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Crackdowns, Fools and the MPAA
werdna was one of many to submit a Motley Fool column which takes the MPAA to task, neatly summarizing the events to date. But the best DVD story so far has to be this Linux Journal article, Crackers and Crackdowns. The author has some personal experience with crackdowns, and offers tips on what you can do to fight them.
Somehow we grovelled through several thousand years without movies prior to their invention around 100 years ago. I'm sure we can do without them again.
But it may not be necessary. Here's how to really hurt the MPAA in the long run: Work on tools and technologies that decrease the upfront investment required to make and distribute a movie. Cheaper and better cameras and lighting equipment. Digital storage and projection technologies that make it less expensive to create and distribute 'prints' of a film to theaters. When the advantages that money can buy diminish, the power of large companies that can muster enormous financial resources diminishes, as well. I don't see large movie production companies being rendered as thoroughly irrelevant as large record companies probably will. But certainly some of the wind will be taken from their sails.
Not only is JWZ right on target, there's the other factor to consider.
Suppose everyone boycotts DVDs and it DOES work. Sales plummet. What will MPAA announce? "Sales are down x% since the eeeevil pirating program DeCSS was released. Obviously everyone's pirating now, and for the good of the world we must put Johansen on death row!". It's just like the RIAA's announcement last year when 1998 record sales were down the MP3s were responsible. That rhetoric's nowhere to be found now that 1999 CD sales hit an all-time high.
Has anyone here actually *read* the transcript from the New York hearing? The judge wasn't nearly as biased as he's being portrayed; a couple of really good points got made. The EFF lawyers actually infuriated the judge by not addressing the complaints of the suit directly.
The injunction was regarding the actual Windows program called "DeCSS", NOT the css-auth code, the algorithm whitepaper or any LiVid code. The judge himself says outright that "programming notes" are not being acted against in any way, and that he has no evidence that non-Windows clients even exist.
The secondary issue of controlled playback is being handled as exactly that - a secondary issue. The real issue here is the right to reverse engineer, and whether or not specific permission from the copyright owner is required to do so. *That* was the point that Ms. Gross and the EFF failed to address, and what pissed the judge off.
The most important point, though, is that this isn't a case of copyright infringement. It's a case of DMCA infringement under the "reverse engineering" and "copy protection circumvention" sections. This is a very important point.
Finally, the "giving them a runaway train" comment never in fact happened. The actual quote was:
"I do bear in mind the defendants' interest in speed here and in avoiding a prolonged duration for the preliminary injunction, and so, within the limits of my schedule, which is pretty clear at the moment, you can have a trial pretty near whenever you want.
So when do you want your trial? I think I'm free to start Tuesday."
Page 79, lines 23-25, and page 80, 1-4.
Read the transcript yourself at www.2600.com.
The email mirror at findcss@usa.net is still operational. Email a request for code, a mirror list or the whitepaper detailing how the algorithm is done. All emails will be deleted from the mailbox after the packages have been sent.
If the MPAA succeeds, they could simply Subpoena the list.
A better solution would be for every one to get DeCSS(This is just the windows exe), and if worse comes to worse, pass it along individually to every one you know.
[ c h a d o k e r e ]
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
The masses seem to be content with media being force fed to them by 20-second sound bytes and corporations that (for example) are capable of manufacturing, recording, distributing, and playing the music of an entertainer (for lack of a better word) under one corporate roof.
I was content too, until I grokked the 'Net and learned how to scavenge, gather, and interpret my own information. I think the best course of action is to make sure we continue to have an open and free media source. As more people move to it, the chances for education improve tremendously.
Don't forget the powerful of personal involvement either. I can't count the number of "real" conversations I've had about a wide variety of Internet issues. In almost every instance I have to educate them on what the issue is before I can go into my spiel about what it means. It takes time, patience, and empathy to overcome ignorance and apathy. Be patient, but never stop pushing.
+&x
is it like the cluetrain?
+&x
Remember, a EULA does NOT have the force of a law. You can not be prosecuted in a criminal court for violatin a EULA. At least no according to the law. It's an entirely civil matter known as Breach of Contract. And that's VERY VERY VERY difficult to prove with a EULA as there is no way of knowing that the person every saw the license agreement. Especially if the software was preinstalled on their system. It's illegal to ask someone to agree to something without letting them see it, so there can't just be a 'You agree to all EULA's of any software installed on this system' clause in the purchase of the machine.
So no, you can not prosecute someone as a criminal because they violated your EULA, and in fact you can't prosecute someone under 18 for violating your EULA at ALL as they are not of age to enter into a binding contract.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
I read the transcript of the ruling cover to cover and while the judge is certainly predisposed against the defendants, the defendants lawyers did a very poor job of presenting their case. They are relying on some pretty subtle nuiances of the law as their defense. To the layman reading the law, the decss program does indeed seem to be in obvious violation, and let's face it, contrary to his statement that he is not a moron, the judge clearly knows nothing about the internet. He did not even understand the distinction between linking and posting. Furthermore, he clearly did not want to spend the time to become educated on these issues.
That said, I did find a big loophole that the judge left wide open. He made it VERY clear that the programmer's notes (in this case source-code comments) we clearly protected speech. I have reviewed the DeCSS source code and it is a fairly simple short piece of code. I would think that some programmer out there could write 'enhanced' comments that described everything the code was doing to the point that it would allow somebody reading said comments to reproduce the program.
The 'code comments' could then be posted prominently on any website without fear of being sued. I have not quite figured out how the keys could be described without it looking like code.
That said, all it will do is preserve the knowledge, ultimately we will need the right to distribute the executable for our goals to be practically met.
Actually, I think that boycotts *often* work, but
the myth that they don't is suprisingly wide spread.
Just in the last few years: _Global Exchange_
(a small non-profit with a few dozen employees)
led a boycott against the Nike corporation, and
Nike did ultimately back down (they've now
instituted minimum age hiring practices, etc.).
More recently, the same suspects started going
after the Gap/Old Navy/Banana Republic because
of the way they're running their operation in
Saipan (briefly: conning women from Asian into
indentured servitude). Soon thereafter, I noticed
in article in the business pages about how the
Gap's sales had gone flat. Notably this article
proposed a number of possible causes for this,
but didn't mention the boycott...
In any case, I think the chief barrier to getting
a boycott to work in this place is coming up
with a short, simple explanation of the issues.
It's obvious to *us* that this is bullshit,
but how do you make it obvious to everyone?
What's the slogan?
That's exactly how I see it. I own a great DVD library, but the lack of DVD support in Linux has kept me dual-booting with Win 2000 on my personal machine.
To MPAA et al.: I'll stop using DeCSS the minute I find a complete Linux DVD solution.
I've searched high and low, checking recent distributions, to no avail. I just put on Mandrake 7 (finally with USB mouse support! Yeah!) and I noticed it installed a DVD player, but it seems it's just not in the cards quite yet.
