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Preliminary Injunction Issued in DVD CCA Case
jlj writes "Judge Elfving has just issued the preliminary injunction. We're having the opinion faxed over now and we'll have it up on www.opendvd.org ASAP. This has truly been a sad week... but we will keep fighting!" In the word of EFF Attorney Robin Gross, "We're going to need some bigger guns." The judge's official opinion can be found here. This story will be updated as we get information.
This really wrecked my day. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but since this is a state court, and linking was not banned, does this mean that it just can't be hosted in CA?
Otherwise, I say, we need to organize and fight this as a community. Take out ads in your local newspaper. Distribute leaflets in video stores and electronics outlets. Don't let these corporate bloodsuckers take away our freedoms just to make a few more bucks!
This incenses me. I will do everything I can to make sure this falls apart.
If you can't figure out how to mail me, don't.
For linux tips: http://www.linuxtipsblog.com
That's right...
;)
Feel free to link to http://mmadb.no/jlj
It's in Norway and it won't go down
Dear Mr. God, please grant these idiots in "authority" the vision to understand the stupidity of the MPAA's position, the sense of the EFF's case, and the rights of the populace to foster inter-platform compatibility.
Oh yeah. Please kick those idiots in DVD Consortium and the MPAA in the nads with spiky shit-kicker boots.
Amen.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Well, it looks like this case could be the turning point for OpenDVD.
Why is the industry is trying so hard to prevent people from copying their disks? Look at VHS tapes -- people copy them all the time. It's the same with CDs and floppy disks.
Even if they really must lock it down, at least they should do it right and implement an algorithm that is not as half-baked as it is!
--Zonker
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
Oh no! I've been sucked into
As one of the named defendants, I've taken down my files. Thankfully, Judge Elfving has stated that there will be no damages awarded. Ironically, this point probably helped DVD CCA the most.
-- adraken
You can't do it. Sharks may have big mouths, but they can't swallow the entire net.
Everytime one site is shutdown, 5 more mirrors pop up out of spite. Right or wrong, the genie is out of the bottle and CANNOT be put back in. Maybe the lawyers will eventually figure this out. Will they get injunctions against every site on the planet?
... is that the judge cited (obviously, they don't make these things up, which means that probably the plaintiffs as precedent cited) Religious Technology Center vs. Netcom. RTCvsN was the Scientologists cracking down on ISPs. Bad case, bad precedent, bad law. Ugh.
If I was the MPAA would be to simply replace the current encryption technology with rot13. It's just as secure and it would massively increase the lawsuit possibility. So many unixen come with rot13 and they could sue them all. Hell, they could probably get MS to bankroll the whole thing.
--Shoeboy
On one level I agree with you. But it's the principle of the thing. That a bunch of high-priced but obviously not very ethical lawyers are attacking us so viciously, and on at least one level, winning.
I really LOVE the whack-a-mole aspect of the Internet, especially when dealing with this problem. I jsut wish it didn't have to happen in the first place.
If you can't figure out how to mail me, don't.
For linux tips: http://www.linuxtipsblog.com
Kill us all! Short of that, CSS will always be free and available! Tee hee! Ya hear this law-talking-guyz? I'm LAUGHING at your helplessness!
If it gets printed, then it's public knowledge. And Trade Secret claims go to pot once 'an innocent' comes across it.
PLUS you can't use that source code to copy a DVD. You'd have to type it in, compile it, run it...three steps removed from source is legal defence enough about wishing to encourage piracy...and they can't use a US court to pursue a foreign national in another country. Especially if that country is Norway, or somewhere with similar protected speech laws.
Whaddaya say?
Does that mean I can expect a big amount of time for other sites to mirror the code before I get any injunction to bring it down? Does the ruling have any effect on sites outside US anyway? regards, FrozenFire
Tru, in a pratical sense, they can never ban DeCSS. Too many people, both U.S. and non, already have a copy. Even if they win all the court cases, we will still have broken CSS.
And there are already pirate DVDs. Why don't they chase them down instead of LiViD and whatnot?
On page3.gif: .. is considered proper means .."
.."
"Discovery by "reverse engineering"
page4.gif:
"The court is not well positioned to interpret Norwegian Law
Proving they obtained the code improperly would be pretty difficult considering this, no? What could they do really?
When I woke up this morning I thought that it would be a good news day, with Kevin being released from prison. But when I went to the 2600 site for an update and saw the first injunction I became depressed.
And now the other shoe drops. It seems to me that today we all get to experience a small amount of the insanity that Kevin has lived through every day for the last five years. We are on the verge of watching a decision made for us by a small group of people who lack the ability to understand the technology involved in the question, much less the ramifications of the final decision.
Hopefully our friends at the EFF can succeed in pulling us through this, by explaining this to a level that even the judges can understand [not a job that I envy]. In the mean time I would like to show my support by leaving up my mirror site.
all persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental. - Kurt Vonnegut
The battle may be lost, but the war is far, far from over. Keep up the good fight. Don't lose faith. Tonight I'm gonna get drunk and listen to some good jazz. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day!
This is just an injunction. It's just a way of putting things on hold while the case is reviewed. It doesn't mean at all that the judge has decided in the plaintiff's favor. In fact, it says:
As Plaintiff conceded at the hearing on the TRO, once this information gets into the hands of an innocent party, the Plaintiff loses their ability to enjoin the use of their trade secret.
This is why the injuction was put in place. However, it's too late. Thousands of innocent people have downloaded this code already.
Once, and if they win this case they will have no trouble shutting down the sites. Most ISPs will comply, so getting it in the US won't be hard. I've got my copy from Sig11's mirror, And I'm keeping it. This does really not look good
The problem is, while to us the C code is as clear as english, most other people think of program code the way they think of macines, and they have had no trouble getting those banned, witness the DSS "test-card" issue, that's really only reprograming the small computer in a DSS satilite card, but it's illigal.
If judges feel that it's a device and not an idea then were fucked, and it becomes completly illigal. No, they won't beable to whipe it from the net, that's for sure, but they can kill effectively kill projects like LiViD. Red Hat isn't going to put illigal code in there main distro. SuSe isn't going to put somthing in that would get it banned in the US.
If the DVDCCA wins this, and they might, the effects will not be good...
[ c h a d o k e r e ]
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Do it! I think there should be a way of making anonymous donations though so the donators can't be prosecuted for "conspiracy".
There's no reason for a sig here.
If I'm understanding this right, it's saying that the injunction was granted not necessarily because DeCSS is illegal, but because it MIGHT be and the cost to the defendents caused by the injunction is almost non-existant, while the cost to the plantifs by not having an injunction is potentially huge.
By the way, does anyone know what "IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Plantiff DVD-CCA shall post a bond in the amount of $10,000 pursuant to CCP 529" is all about?
Maybe not the defendants named in the case, but it sure as hell harms RedHat Software, SuSE, VA Linux Systems and the like. How can they compete against Windows on the desktop if Linux is missing critical applications such as software DVD?
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
What the MPAA and the DVD CCA are guilty of is price fixing on a global scale. That's not legit in light of the anti-trust laws. We OUGHT to be looking into making their lives pure hell by initiating some action along those lines...
What they can do is effectively open development of LiViD for the purposes of creating a high-quality, free UNIX based DVD player. It just the illegal uses that are harder to curtail.
Sounds fair enough so far. Let's see why he says they did that.
What this basically says, is that, despite the fact that DVD CCA made no compellimg argument that the reverge engineering was wrongfully done, "circumstancial evidence" says that it was, therefore, this point will be granted to the plaintiff.
This is the part that really, really annoys me. What this says is that DVD CCA's right to have their ass covered by the law when they made a booboo and picked a weak encryption scheme, and god forbid it lets make fair use of a recording medium we purchases, is more imporant than our (I am a defendant) right to disseminate information freely. This is so wrong I cannot begin to rant enough about it, so let me just repeat this point again: This is a Judge saying "gagging your First Ammendment rights will be less harmful than a company losing money due to repeated mistakes on its behalf." Elving's statements that we will still be allowed to "discuss" the information, as long as we do not reveal it, still amount to a gag order, and a restriction on our speech.
To his credit, Elfving is right here. Nothing he has done is terrible, in regards to the current legislative framework, and standard legal procedure. And there is still a whole case ahead of us to make the points that such limitations ARE irrelevant. However, this sets a very grim tone for the proceedings to come.
Again, some sanity prevails here. Restricting linking would be fruitless, silly, and just plain wrong. What this means, is that we are all still free to link to code mirrors. If any remain around (and I am sure they will) after today, I will be linking to them from my website where I previously had the DeCSS code.
We have been granted link rights, and the right to still discuss this case and the issues at hand. Let's use them to the best of our abilities, to make sure the side of right, and of freedom, wins out.
Look -- the judge is practically begging the defense to prove that the reverse engineering in Norway was legal. He essentially points out that the plaintiffs don't have a leg to stand on if it's really true. So, is it really true?
Make me aerodynamic in the evening air
I just finished reading the scanned images of the findings. It is really quite interesting. Though I do have a strong bias, as I have copies of DeCSS, CSS-auth, and all the related material, I think that either the case presented by the EFF was not clear enough, or the judge did not take into account the claims of the defense.
It can easily be said that the CSS code can not easily be changed in any means by DVD manufacturers or player manufacturers, but on the other hand, I would say that the information can no longer be considered a trade secret... common people, its on a T-shirt (which I'm wearing right now).
On the findings that sites solely linked to sites containing what is temporarily found to be 'illegal' information can not be held liable, I am in strong agreement. As per previous slashdot topics, making linking illegal would bring about a complete downfall of many of the web's topics. Nearly every site links to or has a link from somewhere.
Those are my non-legalistic views after reading the six pages. I hope the the EFF and defense prevail in the case, especially because it will be important in helping to set a precident in the other state cases and in the federal case. I believe the federal case involvoing the Digital Millenium laws are much stronger for the defense as it can be claimed that CSS-auth was designed to promote interopperability. Either way... good luck to all defense parties involved.
A final word to the plaintiffs in this case. You are really fighting an uphill battle, be your case right or wrong. There are so many copies of the software you so strongly are trying to prevent distribution of that it will be impossible to squash them all. If you had simply not made a big deal out of it at the beginning, you would not be dealing with these same problems.
ok, one more thing.. on piracy. CSS-auth is NOT designed to copy DVD's, it is only designed to access the files. Though it can be used to copy them, it is primarily being used to play them, ergo LiViD. If I sell someone a gun, I should not be responsible because they used it improperly. Also, piracy of DVD's is impractical. Their sheer size, as well as the cost of DVD-ROM and DVD blanks is so expensive, that it is still much less expensive to buy a DVD itself.
From the horses mouth
NIVRAM
Page 4, lines 19-21 read, "Defendants have not provided evidence of any economic harm which an injunction could currently cause, although if such an injunction were not granted it is quite possible that this could change which could possibly shift the burden of harm in Defendants' favor"
Is it my imagination, or is the judge saying that if the mirrors would just all charge for the software, it would be much harder to get an injunction, since they would have an economic interest in its being available?
Excellent point. How many of you, like myself, thought DeCSS was interesting when you first heard about, but had no need of it and continued about your life?
Later though, when MPAA started beating their chests, and filing lawsuits, I saw fit to download DeCSS for myself, just for safekeeping. I don't have a DVD-Rom in my machine currently, but I'm certain that I will at some point in the future.
I'm not going to be prevented from watching movies I purchased (70+ and counting) on the opertaing system of my choice.
That's probably the funniest part of this whole ordeal... Had they only provided us with the means for playing our movies under Linux, DeCSS might not even exist today. That's what they get for ignoring us.
For those that would die defending it, Freedom
has a sweet taste that the protected will never know.
I KNOW deep in my heart, the lawyers simply cannot win this one, ever. The fun part of this is realizing how much of their own money they're spending. Do the math. Lessee if each injunction cost $100 to obtain (and this errs waaay on the cheap side) and 1e7 copies of DeCss/css-auth exist, then that's $1e6 (a billion dollars!) Surely this will break even the deep pockets of the DVD consortium. Of course, distribution sites in the non-Berne signatory nations are untouchable and will continually "refresh" the supply elsewhere on the planet. Infinite dollars? Not even Bill Gates has that much money.
The bond posted by the plaintiff is to cover any damages caused by the injunction to the defendants. Most likely, nothing will come of the money, but it is one of those little legal things they throw in there. Real had to do the same when StreamBox had their X-file get software which would allow people to save .rm streams. Essentially, if the defendants would stand to lose monitarily, the plaintiff is required to post a bond to cover that. The bond is paid out if the case is found in favor of the defendants.
from the horses mouth
NIVRAM
I am somewhat relieved in that the ruling was not entirely irrational. The judge rightly recognized, even while confusing the World Wide Web with the Internet, that it's unreasonable for webmasters to be held responisble for content on sites they link to. Had he granted the part of the motion that sought to ban links, the ruling would have been truly draconian.
And the brethren went away edified.
It would appear that the finding was faxed from a Kinko's, as clearly stated at the top of each page. Apparently the judge doesn't have his own fax machine. Maybe someone on our side should buy him one :).
As much as I love the EFF, having attended the trial I can see why we lost:
They said their stuff was stolen. We argued that we should be able to get away with it.
"Their secret wasn't protected enough" "They waited too long" "They knew it'd be broken" "They don't know for sure we got it from Xing" "Maybe they don't really have the right to sue us!"
Note, we didn't argue some greater good that is served by the taking, nor the harm implied by enforcing a unilateral license agreement upon a captive audience. We didn't claim they had no right to deprive us of rights, hell, we didn't claim a single right at all. This is coming out a hell of alot more bitter than it should, but I think this loss will make us stronger in the long run.
They proved they lost something. We tried to prove...something. I'm not sure.
Here's my summarization of the plaintiff's case. I'm not going to continue this document, but rather work on something completely different--something that directly addresses just exactly what the DVD CCA is trying to take away from us.
I'll be honest: I'm not happy with the way this turned out, and if I wasn't so crammed for time(I literally just secured long term housing for myself around 20 hours ago), I wouldn't even post this. But C'est La Vie.
=====DVD Redux: The Plaintiff's Complaints
=====================================
A Courtroom Analysis by Dan Kaminsky
effugas@best.com
http://www.doxpara.com
After receiving a rude awakening from the Linux community--and, make no mistake, it's us they're fighting--the DVD Copy Control Association today stepped up their efforts to restrict the further release of the codes necessary to play a CSS-encoded DVD disc. Last time, they walked into court with the presumption of victory on their lips. This time, they fought with far more intensity. But with far more time to prepare, so did we.
As of the writing of this summary, it remains to be seen who will prevail.
For sheer lack of time(and because I have no idea if anyone wants me to finish), I will restrict my analysis to the opening case of the plaintiffs.
The plaintiff's case seemed dedicated to addressing the wounds it received at the TRO(Temporary Restraining Order) hearing. Extensive evidence was offered justifying the claim that the DeCSS code was derived from Xing--a fact not extensively challenged online, but a core doubt raised by the defense at the TRO hearing. Posts on Slashdot were quoted *heavily* by the plaintiffs as an attempt to prove that the Linux community was on notice that it would be illegal to decrypt the video stream.
Yes, this means that Ye Olde Anonymous Coward has been entered into the court record. Numerous comments from many parties to that discussion, including AC's, that contradicted the plaintiff's case and notified developers of their rights to reverse engineer were however conveniently ignored by the plaintiff. Such examples of distorted reality propped up all throughout the hearing; quite annoying, to say the least.
At this point, the Plaintiff's case turned truly bizarre. While the DVD CCA fell over itself to say it wasn't actually invoking the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which may only be invoked in federal court, it made arguments under the act as a means to express and provide a perspective upon the Public Policy of the United States of America and, indeed, the 171 signing nations of the WIPO treaty. The relevance, argued the plaintiffs, was that since California's Uniform Trade Secret Act spoke of improprietity and not unlawfulness, the established public policy of the country should be used as the standard of what is proper and what isn't.
I must admit, I wasn't aware that playing a DVD qualified as a particularly unamerican activity. It might explain the civil disobedience campaigns(tshirts/contests) that the plaintiffs were so utterly disturbed by, however. Anyway, one wonders about the public policy the courts are supposed to apply when there's absolute consensus outside of Hollywood that individuals should be able to A) Play their own videos, B) Sell their own CDs, and C) Record their own TV Shows while still remaining good, patriotic Americans.
