DeCSS Source Included in Public Court Records

doc_brown writes "I noticed on www.hackernews.com that the DeCSS Source is included in the lawsuit filings. As these are now public records, should the court's and district archive sites now be included in the lawsuits? The lawsuit (with source) is available at cryptome.org " Mirror early, mirror often.

Comments

Now this kicks butt!

[GMontag]

er.. well... if I link to the court documents am I in violation of the court order?

Re:Now this kicks butt!

[Anonymous Coward]

Assuming that you have never been anmed, You would not be in violation of the court order because you are not a defendant. The injunction does not apply to you. I'm surprised that the source is not under seal. Otherwise, it is a public document. Copy it. Note: any use might constitute violation of DMCA or some other fed statute. I don't know

Re:Now this kicks butt!

[Anonymous Coward]

Assuming that you have never been anmed, You would not be in violation of the court order because you are not a defendant. The injunction does not apply to you. I'm surprised that the source is not under seal. Why make the source public if the whole point is to prevent people from using and distributing it. Besides, it's my understanding that the injunction does not prohibit linking. Note: any use might constitute violation of DMCA or some other fed statute. I don't know

Re:Now this kicks butt!

[Anonymous Coward]

Assuming that you have never been anmed, You would not be in violation of the court order because you are not a defendant. The injunction does not apply to you. I'm surprised that the source is not under seal. Why make the source public if the whole point is to prevent people from using and distributing it. Besides, it's my understanding that the injunction does not include linking. Note: any use might constitute violation of DMCA or some other fed statute. I don't know

Re:Now this kicks butt!

[crt]

Actually, according to the prelim injunction ruling, linking to the source is NOT prohibited, just hosting it.

Re:Now this kicks butt!

[Anonymous Coward]

Assuming that you have never been anmed, You would not be in violation of the court order because you are not a defendant.

What if I was a named defendant? Would it be against the law for me to link to the court records to communicate to others the situation I'm in? Am I gagged by not having the right to tell others about my case? I'm fucked!

Re:Now this kicks butt!

[rvb]

Just a thought... If everyone created mirrors of the court docs then you couldn't get in trouble for mirroring the source, right? I mean, they are public documents...

Of course, we would want a Real Big Link at the top pointing to the DeCSS source... ;)

public record

[apocalypse_now]

I am fairly sure that, unless the film industry can get them sealed under the industry/trade secret clause, all the court documents will be made public under the freedom of information act. Watch 'em scamble to try and stop it :P
--
Matt Singerman

Re:public record

[ebacon]

Little late for that, aint it.
"oops!" DVDCSS lawyers

Re:public record

[Elkhound]

Given the importance of this issue, perhaps an "open source friendly" member of congress could be persuaded to read the DeCSS algorithm into the Congressional Record. The constitutional protections (see Article I, Section 6) to this variety of speech are far stronger than First Amendment protections. And can you imagine a court issuing an injunction against linking to the Congressional Record?

Re:public record

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading the source code would not be necessary - a member of congress could just have the source text "edited into" the CR. While the CR is generally fairly accuracte it is not a literal transcipt - reps and senators can have things added, changed or even removed.

Re:public record

[Anonymous Coward]

While I can't think of anyone in Congress cool enough to do that, it still sounds like an awesome idea. It would certainly be the first computer language spoken into the record, I can guarantee that...

One phrase:

[RenQuanta]

the Freedom of Information Act

Re:One phrase:

[Jim Tyre]

>the Freedom of Information Act

Actually, no.

The Federal Freedom of Information Act applies only to federal records, not to State records, but the filing here was in the California state court case. The California equivalent is the Public Records Act, Government Code sections 6250 and following:

In enacting this chapter, the Legislature, mindful of the right of individuals to privacy, finds and declares that access to information concerning the conduct of the people's business is a fundamental and necessary right of every person in this State. (Government Code 6250 [the Legislature's declaration of purpose in enacting the California Public Records Act].)

In any event, without the need to resort to either FOIA (federal) or PRA (California) all court records are, by default, public, unless there is a specific seal order by the Judge. I do not believe that there has been one here. Anyone can walk into the courthouse and copy non-sealed court records to their heart's content, for only the copying charges set by the court.

Re:One phrase:

[cmuncey]

As I see from your linked page, you are an attorney (specializing in free speech issues in CA no less!) so I happily defer to you on these issues. I wonder though, do we know if these materials were sealed or not? Cryptome says on the page that the filings were given to them anonymously -- they were not acquired from a specific public source. Also, are such filings, especially in a IP case, as a rule, fully in the public domain before a final disposition in the case?

DejaVu, flasback to Kevin Mitnick

[GMontag]

When the prosecution of Kevin Mitnick filed papers that were supposed to be "confidential", didn't they raise holy hell and accuse the defense of "leaking" confidential (that the DoJ made public) documents?

Keep an eye on this one, could be the beginning of another "big brother" trick.

Black Ink, Red Tape

[Imortus]

40 years from now, when the court record are unsealed and all the information has been gleaned from such events as Roswell and the Great Scorning of 2004, people will begin asking for the records from the DeCSS trial. Included in the several-thousand page manuscript will be a lot of blacked out markings, deemed 'sensative' material and thereby concealed. This is our grand machine at work. Apparently no one thinks ahead anymore.

This reminds me of Cult^h^h^hhurch of Scientology

[schon]

Some time ago, in (IIRC) Switzerland, CoS filed a lawsuit against an individual for disseminating their "trade secrets" (basically their 'doctrine'). They don't like people to read this 'doctrine' unless they've been properly prepared (they tell the members that if you read it before you're ready, that it will kill you - just a note to all you potential Scientologists... I read them, and I'm still around :o)

Little did they realize that in order to do this in Switzerland, they had to enter the documents into the public record, so (in essence) anyone could go the the courthouse and get the full text of the documents.

IIRC, the US allows such records to be kept confidential if the plaintiff's request this... so I have to wonder - why didn't the DVDCCA ask the judge to do this?

hmm..

[Zurk]

what i really dont understand is : [a] To copy a DVD one must be able to authenticate to the drive. decryption doesnt really matter. [b] The authentication code was posted to the livid mailing list waay before the decss code. [c] the 90 day period for DVDCCA to protest has passed for the *authentication* code. [d] DVDCCA is claiming the DeCSS code can be used to pirate DVD's but has not stated *anything* about the authentication code. [e] You must defend *all* violations not just one...so why hasnt the case been thrown out ?

Re:hmm..

[Anonymous Coward]

What law requires that they have to sue within 90 days?

Re:hmm..

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's what I think we're missing: 1) CCA Does not wish to be sued by the folks who have purchased licenses for their super technology. 2) CCA does not wish for studios to decide there's no damned point to encrypting DVDs after all, and leave them out of the loop. Notice in the doc that they spend a bit of time explainig why they produced such crappy encryption, and although they include a lot of snippets from Beloved Slashdot, they don't seem to include any of the Insightful points about how CSS decryption really isn't needed (and wouldn't be useful) for mass piracy of DVDs.

Re:hmm..

[XNormal]

This is further proof that CSS encryption has nothing to do with copy protection and everything with controlling the player market.


----

Re:hmm..

[Anonymous Coward]

read the judges summary. it comments on the 90 day period and offers a better explanation than i can give here.

Takedown the Movie, with Don Knotts

[Anonymous Coward]

CNN Entertainment Story here Don Knots plays hacker Emmanuel Goldstein in the soon to be released movie.

Re:Takedown the Movie, with Don Knotts

[aTRaTiCa]

Haha, I don't know why but I got a good laugh out of that. heh.

No Subject

[finkployd]

This is just great. It's the first time a Slashdot story had my laughting out loud at work.

So now we no longer have to worry about distributing a "trade secret" that was obtained illegally, we are simply mirroring a public court document.
Once again, stupidity has saved the day. Am I wrong in guessing that this pretty much destroys the case against us?

earnestdesigns.com/dvd


Finkployd
Bill Gates: "Innovation"

Re:No Subject

[mwarps]

This is just great. It's the first time a Slashdot story had my laughting out loud at work.

I almost peed my pants laughing so hard at this one. Unless the lawyers can get an exception (probably a goddamn 0x00000001), then everything they're "fighting" against is in vain. Thi is the most ironic, yet utterly stupid thing I have ever seen done by lawyers. This should win a Darwin Award.

Re:No Subject

[powerlord]

I agree with the sentiment, unfortunately Darwin Awards are only awarded to those people who remove themselves from the gene pool for the benifit of future generations :)

(unless they feel so forlorn over this stupidity that they kill themselves they don't have a chance :)

Now... the truth is that if it wasn't so late perhaps we could nominate them for a Beenie Award (Best contribution to Open Source software)... perhaps next year ;)



Colleen:Its a black-hole.
Hunter:Is that a good thing?
C:It is if you want to be compressed into oblivion.
H:Oh.. coooool.

Brillant

[shitface]

Wow, what a great country the US of A is. Now everyone can claim that they are execrcising civic responsiblities by pocessing the DeCSS source. It is such a shame that us programmers have to be reduced top playing law games instead of spending our time doing whatever would be more productive.

DVD team can't use "Nat'l Security" to block FOIA.

[Anonymous Coward]

Like the Feds often do to protect certain records (Kennedy assassination, area 51 data, etc.) I think I'm gonna link directly to the court's web site. Let's see 'em tell me their own site is "illegal". Tee hee!

a mistake

[Anonymous Coward]

from the text:
1 Programmers write computer programs in a form called "source code." The source code consists of a set of instructions in a particular language like "C" or "FORTRAN." Compilers change the source code into an intermediary form called "object code," which is understood by a particular type of computer. The object code is then transformed into a low-level language called machine language which the computer actually executes.

last time i checked, only microcoded archs do this. i bet they paid some "expert" $$$ to write that one.

Re:a mistake

[DaveHowe]

it's borderline - most computers use a C compiler that produces object code (and yes, it IS machine code, but you can't run it directly) then feed *that* into a linker that adds in standard libraries, puts "how to run me" headers and tailers on as needed, then saves it as a ready-to-run file. you might not see it directly (some compliers hide the passes they make) but most go though this two-stage process.
--

Boy am I lost

[neildogg]

I really don't understand why this is such a big thing. Why do DVDs need to be encrypted in the first place, and why do they care so much that some people are able to unencrypt it. You can get mp3s if you rip your CDs. You own the CDs, so you own the mp3. Why can't you save the DVD on the computer? Some people with special knowledge figure it out and want to give themselves some credit and kind of shove it in the face of the companies that came up with this, and it's illegal? No.

