Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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."
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
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]).
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.'
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
I disagree. A good boycott should pick just one studio, say MGM. Reasons:
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.