The case then moved into the International realm. Much noise has been made of the fact that reverse engineering of this type is generally quite legal in Norway, and indeed Europe as a whole. Both sides presented experts on the topic; needless to say, the opinions were not identical. pretty much claiming their expert made a more convincing argument than our expert. The plaintiff's expert, a Norwegian lawyer, claimed that the general law prohibiting unauthorized access to another individual's property, and particularly another person's data, should be applied in this case. On its face, this seems rather strange, since this case is about preventing a person from accessing data contained within their own physical property--the lawfully purchased DVD disc. But that's just my opinion.
The defendant's expert, claimed the plaintiff, was far more circumspect and wishy-washy, saying in effect that it could go either way and that the issue was undecided in norwegian courts. Since the plaintiff's answer was definitive and the defendant's answer was less so, the former ought to be considered more valid than the latter.
Returning to the core facts of the case, the plaintiffs reasonably argued that of all the defendants, none had provided an alternative source of the data aside from the Xing rip. Furthermore, the applicable law stated that prevention of *further* disclosure of a fact discovered after the usage to be a trade secret was an acceptable remedy, and since they weren't suing for anything more than such restraint(no damages, real or punitive), an injunction would specify the exact relief the law provided for. Since the defendants were on notice anyway, by both the passage of the DMCA and through "pervasive Slashdot discussions", this wouldn't be a surprising or inappropriate occurance.
Next, the plaintiff's primary counsel addressed the Linux interoperability argument. Given that a Linux developer would be willing to accept the arguably onerous terms of the CSS license(among which is that no imported DVDs may be playable, and that the source code be heavily closed and encrypted), the DVD CSS would be more than happy, he argued, to provide legal access for Linux users to play DVDs. Since IBM and Intel are both heavily invested in Linux, they argued, the means exists for a Linux DVD license to be signed.
The plaintiffs then trotted out the obligatory Coca Cola example: McDonalds sells Coke products, but Burger King only sells Pepsi. Just because you want Coke at Burger King, doesn't mean you get to steal the syrup off the truck, or break into Coca Cola headquarters and steal the formula. (I was unaware any DVDs had been stolen at gunpoint from UPS, or that Eric S. Raymond had led a crack commando team into the heart of Santa Clara for Operation LiViD-By-Any-Means-Necessary.) Because of this willingness, stealing the trade secret could not constitute appropriate self-help under the exceptions granted for interoperability. Sony's successes against the emulation community were raised, and the point that there was no fair use of trade secrets was made.
At that point, a new attorney for the plaintiff came up and began arguing against the EFF's extensive 1st amendment case. The EFF pointed out that the DVD CCA is seeking prior restraint against news sources(Slashdot itself is a named party), and that people merely want their traditional free speech rights to be enforced. Three responses were made: First, that the theft of trade secrets does not constitute a traditional usage of free speech rights. Second, that the defendants were not news sites(Slashdot?), and even if they were, they still couldn't post trade secrets. Finally, that the posting went beyond discussion--actual code was either directly there or being linked to.
The plaintiffs provided an example of what they'd like the judge to rule. It'd be acceptable to them for the San Jose Mercury News to provide commentary and analysis on the topic of the DVD decryption system, but to actually publish or link to the broken system would be a violation of trade secret law in their eyes. (As the defense later noted, such a linking has already taken place.)
In an interesting move, the plaintiffs used the Bernstein precedent that code is a form of speech to defend their position: The government was trying to suppress Bernstein's publication of his own encryption code. This is about a judge suppressing 200 John Doe's republication of someone else's encryption code. Of course, that implies that the code being republished was, in fact, someone elses--an access key does not a software product make, particularly when, as Sega v. Accolade decided, stripping the access key from a piece of software is the necessary to make other software interoperable.
The plaintiffs are continuing to attack even mere linkers--the whole concept of "instant access" to infringing sites scares the DVD CCA. One would think that the downsides of implicating the New York Times(as the defense pointed out) would override the advantages of a bit more protection against spurious links, but perhaps the DVD CCA sees things differently.
One thing the DVD CCA took particular offense to was the claim that the defendants were, in fact, helping them out by exposing the weakness of their system. They rather reasonably noted that, if the defendants were looking to help the CCA out, they could have sent an email, perhaps a real letter. Selling T-Shirts and running contests wasn't helpful.
On a sad note, the plaintiff's case concluded with some of the more vitriolic fear mongering and inappropriate references I have seen in quite some time. Beginning by claiming that the defense was trying to dismantle the entire IP system, massive(and rather irrelevant) hacks against military bases funneled through stolen Pac Bell internet account information, as well as the recent CDUniverse credit card scandal, were brought up as what could only be termed as character assassination against the "hackers" of the defense. Then, with the size of the DVD industry paraded in front of the judge as the sole reference to the irreperable economic damage that DeCSS and Linux players must surely create, the plaintiff made the entirely valid point that while the hacker community has embraced DeCSS, LiViD, and other CSS cracking systems, the mainstream has not yet adopted such tools. But what of the harms, should a mainstream that fought bitterly against record "spoiler systems" and has spent the last twenty years making audio mix tapes using their cassette recorders?
The direct harms that the DVD association brought to bear were summed up in a quote, in which it was stated that without legally backed copy protection, no media format(such as DVD Audio) could ever be good enough for Hollywood. And perhaps this is true. Manufacturing costs, the splurge of spending that accompanies repurchasing of previously owned content, now New And Improved, maybe even the profits from the conflicted interest consumer electronics divisions(Sony) just wouldn't be enough. Without the ability to technologically mandate what the courts would never accept--government enforced regional sale restrictions, arbitrary demands on DVD player manufacturers, a ban on personal backups and "mix DVDs"--perhaps we'd never see the big studios agree to new formats.
Oh well, I'm off to go play an 8-Track and catch some sleep, secure that they'll never give me a better quality music format for me to play with...
More next time, if you like.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
A DVD player was high on my list of things to buy, but if this case goes the way of the DVD MPA, I am never ever going to buy a DVD player. Of course, I think that the decision left a lot of room for the EFF to still win this case. The judge has clearly not closed his mind to the outcome. He has stated that the temporary injunction was granted because there is no financial harm to the defendant (which is true) and there is a great deal of potential financial harm to the plantiff (not actually true, but I can understand why he might think so). It is also very possible that his oppinion was swayed by the fact that a Federal judge recently issued a restraining order in a very similar case.
Basically, it's done to reimburse defendants for economic harm caused by the injunction should the plaintiffs lose. The same thing applied in the 2600 injunction.
Make me aerodynamic in the evening air
If you recall, there was a post about the gentleman who paid for MS's net bill auctioning it on ebay. If someone here were to win it, they could donate the money towards the EFF. This could get some positive plublicity for the DeCSS hearings.
Just a thought...
LetterRip
I bought a scanner that could receive cellular frequencies for the same reason. Their production and sale in the USA was banned (starting in 94). So I ran out and bought one just to "stick it to da man". I've also still got about 4 cases (96 cans of R12 refrigerant for my car's A/C). If it's banned, I want it!
Oh the irony! Russia: The last bastion of freedom!
I expected this would happen but in the scheme of things it is trivial. An injunction occurs when there is a great disparity in the cost to one party than the other. The cost of removing a link from a website to a website operator is $0. The cost to the DVD industry each day software to defeat their encryption is freely available on the Internet is considerable. Even the most tech-savvy judge would have had to grant an injunction to the MPAA. On the other hand the judge said it's Ok to link to sites that link to the DeCSS so just all we have to do is point at sites outside the courts jurisdiction that link to DeCSS.
I'm pretty dissappointed that from the look's of the judge's opinion the main case of the Defendants was that 40-bit encryption is weak. Who's dumb idea was that? Arguments like that imply guilt...the same way that saying "They didn't have bars on their windows" is not a good argument for any case that involves breaking and entering even if you are in the right. I hope this just means that this was what primarily caught the judge's eye instead of being a principal point in the Defendant's defence because if it is we are screwed.
I am interested in the click-through licence issue. Since the licence prohibited reverse engineering, we either have to argue that the laws of Norway supersede the contract or that that the licence clicker was not the reverse engineer. Either way it's going to be fun to see what happens.
PS: I like the judge's ruling that CSS shouldn't lose it's status as a trade secret by being posted on the Internet because this implies that if you can get the secret on the net you're home free... sounds like the "Wet Feet, Dry Feet" Cuban refugee problem all over again if he hadn't said that. That would have been an extremely dangerous precedent to set.
PPS: Gotta go code, on a Friday night *sigh*
The judge's injunction in this case is mostly based on relative harm. The idea being that if the MPAA is right then allowing distribution would cost them lots of money. OTOH, if the websites win the trial, then all they've lost is a few files for a few months; no monetary harm is done.
As much as I dislike this (for one thing, this rule means the big corps ALWAYS get the injunction; the etoy injunction seemed to be based on this as well), it's important to realize that this isn't necessarily a preview of the final decision. Parts of the judge's opinion point out some big problems with the MPAA case.
BTW, I'm sickened by the fact that the scientology case seems to be the major precedent available.
The judge mentioned that he didn't think linking should be forbidden, since it is a key part of the Internet (and if no one is allowed to actually host the "illegal" software , there's no way to link to it anyway).
That's why Yeltsin resigned: so he could hack on DeCSS?
CDs have (!) no encryption and (!) no region lockouts and (!) no copy protection. CDR burners cost under $150USD with media dipping below the $0.50USD per disc level. If there's no great harm happening to the CD market, why do the DVD goons think there will be to the video market?
It's actually irrelevant whether or not the data is widely known, or "discovered by an innocent."
...
... IANAL), so this would be a clear violation. (Or is it limited to only defendants?? oh well, they'll just add you to the list ...)
The case is against distributing info which the distributors should have known was obtained illegally. Ok, reverse engineering isn't illegal in Norway. But the judge's preliminary injunction should make you think twice. After all this, I doubt you can claim you didn't know where it came from
Anyhow, the order wasn't limited to the internet (I think
I don't mean to put you all down, but if we are going to win, we'll have to play by the rules. 8-)
--Wuzoe
I'm a nice person. People like me.
It says near the end of the judgement that the DVD-CCA have to pay a bond of $10,000. Can anyone explain why?
Gee, the injunction is easier due to little damage to the defendants? The plaintiffs are losing several hundred dollars from me because I won't buy DVD until I can use them on all my equipment.
The Defendants made the same argument that I was going to - that CSS is weak. The judge made the argument which anyone following up to me would have: Just because you've got a bad lock on your car, doesn't mean you're at fault if it's stolen. What the judge didn't seem to consider was the second part - the plantiff making reasonable efforts to keep CSS secret. Wasn't the first key obtained from an Xing player that didn't encrypt it? If that's the case, it doesn't sound like they made reasonable efforts at all - or even if it's entirely Xing's fault, the DVD folks didn't do anything to the company to attempt to salvage what had happened.
I wasn't aware that we could convict on circumstantial evidence. In an ideal world, we couldn't, but this is far from that. The disrespect for the law that the judge cites is mainly because of this. To me, it seems that the judge just didn't like the defendant's position, since he took offense to the fact they thought they were innocent.
I think it's strange that, while the judge acknowledges that it's nearly impossible to contain such information, he still tries to enforce the rule that it be contained. As though he's catching it in the nick of time... I think it's far past the time that it could have been stopped - quite possibly, there are more copies of deCSS out there than there would have been had the DVD consortium just left the authors alone! There are far too many people to pull into the courts at this point. What if some slashdot user decided to post the entire deCSS source code in a comment? It would be on-topic, after all. What if someone posted it to a newsgroup, again on topic? Deja.com would archive it. There are too many ways to get too many people involved for it to be a secret any longer.
I am not, however, a lawyer. I could be completely wrong
-Denor
I felt that Elfving was very fair in his ruling. The fundamental outry regarding this case in the first place was the restrictions the DVD CCA were seeking towards linking - which would inherently violate freedom of speech. The Judge was very clear in stating his unwillingness to issue an injunction against links to other sites, and was very correct in stating that it was unnecessary, as he had already issued an injunction ordering the removal of the said IP from all servers. I think most everyone expected this preliminary injunction. It is not uncommon for a judge to issue an injunction in a case like this. As others have said before, it is simply a means to put the activities that have brought the complaints on 'hold.' It's a prudent decision, as irreperable harm could be caused if the inujunction was not granted, and the judge later sided with the DVD CCA. All in all, I thought it was a very balanced and fair ruling.
signature smigmature
- James
Yah, heaven forbid they try to prevent piracy of movies that costs millions to produce. People wonder why Lucas isn't putting TPM on DVD -- this is exactly why.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
Under the language "all persons acting in concert with them" (line 28 p1 of brief), VA might be considered a defendant as they are both selling Linux-based systems, and host Chris DiBona's website, and are located in the State of California, hence coming under the jurisdiction of this case.
I believe this establishes a basis for arguing economic harm.
Mind you, I think that stomping on Constitutional free speech rights constitutes major harm as well.
What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
This is only a preliminary thing lads, don't get too excited. The judge has quite correctly decided that we don't suffer much financially by this preliminary injunction, and that it's possible that the DVD people would suffer by it's absence. It's not hard to see his point of view here, and he hasn't barred linking to pages with CSS code. All things considered this is a fair and reasonable judgement IMHO.
Anyway, roll on the (unadorned but functional) Whack A Mole Entry
Paul.
This could be an opportunity for AOL to get some serious 'karma' in the Online community, now that they've merged with one of the studios and all
I would think that "the good will of the people" is probably worth a lot more to them now then the piracy of a few WB movies
Of course this morning, I thought that the lawsuit was completly idiotic to begin with...
[ c h a d o k e r e ]
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I gather from reading the injunction (IANAL) that there is a big opening: find a country where click-contracts are explicitely invalid. Apparently the judge thinks that the law in Norway is unclear.
So the obvious thing to do is for somebody with appropriate skills in such a country to reverse-engineer CSS again. Then post a new (indepentant) version of deCSS to a media.
You would have to have some witnesses who would swear that this effort was independant. You wouldn't be able to use the current CSS as a starting point, but (I think) you could take advantage of the same hole in the Xing player along with information on HOW the original hacker did their magic.
Maybe the original hacker could create a "reverse-engineer-CSS" HOWTO with tips on technique, but no actual trade-secrets. Then people all over the place could post independant code and each version would require a separate legal challenge.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
I was going to do this myself but one of my co-webmasters got there first. The files in question are now avalable at www.exaflop.org, here is the text of my friends news posting.
It would seem to me that this preliminary injunction has left itself wide open to being overturned. And it has done so explicitly!
First, the judge repeatedly states that this injunction does not prevent anyone from discussing the DeCSS algorithm. OK, that's good to know.
Here comes the kicker ... if I recall, in a case directly addressing posting encryption to the Web, the court has ruled that this is covered under the 1st Amendment, our protection of Free Speech.
It would seem to me that if you're allowed to talk about it (free speech) and that if posting something to the web has been ruled an extension of 'free speech', then this injunction can't hold much water.
Disclaimer: IANAL.
Just a thought, as always.
-Brice
OK, it's not 100% positive, the injunction did go through afterall.
Fortunately it does seem the judge isn't a clueless gumby. He makes point on the sixth page that a website's owner isn't responsible for information on sites that you've just linked to. This shows an understanding of the Internet's workings and delineation of responsibility.
He also explicitly permits continued analysis and discussion of the CSS algorithm, even under the injunction, as long as the algorithm and keys aren't distributed. This is mildly positive, as it may mean the other CSS defeater (the 18 second brute force technique) would be legal.
He refutes the claim that the encryption was unusually weak, citing the three year period when it wasn't cracked as being proof. Fortunately it should be easy to bolster the "weakness" claim by getting some expert witnesses in cryptography. I have heard there are only 2^16 unique tests!
He agrees that reverse engineering is "proper means", but only if the DeCSS author didn't agree to the click license. He says that the DVDCCA's argument here is "problematic" as they (1) cannot prove Johansen wrote the code or (2) that he'd agreed to a shrinkwrap license.
Finally he strongly emphasises that the real reason that he's granting the injunction is because the harm to DVDCCA by not granting the injunction is far greater than the harm to everyday users by granting the injunction. This strikes me as being fair enough.
