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DeCSS Injunction Ruling
Anonymous Coward writes "This morning, Judge Lewis Kaplan of the Southern District of New York issued his memorandum opinion explaining his decision to grant an injunction against people publishing the DeCSS source code. His ruling specifically finds that the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (which prohibits the publication
of computer programs designed to circumvent copy protection) is
constitutional, and does not infringe on the defendants' free
speech rights. He also suggests that computer source code is not ordinarily a form of expression, and that, even if it were, Congress could regulate it in order to serve other interests, such as the economic interest of copyright holders. See 2600.com for
news on the protest tomorrow night against the plaintiffs. "
No matter what the judge says, this suit is still uncool. I guess it's OK to fix the DVD player market so that I can't play DVD's on my computer. I spent alot of money on my DVDs, my computer and my DVD player. Now all I want to do is play them. Is that so hard to understand judge?
The ruling is not enforceable outside the USA, so this will not stop DeCSS. However, it is a *very* disturbing precedent, and shows how clueless judges are when it comes to technology (and/or how easy to influence by large, powerful corporations).
Before I begin, I have to say that I want to strangle that judge for his sillyness. But there are beleivable reasons for what he says. /mechanical devices/ reverse engineering is possible. Thus, the DMCA, assisted by imbecile judges like this one, gives two kinds of protection to Evil Software and Media Companies (TM). The patent protection of mechanical and electronic devices with the copyright and reverse engineering control of written material.
Software can be considered speech, but it can also be considered an invention of some sort. If one accepts that a peice of software is basically the same as a mechanical or electronic device, then all our nightmares come true.
Not only does the DMCA quite logical then, but so are a lot of other things. Software patents and a number of other things become quite reasonable.
However, even with
It is indeed a dark day.
According to the OReilly Apache Book Canada does not allow software patents. I have looked into the issue, and it seems that Unisys was given a LZW patent here. Does anyone know more about this? If Canada really does have a policy against software patents then it might make a haven for the DVD source code.
I can't spell or type, but that doesn't mean I'm unusually stupid.
Every time a case like this starts up, people discuss a utility to convert back and forth from C to something comprising full English sentences. At this point I wonder if one's already been written.
Unfortunately, the judge is correct. DeCSS is not, however much we might like it to be, free speech. Sure, the comments inside the code might be, but the algorithm itself is not.
The fundamental problem here is that the DMCA is corrupt. It makes illegal things that we think should not be. However, it is not this judge's position to decide if the law is moral, only if this action violates it. And it does.
The real question is, how did we end up with elected officials that passed a law such as the DMCA? Keep this issue in mind when you vote this November, and encourage others to as well.
Ermm, thats why that kid overseas got arrested.
You would be surprised how far a companies reach is, even if the US courts cannot get you, the company can
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
IANAL, but it seems to me that in one fell swoop this judge has just said that there is no such thing as fair use. Are there any lawyers out there who can say for certain if I am correct in this assumption?
I live just outside our nation's capitol and I work in IT, I was discussing the DeCSS flap with a mixture of Techie and Non-techie friends. I said "What do you guys think of this DeCSS (I pronounced it Dee-see ess ess) stuff?" A non-techie friend responded "What is that? The new capitol Gestapo?"
Um, isn't the whole basis of the defense that merely cracking the CSS does not circumvent copy protection, because there /is no/ copy protection, unless of course you consider regional coding "protection", which itself is illegal by international law???
Hummm?? Anybody??
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
this is only "fair" (in the judge's mind) because of the crap that is the DMCA, which basically ignores all new media technology and keeps us wired to 19th century property laws. Here's to corporations screwing people mightily, and the dumbasses that support them! Sharing is bad people, if your friends didn't pay like you did, they should never have access to interesting things. Sharing is EVIL!
(note: I mixed some sarcasm in there, see if you can spot it)
+&x
What would happen if someone wrote a short document on how to decrypt the DVDs? It wouldn't be source code and it wouldn't be software.
It could still be considered publishing a trade secret, but given the lawyers left the source code in the open for two weeks likely means that it's no longer a trade secret.
It could also still be considered circumventing the copy protection, but what do I care? I'm in Canada.
It would also have the benefit of not being derived from another player where there is a license to agree to.
Any takers?
Easy to argue. The difficulty seems to be making you aware of the fact that this program does nothing to promote the ability to copy a DVD. The DVD related industry is just pissed off that this code is exposing their monopoly control scheme whereby they will be able to prevent upstart competition in both movie/music production, as well as in player manufacturing. They don't like DeCSS, but the reason they don't like it isn't because of the asserted copy features, but rather, because they no longer can control who gets to view their bought and paid for DVDs, and who doesn't.
The argument that computer code is an expression of free speech, however, is an old and tired one. It should not have been used. The proper argument should be that this is a tool to play DVDs, not to copy them.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Part of the ruling says that the judge doesn't believe the defendants proved that cracking CSS could help play DVDs under Linux. Why? Because you can already play DVDs under Windows, and there are a lot more Windows machines than Linux boxen.
