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ESR on the DVD Control Association
Johan Jonasson writes "Eric S. Raymond takes a look at how the DVD Control Association is trying to obscure the real issues in the whole DeCSS affair. " The next hearing is Jan. 14 - for those who haven't followed the case, check out the story. Thanks to Rik van Riel for pointing out the OpenDVD site. It's a community site designed to explain to people what's going on with the case and another perspective on the DVD industry in relation to consumer rights.
Silly, maybe. Overrated, perhaps. But Offtopic, no. You moderators are really fucked up lately.
allow him to substitute a fantasy, however, which enables him to imagine that he and his tribe are somehow responsible for something which they actually had nothing to do with. Oh Well, as always, the simple minded buy his version while the rest of us will continue to ignore his simple mind. Facts? Who needs facts? ESR has his imagination.
What exactly have statistics about gun control got to do with DVD-ROMs? BTW, the number of gun deaths in the U.K. last year - 411 (til 26th Dec anyway) - 14,322 for the U.S.A. - Can you spot the difference? - I wonder why there is a difference ;-) Anyway I never stop laughing when I read all the American Websites about Jogging / Runnning and the advice about how to avoid muggers etc. etc. All i know is you don't know what you are missing over here in the U.K.
- the vehemence with which they argue this point can be taken as a direct indication of the fact.
it should be out in front so don't moderate down all the interesting / though provoking posts. The very attempt to make slashdot mainstream will be its undoing!
...DeCSS and everyone involved with it (no matter how slight) is going to get fscked in a very big way by the American "justice" Corporation.
mark my words
This region locking misfeature really needs to get hammered on. For a short time more, most DVD equipment buyers will still be "early-adopters" who are technologically aware. These people (1) won't have any trouble understanding what region locking is, and (2) will be in a position to give the manufacturers and dealers a lot of static about it ("Whaddaya mean, I can't play every DVD on this? What kind of junk are you peddling, anyway?").
Just as the broken hardware and consumer-unfriendly concept killed DIVX, resistance to region-locking can still put a significant crimp in equipment sales. But as more of the "average Joes" who get their movies from Blockbuster move into the DVD market, the percentage of the market that cares about region locking will drop, and thus the complaints of the technoligically aware will carry less weight.
A more compassionate approach might be to suggest that Eric have someone who's in the think of whatever topic he's preaching on crosscheck his prospective articles for accuracy.
It's pretty standard practice around here to have sigs that don't relate to the current topic. I'll bet you don't complain about the ones you don't disagree with. And his sig doesn't say anything about gun "rights", it just points out some statistics, from which you can draw your own conclusions. The statistical evidence that people are safer with guns is piling up, and even the folks at Handgun Control Inc. have admitted it (when pressed). Scientific Fact != Politics.
and it's my impression that he speaks his mind, without concern for "political appropriateness." I don't agree with everything he says, but I find it refreshing that there's seldom a question of where he stands. Certainly it's a welcome contrast to the politically-correct mush we get from most public figures today.
Admittedly it may be uncomfortable to find yourself agreeing with him on one issue and violently disagreeing on another (after all, if he's smart enought to be enlightened about DVD, how can he be so stupid about guns?). So just ignore the sig. Or maybe we should ban sigs, too? :-)
One should not take jokes seriously... 4 out of 5 doctors say taking jokes seriously is hazardous to your health. Be mindful of jokes.
We need this kind of spokesmanship like we need another Richard Stallman.
I would have to agree. What is with the recent moderating trend?
Perhaps this should be submitted as an "Ask Slashdot"....
My God! What a monster you are! No wonder you have a default score of 0: you post crap. May the moderators zap your current posting into the negative zone where it belongs. What a vicious, spiteful soul you have. I hope you find healing.
"I have no doubt that the DVD association is trying to prevent piracy, not trying to sell more players, as ESR's conspiracy theory suggests."
If you believe they are trying to prevent piracy then you are worthy of your ignorance. While piracy might be an issue what does DeCSS have to do with it?
There is an abundance of utilities that allow you to make a VCD/mpeg etc from DVD's. HELL EVEN DOWNLOAD.COM HAS ON THEIR WEB PAGE
"DVD SPEED RIPPER"
for download. Why didn't they sue download.com as well? After all ripping IS copying THUS assisting piracy according to your rational. I suggest you read up a litle bit on the issue before opening your mouth.
What deCSS does is to ALLOW dvd "PLAYING" and i say again "PLAYING" DVD's purchased legally and illegally. But then again EVERY dvd player can play DVD's acquired illegally as well. So where is your point i wonder ?
"CONTROL" is where the game is at my friend. They want to control who and where can make DVD players. Thus controlling the wole DVD player market in one swift move.Someone dared to make a free player without paying the 10k to them and they thought "wow this is bad. If everyone can make dvd's players without paying us what is the use of us being here?" THAT is the one and ONLY reason why the lawsuit is being brought and northing else. Anyone who believes otherwise is a fool. They are running a cartel which in fact is morally unacceptable. Definition of cartel:
"A group of firms that gets together and makes decisions on price an output of a product in order to increase their profits"
THAT is what they are doing. And an anti-trust law should be investigated in my opinion. They are basically running a closed market where only THEY can make decisions on and only they can profit from.
I heard somewhere that No. 2's have something like 10 to the power of 9 bateria (or 10^9 if you want for every cubic centimeter). So you would be eating countless billions of bacteria per second. Does that sound healthy? Especially since its the baterium your system is trying to get rid of (unlike the useful bacteria in your gut for instance).
DEDICATED TO LACEY CHABERT AND NATALIE PORTMAN
:) :) :(
Natalie Portman
First, she takes off her pants, then
I turn her to stone!
Natalie is stone!
Now she is my statue friend.
But the chaffing hurts.
Lacey Chabert's hot
Cripes, I've been arrested for
Statuetory rape
"Lacey, turn to stone!"
That is what I said to her
Now she is my rock
Chabert and Portman
As they kiss I transform them
I have two statues
OK, so the DVDCA is tryiong to lock down the market for DVD players (which I believe is the real heart of the matter) and that's really shitty thing of them to do but did any OSS developers even entertain the notion of trying to get a legal license before we adopt this hack as the official Open Source answer to DVD playing on our *nix machines?
Are we not sending a message to commercial companies "Either play ball with us or we'll hack your shit anyway!" Does that not send a hostile message to the corporates who are still deciding whether they trust Linux in their operations?
I would not give up on DVDCA until they gave us a definate "No you can not have an open source license for DVDCA, not now or ever."
Video decks that can read PAL and SECAM tapes and output NTSC are readily available in the US, although they are expensive. Foreign region DVDs are not available here through the regular channels.
-- putting it another way, what will get us more recognition / respect / kudos. Meekly trying to go through official channels or standing up and yelling at them - don't mess with us - we will resist attempts at monoplies - there are thousands of us techies throught the world and together we operate round the clock, 24 hrs a day!
What did I miss? Is there some misstatement of fact in ESR's summary? _Anyone_ who is capable of assembling a decent narrative of the "facts" and publishing it to the media should be thanked. We're pissed because its ESR? We're put out because the world should come to /. to read the truth and anyone that attemptes to distill the essence of our discussions and publish it to the world is a bastard for trying to impersonate the messiah of the "community"?
/. have fallen sharply in the last day or so if pissing and moaning are regarded as insight. Give me a break.
Gee, standards on
Oh, I see - it's less about what's best for our "community" and more about someone getting praise they don't deserve? Man, isn't 3rd grade over for you by now?
To steal and mutate an old quote, "Never attribute to an AI that which can be explained by stupidity." :-)
Hmm, sounds like penis-envy type jealousy. Where are your works? Sounds like it really gets under your skin that ESR is well-regarded and is in a position to be listened to. Stop bitching and moaning, you sound really petty and thin-skinned, my friend.
Bit for bit READS can be made currently.
No, they can't. At least not on consumer hardware. They can't read all the information. And I'm not sure you can do double-sided double-layered (aka DVD18) no matter how much money you have. There has not been a DVD18 disc produced yet. Titanic was supposed to be, but they couldn't get the manufacturing up to snuff.
I didn't read any comparisons to Nazi atrocities. All I read was talking about what happens when you don't speak up for others who are different than you are. It made a lot of sense to me, and I didn't see any reason to flame it. Sounds like you have a mighty big chip on your shoulder, what we used to call a personal problem. Why don't you take it elsewhere? Stop seeing Nazis lurking around every street corner. I mean, come on, give it a rest. Godwin would not approve.
good old score 5 baby
> Because BSD users like yourself tend to sit on your ass and want other people to do your work for you.
:)
Please run the following commands as root on your linux box:
rm -f `which perl`
shutdown -r now
If your box works when it comes back up, *THEN* you may say Tom Christiansen just sits on his ass. (Well, actually you can't, but the hypothesis of that statement will not be true, so I'm safe.
You flatter yourselves to the point of selfdeceptive conceipt. CNN is not scanning Slashdot for article leads. Trust me on this one.
Adolf hitler and ESR think alike: This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future Hell even the romans knew more government and liberalism was bad: The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. - Tacitus
"tyranny of nonfree software"?
I'm sorry, but I don't think "tyranny" is an appropriate word for anything that can be entirely avoided by simply throwing your computer out the window.
3 points.
:-)
A) License is $5000. Granted, that's not much if you can find enough people, but it still sucks.
B) Agreeing to that license would probably have meant not being able to release the source, as that source would contain 'trade secrets'
C) We can legally reverse engineer it at only a cost of our own time. And our results are free for anyone. What gives you more of a warm fuzzy?
I have a Sony TV and a Sony VCR in Malaysia that will read and play VHS tapes of both PAL and NTSC
the difference, I hope, between the video types and the DVD encoding, should be obvious.
("m" removed)
Anonymous Grammar Fiend
You know, those of us who do not agree with the dominant "progressive", liberal, or left-wing assumptions which color the world view of many in academia, the media, and other centers of society, often have to bite our tongue and remain silent when some leftist makes a stupid remark because we don't want to start a fight over non-relevant issues. Is it so hard for you to do the same?
He's trolling. (At least I hope so, anyway.)
Why, mattdm, from reading your post one would almost begin to believe that ESR made a statement of opinion in his .signature file. If you read it again, you'll see that he never did! I'm sorry, nothing but quoting of raw research was there, so any argumentation you present against it is going to have to be similarly well-researched and presented.
Sorry, simply telling him to "shut up, you're not politically correct" doesn't make him wrong. Deal with the issue; quit trying to write it off as able to be ignored.
Score:-1, Godwin Invocation
Pioneer Unwraps The First DVD Video Recorder Pioneer shows its technology to the Japanese market. The rest of the world will see the release next year! Date 13/12/99 Hmmmm makes me wonder why aren't they trying to shut down pioneer as well... Maybe caause pioneer will give em the finger and buy em out possibly ????