My overall impression is that the judge does understand the issues here and that the judge is intelligent and thoughtful. Also the decision to grant the injunction is the fairest decision that could be made: it minimises harm to all parties given that the judge doesn't know what the truth of the matter is.
I would think the 6 page statement also says quite clearly to the EFF how they should proceed. The EFF needs to prove that 40-bit encyption is weak, that the reverse engineering was undertaken for "proper means", and that Johansen could not have been held under the "click license". If the EFF can prove these points then they answer all of the open-ended questions in the judges report.
Page 6 Says that linking to web sites is still legal. I do find comfort in the fact that the judge realises that linking is essential to the WWW, and that a web master cannot be held responsible for the contents of a site to which it links.
I do have to admit that the judge's reasoning is the most sound I've seen so far in favor of the DVD CCA, but only when considering the issues of trade secrets, not copy protection. The judge merely granted them the right to protect their licensed algorithms, but this is shaky ground which will be heavily debated in the future. I am confident that this whole thing will work itself out to some open DVD standard in time to come.
Beer wants to be free
i stocked up on cocaine, but if George dubya is elected, he might legalize, thus ruining my investment.
and i thought he was supposed to be pro-business.
hmmph.
U C4N"7 5T0P U5 d00dz!!!!!!!!!111!!!!%$!^%$^!%$^%#@#@#@
Anyone else notice the judges references to the case Scientology brought against Netcom?
The Religious Technology Center is (or was) a front organization for Scientology whose purpose was to hold Scientology's copyrights and then sue people who post anything from their matierial or even replied to a message which contained fragments of something from their material. They seem to have no understanding of the concept of "Fair Use". Most of them are available to someone who spends more then 5 minutes looking for them.
Can anyone find the reference to an alledged method used to indirectly intimidate judges hearing their cases?
Even though this isn't a copyright case, is there a defense which goes along the lines of, "I had to reverse engineer it to write my own player".
We the Sheeple...
What we're seeing is pure spite on the part of the MPAA. If they aren't total idiots they must already realize that:
1)Nothing they can do can get rid of DeCSS at this point.
2)Even if they did manage to get rid of DeCSS, once DVD-R's drop below $600 and DVD blanks drop under $8 a piece, large numbers of people are going to begin copying DVDs.
In this light, the MPAA's actions take on a scary new signifigance. The MPAA represents the first large scale group to intentionaly attempt to destroy the internet. Previous threats have been from people/groups that simply wanted to make things better (in their opinion), not realizing or caring about the effects of this change (I don't think anyone would say that the Republican Communication's Dency Act was designed with the intent to destroy the internet, even though that would have been the effect).
The way this campain is being carried out seems to support my conclusion. Attacking 2600 can't slow the spread of DeCSS. All it can do, is piss a lot of people of and show off the MPAA's legal muscle.
It almost seems as if MPAA wants to bring together everyone who will fight with them so that they can have some sort of dramatic confrontation (expecially ironic, because that would be a very hollywood type of ending for this struggle).
COme on REDHAT, have some balls, or linus, put it in the kernel, that way its GPLed and its everywhere by default.
Blatant nitpick - 1e6 = 1,000,000 = One million.
Sorry, but I had to say it.
(3) With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is
not necessarily a good idea. It is hard to be sure where they
are going to land, and it could be dangerous sitting under them
as they fly overhead.
Sorry. I couldn't resist.
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
The links on the site mentioned don't work, so here are a few for freedom-loving /. readers:
ftp://ftp.quuxbar.org/pub/DeCS S/DeCSS.zip
ftp://ftp.quuxbar.org/pub/D eCSS/css-auth.tar.gz
Good luck!!!
Yes, you too can find this via Google, but here is a picking of more relevant material:
What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
Watch what you say!
They'll probably add this to the case against the defendants!
~~~~~~~~~
auntfloyd
little angry aren't we?
little frigging weird.
Is it me or are a lot more people downloading DeCSS? I'm sure there's a lesson in this somewhere.
This is hardly a blow to the OpenDVD orginazation. The court ruled that no web site in the jurisdiction of the California court can post the DeCSS source code. NOT A BIG DEAL. These same sites can publish links to the code, host discussions about the code, and basically are hardly permitted from doing anything.
In addition, the fact that the DeCSS code is misappropriating trade secrets is on shaking ground. The whole case would have been thrown out completely if the judge determined that "click licenses" were not enforceable in Norway. I'm sure there is some country in this world that has determined that "click licenses" are not enforceable. It will just take someone in that country who hasn't seen deCSS to reverse engineer some DVD player, and the source code will be free as a bird.
Unfortuantly, if another version of deCSS is created that legally reversed engineered a DVD player, I suspect that the movie industry will sue under the DMCA since reverse engineering is not given the same protection.
Sig goes here
It is a good thing that there were no damages awarded, as it is an unenforceable judgement for most of the people with whom it matters. The issues of practicality of the judgement are unheard. This fellow seems largely ignorant of the real issues at hand, and someone has to bring these things to his attention. We MUST win this thing on the grounds of rightiousness, not technicalities, for in technicalities we prematurely admit defeat.
/. the forum for "open minded" people to run around full of hate and call religious people nasty names.
did you know what schools CmdrTco went too?
heres a sugestion to all you linux zealots: DONT DROP THE SOAP! you know damn well yer gitin' halled off to prizon!!!! damn zealots!! the zealotry stops here!!!1!!
TRoLL
Please, mirror this thing! My copy of the sources can be found here, and a mirror list can be found here.
Note that the proper program to mirror is the css-auth program (with source) and not the DeCSS program (which is floating around in binary-only form). The reason is that css-auth is actually useful for playing DVDs on linux, whereas DeCSS is a windows program used mostly for proof-of-concept.
We need to keep the whack-a-mole going!
Yeah, he flunked out of Holland Community College. Hemos was expelled from Hope for his homosexual tendencies.
"As Plaintiff conceded at the hearing on the TRO, once this information gets into the hands of an innocent party, the Plaintiff loses their ability to enjoin the use of their trade secret."
Well, I've got a copy of DeCSS, and I consider myself pretty innocent -- does this mean the trade secret's dead anyway?
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
I'd like to see the AC who keeps talking about people naked and petrified, naked and petrified.
If you can't figure out how to mail me, don't.
For linux tips: http://www.linuxtipsblog.com
Both DeCSS and css-auth.
130.111.75.63:142/
Does anybody know where the click-through license stuff comes from? I'm no lawyer, but I am quite sure that no contract may deprive an American of his or her rights in this country. I understand that such clauses are legally null. Eg. waivers are often disregarded if there is a lawsuit over an issue such as gross negligence.
I'm curious whether this might apply to a click-through license. The digital Millennium act seems to specifically grant the right of reverse engineering for compatibility purposes. Does that supercede the license, or does the license nullify copyright law? What about a shrink-wrapped book with a "no fair use" statement on the front? Would this be legal? I not, how is it different?
I'm not a lawyer, but it seems that the click-through license might be out of line here.
snicker
We're still in the game, the judge confirmed that linking is crucial to how the internet operates, and we're still allowed to link to mirrors of the files elsewhere.
This isn't over yet.
I just checked them and they were fine, now anyone got instructions for compiling this thing?
This was cited as one of the judge's tests for whether or not to issue an injunction. I guess this judge feels that freedom of speech is trivial, since that is what the defense is claiming it will be losing.
I still do not understand what the big deal is. It is not like DVD can't be copied without CSS, and what do they think people will do with DeCSSed movies? Burn them and sell them? ON WHAT? TO WHOM? It seems DeCSS would make it a lot easier to transfer a DVD over the internet, but 4 or 5 gigs is waaay out of most people's leagues for downloading. Even on my school's network, it takes me a few hours to download an ISO of RedHat.
I think the real issue for the CCA is saving face. They made a weak, crappy encryption system and they look stupid. So rather than bite the bullet and get to work on 128-bit CSS they are going to just try and hold back the flood. Isn't DeCSS under 100k or something like that? If the music industry can't stop illegal MP3s (no matter how hard they try), how are they going to stop DeCSS, which can be quietly attached to any email message and float unnoticed through the ether? Napster is not needed here, no huge database. Just ask a friend and he'll mail it to you.
This whole thing seems a bit wacky.
______________________________________
um, sigs should be heard and not seen?
rooooar
The fact of the matter is, it's out there now. If the criminals are going to copy DVDs they are just going to do it now that they can. They are going to be more aggresive than ever now that someone wants to stop them. Why ruin it for all the people that want to use the software for a legal purpose, so I can watch DVDs on my UNIX machines and others can do the same. So we can make backups of our movies if anything ever happens to the physical disk. Going after the people that wrote it is useless now
Well, I fore one still have my 'y2k readyness' kit :-)
I know that everybody and his mother has a mirror for DeCSS, but here's mine anyway. http://www.cc.utah.edu/~rdj5
Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen. --Douglas Adams, _Mostly
I know this is probably been beaten to death, but I have a mirror up at http://dvd.squadron.org with the DeCSS and css-auth files.
There is great harm to the CD market. From MP3, not CDR.
Scientology has it's own gaggle of pet lawyers (there's actually scripture explaining why it's a good thing to sue people into the ground)... one of them decided to rmgroup the newsgroup .... instantly people started shouting all over the net about censorship and what had once been a pretty quiet newsgroup swelled with lots of free-speech computer people anxious to find out out what was up ....
About the same time this went down an anonymous person posted OT3 (the secret scientology 'scritpure' about how we're all haunted by murdered space aliens and why you have to give them 100,000s of $$ to get exorcised) to the newsgroup. Dennis Erlich (who's ISP got news from Netcom) responded to this posting with a post that quoted the original post along with an annotation to the effect 'yup this is the real thing'.
The scientologists showed up with US marshalls at Dennis's house a little while later and took away all his computers, backup disks etc etc - under the same laws they use to get counterfieted jeans and pulled him, his ISP and Netcom into court. Netcom settled early on to get out from under the case - in the end (years later) Dennis did too and the scientologists PAID HIM
This was the opening round in the ongoing scientology vs. the net range war which is still going on (check out www.xenu.net for more info
I had considered buying a DVD player. However, I currently do not own a DVD player of any kind nor do I own and DVD disks. Unless the current sad state of affairs ends, I never will! I am also encouraging all my friends to not buy any DVD related products. It may not be much, but we all must do our part to bring some sanity to the world.
I'm not suprised that they won the point here, as a pessamist I doubt it will be the last. The digital movie, software, and music (and nascent online book) industries are worth billions of dollars. In most cases the Original Creator of the product receives a small portion of the industries wealth. A huge percentage of that wealth is focused on the distribution and sale of the product.
Think about it, hundreds of millions of dollars are made around making a digital product difficult to get a hold of (or rather making sure you pay an artificially high price -does it really cost $17 to make a music CD?). These companies must realize that products like MP3 and deCSS can significantly reduce the need for middle men. They'll fight any change tooth and nail, including throwing millions at lawyers on these lawsuits (and later the appeals). They need to, they're Ludites who would see the value of their companies (and jobs) cut significantly if they did what was in the customers (and Original Creators) best interests.
Blow by blow from the TRO:
The circumstantial evidence, available mostly due to the various defendants' inclination to boast
about their disrespect for the law, is quite compelling on both the issue of Mr. Johansen's improper means and that Defendants' knowledge of impropriety.
1) Stop taunting the lawyers. It pisses off the judges, and gets you nowhere. Calling the plaintiff's lawyers "cocksuckers" will not get you a sympathetic ear in court. Take a Zen attitude about the whole thing - respect your opponent.
Defendants make the additional argument that even if Johansen clicked on the license
agreement, such an agreement contravenes Norwegian law. This Court is not well positioned to
interpret Norwegian Law, and Defendant's own expert, even if this Court could consider expert
testimony on a question of legal interpretation, states that the issue has not been conclusively
decided in Norway. Defendants have not sufficiently supported their argument that the licence agreement, like the one at issue here, would be disallowed by Norwegian Law, although they may at some point be able to do so.
Defendant stated in passing at the hearing on Preliminary Injunction that issues of
foreign law are questions of fact, however neither side has provided this Court with argument or
authority on this point.
2) Read up on Norwegian law - this may actually provide some credibility to the original act of reverse engineering. A large part of this case boils down to the legality of the reverse engineering, and it's time to get those facts straight.
However, the Court refuses to issue an injunction against linking to other websites which
contain the protected materials as such an order is overbroad and extremely burdensome. Links to
other websites are the mainstay of the Internet and indispensable to its convenient access to the vast world of information. A website owner simply cannot be held responsible for all of the content
of the sites to which it provides links.
3) Move your links to point to offshore repositories, for now. We can comply with the restraining order, and still have access to the code. Defiance will not help (see number 1, above).
Also - offer up the true pirates, those who wish to traffic in stolen, copyrighted material. Those are the people that they'd like to lump us all in with, and it's simply not accurate. It's time to make a clear distinction between the pirates and the programmers.
----
I haven't heard a peep out of our 'evangelists' on any of this. Where do ESR and Bruce Perens stand on this whole issue?
Have they gone into hiding? Is this big mess going to completely wipe away corporate support for Open Source(tm)? It does seem like the kind of issue that's gonna drive a big wedge between the suits and the radicals.
Not everything that plays DVDs has a click-through license, right? I don't recall that I had to sign anything or break any printed seals to open my DVD player (component, not in a computer). Wouldn't most of this issue be moot if someone could find something without a click-through license to reverse engineer? And (speaking here as a non-lawyer), it seems like it would be best if this could be done quickly, so as to minmize the window of time during which it could be claimed that the availability of DeCSS violated a trade secret.
I thought the injunction order seemed pretty reasonable, anyway. Like everyone else around here, I have some reservations about the law, though.
(Feel free to moderate this down into oblivion if I'm missing some obvious point. We non-lawyers are dumb that way.)
"Anyone with information on suspected video piracy operations is urged to call the MPAA at 1-800-NO-COPYS (1-800-662-6797). Callers who provide information that leads to the arrest and conviction of persons engaged in video piracy may be eligible for a reward. A separate reward will be paid to the first person who provides the location of a pirate video lab. The pirate lab must consist of 30 or more VCRs at one location used to produce unauthorized copies of MPAA member company motion pictures.
Information may also be furnished via E-Mail if directed to the email Hotline at the MPAA in Encino, California. Informants may remain anonymous if requested."
Or better yet, mail it to all these wonderful people:
MPAA Officers
Jack Valenti: President and Chief Executive Officer
William Baker: Executive Vice President and C.O.O.
Fritz Attaway: Senior Vice President - Government Relations and D.C. General Counsel
Simon Barsky: Senior Vice President - General Counsel
Gregory Goeckner: Vice President - Deputy General Counsel
Vans Stevenson Senior Vice President - State Legislation
John J. Collins: Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Bethlyn Hand: Senior Vice President - Administration, Director of Advertising Administration
Brad Hunt: Senior Vice President & Chief Technology Officer
Richard Taylor: Vice President for Public Affairs
Tod Cohen: Vice President & Counsel - New Technology
Robin Patino: Vice President - World-Wide Market Research
Paul Egge: Vice President - Information Services
Marsha Kessler: Vice President - Copyright Royalty Distribution, New Technology & Planning
Bonnie Richardson: Vice President - Trade & Federal Affairs
Nancy Thompson: Vice President - D.C. Administration
Cynthia Merifield: Vice President - Congressional Affairs
Marilyn Gordon: Vice President and Associate Director, Advertising Administration
Melissa Patack: Vice President and General Manager - MPAA California Group
Karin Krueger: Vice President, State Legislation
If I recall, someone did try to secure the rights to create a "sanctioned" Linux DVD player. They failed - I'm not sure if it was due to financial reasons, or because the DVD suits didn't feel that he was "worthy." If it was anything other than inability to meet financial obligations, I would think that the retelling of his story might help the defendants with their "interoperability" defense.
----
There are around 5000 titles out on DVD, and I want to watch them all. The value of each title to the studios is around 15 dollars apiece, on average, and that must be at least the value that I place on my viewing of each title, since that is typically the amount that I pay willingly. My player of choice is Linux, and I cannot view these DVDs on Linux now because of the action of the plaintiff.