Re:Boy am I lost

[rm -rf /etc/*]

Because they can. When CD's came out, and before that, no one ever thought that people would be able to rip the cd into some digital format, and freely distribute it around the world over a vast "internet" with millions of people on it. This was in the days of 1200 baud modems and 300 mb hard drives, it wasn't feasible. Today though, everyone knows we have the technology to do such things, so they decided to encrypt DVD's. The only reason cd's aren't encrypted is because no one had thought to do it back then and it's too late to start now. Believe me, the record industry wants to stop this type of thing as much as the film industry, they just got caught with their pants down.

Re:Boy am I lost

[EricWright]

When CD's came out...was in the days of 1200 baud modems and 300 mb hard drives...

Seeing as how CDs came out in the mid 1980s, hard drives may have been as large as 20MB. My first personal computer (ie. not one my parents bought) was purchased in late 1991 with a whopping 106 MB HD. I certainly remember my parents' first x86 machine being a 286 with a 20 MB drive in either '87 or '88. Talk about truly infeasible!

Also, as the original poster failed to note, you can rip CDs into mp3s, but it is wholly illegal to email/ftp/post for download/etc. that mp3 to someone else without consent from the music company (good luck getting that consent, BTW). Similarly, (IMO only) the DVD-CCA was trying to 1) prevent widespread piracy that is fairly commonplace with music CDs and 2) milk their cash cow as long as possible. 1) is certainly within their best interest. 2) however, is downright despicable, especially given their tactics (selective prosecution, attacking links to information, which, contrary to a certain NY state judge, is covered under the first amendment, etc).

Take this all with a mighty big grain of salt. Most of this is certainly just my take of things (except the discussion of HD sizes, of course ;)

Eric

Re:Boy am I lost

[Anonymous Coward]

You own the CDs, so you own the mp3
Technically, that's not correct.

Usually, copyright holders don't mind small, personal use copies, such as backups or just for convenience (for instance, copying a few pages from a book at the library for reference). In fact, I think most of this kind of copying is considered fair use (but IANAL), so in many cases they can't really do anything.

But its important to understand, you don't own that CD - you own a copy. That's what copy protection is: the guy with the copyright determines who, if anybody, can copy the work. The same rules apply if you own a book and take it down the library and put it in the photocopier to make copies for your friends. That's illegal as well (fortunately for the publishers, its cost prohibitive - books, and DVDs for that matter, are more expensive for an amateur to copy than CDs are; its cheaper to just go out and buy another copy).

Re:Boy am I lost

[iMoron]

Actually, IIRC, the CD was invented in 1978. The Apple II had only been around for a year. Hard drives didn't exist, at least not for personal computers. It would have been hard to imagine back then that in 2 decades, we'd have multi-gigabyte hard drives and a way to transfer music at near-CD quality (or even CD quality, if you have the bandwidth) to anywhere in the world. Although currently transferring a DVD at full-quality is hard to do, in only a few years, I'll bet it'll be as easy to do as transferring MP3s today. I'm not siding with the people who want to ban DeCSS; I believe that everybody should have the right to use their DVDs as they want for their own personal use. However, copyright protection is a bigger issue today than it was in 1978 because in the forseeable future, it'll be feasible to give pirated DVDs to other people, something that would have been almost science-fiction when CDs were created.

Re:Boy am I lost

[Yardley]

No, you own the CD. You are merely prohibited by law from copying the information found on the CD and then reselling it (and, purportately, sharing it). To make an .mp3 backup of the CD's contents is perfectly legal, too. The law prohibits you from sharing (via copying) this backup, or selling the back-up itself (unless your original has been destroyed; in that case, you are in a quasi-gray area of law). In essence, if you are not going to sell or give away your copies, you are entitled to make as many archival copies as you wish (though the law only provisions for one, you are not doing anything wrong to have multiple copies, you are merely being cautious about the probabilties of the original being destroyed and/or you may just want to have access to the recording wherever you spend your time, so you keep a separate copy at all your favorite locations).

Funny....

[Byteme]

Reminds me of Ed Meese's congressional report on illeagal pornography. It was a publc document also, and became one of the most requested publications from congress.

James F. Bickford
Sys Dev Assistant
Electronic Interface Support

Re:Funny....

[Anonymous Coward]

You got an URL for that :^}

Re:This reminds me of Cult^h^h^hhurch of Scientolo

[dne]

FWIW, it was actually in Sweden. Read all about it here.

What will Slashdot do?

[PhilHibbs]

As I understand it, slashdot is one of the named defendants, and is covered by the injunction (CMIIW). What is slashdot's oficial response to the injunction? can Mirror early, mirror often be interpreted as such?

HAHAHAHA!!!!

[Millennium]

That's got to be among the funniest blunders I've ever heard of. Court records, as far as I know, are public, and have to stay that way. So by including the DeCSS code in their filing, the DVD-CCA managed to destroy its own trade secret! Probably without even realizing just what it had done! And while DVD-CCA may be able to argue that posting DeCSS on the Net didn't destroy the trade secret, certainly publishing it in a court document destroys it.

Ooooooh, I get the feeling there's a lawyer who's going to be looking for a new job after news of this gets out...

Re:HAHAHAHA!!!!

[aithien]

I'm pretty sure that they aren't trying to sue based on the fact that a trade secret was uncovered. I think they are sueing based on the fact that the software was meant to circumvent copy-protection technologies, which is explicitly illegal based on privisions in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Which is why it's so important that you email the Copyright office with your opinion on what exemptions should be made for this rule, such as for reasons that are as obviously non-malicious as the deCSS authors intended. Read on, for more information on how to take part in ensuring your freedom to discover.

Re:HAHAHAHA!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

they are sueing based on the fact that the software was meant to circumvent copy-protection technologies, which is explicitly illegal based on privisions in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Actually, the DMCA explicitly makes an exception if the circumvention is done to allow interoperability. Allowing Linux users to watch DVDs they've bought on their PCs sounds like an interoperability case, so the defendents should not be in violation of the DMCA.

double jeopardy

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it's a shame that the owner of the legal document can't be sued if the case is settled in the favor of the heros of our film industry. We need to kill this beast at the root. I tried, (I su'd and did an rm, but that apparently didn't help much) but even if I am sucessful, the efforts of one good american will never be enough. I realize that I'm too stupid to be in control, that's why we have the Electoral College System. But I digress, if the courts find the evil hackers guilty (and how could they not? They don't even DENY that they're hackers!!! Idiots!!!), it would be very difficult to gloat without waving these records around. This saddens me, for nothing is better than a good post-lawsuit gloat, but it will be illegal!!!

I hope this has helped you see how evil this DeCSS regime is. Even after they are distroyed, thier plague remains to infect the rest of us forever. Think of all the small children who will be tainted with this source code!!! This is the EXACT reason source codes should be hidden!!!

Public Record ? Public Domain

[Slak]

IANALNDIPOOTV (I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV): If something's on the Public Record (which I assume Court Records are) are they also in the Public Domain?

I read an update of the CA case from eff.org in which the judge ruled that posting information on the Internet does not destroy "Trade Secret" status as it would encourage all trade secret thieves to post ASAP.

Cheers,
Slak

Incredible...

[marian]

And now, all involved will disappear in a puff of logic.

It's very disturbing when a court filing actually negates the substance of the actual case. Maybe the military is involved here somewhere, 'cause I can't see any other way for things to get quite this stupid.

Holy F---, they're quoting Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Go scroll down a bit through that document. Notice something? Yep, that's right, they're quoting Slashdot comments. Apparently what we post represents the `mindset of the hacker community'.

I think we should sue them for using our comments without permission. (When I say `our' I mean `those who were quoted'.) Sure, they could argue `fair use' because they're just quoting us, but when you look at the case where Janes paid Slashdotters for their insights a few months ago, you could build a fairly solid case. Let's see if the EFF will support us. It would make a kick-ass counter-suit.

Be afraid. What you say here could be used against you in a court of law. IANAL.

Re:Holy F---, they're quoting Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

> I think we should sue them for using our comments without permission.

Even though you're being facetious, do you see how you're part of the problem?

Re:Holy F---, they're quoting Slashdot

[DaveHowe]

Go scroll down a bit through that document. Notice something? Yep, that's right, they're quoting Slashdot comments. Apparently what we post represents the `mindset of the hacker community'.
I don't really mind that - what I *do* mind is that they are pulling individual phrases (not threads, not even entire posts, but phrases) from a huge wad of posts and using them selectively to push their point of view. I am surprised the defense didn't insist they produce (and the court consider) the entire thing, huge as it was.

As for payment now, I am not sure court evidence is bound by the same rules as a magazine.....
--

Re:Holy F---, they're quoting Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't really mind that - what I *do* mind is that they are pulling individual phrases (not threads, not even entire posts, but phrases) from a huge wad of posts and using them selectively to push their point of view.

Where have you been lately? Bible thumpers have been doing just that for years now. Not only that, but the stories themselves were taken bits 'n pieces from various sources (sometimes other religions; refer to the flood account in the Epic of Gilgamesh) and sewn together in order to push a certain point across...

Re:Holy F---, they're quoting Slashdot

[Brad Andrews]

Your honour, we would like the record to show that on the night of December 20th, one "Anonymous Coward" requested hot grits. Thank you.

Re:Holy F---, they're quoting Slashdot

[DaveHowe]

Where have you been lately? Bible thumpers have been doing just that for years now.
Possibly, but I thought taking quotes out of context and using them as evidence was still frowned upon in .us courts of law?
--

Re:Holy F---, they're quoting Slashdot

[ShrikeDOA]

Does this mean they're gonna name Natalie Portman as a defendant as well? :)

Re:Holy F---, they're quoting Slashdot

[periscope]

yeah but then you'd be claiming that linking without express permission wasn't allowed. This would make YOU just as bad as the DVD CCA.

Offtopic (?) - Bad Link

[nachoboy]

Did anyone else notice that CmdrTaco's linking skills could use some help? The link to www.hackernews.com in his posting unfortunately doesn't include the http:// so it instead points to http://slashdot.org/www.hackernews.com, which obviously doesn't exist.

Just my nitpicking.

Re:Offtopic (?) - Bad Link

[doc_brown]

It's not his fault, it's mine. I forgot to check that url as it's addition was an after thought.

Re:Offtopic (?) - Bad Link

[double_h]

It's not his fault, it's mine. I forgot to check that url as it's addition was an after thought.

While you're at it, the "it's" in "it's addition" should not have an apostrophe, and "afterthought" should be one word instead of two.

Thus concludes another episode of "Its EZ too Learn English, the Slash Dot Way...".

Re:Offtopic (?) - Bad Link

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you, Spelling Boy! ... Idiot.

Re:Offtopic (?) - Bad Link

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you, Spelling Boy! ... Idiot.