What? That's exactly why it was necessary! Evidently no one wanted to spend the money to by into the CSS scheme to provide a player for Linux. Why? Perhaps it has something to do with the perceived size of the market?
Perhaps for his next trick, the judge could explain why PBS (public broadcasting in the US) shouldn't need to beg for money every year to stay on the air because it has less viewers (and very few commercials).
--
how to invest, a novice's guide
If you ask me, the party to blame for this godsdamned mess isn't the judge, MPAA, or 2600. It's Congress. We are in a position where we need to prove that our product was developed for the *sole purpose* of running DVD's on Linux (if this were true, it wouldn't run on BSD, HURD, or Windows). Congress should have written the law so that the plaintiff has the burden of proof that the product is written for the purpose of copyright infringement.
We also need to lobby Congress for a "free software" exception -- that copyright infringement technologies can be reverse-engineered for the purpose of writing "free (open source) software", which constitutes an important part of our public infrastructure.
Let me be honest here...I'm about ready to give up writing software entirely if this bullshit continues. What's going on here could kill the Linux dream, and I don't want to go back to a world where computing isn't fun.
Finding God in a Dog
In this judge's opinion, it is illegal to publish or even point to the code for DeCSS, yet the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the right to publish such other materials, as how to convert your semi-automatic rifle to full-auto. You can publish how to do it, sell parts to do it, but not do it! Why is one illegal and the other protect free speech? This is a case the *WILL* end up before the Supreme Court before it's over.
What cracks me up is that the judge seems to think the DCMA R/E clause doesn't apply.. He says later in the document (I'm paraphrasing) that even if DeCSS were to have the sole capability of permitting playback on Linux boxes, that it would still violate the DCMA because one would have to circumvent CSS with an unlicensed key to play it back. One, the moron thinks CSS is a copyright protection scheme, and two, that the clause pertaining to interoperability is null and void.
Is a lead-filled 4x4 severe enough for this guy? I'll have to do a gross amount of trauma to his skull to kill him, as it has become glaringly apparent he has no brain.
.sig: Now legally binding!
Hard to argue with this ruling.
You've *got* to be kidding.
In his initial granting of the injunction, I thought he'd made a reasonable decision, that if he didn't grant the injunction, he would effectively be deciding the case in advance.
But his logic is inane. The assertion that viewing the files under Linux is not a relevant issue because Windows is more popular? That's truly moronic. The reverse engineering exception says nothing about popularity, nor should it, nor should the size of the market be relevant to whether the reverse engineering is acceptable.
Furthermore, " the record clearly
demonstrates that the chief focus of those promoting the dissemination of DeCSS is to permit widespread copying and dissemination of unauthorized copies of copyrighted works." What record? That's a sham! Slashdot quotes should not be admissible in a court of law, hasn't this judge ever heard of hearsay?
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
This is so frustrating. What can average joe's due to help? I've bought the OpenDVD t-shirt, but what next?
Maybe I'm cynical, but I don't think that writing letters/emails to the MPAA and all the major studios will do any good. They probabaly just toss them right in the trash.
Looking for ideas.
In Soviet Russia...michael would be rotting in Siberia!
What I (and a good number of people, I'd guess) want to know is, why didn't the counsel for the defense make these sorts of piracy arguments? I am somewhat confused as to why the plaintiffs got away with the classification of CSS as "a technological system that controls access to other copyrighted works" -- although here you get into the ambiguity I just described. Kaplan ends up ruling that CSS protects content -- but it really only ends up protecting playback, since anyone with some equipment can copy but only people with "legit" DVD technology can play it back. As far as I can tell from the various hearings/rulings that have been posted, this distinction is never made clear by the defense! There's a lot of exemptions they try to invoke, but Kaplan's reasons for rejecting them do not seem out of line. In fact, he appears to do a pretty decent job of assessing what has been presented to him. Did the defense throw it all away by ignoring its best argument? The recent LinuxWorld interview with Jon J. had the same complaint; i'm just echoing it here.
Y'know, I was reading through the ruling, and peppered throughout was the phrase "the defendants offered no evidence to back up this claim" (or words to that effect). That suggests to me that the lawyers for the defendants are doing a poor job. Here they're saying that DeCSS's purpose was to provide DVD playback on Linux boxes, and they don't even prove it! That's the whole idea behind providing evidence: you can't say something and then not provide evidence to back it up.
It's almost as if a store accuses you of shoplifting a book, and then doesn't provide proof that you've got that book in your bag.
In any basic argumentative case such as this, you have to back up your claims, else your argument gets thrown out. It's pretty simple, actually.
What he is saying is that copyright holders can eliminate Fair Use through technological measures. This makes *no* sense whatsoever; it suggests that the law only applies to the technologically challenged.