Yes, I agree. We need more people like Richard Stallman. What? That wasn't what you mean? Oops. But seriously, without Stallman do you think we'd be as far as we are today? I, for one, do not.
Remember the software protection schemes? Mangled disk sectors, half tracks, dongles, key disks, sector gaps, etc. Why can't Hollywood learn like the software makers did?
No, that won't work. The DVD drive will refuse to read the parts of the disk which correspond to the video object files.
If you don't believe me, try it. You'll get read errors.
The first layer of CSS for computers is the player/drive authentication handshake. (Note: this is only for computers. Stand-alone players do not do this step.) The drive and the player application (or playback hardware) exchange keys which allow a "secure" data path between the drive and the application. Only after this step will the dd command work to copy the DVD.
This will not stop a commercial pirate, however. Commercial DVD mastering equipment can read DVDs 1:1 -- as is required for quality control.
It should also be possible to hack a consumer DVD player to read back all contents of a DVD.
The member of MoRE who released DeCSS is 16. (Note: he did not write it -- the person who wrote it is anonymous) I wonder what the age of the member who reversed engineered the player is.
I think the most relevant quote from the LiVid list message dated Nov 5th from the MoRE member is:
Before DeCSS was developed and released, MoRE had already sent the source for the decryption to their contact in the Linux DVD community.
So, yes, DeCSS was made with the intention of eventually watching DVDs under Linux. Straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.
"ESR contends that the DVDCA wants to protect players since PC's will compete against DVD players. This argument holds very little water."
It is becomming more and more clear that ESR has only a tenuous grasp on technical issues of any type - and only a slightly better grasp of social ones.
If it wasn't for his telling the OSS community exactly what they want to hear, he would be rightfully ignored.
He's just another lame pundit.
&sign($AC[0]);
"I think they are overly worried about their protection that they aren't working on making it better. If they advanced, the crackers, etc. would have a harder time catching up."
but it's not about protection, it's about control - so they can secure wealth without earning it. Really someone otta countersue these guys for fraud (and slander), give them a taste of their own medicine
"the reason ESR mentions Linux rather than "free operating systems" is..."
Money.
ESR has vested financial interests in the Linux world now.
&sign($AC[0]);
"It's as though I were a slave"
You mean, like Redhat? VA?
BTW - if your not goign to support closed source companies why are you using slashdot?
&sign($AC[0]);
There is no controlling legal authority.
Too lazy to log in.
Al Gore, Vice^H^H^H^H President of the United States
The grievance complained of; the substantial cause of the action; also, in general, the ground or essence of a complaint.
You are an artist. Don't let anyone tell you different.
So what's the big deal here? I'm living in Europe and I'm buying all my DVDs from the USA or Japan for Anime. Just get your DVD player fixed and forget all about regional encoding, macrovision and all that other crap.
SQ3: What is the threat of open access to the (presumably copyrighted) decrypted video stream that can't be handled like copyrighted audio CD data?
SQ3a (out of curiosity) in what format is the decrypted video stream? Is it proprietary a la .gif or the closed MP3 format?
As an American ex-patriot living in Sweden, I can say that the Nordic countries are also apallingly safe compared to my ex-homeland.
If Americans want to live with bars on their windows and fear when they are out in public, then let 'em. The costs associated with the "freedom" to own the ability to quickly extinguish a human life far outweigh any benefits, and there are *plenty* of safer countries to choose from. My advice (and personal solution) is simple - move.
As the person who wrote post number 144 pointed out, at the time one couldn't read UDF file systems (as used on DVDs) under Linux.
What is to stop someone from hooking a program in the data path between the player app and the screen, then capturing all video sent to the screen and writing that to the hard drive?
As a matter of fact, this was done over a year ago which allowed people to rip DVD movies in Windows 9X and turn them into VCDs.
DeCSS is a late comer. The pirates already could rip DVDs long before it came along.
> Of course these chips and other methods are hard to find and inconvenient to install ( at the very least ). Not necessarily. Some (many?) manufacturers of dvd players offer support for multiple regions. It seems as nobody really cares about encryption or regional protection but the producers/distributors of dvds. Ho hum, that's what happens when you try to force something onto n un(?)suspecting world. To paraphrase monseigneur Goldlum from Jurasic Park: Users always find a way...
That's how the world works. Get used to it. Who the fsck wants to listen to you? You're nobody. At least some people have *heard* of Eric Raymond.
The SW industry learned?? Not from what I've seen. We've still got dongles, key discs (although they are now CDs instead of floppies) with mangled and errored sectors, and now even server-based authentication. In fact, the only protection I haven't seen in a long time is "look up the word on page x, line x, word x" type protection. So, like the software industry, the movie industry will not learn either.
Question for gun rights advocates (which I may or not be): Why are some of you claiming that European countries commit non-gun murders more than the US does,therefore proving that the murders would happen whethor or not guns were freely available? Others are claiming that the non-gun murder rate is much higher in the US than elsewhere, thereby proving that we would be murdering at the same rate, whether or not guns were at hand? I hear two opposite assertions being claimed here, to establish the same conclusion... -freehand
dont fuck with a multi-millionaire... next thing you know your 'anonymous coward' posts are traced, your machine is cracked, and your whole hometown that you hang out in alt.porn.furry
Yes, DVD players are usualy sold (like most consumer electronics) at very small margins. The scam is that these hardware manufactureres are requred to pay the DVD people quite enmormous licensing fees.
"In fact, the only protection I haven't seen in a long time is "look up the word on page x, line x, word x" type protection."
Yeah, it took them a while but I guess they finally found out about photocopiers.
On the OpenDVD site, it says:
"In order to develop an application for DVD, you must pay the forum $5000 US for the rights to the CSS documentation, despite the fact that CSS is obviously flawed and ineffective."
This is false. The $5,000 fee gets you the DVD format specification books, NOT CSS. It does not give you the "rights" (ie; licenses) to create DVD discs or players - that is a separate agreement that must be reached with the owners of DVD patents such as Toshiba, Matsushita, Sony, etc.
In order to license CSS (to incorporate it into a player), until this month, you dealt with Matsushita (better known as Panasonic), who created the encryption method and licenses it. Licensing CSS is not a simple, straightforward process. You had to sign an NDA and get approval from an agency of the Japanese government.
HOWEVER, it has nothing to do with the $5,000 fee to buy the DVD books. AND, the fact that it's flawed and ineffective has nothing whatsoever to do with the conditions for legally accessing and using it.
As for making a copy of DVD discs, it IS possible for mass replicators to pirate discs without DeCSS. It has always been possible, and they do not use DVD-R to do it, they create metal stampers and stamp discs out of polycarbonate by the thousands, just as legitmate replicators do.
There is only one type of DVD-R, it does NOT use double-layered media, both the media and the drive are expensive (~$50 and ~$5,000).
Yes, you could transmit a DVD movie over the Internet, but even with the fastest connection, it would take DAYS.
Finally, it is true that CSS was never intended to prevent piracy; it was intended to stop casual copying, which is not necessarily illegal. At least most people here are getting that right.
For a better source of info on more of the technical aspects of DVD, search the archives at http://www.emediapro.net/EMtocs/aboutem.html
I find it amusing how ESR always seems to have his finger on the pulse of the 'community'. I suspect that the 'community' is about as diverse a place as one could possible image, each member with his/her own take on every topic. There may in fact be some overlapping concerns or directions, but in general every one has there own agenda. I love to hear these broad strokes painted over a canvas of individual voices. Back off ESR, I never voted for you. Well that's my $.02. Later.
When I saw this comment by itself, I could not believe it. While I might be more affected by it because of my Dad..it still is in *very* poor taste have this comment on a web page with no context. If this comment was made within the context of a sitcom (like MASH), then that would be different.
IANAL, etc. Maybe. Tell you what, there's an e-mail address for the Department of Justice AntiTrust Division: newcase.atr@usdoj.gov And here's their propaganda pamphlet: http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/div_stats/1638.htm I'm sort of interested in knowing how the DOJ would respond to the DVDCA attempting to use the nation's courts to enforce a monopoly. I realize that trade secrets are permissible monopolies, but reverse-engineering them is perfectly legal. Remember, the DOJ is part of the American governmental system. They respond to numbers. If lots of people complain, they'll at least look into it. AC
Do you mean more as in raw numbers or more per capita?
Sadly, both.
The comparison is of "edged weapons", usually, which include things like axes and saws.
And the same is usually true of "personal weapons", that is, hands, feet, teeth ...
We have a very "violent to others" society; many countries have much higher suicide rates than we do. There was a time when those who had "killed their man" fled to the Americas to escape prosecution; perhaps it's something that's been bred into us.
Although my heart is with ESR, the motivations he gave are baloney. I'm glad at least one person actually read the thing and pointed the fallacy out.
For reasons which include this one; Rob is in love with the idea that he's doing the readership a big favor when he publishes every piece of flotsam by ESR that he can drag out of the shipping channel. One of these days those of us who have our own minds will find a place that's far better, more interesting and more informative than Slashdot. When that day arrives, Rob & crew will be has-beens. Count on it.
Awesome! What a terrific module! Mark this one up as informative and interesting both!
Please. Think before you post. What prevents you from sending the encrypted data over the Internet instead of the decrypted data? Nothing.
I agree with you. The problem is that they do not have the right to prevent piracy in this manner because it is perfectly legal to reverse-engineer their implementation.
Why should there be `one true BSD'? There are 110 Linuces, and only 6 BSDs.
This is not at all offtopic. Post anonymously and explain yourself, Mr Moderator. Just because you hate Tom is *NOT AN EXCUSE* to downgrade such an insightful and important posting.
People, You are missing one of the simplest points of why the DVDCA is agressively aproaching their "copy control". MONOPOLISTIC or OLIGOPOLISTIC trading, ala MICROSOFT. Rule 1 of Monopoly, segment your markets and charge each market the maximum it will bear. By segmenting the world into 7 zones they can preven world market pressures from pushing the price down, and "reduce" their proffit margins. Of course we all know how poor FOX is.. ...
every video card in the world comes with a software DVD player
I don't know enough about DVD-ROM to post anything here which you probably don't know already, but whatever happens - why not treat this as a Litmus Test for the awareness of the public / governmental organisations involved. Judge Penfold Jackson got the point - but how quick are other branches of goverment to see the 'new dawning of the Information Age'? The DVD situation will resolve itself in time (we are after all living in an advanced industrial economy where capitalism / market forces and the rule of law are in full force. No monopoly exists forever. So why not look at the situation laterally and use it to track the current level of awareness of I.T. among different organisations and more interestingly, how quickly different organisations learn as they go on? P.S. - to all the moderators out there - you may have moderation points but I have a left index finger and a mouse too. - here's the deal - you keep moderating me down and I'll keep left-clicking Submit!
