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MPAA Sending Out DMCA Demand Letters
[Aside: The strategy here is fairly clear: file suit against a few individuals who can be characterized as "hackers", "copyright pirates" or whatever the appropriate derogatory term is today, wait until that story hits the press, then use a search engine and the whois database to locate and send scary letters off to hundreds or thousands of other sites which post or link to the LiViD code.
The MPAA realizes, of course, that they cannot file suit against everyone who has posted the css-auth code. So for the suits that it does file, it's important to pick people who call themselves "hackers" and can be characterized as thieves to the court, whether they've actually committed any offense or not. Thus they chose defendants such as 2600.com rather than more "respectable" individuals.]
I'm afraid the law is more perverse than the lawyer in this case.
From the Connecticut suit by the MPAA[emphasis added]
Thats right. Making or distributing program/device/whatever that's only purpose is defeating encyrption on copyrighted material (no matter how weak the encryption or whether the end user has full rights to perform such encryption) is against the law. This is a part of the copyright law enacted in 1998, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
The DMCA was enacted precisely to allow weak protection schemes like CSS to be feasible since it criminalizes selling or distributing anything which breaks it. I hope that this provision will be struck down by the courts since it undully restricts free speech by the author and distributor of the decryption program and restricts fair use by the consumer who otherwise has wide latitude to do what he wants privately with legally obtained copyrighted material.
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
I just got back from Suncoast Video, where I purchased two movies (Star Trek: First Contact and Weird Science). Total out-of-pocket expense for tonight: $65. That brings the total number of DVDs in my collection up to 65, with 3 more South Park episodes due to arrive in my mailbox any day now. If you take an average price of $20 per movie (conservative), that would be about $1300 that I have spent on MOVIES for home viewing during the past year. It doesn't include the money I have spent going to the movies. Then I went online and saw the article about your latest stunt.
Every time I read about your pressure/scare tactics regarding the deCSS program I get more vocal about the subject. People around me who never knew anything about it receive an introduction, complete with description of your strong-arm tactics and bogus claims. You see, I feel that by virtue of spending this significant amount of money on something as non-essential as movies, I should have every right to view them on whatever player I choose. Even if that player is on a PC running Linux. Or OS/2. Or Be. Anything!
At first, I thought maybe you'd pull your collective heads out and look around at who is paying your salaries. (That would be we, the movie-going, DVD-purchasing public.) But it seems apparent that your would rather be wrong and have your way than admit you are wrong and satisfy your customers. Be warned that you are going to receive a wave of bad publicity, the likes of which you have never seen. If you think you are immune to the pressures of the public, please review the results of the last Major League Baseball strike. Or the NBA strike. Yes, you can piss on the fans. But the fans can piss back, and there are more of us.
Please keep in mind that your pursuit of the casual viewer is severely misguided, and poses the greatest threat of all to advances in video technology. Don't blame us, for we have flocked to the stores to spend millions of collective dollars on these movies. You would be wise to invest these dollars in advancing the technology, not suing the customers. You have a chance to get it right. I'd suggest you start appreciating us instead of beating us up.
Sincerely,
A customer.
NB: To paraphrase Dave Barry, I swear I am making this up.
It's fairly evident that someone within the motion picture industry has taken it upon themselves to attempt to disrupt meaningful discourse on the issues by spamming Slashdot with large, irrelevant posts. Already there's a megabyte of spam on this topic.
It's interesting that this is precisely the same tactic employed by the Scientology cult way back when, when it spammed USENET groups in an attempt to drown out criticism of the cult's harassing, deceptive, and illegal activities.
It's even more interesting to observe that, if the movie industry finds itself compelled to resort to such juvenile, cowardly tactics, it must be because they recognize the fundamental indefensibility of their position. If their position had any merit, they would engage in meaningful discourse with the rest of us, rather than resorting to peurile antics.
Further proof of their foolishness, methinks.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Copying DVDs was already possible before DeCSS. 2600 had a program back in 1997 that slurped up the data downstream from a decoder. And of course, Macrovision defeaters are readily available, so making a single analog copy form the video signal (then then making a billion perfect digital copies of that) is really quite easy. If you're really worried about the ease of piracy, DeCSS doesn't change things very much.
Also, you seem to be making the assumption that their fears of piracy somehow make it justifiable for them to make it hard to copy DVDs. Consumers have the right (legally and morally) to make copies of the stuff they've bought. If you've ever had a scratched Anthrax CD or a mangled Robotcop VHS tape like I have, you'll understand why. So in even attempting to inhibit copying, they were dealing with consumers in Bad Faith. Part of their business model is that they want to sell the same content to a single consumer multiple times. Why else would there be an interest in metered viewing and rentals?