Those ellipses are unnecessary. And "Idiot" is a sentence fragment.

Sealed Court Records

[Anonymous Coward]

Although I don't know under what Constitutional premise it is allowed, court records in the US are routinely sealed to prevent the public from seeing information that the government would like to keep from the people.

For example, we are constantly bombarded with the message that we must worship Martin Luther King. However, because of Martin King's very unsavory lifestyle of adultery, plagirism at university, communinst party affiliation, and drug abuse, the US government has sealed all criminal files pertaining to Martin King until the year 2027. The American public is not allowed to see the criminal files on Martin King because the files contradict the image that the government wants to aclimate us to.

Another famous case of sealed documents are the documents pertaining to the John F. Kennedy assasination. There are tens of thousands of photographs, FBI interviews, and eye witness accounts that are as yet unavailable for public scrutiny. Why? Because the file may call into question the findings of the Warren Commission and embarrass many still living politicians.

The ax murder case of Lizzie Borden who "gave her mother 40 whacks" over a hundred years ago still has many documents sealed in a law office in Massachusetts. Although the documents in question are very likely to tell us if she was innocent or really guilty, a judge recently cited Lizzie Borden's "right to privacy" despite the fact that she is long dead and the crime occurred over a hundred years ago in the 19th Century.

So just because information becomes part of the so called "public record" does not mean you will have a right to see it anytime soon ... if ever.

Re:Sealed Court Records

[Evangelion]

Umm...

How are unsubstantiated, anonymous, paranoid ramblings 'insightful' ?

Treat anonymous postings as writing on a bathroom stall - Don't belive every thing you read.

Re:Sealed Court Records

[tweek]

I love how you were able to cloud your racism as fact. My stepfather is in the clan and the propaganda material they produce wasn't as eloquent as this.

The American public is not allowed to see the criminal files on Martin King because the files contradict the image that the government wants to aclimate us to.

You state this as fact as opposed to the other two cases you cite as possibility.

may call into question the findings of the Warren Commission and embarrass many still living politicians.

Although the documents in question are very likely to tell us if she was innocent or really guilty

I'm sorry but as much as I try to objective about your post as informative, I cannot. It is thinly veiled Oliver Stonish conspiracy thoery wrapped in KKK propaganda. I'm worse off for even responding to it.

Side note..I'm caucasian, don't believe in affirmative action and don't think that MLK day should be a government holiday but I don't go around spreading false truths to influence others.

Racism bites.

Re:Sealed Court Records

[Anonymous Coward]

Unsubstantiated? Hardly. There are many scholarly books and documents which, although sympathetic to King, have come to the same conclusion about his personal life. Let me provide some evidence about some of the fraud in that life.

We read in Michael Hoffman's "Holiday for a Cheater": The first public sermon that King ever gave, in 1947 at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, was plagiarized from a homily by Protestant clergyman Harry Emerson Fosdick entitled "Life is What You Make It," according to the testimony of King's best friend of that time, Reverend Larry H. Williams. The first book that King wrote, Stride Toward Freedom, --was plagiarized from numerous sources, all unattributed, according to documentation recently assembled by sympathetic King scholars Keith D. Miller, Ira G. Zepp, Jr., and David J. Garrow.

And no less an authoritative source than the four senior editors of The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. (an official publication of the Martin Luther King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Inc., whose staff includes King's widow Coretta), stated of King's writings at both Boston University and Crozer Theological Seminary: "Judged retroactively by the standards of academic scholarship, [his writings] are tragically flawed by numerous instances of plagiarism.... Appropriated passages are particularly evident in his writings in his major field of graduate study, systematic theology." King's essay, "The Place of Reason and Experience in Finding God," written at Crozer, pirated passages from the work of theologian Edgar S. Brightman, author of The Finding of God. Another of King's theses, "Contemporary Continental Theology," written shortly after he entered Boston University, was largely stolen from a book by Walter Marshall Horton. King's doctoral dissertation, "A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Harry Nelson Wieman," for which he was awarded a PhD in theology, contains more than fifty complete sentences plagiarized from the PhD dissertation of Dr. Jack Boozer, "The Place of Reason in Paul Tillich's Concept of God."

According to "The Martin Luther King Papers", in King's dissertation "only 49 per cent of sentences in the section on Tillich contain five or more words that were King's own...."!

In The Journal of American History, June 1991, page 87, David J. Garrow, a leftist academic who is sympathetic to King, says that King's wife, Coretta Scott King, who also served as his secretary, was an accomplice in his repeated cheating. Reading Garrow's article, one is led to the inescapable conclusion that King cheated because he had chosen for himself a political role in which a PhD would be useful, and, lacking the intellectual ability to obtain the title fairly, went after it by any means necessary. Why, then, one might ask, did the professors at Crozer Theological Seminary and Boston University grant him passing grades and a PhD? Garrow states on page 89: "King's academic compositions, especially at Boston University, were almost without exception little more than summary descriptions... and comparisons of other's writings. Nonetheless, the papers almost always received desirable letter grades, strongly suggesting that King's professors did not expect more...."

The editors of "The Martin Luther King Jr. Papers" state that "...the failure of King's teachers to notice his pattern of textual appropriation is somewhat remarkable...."

But researcher Michael Hoffman tells us "...actually the malfeasance of the professors is not at all remarkable. King was politically correct, he was Black, and he had ambitions. The leftist [professors were] happy to award a doctorate to such a candidate no matter how much fraud was involved. Nor is it any wonder that it has taken forty years for the truth about King's record of nearly constant intellectual piracy to be made public."

The cover-up still continues. From the New York Times of October 11, 1991, page 15, we learn that on October 10th of that year, a committee of researchers at Boston University admitted that, "There is no question but that Dr. King plagiarized in the dissertation." However, despite its finding, the committee said that "No thought should be given to the revocation of Dr. King's doctoral degree," an action the panel said "would serve no purpose."

No purpose, indeed! Justice demands that, in light of his willful fraud as a student, the "reverend" and the "doctor" should be removed from King's name.

Re:Sealed Court Records

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummmmm.... *WHAT* "criminal" records? Are you trying to claim that MLK was tried for drug abuse and/or adultery? For being a communist? Which, by the way, is legal.

Please give us the court and case numbers so we can look them up.

Is prosecuting for trade secret theft risky?

[Sloppy]

Hmm.. this begs the question: how would you prosecute trade secret theft w/out getting the "secret" into the public records?

Forget about the DVD bullshit for a moment. Suppose Joe Schmoe breaks into my office in the middle of the night, shoots the security guards, blows open the safe, and takes a single sheet of paper that contains the formula for Miracle Ingredient #666. As the cops follow the blood-drip trail back to his secret hideaway, he places the sheet into a copy machine and presses copy.

The cops nab him, and in addition to the various legal problems he's facing, I decide to prosecute him for trade secret theft. If I do that, then is the Miracle Ingredient #666 formula going to end up in the public record? Sounds like maybe I should just let it go.

Suppose he didn't shoot anyone or blow up any safes. What if trade secret theft was the only crime he committed, so that I either had to nail him on that count only, or else watch him go free. What to do?

It's fun to laugh at the DVD jerks, but it sounds like this current problem that they're having, could happen to anyone who has a secret.

---

Re:Is prosecuting for trade secret theft risky?

[Anonymous Coward]

What still eludes me is how this is considered trade secret theft in the first place. Reverse engineering, yes but theft?

Makes me wonder if they've got ulterior motives..

[himi]

Or if they're just stupid.
Probably the latter, really - their whole approach to this thing reeks of businessmen more interested in their own power than in the realities of the matter, and snake^Wlawyers who can see a nice big pile of cash coming to them whoever wins . . .

Actually, part of the problem is almost certainly the fact that the DVD standard isn't simply American - it's international, and thus the laws governing it aren't so much confused as contradictory . . . The businessmen who are running the show aren't at all sure of how much power they actually have, so they're trying to lay claim to whatever they can possibly get. The problem is, they haven't really thought through the consequences of their approach. This is _exactly_ like the Cult of Scientology's screwup in Sweden - they didn't think through the consequences (or didn't do their research - same thing, really), and basically fucked themselves over . . .
Of course, this case being tried in the US, the DVD-CCA should have had a much better idea of what would have happened - they either have incompetent lawyers, or the lawyers have no control over the situation.

Whatever the case, the DVD situation is becoming a farce. I can see these cases effectively defining copyright protections and rights (on both sides) for digital media, and I can't see it coming down on the side of the DVD-CCA. These cases are naked and incompetent grabs for power - I think even a place as politically corrupt as the US will eventually decide in favour of `reasonable' laws. At least, I hope so . . .

himi
--

"We are SlashDot Of Borg. Resistance is Futile."

[w3woody]

Did anyone catch the section of the suit where they quote a random (and probably hand-picked for maximum effect) collection of /. articles? I quote:

For example, postings on slashdot.org as early as July 1999 clearly establish the state of mind of the hacker community. The following is a sample of posts made on July 15, 1999:

I like the "state of mind" of the hacker community--like we have only one mind, and we all agree. Further, some of the quotes are offered to show that we all knew certain aspects of the law which frankly I, as a drone in the hive mind, was not made aware of by the hierarchy.

Further, the declaration makes a bunch of assumptions about how individuals must have known certain things, because they were posted by anonymous cowards here on /. Now am I missing something, but part of the give and take here is that you wind up taking what goes on here with a large grain of salt, especially from anonymous cowards. So saying that "it was discussed on /. must necessarly make it true, and thus making individuals criminally liable" strikes me as a stretch.

Ah, well. It's stupidities like this which make me a little, ah, itchy around some lawyers...

This is hilarious

[Rares Marian]

Ok, now all of us who want the source, rush to the courthouse and photocopy it! Ingenious!

Contest Winner!!

[bwt]

I think we should revise results of the DeCSS distribution contest. Here's your bell ringer.

On a more serious note, it looks like this form of DeCSS is refering to .dll files and "Win98" and "WinNT". I think the linux decrypter is CSS-auth or something (do I have this right). Anyway, this would appear to me to disallow the "DeCSS is solely for interoperability with linux" arguement under the DCMA 1201(f)(3) reengineering for interoperability exception. Perhaps CSS-auth is ok but DeCSS is not ;-] One more reason to use linux over windows.

It looks like everything depends on the five keys which are called in DeCSS by the names CSStab[1-5]. I propose a new contest: Obfuscated code to produce these keys.

I've heard it alluded to that subsequent to the original hack of the keys, a better understanding of the CSS methodologies has produced a more efficient key-producing algorithm that doesn't depend on any prior knowledge. Such an algorithm seems like it would meet the 1201(g) exception for cryptographic research. Can anybody provide more details on this?

Re:Contest Winner!!