--------
Oscarfish.com: tropical fish with attitude. Way t
Some people believe that it is economically unfeasible to pirate a DVD at full quality. And yes this is probably true right now. However, with better (wavelet?) compression, fatter pipes, and bigger hard drives, in the future it will not be.
I've read through all the source I could get my hands on, but I wasn't sure if what I was looking at was DeCSS or css-auth. The source files said 'css-auth.c' and css-auth.h' etc, so I'm not sure. Is this css-auth, or DeCSS? (or is css-auth just a part of LiViD)?
And as for pirating VCDs, trust me, its happening. I got a copy of American Pie 3 weeks before it came out in theaters. I got my 'good' copy of the matrix about a month before the DVD release. A friend of mine, who at the time still had an analog modem would go to public computer labs and span the files on 10 or so zip disks. Go to #vcd on efnet and tell me then that it isn't happening.
[ c h a d o k e r e ]
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Jon and his group MoRE (Masters of Reverse Engineering) managed to break the encryption scheme, apparently intercepting the data as it passed through a piece of hardware unencrypted(due partially to a design error on the part of the hardware manufacturer)
go after them, they are the ones that were originally trusted w/the information and screwed up.
they are just trying to make an example of him. get a life MPAA.
This was a very good summary of the events so far. But it makes me feel better for one reason and for one reason only: The MPAA/CCA does not have the Motley Fool, a bunch of investors, under their spell. Maybe they're not mainstream media, but it's certainly a start, and a little heartening.
I like his idea about commoditizing it. You can bet they'll fight tooth and nail. But you know what? I bet that's where it's all headed. And the MPAA/CCA can either lead, follow, or get out of the way.
If you can't figure out how to mail me, don't.
For linux tips: http://www.linuxtipsblog.com
Too many people confuse fascism, oligopoly, mercantilism and fraud with actual fair trade. (A truly free market requires informed consumers, not passive drones; but we cannot force everyone to be equally intelligent, nor expect everyone to be equally desirous to live freely.)
Groups can never have more rights than the individuals which comprise them -- the individual is the smallest minority. The privileges of a private guild conflict with the inalienable rights of individuals? Too bad; the latter trumps the former.
A lot of so-called "capitalists" have swallowed the CCA/MPAA lies hook, line and sinker. They think it's about piracy. It's not. What IS it about? A lot of things which can't be easily condensed, as the last few weeks of discussion here have shown. Meanwhile, lots of hackers see "capitalism" as the problem, when it's fascism, mercantilism, oligopoly and the like that they're really upset about -- they just don't realize it.
You already know the State claims you don't even own yourself? Now private guilds are ready to violate your rights just as thoroughly, and abuse the legal power of the State by using sovereign national's police forces as their enforcement arm. Bouvier's Law Dictionary defines "property" as
When you lawfully purchase a DVD, do you really own it? Do you only have the right to expose your eyeballs to its images and ears to its sounds? How far may ownership be abrogated -- and by what process is this happening?In the good old days, you were lucky: If you opened the case, all you did was void the warranty. Now, you can be declared a criminal. This harkens back to medieval days, when everyone had "special knowledge" and people were routinely exiled from the guild or killed by its members for revealing the secrets of smithing, healing, or even reading and writing.
But lawful behavior (fair use, reverse engineering and the like) can never be made unlawful, by any amount of legislation. It can only be declared illegal.
Of course it's easy to see how capitalism gets its bad name, given the retarded poster children that get all the press. Steve Gilliard once said, "The reason that some of us are more worried about government power than corporate power is that Coca Cola rarely strafes the villages of Pepsi drinkers." Unfortunately, a lot of groups out there seem to be eagerly competing with governments everywhere to see who can violate the rights of the individual more efficiently and thoroughly. Disney and other companies get together to extend copyrights, while every two-bit jackass who throws together a CGI script slaps a patent on it and sues anyone running a web-based store...
The future, where your only freedom is the freedom to make money (but not too much); where tools like compilers and debuggers are restricted to an elite, privileged and licensed class; where it doesn't matter whether it's government or a corporation giving you the shaft, because they're fascistically intertwined so thoroughly you can't tell one from the other.
"Shut up, be happy. The conveniences you demanded are now mandatory."
Have a nice day, citizen-unit.
-dj
the problem with an information superhighway is that everyone wants to be a traffic cop
Fuck Slashdot
Rabid capitalist that I am I find myself agreeing with you simply because of the fact that it makes sense. I mean, even in most video games there is a 2 billion dollar limit on the amount of money you can have. So why do we need so much more in real life? I think 25 million is enough to buy an ungodly large home, a couple dozen cars, servants, and anything else you could want. And perhaps at the end of each year an amount of cash equal to the amount over 25 million you are worth would be taken from you and placed in an area of common funds which would be used for road building, and other infrastructure, or perhaps research and development... Who knows... But I imagine taxes would be reduced to almost nothing very quickly given a reasonable group of people in charge. And that would encourage the wealthy to spend money, the more money the wealthy spend the more other people become wealthy. So it's just all good. And I don't think anyone can argue that 25 million isn't enough money....>:)
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
So people like Michael Dell just have to up and retire when his assets hit $25 million, and Dell computers would have to be liquidated. No company run by its founder can grow beyond $25 million in value. The guy who founded "Virgin airways" should never have had a chance to found "virgin games" or any of the dozens of other companies.
And of course the people who have proven themselves successful at creating and running profitable companies should by no means be allowed to continue doing it. All companies should lose money, or at best break even.
Like most simple utopian strategies, this betrays a profound a vivid lack of understanding of the situation. (Communism, case in point.)
Rob
Wrong, it simply requires that he continue to spend the money, to use it. Also, the value of the company would be divided by the # of shareholders (Seems reasonable to me) and then if that exceeded 25 million per person they would need more shareholders. No one is suggesting that once the person reaches 25 million they must STOP. However the extra could be skimmed off if they couldn't spend it fast enough. I mean, come on, if they can't spend the excess in a year then they really don't have any use for that kind of money, do they?
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
You going to regulate that?? Want our already overburdened government to do it?? Can we really trust the government to do it?? Would you be suggesting to do this if you were the one that was collecting such wealth??
Sorry folks, but more regulation is not the answer!
you seem to have the impression that the current regulations would remain. That is incorrect.
I say remove the entire current government, it performs mostly useless functions anyways. And create a new government, a new system. Give that government explicit rights, make sure it can not act beyond those rights. It's feasible if you are building a nation from the ground up. Or have the cooperation of the people currently in power. I'd say the best hope is to get a colony on the moon or mars and design your own political/economic system.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
Whoa there. Perhaps we've all been misinformed. One way or another, it looks like there's some confusion here. I wonder which side it's on.