When someone has such despicable motives, then their cries of "We're only trying to perpetuate the same old injustices that you should be used to" aren't likely to bring many tears to my eyes, unless they are tears of laughter.
Sorry, but copy protection just isn't a legitimate response to fears of piracy. The software industry learned that a long, long time ago. I have programmed closed-source commercial software for the last 13 years. While I admit that much of the revenue comes from custom hourly work, a very significant portion of it also comes from sales of the software, and if sales dried up due to people making illegal copies of my work, it would hurt me badly. Yet I don't even consider implementing copy protection in my software. The very idea is ludicrous.
They should prosecute pirates. They should leave people who make "dual use" tools (which could be used for piracy) alone.
If their problem is with piracy, then they are definately not making their stand clear. It looks to me like they are taking a stand against consumer rights.
This would be a horrible and unjust "solution" although I fear that something like this might actually work from their point of view. I'm a little afraid that the Linux-x86 community would sell out and accept a DVD-player binary and leave the rest of the minority platforms to rot. Somehow I doubt that they would provide a binary for Linux PPC, and Linux Alpha, and Linux-ported-to-some-other-CPU, and HURD, and BeOS, and QNX Neutrino, and especially my beloved Amiga.
For media, open standards are the only acceptable solutions as far as I'm concerned. DVD isn't an open standard, but it looks like it's well on its way to at least becoming a documented one. :-)
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
From the POLITECH mailing list ... looks like the MPAA have themselves a "hangin' judge" and know it.
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 20:14:40 -0500
To: declan@well.com
From: John Young
Subject: NY Court Grants MPAA Preliminary Injunction
Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan today granted a preliminary injunction against three defendants sued by the Motion Picture Association of American for offering the DeCSS DVD descrambling program on the Internet.
At a three-hour preliminary hearing today in the Southern District of New York, arguments were presented for MPAA by its counsel, Proskauer Rose, and for the defendants, Shawn Reimerdes, Roman Kazan, and Edwin Corley a/k/a Emmanuel Goldstein, by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Attorney Katz. EFF's attorneys, Robing Gross and Allon Levy, participated from its California offices by way of teleconference.
Judge Kaplan rejected every argument, point by point, made by the defendants and firmly endorsed, point by point, the claims of MPAA made under provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) for protecting intellectual property.
A clear link with made by this federal case with the California case by the plaintiffs and Judge Kaplan. MPAA counsel argued that the suit was reluctantly filed in response to widespread, global posting of DeCSS in response to the California suit. The judge agreed that this backlash warranted a preliminary injunction to prevent "irreparable harm" to the copyright holders, among other justifications which he elaborated in a lengthy statement on the case, its opposing arguments and law governing copyright and the First Amendment.
Judge Kaplan will issue a final written version of his statment and order early next week. Upon completion of his verbal statement he signed and presented to counsel his order for the preliminary injunction.
Defendants Reimerdes and Kazan were present during the hearing, Corely was not.
Judge Kaplan offered a speedy trial for the suit, "as early as next Tuesday if you want it," he said to MPAA counsel. "I would like this tried as soon as possible. I offer you a runaway train if that's what you want. My schedule is clear for this."
Defendants' counsel requested a delay and the judge agreed to accept an application for an alternate date.
During the hearing it became clear which way the judge would rule. He repeatedly urged defense attorneys to get on with their argument, hectored them and lectured them on the law. He had earlier refused an adjournment in the hearing to allow the defense more time to prepare responses to the suit.
Defense papers of Roman Kazan apparently were not properly submitted to the court in time to be considered. Judge Kaplan refused to allow late submission and dismissed the need for more time, saying, "these rapid schedules are customary in preliminary injunction cases, there was plenty of time to respond. I am obliged to rule on what the court has."
Judge Kaplan stated there was a clear intent to break the law as indicated by vulgar remarks on Reimerdes' Web site. For emphasis on this point he repeated them as if with distaste on three occasions during the hearing: "the DVD CAA lawyers are cocksuckers."
There was a single reporter was at the hearing in Judge Kaplan's chambers, Jeff Howe with the Village Voice, two observers from Cryptome, and the MPAA public relations representative, Ken
Frydman, who distributed a pre-prepared victory statement from Jack Valenti, President and CEO of MPAA:
"Judge Kaplan's ruling represents a great victory for creative artists and consumers everywhere. I think this serves as a wake-up call to anyone who contemplates stealing intellectual property."
Cryptome asked Judge Kaplan after the hearing if he would answer questions. He said he does not speak to the press. We couldn't explain that's not us.
We asked chief attorney for MPAA, Jon Baumgarten of Proskauer Rose, for comments. He said no, statements will have to come from MPAA public relations and that he would be briefing that office shortly.