[Anonymous Coward]

DeCSS was a proof of concept code to crack the CSS algorithm. it was then ported to linux for css-auth. the keys are there for redundancy..you only need two, one for authenticating with the drive and one for decryption. you can get all 100+ decryption keys since where are only 2^16 combinations...less than a minute for decryption. anyway, if you loose this one case you loose the ability to reverse engineer which is the whole point of decss and this case.

Re:Contest Winner!!

[bwt]

you can get all 100+ decryption keys since where are only 2^16 combinations...less than a minute for decryption

Only 65536 = 2^16 Combinations!! That is truly, truly sad protection, if what you say is true. Can you provide a reference. I keep hearing things like this but nobody posts the source (pun intended).

if you loose this one case you loose the ability to reverse engineer which is the whole point of decss and this case

I disagree that losing this case destroys reverse engineering. For example, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act specifically includes a reverse engineering "solely" for interoperability clause. Perhaps some people post DeCSS on www.DVD-rip-off.org with encouragement and instructions on how to commit copyright violations, and get told they have to stop by a court. That means they didn't qualify for the reverse engineering exception. It doesn't mean there is no exception.

Another exception under DMCA is for cryptography research. Somebody who was a credible cryptographer could publish a paper entitled something like "Weakness of the CSS playback encryption scheme" in a cryptography journal and include source code and it seems to me the DMCA 1201(f) would protect it. Of course just catching a glimpse of the unprotected key would not qualify as cryptographic research, but a demonstration that there were clever efficiencies that helped reduce the search space for a brute force attack WOULD be publishable.

Free speach in acadamia is a very strong force - for example, you can look up the synthesis for LSD in chemical journals.

Freshmeat

[David D]

Someone go make a entry in Freshmeat for this. Rub it in, pour salt on the wound. Mirror it, do everything we can :)

# David
* ddn@nospam.hps.com
# I live every day like it's my last. It makes doing my homework a little tough.

Not double jeopardy!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Double jeopardy applies to criminal trials.

The doctorines of resajudicata and collateral estoppel apply in civil cases. These are to prevent a company or person from relitigating the same issue after it has been decided.

RSI injured worker wins against Mattel, Mattel still tries to sue him into silence!

DVD in MPeg4 Format 300MB a movie!

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally I'd like to record my DVD's into a Microsoft Media MPeg4 Format. 300MB Per movie, so what I loose a little quality... Heck I could post it to my webserver and watch movies from anywhere! Gosh I don't know what the movie industry is afraid of...

Re:"We are SlashDot Of Borg. Resistance is Futile.

[Slak]

Perhaps those postings by the Anonymous Drones were really postings by the DVD association. :)

I like the "state of mind" reference as well. Perhaps we should introduce the complete harmony of thought amongst RMS, Perens, et. al.

Awaiting further directive from the Slashdot Collective.....
-Slak

Re:"We are SlashDot Of Borg. Resistance is Futile.

[powerlord]

Also, since this is in essence a discussion, quoting A.C.'s is rather futile.

Some people come out in favor of a given topic some come out against, its the nature of a discussion.

Oh... and wouldn't they have to prove that an A.C. is knowledgeable enough to represent 'the opionion of the community'? (not saying some A.C.s may not be)

How do you show something like that in the case of an anonymous comment? Its like picking some random person on the street and basing your case on their feelings.

I'm glad the judge in California seems to be more open minded then the one in New York... almost makes me want to leave the Empire State for a warmer environment ;)



Colleen:Its a black-hole.
Hunter:Is that a good thing?
C:It is if you want to be compressed into oblivion.
H:Oh.. coooool.

Why submit your secret as evidence?

[himi]

I think the DVD case is a different matter - this wasn't a case of `theft of trade secrets', rather one of legitimate reverse-engineering of the technology.

Which doesn't answer your question . . .
ObIANAL, but it seems to me that you don't have to submit your trade secret in evidence - if you're prosecuting for theft of a trade secret, you'd have to completely stupid and incompetent to do so, actually. The court doesn't have to know _what_ was stolen, merely the fact that it was. If the defence tried to submit what was stolen as evidence, then they'd pretty much be admitting guilt - "Hey, we didn't steal anything! And here's your proof - this is what we didn't steal . . . Oh, er . . . ". And you could surely object to the tabling of the secrets - after all, the whole idea of prosecuting the theft is to retain control of your secret, and the court would have to be insane to ignore that.

No, this is a stuffup extraordinaire . . . Someone in the DVD-CCA or their legal team did _not_ think before they wrote this, and will probably be fired quite soon after the head honchos catch on. I almost feel sorry for him/her - it's probably a bored intern (or whatever they call them) who didn't even think about it before writing the document. This intern might even have been a tad sympathetic with the defendants . . . Definitely not legal material, in that case . . .

himi
--

No.

[irh]

Public domain and public record mean very different things. Patents are a perfect example to illustrate - a patent is information about an invention/mechanism/process that is publicly disclosed. Patenting such an invention/mechanism/process -specifically- excludes that information from the public domain - that's what a patent -is-.

There is plenty of information that is on the public record but specifically not in the public domain - absolutely anything that is written and published, for example. You write a book - the information is public record - but the book is copyrighted. Unless you specifically place it in the public domain, the copyright gives certain exclusive rights to the copyright holder.

A thought

[kramer]

So what's to keep someone from making a compilable version of these court documents?

Just put all the excess text (lawyer-babble and such) into a comment block, and presto instant compilable court record.

Re:A thought

[slntnsnty]

That's great! Compiled Litigation! How could we get in trouble for that?

CO$/DVDCCA merger!

[Tackhead]

In financial and entertainment news today, merger mania continues. Tackhead news services reports that the Cult of $cientology has recently been acquired by the MPAA.

On the cult's side, reasons for the merger included $cieno infiltration into Hollywood for the past 20-30 years in order to provide a sheen of legitimacy for the beleagured cult, as well as a surplus of Operating Thetans out panhandling for money now that org revenues have crashed following the CO$'s "Operation Foot Bullet" and public buggering on the Internet in recent years.

On the MPAA's side, they cited a need for individuals with experience in controlling the dissemination of dangerous information embedded in court documents, and "The Cult of $cientology was the obvious choice; they've got experience in these sorts of things that nobody else has."

The MPAA appears to have already started to put the Cult's Operating Thetans to good use; at least one lover^H^H^H^H^Htrusted confidante of Cult Leader David Missedcabbage was quoted as saying

"Look, Dave's desperate for money for the cult, and snce everybody knows the story about the volcanoes and Xenu, there's not much point in having most our OT3 through OT7s sitting around in court libraries pretending to read the court documents containing our Seekrit Skript00rz in order to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Anti-Religious Bigots (tm-CO$) who might check the documents out and copying them and spreading them on the 'net.

It seemed only fair that we send our now-unemployed OTs where they can do what they do best - checking out DVDCCA lawsuits containing copies of DVD decryption source code and pretending to read those before Anti-Copyright Bigots (tm-MPAA) start copying the source and spreading it on the net. Besides, it's more fun than trying to levitate ashtrays."

The merger has resulted in a shakeup on the board of the MPAA; the new board will be composed of executives who have all proven themselves "more capable" than conventional executives through $cientology training, which traditionally starts with a "Communications Course", and goes upwards from there. When asked for comment, the new Chair of the MPAA managed to splutter

"Our lawyers now have full control over MEST: Matter, Energy, Space, and Time are ALL OURS! MUHAAHAHHHAHHAHH! The psychiatrists won't stop us! The Germans won't stop us! The anti-religious bigots won't stop us! The open-sourcers won't stop us! NOTHING shall stop us in our drive to Clear(tm-CO$) the planet! And Tom Cruise and John Travolta are straight, goddamnit, STRAIGHT! Anyone saying otherwise will be DISPOSED OF QUIETLY AND WITHOUT SORROW! We are INVINCIBLE! WE ARE THE NEW FACE OF THE CULT OF THE DEAD CLAM!!!"

...before lapsing into complete gibberish for several minutes, before concluding with something about how Scientology saved his life, got him off drugs, and if I'd only take one communications course... whereupon your faithful reporter concluded the interview and got the hell out of dodge.

Members of the Cult of the Dead Cow, opon hearing the latter part of this outburst, are reputedly planning an IPO next week, proceeds of which will be used to sue the newly-merged MPAA-CO$ organization into oblivion on grounds of trademark dilution.

The CdC has neither confirmed nor denied plans to use a portion of the proceeds to purchase a thermonuclear weapon, and in a joint venture with a new orbital technology from Gold And Appel Transfers, Inc., dust off from Occupied Clearwater and nuke the site from orbit.

It's the only way to be sure.

(Background: For those who don't know the story, yes, the CO$ really did send cult members to court libraries, and had them sit at desks all day long, looking at the cover of the library's sole copy of the court documents that contained their sekrit skripturez, in order to prevent "unauthorized" people from reading them, copying them, and posting them to the 'net. The effect this had on the distribution of the court documents in question was, of course, about as good as the effect the MPAA and DVDCCA's suits have had on the distribution of DeCSS.)

Speaking of Public Records..

[drwiii]

I got what had to be at least a dead tree's worth of legal papers in the mail from the DVD attorneys about a week ago. (Would've been two weeks ago, but they sent it via certified mail and I refused to accept it)

People here might be interested to know that the DVD lawyers printed out an entire Slashdot discussion (comments and all) and included it in these legal filings.

Couldn't help but laugh when I saw a slashdot forum among all these hundreds of papers full of legalese. :)

Re:Speaking of Public Records..

[finkployd]

I imagine they aren't reading the higher end of the comment spectrum (the area where they just might LEARN something), but instead focus on the bottom feeders that just make us look bad.

"Look this guy claims to be an 3l33t hax0r and says '*uck the system, I'm going to copy dvd's now! they can't touch me'. I KNEW this was all a bunch of kids just breaking the law for fun."

Perhaps if they had read the dead trees they sent you, they might realise how silly their case is...Nahhhh. As a rule, we aren't talking about bight people here.

Finkployd


Bill Gates: "Innovation"

Re:Speaking of Public Records..

[iCEBaLM]

Next thing you know, we'll be getting posts here such as:

"Judge Elfving, I want yout body naked and petrified"

In an attempt to get it entered into court documents... Now isnt that a thought...

-- iCEBaLM

DeCSS was GPLed...

[MattMann]

They had to include the source in their filing, DeCSS was GPLed!