Are you sure the RIAA is suing mp3.com for beaming music that was bought from mp3.com? My understanding was that mp3.com was beaming other music too, which they didn't have the distribution rights too. (e.g. Beaming music by artists that are not signed by mp3.com, and without their permission.) My understanding was that mp3.com's justification for this was that they used some kind of software that runs on the receiver's machine to verify that the receiver already owns a copy of that CD. (And of course, we all know that it would be impossible for that software to be reverse engineered or connected to a fake virtual CD drive that reports arbitrary CDDB information.)
If any of the above is wrong, please flame away. Otherwise, it sounds like mp3.com screwed up big time, and they are not fighting the true MP3 fight. mp3.com was once a fresh and legitimate music publisher, with a cool distribution scheme. But now they're trying to turn into a w4r3z server, and I think MP3 advocates should distance themselves from this company.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Works for me. Can still watch independent films I guess. Bring your own munchies too.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
You need to read more carefully. As the Fool said, there have been tools since 1997 that just grab the decrypted signals going to the video card and save that.
Really, you don't need to understand CSS to copy CSS encrypted stuff. It is needed if you want to make players without paying licensing fees. And that is what this case is about.
Cheers,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
I decided to post a poll on my site asking the obvious question:
/. community are...please take a moment to jump over to The Swindle and register your vote. I promise to post a followup with the current tally tomorrow.
Are YOU boycotting DVD?
I'm curious to see what percentage of people in the
Because The Motley Fool is investor-oriented they have brought out some important points which we have been ignoring on /.
DVDCCA has defrauded investors and content-providers by telling them they have a copy-proof technology (when we now know they had a third-rate encryption system). They got people to give them money on false pretenses. They got people to put content out in their format by lying to them.
They also got people to buy DVD players on the premise that the players would be able to play all DVDs. Now, they are threatening to release a new encryption system which would make all current players obsolete. Even if they didn't do this, the companies which have agreed to release material on the format are being harmed by the court actions because those actions restrict the market for their material.
The Motley Fool brings out the real issues by showing that it is economic reasons, not technical reasons, that prevent illegal copying. The article even shows why that will continue to be true in the future.
All of this suggests better strategies for fighting these idiots. Boycotts are all well and good, but only a small percentage of the moviegoing public is going to understand these issues. (Taking back your DVD players and demanding a refund or boycotting the player-makers may prove more useful since geeks are much more likely to be the target market for these kinds of tech.)
How about a class-action lawsuit against the DVDCCA on behalf of everyone who legally owns a DVD but is being prevented from using it legally?
How about suing on behalf of investors who were lied to and whose interests are being undermined by the phony DVDCCA lawsuits? If DVD goes the way of DIVX because these guys are overplaying their hand, some people are gonna lose some big-time money.
How about a lawsuit on behalf of content-providers who were defrauded and then had their markets curtailed by DVDCCA legal actions?
I know most slashdotters are morally opposed to things done by lawyers. I share a certain amount of disdain for some parts of the legal profession. But this may be a time when the courts are the right venue.
Certainly, plenty of lawyers ought to be willing to try it on contingency. It's an easy case. The tech issues are straightforward, and the economic issues (as demonstrated by The Motley Fool) are pretty simple.
Maybe it's time to fight fire with fire.
Any lawyers out there interested? If you've got the credentials, we can probably get you an unusually long list of named plaintiffs for a contingency-based class action. (Remember, this could be a very high-profile case and function as pretty good PR.)
BTW, what about a volunteer lawyer in Norway for Jon Lech? I don't know what the laws there are like for malicious prosecution, but there could be some big money there. Maybe a legal fund isn't even needed.
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
Labor unions are definitely not the right kind of power bloc. They have different goals than what we're talking about here. Their membership is miniscule compared to what is needed too. The corruption problem is a tough thing to deal with. Anywhere you have power, corruption is sure to rear its head. But we need power in order to create some kind of balance. The only thing that we can do is try to minimize the potential for corruption by keeping things as open as possible.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Ah.. the letter vs. the spirit of the law. Thanx for the good explanation. I guess such a thing exists in just about every country, but the wording was a bit vague for me (not being a native english speaker)
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Subject: What my boycott costs you
Hello,
Since I am boycotting Amazon.com for its abusive patents policies I would like to let you know how much my boycott has cost you so far (I now make my purchases through other retailers on the web but I originally intended to purchase through Amazon):
$299.99 + $459.99 = $759.98
Regards,
TNN
It's MUCH easier to overwhelm a small, splintered group, than to confront a large, united group. This is, in fact, a lot of how the DVD group is trying to destroy US! By attacking piecemeal, it's hoping to be able to overcome an opponent that is simply too great for it, when united.
There is only one way to defeat this - splinter them, first. Focus, as you say, on MGM, or one of the others. Seperate it out. Castigate it. Throw on all the mud you can. Get the spotlight on it. All the negative press that can be mustered. Chances are, it'll fold - the risk to it's shareholders and it's profits is too great.
With one company under interrogation, the other companies are likely to distance themselves. They aren't equipt to handle united struggles against adversity. They're RIVALS, for the most part. It's not in their blood to try and rescue a cornered comrade.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
BZZT! Wrong! RAH was writing about how a society of people who are held responsible for their actions from birth would be a good thing! While I can see how Mr. Landley might get the impression he has if he had only seen the movie, if he had indeed read the book, he would have no such misconceptions.
OK, go ahead and moderate me down as offtopic...
www.eFax.com are spammers
"It's like prohibition in the 1920s. That's not going to work. It's not even a holding action, it's just... dumb."
This is not strictly true. You see there is a method to the madness and I can explain. Let's forget DVD copying ( you are right ). This is about players. So what we have here is prosecution by proxy.
I.e. The real defendants are not in the courtroom and only one of the real plaintiffs is there too. What these people want is for a court somewhere ( any court, anywhere ) to say that DeCSS is an illegal piece of code and should not be allowed to exist.
What do they get from such a ruling ? They have a president that can then be used to bludgeon Diamond or RedHat into not writing, building or distributing players that use the new code. That's why the central people in the case are the people most likely to have a ruling entered against them.
People like www.2600.com which after crying "free Kevin" for 5 years is roundly hated by every judge on the bench, or that little boy who after you bash his computer and harass both him and his dad for a whole day ( 7 hours straight ) you tell the mother that "look, if he signs this thing to the effect that DeCSS was illegally created we will leave you all alone ).
Effectively what they are trying to do is Retroactively create a patent for DVD encryption. "It's out there. You can look at it but you can't use it". A court might just buy that crap too.
So yep, It's the MPAA in court but Sony and Panasonic who are the real plaintiffs. It's a bunch of websites and a few little boys on trial but they really care about corporate defendants who are nowhere near the courtroom. Frankly I would tell LI to bankroll the defense and file a counter-suite of some kind.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
the well written motley fool article
will probably be the first wall street,
and the stockholders of the big media
companies will ever hear of this. This is
a very good thing. a few years ago these
guys were ignored by TPTB, but they are read
by financial people now. they get quoted
in financial circles the way slashdot gets
quoted (and is unoformly read by) the tech
journalists.