We spoke with Shawn Reimerdes and Roman Kazan about their views of the hearing. What they said is what Jeff Howe will tell in another forum, tomorrow I believe.
(a) Violations regarding circumvention of technological measures.--(1)(A)No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. The prohibition contained in the preceding sentence shall take effect at the end of the 2-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this chapter. (Oct. 28, 1998)(
...
Sounds bad... but wait!
(c) Other rights, etc., not affected.--(1) Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies,
limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title [17 U.S.C.A. 1 et seq.].
...
(f) Reverse engineering.--(1) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), a
person who has lawfully obtained the right to use a copy of a computer program may
circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a particular portion of
that program for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program
that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program
with other programs, and that have not previously been readily available to the person
engaging in the circumvention, to the extent any such acts of identification and analysis do
not constitute infringement under this title [17 U.S.C.A. 1 et seq.].
(2) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsections (a)(2) and (b), a person may develop and employ technological means to circumvent a technological measure, or to circumvent
protection afforded by a technological measure, in order to enable the identification and
analysis under paragraph (1), or for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an
independently created computer program with other programs, if such means are necessary
to achieve such interoperability, to the extent that doing so does not constitute infringement
under this title [17 U.S.C.A. 1 et seq.].
(3) The information acquired through the acts permitted under paragraph (1), and the means
permitted under paragraph (2), may be made available to others if the person referred to in
paragraph (1) or (2), as the case may be, provides such information or means solely for the
purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with
other programs, and to the extent that doing so does not constitute infringement under this
title [17 U.S.C.A. 1 et seq.] or violate applicable law other than this section.
(4) For purposes of this subsection, the term "interoperability" means the ability of computer
programs to exchange information, and of such programs mutually to use the information
which has been exchanged.
(g) Encryption research.--
(A) the term "encryption research" means activities necessary to identify and analyze flaws
and vulnerabilities of encryption technologies applied to copyrighted works, if these
activities are conducted to advance the state of knowledge in the field of encryption
technology or to assist in the development of encryption products; and
(B) the term "encryption technology" means the scrambling and descrambling of information
using mathematical formulas or algorithms.
(2) Permissible acts of encryption research.--
It continues on that research must actually be research and not some guy in his basement pretending to do research while trying to hack the latest and greatest in order to steal the work..
The way I read this is that DeCSS source, css-auth, etc are all legal if they are being used as a tool for interoperability. If they are being used for pirating movies that yes they are illegal.
IMHO this leaves DeCSS in a wierd position because it used to be posted more of a pirating tool then an interoperability tool. But DeCSS, css-auth, LiViD stuff, etc are now being used primarily for interoperability. A reasonable judge should be able to see it this way....
Hope this helps...
--Mark
Found this at www.mpaa.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - January 20, 2000
Contact:
Rich Taylor or Phuong Yokitis
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)
202/293-1966
Emily Kutner
MPAA
818/995-6600
John Stodder
Edelman Public Relations
323/857-9100
MPAA's Valenti Hails New York Federal Judge's Ruling Shutting Down DVD Hackers
as "Major Victory" in Battle against Digital Piracy
LOS ANGELES, Calif. (January 20, 2000) - In a major victory for copyright protection, the motion picture industry today celebrated a federal judge's ruling that will force a group of New York-based Internet hackers to stop the posting of software that allows illegal copying of DVDs.
U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of the Southern District of New York late this afternoon granted a request by the major motion picture studios for a preliminary injunction against operators of Internet sites that posted an unauthorized de-encryption formula on their sites. This software was developed to hack the DVD encryption system.
The judge's order means three New York defendants, Shawn C. Reimerdes, Eric Corley A/K/A "Emmanuel Goldstein" and Roman Kazan, must immediately remove the de-encryption formula from their Internet sites or face contempt of court.
"Judge Kaplan's ruling represents a great victory for creative artists, consumers and copyright owners everywhere. I think this serves as a wake-up call to anyone who contemplates stealing intellectual property," said Jack Valenti, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Motion Picture Association of America. "This ruling also means that when Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998, it gave the creative community a powerful tool to defend our rights."
Additional information on this case may be found on the MPAA web site at www.mpaa.org.
# # #
Copyright Press Releases
----
Rajiv Varma
If it enters common law that you cannot link to a site containing "illegal" material without being sued to death, it is only about two lawsuits away from them being under a constant barrage of lawsuits. I think having a well known name like Yahoo on our side increases our chances of coming out of this intact. Whatever you might think about the search engine companies, they should care about this. They might not be willing to touch this case for fear of bad publicity, but it would certainly make some more people stop to think instead of assuming that the MPAA must be right because we've heard of them.
B. Elgin
B. Elgin
"Read at your own risk; feel free to ignore."