"Your Honor, I present plaintiff's Exhibit A"
"Objection!"
"Yes, Mr. Stallman?"
"DeCSS is copyleft, your Honor.
"Copyleft?"
"You know, it's free."
"So what?"
"That means the source must be made available. Here, read the GPL."
"The GNU Public License?"
"No, 'General'."
"Please refer to me as 'Your Honor'"
"Yes, Your Honor, no, I mean, yes... it's the General Public License, Your Honor."
"Oh [reading]..., yes, you're right, it does say the source must be made available. Objection sustained. Plaintiffs? Where can I get the source?"
"We charge for it, your honor."
"But he says it's free..."
"Objection!"
"Yes, Mr. Raymond?"
"He meant 'open', like a bazaar."
"Objection!"
"[wearily] Yes?"
"No I didn't."
"This is bizarre. 'No you didn't' what!"
"No, I didn't mean 'open', I meant 'free'"
"Overruled. Plaintiffs, the bailiff can't seem to get the source from this URL you gave him."
"It's slashdotted, Your Honor."
"What's 'slashdotted'?"
"It means a bunch of people who should be working are listening to MP3s and downloading right now. They came from a free/open advocacy website called Slashdot."
"Oh? Open? Can I get the source to it, too?"
"Damn it, Your Honor, not for another day, now!"
"Your Honor, the Bill Gate, sir, to present this amicus curiae sudsum, a friend-of-the-court [wink] free beer."
"Now we're getting somewhere! Thank you. [grabbing beer] This court will stand in recess..."

Re:DeCSS was GPLed...

[finkployd]

This is the only post here that is actually more funny than the origional story.

Great job :)

Finkployd


Bill Gates: "Innovation"

Re:DeCSS was GPLed...

[kinesis]

Actually, the only word the judge spoke during the entire proceeding was "White".

One of Judge Elfving's good friends is Judge White (it's spelled differently, though). The lead counsel for the plaintif mis-pronounced it as "Judge Whit".

Elfving corrected him in what was a fairly awkward moment.

PS - That was hilarious! Thanks.

Re:DeCSS was GPLed...

[esnible]

I enjoyed the joke, but...

The GPL doesn't require the DVD consortium to supply the source code to the court, the GPL requires the DVD consortium to grant the court the right to distribute.

In other words, the DVD consortium would be in violation of the GPL if they ask the court to seal the records...

Re:DeCSS was GPLed...

[mikeee]

Well, they could *ask*, but not require...

On the other hand, if DeCSS infringes their copyright its copyright (and therefore the GPL on it) may be void. Although I guess this isn't the copyright case... what a mess.

IANAL. YMMV. TLA.

Professional Victims and the "RSI" Fantasy.

[Anonymous Coward]

RSI doesn't exist. It was invented by the the Liberal government and media as a way to destroy honest businesses. Inevitably, the Liberal medial establishment supported their efforts. After all, not only are they devoted to radical left-wing ideology, but they also make a good living scamming insurance companies.

Since RSI is an imaginary "illness", the employee (no doubt a usless, disobedient, unproductive wrecker) was of course violating the letter and the spirit of the law in going to the courts for "redress". Since anti-corporate tort law in general is a violent attack on the Constitution and on freedom in general, any lawsuit of this nature is a crime to begin with in any case. Mattel is perfectly within its rights if it violates the law in attempting to protect itself against this irrational attack. A company needs to be able to maintain absolute control over its employees. This is one of the foundation blocks of freedom: The freedom to do business. Whatever it takes to silence this former employee is perfectly justified.

Seems the head doesn't know what the tail is doing

[wendy]

If the DVD Assoc. hasn't filed the documents under seal, the NY docs become part of the public record in the case -- not a good way to preserve a trade secret. It would seem pretty effectively to moot the California claims.

I guess that's what they get for having too many lawyers in the kitchen. (Different firms handling the NY and Calif. actions.)

There are Procedures for This

[Anomalous Canard]

It's called sealing court records. When the DVDCCA submitted the printout of the CSS source code into evidence at the original hearing, they asked that the court seal the record. That way, they get it their way. They get the evidence in the court record and they make it so that no one can go to the courthouse and retrieve a copy.

I sincerely doubt that the DVD CCA or MPAA lawyers are so stupid as to allow unsealed CSS source into open court records. I looked at the site where the story came from and all I can suggest is that the people who posted it are misinformed.

Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected

Re:There are Procedures for This

[deusx]

I sincerely doubt that the DVD CCA or MPAA lawyers are so stupid as to allow unsealed CSS source into open court records. I looked at the site where the story came from and all I can suggest is that the people who posted it are misinformed

Did you READ the blurb above, or just spout off? I would think that closed court records would not be publically available on the internet. In fact, if someone one posted the court records containing the CSS source, I would have to say that either someone is about to be in big trouble, or the court records in question are indeed UNSEALED .

In fact, I would say that this is the whole FREAKING POINT OF THIS STORY ON SLASHDOT!

Thank you, please drive through.

Re:There are Procedures for This

[deusx]

Then again, after posting this, I realized...

Someone, indeed, could be in trouble. :)

Re:There are Procedures for This

[Anomalous Canard]

I see that you've repented of your rash statements, so I'll go easy on you. ;^)

The link in the article dosn't lead to a court web site. It leads to someone's private site. The EFF would have received copies of the plaintiff's affadivits even if they were sealed and they probably shared them with some defendants. I think that someof the DVD CCA's filings were available on the EFF site though I don't remember seeing this one there.

I suggest that someone got a copy of this from a defendant (notice that it says "Hardcopy from Anonymous" near the top of the cryptome page) and decided to post it.

Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected

Re:There are Procedures for This

[deusx]

I see that you've repented of your rash statements, so I'll go easy on you. ;^)

Indeed, and thank you. :) I apologize for the possible flame content, I was trying to be funny mostly.

Seems like it'll be very interesting to see, really, where this came from.

Re:There are Procedures for This

[jareds]

Indeed, read the blurb at http://cryptome.org/

• Caution: It may be illegal for California and New York residents to download the file above. Before downloading read the contents below. Have lawyer on hand. Or say fuck it and enjoy the forbidden fruit of intellectual censorship. Rest of world is free to grab it, for now.

I don't know what this person is thinking. If they are distributing a sealed court document, it's not just California and New York where they can get in trouble.

Incidentally, the same document is available at the EFF's site, but it's missing the Appendices with the DeCSS code. Could it be because those Appendices are ... sealed?

HEAR YE! HEAR YE!

[andyf]

I, the honorable Sen. Wellstone would like to read the following statement:

unsigned int capital see capital ess capital ess tab zero left bracket eleven right bracket equals left curly bracket five comma zero comma one comma two comma three

ad nauseam...

And yes, I know, it doesn't have to be 'Read' but it's a funny thought...

Re:HEAR YE! HEAR YE!

[Cramer]

From the people who recite the phonebook... That'd be enough for me to watch C-SPAN!

:-)

Bible thumpers?

[thulldud]

Who's to say that the flood stories found in various cultures aren't actually recollections of a real flood? Anti-"bible thumpers" have for years now been claiming the Gilgamesh epic as a source for Genesis with no more evidence than an assertion. Mark it down to laziness. Not that I'm against laziness per se, it's a virtue in my line of bidniss....

No -- this may still be a trade secret

[cmuncey]

IANAL (sigh) but there are two important points that I think everyone should consider.

1) It doesen't look (to me) like this is legally "public" yet. The cryptome page says that the document is based on hardcopy from an anonymous source. Normally (if I remember from my time as a cop beat reporter way back when) all the documents in a civil case only become public at the end of the trial, if there is one, and still may not be completely released then.

This is important as the argument that the judge is somewhat buying from DVD CAA so far is that, while the code has already been posted a lot of places, the information came from an illegitimate source that should have known better, and was posted by persons who should have known that this was not public information. If this is an otherwise confidential court document, posting it does not defeat trade secret protection for DVD any more than any other posting has.

If this is actually a confidential court document, whoever released it doesn't just have DVD CAA to worry about, they should be consulting a lawyer on what the civil contempt rules are in California.

2) FOIA is no help. The federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) does not apply here at all. "The federal FOIA does not, however, provide access to records held by state or local government agencies, or by private businesses or individuals." This is a civil filing in a state (California) court.

Re:No -- this may still be a trade secret

[maphew]

The cryptome page says that the document is based on hardcopy from an anonymous source.

Does anybody else find this strange? Did somebody sit down and type this whole thing out (~45 pages)? I didn't see the sometimes-garbled words and punctuation I'm used to seeing with scanned text. Admittedly I haven't seen this done for awhile so maybe OCR technology really has improved that much. Still, I find it questionable. What about you?

Re:No -- this may still be a trade secret

[mynameistim]

From Cryptome :

dvd-hoy-reply.htm + DVD CCA: Reply Declaration of John J. Hoy January 22, 2000 Caution: It may be illegal for California and New York residents to download the file above. Before downloading read the contents below. Have lawyer on hand. Or say fuck it and enjoy the forbidden fruit of intellectual censorship. Rest of world is free to grab it, for now.

So it seems likely that this isn't supposed to be public information, at least not yet. But maybe I'm wrong...
Tim

Re:No -- this may still be a trade secret

[jareds]

It seems quite likely that you are right, and that the document is being distributed in breach of a court seal.

As evidence, read the disclaimer on the cryptome.org site:

• Caution: It may be illegal for California and New York residents to download the file above. Before downloading read the contents below. Have lawyer on hand. Or say fuck it and enjoy the forbidden fruit of intellectual censorship. Rest of world is free to grab it, for now.

Morever, the same document is available from the EFF, except it is missing the Appendices which included the DeCSS code. Could that be because those Appendices are ... under seal?

any one willing to write a pearl script...

[gimpboy]

to strip the source code from the documents and dump it into source files. probably wouldnt be hard-any takers? john


john

Interesting side note...

[itachi]

It's interesting, while discussing the assasination of MLK jr, to point out that many conspiracy theorists point at the govt. for being responsible. Which hardly goes along with the notion of the govt. trying to paint a rosier picture of King. Getting around to responding to you, rasicm sucks, but bullshit is bullshit. I think King was one of the finest humans of the century, but that doesn't mean he was flawless. I'm not saying he was a screwup or that whatever people say about him is true, but he was human, you know?


itachi

Re:Interesting side note...

[tweek]

I agree. My point was not to argue the merits of Dr. King himself. Mine was to note the obvious (or maybe subconcious) way we use slight trickery of words to get a point across. I have read that Dr. King had been unfaithful to his wife but I find the communist ties to be a bit of a stretch. Wether or not he did any of those things, his message was still one of great meaning and importance.

Re:"We are SlashDot Of Borg. Resistance is Futile.

[mikeee]

"You will be copylefted, and your technological distinctiveness will be added to our own."

Needs to go in CONGRESSIONAL record

[gwachob]

The problem is that a court record can be sealed or edited by a judge, especially when the judge sees the purpose of the inclusion of the source code.