However, the actual value I place on DVDs must be higher than their direct cost, to justify the expense and the desire to buy them. In actuality, I consider that the consequent harm caused to me by not being permitted to view these DVDs on my player of choice far exceeds the mere cost value, to the tune of 100 dollars apiece on average (based on the damage to my intended career as Linux movie critic), and therefore the plaintiff's action results in a consequent loss to myself of 500,000 dollars minus the saved direct cost of 75,000 dollars. [This valuation is a result of a personal assessment based on private data and is not open to modification by any other party. The assessment algorithm (but not the private data, which is a trade secret) is available for inspection, at a cost of 5 million dollars per request.]
OK, that's me taken care of. Has anyone else suffered a loss as a result of the injunction? If so, and if there are more than just a few of us, then the primary justification for the judge's ruling is rendered void.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Posting the source is one thing, but the effect is limited. Perhaps the EFF (or some other organization) should start a fund for "public education". Use the money to buy ad space in mainstream publications, and provide a URL to more detailed discussion online. Encourage letter writing and boycotts.
Showing consumers that (and how) they're getting exploited by powerful corporations address the larger issue here anyway.
/*
, 0x36,0x2b,0x6e,0x2e,0x66,0x7b, , 0xd6,0x0b,0x4e,0x0e,0x46,0x9b, , 0x52,0x8f,0xca,0x8a,0xc2,0x1f, , 0xd0,0x01,0x48,0x08,0x40,0x91, , 0x34,0x25,0x6c,0x2c,0x64,0x75, , 0xd4,0x05,0x4c,0x0c,0x44,0x95, , 0x50,0x81,0xc8,0x88,0xc0,0x11, , 0xd2,0x0f,0x4a,0x0a,0x42,0x9f, , 0x56,0x8b,0xce,0x8e,0xc6,0x1b, , 0xb6,0xab,0xee,0xae,0xe6,0xfb, , 0x32,0x2f,0x6a,0x2a,0x62,0x7f, , 0xb0,0xa1,0xe8,0xa8,0xe0,0xf1, , 0x54,0x85,0xcc,0x8c,0xc4,0x15, , 0xb4,0xa5,0xec,0xac,0xe4,0xf5, , 0x30,0x21,0x68,0x28,0x60,0x71, , 0xb2,0xaf,0xea,0xaa,0xe2,0xff
, 0x0b,0x0a,0x0d,0x0c,0x0f,0x0e, , 0x19,0x18,0x1f,0x1e,0x1d,0x1c, , 0x2f,0x2e,0x29,0x28,0x2b,0x2a, , 0x3d,0x3c,0x3b,0x3a,0x39,0x38, , 0x42,0x43,0x44,0x45,0x46,0x47, , 0x50,0x51,0x56,0x57,0x54,0x55, , 0x66,0x67,0x60,0x61,0x62,0x63, , 0x74,0x75,0x72,0x73,0x70,0x71, , 0x99,0x98,0x9f,0x9e,0x9d,0x9c, , 0x8b,0x8a,0x8d,0x8c,0x8f,0x8e, , 0xbd,0xbc,0xbb,0xba,0xb9,0xb8, , 0xaf,0xae,0xa9,0xa8,0xab,0xaa, , 0xd0,0xd1,0xd6,0xd7,0xd4,0xd5, , 0xc2,0xc3,0xc4,0xc5,0xc6,0xc7, , 0xf4,0xf5,0xf2,0xf3,0xf0,0xf1, , 0xe6,0xe7,0xe0,0xe1,0xe2,0xe3
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff
, 0x50,0xd0,0x30,0xb0,0x70,0xf0, , 0x58,0xd8,0x38,0xb8,0x78,0xf8, , 0x54,0xd4,0x34,0xb4,0x74,0xf4, , 0x5c,0xdc,0x3c,0xbc,0x7c,0xfc, , 0x52,0xd2,0x32,0xb2,0x72,0xf2, , 0x5a,0xda,0x3a,0xba,0x7a,0xfa, , 0x56,0xd6,0x36,0xb6,0x76,0xf6, , 0x5e,0xde,0x3e,0xbe,0x7e,0xfe, , 0x51,0xd1,0x31,0xb1,0x71,0xf1, , 0x59,0xd9,0x39,0xb9,0x79,0xf9, , 0x55,0xd5,0x35,0xb5,0x75,0xf5, , 0x5d,0xdd,0x3d,0xbd,0x7d,0xfd, , 0x53,0xd3,0x33,0xb3,0x73,0xf3, , 0x5b,0xdb,0x3b,0xbb,0x7b,0xfb, , 0x57,0xd7,0x37,0xb7,0x77,0xf7, , 0x5f,0xdf,0x3f,0xbf,0x7f,0xff
1 9);*/ ;
1 9);*/ ;
:)
* css_descramble.c
*
* Released under the version 2 of the GPL.
*
* Copyright 1999 Derek Fawcus
*
* This file contains functions to descramble CSS encrypted DVD content
*
*/
/*
* Still in progress: Remove the use of the bit_reverse[] table by recoding
* the generation of LFSR1. Finish combining this with
* the css authentication code.
*
*/
#include
#include
#include "css-descramble.h"
typedef unsigned char byte;
/*
*
* some tables used for descrambling sectors and/or decrypting title keys
*
*/
static byte csstab1[256]=
{
0x33,0x73,0x3b,0x26,0x63,0x23,0x6b,0x76,0x3e,0x7e
0xd3,0x93,0xdb,0x06,0x43,0x03,0x4b,0x96,0xde,0x9e
0x57,0x17,0x5f,0x82,0xc7,0x87,0xcf,0x12,0x5a,0x1a
0xd9,0x99,0xd1,0x00,0x49,0x09,0x41,0x90,0xd8,0x98
0x3d,0x7d,0x35,0x24,0x6d,0x2d,0x65,0x74,0x3c,0x7c
0xdd,0x9d,0xd5,0x04,0x4d,0x0d,0x45,0x94,0xdc,0x9c
0x59,0x19,0x51,0x80,0xc9,0x89,0xc1,0x10,0x58,0x18
0xd7,0x97,0xdf,0x02,0x47,0x07,0x4f,0x92,0xda,0x9a
0x53,0x13,0x5b,0x86,0xc3,0x83,0xcb,0x16,0x5e,0x1e
0xb3,0xf3,0xbb,0xa6,0xe3,0xa3,0xeb,0xf6,0xbe,0xfe
0x37,0x77,0x3f,0x22,0x67,0x27,0x6f,0x72,0x3a,0x7a
0xb9,0xf9,0xb1,0xa0,0xe9,0xa9,0xe1,0xf0,0xb8,0xf8
0x5d,0x1d,0x55,0x84,0xcd,0x8d,0xc5,0x14,0x5c,0x1c
0xbd,0xfd,0xb5,0xa4,0xed,0xad,0xe5,0xf4,0xbc,0xfc
0x39,0x79,0x31,0x20,0x69,0x29,0x61,0x70,0x38,0x78
0xb7,0xf7,0xbf,0xa2,0xe7,0xa7,0xef,0xf2,0xba,0xfa
};
static byte lfsr1_bits0[256]=
{
0x00,0x01,0x02,0x03,0x04,0x05,0x06,0x07,0x09,0x08
0x12,0x13,0x10,0x11,0x16,0x17,0x14,0x15,0x1b,0x1a
0x24,0x25,0x26,0x27,0x20,0x21,0x22,0x23,0x2d,0x2c
0x36,0x37,0x34,0x35,0x32,0x33,0x30,0x31,0x3f,0x3e
0x49,0x48,0x4b,0x4a,0x4d,0x4c,0x4f,0x4e,0x40,0x41
0x5b,0x5a,0x59,0x58,0x5f,0x5e,0x5d,0x5c,0x52,0x53
0x6d,0x6c,0x6f,0x6e,0x69,0x68,0x6b,0x6a,0x64,0x65
0x7f,0x7e,0x7d,0x7c,0x7b,0x7a,0x79,0x78,0x76,0x77
0x92,0x93,0x90,0x91,0x96,0x97,0x94,0x95,0x9b,0x9a
0x80,0x81,0x82,0x83,0x84,0x85,0x86,0x87,0x89,0x88
0xb6,0xb7,0xb4,0xb5,0xb2,0xb3,0xb0,0xb1,0xbf,0xbe
0xa4,0xa5,0xa6,0xa7,0xa0,0xa1,0xa2,0xa3,0xad,0xac
0xdb,0xda,0xd9,0xd8,0xdf,0xde,0xdd,0xdc,0xd2,0xd3
0xc9,0xc8,0xcb,0xca,0xcd,0xcc,0xcf,0xce,0xc0,0xc1
0xff,0xfe,0xfd,0xfc,0xfb,0xfa,0xf9,0xf8,0xf6,0xf7
0xed,0xec,0xef,0xee,0xe9,0xe8,0xeb,0xea,0xe4,0xe5
};
static byte lfsr1_bits1[512]=
{
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
};
/* Reverse the order of the bits within a byte.
*/
static byte bit_reverse[256]=
{
0x00,0x80,0x40,0xc0,0x20,0xa0,0x60,0xe0,0x10,0x90
0x08,0x88,0x48,0xc8,0x28,0xa8,0x68,0xe8,0x18,0x98
0x04,0x84,0x44,0xc4,0x24,0xa4,0x64,0xe4,0x14,0x94
0x0c,0x8c,0x4c,0xcc,0x2c,0xac,0x6c,0xec,0x1c,0x9c
0x02,0x82,0x42,0xc2,0x22,0xa2,0x62,0xe2,0x12,0x92
0x0a,0x8a,0x4a,0xca,0x2a,0xaa,0x6a,0xea,0x1a,0x9a
0x06,0x86,0x46,0xc6,0x26,0xa6,0x66,0xe6,0x16,0x96
0x0e,0x8e,0x4e,0xce,0x2e,0xae,0x6e,0xee,0x1e,0x9e
0x01,0x81,0x41,0xc1,0x21,0xa1,0x61,0xe1,0x11,0x91
0x09,0x89,0x49,0xc9,0x29,0xa9,0x69,0xe9,0x19,0x99
0x05,0x85,0x45,0xc5,0x25,0xa5,0x65,0xe5,0x15,0x95
0x0d,0x8d,0x4d,0xcd,0x2d,0xad,0x6d,0xed,0x1d,0x9d
0x03,0x83,0x43,0xc3,0x23,0xa3,0x63,0xe3,0x13,0x93
0x0b,0x8b,0x4b,0xcb,0x2b,0xab,0x6b,0xeb,0x1b,0x9b
0x07,0x87,0x47,0xc7,0x27,0xa7,0x67,0xe7,0x17,0x97
0x0f,0x8f,0x4f,0xcf,0x2f,0xaf,0x6f,0xef,0x1f,0x9f
};
/*
*
* this function is only used internally when decrypting title key
*
*/
static void css_titlekey(byte *key, byte *im, byte invert)
{
unsigned int lfsr1_lo,lfsr1_hi,lfsr0,combined;
byte o_lfsr0, o_lfsr1;
byte k[5];
int i;
lfsr1_lo = im[0] | 0x100;
lfsr1_hi = im[1];
lfsr0 = ((im[4] >8)&0xff] >16)&0xff]>24)&0xff];
combined = 0;
for (i = 0; i >1;
lfsr1_lo = ((lfsr1_lo&1)>7)^(lfsr0>>10)^(lfsr0>>11)^(lfsr0>>
o_lfsr0 = (((((((lfsr0>>8)^lfsr0)>>1)^lfsr0)>>3)^lfsr0)>>7)
lfsr0 = (lfsr0>>8)|(o_lfsr0>= 8;
}
key[4]=k[4]^csstab1[key[4]]^key[3];
key[3]=k[3]^csstab1[key[3]]^key[2];
key[2]=k[2]^csstab1[key[2]]^key[1];
key[1]=k[1]^csstab1[key[1]]^key[0];
key[0]=k[0]^csstab1[key[0]]^key[4];
key[4]=k[4]^csstab1[key[4]]^key[3];
key[3]=k[3]^csstab1[key[3]]^key[2];
key[2]=k[2]^csstab1[key[2]]^key[1];
key[1]=k[1]^csstab1[key[1]]^key[0];
key[0]=k[0]^csstab1[key[0]];
}
/*
*
* this function decrypts a title key with the specified disk key
*
* tkey: the unobfuscated title key (XORed with BusKey)
* dkey: the unobfuscated disk key (XORed with BusKey)
* 2048 bytes in length (though only 5 bytes are needed, see below)
* pkey: array of pointers to player keys and disk key offsets
*
*
* use the result returned in tkey with css_descramble
*
*/
int css_decrypttitlekey(byte *tkey, byte *dkey, struct playkey **pkey)
{
byte test[5], pretkey[5];
int i = 0;
for (; *pkey; ++pkey, ++i) {
memcpy(pretkey, dkey + (*pkey)->offset, 5);
css_titlekey(pretkey, (*pkey)->key, 0);
memcpy(test, dkey, 5);
css_titlekey(test, pretkey, 0);
if (memcmp(test, pretkey, 5) == 0) {
fprintf(stderr, "Using Key %d\n", i+1);
break;
}
}
if (!*pkey) {
fprintf(stderr, "Shit - Need Key %d\n", i+1);
return 0;
}
css_titlekey(tkey, pretkey, 0xff);
return 1;
}
/*
*
* this function does the actual descrambling
*
* sec: encrypted sector (2048 bytes)
* key: decrypted title key obtained from css_decrypttitlekey
*
*/
void css_descramble(byte *sec,byte *key)
{
unsigned int lfsr1_lo,lfsr1_hi,lfsr0,combined;
unsigned char o_lfsr0, o_lfsr1;
unsigned char *end = sec + 0x800;
#define SALTED(i) (key[i] ^ sec[0x54 + (i)])
lfsr1_lo = SALTED(0) | 0x100;
lfsr1_hi = SALTED(1);
lfsr0 = ((SALTED(4) >8)&0xff] >16)&0xff]>24)&0xff];
sec+=0x80;
combined = 0;
while (sec != end) {
o_lfsr1 = lfsr1_bits0[lfsr1_hi] ^ lfsr1_bits1[lfsr1_lo];
lfsr1_hi = lfsr1_lo>>1;
lfsr1_lo = ((lfsr1_lo&1)>7)^(lfsr0>>10)^(lfsr0>>11)^(lfsr0>>
o_lfsr0 = (((((((lfsr0>>8)^lfsr0)>>1)^lfsr0)>>3)^lfsr0)>>7)
lfsr0 = (lfsr0>>8)|(o_lfsr0>= 8;
}
}
/*
* css-descramble.h
*/
#ifndef __css_descramble_h_
#define __css_descramble_h_
struct playkey {
int offset;
unsigned char key[5];
};
extern int css_decrypttitlekey(unsigned char *tkey, unsigned char *dkey, struct playkey **pkey);
extern void css_descramble(unsigned char *sec,unsigned char *key);
#endif
See how much the first admendment is
Did you think these industries _haven't_ doubled and quadrupled their profit margins in recent years, or that they _aren't_ attempting to continue this doubling of profit margins past all boundaries of common sense and free market economics? Welcome to the Machine. Don't feel so bad- look on the bright side, the musicians and artists pay even _more_ for the privilege of being on the other end of the megaphone! :P you almost certainly make more than they do, even if you work at Wal-Mart!
It's like a cop saying "hey I don't know for certain you've done anything wrong, but you're going to have to put down that metallic object and answer a few questions instead of walking away down the street." It's a restriction on freedom due to probable cause.
The defendant's claims that "oh, laws don't apply to us, and it's too late anyways, we've already caused permanent damage" are not going to work. Judges love to rip new assholes in defendants who try those lines of reasoning.
Try this argument on for size: Hey, there are a lot of government agencies encroaching on your freedom and privacy. Why fight to preserve any shred of it? There are too many ways to get too many agencies involved. Accept being fucked, that's your lot in life!
Q: What if some slashdot user decided to post the entire deCSS source code in a comment?
A: then Rob Malda and Jeff Hemos had better purge that comment, IP-ban the people who put it up, and close down whatever portions of Slashdot would be attracting such activity.
The size of DeCSS for windows, with GUI and everything is exactly 32,768. It came with some DLLs, but it looks like my copy of windows already has the functionalty. The sorce itself is small enough to fit on a Teeshirt..