If legal precedent means anything, it is common sense that technological impediments to Fair Use:
- may legally be circumvented
- are probably illegal prima facie (ooh, Latin)
- could be construed to represent contempt of court
I'm fairly certain that this judge's idiotic decision will be promptly overturned.New XFMail home page
One of the problems is that in order to get a licence, you must sign a NDA. A licenced DVD player could not be open sourced.
--GnrcMan--
Have you actually read the DMCA? It doesn't apply to copy protection, but to _access_ protection! Under the DMCA, you _cannot_ legally circumvent a technological measure that "effectively controls access to a copyrighted work." It has been established that CSS doesn't prevent copying; it prevents _access_. You want to complain about the DMCA being unconstitutional, go ahead. Just keep in mind that copy protection is not what's at issue here.
By the way, I have an interesting application of the DMCA on my LiViD mirror... I'm calling the gzipping on the tarballs a technological measure that effectively controls access to the code within. It's as effective as CSS: anyone with the right tool can break it:)
--
The judge argues that code is not a normal form of personal expression. Works of art like books and scuplures are synthized in the same maner: an idea in the mind of a person modivates them to create. Even things like building furnature, baking cakes, etc are forms of personal expression.
Does Judge Lewis Kaplan think that some agency has rights to dictate what code a well minded individual can write? If he does, then said agency can also dictate how one can write books, make sculptures, build furnature, and bake cakes.
The law was never mind to do this. I certainly hope that another judge see this error and reverses this decision.
I've been following this story with interest. Why can't you guys just build a "real Text" to C converter. You know, turn it into real sentences (just substitute words for command/functions/whatever the hell C uses, spell out numbers etc).
It would seem to me this would clearly bring about the distinction you want. Any restrictions on it would be the same as restricting speech.
Worst case? They hold the "decryptor" is a "cracking tool that exists soley to 'steal' copyrighted material" under those absurd new laws. Fine, put the decryptor on a site in a country that doesn't do patents/copyrights and you're in business.
---
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
I'd be willing to concede all of the judge's legal points (after all, IANAL) and most of his factual points, except:
Even assuming that some would use DeCSS only to view copyrighted motion pictures which they lawfully possessed, and thus arguably not infringe plaintiffs' copyrights, the record clearly demonstrates that the chief focus of those promoting the dissemination of DeCSS is to permit widespread copying and dissemination of unauthorized copies of copyrighted works
Overwhelmingly people are interested in DeCSS to allow them to view legitimate copies that they own. I haven't even heard of anybody who is promoting DeCSS for piracy purposes (although I suppose they exist). As far as piracy goes, there's no doubt something like DeCSS might be useful if you had swiped a supply of blanks and had plenty of time on your hands to knock off one or two copies, but DeCSS as far as I can see is neither technically necessary nor sufficient for DVD copying. (A question for you DVD hackers -- can an unmodified DVD driver return the secret key data on the DVD to the OS? Does DeCSS make any difference in this regard?)
In any case, the quoted paragraph is, I think, a key point in the judge's reasoning and one that is so incredibly misguided from a technical standpoint I can only conclude he may have taken a little mental vacation at some point in the proceedings.
I think the motion picture industry is mainly interested in regional segmentation of their markets. Historically, a copyright owner loses control over the copy once sold, and people can resell their copies as they please, including at a profit back into a different in competition with the copyright holder.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
how much is that judge in the window,
the one with the waggley tail?
how much is that judge in the window?
I DO hope that judge is for sale . . .
</singing>
ah, shit. Too late. Already sold.
Bad things often happen to good people,
It is up to them to see that they remain good.
Okay, this might be a stupid question, since I'm not a layer, and have never even read this type of document before, but in the section at the top entitled "Facts," is that where the judge is supposed to write the underlying facts of the case?
I ask because this:
strikes me as highly non-factual. Doesn't a DVD player + a DVD burner or a DVD player + hard drive enable users to make digital copies of DVD movies?And doesn't the post office or the internet enable users to distribute digital copies of DVD movies?
You don't need DeCSS to do that.
It seems to me that if he starts on this incorrect premise, that DeCSS actually allows copying of otherwise uncopyable, copyrighted material, he is bound to reach an incorrect conclusion.
Unless the material is only copyrighted in its decrypted form? Then, byte-for-byte copying of DVD's is legal?
I don't think this is the case, but reading the "facts," I can't see any other possibilities.
What we need to do is hit them with a class action lawsuit on the grounds that region codes are artificially (and perhaps illegally) inflating the prices.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
2600 has posted and excellent flyer that really spells out the issue for people who don't already know. Let's circulate this as much as possible and try to get the MPAA to see that the movie-going public doesn't appreciate their strong-arm tactics.
If you want a clear evidence that this judge simply doesn't understand the law, even the DMCA, read footnote 14:
"even if DeCSS wereintended and usable solely to permit the playing, and not the copying, of DVDs on Linux machines, the playing without a licensed CSS "player key'' would "circumvent a technological measure'' that effectively controls access to a copyrighted work and violate the statute in any case."
The DMCA, however states:
1201(c)(1) - Nothing in this section effect rights, remedies, limitations or defenses to copyright infringment, INCLUDING FAIR USE, under this title.