If the source code were included in the congressional record, however (and it quite easily could, btw, by a friendly congress person or senator), then the courts would have no power to strike it there (thanks to the separation of powers doctrine). I'm not sure what the rules are in each house of congress, but I believe that it would be an significant event to prevent a congressperson's entries from being entered into the official record.

The nice thing about this is that the congressional record is much easier to search and retrieve on the Internet than most District Court proceedings.

Re:This reminds me of Cult^h^h^hhurch of Scientolo

[Anomalous Canard]

why didn't the DVDCCA ask the judge to do this?

From all indications that I have, the DVD CCA lawyers did ask the judge to seal the CSS code that they submitted and he complied. I think that the report that they are in open court records is dead wrong.

Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected

a lawsuit company

[delmoi]

Members of the Cult of the Dead Cow, opon hearing the latter part of this outburst, are reputedly planning an IPO next week, proceeds of which will be used to sue the newly-merged MPAA-CO$ organization into oblivion on grounds of trademark dilution.

Wow, the idea of starting a company just to sue someone. Ingenious! Kinda like Caldera... (Well, the Caldera that makes OpenDos, not OpenLinux. They are seperate companies.(but have the same CEO))

[ c h a d o k e r e ]

Re:a lawsuit company

[pb]

In that case, Caldera should sue Caldera for diluting their trademark on the name "Caldera". Then you'd have Caldera OpenLinux, and "The company formerly known as Caldera" OpenDOS...

Personally, I'd much rather own Cult of the Dead Cow (CDC) stock than Caldera stock. Maybe I'd change my mind if Caldera opened up their secret archive of funny and off-color text files. ...but then they'd probably just sue Microsoft for e-mailing the darn things to everyone... (can I collect that money from Bill Gates now? I forwarded the message... ;)
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.

Re:a lawsuit company

[delmoi]

In that case, Caldera should sue Caldera for diluting their trademark on the name "Caldera". Then you'd have Caldera OpenLinux, and "The company formerly known as Caldera" OpenDOS...

Hrm, I suppose that could be possible, however I doubt it. I think the CEOs are pretty good frends, seeing how there the same person and all. The again, TicketMaster (paul allen) sued Microsoft, so...

Perhaps in a fit of self loathing, maybe..

[ c h a d o k e r e ]

The newest Darwin award knockoff

[dantes]

Funniest fatal business move.

I can't believe this is really happening.

Re:"We are SlashDot Of Borg. Resistance is Futile.

[Ralph Wiggam]

I was really amused to see the same "Anonymous Coward" that gets quoted in all sorts of mainstream media outlets, get quoted in a major court document.

The first post they list is attributed to "root@megami.com". If it had been written by someone named in the case, it would be quite damning, but it wasn't. First off, www.megami.com is a page devoted to Japanese Animation. Besides that, anyone who posts to /. as root probably isn't the brightest bulb around. At least 50% of all slashdotters have root access somewhere, and it doesn't impress anyone.

I don't mean to flame root@megami.com, but presenting his/her sloshdot post as representative of the entire "hacker community" state of mind is insane.

-B

CSS License Agreement automatically applies to EU?

[egburr]

Reading through the record posted on cryptome, I saw an interesting note. In section 30 of the main declaration, the DVD CCA states that "The CSS License Agreement specifically prohibits licensees from reverse engineering the CSS technology." Here, the licensees are the groups that DVD CCA provide the 'secret' to. The DVD CCA then goes on to state that "Clearly, the end users of the products manufactured by the licensees under the CSS Licensee Agreement can have no greater rights than the licensees have under the CSS License Agreement."

Am I reading this right, that they are saying that the end users are bound by this agreement which the end users have never seen?

Edward Burr

You should've heard them READ from /. in court

[kinesis]

When Kessler (counsel for the plaintiffs) started reading the comments at the last hearing it was all we could do to keep from laughing.

"Your honor, we have evidence here that an 'Anonymous Coward' called us 'cocksuckers' on slashdot."

I was reminded of a time when my little sister ran to my mother and said, "Andy called me a poo-poo head!"

Kessler read (from the record) for about an hour and a half in a ferocious speech that left most of us wondering why he had bothered.

-- Defendant #2

Re:You should've heard them READ from /. in court

[ajs]

That's not "cocksuckers". It's cog-sarging bastiches!

Oh, I do so love our legal system. And all I wanted was to watch my Matrix DVD after hours at work. Was that so much to ask?

Mid 80's PC

[talonyx]

Well, the first 386's (Compaq Deskpro 386 was one of the first) came out in 1986. You could geta "monster" 170 mb HDD with one of these... but that's the ultra high end stuff.

The usual would be a 12-mhz 286 with 1 mb of ram and a 40MB hdd (I had one of those!)

That's not even enough to hold the unencoded WAV file for a typical 3-minute song, is it...

BTW, 9600 baud modems were out then and the 19.2 ones were well in development (but they got surpassed by 14.4s? Don't quite know why, but 19.2s weren't very common.)
I had a 2400 baud modem and I used it to connect to BBSs. I had FidoNet email. That rocked!

The industry always knew it would be possible to rip the CDs... after all, they were digital in the first place, and any schmoe with a brain could see that software piracy was everywhere (yes, even back then). They just didn't think that it could be distributed so easily... they were more concerned about people taping their CDs and selling them to friends.

(This is a complement, not a response, to it's parent post... in case y'all are confused :)



--
Talon Karrde

Re:Mid 80's PC

[Anonymous Coward]

19.2 was a propretary USR spec. (Just like how "x2" wasn't universally supported, but v.90 is.)

Impersonation

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone actually have a link to the offical court house document? Somebody could be playing with fire by impersonating the courts...

Re:A CRISIS IN AMERICA

[Anonymous Coward]

Fnord!

Is not exposure a risk inherent to trade secrets?

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't copyright it. You didn't patent it. YOU DIDN'T PROTECT IT. No someone reverse engineered it. Too bad.

Couldn't WE enter it into the records?

[cyberdonny]

Now, what if the defendants entered a different exhibit, containing also the source code, but without asking to seal it? Afaik, that was what happened in the scientology case: the secret was actually entered by the defendants

Re:Couldn't WE enter it into the records?

[Anomalous Canard]

In a US court, the plaintiffs would request that it be sealed and the judge would grant the request.

Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected

40 bit exports

[Anonymous Coward]

I quickly read through the complaint. What I do not understand is; they state that there was a 40 bit export restriction when the encryption was developed. I was under the assumption that DVD was/is regional, in that I could buy a DVD in Japan and it would not work in a player made for the USA. If this is the case then what difference would it make if the DVD encryption was 128 bit in the USA? I may be able to decrypt the European encryption, but it would do me little good in the USA. One would think that if the DVD makers wanted regional players/disks there would be nothing stopping them from using 128 bit encryption for the USA players/disks. As a matter of fact I think this strategy would be paramount. Am I missing something here? Are the US players/disks produced in other countries? Dex- Still goin!!!

They will move to have the documents sealed

[kinesis]

They'll probably move to have them sealed.

There's already a floppy disk (sealed) with decss on it and a hard copy of the source (also sealed) in the court record.

Go to http://sharedlib.org for a list of mirrors (there's NO local copy) and download the css-auth or livid code for yourself. Put it up on a Geocities or Xoom page and then email me the URL.

Don't bother mirroring the Windows binary... get the source, that's what we care about.

And remember, "We're the MPAA's customers. Not their enememies" -- Chris Dibona

Pro-piracy statements get us no where. Neither do "fuck the lawyers" rhetoric.

Re:They will move to have the documents sealed

[Anonymous Coward]

OK. Fuck the judges.

Technically speaking

[ocie]

you don't have to kill yourself to be removed from the gene pool. You just have to loose the ability to reproduce. There were a couple of Darwin awards given in this way to living people over the years.

Re:CSS License Agreement automatically applies to

[hadron]

It is implying that if the licences aren't valid, then the middlemen are in violation of their contract.

Of course, it could also be read as an attempt to push US law onto the free world, which I regard as a shame.

Re:A CRISIS IN AMERICA

[DaKrushr]

Why was this post blank? :)

Clean Room CSS

[PapaZit]

This is the perfect oppirtunity to make a clean-room version of the DeCSS code.

• Someone not involved with the current project should go through the code from the court documents, and write up a detailed explanation of how it works, without using any actual code. i.e. "the stream is XOR'ed with the Manufacturer Key for X bytes, and then..."
• Someone else (again, not involved with any of the current projects) takes the explanation and write code that follows the explanation.
• There aren't that many manufacturer keys, so just start brute-forcing keys until all of the working (or "sort-of-working") keys are found.
• Refine and repeat.

Suddenly, there's a version of DeCSS developed without stealing any trade secrets. The person who's explaining the code is merely offering commentary and explanation for a legal document, while the people writing the code are putting that non-copyrighted, non-trade-secret explanation into practice.

Re:Clean Room CSS

[jaed]

That won't work when trade secret is at issue, as long as the original person describing what the code does has access to what's alleged to be a trade secret. (It wouldn't work for patent either.)

It does work for copyright, but only because copyright inheres in the exact representation of an idea, not the idea itself. So if you can write a piece of code that's compatible with something copyrighted, without reproducing the copyrighted code, you're free and clear of copyright concerns. (The clean-room technique basically is to make sure there's no legal question that the implementor used copyrighted code, because in the clean-room situation the implementor never *saw* copyrighted code.)

But this case isn't about copyright - no one alleges DeCSS is actually a copy of someone else's software - it's about trade secret. And a trade secret is still a trade secret, whether it's described in C or English. So doing a clean-room clone of CSS won't help here, there'll still be a trade secret problem.

Its not there!

[werdna]

Look more carefully at the affidavit appendix and I think you'll note that Appendix A is not the source code for DeCSS, but notes regarding the same.

Ugh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Good one. You call him a racist for stating his opinion (or his belief of the facts). Everything is known to be merely the opinions of whoever states it, right? He used an example (Martin Luther King) to back up his idea that we won't see everything... and you go spouting drivel about how he's a racist. And here we are, in a thread about law (ugh), and you go bitching about how there's a racist. "He's wearing running shoes, just like a runner. I bet he's a runner." "YOU DAMN SHOE-IST!" Shut up... (And don't even bother arguing that my analogy falls apart... They all do. Get over it.) "Score 2: Insightful" my butthole. Eat poo and die. Moderate me down... but moderate this loser down too. That's how it should be.

Re:Ugh.

[tweek]

Actually my biggest point was that he intentionally stated one as fact and the other two as theory when, in fact, all three are theory and not proven. What bugged me even more was the fact that he proclaimed the MLK theme as fact. And if you read my post even MORE you would notice that I happen to agree with the fact that MLK day is pure drivel.