I never click/accept any shrinkwrap agreements.
My cat, however, frequently walks back and forth on top of my mouse....
Ever get the feeling that posts like the original one (which makes little sense) are actually computer generated? Then one day, and you know its coming - the programmers for the Turing machine (hopefully running on Linux and available under the G.P.L.) will jump out of the shadows and say - you stupid j**ks - we've been carrying on conversations with you guys for X months now while we perfected it and you didn't realise. Better watch out!
Or they could have used the space bar once the ok button has the focus. That's definitely not clicking.
I don't know enough about DVD-ROM to post anything here which you probably don't know already, but whatever happens - why not treat this as a Litmus Test for the awareness of the public / governmental organisations involved.
Judge Penfold Jackson got the point - but how quick are other branches of goverment to see the 'new dawning of the Information Age'?
The DVD situation will resolve itself in time (we are after all living in an advanced industrial economy where capitalism / market forces and the rule of law are in full force. No monopoly exists forever.
So why not look at the situation laterally and use it to track the current level of awareness of I.T. among different organisations and more interestingly, how quickly different organisations learn as they go on?
While what he says may not necessarily be startling news to those of us whose freeholds lie deep within the blessèd demesne of hackerdom, he nevertheless fulfills a critical role in packaging and projecting our memes to the barbarian realms beyond the Pale.
Let us not begrudge him his work. Wearisome and troublefilled as his task must be, better him than me, say I. I, for one, would surely lack the stamina and patience and skill and tolerance which his job doubtless requires.
Who as of 2100 EST on Sunday the 2nd still have this lame story by Amanda Barnett (dated 12/28) posted with no followup (and linked from their homepage, too).
[rant mode]
Isn't it interesting how the "mainstream press" just can't quite manage to figure out why so few people trust them anymore?
[/rant mode]
If I was an anime addict and the movie wasn't released in the USA, I would by it off the internet from a sight in Japan.
Actually, this example is somewhat backwards. The studios wouldn't mind at all for you to import their $60 dvd's. I don't think Gainax's dvd release of Neon Genesis Evangelion is even region locked; you can order it directly from them for around $52/disc. I just hope you can understand japanese and don't expect any extras. In fact, they usually come in standard jewel cases.
The studios are much more worried about japanese consumers importing american dvd's. No worries about them understanding english either. Traditionally, american dvd releases of anime contain the video stream, english language and the original japanese language audio streams, as well as english subtitles and often even spanish subtitles. There are usually other extras as well, all in a handy keepsake case for a MSRP of $29.95 which usually drops to below $20 when ordering online from, for example, DVD Express. Not to mention the awesome deals on box sets. Look up Tenchi Muyo! and Fushigi Yugi at DVD Express for examples.
This is the reason Bandai (AnimeVillage.com) has a policy to wait at least six months after a japanese anime DVD release to produce the american one. I suppose if a title is never going to be released here in america you may want to import it from japan, but that problem is disappearing as anime becomes more popular over here.
Anyone interested in anime on dvd can check out Anime on DVD.
It seems as though people want nice, easy-to-digest pundits who will say only things they agree with. Chances are, if someone fits this criteria, they have done so by saying nothing at all. I like to read speeches by people who generate controversy because they have actually said something. All you have to do is extract whatever part of the speech makes sense and discard the rest. With this simple technique and a little critical thinking, anyone can sift out lots of good points and interesting observations from people that you think are (as a whole) full of crap.
What you just said is pretty much what Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace addresses. If only we could get a lot more people to read the book, maybe they would have a clue about where things are going and why all these little court cases are actually quite important.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
> Here are a few related questions:
>1. Why focus on Linux over all free Unix (aka freenix) in general?
Because BSD users like yourself tend to sit on your ass and want other people to do your work for you. That's why Linux has the mindshare over BSD because the Linux users for the most part actually got up and busted their ass for what they believed in. This DVD issue is a perfect example of this. Does anyone really doubt that if a bunch of BSD types had gotten the letters from the DVD lawyers, they wouldn't have tucked their tails bettween their legs and whimpered like a whipped dog?
>2. Why just `free' Unix instead of all Unix?
>3. Why just Unix instead of all systems? What's wrong with (Open)VMS,
>for example, on an Alpha Workstation?
See the above answer.
Try 'best operating system', 'worst operating system', 'best search engine', 'worst search engine', 'worst computer hardware', 'biggest hot dog', and 'worst e-commerce partner'. Google rules.
--
My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right.
****Gfx Scrollbar Special case hit!!*****
"Maybe I'm bitching a little here, but it doesn't sit right with me that in a community that is so, well, community-oriented, a small number of people get zeroed in on and quoted/printed like they were the second coming."
That's why he's an IPO multimillionaire, and you're not.
I think what this person is saying is: you cant play a dvd in your region before it is released in your region, because of the region encoding. This programs gets around these limitations.
:)
--
Dont flame me due to lack of appostrophes. Instead, do something more productive with your energy, like clean my keyboard.
Ah, very true! But, esr has himself chosen to speak on behalf of the Open Source Software community. And if esr is acting on behalf of the OSS community, should he not be using a different address than the one he uses to espouse his gun views?
I'm sure that, as an accomplished hacker as esr is, he should be able to generate a different set of pseudo-random
Eric, you are not doing the OSS community any significant favours by speaking on their behalf, if you continue to publicise unrelated agenda when you do so!
Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
I'm not saying that Eric doesn't have a right to free speech. He's certainly allowed to say this, when and whereever he feels like it. But it seems like it would be more responsible to seperate his personal agenda from that of the people he's taken as speaking for.
--
CSS keeps the key information for a disk in a special block on the disk. This block will not be writable on consumer DVD-R blanks... you will
NOT be able to duplicate a DVD using these blanks.
But it doesn't prevent you from storing the key block plus DVD image on your hard disk. Reading out the disk key is one of the things the Linux community was able to do long before DeCSS. The DeCSS authentication code to extract the disk key was actually copied over from the Linux sources.
Also, pirating DVDs has been possible by capturing from a Windows player and re-encoding as MPEG1. In fact, that's the usual way to do it.
The publication of the encryption stuff didn't make piracy much easier. But it enabled us to write a Linux player.
'Cause it's there.
No really, I'm not religious about operating systems, but when implementing a device driver, you have to choose. Linux had support for DVD ioctls and UDF support, so we started there.
Nobody prevents you from porting all this to your favourite OS.
Thanks for the pointer!
Now i shall use this module
in all future code.
It would be cool if
unworthy code generated
unworthy haiku.
After all, software
is like poetry. Sturgeon's Law
applies equally.
And, in re-reading,
i realize your haiku
is in correct form.
Therefore, my bitching
about bad haiku is for
ESR alone.
I apologize
to you, Tom, and i hope that
you will forgive me.
I shouldn't flame you
carelessly like some half-assed
lamer wannabe.
---
120
chars is barely sufficient
Hand me that airplane glue and I'll tell you another story.
But then he had to go and mix other politics into it. He included a standard signature with his usual gun rights stuff in it at the bottom, line upon line of it. Regardless if you agree with him on this or not, isn't it at best inappropriate to mix these controversial (even in the US, and in particular globally) view into speech from someone who claims to be a spokesman for the community? I think so.
--Joakim Ziegler
Sorry for posting on my way out the door.
In more detail. DVDs have a "feature" that prevents a DVD from being played on a British DVD player before the movie is shown in london theaters ( or at least the date they expect it to be shown there ).
There are many ways around this foolishness. Including simply buying your DVD at an American retail outlet and returning to your home country with it. ( most of the DVD players I have sean in homes came here this way ). You could also put a little chip in that defeats the system.
Of course these chips and other methods are hard to find and inconvenient to install ( at the very least ). While shopping in the US is reasonable for Mexicans and people in the Caribbean ( like me ) that is just a tiny slice of the world.
This DVD player / driver however is under the GPL which makes it eligible for inclusion in every Linux distribution with desktop ambitions. What exactly are they going to tell people when the cheapest way to add DVD to your life also gets around regional encoding by default ?
BTW : SuSE ( One of those desktop Linuxes ) already ships on a DVD disk.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
reasons for this suite.
The other one is that this is the only "play your
DVD before time" thing that will be widely
distributed. Think about it for a while. It's
GPLed and it will eventualy be smoth, fast and acurate.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
To the people replying to this comment with anti gun control views, you're missing the point.
I agree with ESR's stance against gun control, but I *don't* think that it should be something that gets tacked (unless it's a random sig?) onto the end of what is, essentially, a press release for the Linux community.
"ESR, spokesman for the Open Source community" and "ESR, anti-gun control advocate" are both fine positions to take, but I'd rather he not mix them. If he's going to start a letter summarizing our views and representing the whole of the OSS community, I'd rather he not finish it by making unrelated statements that many OSS users and authors disagree strongly with.
I don't think this specific instance was a problem - the quote was obviously a sig, random or not; and he didn't claim to be representing anyone but himself in the letter. Nevertheless, it makes me uneasy.
I thought I saw OpenVMS on the list of binary releases of M12. Granted, it's still buggier than Communicator, but it's a step up from Netscape 3.
Oh, and I suspect the reason ESR mentions Linux rather than "free operating systems" is the reason he talks about "open source software" instead of "free software" - marketing spin. Don't confuse the lusers with details, just give them a name they can wrap their heads around...
I read the article, ready to jump and write to CNN, only to find that it was'nt that lame -- I've read much lamer actually. They mention the fact that the purpose of DeCSS is to view DVDs on Linux.
that contains the DeCSS code. Do I win?
Here are a few related answers:
Because millions of people have heard of the word "Linux" as opposed to mere thousand who have heard of BSD.
Because non-free Unix is mostly used on corporate systems that have absolutely no use in playing DVD movies. I'm sure you can find a couple exceptions, but they will be just that: exceptions.
I'm sure you can count the people who actually need that on one amputated hand.
Now I have one question for you:
We know you don't like the GPL. Now give us a break.
Note to potential moderators: I choose to speak under my real name; please respect this as my opinion. Thank you.
The more the mainstream media gets a copy of this article, the more they will understand the real issues.
What better story for the media than "big corporation spreads lies to smash little man" - the more that slant on the story comes across to the public, the less the DVDCA will want to throw their weight around.
So spread copies of that article to all media outlets far and wide!
However, DeCSS makes it easy to grab the digital data off the disc and transmit it over the Internet. This is a kind of piracy that wasn't possible without DeCSS, and while it may sound unreasonable today, music piracy of the sort common today seemed impossible a few years ago as well.
The entire point of the thing is that how to play a DVD is a SECRET that you can only get if you pay and sign.
This explicitly prevents an open source implementation; DVD encryption relies on a secret.
We could get a closed source DVD player program if we wished and someone stumped up the cash, yes.