The judge in this case never considers the fact that being able to *play* on Linux would very possible be considered a "fair use".
Fair Use is the public's balance against the bundle of rights given to copyright holders. Deny the existence of fair use and you violate the Constitution's prescription of grants of *limited* rights to intellectual property holders.
This judge really doesn't get it and its clear the guy has been bought (not literally, but metaphorically) by the big IP holders like the music and movie industries.
What a tool!
But lets take a look at what the ruling says:
In October 1999, an individual or group, believed to be in Europe, managed to "hack'' CSS2 and began offering, via the Internet, a software utility called DeCSS that enables users to break the CSS copy protection system and hence to make and distribute digital copies of DVD movies.
I don't think it's been "proven" that this is only to copy DVD's!! We know this isn't the only reason, therefore the use of the word "hence" really makes me uneasy. We can't even make copies for playback right now with a DVD-RAM, and you don't even need to break the encryption if you have a stamp machine. I can't beleive this was in the opinion, it sounds more like something the corporations would say.
The requirement of immediate and irreparable injury is satisfied in this case. Copyright infringement is presumed to give rise to such harm. In this case, plaintiffs do not allege that defendants have infringed their copyrights, but rather that defendants offer technology that circumvents their copyright protection system and thus facilitates infringement. For purposes of the irreparable injury inquiry, this is a distinction
without a difference. If plaintiffs are correct on the merits, they face substantially the same immediate and irreparable injury from defendants' posting of DeCSS as they would if defendants were infringing directly. Moreover, just as in the case of direct copyright infringement, the extent of the harm plaintiffs will suffer as a result of defendants' alleged activities cannot readily be measured, suggesting that the injury
truly would be irreparable.
So, if I read this right, just the fact that it makes circumventing it possible, this is exactly what is being done. This absurd statement makes me want to grab a bat and start breaking things. The last statement is incredible as well, equating "umeasureable activities" with "irreparable injury"? Am i missing something here? Someone tell me PLEASE....
One of his arguments for not accepting the reverse engineering argument bothers me as well:
Finally, and most important, the legislative history makes it abundantly clear that Section 1201(f) permits reverse engineering of copyrighted computer programs only and does not authorize circumvention of technological systems that control access to other copyrighted works, such as movies.21 In consequence, the reverse engineering exception does not apply.
So is he saying the copyright software/system is not a copyrighted piece of software? Is he saying the situation is different for hardware? Doesn't that seem to be a contradicion? Anyone care to expand on this?
I haven't even read the rest of the opinion, because his opinion is plainly clear. His idea of a "level playing field" is this:
Corporations have all the rights and tell you what to do, and you can't do anything about it.
I'm not a big fan of capitalism, but the fact that he doesn't support reverse engineering takes things one step worse: without the ability to compete, we've gone from capitalism to a sort of corporate-totalitarianism.
This lack of respect for people's rights is unacceptable. Furtunatly, they can't do anything about it, short of throwing me in jail. When I pay my 20 bucks for a DVD, I'll do what I want with it short of redistribution.
Lets face it, in 3-5 years we WILL be able to copy DVD's, most likely for playback in DVD players (hopefully).
There might be no recourse for Hollywood, the cat is out of the bag, as many have said. Trying to stop technology that people like with artificial controls is tough, just look at the mp3s. Copyright holders will have to find a real, technology based way to prevent this, which might be impossible in today's world. I sure hope it is.
Not true. Algorithms have been held up, in US federal court, as speech. Look at some of the cryptography cases and you'll see what I mean. Equally, the entire professional of mathematics would be enjoined from free speech protections if algorithms were not treated as speech. I think you misunderstand what speech is. Speech is not just words or text. Its not even just audio, video or anything else you can fit into a nice tidy list. Speech refers to expression in all its forms. Its a vague concept, on purpose!. This prevents tyrannants of all types from trying to squeeze speech into a nice tidy little bundle they can lock away.
So freedom of speech is not something relegated to text, but to all forms of communication. Be it a painting, a scuplture, dance, spoken words, written words, e-mail, scientific documents, mathematical formulas and even source code, which is a form of expression.
So, this judge is wrong, and hopefully he will either see the error of his ways, or a higher court will overturn his ruling. The bottom line is that this judge is but the first round, and there are plenty of appeals from here to courts which have seen thru this sort of hogwash before and made the right ruling.
Common sense will tell you that code is speech. How else would you express the idea?
You're right about one thing: The DMCA is corrupt. Its the biggest attack on the first amendment ever, and this case proves it. Its far more insidious than the CDA ever was (that was so patently unconstitutional that everyone knew it was going to get overturned), the DMCA on the other hand requires a thorough understanding of the issues (which most judges sorely lack) and hence makes it easy for someone to argue one thing, while getting someones freedom of speech rights enjoined. Its all nice and tidy. On the surface the case looks simple. Its too complex to explain to laypeople, and it lends itself to an emotional argument in favor of restricting speech rights. So the DMCA makes it really easy to control expression, without alerting the masses to the fact that they just got sold down the river.