It may indeed be, in his opinion, that there is a government conspiracy about MLK that we don't know about but he stated it as fact and that was what bothered me.

I get just as ill when people say that creationism is a myth and evolution (in the sense of creation) is fact, when evolution is just as much theory as any other idea.

DeCSS T-Shirts

[hwestiii]

Another page I read (memepool) had a link to CopyLeft which is now selling t-shirts with the DeCSS source code silk-screened onto the back side and includes hard copy of DeCSS code with each T-shirt purchased. Is something like this impacted in any way by this case?

well, to me

[IshamaelNT]

it just sounds like the CCA is shouting "no fair, they cheated..." Come on, you're given a piece of software and you can't look at it in any way except it's intended use? I hope no one files suit against the makers of the BFPG-9000, i'm sure that pvc piping was supposed to be used for something other than a monstrous potato gun... Ishamael the devils of truth steal the souls of the free

Re:This reminds me of Cult^h^h^hhurch of Scientolo

[Anonymous Coward]

(they tell the members that if you read it before you're ready, that it will kill you - just a note to all you potential Scientologists... I read them, and I'm still around :o)

Not for long, "WE" have got your location now ;)

Non-moderator moderation

[Byter]

The above post(the RSI is a Liberal Conspiracy one) should be moderated (-1, Flamebait).

ROFLOL

[homoted]

This is hillariously funny. Imagine If someone posted the source code in the comments here, whould that make those particular slashdot comments illegal?

It's cool how they mention slashdot in the document.

Will the Judge become a Doe?

[gnarly]

Since it is the Judge's duty to make the court proceedings public, including the evidence,
perhaps Judge Elfin will qualify as Doe #499....
Quick, somebody buy him a T-shirt.

(Obviously, IANAL)

Re:This reminds me of Cult^h^h^hhurch of Scientolo

[CleverNickName]

This is slightly OT.

If anyone is interested in learning the truth about the of Cult^h^h^hhurch of Scientology, go here.

ROLF!!!

[sesquiped]

It's always nice to see some quality original humor here on slashdot. My only suggestion would be to put in the names of the characters speaking the lines. Then again, maybe it's just best how it is...

Make that "ROFL!!!" Sorry for not previewing :(

[sesquiped]

/nt/

RSI conspiracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Me thinks it was done tongue in cheek.

But he is right, there is a liberal conspiracy about ^&*^*&^*&$$%%$#@!@#$@#$#@$$# connection lost. host not located.

Re:Is not exposure a risk inherent to trade secret

[Anonymous Coward]

If it was patented, then in 17 years it becomes open anyway for anyone to use. Thus, if you don't patent and hide behind the courts, then you can sue till kingdom come!

Re:Posting Public record after ITS been sealed?

[Anonymous Coward]

If a person get a copy of a public document with their seals and logos' and one posts it on the Web, and then the court seals it at a later date, does this mean one has to remove a public record that has already been distributed to the public? Hurry up and get a copy of the public record with all the state/federal stamps for authenticity and post it.

oh for crying out loud

[Anonymous Coward]

I get just as ill when people say that creationism is a myth and evolution (in the sense of creation) is fact, when evolution is just as much theory as any other idea.

Whatta maroon.

Let's see .. what do we have in support of evolutionary common descent. Hmm ..

1. Comparative anatomy
   
2. Comparative biochemistry
   
3. Comparative embryology
   
4. Genetics
   
5. The fossil record

.. and so on and so forth. All of these things point to one thing and one thing only: evolutionary common descent as the source of the biodiversity on Earth. How can you possibly claim that creationism even comes close to being on equal footing? If it makes you happy to believe that the entire universe was poofed into existence 6,000 years ago by a Hebrew wind demon, then by all means, knock yourself out. But don't attempt to put your mythical story on the same level with biology, because you just end up looking silly.

Re:oh for crying out loud

[James Lanfear]

Er, I don't see any claims about creationism at all in his post. He simply stated that evolution is a theory, and that very often its less intelligent defenders accept it as an absolutely proven--and sometimes undisprovable--fact, and use its 'facthood' as fuel to burn creationists. You note, as well, that he qualified 'evolution' with "in the sense of creation", which, I believe, is a reference to the origin of life, not what how life turned into humans. Strictly speaking that probably isn't part of evolution, but again the cognitively challenged tend to assume that it is not only a necessary part of evolutionary theory, but that it has somehow been proven (without being able to say just what was proven, of course).

I believe very strongly that evolution is true--it has been sufficiently proven for me. I also believe that chemistry is sufficient to explain the appearance of life. I do not, however, believe that the either is a fact; to the best of my knowledge the latter doesn't even have a complete theory to work with, let alone the evidence required for facthood. They are likely, the former very much so, but that is all. IMO, to think otherwise would be a serious breach of one's scientific integrity. But I suppose that belief just makes me look silly, eh AC?

Slashdot user quotes on the court docs

[doomy]

Scroll down a bit on the cryptome.org link and you shall see..

This was the most hilarious piece of (Please quote me) quoting I've ever seen any laywer use.

But my favourt of all time is the Anonymous Coward quote :

"
There is an incorrect perception that copyright and patent and RE [reverse engineering] laws are universal. They are not. If someone in say, Taiwan,
or some other non-Berne non-WIPO country REs the code and posts it to the usenet, how is this illegal? Now I suppose it's illegal for Jo[e] US
Citizen to download and use this code, but the genie will be out of the bottle so to say, and it will then be impossible to suppres [sic] the knowledge
anymore. (by anonymous coward) (emphasis added). "

With the [sic] and emphasis added. A truly masterpiece, glorifying the Anonymous Coward of Slashdot fame.


Good job AC.

--

We have no right to what we buy?

[iCEBaLM]

What really pisses me off is that in the "president" of the DVD-CCA's little Affidavit, we get the following:

23. Gilmore goes on to state that "[o]ne major reason [for making such copies] is to allow Linux developers and users to watch their DVDs on their non-Windows computers." (Id. at 10). Linux is an alternative operating system to Windows. It was developed as an "open" system which is available at no charge to the user. To date, no person or entity has taken a license from DVD CCA or its predecessor to use CSS in a Linux application. If a person or entity were prepared to take a license on the same terms as existing licensees, such a license would be granted. At that point, Linux users could lawfully view motion pictures on their non-Windows operating system. Until then, Linux users have no "right," via a "hack" around other software licenses, like the Xing license, to gain access to this proprietary technology.

So right there the truth comes out, this is what they're after all along. We have the right to buy the fucking DVD's, but we have no right to PLAY them without also buying a fucking player? We can't make one ourselves? What kind of logic is that? Why isnt the FSF legal team helping the EFF in this? Why isn't many other organisations helping in this effort? It affects us and them alike!

Next thing you know we wont have a right to make our own OS for our computers.

-- iCEBaLM

Re:Is not exposure a risk inherent to trade secret

[Anonymous Coward]

Under current copyright law protection begins at the moment of creation, whether you *register* your copyright or not.

Copyright is not like a patent or a trademark, registration meerly proves possesion at a particular time but does not in itself give any rights. Rights are owned by the orginator. Period. This is, I believe, the basis of the suit filed in NY.

Small Victory

[OctaneZ]

On Friday a judge denied a request to submit T-shirts bearing the CSS code into evidence. The rest of the story is at WIRED: http://www.wired.com/news/linux/0,1411,33828,00.ht ml

You can also purchase the T-Shirts at COPYLEFT: http://copyleft.net/cgi-bin/copyleft/t039.pl?1&fro nt

I am 'root at megami dot org' (the one quoted)

[root]

The first post they list is attributed to "root@megami.com".

Actually, it's root@megami.ORG.

If it had been written by someone named in the case, it would be quite damning, but it wasn't. First off, www.megami.com is a page devoted to Japanese Animation.

See above, but the .org page serves the same purpose.

Besides that, anyone who posts to /. as root probably isn't the brightest bulb around.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'posting as root'. On /. root is just a nick like any other. How is this better or worse than someone who calls himself CmdrTaco? I fail how to see how this justifies decreeing me to be 'dim'.

At least 50% of all slashdotters have root access somewhere, and it doesn't impress anyone.

"Impress anyone?" Who said anything about that? My nick matches my email address, which gets routed automagically to my regular (non-superuser) account anyway. You're making a *lot* of assumptions here. Lighten up! It's just a nick!

I don't mean to flame root@megami.com, but presenting his/her sloshdot post as representative of the entire "hacker community" state of mind is insane.

The lawyer made that tie, not me.

I don't think there *is* anyone who represents the entire "hacker community". We're all going to differ on some issues. As far as my comment, I stand by it. Even if MoRE hadn't came up with DeCSS, someone, somewhere, and regardless of local law[*], would've reverse engineered or just plain extracted the css code from one of the software players and posted it to some public forum. Once that happens, its supression would be impossible. Had the secrets of DVD crypto stayed locked exclusively within hardware decoders, it would probably still be a secret today. Allowing software decoding at all, meant puting the code to do it on every software player sold. That is the true distribution and disemmination of the knowledge that led to DeCSS. MoRE just turned it into something a bit more readable.

[*] It is, of course, this "someone, somewhere" who possesses the "f*** the law" attitude I mentioned, and will rip the css code from some player and repackage it as a module, source, or incorporate it into something like DeCSS, and not an attitude fitting my own personal beliefs. Yes, I'm backpeddling a bit, but if I'm gonna be quoted in front of judges here, I wanted to clear that up. I still do support, and think that it is not too late to do, a proper "clean room" reverse engineering of the css code, just as Compaq did with the IBM BIOS code, that enabled them to produce the first PC clone. IBM sued, much as DVD lawyers are sueing now. They lost. Hmmmm. DVD clone players? Would there be any difference?

RThat was not an offtopic post!

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupid moderators. You might understand if you had bothered to read the links in the article. This post was highlighting the reliability of slashdot as an information source for a court.

If anything, this should be modded up to a +5.

I can see it now: Your honor, I'd like to respond to the prosecutions suposidly expert Slashdot postings by quoting a few Slashdot postings myself:
"I am the *FLAMING MONKEY* I killed JFK with my bare hands!"...

heheh

Mirror, not sure where to contribute

[Anonymous Coward]

Now a little more reliable, with DeCSS and a microsoftified .zip css-auth archive (will be corrected soon, I'm told).

http://130.111.75.63:142/

Perhaps to lose is to win, and to win is to lose..

[Anonymous Coward]

Color me cynical, but has it occurred to anyone yet that the DVDCCA may not *want* to win this case? I'm sure the lawyers that are arguing the case are trying to win. But, do the people they report to, further up the chain of command, really want to win???