Who's talking about CNN? The question was asked - was it a Windows or a Linux hack originally? I attempted to answer that question. I must confess that I have NO idea why you posted that comment.
(Did you get a receit with that conceipt?)
----
The original program was written for Windows. See this message. For the whole chronology, including how it got to Linux, take a look here .
----
You fucking idiot.
You do realize that eating shit isn't exactly healthy? Forget disgusting, everybody knows that. But the reason its disgusting is because nobody wants to get sick swallowing their own defecation.
Do you get off on regurgitation as well?
Please get away from me.
Piracy aside, how does this impact on the person recording original material on DVD? Does this mean that the corporate producers will be able to create encrypted DVDs, but the 'small' producer making an industrial training movie or recording something from their camcorder will only be able to generate 'en-clair' DVDs?
"The argument that CSS protects DVD's against encryption"
should be read
"The argument that CSS protects DVD's through encryption"
Sorry for the typo
The argument that CSS protects DVD's against encryption is completely false. Before this DeCSS whoopla I have noted that a lot of DVD started to appear in the market that are far from showing "the real thing". They come from a lot of sources but the main part of the pie comes from Chinese ones (they can be traced by some errors chinese usually do on translating from chinese to english).
:) ). If you wanna have another drink you have to buy another. Instead of being a similar to a book, on which, recorded information resembles, DVDs become soemthing like fast-food consumption...
I can classify for the moment the pirate DVD's in three categories:
-Bit to bit copies
-"Broken" DVD's
-Copies from mpg or VCR sources
Bit to bit copies are usually european or asian (american pirates are not seen around but I suspect this is just an "oceanic" problem)
Broken DVD are copies where encryption was broken somehow. I saw two such DVD's but people have told me that there are a lot more. In fact they are becoming a major segment. However these DVDs are quite problematic. Do don't always go and sometimes hang either the viewer or the machine. Quality is poor.
mpg or VCR copies. Some people have managed to make such a crazyness to copy from such sources to DVDs. It is understandable. Even pirate DVDs cost more than a videocassete. But such copies are usually horrible in their quality.
Now the market in many places is running over such pirated copies. Note! This is been hapenning before DeCSS came out. Sincerly I have not seen DeCSS or alikes to change tendencies or creating boosts in piracy. The most I have seen is that people have grown their tastes to borrow DVDs to each other and to write them in the HDDs. But I think this is a very questionable point to consider it as piracy or not. Anyone is allowed to make personal photocopies of a book. And anyone is allowed to borrow a book to his colleague or gilrfriend.
Commercial piracy has been growing on its own and I don't think that anyone will stop it. Much like CD history, when Sony claimed over all winds that it had given a blow to piracy. Today we not only have pirated cassettes but also pirated CDs...
This story rises some serious questions. Why DVD Control Association is so eager to give a blow over a rather primitive tool like DeCSS, while it keeps quite silent over the "real" threat? Considering many issues over commercial piracy I think that they are just pushing over people to forbid them the free use of DVDs. Note that many pirated products are made with the blessing of these same corporations behind DVD Control Association. I know that because I saw what happens in the VCR market and how smart these guys "collect" their part on the pie. At least, in the places where I have been, I know that even officially they collect some cents on every pirated copy. Something much like Microsoft Tax.
So the only interpretation of this story is that they are trying to avoid people to be free in their use of DVD. To turn DVD into Coca-Cola bottles (no offense Coke!
I'm sorry, but this just doesn't wash. First of all, proprietary binary-only Linux drivers are easy to produce, and many of them already exist for sound cards, video cards, and the like. How is this better than the situation with BSD? Second of all, you present a wholly misleading picture of the BSD community's attitude toward proprietary use. A tradition of sharing among BSD developers is as old as BSD itself (three times as long as Linux has existed). Closed development is hardly encouraged--to say it is accepted "enthusiastically" is grossly misleading. But unlike Linux, it is permitted, and open contributions from developers who also produce closed products from BSD are warmly accepted. At least in some cases this results in more of a contribution than the all-or-nothing approach Linux espouses. Of course, it can go the other way, too. But I don't find your presentation at all balanced.
Regardless of this, I agree with you that Linux makes the most sense because of its mindshare, momentum, and volume. I think the original point was that open drivers don't need to be limited to Linux (as they would be if released solely under GPL--forgetting about Hurd for the moment).
I don't know about evey DVD decoder board on the market, but I know my Sigma Hollywood+ is among the most popular, and the current version of their player software installs a program to allow you to change your region code.
Yes, we're all aware that there are tons of grey market applets available as shareware to be the same, but this is a CSS licensee distributing a supported application.
It's right there in the DVD Station menu on my windows box - first item, actually. "Change Region Code". Pretty much right out there.
So, I wouldn't say Windows is entirely in line with the region controll cabal. No.
This is just like television, only you can see much further.
Well, there is software - though not endorsed by the manufacturers - which lets you change zones without incrementing the counter on many drives and/or decoders. Apparently, this is done by "intercepting" the region code from the disk and instead telling the decoder that "yes, this is zone Foo".
I use RemoteSelector for my Creative Dxr2 setup, and have no problems so far.
Not at all. First of all, as others have pointed out, most modern VHS players are multi-format (NTCS, PAL, SECAM, PAL-2, whatever). Second of all, a region can span several video formats (e.g. Region 2 spans Europe, the Middle East (both PAL and SECAM), and Japan (NTSC)).
The region coding had a purpose: That studios could get movies to cinemas before it appeared on DVD. The system breaks down for old movies (which in theory should be Region 0, because there is no significant "cinema market"), but they aren't because distribution rights are distributed all over the place. So the only purpose which remains is the greed of the manufacturers.
Indeed. But if I remember correctly from the previous articles, there were lots of people named as defendants. Surely only a handful of them could actually have been involved in the reverse engineering?
It's all bogus of course. (Mind you, I'm not a lawyer.)
The news media scans /. for story leads. Example: CNN wrote a story about some minor web Y2K glitches, but not until well after they had been posted here on /.
I'm pretty amazed that you would actually relate the atrocities committed by the Nazis in the first half of the twentieth century with your problem of not being able to view DVDs on your BSD box. Should I assume that you didn't have any relatives who died in the Holocaust, or are you even more clueless than I give you credit for being?
You are an utter jackass.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
DVD Forum
They are a bunch of assholes
ESR said so.
They abuse the courts,
ignore the first amendent
and order silence.
No legal basis
Something about trade secrets
They have no patent
They blame the hackers
for their own weak encryption
Its their own damn fault.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Linux hackers? Weren't they windows hackers?
No. The original DeCSS program was a Windows program, but the purpose for writing it was to get an unencrypted VOB file on a hard disk for developing the player software while udf filesystem drivers were still in development. Shortly afterward, a Linux version of CSS was writted so that the intermediate step of unencrypting the file under Windows was unnecessary.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
I say, screw 'em! I think region locking is unfair. If I had relatives in France and brought my DVD collection of American movies, I wouldn't be able to watch them? If I was an anime addict and the movie wasn't released in the USA, I would by it off the internet from a sight in Japan. With DVD region locking, I wouldn't be able to watch a movie I had paid for!
Amen! I live in Germany right now, but I'll be moving back to the U.S. after my studies. The only thing that has kept me from buying into the DVD market is the fact that I don't want to buy DVDs which I won't be able to play on an American-bought player, or having a player which requires me to order my movies from Europe after I move to the States. I will buy a DVD player only when I can be guaranteed to play any DVD I buy.
And I can respond to the idea that people would buy a DVD in India to use in America because it's cheaper. It's simple dynamics of trade: If it's worth it for me to buy a DVD in India and have it transported to the U.S., then it's obviously too expensive in the U.S.
In my opinion if a company can't even survive competition with itself, it deserves to go under.
Chris
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
BTW, there's more to this message than meets the eye. :)
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
If you've got the time to spend writing articles that both summerize and often expand on what is said here, have the media presence and public recognition, have contributed plenty to the Open Sourse community, I'd say go ahead and make yourself heard.
On the other hand, if you don't like the fact that some people get 'zeroed in on' by the media, then I say get out. Because it's either that, or some reporter reading a couple of slashdot comments, and spinning whatever story they want.
And even though I read almost every single story posted at slashdot, I enjoy reading nicely done pieces, that lay out the issues in a clear manner. What's funny is I caught his piece on Linux Today, and printed it out, passed it around. Are you printing out 400 slashdot comments instead? Give us a break.
There are always the whinners, the complainers, the nodoers. If you have a better way, by all means let the rest of us hear about it, but if it's a bunch of uninformed complaining, bah... It's probably been said before, and in this case has...
"It's the culture of diversity.."
The U.S. has a monopoly on diversity? I think not.
Your "diversity" = "crime".
Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
William Shakespeare
Don't believe everything the American media tells you about America. For some reason they relish the negative. They aren't happy unless they're reporting homicide, rape or arson. The trouble is, it's complete bullshit.
Yes, there's crime here. There's violent crime in every nation, including the UK. But it's nowhere near as bad as the American media portrays it.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
every video card in the world comes with a software DVD player
Presumably this is under some licensing agreement with the video-card manufacturers? Still, I take your point.
Sorry, totally offtopic, but why the hell does /. have the quote "The Korean war must have been fun" at the bottom of the page? I noticed this while scanning to the bottom of the thread. There used to be relatively amusing quotes down there, but this unattributed, deeply stupid one does not bode well for the new year on /.
HotBot identifies it as a Zippy the Pinhead quotation. I suppose that makes it funny. Ha.
Yes, the reverse engineering part would have to be under win ofcourse. But why the decryption prototype?
While linux programs' GUIs might not always be on par with windows, I for one find it a much more versatile development platform.
>A few weeks ago, some Linux hackers in Norway cracked the encryption scheme used for DVD media, producing a DVD decoder called DeCSS
Linux hackers? Weren't they windows hackers?
I've emailed ESR about the fact that he claim's they're linux hackers.
He said:
>OK, why did they say in response to the DVDCCA complain that they had
>written the software in order to play DVDs on their Linux boxes? (Same
>thing one of the defendents told me in private email.) Am I supposed
>to believe they are lying?
My answer basicly being: Yes. I don't know why they did wrote it (It's obvious why they claimed they where doing it to view DVD's in linux), but somehow I find it hard to believe someone would write windows programs to view dvd's under linux.
With your attitude, I could reduce "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" to "a summary of everything I have been saying about open source software ever since I heard of the concept". I like giving credit where credit is due: ESR did a good job with this article.
"...Is this world not a call I can screen out" --
What you say is true. What is interesting here, of course, is that it was the US government that basically forced the DVD makers to use the weak encryption scheme that was cracked, and that will, barring a new encryption scheme, make DVDs much easier to copy.
