I'm not an anthropologist. Since we have no idea what's going to happen, I personally would prefer to work toward and build the future toward which we as a species seem to have been striving for centuries: Unrestricted, infinite abundance for everyone at zero cost.

And that's why I can't support Quake 3's copy protection. It's not because Quake 3 is a poor product (it's excellent), or because id Software are evil (they're not), or even because it's too expensive. It's because copy protection is not part of the future I want to build.

Schwab

Mr. Kamer's article offers an excellent argument, complete with citations to various findings of law to back it up. I had no such background when I wrote my editorial, By Reading This Article, You Agree to Subscribe to This Magazine for 25 Years . If you're interested in a philosophical (as opposed to legal) background into why shrinkwrap "licenses" are ethically indefensible and should never be taken seriously, I hope you might do me the privilege of reading it.

Schwab

I wrote this essay almost five years ago. Some of you may enjoy it.

Personally, I wish the puppeteers would stop coming forward, making the corpse flop around a bit and proclaiming, "Look! It lives!"

I'm really tired of these charlatans playing off (what's left of) the loyalty of the Amiga crowd. If you're going to do something with it, do something with it, and stop jerking people around.

Schwab

I think the most complete story about this probe lost due to a computer bug can be found in the alt.folklore.computers FAQ.

I wrote an editorial on this subject entitled, By Reading This Article, You Agree to Subscribe to This Magazine for 25 Years , detailing why shrinkwrap "agreements" are legally and ethically indefensible. No one should take such documents seriously.

Schwab

Hollywood made their intentions clear today: Your computer no longer belongs to you, but to the corporations that provide "content" for it.

Today, in Santa Clara County Superior Court, Judge William J. Elfving presided at a preliminary hearing in the case of the DVD Copyright Control Association versus... well, everyone. The judge heard arguments to determine if a Temporary Restraining Order should be imposed on the entire Internet forbidding the dissemination of the now-famous DeCSS decryption code.

I woke up this morning at 06:10, an abhorrent waking hour for a software geek. I then proceeded to do something which, if you know me at all, is completely out of character: I put on dress slacks, shirt, and a tie. I hadn't tied a tie in several years, so it took a couple of tries before I got it right. The drive to the courthouse in San Jose was amazingly uneventful. Highway 101 southbound during rush hour is ususally a complete mess.

I was one of the first to arrive at the courthouse. After having my bag X-rayed and depositing my set of screwdrivers with them, I found myself joining a growing group of people waiting for the court offices to open so that we could find out to which courtroom the case had been assigned. Some of the people present were well-known names to most Slashdotters, including Bruce Perens and John Gilmore. I imagine we were a bit of a conundrum for the law enforcement officers present, no doubt used to parades of well-dressed lawyers who, unlike us, know exactly what to do and where to go.

At 08:15, the offices opened, and counsel for the plaintiffs filed their complaint, which was assigned a case number. We then made our way to courtroom two on the second floor, awaiting the doors to open. By the time the doors opened, we numbered about thirty people. Plaintiff's counsel pretty much kept to themselves, while we made a slight racket talking to each other. One individual (don't know who) started passing out copies of the DeCSS code, both in printed form and on repurposed Microsoft Office setup floppies. One such set was handed jovially to plaintiff's counsel.

Interviews were also being conducted by, among others, a reporter from WiReD Magazine, and Tracy Romine for KCBS radio.

Eventually, the doors opened, and we all became quiet as church mice and filed into the courtroom. Once counsels for both sides were ready, Judge Elfving was announced and entered, and court was in session.

Appearing for the plaintiffs were three lawyers from the law firm representing the DVD CCA. Appearing for the defense were two lawyers from the EFF. Of the fifteen or so named defendants and the 500 John Does named in the DVD CCA's complaint, only one appeared in court, summons in hand, whom the EFF were representing.

The hearing was to hear the filing of the complaint, and to consider imposing a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) which would forbid everyone named in the complaint (basically the entire Internet) from further distributing the DeCSS code. If imposed, this order would be effective until the date of the next hearing, at which will be considered imposing a much longer-lasting Preliminary Injunction.

The first order of business was to set the date for the next hearing, and the dates for the filing of notices, papers and arguments prior to that hearing. The next hearing to consider the Preliminary Injunction will be at 13:30, 14 January, 2000.

Finally, we got to oral arguments for and against imposing a TRO. At this point my report gets hazy, as I didn't start banging out notes until after the recess. Basically, plaintiff's counsel repeated the main thrust of the complaint arguing that, if left unchecked, irreparable, serious harm would befall the DVD CCA, numerous Silicon Valley firms, the movie industry and, presumably, the American way of life. Counsel also produced the copy of the DeCSS code which he'd been handed earlier, and asked that it be admitted into evidence, and requested that its contents be sealed. This request drew polite laughter from the gallery. The Judge nevertheless agreed to the request, in the interests of not prejudicing the case, and admitted the exhibits and sealed them.

EFF counsel then began, and proceeded to characterize this case as hinging on freedom of speech. They drew upon numerous citations, including a recent decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which found that code is speech. Defense made note of the fact that, in free speech cases, prior restraint of speech is presumptively invalid unless extraordinary circumstances are present.

The EFF also noted that the true original source of the DeCSS code is not known, therefore characterizations about its origins are speculative. Plaintiffs assert that it was obtained illegally; defense asserts there's no evidence or inference to that effect.