The DMCA is corrupt alright, and we should work to get it ruled unconstitutional by any means necessary.
--
Python
Python
That the data scrambling feature of DVDs is NOT useful for copyright protection. It is only useful for controlling playback of the video. Just because the plaintiffs say that "it is" does not mean that it really is. So...if the encryption that has been cracked is not used for protecting against copyright violations but only for control of playback, how is the DeCSS code in violation of the law? There is nothing in the DMCA that says anything about engineering, reverse or otherwise, of compatible players illegal. In fact, it actually says that it IS LEGAL to reverse engineer a product in order to make another that is compatible!
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
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)
How much is that Congressman in the window?
The one that likes to chase tail?
How much is that DMCA-passing-Congressman in the window?
I DO know that Congressmans's for sale!
Everybody!
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
Without debating whether or not source = speech..
the judge saying
"Even if it was considered speech, congress could regulate it to protect copyright holders'.
Nice system.
"Congress shall make no law...".... is supposed to mean that NO MATTER HOW MUCH THE PEOPLE BEG AND SCREAM, a law *CANNOT* be made to violate these principles. Freedom of religion, speech, etc.... It doestn' mean they shouldn't, or aren't supposed to, it means they DO NOT HAVE THE LEGAL POWER TO DO SO.
From the ruling:
----------
They contend that DeCSS is necessary to achieve interoperability between computers running on the Linux system and DVDs and that this
exception therefore is satisfied.
This contention fails for three reasons.
First, defendants have offered no evidence to support this assertion.
Second, even assuming that DeCSS runs under Linux, it concededly runs under Windows---a far more widely used operating
system---as well. It therefore cannot reasonably be said that DeCSS was developed "for the sole purpose'' of achieving interoperability
between Linux and DVDs.
Finally, and most important, the legislative history makes it abundantly clear that Section 1201(f) permits reverse engineering of
copyrighted computer programs only and does not authorize circumvention of technological systems that control access to other
copyrighted works, such as movies.
In consequence, the reverse engineering exception does not apply.
----------------
This is really strange.
* No one offered any evidence that DeCSS is required to run under Linux? That should be taken care of, and *fast*.
* This was for technical reasons, and can quickly be taken care of. Fine, concede on the Windows software (sort of -- the source will not be hard to port no matter what). This still doesn't take care of the Linux versions of the software.
* I can't speak to the third contention.
Standard IANAL disclaimer applies.
"You can never have too many elephants on your team."
No matter what the judge says, this suit is still uncool. I guess it's OK to fix the DVD player market so that I can't play DVD's on my computer. I spent alot of money on my DVDs, my computer and my DVD player. Now all I
want to do is play them. Is that so hard to understand judge?
People want to control things. I can also understand about possible control issues. I guess people can't totally be blaimed about things that they do to make a profit and then people think that they are a really good idea. I must say that I feel that I can't think that people will eventually come up with something better. I remember when VCR+ was around. The makers of VCR+ wanted to create a system whereby you could simply imput a 4 digit code and have a movie recorded on a particular channel and at a particular time. They defended this also.
I doubt that anyone will be swayed by being called "uncool" or anything like that. Eventually something better than DVDs will come along. I don't really have any of this technology and have never been obcessed about movies in general. I never stockpiled VHS tapes and can't see why people are taking so many risks.
Tell me why bother to make sure you do something questionable and then put your name on it! Why do something so stupid. Why shoot yourself in the foot. People created cracking programs in the past and usually never associated their actual Name/Address match on them. People only have their vanity to loose. I shure would release the code to the program under slashdot-terminal sooner than my actual name if it meant the world to people like you.
All people have done is draw attention to an actual person/people/group to do things.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
The second half of Footnote #14 is perhaps the most interesting part of the whole ruling. It says: >...even if DeCSS were intended and usable solely to permit the playing, >and not the copying, of DVDs on Linux machines, the playing without a >licensed CSS "player key" would "circumvent a technological measure" >that effectively controls access to a copyrighted work and violate the >statute in any case.
That's interesting because it addresses an angle that most of ``our side'' has not covered. There have certainly been enough arguments that DeCSS is not an effective form of copy protection; but it is an effective form of control. Judge Kaplan' statement implies that, regardless of the original coders' intent, DeCSS is a way of maintaining access control (for the movie studios) at the read-and-display level -- and that this is indeed its primary function.
This small side note, if legally correct, changes the whole playing field. If CSS is not to be considered copy protection but rather access control, then DeCSS is illegal simply because it avoids the need to pay license fees for a reader, notwithstanding any argument about potential redistribution of the original material.
It is as though books came with diary-style locks, and duplicating the keys were illegal. Ludicrous in the non-digital case; but a matter of law in the digital case.
Stand up for your beliefs -- don't be afraid of what's gonna happen
What the fuck is a 'copyright protection'?