[ c h a d o k e r e ]
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Disseminating the source code is fine for hackers, but DeCSS isn't going to make it out of the hacker community while it remains in its present form. It needs to be downloadable as a binary, ready-to-run plugin in order for Joe Bloggs to download it to enable his Linux player. As a no-brainer plugin it would be unstoppable because *everyone* would be spreading it around, not just the comparatively small community of source hackers.
Is anyone up the task?
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
How about not as an anonymous coward???
DeCSS (and therefore a description of the workings of the CSS scheme) is probably well-distributed enough by now that CSS can no longer be considered a trade secret. I'm assuming that, given this fact, it's a little odd that the injuction was granted.
As the case (not the injunction) is about actual violations of trade secret law, it's only important to the case whether or not CSS was a trade secret at the time the offence was committed, right?
Does anyone have any links to click-agreement validity case law in any jurisdiction? That could be helpful (or maybe not...)
It looks like the DMCA and the other applicable copyright law doesn't allow holders to restrict reverse engineering for interoperability, so a copyright notice saying "no reverse engineering" is irrelevant. However, if the user makes an agreement that they won't reverse engineer the software and then does, they're breaking the law, yes?
Someone said above that the judge considers freedom of speech trivial. IMHO, it's not freedom of speech in general he considers trivial, just the subset involving fair use of your DVDs over the length of the trial...
"The circumstantial evidence, available mostly due to the various defendants' inclination to boast about their disrespect for the law, is quite compelling on both the issue of Mr. Johansen's improper means and that Defendants' knowledge of impropriety." What the heck is this about? Not having a transcript, I have to guess that the judge is confusing quoted slashdot posters with the defendants or something.
#flame-retardant armor on
IMHO, except for the bit above, this decision seems to make a fair amount of sense. The lack of a prohibition on linking is good. It's pretty clear that, if the DeCSS posters were in the wrong (not that they are, but supposing they were), the plaintiffs would stand to lose a fair bit, while the defendants can probably afford to wait a while longer to play DVDs on their linux boxen.
#flame-retardant arm... on second though, maybe I'll keep it on. =)
My $0.02
-rak
---
Shameless plug omitted for the good of the masses.
http://linuxpower.cx/~greg/css/ Get your css code!
Hey guys,
Taking the intellectual property to be the encryption method, and the loss being publicly available....
What has changed, next to DVD players for open systems? The piratability is the same.. mpeg capture card, dvd copier...
What is inherrent in the ability to control who who writes such a player? Should that be the right of the DVD organization? Is that right worth fighting for on their part? It prevents small groups from making players, as well as the ability to open source any such player.(I beleive)
How does this DVD organization stay a float... Licensing of DVD player development rights? Are they fighting for their jobs, or are they looking out for the good(?) of the industry?
If they win this case, they gain the ability to sue projects at will to gain... money to recover damages that are not substantiated.
If they are trying to protect the copyrights of the artists, they are fighting the wrong battle.
I don't beleive a closed video standard is going to protect the artists. If someone can see their point, please explain.
In reference to what the judge said:
Whether or not the Defendants agree that such information as at issue here should be protected or secret is irrelevant to the determination herein. Our system currently places high importance on protecting such intellectual property, and this Court must enforce such protections with all appropriate and available means.
This is not that far fetch and could be done in little time if the design is clearly defined and the formula is given. Remember only DeCSS program distribution is granted the injunction. It means that it is still legal to keep a copy for yourself and study it, discuss it, describe it, teach it on online discussions. Correct me if I interpret this wrongly. BTW, I don't live in the States.
- Etam
Actually, the scientology precedent is not bad. In the scientology case, the judge said essentially that once the secret stuff had been posted on the internet, it lost its trade secret status.
From the decision:
"They may still continue to discuss and debate the subject they have in the past in both an educational, scientific, philosophical and political context."
To me, to discuss an algorithm or piece of software in a scientific context requires you to specify what it does and how it works so that you can verify correctness (does it errorlessly decrypt a DVD?) and performence charecteristics (what are the critical parts to optimize?). I don't know how you can do this without giving enough information (in real code, pseudocode, or the natural language of your choice) to translate it to a real piece of software. Where can you draw the line between discussion and implementation? for example suppose a group of people uses a standardized pseudocode (or simple subset of english or mathematics or logic or any consistent, complete, and meaningful set of symbols for that matter ) when discussing DeCSS. They have ineffect specified a language that they could then have a pseudocode->C compiler for. Does translating from "pseudocode" (which would seem to constitute a discussion or portion thereof) to C suddenly make it illegal? If one accepts that the C code is illegal then it seems to follow that any rigorous discussion of the algorithm is also illegal.
I saw something on a law in France with dobermen. One docter said (not word for word but the basic same thing)
What is not allowed is popular.
What I think It is trying to say is that if you make it illegal, more people are going to do it.
The biggest point mentioned was the issue of relative harm. The harm to the movie industry was judged irreparable, whereas the harm to the hacker community consisted of having to take down the source code. This is unfair. DVD is a big part of the future of computers. If we cannot use DVD because of the operating system we run, then we have been hurt. It may not sound like a big deal to miss out on watching movies, but consider it another way. If all Jewish people were banned from movie theaters, many people would be upset. It may not seem fair to compare religion and operating systems, but it is. Many Linux users have a strong ethical attachment to the operating system they use. They use it because they feel it is morally right. To force people to use another operating system would be like putting them against what they think is moral. Granted, DVD makers need not be required by law to provide players for every operating system, but they should at least allow people to spend their own time (and thus money) ensuring interoperability.
There is an upside to this. Many of us feared that a judge would say that linking to the source code would be illegal. After reading what the judge wrote he is VERY clear that making linking illegal would be a very bad thing.
Jack Neely
On the other hand, the current and prospective harm to the Plaintiff, if the Court does not enjoin the display of their trade secret, will be irreparable. It is undisputed that the Plaintiff's predecessor-in-interest expended considerable time, effort and money in creating the intellectual property at issue in order to protect the copyrighted information contained on DVDs. As Plaintiff conceded at the hearing on the TRO, once this information gets into the hands of an innocent party, the Plaintiff loses their ability to enjoin the use of their trade secret. If the Court does not immediately enjoin the posting of this proprietary information, the Plaintiff's right to protect this information as secret will surely be lost, given the current power of the Internet to disseminate information and the Defendants' stated determination to do so. Religious Technology Center v. Netcom on-Line.com (N.D. Cal 1995) 923 F.Supp, 1231 In that event, the protection afforded by the encryption system licenced by the Plaintiff, whether to limit DVD hardware and software suppliers or to control unauthorized copying and distribution of DVD content will become completely meaningless.
Well, he got it partly right. "Given the power of the internet <...." Isn't he paying attention to what he's saying?!? Given the power of the internet and given distribution approximately since release (end of Oct.) and certainly since the first legal action (end of Nov.), there's no way in hell all the restraining orders in the world will stop the dissemination of the information.
And what's this about 'innocent parties'?!? Aren't we all innocent until proven guilty? Regardless of you all, what about me? I don't even own a DVD player for god's sake! (neither a stereo component OR a PC drive) How much more innocent could I be? And yes, I have a copy of DeCSS, and LiViD, and a few other things, just so if they win this rediculous thing, I can still give people copies.
Note to the DVD-CCA:
The cat's out of the bag folks! Now go home and stop embarrassing yourselves, please. Yup. Your precious trade secret is a secret now within a community of millions--not much of a secret, eh? You're all powerless in this case. Sucks, doesn't it? We hate it too, which is why we're writing software to play DVDs on Linux. Yup, to play them.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
__
The other side is making the argument that this issue is about copyright protection. After thinking about it, I've thought of an example that would seem to prove them wrong, and that the issue is about WHO gets to view the videos, and not protecting intellectual property.
Prior to the 1980's, if a sufficiently talented electrical engineer wanted to build his own audio equipment (and many audiophiles DID do this) he was free to do so. In this case I am specifically talking about a turntable/record player. There was nothing prohibiting a talented electrical engineer from building his own record player which would allow him to play and LISTEN TO his record collection.
This example could be extended to reel-to-reel tape machines as well as cassette decks, and yes even music CD players, today. For that matter, someone out there is even capable of building a Sony 3348, 48-Track 24-bit, 96Khz pro studio multi-track recorder. And if these people have done their job right SOUND will actually come out of the speakers that the device is hooked to. I'll say it again:
Anyone sufficiently talented is capable of building a device which will render an intelligible playback for whatever media they have chosen to build a player, audio or video
UNTIL NOW.
Now, if I were inclined to do so, I could buy various components and build a DVD player, but without prior knowledge of the encryption algorithm used to encrypt the data on the discs, and a valid decryption key, I would be unable to actually watch and listen to the DVD that I put into my machine.
What has suddenly changed, that no longer allows me to play a DVD that I purchased in a store and legally own? It would seem (to me) that this is the crux of the issue.
As I was composing this message, something else occurred to me that distills my point into a far more palatable and less wordy argument:
Over the length of my entire life, I have yet to purchase a book whose text was encrypted.
Ignore Alien Orders
The cost to a website owner is measured in $/hour. I charge out at $175/hour or part thereof.
The cost of the DVD industry is in total $0 if they do nothing at all about it, except let ppl play legitamitely purchased DVD's on their sytem using css-auth. In fact, they make a profit.
Your reasoning is absurd.
"Look, it's like this - a DVD Movie is basically just a message [the movie] written in secret code on a piece of paper. To read the message [watch the movie,] you need a secret decoder ring. To be a pirate, you need a photocopier, but you don't need a decoder ring because you don't really care what the secret message is, as long as your photocopier makes nice, crisp copies that your client (who has a decoder ring) can read. All these guys did was make a decoder ring that works under linux, because all the commercial decoder rings only run on Windows [or standalone DVD players."
The issue of whether DeCSS (and its ilk) help pirates has been bandied about a bit. Regardless of DVD players not reading certain sectors or not, and the fact that blank DVDs are more expensive than ones w/movies on them, this should clarify the issue some and gives a good analogy to share with (non-geek) friends.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
Hmm... In this case harm is pretty much defined as lost potential earnings over the length of the trial due directly to the DeCSS injunction. You can't really bring watching DVDs into it. Even if you could, you'd pretty much have to show a loss of potential income somehow over the length of the trial for the lesser of being a) forced to buy 'doze and watch the dvds on it, b) forced to buy a dvd player (and optionally a tv) and watch on it, or c) not able to watch them at all. This wouldn't really amount to much.
My $0.02
-rak
OMG this is wrong in so many ways.
First, the css-auth program _IS_ GPL'd.
Second, there is no special law for the GPL. Standard copyright law applies.
Third, the restraining order has nothing to do with the license placed on the css-auth program. It could be public domain and still the defendants in this particular case would not be allowed to distribute it.
Seems I "accidentally" burned DeCSS, LiViD and css-auth onto a CD...D'OH! ;)
It doesn't even cost $2. Recordable CDs cost about $.80 and pressed ones cost even less. The artist gets a dollar if they're lucky, the distributor and retailer get a few bucks, and the rest of the $17 goes to the RIAA so they can pay their lawyers. Sickening isn't it?
- At this point in the proceeding, the harm to the Defendants is truly minimal. They will simply have to remove the trade secret information from their websites... On the other hand, the current and prospective harm to the Plaintiff... will be irreperable
This is the part that really, really annoys me. What this says is that DVD CCA's right to have their ass covered by the law when they made a booboo and picked a weak encryption scheme, and god forbid it lets make fair use of a recording medium we purchases, is more imporant than our (I am a defendant) right to disseminate information freely.Okay here goes....I really can't stand reading slashdot whenever the discussion is about a legal argument because the posts that rave and rant about what geeks think is legal or right get moderated up while constructive argument about our legal position is not. Take the above post for instance...this is a 4 insightful???
First of all the purpose of an injunction is to prevent harm to a party in a legal dispute by the actions of the other party. This is a similar concept to bail...(i.e. a suspect in a child slaying less likely to get bail than a suspected burglar)... That said there was only one way this injunction could go. All the raving, ranting and spewing of rhetoric in the world cannot change the fact that it costs nothing to link/unlink to DeCSS but the potentially costs MPAA a considerable amount in piracy costs. Before anyone gets their 1st Ammendment flamethrowers out try this analogy on for size
...Imagine a situation where a guy just breaks up with his girlfriend and decides to put her phone # on a webpage with descriptions of a sexual nature of the things that they did. She has a right to sue and seek an injunction on him to remove to offending webpage while the case is yet to be tried. Following the arguments of most slashdotters with regards to the injunction (including the above post), the ex-boyfriend's freedom of speech overruns her right to privacy (after all the stories posted on the site are true and the girlfriend's phone number is freely available from the phone book). Thankfully most judges are not the typical slashdot reader and will move to protect a victim of harm until the case is tried.
Now on to my main gripe about the way this case is being handled by the Defendant's lawyers and also the mindset of slashdot readers saying that the encryption was weak is not an argument that will hold up in any court of law. The judge rightfully pointed that any safeguards can be broken by a clever enough theif. Saying that the encryption should have been stronger sounds too much like a burglar saying it was Ok to break in because there was no steel door protecting the house. The argument should have been and should be focused on what exactly is fair use with regards to DVDs and the nature of the licence. Are they selling permission to watch the DVD and if so does this mean if it get's scratched all we need is a proof of purchase to get another one or are they selling the entire contents of the DVD? Either way this case will not stop the proliferation of DeCSS code on the web and the MPAA is fighting a losing battle.
Those who wish to to traffic in stolen, copyrighted material do not need DeCSS at all. They can (and do) use illegal copies of player software which has been modified to copy and view copies of DVDs... Hacked player software has been around for years now.
The DVD standard is, for all practical purposes, open! Now is exactly the time you should buy a player and start buying and demanding more and more movies for it! What do you want to wait for? A new closed video format to be developped? Is that what you're waiting for? Is that what you want to happen before you buy? You *want* to support a closed, unbreakable format? Good God man, you've got it bass ackwards! Get out and buy a player now!
Secondly, everyone needs to keep in mind that this is, at this point, not a criminal case. There have been no arrests and no arraignments, which are required for criminal law to come into play. It's under criminal law that strict rules of evidence and constitutionality are rigidly adhered to. Litigation is much more free-form than that...technically speaking, the courts don't get involved in a litigious hearing at all, except to interpret the law as it pertains to the case at hand. The court is supposed to be nothing more than a forum for civil complaint...in practice, of course, this is not actually the case, but I saw at least one post complaining about 'convicting on circumstantial evidence.' For starters, all evidence is circumstantial, if you look at the legal definition of the term. Secondly, conviction is not an issue at all--this is a suit about monetary damages and compensation, not criminal activity (at least at this point, though American copyright law has become somewhat Draconian over the last 2 decades in allowing patent/intellectual poperty infringement to be criminal offenses in some cases).
Also keep in mind that there is no question of 'ought' in the Judge's authority, only a question of the issue as interpreted in light of current American law.
It's the law that needs to be changed.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
Please tell everyone you know to mirror a copy of these files. Everyone should have a copy of this significant decision. You can mirror these files using: rsync -rtzp russnelson.com::decss-injunction . or wget -m -np http://russnelson.com/decss-injunction/
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Please tell everyone you know to mirror a copy of these files. Everyone should have a copy of this significant decision. You can mirror these files using: rsync -rtzp russnelson.com::decss-injunction . or wget -m -np http://russnelson.com/decss-injunction/
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
http://novalis.dorm.reed.edu/sekrit
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
ummm... it stated that the defendents must stop postin/hosting of the decss code, but they can talk about it, and link to sites with it (does that include linking directly to the file?) and says nothing about other people....
accordingly, if someone new hosts the file, they are not included in the order (unless they append a new list of defendents....) i think.... flame me if im wrong though...
--- all posts are not affiliated with my workplace. period. i dont care how good it may make them look, they are all
PNG's are the politically correct (translation: legal) version of the scans. Plus, PNG's are usually smaller than GIF's. http://www.russnelson.com/decss-injunction/
Please mirror a copy of these files. Everyone should have a copy of this significant decision. You can mirror these files using:
rsync -rtzp russnelson.com::decss-injunction .
or
wget -m -np http://russnelson.com/decss-injunction/
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Any arguements about the keys being a trade secret shouldn't be a problem, the only secret worth defending in court is the actual algorithm. It is really easy to recast a CSS algorithm into a keyless algorithm by either waiting long enough[and storing keys that are guessed] or using the 2^16 complexity attack. I'm almost released a CSS source that did this, until others figured out the same things, and I decided that I didn't need any lawsuits.