But I think the interesting part of the law, as it concerns the DVD makers, is in the bit about archival purposes, since the "altered form" would appear to guarantee the interoperability criterion by itself. Since I can make an archival copy of something, and consult the data in the archive rather than the original, once I have that right, I need not ever be concerned with the strictures that the DVD people want to place on the devices that can "officially" play the original copy of the work.
But, on the other hand, if I give even a single copy of the work away, I've obviously violated the copyright unless I'm licensed to do that. The whole thing is so fair it makes me incredulous that it was a work of the US legislative process. :-)
Babar
Of course, you're correct. But maybe even more correct than you imply. :-)
I think the problem is even more chilling than this. It isn't just open systems or open source systems, but almost anything besides Windows.
Probably the biggest threat to the apparently resurgent Macintosh (for example) is the deliberate lack of driver support or documentation for things like multifunction devices. In the example of Apple, or course, I know that some people would see a delicious irony in all of this, but that's just the problem.
A bad attitude doesn't really matter any more. You or I or anybody might not be a fan of FooOS for the best of reasons, but the only thing that might keep any of us in business is the realization that nobody has the luxury of accepting "special favors", or thinking "serves 'em right" when another OS goes down for the simple lack of information about how to tweak which registers to make the dang thing work.
Babar
I believe this to be true. Many acts of government/industry as of late like to make us think this is not the case (ie: personal copying of music in exchange for a tarriff on recordable media in Canada, DeCSS, etc...).
The fact is, copyright protected people's right to not have others steal their work for profit, or to make it so they cannot profit from their original work; to foster their talented creation of more work.
'Fair use' has always applied, and personal copies are certainly fair use.
Nothing beats a summary of everything everyone on Slashdot has been saying for 2 months. But hey, now that Eric has said it, it carries weight, right?
Maybe I'm bitching a little here, but it doesn't sit right with me that in a community that is so, well, community-oriented, a small number of people get zeroed in on and quoted/printed like they were the second coming. Who are we kidding?
A community without spokespersons is called a disorganized mob. Our community is somewhat more with-it than most, as displayed by the fact that it works so well with so little formal organization. No one elects any of our spokespeople, no one officially presents issues to them that we feel should be presented to the general public. It just happens. Amazing.
The region-changing is part of the spec.. you can do it five times. And then you have to send your hardware back to the retailer and get them to reset it, which they can do five times. In theory, this is so you can transport your computer/player/card to a different region and still be able to take advantage of the local DVD selection.
The question arises however, what happens when you have a large collection of DVDs from two regions? Sigma Designs (makers of the Hollywood+) reccomend buying two cards and swapping them. I'm not lying. See for yourself. (Their page is brain-dead.. look for 'I need to switch between two regions')
I want a rock.
This is the standard line from warez d00dz claiming Microsoft only got where they are by people using warez copies. Sounds nice but doesn't convince anybody. And ESR also got the economics of DVD fundamentally wrong. Players are cheap today (what's the cheapest, US$ 200?), the money is made from the movies. So, while he's fighting the common enemy, I dont't at all agree with ESR's article.
Well, I for one have forwarded his text to CNN.com - I couldn't believe my ears the other night when they read their copy on this story "the DVDCA went to court to prevent the spread of a program which was created by hackers to make illegal copies of DVD movies to exchange on the internet". What?!? Usually you say some thing like "the suit alleges that the software infringes on the copyright holders... blah blah blah" but this sounded like they read the DVDCA's complaint as fact. I sent off an email to CNN trying to point out that DeCSS was for playing, not copying DVD movies, a fact that seems to be lost on the media, but thankfully not on the Judge.
So, I for one welcome a coherent summary from ESR as it probably does carry a little more credibility outside of the "community" than a collection of AC posts on this fine site. (no, that came out wrong, I'm not slamming AC's or anyone else). I guess I don't see the harm in having a "spokesmodel" like Raymond put a communique (sp?) out to the wire with a coherent position statement, even if it just echoes what has been said here for a while. Goody - maybe some not-too-lazy reporter will pick it up and sniff about a little harder to figure out if what ESR says carries water or not, and possibly something a little closer to the objective "truth" of this situation will appear on CNN as opposed to the one-sided headline story that I heard the other day.
This was the only usefull post in the whole thread.
;-) If the distribution would be easy, they would have lost some of their market.
Decryptions is always lost after some time, but encryption is the thing they want to monopolize.
For music the distribution channels are the monopoly. They try the same for DVD. Producers and distributors are of course the same today. DVD's are physical, so one could never break this monopoly. But the physical days are over, distribution over the net could be possible. That's why they want to protect their realm.
After the Blairwitch Project, it is clear that anyone can make movies
Let's hope we can stop this monopoly, which is protected by copyrights, trade-secrets and maybe patents. We should be able to create DVD movies not just to watch them!
CU
>What we do need to find is a way for artists to make money off of their labors. The problem is how can we do this [in a way] that's fair for everyone?
RMS addresses this quite convincingly in his article The Right Way to Tax DAT. This article was originally published in Wired magazine in 1992, but still holds quite a bit of relevance for the situation you bring up.
Graham "Teach" Mitchell, computer science teacher, Leander HS
IIRC, commodity DVD recorders (DVD-RAM, DVD-R) also have on the media an unrecordable area, which on a normal DVD movie, contains the decryption keys. So even if you have a complete bit copy on the hard disk, and a program that'll burn raw data, the decryption key doesn't get recorded. Of course, if you have the raw data already...
Of course, until an enterprising DVD recordable media manufacturer decides to make it recordable >G [not sure if that area *has* to be unrecordable to record the media correctly (like the ATIP part of a CD-R), it's just in the standard].
Unlike the many comments that comprise a Slashdot thread, ESR's articles are concise, grammatically correct, and insightful. The fact that he's well known helps this cause. This particular article's content will likely cause the DVD Consortium some headaches as the press interested in the story confront them with the facts ESR espouses.
I doubt you (Foogle) or I would have much of a chance of being heard outside of Slashdot on this issue anyways!
---- Politics: Kissing ass and pointing blames.
Don't the content providers support the DVD consortium? If they do, then ipso facto they must consider it to be in their interests. If they consider it to be in their intests it probably is. They may be vulgar and unprincipled, but they are not stupid.
My guess is that what they want to do is prevent a situation like the MP3 world, where any shmoe with a thousand bucks can become an impresario. The studios do create films, but they also buy them. If anybody can create DVDs, then indies who strike out a Cannes can go over the studio's head direct to the public. Some producers may actually prefer doing this.
What the monopoly on creating DVDs has reproduced is something like the old studio system where the studios controlled the theaters. There were good things and bad things about the studio system, but the bad thing was that as a movie goer, you only saw what the studios wanted you to see; there was no other place to go.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Yes, but every software DVD player that you get for "free" comes with hardware that you paid for.
/. posts I've read), open source DVD players on ANY platform would not need to sign license agreements for DVD technology, and therefore would not have to support any of the unwanted features of DVD.
Either the software or hardware DVD player for you PC had to pay license fees and sign the license agreement to some sort of DVD control board. This may be the DVDCA, I'm not sure.
More importantly (and this goes a little against what ESR was claiming -- as well as being regurgitated from other
For example, they wouldn't have to play the mandatory FBI warning at the beginning of the movie.
Most importantly, probably, they would not have to obey region-locking of the DVDs. This would be bad for content makers, since if they sold a movie for 10 rupees in india (dirt cheep) and $30 US in the USA, then people could by it over the internet for the cheaper price.
I say, screw 'em! I think region locking is unfair. If I had relatives in France and brought my DVD collection of American movies, I wouldn't be able to watch them? If I was an anime addict and the movie wasn't released in the USA, I would by it off the internet from a sight in Japan. With DVD region locking, I wouldn't be able to watch a movie I had paid for!
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Bottom line? This entire article should be marked as "Score: -1 (Redundant)".
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
If we were to just simply sit back and accept the status quo, we'd still be paying $100+ for our operating systems, wouldn't we? Well I don't accept the status quo and moreover, I take offense that you'd make this a personal issue.
It isn't about me not getting enough attention. It's about a bunch of reasonably intelligent people demeaning themselves through simple hero-worship. And that's what it boils down to: Hero-worship. I don't know about you, but that's something I have absolutely no need for.
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Thanks for restating everything we've been saying here on Slashdot Eric, but we've got plenty of karma-whores here to do that.
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Just like the "Suprised by Wealth" piece he wrote, I find myself asking the question "Why did he write this?" And in most cases I come to the answer, "To make himself look better to his fanclub".
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Maybe I'm bitching a little here, but it doesn't sit right with me that in a community that is so, well, community-oriented, a small number of people get zeroed in on and quoted/printed like they were the second coming. Who are we kidding?
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
After watching some some discussions elsewhere a couple of points become clear :
A) According to which country you are in the motive of the person doing the reverse-engineering may be very important. To me this seems utterly crazy - but lets just assume we have to live with it for a moment
B) The other key point (again only in some countries) is whether the person doing the work "agreed" to the licence terms on the Xing program as they did the work.
OK. So the above is daft. How can anyone actually prove in court the motives of the guy doing the hack? How can anyone prove they didn't read the licence agreement ( or that they did )?
------------
So why not :
1) Find ourselves a competent hacker(s) who, whilst they may be aware of the DeCSS, have never seen the source code or read the notes.
2) Get them to swear they've never seen it and that's they are doing it to enable an open-source DVD player to be written.
3) Lock them in a room with a computer and all the software/hardware tools they will need.
4) Take a disc image of the computer before they start work. Get this certified to the standards defined by a competent lawyer
5) Tell them what they've got to do. Give them as many clues as could be defended in court.
5) Tell them on no account are they to read or agree to the Xing software licence agreement.
6) Get some lawyers and witnesses to monitor the whole process. Maybe record the contents of the screen throughout.
7) Add loads of coke, pizza, chocolate etc.
8) Wait pateintly and eventually XING! we have a copy of the relevant trade secret that the DCD CCA are going to have one heck of a load of trouble with in court!
Apart from the fact that just maybe doing this would make a good case watertight - it could also (handled well) be excellent publicity which would very effectively counter the hatchet PR-job done by the DVD CCA.
Yes. It would be a stunt! - But it would be a stunt which would make the whole legal thing look as foolish and warped as it really is. And that must be an excellent thing!
AJB
After watching some some discussions elsewhere a couple of points become clear :
A) According to which country you are in the motive of the person doing the reverse-engineering may be very important. To me this seems utterly crazy - but lets just assume we have to live with it for a moment
B) The other key point (again only in some countries) is whether the person doing the work "agreed" to the licence terms on the Xing program as they did the work.
OK. So the above is daft. How can anyone actually prove in court the motives of the guy doing the hack? How can anyone prove they didn't read the licence agreement ( or that they did )?
------------
So why not :
1) Find ourselves a competent hacker(s) who, whilst they may be aware of the DeCSS, have never seen the source code or read the notes.