The only protection copyright grants is THE LAW that makes it ILLEGAL to do certain things with copyrighted material (like copy them for various reasons).
This whole thing about copyright law protecting the technological protection mechanisms is bullshit.
They are COPY protection mechanisms, not copyright protection mechanisms.
"As there is no evidence of any commercially significant purpose of DeCSS other than circumvention of CSS, defendants' actions likely violated Section 1201(a)(2)(B). Moreover, although defendants contended at oral argument that
DeCSS was not designed primarily to circumvent CSS, that argument is exceptionally unpersuasive.14 <b>In consequence, plaintiffs have an extremely high likelihood of prevailing on the merits unless defendants' activities come within one of the exceptions in the DMCA or unless there is a constitutional impediment to this conclusion. </b>"
"...even if DeCSS were intended and usable solely to permit the playing, and not the copying, of DVDs on Linux machines, the playing without a licensed CSS "player key'' would "circumvent a technological measure'' that effectively controls access to a copyrighted work and violate the statute in any case."
This demonstrates that the DMCA ignores fair use allowances. Unfortunately, fair use seems lower on the totem pole than DMCA.
"...even assuming that DeCSS runs under Linux, it concededly runs under Windows---a far more widely used operating system---as well. It therefore cannot reasonably be said that DeCSS was developed "for the sole purpose'' of achieving
interoperability between Linux and DVDs. "
A point, a point. WHY was DeCSS released as Win32 source, anyway? D'oh!
"Finally, and most important, the legislative history makes it abundantly clear that Section 1201(f) permits reverse engineering of
copyrighted computer programs only and does not authorize circumvention of technological systems that control access to other copyrighted works, such as movies.21 In consequence, the reverse engineering exception does not apply. "
Problem - distinction between computer programs and and technological systems is vague.
"Surely there is no suggestion that any of them made a good faith effort to obtain authorization from the copyright owners. "
Another good point.
"If Congress had meant the fair use defense to apply to such actions, it would have said so."
"If plaintiffs are correct on the merits, they face substantially the same immediate and irreparable injury from defendants' posting of DeCSS as they would if defendants were infringing [copyrights] directly."
I create a Content Scrambling System, you break it - is it or is it not the logical assumption that you want to infringe my copyrights?
Read the other documents on cryptome - the lawyers had no time to prepare, and had to attend the trial via teleconference. They asked for an extension, were denied, and then were chided by the judge for being unprepared. :/
:/
Ok, with that out of the way, I think there are some serious problems with the defense.
1) DeCSS runs under WINDOWS, not Linux. Linux code was derived from it (or vice versa...) but this NEEDS TO BE CLEARED UP, because the argument that a Windows program helps play DVDs under Linux will never be substantiated. I probably WOULD argue that the (Windows) DeCSS code has no legitimate use - you can currently play DVDs under Windows, and there's no pressing need for a program like DeCSS.
2) So now, DeCSS and all similar programs (including Linux version) are under fire, because as the judge says, there is no evidence presented that shows anything about interoperability. The EFF *MUST* bring in the LiViD software to demonstrate in court, and then prove that it would NOT be possible without knowing how CSS works. The judge says that there is " no evidence of any commercially significant purpose" - but he needs to be taught about Free Software - if "commerically significant" is the key, then that sounds pretty strange. Reverse engineering is only legal if you profit from it...?!
Ok well I have to go back to work. Enough rambling.
----
The defense failed to raise another argument about the validity and applicability of DMCA: restrictions on interoperability can have antitrust implications when the restrictions favor a monopoly. Thus DMCA is in conflict with antitrust law or must be limited wrt measures taken to ensure interoperability.
This is especially nifty given Jackson's finding of monopoly status for Microsoft.
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
and you will see that what they did is perfectly legal:
(f) Reverse Engineering. - (1) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), a person who has lawfully obtained the right to use a copy of a computer program may circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a particular portion of that program for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and that have not previously been readily available to the person engaging in the circumvention, to the extent any such acts of identification and analysis do not constitute infringement under this title.
(2) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsections (a)(2) and (b), a person may develop and employ technological means to circumvent a technological measure, or to circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure, in order to enable the identification and analysis under paragraph (1), or for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, if such means are necessary to achieve such interoperability, to the extent that doing so does not constitute infringement under this title.
(3) The information acquired through the acts permitted under paragraph (1), and the means permitted under paragraph (2), may be made available to others if the person referred to in paragraph (1) or (2), as the case may be, provides such information or means solely for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and to the extent that doing so does not constitute infringement under this title or violate applicable law other than this section.
(4) For purposes of this subsection, the term ''interoperability'' means the ability of computer programs to exchange information, and of such programs mutually to use the information which has been exchanged.
LRJ
I wonder what this corrupt bastard will do with his newfound wealth?
I've known judges, and while corruption can never be ruled out, I would not assume it here. Cluelessness is far more likely as an explanation, IMO. Most judges today still live lives in which they rarely touch a computer (ok, maybe AOL, but only at home) and most of them would be more likely to believe Jack Valenti than either one of us on this issue. Sad but true.