Your figure for the artist's dollar is gross. Subtract a fixed ten percent for record breakage (yes, I know they are CDs and don't break, but the charge is still taken out of the artist's cut). Then take the remaining amount and write it off against the advance, from which the artist PAYS FOR ALL THE STUDIO RECORDING, all the MANAGEMENT, all the TECHS and in fact any TOUR involved as well, meaning that the advance gets spent doing all the things you think the label pays for.
Guess what? The artist did not recoup the advance. The artist did not earn money- the artist _owes_ money for his trouble. This happens most of the time- do some homework, find out what the reality of the situation is.
This sort of comment reminds me of a common logical fallacy- imagine Johnny and Jimmy arguing about the shape of the world. Johnny says, "The earth is round!" Jimmy says "The earth is flat!" Their mom comes around and tries to calm the argument: "You should compromise. The truth is usually somewhere between the extreme points of an argument. So, the earth is a cube."
Sorry, Etam: though you may think it is unreasonable and hard to believe, the earth is round, and artists DO NOT get a dollar per CD. As I explained, pro music is about the most expensive hobby you could have- and after all the contractual requirements of signed bands are fulfilled (thou shalt make a video, thou shalt do a tour, thou shalt record at a good studio, paying for ALL OF THIS out of the advance which your royalties go toward repaying) the artist, far from getting 'a share of the pie', works very hard for absolutely nothing to subsidise the corporation that signed them.
Still don't believe me? Read this. Steve Albini is the producer/engineer who did The Pixie's 'Surfer Rosa', PJ Harvey's 'Rid Of Me' and many other great albums. Scroll to the bottom and read the figures on what happens to three million dollars worth of CD sales, and exactly why the artists come away with four thousand and thirty-one dollars each after a quarter of their contract is through, and are fourteen thousand dollars in debt to the record company, after selling A QUARTER MILLION COPIES.
DO the math.
Make it into an activeX installable virus and insert it in with porn images on the alt.binaries.pictures.sex..... groups Within a week it would be installed on half of the desktops in the world. Just like you find happy99.exe all over those groups....
From a political perspective this is getting into a very interesting area. Perhaps we are seeing a case of open class warfare. A rich class running a proactive strike against the poorer classes to keep them out of the game. Doing so maintains their food supply from Microsoft. If there is a free os that can provide the same service then there is no money for them to take a share of. Microsoft could turn around and say: "why should we pay you a license fee when it is free in linux?". So, from the side of the DVD folk, this is the last desperate stand of their dinosaur class. One could take it further and suggest that the whole open source movement could be considered a classic case of "Class Warfare".
How about a /. poll to find out how many innocent parties out there have DeCSS or at least took a look at the code?
This innocent party has read the whole code and given it to 3 other innocents too.
The two most common things in the Universe are hydrogen and stupidity. -- Harlan Ellison
Question; I'm a new user to Linux, was introduced to it abotu 6 months ago by a freind, previously had been a Windows user with Mac/DOS/CPM/Prodos experiance (OK so I've been around for a while). I am a user not a programmer, did some programming a long time ago for fun - basic just doesn't do much anymore. This friend showed me to /. and Freashmeat as places that I can find software/help when needed. A couple of days after the release of DeCSS I downloaded it, was and still am in the process of building a new computer installing a DVD. Now my question is, should I even consider using DeCSS, will it be around in 6 months, should I just make this a windows machine and keep my old box to learn Linux?
IIRC, one of the original reports after deCSS quoted MoRE as being frankly surprised that the keys were so weak (thank you, soon-to-be-dead extreme export restrictions!), and hadn't figured that bruteforcing the keyspace would be worthwhile.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
IANAL (im also a NZ national/citizen) but isn't this a non-federal case? meaning the judge can't do jack shit about anyone/thing outside CA, let alone America?
Im sure not all of those Doe's listed are inside CA, so what about them? They can continue to host the code, because the judge has no say over what they can do, right?
My email addy? should be easy enough.
When I get the flu, there are two general methods-- go on with life and hope it goes away soon enough, or settle in with lots of nyquil, soup, vitamin C and zinc oxide and go into full anti-flu mode, sleep and let my body fight.
Winning these small battles at the front is fine, great for morale, but until the we admit that this is part of a huge war for fair-use, freedom to watch bought media however we choose (be it on a Linux box, a *BSD, or any other OS), and a general show to the world that there needs to be a serious re-thinking of media in the Internet Age.
The whole war, through to the end, must be fought. By avoiding it, by winning the small prelims, we can push the rest back and delay it, but I fully expect this to end up before the supreme court.
Lawyers, this will be the Scopes trial for the 21st century, so if you want a name, be the pro-bono defendant for the 500 John Does et al. I hope to see one of the techno-lawyers from Steptoe & Johnson or the like step forth to take this on.
The ACLU made itself, almost accidentally, with the Scopes 'monkey' trial; the EFF can become what we all need and want it to be with this legal war.
I am confident that in the end, we will prevail--the law cannot hold too long nowadays in the complete absence of a reality behind it, and the reality is, once someone owns a piece of media, there's no way to prevent them from their fair use of that media. I just bought a Voodoo 3 3500 with the TV-out feature. I don't even need deCSS to copy my DVDs, just a correctly set-up VCR. Not why I bought it, I want to watch DVDs on my TV from my computer's player, but what are they gonna do? Add me to the Doe list because I own a VCR?
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
How many people do we have to give the decss stuff to before it can no longer be considered a secret? A thousand? Ten thousand? A million? Do we have to spam it all over?
Because of the way the legal system generally works, can the decision on linking be used as precedence in other cases in California in the future? Any lawyers here?
Watch the analogies there...If I steal your car because you have a crappy lock, you have lost a valulable piece of property.
;)
If I decrypt the data on a DVD which I bought from you, you've still got the original. Now, if I use the decrypted data to make copies, THEN I've broken the law...and the thinking goes that you're out the money that the person I gave the copy to would have paid. That crime is on my head, not on the head of the person who gave me the tools to decrypt it.
At the risk of getting caught in my own analogy....if you taught me how to pick a lock so I could get into my house when I forgot my keys, then I went and used that information to break into my neighboor's house, should you be legally liable for teaching me how to do it? I'd hope not.
Even though the way the lock works may be a 'trade secret' of the lock company? Again, I'd hope not.
In my mind, that's what this case boils down to. If someone can find fault with my interpretation, feel free to correct me. (I've got plenty of flame retardant on hand.
"What do you mean, invalid parameters? 9000Gigs of RAM and it can't answer a simple question!" -- Earthworm Jim
May be I'm too naive about these things, but they couldn't be all that bad.... I guess it is possible to get mixed up with the wrong group of people in movie business too. Just like mixing with the wrong kind of friends, or bad bosses. But the original poster complains that the CD is too expensive, and you correctly pointed out that in some situation may be they didn't charge enough still. But we do have to support our favorite artists, it is not their faults.
- Etam
Now, new strategy. Let's get rid of css-auth. There's a wonderful paper on the actual encryption behind DVDs. Get that PUBLISHED, and have someone create css-auth2 from that source.
Besides, css-auth/css-cat are a pain in the ass to use. Just create libcss that decrypts using a key that you provide, (But does NOT come with one) and perhaps a seperate keygen utility. Since it wasn't reverse engineered, but instead created from a published paper on the weakeness of CSS (Hint: they failed badly. It's only 2^25 bits strong) then this whole trade secret case is moot.
I've seen at least one excellent paper on the weaknesses of CSS. It's an easy matter to look it up, but it needs to be made hardcopy.
--Dan
Someone else in the US who can arguably deny that they haven't seen the DeCSS source (or any other source) writes an implementation from that description. There's a lot of legal and practical history behind these sort of techniques
Doing it open source - with a CVS tree of the development process as a record would be an added bonus (though best not to tell the DVD lawyers what you are doing 'till you're done).
Better yet - competing teams producing different implementations (who's going to offer the bounty for the best performing implementation :-)
As far as keys are concerned - if they're really trivially crackable without secret knowledge .... ship the cracker with with the source - run it as part of the installation process on the end-user's box
Did anyone noticed that the case "Religious Technology Center vs. Netcom dot com" is referenced? They actually use the Scientologists suing an ISP as a precedent to try and kill DeCSS....*sigh*
"Where quality is like a dead stinking rat - you just can't miss it."
> linking to other websites which contain the protected
> materials as such an order is overbroad and extremely
> burdensome. Links to other websites are the mainstay of the
> Internet and indispensable to its convenient access to the vast
> world of information. A website owner cannot be held
> responsible for all of the content of the sites to which it
> provides links. Further, an order prohibiting linking to
> websites with prohibited information is not necessary since the
> Court has enjoined the posting of the information in the first instance.
> Nothing in this Order shall prohibit discussion, comment or
> criticism, so long as the proprietary information
> identified above is not disclosed or distributed.
Finally, here is one of the robed gentry who has truly grasped the significance of the philosophical issues that lay behind the Internet.
--
" It's a ligne Maginot-in-the-sky "
is that you can still COPY DVDs with good old dd. no special hacks required. what they in essence fear is the open players on Linux. that cat is out of the bag, though...
i do wonder how much licensing revenue they get from the player makers. cannot be as much as the DVD sales profits.
The DMCA does not outline your rights as a consumer in that sense - the provisions of a statute like the DMCA can be contracted out of: precisely what the license does. (As opposed to a constitutional right which - you're right - typically cannot be contracted out of.) So by clicking the agreement, you are agreeing that while -otherwise- under statute you may have the right to reverse-engineer, in this case you are waiving those rights.
I don't know why people get worked up over click-through licenses. They are perfectly valid in a growing number of jurisdictions (mine, for instance (Ontario)). They are going to be the only way to enforce any sort of contractual arrangement for transactions over the Internet, so no sane court would provide otherwise, with the exception of particularly onerous provisions that would be invalid in a paper contract.
...about the US legal system. Hadn't the DVD CPA already filed for a preliminary injunction, and lost? Are they allowed to ``play again'' as often as they want? I mean, isn't there something somewhere about ``non bis in idem''? I know this is but a preliminary injunction, but it is considerably unfair if they're allowed to go to as many judges as they want and demand an injunction from each of them. Sooner or later, of course, some judge will agree.
Or, to say things differently: one judge said it was all right to have DeCSS code on line (until further trial), and one judge said it wasn't. Why does the second judge's ruling prevail? Why is it an AND boolean operation and not an OR?
<rant>All right, hackers frequently don't understand the law. This statement, true as it is, does not criticize hackers: it just shows that the law is stupid. (Unfortunately, it is just as stupid in every country; it is merely differently stupid.)/rant>
No - anyone who feels like posting is not necessarily "acting in concert" with a defendant. From my Black's Law Dictionary:
Concert: A person is deemed to act in concert when he acts with another to bring about some preconceived result.
I.
The word "copyrighted" appears in two sentences in the granting document, and copyright is otherwise not mentioned. I believe he knows better, but unfortunately the phrasing suggests that the judge is allowing something to be taken for granted (that copyrights are relevant) that is not true.
The first sentence is
The second sentence saysIt may be undisputed that the plaintiff spent money etc., but IMHO the word "copyrighted" should have been left out (Perhaps EFF lawyers can ask that the two instances be removed). The implicit suggestion is that the "protection" has something to do with copyrights. But the rights that flow from a copyright have nothing to do with whether or how the copyright holder stores or "protects" his materials, or how much he spent on his vault, nor the quality of the vault. It has to do with the remedies he may expect if someone breaks the copyright law. Holding a copyright entitles you to protect your material from copying by due process use of copyright law. It doesn't entitle you to help with locks or secrets or anything else except legal remedy against copying.
The plaintiff has a right to try to create special "protection" for their material, copyrighted or not. But that right does not derive from copyright law, and any problems maintaining such "protection" have nothing to do with copyright law, whether the "protection" efforts were motivated by lack of faith in copyright law enforcement or not.
Copyright is a red herring, and I think they all know it. Trade secret law is the key, and the judge says so pretty explicitly:
I just don't think the plaintiff should be allowed drag the copyright herring through the proceedings.In any case, once it is established that that there is no copyright infringement case, (and a copyright infringement worry is not a copyright infringement) the rights of DVD users can be identified, and it can be seen whether those rights are being infringed upon. The motivation for "protection" schemes is the private business of the owner, but the effects of "protection" must be legal, not partially legal.
If the "protection" prevents people's uses to which they have a legal right, the latter may have recourse.
If the "protection" is effectively a market and price manipulation tool, it should not be allowed to hide behind a screen of irrelevant copyright rhetoric. Is the region-limiting scheme any more legal than Microsoft's alleged manipulations of Windows distribution were?
An interesting question is how far any license has a right to intrude into the private life of an individual. What is the basis for seeking to control any private behaviour in license conditions? How about within a group exercising their right to assemble?
A last question in my mind is whether reverse engineering of the CSS can still be done legally using proper means. If so, it is practically irrelevant whether the Norwegian effort was legal or not. It would just be a matter of time until someone managed it legally.
Please, post all mirrors!
http://www.chello.nl/~f.vanwaveren
Personally I think judge Elving's arguments are ;) these license agreements are most likely not honoured.
very right. First of all, this was not an appropriate case to fight the choice of freedom. Running an OS that is totally free doesn't imply that every software/hardware manufacturer must succumb to making *their* software, their source of income, freely available. Yes, major companies make big bucks, but they have *the right* to do so. correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that a major part of the 'American Dream' ?
The only reason why a big company would make their products freely available, is because they feel they would gain by it, not just because it would make some people feel happier without getting any revenue from it. So if we want dvd decryption in Linux, we will have to either find a company that will produce such software (free to use but binary-only), *and* the company should gain by it in some way. Doing it this way still
allows us to have the freedom of OS-choice, even if we have to pay for the DVD software.
Secondly, the attitude of many of the defendants (15yr old kids?) clearly showed a disrespect for the law, which had nothing to do with the right of freedom, but all about an egoboost for themselves. That was an important factor in judge Elving's decision, and personally I am really angry with these kinds of attitudes that lowered the chance for a win in this case.
Also, it should be regretted that the argument that the 'click license agreement' is not valid in Norway was not supported by facts. I don't know if Norway honours these license agreements, but if it did, we missed a big chance here. In Holland (Europe, not Michigan
Concluding: Don't get me wrong here. I *do* fancy a free OS with 100% free software (which I currently enjoy at home), but it doesn't mean that everything *MUST* be free just because I want it to be. It's important to convince software/hardware manufacturers they gain by making the use of products free in a nice, adult matter, not by stating 'F*** the law!'.
Think this is wrong? I do. Call the Honorable Elfving and let him know.
SANTA CLARA SUPERIOR COURT
Main Courthouse:
191 North First Street
San Jose, CA 95113
(408) 299-2964
(408) 299-2074
Department 2: Honorable William J. Elfving
Courtroom Clerk: Diane Greco
(408)299-3402
Courtroom Reporter: Peytie Schuler
(408)299-3280
--
He lives in a world where those who do not run the client software of the omnipresent meme are unacceptable.
Very nice. Do you think you could fix the Content-Type: header for them?
Not the same thing. Coke (as in cocaine) is very dangerous cause it causes heart failure in 40% of those who try it. Marijuana, on the other hand, is exceptionally safe (safer than tobacco and alcohol). I'd root for that, not coke. We could all use a little relaxing in this country/world.
Natalie Portman!
It gives the impression that lawyers know and understand their rights and know what the law is. The fact that even the lawyers do not know how a case is going to turn out, proves otherwise. Lawyers do have the time to research the outcomes of previous cases and their strongest ability is to try to get consistancy in the law by citing previous decisions.
Governments do not make the laws.
It is not until a judge decides that a law is constitutional and decides on it's meaning that it has any power. The Digital Milleninum insanity alone is proof of this. Written by a number of lawyers, no one can identify it's purpose or meaning anymore. Perhaps laws should be written by children.
The legal system is not consistant.
