Slashdot Mirror
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.
er.. well... if I link to the court documents am I in violation of the court order?
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
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
Matt Singerman
http://matt.vegan.net/
the Freedom of Information Act
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.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
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.
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?
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 ?
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"
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.
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
pronoblem
FWIW, it was actually in Sweden. Read all about it here.
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?
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...
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
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.
"Suppose you were an idiot..... And suppose you were a member of Congress... But I repeate myself."
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.
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.
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.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
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
--
My very own DeCSS mirror.
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
Ah, well. It's stupidities like this which make me a little, ah, itchy around some lawyers...
Ok, now all of us who want the source, rush to the courthouse and photocopy it! Ingenious!
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
I think we should revise results of the DeCSS distribution contest. Here's your bell ringer.
.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.
On a more serious note, it looks like this form of DeCSS is refering to
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?
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.
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.
--
-=DaveHowe=-
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
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.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
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
--
My very own DeCSS mirror.
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.
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.
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
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 $cientology training, which traditionally starts with a "Communications Course", and goes upwards from there. When asked for comment, the new Chair of the MPAA managed to splutter
Members of the Cult of the Dead Cow, opon hearing the latter part of this outburst, are reputedly planning an IPO next week, proceeds of which will be used to sue the newly-merged MPAA-CO$ 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.)
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. :)
"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..."
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.)
-- Openlaw: Fighting for fair use and the public domain
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
Anomalous: deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Canard: a false or unfounded repor
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...
Photos of bits of the past hiding in the present: afiler.com
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....
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.
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
"You will be copylefted, and your technological distinctiveness will be added to our own."
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.
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
Anomalous: deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Canard: a false or unfounded repor
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 ]
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Funniest fatal business move.
I can't believe this is really happening.
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.
/. 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.
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
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
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
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
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
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
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
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.
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.
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
Of course, it could also be read as an attempt to push US law onto the free world, which I regard as a shame.
Why was this post blank? :)
- 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.Forward, retransmit, or republish anything I say here. Just don't misquote me.
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.
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?
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
The above post(the RSI is a Liberal Conspiracy one) should be moderated (-1, Flamebait).
Haha, I don't know why but I got a good laugh out of that. heh.
------- What exactly is real?
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.
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)
If anyone is interested in learning the truth about the of Cult^h^h^hhurch of Scientology, go here.
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...
/nt/
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.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
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.
--
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
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
o nt
You can also purchase the T-Shirts at COPYLEFT: http://copyleft.net/cgi-bin/copyleft/t039.pl?1&fr
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?
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.
http://www.geocities.com/dvd_decss
:)
check out the cool name i got for my page!
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?
Change "proven" to "proved" where appropriate. I can't believe I typed that.
There's this page which has a lot of commentary (ranting) about the Meese report. An online copy of the actual report is elusive.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
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.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
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.
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.
nt
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
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.
/* FUCK - The F-word is here so that you can grep for it */
[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).
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
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.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
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
Python
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
i mentioned a while ago mirrors can not be stopped
truth / freedoms prevails !
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!