Long range this may be the turning point between
where the Great Unwashed thinks cracking css
is crimal and where they think it's obvious that
MPAA is in the wrong.
I, for one, was very glad to see this.
garyr
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan
For example, during the days of the anti-apartheid movement, when people were calling for divestiture it was common for the libertarian-types to point out that the economics of this was dubious: if you talk HP into selling an electronics plant in South Africa, the plant is still there, only now it's locally owned (and possibly with less enlightened management than it had previously). So why should anyone in South Africa care if every US firm "divested" and sold off all of their plants at a bargain rate?
I think what this hyper-rational viewpoint missed is that the whole divestiture controversy was a tremendous publicity generating event, and it got to the point where no one from South Africa could travel anywhere without being treated like a pariah.
Buzz is the goal. You don't need to worry that much about details like "do we boycott the whole MPAA?"; "do we go after subsidiaries too?"; "do we ban DVD players", etc. None of these details matters that much... it doesn't even necessarily matter how many people support the boycott (though if you can get it up to even 1%, I guarantee they'll cave immediately, and start looking for someone to fire).
You just want to get it to the point that whenever a Disney exec plays golf he gets sick of hearing people ask if he's worried about those silly boycott.
We've been screaming this until we're blue in the face, but the media hasn't been listening too much. I consider The Motley Fool to be a lot more mainstream (read: folks who wear suits) than /., so this could mean that our message is finally getting out. It's also good to see they're looking at respectable sources from our sector (Eric Raymond instead of the flaming ACs) for a rundown of the situation. I have a bunch of friends who aren't exactly /. types, and it took a lot of explaining to convince them that DeCSS was legal. I think they'd give it more weight coming from Dan Rather, so it would be good if the message can keep expanding into the rest of the population. The DVDCCA is out to cover their asses, but if they realize that they'll piss off millions of customers by furthering these ridiculous lawsuits, they might back down, saving us all a lot of trouble, and legal bills.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
That's about it. Remember to act like reasonable adults, and be ready to give reasons to anyone who asks you "Why are you boycotting?" We've got the moral high ground here; let's act like it. It's like Linux advocacy: if you maintain your cool and act reasonable, many more people will listen to you than if you shout and scream.
Briefing's over, ladies and gentlemen. You know what to do. Now get out there and execute Plan Boycott! They'll never know what hit 'em!
-----
The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
"The Source will be with you... Always."
Let me repeat all this: The deCSS program is neither designed nor necessary for copying DVD movies, which isn't economically feasible anyway and not technically possible with the partially prewritten blank disks being sold today. In any case, a tool to copy DVDs would be legal for personal use.
If the matter can be summarized to this two sentence paragraph, why in the world is this even an issue??
I have to read The Motley Fool more often, and so should lawyers, judges and execs.. Poor Jon Johannsen.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
I submitted this message to the Fool.com webmaster yesterday.
[ Forwarded message displayed below ] -------------------------
Subject: Verdana
Friends,
That Verdana font that you are using it *really* tough to read on an X-Window machine. You will have a tough time getting anybody that uses Linux as a desktop to go to your site.
Is this something that you would consider changing?
Vanguard
[ End of Forwarded Message 1 ]
And I got this response.
Thanks in advance,
Vanguard,
My name is Chris and I handle Technical Customer Service issues here at the Motley Fool.
We serve a different style sheet for every browser, in order to optimize the content for that browser. However, we do not currently have any specifically made for Linux browsers yet. The thing that will facilitate this is an increase in the number of requests for this new style sheet. I will pass along your request and add it to those they already have.
I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you.
Chris Elam : )
The Motley Fool
Quality Assurance Team
http://www.fool.com
techhelp@fool.com
"Fools learn nothing from wise men, but wise men learn a lot from Fools."
If you think it's worth it, send them an email asking them to create a stylesheet that's easier to read on a Linux machine.
'm surprised that there aren't more indie bands putting up web-pages with mp3s. Also surprised that there aren't any centralized distributors for them - but then I'm pretty ignorant on that side of things.
mp3.com is an example of a centralized distributor of MP3s from indie bands. I doubt very much that it's the best that can be done, but it's a start. I know that I HAVE bought a CD from one of the bands (who I had never heard of before) as a result of a download from MP3.com.
On the movie front, it's starting to happen, but has a ways to go. This could be an excellent opportunity for film students to get wide distribution. Computer generated effects are becoming more commonplace and are getting cheaper. When done in Hollywood, they're mostly expensive because of the artist's time and effort. Easier to use and more automated modeling software will help. A sort of GPL model library wouldn't be a bad idea either, it's a lot easier to make customize an existing model than it is to create a new one from nothing. Expanding use of DSL and cable internet will help the independants immensely.
The linux journal article claims CSS was reverse engineered by watching hardware decrypt a DVD.
Everyone else thinks it was Xing's software DVD player that was reverse engineered; in fact, this is part of a crucial point in the prosecution's case against DeCSS distributors because of Xing's EULA that specifically forbids reverse engineering.
Which is it?
I posted this recently, but I'd like to post it again, because the Linux Journal article is related to my point here. I think that, no matter whether linux users choose to move that way, we will be pushed towards stronger radicalism, in our beliefs, our tactics to retain our right to free speech/code, etc.
The good thing is that, unlike most activists and radicals, we're in a *very* strong position, because the stock market, and the economy in general has bet the farm on the industry we work in...
Imagine what were to happen if, in protest of the recent attacks against the linux community, we were to coordinate a general strike?
Even more powerful is another possibility, what if great portions of the industry took large paycuts in order to work on free software?
We may not always be at the forefront of our economy, IT jobs may move wholesale to India where wages are much lower. If you don't think it'll happen, I'm sure I could introduce you to a GM worker in Flint, MI who thought the same thing about his job in the 70's. But for the time being, we are a very strong force in the economy, and because of that we have a responsibility to protect freedom.
In any case, here's my post from a while ago. Think about it, and remember that whether you consider yourself a right-Libertarian, a liberal, a conservative, or an Individualist Anarcho-Syndicalist, you and your peers (the linux community) will have your freedoms attacked, and it will radicalize you. Think about it...
--
Which means you should prepare to face a barrage of court orders, attacks on individual freedom, attempts to bottleneck the Internet, and arrests of prominent Open Source gurus.
It's quite possible. I'm not saying it's definite, but the possibility exists. Keep in mind that Food Not Bombs gives away free vegetarian food to anybody who's hungry. Their reason? Because "food grows on trees."
Despite this wonderful example of altruism, they've had numerous encounters with the police, and are a constant target of brutality and harrassment. Strange, no?