The EFF then went on to debunk the plaintiff's claim of irreparable, serious harm. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that sales of DVD discs, DVD players, and DVD encryption licenses have suffered due to the release of DeCSS. Defense made the revealing statement that DVD discs may be copied without the use of DeCSS.

Defense also drew notice to a similar case in Chicago concerning door locks being reverse-engineered by locksmiths; the lock manufacturer attempted to sue for theft of trade secrets, and lost.

Plaintiff's counsel then rebutted the EFF's arguments, claiming that this case had nothing whatever to do with free speech; that in no way were the plaintiffs seeking to quash discussion about this case. They asserted that this was a clear-cut case concerning misappropriation of trade secrets, and that all they claimed they were interested in was halting further dissemination of their trade secrets. They asserted that all parties "know, or should have known," that the DeCSS code was obtained illegally.

DVD CCA's arguments seem to hinge rather pivotally on the license "agreement" that accompanys the Xing player. CCA states that, in order to be able to use the software, you must become a party to an "agreement" that, among other things, forbids reverse-engineering. If the "agreement" is binding, then the Xing keys were extracted in violation of it, and thus the DeCSS code is illegal. (I wrote a long editorial on the subject of shrinkwrap "agreements", and why they are ethically and legally indefensible. It may be found here.)

The plaintiff then went on to assert that, if a TRO was not granted, a campaign would ensue on the Internet to spread the DeCSS code as far and wide as possible, until it finally reached the hands of an "innocent person" who could not reasonably be shown that they "should have known" the code was illegal, at which point CCA's trade secrets would be lost forever.

The EFF took the floor again, and cited the recent cryptography case in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where it was found that computer code is speech, and thus protectible under First Amendment auspices. They reasserted that there was absolutely no evidence to suggest that the disputed material was obtained improperly.

EFF also made the point that the Xing player may be inspected and analyzed without ever seeing the "license" that purports to govern its use. CCA tried to claim, "Hacking around the license is itself improper," but the EFF lawyer corrected him, saying, "I did not suggest hacking was employed."

Finally, Judge Elfving retired to his chambers to consider the arguments, and court was adjourned.

Our group filed out of the courtroom, and eventually ended up in the courtyard outside. There were some members of the press conducting additional interviews, including Tracy Romine of KCBS radio, who interviewed Bruce Perens, John Gilmore, and also snagged a soundbite from me.

Most of the group then wandered off to have lunch at a Cuban restaurant selected by Chris DiBona, which I couldn't find, so I settled for the nearest Hobee's for a very late breakfast. Afterwards, I headed back to the courthouse, made another trip through the metal detector (they didn't take my screwdrivers this time), and went upstairs to courtroom #2 to see if there were any new developments. No one knew if the judge had rendered his decision yet, so I sat down in the hall and started to write this report.

As I did so, at around 14:30, Judge Elfving walked past. I asked if he had rendered a decision on the TRO yet. He said he was still studying the issues and would have a decision by the end of the afternoon.

Sometime later, Dan "Karma Whore" Kaminsky ( :-) ) walked up, and we got to chatting about the case, the Internet, the nature of digital media and its social and economic implications, the legitimacy of shrinkwrap "licenses", and so on. Around 16:30, we were joined by a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News, and asked us about what had brought us there.

Dan focused on his desire to play DVDs on his Linux box, asking the question, "Why shouldn't I be able to do that? More important, why should a movie studio have the power to tell me I can't do that?"

I preferred to focus on preserving the freedom to explore. "I taught myself about computers by taking apart other people's stuff, understanding how it works, and using that knowledge to build new stuff. I have a good job today because I had the freedom to make those explorations and gain the knowledge and skills I now have. They're trying to tell me that's illegal. I don't buy it."

The reporter also asked what possible reason, other than copying, could there be for DeCSS to exist? I tried (probably unsuccessfully) to draw a parallel to that neato display hack, Cthugha. Since the images generated by Cthugha are the direct result of the copyrighted digital data coming off the CD, are the generated images therefore covered by the same copyright? Since the publishers of the CD didn't explicitly grant the right to use their CD in this particular way, does that make it illegal, or even unethical, to do so?

While we were discussing this, around 16:30, one of the court employees emerged from the judge's chambers and informed us that the request for the Temporary Restraining Order had been denied. We got a brief look at the document issued from the judge. No reason was given for the denial; it was simply the proposed order written by the plaintiffs, with the TRO sections crossed out, effectively turning it into a notice as to when the next hearing would occur. Judge Elfving was unavailable for comment.

And thus ended an unusually long and interesting day. The San Jose Mercury reporter left, and Dan and I parted ways. I headed home and finished this report. Traffic on Highway 101 was, once again, astonishingly good for five PM.

The next hearing is at 13:30, 14 January, 2000. It's a Friday afternoon. I expect the session to be packed.

Schwab

It is still early enough in the race to consider a meta-view of what this is all about. I suggest the chapter T he Political Marketplace from David Friedman's book Price Theory: An Intermediate Text. I think the average Slashdot reader can handle the math. Friedman gives a lengthy discussion of the undesirability of tariffs. If that doesn't interest you, or you don't like all that math, skip to the section labelled, PUBLIC CHOICE: ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF THE POLITICAL MARKET about halfway through.