JMR
Try e-gold - (contact me). I'm NOT e-
It seems like almost no one here understands what the DCMA says (which the judge is ruling on). Based on the law the judgement is perfectly logical!! Only by changing the DCMA can deCSS become legal in the USA (and I doubt the DCMA is unconstitutional either).
I know this isn't a popular view, hopefully if a big enough stink is made some necessary changes will be made (I think it is ridiculous that in the US it is will be illegal to view digital copyright material without a licensed player).
Ermm, thats why that kid overseas got arrested.
:)
You would be surprised how far a companies reach is, even if the US courts cannot get you, the company can
Ohhhh the big bad ol' company's going to get me!!
I don't know what I'll do if they get me!
They are so strong and intelligent and all knowing; and they can have their private little police beat me up!
You see I live in a time when police power is not given to any group who has a bunch of money. Just because I have a great deal of money (Microsoft, IBM, Lexus Nexus, British Telecom, etc) dosn't mean that I can just call out my goombahas and do whatever I want to anyone. So big deal the company's goons can try to illegally attack me. I can also just drive a van full of TNT into their little building. See no more problem!
Maybe just suppose that their little 'representatives' get into a little 'accident' when they try to get me? Oh well
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
You are mistaken on a technical basis. The copy protection is not circumvented by DeCSS. A DVD and/or a CSS encrypted file can be copied without any form of decryption. By simply presenting the keys and the data to any player in exactly the same form that a DVD does, that player can play it. If that form is a duplicate DVD, then it can and will play it and this is a copyright violation.
DVDs are already being pirated. The pirates have obtained the DVD manufacturing equipment (perhaps by theft). Reportedly, one such operation is already running full tilt in Hong Kong. By taking a popular DVD and using it as a master (some processing involved there I am sure), and by copying each and every bit including the key tracks, a new exactly identical DVD is produced and that DVD looks no different than the original to the DVD player. It will index the keys, find the one with its ID, and begin the decrypt and play process using that copied key. This is all a copyright violation and a form of piracy. These clone DVDs are then sold on the black market, depriving the artists, and the investors in the production of the artwork, their returns. It also happens to deprive the original manufacturers of a scale of market but for that aspect I don't perticularly see a violation (although they do tend to be the same organizations as the investors).
Buying a DVD and using DeCSS to play it on the computer of my choice is NOT a copyright violation. Since I have a right (in the USA) to make sufficient personal copies for the purpose of usage (so long as I destroy all of them should I sell, or even lend, my DVD to someone else), then this is legitimate, and is not addressed by the DMCA at all.
Sure, DeCSS does enable one to make an unencrypted version of the DVD, which could be transferred to others over the internet. But DeCSS isn't required to do this. You can capture the audio and video output from an existing player (hardware or software) into a file and transfer that file over the internet. This would be a copyright violation just as much as cloning an encrypted DVD.
If the DVD industry had sanctioned a player program for Linux and BSD systems, which was distributed only in binary form, and would refuse to store decrypted files and only play them, then it could be argued that DeCSS only adds on the ability to create a decrypted file. Since they have not done so, DeCSS has a much more significant role (since statistics show that despite a lot of piracy going on, most people don't engage in piracy, even with media like CDDA that is trivial to pirate) in simply enabling the playing process.
DeCSS has opened our eyes, and potentially the eyes of government investigators, to the potential for the megacorporations to use CSS as a means to squash competitive upstarts (in both production of the artwork as well as manufacturing of players). If the DVD industry was on solid legal ground, they wouldn't need to have Jack Valenti making public pleas with lies about it being only for copying. Now people will see the mechanism by which CSS can not only be a potential anti-trust violation (they would have to actually do it, as the mere existance of the mechanism would not imply the violation), but also be a mechanism of selective price gouging. They need to silence and suppress this "leak".
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I'm not a lawyer, and I'm probably preaching to the choir. But here goes anyway:
Someone needs to point out to Congress and the appeals courts where this will surely end up that DMCA allows extreme monopolistic/oligopolistic behaviors unless enforced with extreme care, i.e. not as in this case. It allows monopolists to piggy-back their anti-competitive schemes on the pretext of copyright protection, invoking the law's protection for their monopoly! Here's how:
Let's start with the pure digital content. Wrap around it a weak "scrambling" scheme. This will be our excuse. Mix with it, in a way that can't be separately addressed technically (this is the key point), our monopolistic permissioning scheme. Sound familiar?
Now, everyone who tries to reverse engineer the permissioning scheme (promoting competition) is bound, because of how the system was set up by its monopolistic designers, to defeat the, albeit weak, encryption, triggering a DMCA-based lawsuit.
If the copyright owners want to protect their work in the digital domain, the burden should be on them to separate the copyright protection functionality from any other business rule enforcing functionality.