Maybe not. Food Not Bombs are very progressive and radical (as opposed to being liberal, and just whining about poverty), and have decided to take matters into their own hands. Becuase of this, they also use the opportunity to hand out flyers, organize protests, meet other social activists, etc. Most probably, this is what scares the government and corporations into repressing them.
Probably open source's saving grace is the fact that most of it's members are not equating the sharing of code with political ideologies. Regardless, it will be targetted by the corporations it threatens, but in the first wave of repression, you'll see very IP-oriented attacks (such as the actions by RIAA), lobbying to forbid the use of open source software in government institutions, along with future attempts to use the antiquated patent and intellectual property laws against the open source community. As this begins happening, you will start seeing open source advocates becoming increasingly more radical in order to challenge the powers that be.
More protests, more electronic civil disobedience, etc. Once people start using the freedom of open source as a point of advocacy towards a more free and equitable society is when you will see the real repression by the elites. Not because giving away code (or food) is inherently dangerous to them, but because it represents a flaw in their dominance that they will go to great lengths to conceal. What is that flaw? That we don't need them!
One of the popular Linux slogans has been "Welcome to the Revolution." So welcome - and welcome to the front lines. Prepare to duck!
Make no mistake, Open Source is a revolution, but what most "Linux zealots" don't realize is that the people in control never welcome a revolution of any kind.
--
gcc -o -Wall society.cc
society.cc: Classes 'government' and 'capitalism' not found!
society.cc: Derived classes, 'greed', 'oppression',
society.cc: 'hierarchy', and 'violence' will no longer
society.cc: function.
Proceed with compilation? Y/n
Michael Chisari
(Someone check my acronyms on this, I'm not sure who's attacking the internet anymore nowadays...)
Think about it: Why didn't the DVDCCA start taking up this whole issue on the whole from the get-go? If they would have gotten the preemptive strike, the Cult of the Media and it's followers would worship it's new tomes of information like the Bible, or the Koran, or whatnot, as it always does. First to news gets the followers.
Instead, they tried to keep it under wraps, it seems. Does this tell anyone else something? I can only see it as the DVDCCA isn't serious about this. How could they be? Their war cry of "Piracy! Piracy! Piracy!" doesn't seem to be reaching outside the internet community.
But now, here comes the Motley Fool, a reasonably respectable money news source. People read this stuff from time to time. They're pointing out the idocy of this whole mess. That's the first kind of media attention I've seen this whole fiasco get at all.
Guess what? It seems like we got the preemptive strike. Now doesn't that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?
------------
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
The Fool article talked a lot about the CCA but they didn't mention the MPAA. They are filing different lawsuits. It seems like an important detail because the MPAA is made up of all the large American movie stuidos.
Well, I did go an submit a letter to all these fine people (MPAA, studios, etc) using their email addresses or "submit" forms.
:)
Of course, I used my HotMail account as it's a convenient "public" bag.
Surprise surprise, I checked my email today and the SPAM level has gone about by - ooooo - at least 80-100%
What a vicious form of revenge they have, no?
I left my body to science, but I'm afraid they've turned it down...
No, you don't have to STOP, you just go find 10 people and say, ok We need to have X amount of cash, and you all start spending money and investing in a company. Why must you have all of the money yourself?
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
That's hilarious. Really. When Thomas Jefferson said that a revolution every few years was a good thing, I'm sure he had you personally in mind.
Go look up the phrase "armchair quarterbacking". Then go watch the movie 1776, and the Ken Burns documentary series on the Civil War.
In the mean time, I'm not entirely sure what chemicals you've been sniffing, but please don't share them with anyone else.
Rob
I'm sure you believe that the people in power are the most competent available and should not be questioned as they posess some sort of knowledge not available to the common people. But I have no such illusions. It doesn't take some kind of special insite to look at the government of any random country and see corruption, see misspent money, see programs that don't actually help anyone or do anything useful.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
The crux of the argument against the MPA suits is that they do not have the right to control playback media and platforms, especially since the legal restriction of usable operating system is tantamount to requiring payments to Microsoft or Apple for the privilege of watching the DVD one already paid for (and such a similar statement was made by Judge Kaplan in the New York case when he said that playbility on a Linux machine was not necessarily a factor because "there are alternative bases that [he] already [has] outlined" -- meaning Judge Kaplan thinks Windows boxes are good enough for all of us [http://www.2600.com/news/2000/0121-tra ns.txt]).
One comment in the Linux Journal article that I found interesting was the comment about the new, encrypted CD's. They said:
I'm not the tiniest bit convinced that the manufacturers consider this to be a problem at all. The consumer electronics industry depends on constantly shoveling new technology down our throats, which is where we got lousy ideas like quadrophonic sound, 8-track tapes, minidisks, and the advanced photo system. They positively hate things like old-fashioned LP's that remain technically adequate for decades. I am sure that they'd like nothing better than to force everyone to buy new players to play their new encryped CD's. The truly sad part is that all they have to do is A) stop putting out the most popular music in the old format and B) provide some thin shell of an argument for the technical superiority of the new system and gullible people will start buying.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
The Motley Fool reaches a great mixture of society. Regular consumers from all walks of life have just been exposed to the deplorable behavior of the MPAA. It shouldn't take many more articles like this from a variety of media before the consumers revolt.
Thanks Fool! You continue to provide your followers a great service!
Here an unfortunately small list of links to independent films. Please email me at perez_enrique@yahoo.com if you know of any other web sites with independent films or legally available video downloads.
ifilm--Streaming Independent Film
The New Venue
The Sync Online Film Festival
Of course it's easy to see how capitalism gets its bad name, given the retarded poster children that get all the press
It seems to me that capitalism gets all the good press round here and that Socialism is attacked and vilified at every turn - look at the original article, it lumps socialism with fascism, what sort of goonery is that?
A complaint that capitalism is not getting a fair crack of the whip in the media is untrue - I'm sick of hearing free-market rhetoric that challenges to shake off the reigns of governmental control (my government!) and to let business blindly run the world with it's invisible hand. No thanks! The results of that laissez-faire mentality were exactly what stimulated Engels (a capitalist himself) to investigate how a better society could be run.
I really sympathize and empathize with the Libertarian emphasis on freedom and the dignity and sovereignty of the individual but I don't believe that these can be achieved through business. They can only be acheived through ensuring that monopoly and aggregation of resources unto indviduals is prevented by the common, agreed will of the people.
PROPERTY IS THEFT!
as Proudhon declared and I heartily agree with him. A world which denies that we all have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is a world that endorses the mad policies of the free-market that allow the accumulation and sequestration of capital unto individuals by cheating and exploiting their fellow humans.
To return to the topic of this article, I fully support the call to take action against the motion picture companies. Is this best achieved through a boycott?