2) Get them to swear they've never seen it and that's they are doing it to enable an open-source DVD player to be written.
3) Lock them in a room with a computer and all the software/hardware tools they will need.
4) Take a disc image of the computer before they start work. Get this certified to the standards defined by a competent lawyer
5) Tell them what they've got to do. Give them as many clues as could be defended in court.
5) Tell them on no account are they to read or agree to the Xing software licence agreement.
6) Get some lawyers and witnesses to monitor the whole process. Maybe record the contents of the screen throughout.
7) Add loads of coke, pizza, chocolate etc.
8) Wait pateintly and eventually XING! we have a copy of the relevant trade secret that the DCD CCA are going to have one heck of a load of trouble with in court!
Apart from that just maybe this could make a good case watertight - it could also (handled well) be excellent publicity which would very effectively counter the hatchet PR-job done by the DVD CCA.
Yes. It would be a stunt! - But it would be a stunt which would make the whole legal thing look as foolish and warped as it obviously is. And that must be an excellent thing!
AJB
The creator of DeCSS or any other individual could claim they are trying to enter the market of DVD-playing/decoding software and the big-name companies are trying to prevent that, "raising the bar" of the entry level into that field.
That is one of the same claims that proved Microsoft as a monopoly, and using monopoly power like that is a felony.
The big-company guys would be criminals and anybody could make their own DeCSS based DVD player.
How bout it? Would it work?
CSS keeps the key information for a disk in a special block on the disk. This block will not be writable on consumer DVD-R blanks... you will NOT be able to duplicate a DVD using these blanks. Writable blanks will be hard to find, and IIRC they will require special commercial equipment; you won't be able to write them in your DVD-R drive.
Now, obviously, this will not be an issue for commercial pirates, who will find a way to get commercial blanks and commercial production equipment. However, it will be an issue for the person making small-scale copies to give (or sell) to friends. The motion picture industry is just as interested in that kind of copying as it is in commercial-scale copying. The commercial blanks will be hard to get, and the equipment to write them will not be in everybody's living room, at least for a while.
As I recall, the first time I saw a description of all this was around a year ago; I think it was in some IEEE magazine. Even then, there was a clear explanation that the whole thing was not aimed at commercial-scale copying. It was aimed at consumer copying.
Now, it's true that the weak crypto they used made it almost certain that the system would be cracked, making the whole bit-copying issue irrelevant. It's fine to point out that it was silly for them to think it wouldn't be cracked. But this idea that they didn't even think about the bit-copying issue is just stupid. The only real problem with the system is in the crypto.
In fact, they even gave some thought to how to make it harder to get drives that will give you the encrypted files for cracking... although, unfortunately for them, the early drives don't have those restrictions.
Making drives enforce the system really does help from their point of view. Sure, you can burn a new PROM for a drive, but how many people are actually going to do that? They're hoping that people will either have to spend money or manually hack hardware; that will reduce copying to a level they can live with... especially since they were (and to some degree are) probably expecting the Digital Millenium Copyright Act's ridiculously draconian penalties to prevent the spread of any hacks.
Pure software cracks are what they really worry about... and the reason they're so upset is that they didn't expect one to come out so soon.
CSS isn't perfect, and I tend to share the prevailing Slashdot view that it wasn't worth their trouble to do it in the first place. Certainly I think that the lawsuit is crap, and I like the fact that the law doesn't give them infinite rights.
Do not, however, make the mistake of thinking that the designers, and their corporate masters, didn't think about the obvious ways the system could be cracked. Their goal was to reduce piracy; they've always realized they couldn't eliminate it. They are being stupid, but not as brain-dead as the bit-copying argument makes them out to be. Don't underestimate your opponents...
I think he wrote that piece because he really really likes to hear himself talk (or read what he has written maybe) and he actually believes we care what he thinks. ESR to me comes off as a pompous(sp?) ass and if he keeps appending silly gun-nut propaganda to his publicity stunts he will be known to the rest of the world as one too. I never elected him as a spokesman for me and I think he makes a lousy figurehead for the linux movement.
War is necrophilia.
No we should not ban .sig lines but we should be smart enough to remove them when we send a press release. People may think that we are idiots if we don't.
War is necrophilia.
To answer your question, no, it is not okay to let Gus whack you upside the head with cooking utensils.
There are already firmware patches to allow certain Region 1 DVD drives to be made region free. It may take nothing more than a firmware change to allow reading ANY area on a DVD. Since the drive MUST read the "unreadable" area to get the keys in the first place then it is only necessary to figure out what they have done to keep this info inside the drive.
For instance the Remote Selector program will allow a wide range of DVD drives and MPEG decoders to view any region DVDs as many times as desired. It will also allow disabling Macrovision. This battle is in the process of being lost already.
They can either provide an open unencumbered format or we will find a way to deal with irritating "features" ourselves. Open source players wouldn't even need firmware hacks to work, they can work properly from the start.
allow from xyz
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^(154\.15\.2|148\.122\.208\.|193\.214\.96\.|212\.
RewriteRule
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST} !lawrence
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST} !\.edu$
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST}
RewriteRule
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST}
RewriteRule
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST}
RewriteRule
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST}
RewriteRule
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST}
RewriteRule
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST}
RewriteRule
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST}
RewriteRule
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST}
RewriteRule
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST}
RewriteRule
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST}
RewriteRule
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST}
RewriteRule
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST}
RewriteRule
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^198\.(79\.(49|160)|22\.141|202\.131|132\.180|114
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^199\.(72\.(35|196|91|145|92|164|237|220|121|221|
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^12\.(10\.17|30\.(97|80)|21\.(180|164)|22\.4|23\.
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^24\.222\.(18|3|16)\. [OR]
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^61\.8\.5\. [OR]
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^62\.(161\.(134|181|83|209|155)|0\.23|208\.39|172
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^63\.(79\.(54|95)|196\.32|80\.(225|238)|71\.(88|4
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^210\.(23\.225|131\.255|62\.26|233\.10|107\.(73|2
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^4\.21\.68\. [OR]
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^202\.(88\.124|50\.(206|118|138|168|159|115)|232\
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^212\.(10\.16|21\.75|41\.132|32\.(18|1)|25\.(101|
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^203\.(30\.(152|123)|41\.(62|110|93|4|157)|32\.44
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^204\.(196\.(188|221)|178\.205|30\.119|32\.8|52\.
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^205\.(198\.187|230\.(201|142)|240\.(152|146|192|
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^142\.57\.0\. [OR]
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^206\.(30\.(82|149)|12\.(81|63|84)|50\.(63|252|46
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^170\.130\.0\. [OR]
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^216\.(30\.(46|60)|17\.136|36\.12|37\.(209|176)|9
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^207\.(196\.(110|94|78)|197\.138|10\.92|199\.(44|
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^208\.(197\.(26|2)|198\.166|199\.(128|149)|16\.28
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^209\.(196\.(79|91|87|78|69)|198\.137|16\.(228|67
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^192\.(216\.253|75\.(141|142)|148\.222|160\.143)\
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^165\.97\.0\. [OR]
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^147\.186\.0\. [OR]
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^193\.(53\.255|35\.(80|27)|82\.(206|56|155|147)|7
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^167\.226\.0\. [OR]
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^194\.(70\.(57|39)|90\.(178|197|253|145|133)|81\.
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^168\.98\.0\. [OR]
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^195\.(50\.(65|95|69)|53\.110|19\.148|92\.(36|33|
RewriteRule
(N.B. Each RewriteCond regexp should be on one line. As some regexp's are quite long, HTML rendering may have introduced line breaks in them)
The huge IP address block is built from the IP networks database at ipindex.dragonstar.net (which is shut down, but still cached at google. Just search for "Class C Networks" and click on the "cached" link)
This IP list is mostly complete for class C networks, almost complete for class A, but severily lacking for class B. Hence the regexp matching on .*law.*, and list of IPs of known DVD CCA lawyers at the top. Have fun!
Oh, and btw: don't forget to make an Index.HTM file that is shown to the lawyers instead of the real index.html file of your site.
On top of that, you could have your 12-year-old child open the package/click the button because s/he can't be legally bound to the agreement. That way the organization as a whole can't be held liable.
Simply put, Eric can Write. He can write persuasively and clearly. Sure, others made the very same points, but there's a reason why Eric has the mindshare he does. -jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Nice try, luser, but here on /., eric's fellow HACKERS know him, know what he's done, what he's written, and we're qualified to judge the technical issues for ourselves. One has only to check out the linux-kernal list to know that ESR has *no* trouble grasping technical issues. BTW, AC, what code have *you* written that millions of people use every day? If you have something substantive to say on this issue, then speak up. If you just want to bash ESR, then you can go fuck yourself. -jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Following up to myself to clarify: I wasn't trying to talk about DIVX. I was thinking of DVD, and devices in general, that come with "Wintel only" stamped on them, like Win Modems.
They shut out the VMS users, and I did not speak up because I wasn't a VMS user.
They shut out the Sun users, and I did not speak up because I was not a Sun user.
They shut out the BSD users, and I did not speak up because I was not a BSD user.
Then they shut me out, and there was no one left to speak up for me.
With apologies to Martin Niemoller (1892-1984)
Here's the start:
Darned clever, no?Here are references for you:
I imagine that this module will now allow ending haiku postings on Slashdot.:-)
- Why focus on Linux over all free Unix (aka freenix) in general?
- Why just `free' Unix instead of all Unix?
- Why just Unix instead of all systems? What's wrong with (Open)VMS, for example, on an Alpha Workstation?
It would be nice to see us all supporting open systems again instead of just jumping on the Linux cheerleading bandwagon.But *isn't* DVD encryption a form of piracy protection if you think about it.
We all know that piracy protections cannot be implemented at the content level. Content is always subject to ripping and re-recording. Therefore, effective piracy counter-measures must be implemented at the player level.
If all commercially viable players require their content to be encrypted, and if that encryption cannot be duplicated by ripping, then effectively the schema has rendered ripped copies useless.
I won't disagree that it's evil, but I would have to argue that they are indeed trying to prevent piracy.
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
(Mind my type, this Netscape font is pretty small.. :)
Anyway, as with the trial, they said in order for the gentlemen to have reverse engineered Xing, they would of had to click through an agreement saying that they cannot. Now...Does that agreement (And I assume most other license agreement) apply to the machine and anyone who uses it, or just to the person who installed and accepted it? If it only applies to the person who clicked 'Okay', couldn't person A of installed it, and person B reversed it? I don't know much about RE'ing myself, so I don't even know if you *need* to install the software, but I'm assuming so. Anyway, back onto my topic. If person B did reverse it, would he still be subject to the agreement, since he is not actually *using* the software, but just watching what it does? I would assume, if the case is that he would not be under the terms, then the case would hold even less water then before. Someone feel free to clear that up for me.. =]
That stupid law (or interpretation of it) only applies to ENCRYPTION not DECRYPTION. That being said, I don't think the problem is US law. I would venture it's a matter of laws in other contries and the amount of processing power necessary for more powerful cryptographic systems.