This is the one thing I had no real understanding of until now. I knew that the laws of different countries, states, etc. were different but I never realized what an outdated concept we work with. A 15 year old from Norway is being charged in California. The judge from that trial appears to be working of an entire different legal system than the judge in new York. I suspect both of these trials will then be brought up to a higher court regardless of the ruling and each will be used as precedent in the other.
People do not understand judges
It amazes me to see people mirroring DeCSS now that a judge has asked us not to. What is the point of doing it now? Is there someone, somewhere who doesn't have it yet? Are you doing it just to spite the judge? If so, then perhaps it is time to consider the concequences of your actions, not to yourself but to the defendants and the court's final decision. To pull your copies, as I am doing, is to show respect for the court system. If you do not respect the court system it is likely to not respect you or your arguments right back. I would suggest that it would be best to replace your copies of DeCSS with copies of the court decision and a well written opinion of how you feel about them. In lack thereof, grab the Score:5 reply of your choice and post it. Currently, the request is to remove them until the court makes it's final decision. That seems reasonable enough and does not prevent us from putting it back up after the court has made it's decision. If you want to mirror it once the case is over, that's your decision and does not reflect on any way on the defendant's case. However, by mirroring it now, you put someone other than yourself at risk.
-----
Want to reply? Don't know HTML? No problem.
No Zen is good zen
Here are directions to the Santa Clara County courthouse:
t ructs/instr1st.html
http://claraweb.co.santa-clara.ca.us/sct/maps_ins
And a map:
t ructs/mapguad.gif
http://claraweb.co.santa-clara.ca.us/sct/maps_ins
I've not really dug into this stuff, but from a cursory glance, isn't it true that the reverse engineering of the encryption algorithm is being treated separately from the "intellectual property" that is the master encryption key that is necessary to encode the disks?
If this is true, AND the main issue is that this key was gleaned from the object code of a licensed software DVD player, why can't one get around this issue by brute-forcing the key? I thought it was only 40 bits. Then it would be a "pure" reverse engineer, and not not be reliant on this supposedly stolen piece of intellectual property?
Or have I missed some details in my skimming of the issues?
"Under the law, a system to protect secrecy does not become unreasonable simply because a clever thief finds a way to penetrate the security"
This line is my main problem with the ruling. The above line implies that vitually any system to protect secrecy is good enough simply because it is there. The problem is, where does one draw the line? Any self-respecting computer export will tell you that 40-bit encryption is pathetically weak, but clearly the judge doesn't realise this. What if they had used an "xor 0xFF" to encrypt the DVD's? The above quote implies that XOR encryption would also not be "unreasonably simple", and in fact I doubt the judge would have been able to crack it. But clearly XOR encryption is a horrible joke - yet it would still be considered "a system to protect secrecy". In this day and age, nobody who is even remotely serious about encryption would even consider 40-bit encryption. How "clever" a thief do you have to be to crack a system? Clearly you have to be a relatively clever thief just to crack an XOR 0xFF encryption.
I personally don't think it even matters who wins this case. The cat is already out of the bag. In order to prevent the use of the crack for piracy in the future, the encryption will need to be improved anyway. And I'm quite sure that financial gain is not the objective here.
Any enterprising geek will be able to find information about the crack because it will be impossible to completely stifle something like this. I specify geek here because I can't imagine that the average DVD buyer cares too much for this sort of thing, if he/she is even aware of it. The average user will just by the appropriate player.
For some reason, companies just feel obligated to sue. Perhaps to maintain the status quo. Maybe they'll get over it some day.
It's my understanding, based on the published details about the CSS algorithm, that it wouldn't be hard to reverse engineer it again.
A simple brute-force search can be used to decode the keys, and a known plain text attack can break the algorithm used to decode the data.
The judge makes it very clear that if the reverse engineering was done legally, there would be no case. So someone should just do it. (And not use the Xing player at all.)
Just get a couple of college grad students in math to work a couple of weekends, and we're done. Can someone provide some "known plain-text" and the matching encrypted data? (This would presumably be fair use, if it's not enough to play even a frame of a movie.) Multiple samples, at several K each, are probably useful for decryption but not sufficient to actually generate a useful MPEG stream.
Just document the steps used to break it, and the issue becomes terribly moot.
Anyone? Anyone?
Then they could be worn to court by observers - I don't know how the judge would react to a
defendant wearing one, he might blow a gasket... contempt could get nasty.
I hereby inform you that I have NOT been required to provide any decryption keys.
Wasn't the first key obtained from an Xing player that didn't encrypt it? If that's the case, it doesn't sound like they made reasonable efforts at all - or even if it's entirely Xing's fault, the DVD folks didn't do anything to the company to attempt to salvage what had happened.
The fact that the CSS was weak 40 bit encryption is defensible given the US export controls on stronger methods. The consortium can justifiably argue they used the strongest legalally allowed method. The business with Xing is a real problem for the DVD consortium.
I wasn't aware that we could convict on circumstantial evidence.
Many if not most legal cases are decided on 'circumstantial' evidence. All it means is that there were no direct witnesses to the crime. DNA evidence, for example, is 'circumstantial' even though it is far more reliable than an eye witness.
If the court does not immediately enjoin the posting of this proprietary information, the plaintiff's right to protect this information as secret will surely be lost, given the current power of the Internet to disseminate information and the Defendants' stated determination to do so.
This is where the judge fell flat on his face. The injunction is too late, and has no power to control an entity like the internet. AS a result it should not have been issued. I am sure the judge had some reason for issuing the order, but I hope he realizes that it is not likely to have any real effect.
Hi,
According to the last paragraph of the injunction, the injunction does not disallow links to sites which contain the code. Nor do they disallow discussion of the material. So here is a suggestion
How about having a slashdot posting, where people post only links to foreign sites that contain the code.
While discussing DVD decryption, sources may be handy: begin 644 css.tar.gz M'XL(")1W*#@ V-SN=VA\QI9=(530CR79\ M$S]1$F5QKT0J)&5'CR Q)!&# !;JG.;?V3525JU]^^OM^]+OS#Q_>ZY^TUA]^;?_M?L[QR?G%Y? F'M^\OWVM] M_Q_]F7O]7X\>GP?#3W_''A?G MY[_^^NZ8_M^]O;C\0/H_?__NXMW[#_@WU/_V[4_Z_.]@9O?G_ [G^__$/TL&G MX9/^U!_VQ[U[_?AT=3^XUOC3'T[Z2A;@Y[,I;))G^K*C_[/*C +[X[;GH29641K]]>][15[DMZ?V''B+&YLY&-11%NLXL661S"J0 P]H9F%G3P\18I?.%+E=X M,TWF)K-&Q_F\6INL[&BLU_-5E"V3;*F3DLAG>:FC-,U?3=Q5$ !!+Z+$PT7J6 M&HA$3U?&4[)ZD1=Z#%6D!PYS=OL&1-?-H*RVC3^CC8@M;R02$ 6\&AU96$M79)$8E6; M->U9BS:;%,*GS5D^K /3MAO5V,W/-I!@QJ>)LJW.\4ZA-T6^+**U?EWE1!D! 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end
(who's going to offer the bounty for the best performing implementation :-)
Well, I for one am willing to put up $20 US towards it right here and now... Seriously!
Nate
*
-- Watch the REAL Jon Katz.
I just got my Copyleft DVD t-shirt yesterday (make sure that $4 gets to the defense fund soon). Is this shirt in violation of the Judge's injunction? How do items like this shirt play into the whole deal? Also, has anyone purchased a DVD-ROM drive, and returned the software (ala "Windows Refund Day")? Is it just me, or are the people (Creative??) who make player software for Winblows and the Mac the only ones who could potentially be losing money? (Okay, Apple and M$ also, since we aren't 'forced' into buying their OS'es.) Also, since nobody offers a player for Linux, could it be argued further that no monetary loss could occur, as an open source Linux player does not compete against Winblows/Mac players? I use Linux (much of the time). I have no desire to purchase a Winblows player. I want a Linux player. Therefore, the sellers of Winblows players have lost nothing, as I have no intention of buying their product on that platform.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
# - How do I select audio stream? #
According to the DMCA, a program whose primary purpose is to circumvent, is illegal. Therefore, as much as I hate to say it, it appears as though DeCSS is illegal. However, css-auth, on the other hand, is not illegal, as that has a purpose other than circumventing.#########################################
# #
# You don't. DeCSS is just a decryptor, #
# nothing else. Copy all the files to a #
# video_ts folder on your hd, and then #
# try playing the movie. #
This is just my interpretation of the programs.
Nothing exists exept atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.
blah blah blah....
If your favorite artist is some sort of internet artist with no industry contract (note: most 'indie labels' you may have heard of are also owned outright by the industry labels, they are fake), then you can support your favorite artist directly.
If they signed, you probably can't help them at all, certainly not by buying their record- you probably don't have the power to help them break even, so they are going to be going up for contract renegotiation from a position of weakness and debt anyhow. Being in such a position of weakness is even worse than being in a position of naivete- many bands simply break up under the stress, typically to be not allowed to perform or record music independently (gee, like kevin mitnick not being allowed to hack), due to the contracts they signed off on, for a period of time that can be quite arbitrary, say five years perhaps.
Regarding your 'maybe I'm too naive but': who are you going to believe, your optimistic sense that is not backed up by observation and reality, or Steve Albini, who's been working in the industry as a producer and engineer for years, decades, and has been responsible for hit albums?
Better you should turn to the real indie scene (still vaguely happening) and the mp3 scene, and be optimistic about that, and optimistic about those people having a chance to work hard for their money and earn a little of it. Being optimistic about the industry is kind of like being optimistic about AOL or Microsoft- you get to feel nicely fairminded for a few minutes, and then you get proven wrong yet again. At what point will you set aside the 'can't be all bad' concept (which is VERY VAGUE- you think I'm claiming they eat babies or something?) and figure out, "This is exactly how bad they are. The individual people may have these various merits and be fine people, but as a collective entity (a corporation), they are THIS bad and you gain nothing by going along with it."
The problem comes when a party puts such limiting burdens on a license that it should not be enforced. If DVD CCA would, let's say, require you to give them your car when you agree to the software license, there is clear harm done. The open source community keeps trying to fall back upon licenses such as the GPL and LGPL, but this case is really about who is hurt more. In Judge Elfling's view, a consumer paying $15 to purchase a replacent DVD holds much less weight than if CSS is compromised.
Judge Elfling does state, however:
Clearly, the harm done by destroying links is much greater than even possible harm done to DVD CCA.Don't get me wrong: I believe strongly in the concept of reverse engineering. The concept has been long-established as an important tool for innovation. But we have to be logical. While acting in civil disobedience may be honorable, disributing DeCSS on the streets outside the courthouse didn't exactly brighten Judge Elfling's day. The defense needs to act less juvenile and weigh the risks that are posed if a permanent injunction is forced against DeCSS.
you know I used to not give a rat's ass about dvd on linux. I am soldering iron nerd. I have not been able to find a copy of the source code in text for download on W95. I see an executable and a couple of dll's, but nothing i can view with netscape. Will somebody clue the clueless and post the text of the source as html somewhere. I would think that if you would want to have the biggest audience possible and get the source to everybody this would be done.
You Americans are living in a police state. The judges in these two cases are simply doing the jobs they were hired for -- protecting the interests of the rich and powerful, while trampling on the (theoretical) rights of ordinary citizens. As someone who is fortunately NOT an American, I can't say any of this surprises me in the least.
If you were only fucking yourselves over, it would still be bad, but not my problem. Unfortunately, your sick system and its various instruments (transnational corporations, military, CIA, NSA, ad nauseum) are infecting the rest of the world as well.
May I suggest the following method to elay to rest the notion of "trade secret"? An individul residing in a country that does not enforce or extradite for the crime of speech could post the uuencoded tar file to their news server. If EVERYONE that sees the post, submits a followup citing the entire post, and perhaps cross-posting the followup or setting followups to other newsgroups that might be interested, the code will reside on news servers essentiall forever. Many servers accept NO cancels. Creatively altering any obvious markers like the Subject: header places it out of inn's reach with perl regexs, especially since most news admins wont try very hard. There could literally be a million copies floating around in a matter of hours. giveaways, like the subject
I added PNG info to /home/httpd/conf/magic. Did that do it?
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Sure:
, 0x36,0x2b,0x6e,0x2e,0x66,0x7b, , 0xd6,0x0b,0x4e,0x0e,0x46,0x9b, , 0x52,0x8f,0xca,0x8a,0xc2,0x1f, , 0xd0,0x01,0x48,0x08,0x40,0x91, , 0x34,0x25,0x6c,0x2c,0x64,0x75, , 0xd4,0x05,0x4c,0x0c,0x44,0x95, , 0x50,0x81,0xc8,0x88,0xc0,0x11, , 0xd2,0x0f,0x4a,0x0a,0x42,0x9f, , 0x56,0x8b,0xce,0x8e,0xc6,0x1b, , 0xb6,0xab,0xee,0xae,0xe6,0xfb, , 0x32,0x2f,0x6a,0x2a,0x62,0x7f, , 0xb0,0xa1,0xe8,0xa8,0xe0,0xf1, , 0x54,0x85,0xcc,0x8c,0xc4,0x15, , 0xb4,0xa5,0xec,0xac,0xe4,0xf5, , 0x30,0x21,0x68,0x28,0x60,0x71, , 0xb2,0xaf,0xea,0xaa,0xe2,0xff
, 0x0b,0x0a,0x0d,0x0c,0x0f,0x0e, , 0x19,0x18,0x1f,0x1e,0x1d,0x1c, , 0x2f,0x2e,0x29,0x28,0x2b,0x2a, , 0x3d,0x3c,0x3b,0x3a,0x39,0x38, , 0x42,0x43,0x44,0x45,0x46,0x47, , 0x50,0x51,0x56,0x57,0x54,0x55, , 0x66,0x67,0x60,0x61,0x62,0x63, , 0x74,0x75,0x72,0x73,0x70,0x71, , 0x99,0x98,0x9f,0x9e,0x9d,0x9c, , 0x8b,0x8a,0x8d,0x8c,0x8f,0x8e, , 0xbd,0xbc,0xbb,0xba,0xb9,0xb8, , 0xaf,0xae,0xa9,0xa8,0xab,0xaa, , 0xd0,0xd1,0xd6,0xd7,0xd4,0xd5, , 0xc2,0xc3,0xc4,0xc5,0xc6,0xc7, , 0xf4,0xf5,0xf2,0xf3,0xf0,0xf1, , 0xe6,0xe7,0xe0,0xe1,0xe2,0xe3
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, , 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff
, 0x50,0xd0,0x30,0xb0,0x70,0xf0, , 0x58,0xd8,0x38,0xb8,0x78,0xf8, , 0x54,0xd4,0x34,0xb4,0x74,0xf4, , 0x5c,0xdc,0x3c,0xbc,0x7c,0xfc, , 0x52,0xd2,0x32,0xb2,0x72,0xf2, , 0x5a,0xda,0x3a,0xba,0x7a,0xfa, , 0x56,0xd6,0x36,0xb6,0x76,0xf6, , 0x5e,0xde,0x3e,0xbe,0x7e,0xfe, , 0x51,0xd1,0x31,0xb1,0x71,0xf1, , 0x59,0xd9,0x39,0xb9,0x79,0xf9, , 0x55,0xd5,0x35,0xb5,0x75,0xf5, , 0x5d,0xdd,0x3d,0xbd,0x7d,0xfd, , 0x53,0xd3,0x33,0xb3,0x73,0xf3, , 0x5b,0xdb,0x3b,0xbb,0x7b,0xfb, , 0x57,0xd7,0x37,0xb7,0x77,0xf7, , 0x5f,0xdf,0x3f,0xbf,0x7f,0xff
1 9);*/ ;
1 9);*/ ;
DeCSS source and info:
http://cubicmetercrystal.com/decss/
Mirror making instructions:
http://cubicmetercrystal.com/decss/mi rror.html
And the source:
css-descramble.h:
#ifndef __css_descramble_h_
#define __css_descramble_h_
struct playkey {
int offset;
unsigned char key[5];
};
extern int css_decrypttitlekey(unsigned char *tkey, unsigned char *dkey, struct playkey **pkey);
extern void css_descramble(unsigned char *sec,unsigned char *key);
#endif
css-descramble.c:
#include
#include
#include "css-descramble.h"
typedef unsigned char byte;
/*
*
* some tables used for descrambling sectors and/or decrypting title keys
*
*/
static byte csstab1[256]=
{
0x33,0x73,0x3b,0x26,0x63,0x23,0x6b,0x76,0x3e,0x7e
0xd3,0x93,0xdb,0x06,0x43,0x03,0x4b,0x96,0xde,0x9e
0x57,0x17,0x5f,0x82,0xc7,0x87,0xcf,0x12,0x5a,0x1a
0xd9,0x99,0xd1,0x00,0x49,0x09,0x41,0x90,0xd8,0x98
0x3d,0x7d,0x35,0x24,0x6d,0x2d,0x65,0x74,0x3c,0x7c
0xdd,0x9d,0xd5,0x04,0x4d,0x0d,0x45,0x94,0xdc,0x9c
0x59,0x19,0x51,0x80,0xc9,0x89,0xc1,0x10,0x58,0x18
0xd7,0x97,0xdf,0x02,0x47,0x07,0x4f,0x92,0xda,0x9a
0x53,0x13,0x5b,0x86,0xc3,0x83,0xcb,0x16,0x5e,0x1e
0xb3,0xf3,0xbb,0xa6,0xe3,0xa3,0xeb,0xf6,0xbe,0xfe
0x37,0x77,0x3f,0x22,0x67,0x27,0x6f,0x72,0x3a,0x7a
0xb9,0xf9,0xb1,0xa0,0xe9,0xa9,0xe1,0xf0,0xb8,0xf8
0x5d,0x1d,0x55,0x84,0xcd,0x8d,0xc5,0x14,0x5c,0x1c
0xbd,0xfd,0xb5,0xa4,0xed,0xad,0xe5,0xf4,0xbc,0xfc
0x39,0x79,0x31,0x20,0x69,0x29,0x61,0x70,0x38,0x78
0xb7,0xf7,0xbf,0xa2,0xe7,0xa7,0xef,0xf2,0xba,0xfa
};
static byte lfsr1_bits0[256]=
{
0x00,0x01,0x02,0x03,0x04,0x05,0x06,0x07,0x09,0x08
0x12,0x13,0x10,0x11,0x16,0x17,0x14,0x15,0x1b,0x1a
0x24,0x25,0x26,0x27,0x20,0x21,0x22,0x23,0x2d,0x2c
0x36,0x37,0x34,0x35,0x32,0x33,0x30,0x31,0x3f,0x3e
0x49,0x48,0x4b,0x4a,0x4d,0x4c,0x4f,0x4e,0x40,0x41
0x5b,0x5a,0x59,0x58,0x5f,0x5e,0x5d,0x5c,0x52,0x53
0x6d,0x6c,0x6f,0x6e,0x69,0x68,0x6b,0x6a,0x64,0x65
0x7f,0x7e,0x7d,0x7c,0x7b,0x7a,0x79,0x78,0x76,0x77
0x92,0x93,0x90,0x91,0x96,0x97,0x94,0x95,0x9b,0x9a
0x80,0x81,0x82,0x83,0x84,0x85,0x86,0x87,0x89,0x88
0xb6,0xb7,0xb4,0xb5,0xb2,0xb3,0xb0,0xb1,0xbf,0xbe
0xa4,0xa5,0xa6,0xa7,0xa0,0xa1,0xa2,0xa3,0xad,0xac
0xdb,0xda,0xd9,0xd8,0xdf,0xde,0xdd,0xdc,0xd2,0xd3
0xc9,0xc8,0xcb,0xca,0xcd,0xcc,0xcf,0xce,0xc0,0xc1
0xff,0xfe,0xfd,0xfc,0xfb,0xfa,0xf9,0xf8,0xf6,0xf7
0xed,0xec,0xef,0xee,0xe9,0xe8,0xeb,0xea,0xe4,0xe5
};
static byte lfsr1_bits1[512]=
{
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
};
/* Reverse the order of the bits within a byte.