I think as the writer himself points out that it is impossible to boycott effectively. It is far more effective to purchase ethical alternatives - rather than buy nasty Starbucks coffee, purchase from Bridgehead by mail, bring your own coffee to work in a flask etc. W.r.t. the movies...hmm..pretty centralized industry there - are we strong enough to go to no movies? Or are there independent alternatives that we can support instead.?
The future, where your only freedom is the freedom to make money
Well, isn't that what the free-market is? No? Then you must be talking about introducing some sort of regulations - sounds like government to me.
What bothers me about the DeCSS mess isn't that the geeks are mobilizing...it's that the geeks aren't learning. Let me clarify that statement...
The geeks have been cracked down on repeatedly the last 20 years with example cases. In just about every case, the govt and plaintiff were able to make their point (you are bad, you must be punished, we've taken your toys and your freedom; see how we punish). Whether the geek was exhonerated in the end didn't make nearly as much impact on the non-geeks as the crackdown did.
So the geeks now are better at mobilizing when the crackdown comes. So what! The point has already been made. It is already sticking in the backs of the non-geeks heads- geeks now have a two front battle of proving they aren't pirates to the court, and fixing their already dubious reputations with their own communities.
What the geeks need to start doing is heading off the problems when they see the problem at the outset - think of it as a good security policy for your community network (rather than your LAN/WAN). You see a nibble, you do a check, and if you find a hole, you plug it in as many places as possible.
The geeks, after the first filing, should have pre-emptively filed in EVERY federal jurisdiction. This would have headed off most of the mess going on now, and forced the MPAA off balance (disrupting their entired choreagraphed passion play to the media). What really gets me is this- nobody suspected that the first LAME attempt at a suit filed in California was just to test the waters, and to come up with more defendants for a case that HAD to be in the MPAA's works prior to the Copy Authoity's original filing.
So while everybody here is congratulating themselves on what the suits might think about how righteous we geeks may be, what is anyone doing to ensure we don't get a repeat? Volunteering to rebuild your local Congressperson's network/website to get their ear on tech issues? Finding new resources to work with on future problems that WILL come up? Even following current bills and measures being deliberated at the local level?
We may be laughing at how stupid the lawyers may look because they are technologically inept in regards to these proceedings, but how do you think the geeks look for leaving themselves open to this kind of stupid-ass suit in the first place? Do something, but don't just sit there.
'Hail Eris, baby, hail Eris...pfffffffttt.' *cough* 'Yeah.'
When I found out I was being attacked by the MPAA in a landmark case I was shocked. Since then rather then being able to scream about it I've been poked and prodded by the press to no avail. I've also found out that MANY people submitted news on _my_ case many times to slashdot.
I have a feeling that this isn't going to make the plain `ol 'press' until one of the little guys makes a fuss. The bad news is that I'm the little guy...
-------------------------------- |ct2600 | http://www.ct2600.org| --------------------------------
I'm willing to coordinate something like this. Mail me if you want in. I'll set up a list and we can discuss options.
If you can't figure out how to mail me, don't.
For linux tips: http://www.linuxtipsblog.com
needed to hear this.
Veranda is a free font. All you have to do is head to MS's FTP site, or get it from another place, and unzip or untar it. Heck, I have a big bundle of true type fonts I have archived in a tarball so that I can get at them when I install Linux on a machine. Then you just install a TrueType font server for X (like xfstt in the Slackware contrib dir on ftp.cdrom.com).. Freshmeat has a bunch of them, too..
The page looks great in M13 and Netscape thanks to it..
---
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
And might I also suggest posting the URLs here? :-)
-----
The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
"The Source will be with you... Always."
"The mastermind of a piracy ring has been arrested in Norway for hacking DVDs, breaking their copy protection to make illegal copies of DVDs"
(Stock footage of hidden camera in some Asian market stall, panning rapidly by what may or may not be illegal DVDs)
Saw countless other examples in newspapers today. Just plain untruths, attempts to demonize Jon, and Linux or Xing never being mentioned once.
Personally, I think slashdot should drill this issue as hard as possible - because anyone who becomes convinced that the reality has to do with people wanting to run DVDs on the OS of their choice is NOT being reported. It's much juicier for them to say that some 16 year old screwed over the power elite of Hollywood through some nefarious scheme by an embittered nerd genius - and that's what they're running with.
** http://www.nkhumanrights.or.kr/ ** Human rights in North Korea. 1 million estimated dead from starvation.
Think about it, and remember that whether you consider yourself a right-Libertarian, a liberal, a conservative, or an Individualist Anarcho-Syndicalist,
Anarchists fall into three main categories:
The last two are perhaps more similar than the first group. Yes, this is a rough, very-arguable typology but the essential point is that Anarcho-Syndicalists are NOT reasonably called Individualist. They believe in "One big Union, One Big Strike" an extreme form of collective action, using the allowed forms in our society (examples IWW=The Wobblies, SAT (a Swedish Trade Union). Individualists tend to be more inspired by the ideas of individual action and the writings of Max Stirner (The Ego and Its Own) and William Godwin (Enquiry Concerning Political Justice) and in the latter part of the 19th C. in the U.S. Benjamin Tucker.
Communist Anarchists exist in a state of tension between the demands of community and individuality - examples (Spain 1936-The Friends of Durutti, post-Kronstadt-Libertarian Communist's "Platform of Libertarian Communism" by Ida Mett, Pietr Arshinov et al, also Peter Kropotkin identified himself as Anarcho-Communist)
Food Not Bombs are cool though - ideology in action!
Imagine what were to happen if, in protest of the recent attacks against the linux community, we were to coordinate a general strike?
If it were effective it would be smashed by the police unless there were enough people in the whole nation behind it convinced that there was a different way of organizing the world. Things are this way because most people believe in them.
Note, I am not being defeatist, just warning that strikes that challenge authority in a half-assed manner usually end up being squashed unpleasantly and then, rather than being radicalised people are frightened off. Even situations where there is mass popular support (Allendes' govt) can be squashed by the plutocrats (admittedly with US help).
Open Source is a revolution? I hope so. I like your spirit! DOn't listen to me! Fight on!
I don't understand what you mean here. To me, "unlawful" and "illegal" mean more or less the same thing. Could you explain what you mean by these terms?
-----
The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
"The Source will be with you... Always."
If you REALLY understand what this fight is about, you won't be doing this.
What the hell is there to stop you from selling (or, since you've got the list posted), from the MPAA to get that list, copy down the names of everyone on it, and send out a giant big-ass friggin' lawsuit with everyone on it? If I got a copy of the DeCSS source, mirroring it is one thing, but making an open confession that I have it, and signing my ass away on someone's shit list? HELL FSCKIN' NO.