For the record, CSS is not "encryption" any more than ROT13 can be called encryption. The keys for the whole mess is right there on the disk. Hardware players don't go through any of this mess; they read the "key" right off the disk and get on with it.
- decryption (ie who is allowed to build players) - maybe they want to force everyone to join the DVD/MPEG patent pool?
- encryption (ie who can create DVDs) - maybe they want to protect the people who master to DVD or the film studios themselves?
Anyway enough paranoia - one thing to realise - the 'net makes a lot of tradition ways to distribute media obsolete - there are a lot of people out there who make big bucks distributing music, software, movies/video, booksAll these people are obsolete - most of them probably don't know it yet - they are going to fight like hell for their piece of the pie as it starts to get smaller.
'Copyright' was a usefull law when setting up a printing press and typesetting a book were a large capital investment - you could lose it if you got caught - but when anyone can toss something through a provate xerox machine in their house it's a prettyuseless law. The same thing that happened with paper and xeroxes is happening now with most of the traditional media and the net. It's going to change the world and whether the people making money off the old ways like it or not they are toast in the long run.
What we do need to find is a way for artists (musicians, actors, directors, writers, programmers) - people who make the stuff that goes ON the media - to make money off of their labors. Without the middle men we will all prosper and grow - consumers will cheaper products, artists will get a bigger cut (100%!).
The problem is how can we do this - how can we start a different way to pay for stuff - one that's fair for everyone? (and open source - that I think IS hard). There are alternate payment mechanisms out there already (www.kagi.com is one that's been very successfull for small programmers)
Uh, DIVX is dead.
-P
So now I can watch DVD using free software.
But can I (or a small studio) produce a DVD
movie that can be viewed on all DVD players
without a licence from DVDCA?
Is the encryption mandatory?
If not, could we hope that it would be abandoned
by at least some producers of DVDs?
Then you could prevent all but the most hardy of lawyers from being able to capture the code. Just use an optical storage device or something and put it in a vat or Uranium 238 and wait until they think that they have won and then just start printing it out in morse code, and dropping it from planes and such. Have a porn site add the DeCSS source stenographically to every image they have and then millions of people more will unwittingly have it on their machines. And who these days dosn't have one little ol' porn image anyways.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
If I do something interesting say reach the south pole first then if people want information on how difficult getting there is they would usually ask me because before me they wouldn't know; additionally since no one would have gone before me then any possibility of getting any help would not be there. Now if you happen to go to the south pole and do so with only you and your trusty dog mike with nothing but the clothes on your back and a snickers bar then that is something. However because you don't have the ability to break into the my sphere because I got to the pole first then it gets more difficult to get noticed.
The whole point is that you can't blame people for wanting something from an entirely reputable source. To be honest anyone who uses just one or two or even all the posts on slashdot to base a major multi-million dollar decision on would be foolish not because people are stupid but because theoretically you could be getting screwed over by imposters who just happened to gt moderated to a 5 that day.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
why should gun buyers be forced to buy trigger locks? many people keep their guns in safes, so why would they need one? and don't forget that nothing prevents a person from throwing the trigger lock away, or just leaving the key in it. now, if you want to pass a law that says guns must be secured in some fassion when not in use, that's another issue.
I'd be really interested in the relationship between Microsoft and the DVDCA. It's very convienent for Windows to be the only OS that you can get DVD software for (Before the advent of decss) and I'd be interested to know of the exact relationship between these two entities. Are any MS funds going to DVDCA? Have there been any meetings?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The DVD Control Association is probably not so worried about a limited powerful elite on players otherwise so many computer software players would not exist, especially Xing. ;)
I'm sure the DVD people also must have heard about CD-Rs (and probably sued over that one too).
The DVD Control Association is probably worried that now the encryption is cracked, the movies can be extracted into other formats such as Mpegs and easily distributed. I remember starting game downloads on my old 28.8 at night and waking up the next day to find it 90% finished for the 50 MB ones. With cable, dsl, etc. now you get the demos in 15 minutes and wake up the next day to have a brand new movie to watch on your hard drive.
If that happens the movie makers, disc makers, and disc players lose lots of money so that is why the lawyers have been loosed. Just like college networks have led to the great proliferation of MP3s, movies will - and as I have heard from some people, already have - appear.
Bit for bit READS can be made currently.
No, they can't. At least not on consumer hardware. They can't read all the information.
It is this simple. Stick the DVD in your linux
box with DVD drive. Have an empty 18 GByte
ready.
dd if=/dev/dvdrom of=/dev/sdb
VOILA ! You've made a bit for bit copy (at least,
after a few hours you have) Perhaps the Windows drivers are less lenient - I wouldn't know.
All this and more at http://www.opendvd.org/
Expect a demo of this in court on the 14th.
ESR contends that the DVDCA wants to protect players since PC's will compete against DVD players. This argument holds very little water. For starters, Windows has a much larger marketshare than Linux, and Windows machines will compete more against DVD players, but Windows ALREADY had many, many software DVD players. Furthermore, these Windows players are essentially free of cost -- every video card in the world comes with a software DVD player.
That is just part of the conspiracy. Not all DVD players can decode all the keys. There are regional aspects to distribution. A Japanese DVD would not play in a US player. The Windows DVD players are in line with this. The linux players are not. If the encryption is broken then a DVD in Japan is just as good as a DVD here.
Also, is it really true that you can make a bit-for-bit copy? My understanding was that this required specialized hardware, and that commdity DVD reader hardware was not capable of reading special tracks.
Bit for bit READS can be made currently. The writes require a very expensive machine to do double sided double layering 17 GBytes per disk. For not so much money you could copy a DVD onto four disks though. Bit for bit. That is part of the point though - currently it costs a LOT more to make a copy of a disk at home than it costs to buy the disk. This will likely change in a few more years though.
This and more from http://www.opendvd.org
40 bit encryption is the best they can do because of US encryption export laws. They didn't have a choice on the quality of protection they could utilize. They went with the best they could. Of course 40 bit encryption is so outdated, they shouldn't have even bothered, and that they didn't expect it to be broken shows a high level of self-delusion and stupidity on their part.
I've noticed that a couple of the unattributed quotes might have come from movies. This quote about the Korean war sounds like it could have come from MASH - but that's just a stab.
/. some slack on them by saying it was the result of some script program, but because the bad quotes appear regularly demonstrates that some editorial control needs to be exercised over them.
Deeply stupid is an understatement for some of the quotes that appear. Only in the context of the original conversation could they possibly make sense (either fictitious or real). Some do not seem like quotes at all, but rather mindless rambling statements. Some (like this one) seem offensive. I would like to be able cut
Slashdot should let us post comments about quotes like they do the poll. That way maybe half a thought would be given to them before they appeared on a page. Also, because there would be fewer quotes, maybe they would be of a higher quality.
Yes, this is completely offtopic, but it needs to be addressed nonetheless
It sure does require special hardware - about 10 thousand bucks a pop, IIRC. That puts the bit-for-bit copy out of the reach of your average Joe, but it's pocket change for a large-scale pirating operation. And believe me, the DVD folks lose ten times(at least) as much business to the big-time pirates as to the little guys.
BTW, it's not that commodity readers are incapable of reading the special tracks, it's just that the hardware makers won't allow the contents of the aforementioned tracks to be passed outside the player. Perhaps some enterprising electrical engineer could fix that, no?
- John Doe no. 53, an individual
Nevertheless, my original point is that it is trivial for large-scale pirates to make their copies, CSS or no CSS. If they have to, they'll make a new master from a commercially available disc and stamp out copies just like the legit folks do. As for the unrecordable area on the DVD-R's, someone will fix that soon enough, I think.
Many things don't work between countries, such as many electrical appliances, so I don't see this as a big conspiracy.
The difference between DVD region codes and the different VHS formats is that the DVD region codes were created with the specific intent of preventing interoperablility. Fortunately, the region code scheme depends on the DVD player cooperating, and is easy to bypass for that reason. In any event, it _is_ a big conspiracy to keep people from bringing their DVD's to other regions, and the DVD folks freely admit that.
That being said, I know that slashdotters know all this. But has anyone seen any indication in the mainstream press that the DVD CCA is full of shit? I don't think so. Until we can spread that message to people who don't already know that, we're not doing any good. Write letters to the editor, folks. Write op-eds, if possible. Make sure people outside the tech community know that the DVD folks are wrong! In fact, I'm going to propose the smae thing I did back when NASA lost the last Mars mission - write your congressmen. Use registered mail, if possible. Write your newspapers, write to everyone you can think of. Forward these Slashdot stories to your less-technically-inclined friends. Spread the word, or we don't stand a chance.
- John Doe #53, an individual
ESR needs to do a bit more research on DVD/DeCSS before coming up with his theories. Content providers grateful for the hack because the hack will open the market when anyone can decode DeCSS? That would only hold water if DeCSS currently limited the content creators, but it doesn't, for the very simple reason that there is nothing that obliges them to encode their discs with DeCSS. Indeed there are lots of unencoded discs out there, especially in zone 2. If they thought DeCSS limited their market and served no other function, they could abandon it, DeCSS-hack or not.
For a short time more, most DVD equipment buyers will still be "early-adopters" who are technologically aware. These people (1) won't have any trouble understanding what region locking is
Eh?
My local Fry's sells DVD's only - no VHS. The sections is HUGE, and is always extremely crowded. The people who frequent it do not seem to be particular technologically savvy, unless you think the ability to hook up a DVD player to a TV (or pop a DVD into your DVD-ROM) makes someone a wiz. Let's be serious, a 14 year old can do this, and the problem of "region locking" is not at all difficult to comprehend, as you make it out to be. You write as if the public is stupid, and you are some self-appointed do-gooder to look out for the common good.
But, anyways, that's not my main point.
VHS tapes have at least two major encoding formats (PAL and NTSC). You cannot watch one in a set for the other, so you have the same type of limitation as DVD region encoding (the reason for this is totally different, of course, but the end result is identical).
Furthermore, it is misleading to say that a DVD player will not play all DVD's - it will certainly play all DVD's available locally. Only if you get a foreign DVD will it not work, but guess what: the VHS from that region will not work, either!
Many things don't work between countries, such as many electrical appliances, so I don't see this as a big conspiracy.
ESR contends that the DVDCA wants to protect players since PC's will compete against DVD players. This argument holds very little water. For starters, Windows has a much larger marketshare than Linux, and Windows machines will compete more against DVD players, but Windows ALREADY had many, many software DVD players. Furthermore, these Windows players are essentially free of cost -- every video card in the world comes with a software DVD player. and I haven't noticed an increase in the price of video cards. So I fail to see how the DVD association is trying to protect investments in hardware players by going after the Linux player, since lots and lots of Windows players exist, at very little cost.