*/
static byte bit_reverse[256]=
{
0x00,0x80,0x40,0xc0,0x20,0xa0,0x60,0xe0,0x10,0x90
0x08,0x88,0x48,0xc8,0x28,0xa8,0x68,0xe8,0x18,0x98
0x04,0x84,0x44,0xc4,0x24,0xa4,0x64,0xe4,0x14,0x94
0x0c,0x8c,0x4c,0xcc,0x2c,0xac,0x6c,0xec,0x1c,0x9c
0x02,0x82,0x42,0xc2,0x22,0xa2,0x62,0xe2,0x12,0x92
0x0a,0x8a,0x4a,0xca,0x2a,0xaa,0x6a,0xea,0x1a,0x9a
0x06,0x86,0x46,0xc6,0x26,0xa6,0x66,0xe6,0x16,0x96
0x0e,0x8e,0x4e,0xce,0x2e,0xae,0x6e,0xee,0x1e,0x9e
0x01,0x81,0x41,0xc1,0x21,0xa1,0x61,0xe1,0x11,0x91
0x09,0x89,0x49,0xc9,0x29,0xa9,0x69,0xe9,0x19,0x99
0x05,0x85,0x45,0xc5,0x25,0xa5,0x65,0xe5,0x15,0x95
0x0d,0x8d,0x4d,0xcd,0x2d,0xad,0x6d,0xed,0x1d,0x9d
0x03,0x83,0x43,0xc3,0x23,0xa3,0x63,0xe3,0x13,0x93
0x0b,0x8b,0x4b,0xcb,0x2b,0xab,0x6b,0xeb,0x1b,0x9b
0x07,0x87,0x47,0xc7,0x27,0xa7,0x67,0xe7,0x17,0x97
0x0f,0x8f,0x4f,0xcf,0x2f,0xaf,0x6f,0xef,0x1f,0x9f
};
/*
*
* this function is only used internally when decrypting title key
*
*/
static void css_titlekey(byte *key, byte *im, byte invert)
{
unsigned int lfsr1_lo,lfsr1_hi,lfsr0,combined;
byte o_lfsr0, o_lfsr1;
byte k[5];
int i;
lfsr1_lo = im[0] | 0x100;
lfsr1_hi = im[1];
lfsr0 = ((im[4] >8)&0xff] >16)&0xff]>24)&0xff];
combined = 0;
for (i = 0; i >1;
lfsr1_lo = ((lfsr1_lo&1)>7)^(lfsr0>>10)^(lfsr0>>11)^(lfsr0>>
o_lfsr0 = (((((((lfsr0>>8)^lfsr0)>>1)^lfsr0)>>3)^lfsr0)>>7)
lfsr0 = (lfsr0>>8)|(o_lfsr0>= 8;
}
key[4]=k[4]^csstab1[key[4]]^key[3];
key[3]=k[3]^csstab1[key[3]]^key[2];
key[2]=k[2]^csstab1[key[2]]^key[1];
key[1]=k[1]^csstab1[key[1]]^key[0];
key[0]=k[0]^csstab1[key[0]]^key[4];
key[4]=k[4]^csstab1[key[4]]^key[3];
key[3]=k[3]^csstab1[key[3]]^key[2];
key[2]=k[2]^csstab1[key[2]]^key[1];
key[1]=k[1]^csstab1[key[1]]^key[0];
key[0]=k[0]^csstab1[key[0]];
}
/*
*
* this function decrypts a title key with the specified disk key
*
* tkey: the unobfuscated title key (XORed with BusKey)
* dkey: the unobfuscated disk key (XORed with BusKey)
* 2048 bytes in length (though only 5 bytes are needed, see below)
* pkey: array of pointers to player keys and disk key offsets
*
*
* use the result returned in tkey with css_descramble
*
*/
int css_decrypttitlekey(byte *tkey, byte *dkey, struct playkey **pkey)
{
byte test[5], pretkey[5];
int i = 0;
for (; *pkey; ++pkey, ++i) {
memcpy(pretkey, dkey + (*pkey)->offset, 5);
css_titlekey(pretkey, (*pkey)->key, 0);
memcpy(test, dkey, 5);
css_titlekey(test, pretkey, 0);
if (memcmp(test, pretkey, 5) == 0) {
fprintf(stderr, "Using Key %d\n", i+1);
break;
}
}
if (!*pkey) {
fprintf(stderr, "Shit - Need Key %d\n", i+1);
return 0;
}
css_titlekey(tkey, pretkey, 0xff);
return 1;
}
/*
*
* this function does the actual descrambling
*
* sec: encrypted sector (2048 bytes)
* key: decrypted title key obtained from css_decrypttitlekey
*
*/
void css_descramble(byte *sec,byte *key)
{
unsigned int lfsr1_lo,lfsr1_hi,lfsr0,combined;
unsigned char o_lfsr0, o_lfsr1;
unsigned char *end = sec + 0x800;
#define SALTED(i) (key[i] ^ sec[0x54 + (i)])
lfsr1_lo = SALTED(0) | 0x100;
lfsr1_hi = SALTED(1);
lfsr0 = ((SALTED(4) >8)&0xff] >16)&0xff]>24)&0xff];
sec+=0x80;
combined = 0;
while (sec != end) {
o_lfsr1 = lfsr1_bits0[lfsr1_hi] ^ lfsr1_bits1[lfsr1_lo];
lfsr1_hi = lfsr1_lo>>1;
lfsr1_lo = ((lfsr1_lo&1)>7)^(lfsr0>>10)^(lfsr0>>11)^(lfsr0>>
o_lfsr0 = (((((((lfsr0>>8)^lfsr0)>>1)^lfsr0)>>3)^lfsr0)>>7)
lfsr0 = (lfsr0>>8)|(o_lfsr0>= 8;
}
}
my arse
I'm sure that this has already been said, but hey, I'll say it again.
Correct me if I'm wrong but...the goal here is not to prevent the court from taking action against the defendants (although that would be a nice side-effect, if it could be achieved). The goal is to have the court declare that the "trade secret status should be deemed destroyed". This would prevent DVD COPY CONTROL ASSOCIATION, INC. from ever claiming this suit again. It would also force them to either stop this silly encryption/copy-protection plan, or come up with a new key, and start releasing DVDs with the new key (un-readable by existing DVD players).
From the judge's ruling
The Court is not persuaded that trade secret status should be deemed destroyed at this stage merely by the posting of the trade secret to the Internet. Religious Technology Center v. Netcom on-Line.com supra. To hold otherwise would do nothing less than encourage misappropriaters of trade secrets to post the fruits of their wrongdoing on the Internet as quickly as possible and as widely as possible thereby destroying a trade secret forever. Such a holding would not be prudent in this age of the Internet. Plaintiffs moved expeditiously, reasonably and responsibly to protect their proprietary information as soon as they discovered it had been disclosed by investigating, sending cease and desist letters all over the world and then filing suit against those who refused within two months of the disclosure. The Court is satisfied that trade secret status has not been destroyed.
this means that they think that we will be detered in the future if they refuse to declare it a "destroyed trade secret" now (even though it is). Well, I say, let's prove to them that it doesn't matter what they "declare", we can destroy its trade secret status with or without a court ruling.
let's take a lesson from all those annoying email chain-letters, and the activist email petitions: Whoever has this in their posession, extract only the "secret" information from it (the key and the algorithm), include it in an email, and send it to as many friends as possible. If we could come up with a list of a few thousand initial recipients, the initial email could be sent from bogus email address, bounced off some un-suspecting server.
No one gets in trouble (any further), and DVD CCA finally begins to *understand*
Furthermore, I think that a sort of "underground railroad" should be established for distributing information like this in the future. Email is an excelent mechinism for distributing information like this because it's difficult to trace reliably, and the rate of disimination is exponential with respect to time. Also, for every node in the disimination tree (person who recieves the mail) there is typically a stored copy. You don't have to understand the content to represent a node and contribute to the proliferation of the information.
That's what it's all about here: proliferation of information, and protection of those who are at the top of the disimenation tree. If you're going to fight "the man", you've got to use his tactics against him. Organize; Create a process; use it; build preemptive damage control, and obviscation into the process; and always take every oportunity to widen your footing.
That excellent paper can be found here:t ml
http://cubicmetercrystal.com/decss/info_index.h
Or downloaded in a variety of formats here:
http://www.derfrosch.de/decss/
It is written by Frank A. Stevenson
If nothing else, "I object, your Honor" will help people to see copyright rhetoric for what it is.
Ok, I confess, I wrote the other thing too, but please get a lawyer to to read it. It might help.
here is the address for another DeCSS mirror: http://334.se2600.org/dvd.html
----Jaeger----
jump.to/jaeger
334.se2600.org
This is my mirror site in Switzerland.
http://www.datacomm.ch/adrien/decss/ index.html
Point and Grunt
Modirate this up. This is a perfect example of an "inocent". excuse my spelling
This is posted elsewhere in many of the discussions on DeCSS, but you can find the shirt at copyleft, complete with a paper copy of the source (if I remember correctly), and $4 of the cost of the shirt goes to EFF.
If it was created legaly and the trade secrets released legaly there, would that cause the trade secret to become nullified?
has anyone looked into this?
--- all posts are not affiliated with my workplace. period. i dont care how good it may make them look, they are all
Heh...maybe we should give pot to people getting on the highway...then i probably wouldn't have some jackass tailgating me b/c i'm only doing (gasp!!) 75mph.
I have a mirror up at http://www.cyra.org/ticker/.
Please feel free to link to it.
Furthermore, I have sent an e-mail to the MPAA and DVD-CCA daring them to sue me. Frankly, they don't scare me.
Good points:
Bad Points:
Generally, the injunction was given just because it would hurt the plaintiffs more if it would not be given than the defendants to give it.
Don't be so sure. A student over here in Belgium was convicted for linking to sites containing mp3 music "warez". It's referred to as the IFPI-Skynet case. It's a scandal, it's ridiculous, it's proto-fascism But it happened..
Does anyone know if we can disqualify a federal judge on the grounds that he or she is biast toward the prosecution? I am pretty sure that California judges can be disqualified for this reason...
No, still says they are text/plain. Wierd.
Since the judge is holding that the charge of misappropriation on the basis of circumstantial evidence has some basis, then the solution is to re-do the crack without reverse engineering an existing player.
I wonder if knowing the key length (which we all do) would be too prejudicial? The DVDCCA don't seem to regard the number 40 as a trade secret at this point. Was the algorithm known before the crack? If so, then it is just a matter of searching 2^40/40 keys.
Ok, this looks to be the situation. The preliminary injunction doesn't mean a whole lot, as far as the ultimate decision. That's basically just the judge playing conservative, trying to make sure the least amount of harm is done. The real issue is how the issue of the legality of the hack is decided. That, we don't know. It could go either way. My point is, lets consider for a moment some other alternatives. I have seen post after post which state that the DVD coding under discussion is absurd as a means of security. Well then, let's top it. Let's come up with our own from of DVD encryption, one that will really work, and also any improvements we can offer to the general storage and access of data on the DVD. This shouldn't be a problem for the playing of older DVD forms, as those who already own whatever necessary licenses are necessary to the format could read old disks as well as new. BUT, if we can come up with a compellingly better way to work with DVDs, we might really begin to change the way the industry works. Offer better "security" with a better encryption, although that still won't prevent verbatum copying, and offer some significant performance improvements to the current format. The Linux community is almost certainly capable of that. DVD player makers with the license for the old encoding could provide capabilities for reading both formats, while advertising as a new feature the support of the new, better format. DVD movies could come out for a while in both formats, with the newer one offering better playback or some new features. Let's yank the rug out from under the whole issue of the lawsuit and reinvent a better wheel. If it does the job better than the current format, and doesn't have any licensing issues associated with it, we might have a chance to really make a difference in the industry. Maybe it would work, maybe it would not, but even if we couldn't get movie studios or whoever does movie DVDs to go for it we could use it for our own data storage and backup uses, giving Linux still another edge over Windows. Merely a suggestion, but it seems to me that if they won't let us use their buggy we should invent the automobile and see if we can take over the road. After all, we can't control what the court does. Lets stay calm, see how this plays out, and maybe think about some other ways than arguing legal issues to achieve our purpose. I'm not an expert on DVD, so I suppose their may be reasons I'm not aware of that this won't work. But it seems to me we would have little to lose by bringing the fight back to OUR home turf!
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org