The idea, is that we make sure that the DeCSS source is as widespread as possible. AND we want to make sure that people can grab the source and hide it, with the plausable deniability that they ever had it. That way, there will always be someone out there, and the expense to track and hunt down everyone with a copy of the source will make it financially impossible for even someone like the MPAA. A centralized list will only help them in their work.
-=- SiKnight
It should probably read "because Indians have less money". That is the whole point of region locks. If you are the sole supplier of some sort of product (a movie, a music album, a book, a car, etc), you can charge what you want for it.
.au equivalent of RIAA) started a big advertising campaign in opposition. They claimed that if parallel import was allowed, then they would have less money to support local artists (personally, I believe there will always be a market for local music -- the same way there will always be supporters for local sports teams. By taking a small cut off the profits from some bit name artists, they could easily support a local music industry). This campaign did not really educate people about the issues, to the extent that a lot of musicians didn't know what ARIA was on about.
You may decide to sell the product for one price in Australia or America, and at a lower price in a poorer country since you figure more people will buy it there if it is cheaper, so you will make more money. You can do this because no one else can sell the product to the customers.
Now you have a problem if someone decides to import quantities of the product from the poorer country and starts undercutting you in the richer country. To prevent this sort of thing, the Government has tarrifs and other measures which help support your `right' to sell the product for different prices in different places, or even withold it from certain countries.
Of course, occasionally governments do stupid things like introducing laws to allow parallel imports. A while back they did this in Australia for CDs, and ARIA (the
To get around these government `mistakes', a lot of new forms of media have region locks. This way, even if parallel imports are allowed, you can keep your profits high since the stuff your competitors import doesn't work!
This is what it looks like from the corporation's side. If you are a consumer, region locks allow big companies to screw you for as much money as possible without having to worry about competition.
This is one of the reasons a lot of consumer watchdog associations don't particularly like the idea of region locks.
Hi, I do not live in the USA nor I know much about US laws.
Here is something I have been wondering about. We are constantly arguing that DeCSS is NOT used to COPY DVDs but its just an aid to VIEWING DVDs.
However, how will you show this to a judge in USA?
Isn't it possible for defendants to bring a DVD Recorder in court, copy a DVD bit-to-bit *LIVE*, play the copy and show the judge that DeCSS is not about COPYING since it has not been used in the process?
Then, if the ruling says that DeCSS is illegal, I believe, DVD recorders should be outlawed as well.
Can something like above be done in a US court?
Dont flame me or something if the above idea is just stupid.
Sincerely,
Simpleguy
Being replied to with a troll of this quality is more gratifying than any amount of positive moderation. Thanks, AC. You put a genuine smile on my face. Now if only you'd worked in Natalie Portman, grits and a Beowolf cluster...
Fuck Slashdot
Not that there's anything wrong with boycotting something because it makes you feel good, or with one-handed exercises in general. But do they actually effect social change? My guess is: never.
I'd like to hear suggestions for how to combat this kind of nonsense that sound a little more effective than sticking out your tongue at the corporations and saying ``yeah well I'm taking my toys and going home!''
I disagree. A good boycott should pick just one studio, say MGM. Reasons:
OK gang, so we're talking boycots and we're talking about how MPAA et al are bastards. Great - even if all of us just boycot, I'm sure we're not going to impact that much (unless we buy lots of DVD's on a daily basis :)
/. are fairly typical in one respect. We'll bitch, we'll moan, we'll talk it up - but when it comes to the crunch, we never quite get around to doing something about it.
:)
:)
:)
:)
:)
:)
:)
So, why not take the time & effort to email/contact them? Tell them that you're boycotting, that you're telling your friends and that you're supporting the DeCSS/LiViD folks.
Now, I'm going to go out on a limb here and make a statement that could be wrong: I'd say most of us on
Don't you just hate that? This is why governments/corporations take notice if 1% of a target demographic respond. For every person who does do something, there are at least 10 who want to but don't get around to it. Thus that 1% represents about 10% and that's enough to count as a vocal majority.
This is also why highly organised groups/cults/sects/religious organisations/etc get the ear of politics/corporates. They manage to influence/order a lot of their consituents to do something, thus inflating the numbers and throwing out the "Total Number x 10 = % population who are annoyed/concerned"
Anyhow, to help you folks tell these people what you think, here's some handy info:
MPAA
Their web site has no "contact us" that I could find. How convenient, no?
If you want to get physical, try their snail mail address:
15503 Ventura Blvd.
Encino, California 91436
USA
Or phone on: (818) 995-6600
Otherwise, email to WareNet (the guys who made their site) and ask why no online "Contact Us" was supplied.
Disney
The investor relations feedback form at http://disney.go.com/mail/investorinfo/ would be a good place to hassle them.
Sony
Go to http://www.world.sony.com/Feedback/in dex.html, select the part of the world you're in and tell them you're so annoyed, you're not going to buy any more PlayStation stuff and you've kicked your AIBO out in the snow
MGM
Fill in the form at http://www.mgm.com/corporate/email/in dex.html and let them know.
Paramount
Send an email to info@pde.paramount.com and ask for information about their logic behind this as you're sure it's not what's being said in public
Fox
Send an email to askfox@foxinc.com and ask them why they're doing this. You might also want to mention the fact that their Simpson's splash page is seriously lame
Universal
Go to http://www.mca.com/fp/contact_form.html and fill in the form.
Warner
No "contact us" in an obvious location, so I gave up - there must be one somewhere here but it's very well hidden
Now, much in all as I'd love to say "Wild, uncontrolled bursts - we do more damage that way" - the reality is that a reasoned, controlled message stating that you disagree with their actions and have commenced boycotting their products will have much more impact than a flame or mail bombing.
Do it right and we get respect. Do it in classic "Script Kiddy, 31337 Wanker Fuckwit Mode" and we're doomed
I left my body to science, but I'm afraid they've turned it down...
In the Crackers and Crackdowns article from Linux Journal , Jason Kroll <hyena@ssc.com> writes:
The US Constitution? Aren't Jon and Per Johansen Norwegian citizens? And wasn't the "action" carried out by Norway's Econcomic Crime Departement (ECD)? How is the US Constitution relevant here?
Is Mr. Kroll's claim that the MPAA was somehow directly influencing Norway's ECD to suppress the Johansens' free speach, and that since the MPAA is an American organization, somehow the US Constitution has bearing on the ECD's actions? That doesn't make much sense. So what if the MPAA pressured the ECD? That might be an issue for Norwegian law, but I just don't see the US Constitutional tie-in.
Mr. Kroll goes on to write:
Again, why would Jon's rights to do anything be protected by an American law? The Digital Millennium Copyright Act should be completely irrelevant as regards a Norwegian citizen acting on Norwegian soil.
Am I just missing something here?
Don't get me wrong. I don't endorse the action taken against the Johansens. But I do want to understand the basis for Mr. Kroll's claims. If his claims have merit, then I have misunderstood something important and I wish to be corrected. If his claims are without merit, then they are alarmist misdirections that do nothing to help foster rational discussion and debate.