There is other mis-information as well. For example, he contents that DeCSS was developed by Linux hackers, which as we all know isn't true. I get the feeling he hasn't been following the story too well.
Also, is it really true that you can make a bit-for-bit copy? My understanding was that this required specialized hardware, and that commdity DVD reader hardware was not capable of reading special tracks.
DVD has been revealed as being just as much of a proprietary, closed-standard product as Windows. Either you play by the rules of a bunch of oligopolists, or you're out of luck. And yet we talk of digital distribution as the future. If we allow the distribution protocols of the future to be closed, then we lose.
We could complain, but mainstream news organizations, who drink from the same trough as the DVDCCA, will never hear us.
We could fight in court, but the opposition will always be better-funded. Now I don't believe money buys judgments, but it does buy time in front of a judge. We may win here and there, but can we afford to keep the fight up on every front? Not without a lot more organization, and money.
But the piracy issue will not just go away, and the media industry's desire for ever-more draconian controls will only grow as digital distribution grows.
The open-source community needs to do something about this. Unless a system which protects some freedoms is developed, then we will gradually lose all of our rights. I have many ideas about how this could be done, but the point is *we* need to do it, and offer it as an alternative.
Anyone interested, email cwkingsbury@hotmail.com
-cwk.
So should we ban .sig lines at /. Should we ignore freedom of expression.
Did you also protest against the Anti-Gun off-topic rhetoric in the followup of Katz's Epcot articles (Hell, maybe your buddies moderated them as insightful). Nope, did not see you there or any other time when it is an anti-gun posting.(with Anon it's hard to tell).
So please try not disguise your hoplophobia as concern for the message. ESR is who he is and is not afraid to show it. I rarely agree with the man but freedom of speech and RTKBA are one and two on his and my copy of the Bill of Rights.
BTW For all you anti-gun foreigners who like to compare their country firearms murder rate vs ths U.S. and then repeat the lie "It's the guns stupid". May I just point out the in the U.S. we kill more people with knives than almost every other western nation does with firearms.
It's the culture of diversity, deal with it.
Reality is just a clever Hack, and the Planck constant is the refresh rate.
So should we ban .sig lines at /. Should we ignore freedom of expression.
Did you also protest against the Anti-Gun off-topic rhetoric in the followup of Katz's Epcot articles (Hell, maybe your buddies moderated them as insightful). Nope, did not see you there or any other time when it is an anti-gun posting.(with ANONs it's hard to tell).
So please try not disguise your hoplophobia as concern for the message. ESR is who he is and is not afraid to show it. I rarely agree with the man but freedom of speech and RTKBA are one and two on his and my copy of the Bill of Rights.
BTW For all you anti-gun foreigners who like to compare their country firearms murder rate vs ths U.S. and then repeat the lie "It's the guns stupid". May I just point out the in the U.S. we kill more people with knives than almost every other western nation does with firearms.
It's the culture of diversity, deal with it.
Reality is just a clever Hack, and the Planck constant is the refresh rate.
Mea Culpa
(for somehow double posting)
Reality is just a clever Hack, and the Planck constant is the refresh rate.
The facts are that outside the US, some countries have almost the same non-accidental death rate
;) we would still be a leader in violent societies.
as the US. In particular firearms death, murder and suicide are what we talk about.
Death (homicide & suicide) about 21 per 100K
for Japan and US
In Japan the people kill themselves vs. harming others. In US we kill the other guy (Americans rarely blame themselves).
As for US non firearms murder rate, about 3/100k/yr this more than most industrialized nations total homicide rates. So even if you were to MAGICALY get rid of guns
And we won't even go into the fact of how many non violent drug offenders become violent criminals after their first time in prison.
Reality is just a clever Hack, and the Planck constant is the refresh rate.
Nothing stops a pirate from writing the exact bits, without even knowing what they are or represent, on a blank DVD (or large hard drive).
The only thing I see CSS preventing is getting perfect frames from a movie, not the whole disk itself.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Have you ever meet ESR? You really should, he's a good speaker, and a good guy.
We all should be thankful to have him working to further the cause of OpenSource. He is a very good spokeperson. The media LOVES to quote PEOPLE. It's how it works. Without him we'd be many steps behind.
Granted there maybe better spokespersons available. If you feel you are one, please step up to the plate. ESR has said that he wouldn't mind "retiring".
BTW - If he wasn't pro-liberties, ALL the way around, including his right to bear arms beliefs, we wouldnt have had a spokesperson who stood up to carry the opensource banner who is as good and as passionate about our cause. ESR gets my vote of confidence time and time again.
Let me jump on this bandwagon with one more question about ESR's article. He writes that, "The amount of protection content producers get from DVD is exactly zero." Is this true? I'm going to go with "no" on that. More specifically:
It seems like there are lots of things you can't do with a DVD movie without cracking the encoding/encryption, and some of these things might be the things from which content producers would like protection. The examples that leap to mind all involve transforming the data -- e.g., extracting stills, or making available reduced-resolution versions for easy distribution or streaming. I can't imagine it will be long before you can walk into dorm rooms around the world and find streaming movie servers with excellent selections of major studio releases. Probably running off a laptop. Although I can think of reasons to be both happy and sad about this, it doesn't seem like the kind of thing that can be prevented.
dan
I have a very simple question, do DVDCA really think that there is any way for them to make this disappear? even if they will win their case, which I seriously doubt they will. That piece of code is out there and thats that. The only thing that is really left for them to do is ride the wave. Make all their software free. And by that encourage sales of DVD media. But, I guess that's to much to expect from a bunch of pencil necks who cant see past their own tie. well I guess they'll get what they deserve.
Exactly one week before they "free" Kevin Mitnick?
http://www.freekevin.com/
Has the U.S. court and legal systems learned anything in the past few years?
Personally, I am scared of my government. The DeCSS thing was nice because the origin perpetrators were overseas and there are just too many with DeCSS now to stop it. But if there had been just a few U.S. citizens mirroring this thing, you know what would have happened to them.
What has happened against those who hacked CSS anyway? What do they have to worry about now?
>CSS keeps the key information for a disk in a >special block on the disk. This block will not >be writable on consumer DVD-R blanks... you will >NOT be able to duplicate a DVD using these >blanks. Writable blanks will be hard to find, >and IIRC they will require special commercial >equipment; you won't be able to write them in >your DVD-R drive. No no no, no no no no. There isn't even a standard, right now, for DVD-R discs or recorders--several companies are all hawking incompatible equipment and have differing plans they're trying to push through. But that doesn't matter, because it's easy enough to trick DVD software into thinking that just about anything is a DVD disk--I got several commercial DVD players for Win9x to play bit-for-bit rips of DVDs off of an 8.4G hard disk. So, if I had a DVD-RW of any type I could record it to that media and play it--but again, the media is too expensive to bother. The truth is that ESR is right: they want all those $5000 licensing fees for anything remotely DVD-related. Aside from which, even without DeCSS, I can capture the video stream and re-compress in MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 and still have better-than-VHS quality video which I can record to the media of my choice. >Making drives enforce the system really does >help from their point of view. Sure, you can >burn a new PROM for a drive, but how many people >are actually going to do that? They're hoping >that people will either have to spend money or >manually hack hardware; that will reduce copying >to a level they can live with... especially >since they were (and to some degree are) >probably expecting the Digital Millenium >Copyright Act's ridiculously draconian penalties >to prevent the spread of any hacks. No, you don't have to fudge with the hardware or burn/buy special PROMs. The best DVD-ROM on the market (for the next 5 minutes, at least), the Panasonic/AOpen 10x drive, can be hacked by merely downloading a "firmware upgrade" to remove all region restrictions--go to http://www.dvdutils.com to get it.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
I think they are overly worried about their protection that they aren't working on making it better. If they advanced, the crackers, etc. would have a harder time catching up.
Earth to annonymous coward...
DIVX IS DEAD!
One big reason they want it is release schedules. They're releasing in the theaters (for instance) in Europe much later than in the US, and using what they learn in the US to market the thing. The large high-quality films people will go see in the theater regardless, but if you can get the stinkers on DVD before they hit the theater, people won't go to the theater. So the release scheduling would also have to be changed. Hollywood uses foreign releases as a way to make a profit on even the most abysmal films.
Another reason is that it's very profitable to sell exclusive release rights into foreign markets. Something not possible without regional lockout.
What's nuts is that they won't realize when they're beat, and are trying to use lawyers to sit on the cork and keep the genie in the bottle. Now would be the time for them to think about alternatives rather than lawsuits.
Shrug.
Because the snark was a...
It's true that pirates could previously have made bit-for-bit copies of DVDs, but now they can easily decode and recompress DVD video. They could always capture the video, but now it's an all-digital process, the resulting quality of the pirated video can be quite good, and it won't require quite as much hardware as before.
I'm not arguing that this method of protection is good, but I don't think we should be blind to the fact that this opens up a new piracy opportunity.
From our vantage point here in the 21st Century, we see that studios and production companies garner a sizeable portion of their income from video sales. And direct-to-video has saved projects that otherwise would have been total losses in theaters, if they weren't scrapped before that to cut distribution losses. So, far from ruining the film industry, the VCR has built a whole new market segment that generates a great deal of additional profit. I expect DVD-R will do the same thing. There is a good book on the Betamax case, "Fast Forward" that is well worth rereading in light of the DeCSS issue.
One issue I'd like to see tested in the courts, is the clause in US Title 18 that permits the owner of a copy of digital material to "make, or cause to be made, a copy, including an altered copy of the material for archival purposes". (Not an exact quote, and emphasis added). The 'altered copy' phrase has always struck me as applying to removing any copy protection. And, of course, I should be able to pay someone else to make that deprotected copy for me.
While all this is quite legal, I've never understood how the statute would create a 'right' to make copies, which ESR seems to think is being infringed. That is, there is nothing here that can be construed as forcing authors to provide their material in easy-to-copy format. It simply declares that if you can do it, it's not a crime.
(Anyone interested in opening a 'copy shop' to provide customers with legal, deprotected duplicates of their DVD's? I wonder what the DVD Association would say about that?)
I'm not an advocate of Gun Control (hell, I'm not even American), but it's not about having the government control YOUR life. It's about having the government control all the irresponsible assholes out there that you CAN'T trust.
And while on one hand, the NRA just wants to protect civil rights, on the other hand, they won't let the government pass a bill that says you have to put a trigger lock on your gun. There are two sides to every story.
Now, I'm not saying that the DVDCCA is morally justified in their position, but you have to understand that they're just trying to protect themselves from people that are basically trying to screw them over. Side with the DeCSS people if you want (I do), but don't villify the DVDCCA unconditionally. They're only covering their asses.
Moderators, feel free to bite me.