If they do win, DVD goes the way of DAT. It dies.

But if they fight a lengthy, *losing* court battle. They've got headlines in every paper. On all the TV shows. They've branded the DVD trademark. And they have encouraged the geek horde to embrace DVD technology.

Consider how many people owned VCR's last year and didn't know what DVD's were. Or thought, "Why should I buy DVD's, when video tapes are so cheap..."

Now run a search at the New York Times, or your favorite local paper on "DVD". How many articles have there been in the past month? Even Microsoft can't buy marketing like this.

So for the life of me, I can't tell if these are ignorant old-schoolers fighting a losing battle against technology. Or some really brilliant marketers trying to insure that DVD succeeds where DAT failed.

another mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.geocities.com/dvd_decss

check out the cool name i got for my page! :)

You don't need the keys...

[Anonymous Coward]

The original DeCSS used those keys, however, you don't need the keys since the key can be derived from the checksum. So it's a moot point since the keys aren't really necessary.

whoops

[James Lanfear]

Change "proven" to "proved" where appropriate. I can't believe I typed that.

here

[/]

There's this page which has a lot of commentary (ranting) about the Meese report. An online copy of the actual report is elusive.

No

[Robert S Gormley]

Just that it makes general sense that if you assign specific rights to licensees and they sublicence it, they can't give those end users more rights than they themself have.

Slashdot lawyers

[NoWhereMan]

Did anyone catch the section of the suit where they quote a random (and probably hand-picked for maximum effect) collection of /. articles?

Yes! It was disgusting to listen to this dribble and very disappointing that the EFF lawyers did not challenge it. I was willing to give the benefit of doubt to the EFF team, but hindsight shows how ludicrous their feeble defense was. They may think it is time for "bigger guns" but my next contribution will not be an bigger until I see some bang-for-the-buck.

Please understand that my view was formulated during the 6 hour drive south after the hearing. Reading about the judgement from Judge Elfving a few days later seemed anti-climatic.

Ugh. Thank You.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for standing up for intellectual freedom and open discourse. Unfortunately, there are too many people like Tweek who wish to silence anyone who doesn't share their ideological hobby horse. Mr. Tweek (john@lusis.org) is typical of the intolerance practiced today by the priests of politically correct orthodoxy. Mr. Tweek (john@lusis.org) tosses around words like "racism" and "KKK" without any evidence to support such outright slander. His ad hominem attacks are indicative of the worst form of logical fallacy and intolerance. In Tweek's world (john@lusis.org) the only "tolerance" allowed is for those who happen to share his particular prejudiced world view. Woe to those who don't agree. Tweek (john@lusis.org) will throw an irrational temper tantrum, and subvert Slashdot's moderation system to enforce his pet agenda, censoring those who would dissent. No doubt Tweek (john@lusis.org) would love a job as enforcer for the thought police in his politically correct totalitarian dream world.

Trade secret theft is not a crime...

[Brecker]

The relevant crimes are patent and copyright infringement. DeCSS is in court because the authors purportedly violated copyright restrictions by reverse engineering some code, which is a copyright violation. Your recipe is different, though. Recipes are patentable, but not copyrightable: they describe a physical process for making something.

You could patent your recipe, if you showed that it was somehow a unique formula (eg. it makes cookies softer in a way that nobody else knows how). As long as no trespass were committed (digital or physical), you would have no case, as you have no protection on your recipe, unless you patent, which allows you a predetermined amount of time.

IANAL, but I believe that I understand this distinction. I shall assume no responsibility if your recipes (or other trade secrets) are stolen and you have no recourse.

Re: secret agenda

[Anonymous Coward]

Its nothing to do with making copies of content, its all to do with UNAUTHORIZED PLAYERS being made, ie hardware or software. DVD forum has lost control ofits exclusive player reign. Now any one can make a player with out any (C) restrictions/guidelines. Just like any mp3 player, imagine if you had to get a licence to play mp3s and had to code SDMI into it.

No, not anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

Gee, that's too bad if it's true.

Fortunately, people reading that page don't really have any real reason to believe that it's an illegally leaked court document. I mean, it sure looks like something totally legitimate.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. That's the story that the dozen people I email it to are going to hear from me, and I don't think I'll even be lying. That's the story the people who get it from them is going to hear, and they won't even suspect that it may not be true.

"One man tells a lie, and a thousand repeat it as truth."

It is out. Forever and ever. Game over.

Re:No, not anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

That was an obnoxiously stupid post to make.

Why the hell did you have to tell the world that you're going to knowingly violate a court seal, and pretend you don't know better? In case you didn't know, recent filings by the plaintiffs have included (out-of-context) posts from Slashdot to try to demonstrate the existence of willful violation of the law. You're just feeding fuel to the fire here.

Judges despise a contemptuous attitude like yours, and the plaintiffs have been using posts like this from months ago to try and make the defendants look bad.

Re:No, not anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

Knowingly violate a court seal? Why do you keep spreading this rumor about a court seal? If this were under a court seal, then 1) We wouldn't have it, 2) Cryptome wouldn't have published it, 3) Someone would have gotten in touch with Cryptome and explained the error, 4) The violation would be a headline in the news by now.

In absense of all other facts, who would you believe? A reliable crypto news source like Crytome, or some Anonymous Coward spreading rumors on Slashdot? Use your head and make a good faith decision based on the information available. It's obvious that the DeCSS code is common knowledge after all these months, and most likely that it has been published in view of millions of people. The most likely and intuitive explanation is that the plaintiffs felt morally and legally unsure about their actions as of late, and therefore had a change of heart.

MOD HIM UP!

[Sloppy]

nt
---

So?

[Anonymous Coward]

What difference does the legality of the whole thing make as long as the DVD CCA has enough money to hire an army of lawyers? Don't you know how the legal system works?

Re:Is not exposure a risk inherent to trade secret

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright is pretty much irrelevant here isn't it? Nobody copied anyone's code.

Oh look, another one

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks like Amph the Dwarf has some of the files mirrored on her web page too.

DeCSS Legal (At least the source)

[laptop006]

The main point now is that if the documents are released, and as said if they aren't it would violate the GPL. But if they are released it would mean distributing the source for DeCSS would be the same as distributing a legal document released by the courts.

DeCSS

[ppanon]

[IANAL]. There are of course two court cases going on, presumably this has to do with the trade secret case in California. Personally I find the case on the East coast using the DMCA much more interesting. I seem to remember somebody pointing out that the EFF (and others) were providing legal help. I thought someone mentioned that one of the tactics (among others) the defense might use is to challenge the DMCA on constitutional grounds.

If a constitutional challenge to the DMCA looks likely to succeed, I would expect Disney (and a few others) to drop the case like a hot potato. IIRC, Mickey's had his 50th birthday, you see. So if the DMCA gets struck down, copyrights would revert back to 50 years under the previous legislation, wouldn't they? And although the DMCA can extend existing copyrights, once they expire, you can't extend them again. So, if the DMCA gets struck down, Mickey becomes PD and there's no locking the barn door once the horses are loose. They can push congress to pass another law to extend the copyrights, but Mickey will be free (as in speech).

Re:DeCSS court cases addendum

[ppanon]

Then again, maybe the Disney lawyers will just start fighting like crazed rabid dogs. I doubt it though since it wouldn't set a very good example for a "Family-oriented" company. Disney management ususally tries to avoid looking rabid when in the public eye. I still think it's more likely they will pay all their co-plaintiffs to get them to drop the lawsuit.

FOIA Yes

[Python]

Actually, various states have there own sunshine and FOIA laws. So its possible that you could get these documents from the states in question via a state FOIA law. I would be very suprised if California did not have its own FOIA covering state documents.
--
Python

Some Clarifications about DeCSS would help

[Drestin]

CSS was not decoded, decrypted, or decompiled (at all) on linux. Xing DVD Player 2.03 did not encrypt its CSS decrytion key, so running a program that detects exactly what Xing is doing as it loads a DVD shows it using the key, once they had 1 key, they guessed at others. It was done on windows, for the purpose of releasing the CSS source in the attempt to get a linux DVD player. The reason was not to create a program to decrypt DVD video files for download. And as for all this crap about DeCSS, it was not the first program that was created that did that! DODs Speed Ripper (aka dodsrip) came out before DeCSS as a DOS proggie, it could decrypt almost all but WB DVD's, it was later fixed by the author of dodsrip, but before the new fixed version was released, DeCSS authors heard about it, their program already created but not released thinking that there was no point until the problem was fixed (something new to add). They somehow learned of the reason why it couldn't decrypt WB movies (they did not steal it) and released DeCSS. A Wired.com reporter heard of DeCSS and wrote an article, saying DVD encryption was cracked. This came out after numerous programs that already copied DVD's were out. DVD Rip could download the video files using an Xing exploit at a 1:1 ratio (still need to convert to mpeg-1). DVD2MPEG could load a dvd and using the Win98 DVD player capture each frame and immediatly encode into mpeg-1 at a 1:5-1:10 ratio. Panasonic MPEG-1 Encoder could encode MPEG-2 (DVD/VOB) into MPEG-1 using Intervideo and LSX filters at a 1:5-1:10 ratio (DVD2MPEG actualy uses Panasonic mpeg-1 enco. plugin, but with the plugin you dont need to download the vob to your hdd). There were even more then that. Now copying DVDs to VCDs is as simple as a owning a DVD-ROM, getting DeCSS or dodsrip, getting Panasonic MPEG-1 Encoder plugin and FlasK Encoder. With those things, you can download the DVD's VOB's with DeCSS or dodsrip, install the MPEG-1 encoder and hooke it up with FlasK, then using FlasK, get VCD/NTSC/PAL or a MPEG (nonVCD compliant) in as little as little as 10hours, total; speed and quality depends on the OS (win9x/win2k), the RAM and speed of your comp and other activities it was doing while encoding. For more info check out http://www.dvdpiracy.com , http://www.opendvd.org , #pcdvd on EFnet. You do need a DVD-ROM

like i said....

[serialk]

i mentioned a while ago mirrors can not be stopped

truth / freedoms prevails !

First Amendment

[davtom]

One of the things I read recently at about page 40 of the transcript at http://www.2600.com/news/2000/0121-trans .txt was that nobody is trying to restrain the posting alone of programmer's notes without the DeCSS source code. The Court seems to be considering that source code does not constitute free speech. Somebody could, however, write an English description of the algorithm. This would not be executable code, but it would be a "blueprint" from which executable code could be written. It may well be more likely to attract the protection of the First Amendment. I can't do it because I'm a British citizen, and we do not have free speech in this country. A US citizen would be able to do so, though. Disclaimer: IANAL. This may well be wrong!