Excerpts from the Digital Millenium Copyright Act
full text available here.
Section 1201
1201(a)(2)(B) is what I assume will be the MPA[A]'s reponse to the defense that DeCSS was written to bridge the gap between DVD and Linux -- they'll make an effort to show that the possible illegal uses of DeCSS, regardless of its intended use, mean that Johansen should go to jail. that's kind of like trying to outlaw FTP servers because software piracy can happen there. the following section will probably be DeCSS's defense; however, this probably would not save anyone from the Xing EULA. however, i think that violation of the EULA is a purely civil matter, not a criminal one, and wouldn't involve any jail time -- I've been wrong before though, does anyone else have any knowledge? does the EULA itself say?
enmity.
While the Motley Fool points out that the CCA algorithm is no good for preventing piracy, after all you can just burn an image of the DVD, it fails to address the major piracy issue. What DECSS theoretically makes possible is decryption of a DVD into a series of unencrypted MPEGS, which would then be considerably easier to distribute. Given current trends in bandwidth availability, the DVD derived MPEGs would become as easy to trade as MP3s. So this would change the economics of piracy a little more favorable, making the decision to copy a little more casual. Granted, even a licenced CCA algorithm user could write a program to do the same thing. But the point is to make sure that someone trying to play a DVD is in posession of the actual physical disc. The overall point is correct, however: the music & video industries have been used to selling boxes with discs in them at extortionate prices, they now need to get to grips with the fact that they don't really know that much about selling and managing intellectual property.
Have you ever read 1984?
I read the book just last week; witch may be why it's so prevalent in my thoughts right now. In the past, it always bothered me when someone would cite a fiction book as a reason not to do something (or even worse a movie). But, I'm going to do precisely that right now. Mostly because I feel a little bit like Winston Smith right now, knowing something to be true when increasingly the world around me, and the people in it believes the opposite.
No, I don't like what the DVDCCA is doing; I think that it is morally wrong, both in the suppression of free speech, and the fact that they would knowingly squelch all of our liberties for a few profit points. But it isn't the ever-present Man that's perpetuating the doublethink; it's us.
There was a technical flaw in the fool.com article
"Let me repeat all this: The DeCSS program is neither designed nor necessary for copying DVD movies, which isn't economically feasible anyway and not technically possible with the partially prewritten blank disks being sold today. In any case, a tool to copy DVDs would be legal for personal use."
Or rather, two compound technical flaws.
In reality, DeCSS can do nothing but copy DVD movies. I doubt that many of you have even run the program. If you had you would know that it is a windows program (though, I'm not sure if DeCSS itself had been ported to Linux, of if just css-auth was derived from it by LiViD). DeCSS, or at least they copy I have is a Windows GUI application with only two buttons. One says "Select Folder" and the other says, "Transfer". I've posted my own mirror, if anyone doesn't believe me, they can see for themselves.
The other flaw is a bit deeper, and it comes from a failed technical understanding of what comprises the Movie on a DVD disk. Frequently, and this article as well, I've seen it stated that you can simply copy the data right off the disk with a standard file system read. This is incorrect, you can copy the encrypted data, but there is a fundamental difference between encrypted data and 'regular' data. The DVD movie is an element of pure data. The images and are nothing more then information. When you copy the contents of a DVD with a standard file system read, that is not what you get. Instead what you get is white noise. Worthless garbage. The encrypted data and they key are two halves of a whole, without ether, you do not have a movie.
What DeCSS does is remove the pure data from the physical medium, and into the pure ether of information. What DeCSS does, is copy the MOVIE. In its pure form, unprotected from copying, it can be viewed in Linux, or anywhere with an mpeg2 decompresser. It can also be shrunk down to VCD size and passed around the Internet.
Yes, it is possible to digitize the movie, and get the data that way, but it would require much more hardware then what would be required with DeCSS. Simply dumping the video to the hard drive uncompressed would require a 150 gig hard drive for a two-hour movie. (This hard drive, of course, would be able record at 21.3 megs/second-sustained as well...). Alternatively one could purchase a MPEG encoder card for a few hundred dollars. Along with an external DVD player to plug into
Yes, you of course wouldn't be able to duplicate the DVD image onto a burned DVD, because of the zeroed out pits, but after you merge the two halves to form the movie, it wouldn't be necessary.
Right now a 40gig UDMA hard drive sells for about $350. That's about $40 per movie. And that's bound to get cheaper as the year progresses. Using a data Tape would only cost $10 per movie, and if you really wanted to span 7 CD's the cost would be about $5 per movie. This is hardly what I would call economically unfeasible, and certainly less so then not using DeCSS to copy movies.
I've posted this information to slashdot before, and in several cases, I was ether called a moron or a Troll. I find it amazing that people could be so blind, so steeped in doublethink as to not only believe that DeCSS is can only be used to play movies in Linux, but to outright attack anything that doesn't conform to whatever it is they choose to believe
I've also been told that I shouldn't say what I'm saying, and that by saying it I am weakening our case. But, I cannot deny what I know to be true, and I cannot stand to see these untruths touted as reality.
At least Winston Smith got laid...
[ c h a d o k e r e ]
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Plausable deniability is always a good thing.
-Pathwalker
(This whole thing makes me mad enough to throw this keg at the MPAA...)
We pay for the dvd, but are not allowed to play it the way we like. I fail to see the problem. I can build my own tv. I can build my own VCR (well.. in theory.. I'm not that handy). Why can I not build my own dvd player?
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Please follow this link: Follow: dvdtruth.txt It will explain what Jon did and did not do. And please stop saying that Jon did crack the dvd encryption, because, according to this, he didn't. He said so himself. BTW: this "new" information seems to make the pending courtcase against Jon even more ridiculous. Imagine: Jon is being accused of doing something which isn't illegal and which he didn't do! Bye, Taliesin. ps.: I am not sure if the information given in that document is true, anyone got more information on this?
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
One of the big newspapers in Norway arranged a netmeeting with Jon Johansen yesterday where people could write questions and he would answer online. See http://interaktiv.vg.no/CGI/intervju/intervju/jonj oh (norwegian) Anyways one of the readers asks: "I just wanted to know if it was Xing which had the uncoded player, so that you could figure it out." An Jon Johansen answers: "The player that hadnt protected its keys was made by Xing, and by the way I do not recomend this player it is of bad quality." -------- Phalse
In the US, if you're under legal age, you can't be bound by a contract. If the same is true in Norway, even if the no-reverse-engineering license is legal, Johansen could have just voided his end of the deal without penalty.
Even if Norwegian law doesn't save him, the plaintiffs in California could argue as follows:
Does the EFF have some email address for "silly legal ideas from amateurs that might prove useful"?--
"But, Mulder, the new millennium doesn't begin until January 2001."
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