This law is (should be) there to protect the authors' copyright from pirates, not their business deals with their distribution channel partners from competition. It should force them to make this a technical distinction, by reducing protection when they don't.
In other words, the key point: <B>If you <UL>poison</UL> your copyright protection system with anything that limits competition your copy protection device loses DMCA protection</B>
If you decide to educate any of your representatives on this issue, please consider the above. Thanks for reading.
This type of statement represents a problem that is far larger than the DeCSS issue as a whole. Judges and politicians simply don't understand technology. Since consumer electronics are something that is relatively "new" in the world, most people can't be expected to understand the underlying issues, be it that CSS does not prevent DVD piracy, that "one click shopping" should not be a patentable "technology," etc. I'm afraid we're going to see more and more ignorant expressions of opinion like this one until technology is so engrained in people's lives that they regularly understand how it works. Alas, I don't think that will happen in my lifetime.
while this is going on, consumer electronics manufacturers will continue to exploit the ignorance of the general public and the media in order to attain a tighter and tighter hold on the electronics market. Through this case, the members of the DVDCCA have managed to protect their collective monopolistic interest in the DVD player market. How do we convince a media brainwashed public and a buzzword brainwashed judicial system that this sort of anticapitalist behavior is really going on? The most frustrating part, it seems to me, is that this is plainly obvious to most of us, but not so for the rest of the world. It's a feeling that reinforces the minority nature of geek culture in my mind.
How do we stop multinational corporations from unethically twisting the facts and lying to the media? How do we prevent DvDCCA members from leveraging monopoly control over the means to access their media? We can't. Not right now. DeCSS mirrors won't do it. Petitions and flyers won't do it. But as we, who represent the forefront of the beginning technological revolution, can do something about it, eventually.
As more and more people who understant the issues as well as the technology enter into the technology market, there will be more room for such confrontations on a larger, corporate scale. We, the nerd culture, can be responsible for changing the way technology is marketed. But that means we have to act. Is it possible that nerds and hackers will be the driving force to stimulate the stagnant and apathetic nature that is American politics today? I think we will be, and I think that is the answer. We have the knowledge and the power to change what it is going on though our work, through our expression. We must leverage that power to fight for what's right converning our medium, The Allmighty Bit.
You're correct. The case that jumps to my mind is Bernstein v. US DOJ. A college professor was prohibited from posting to the WWW the source code to programs in his class.
US Judge Marilyn Patel ruled that source code is speech, and that not allowing it to be posted to the internet is unconstitutional prior restraint of speech.
The_Morlock
So you say life sucks? Well, life is what you make of it.
so if your life sucks, YOU suck.
-----BR
The judge NO WHERE says you canNOT play DVDs under Linux some day. He is saying that you cannot bypass the established way which is to pay for the license for a decryption key from the CSS JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD HAS TO! That is the point to hammer home. Linux, like any other OS, can have a legal DVD player - someone just has to pay for the license. It's really that simple. The judge is NOT making playing DVDs you own illegal - just that you have to do it the legal way. That's it.
Well, I know what I want, but I can't speak for everyone. I'd like some respectable person who could organize something like this to set up a list of demands. I will, however, give my own suggestions:
1. An end to regional coding.
2. An affirmation of the right to fair use.
3. An end to product tying.
4. The repeal of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
5. The break up of the DVD CCA and future administration of the CSS to go to a non-profit entity which will administer it in the best interests of the consumer.
6. For all defendants in this case to have their legal bills paid by the MPAA, plus any damages that resulted from the MPAA's actions.
I'll admit, some may think we don't need all these demands to be met, and some may think other demands need to be added. I just think we have to have demands so that people involved in the boycott can see we are aiming for a definite goal.
I hope that we will beat this either through legal means, like the courts or legislature, or through economic pressure. If not, the future will be bleak indeed.
I urge everyone to boycott, remember, your rights are more important than whatever entertainment you would be buying. The MPAA and DVD CCA must be beaten on this one.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
This is a weird area in other copyrighted media. When I was in the campus film series, we would get 16mm movies shipped to us by a distribution company. The rental of the film included renting the right to show it to a mass audience and charge. One time there was a shipping problem that prevented the film from being delivered, and apparently, the company just faxed us a copy of our rental agreement and told us to rent the video like we would to view it privately and just do a mass showing of it (the company also rented videos, and we had access to a room with an overhead video projecter, so it worked.) Point is that even though the physical tape we had rented had copyright protection warnings all over it, we were legally allowed to mass view that copy because we had legal permission to mass veiw "a" copy of that film. Weird.
...will work for Chick tracts...
I have a bit of a serious question: is it legal to distribute the file in a form considered to be art?
t ml
:)
I converted the css code to an html file that represents the OpenDVD logo. Take a look and see what you think. I'm not trying to violate the DMCA or anything, I'm just trying to express thoughts through what I consider to be art.
Here it is:
http://www.enel.ucalgary.ca/~mastracc/opendvd.h
Thoughts?
æeee!
Lets see...
"The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind..."
Somehow I don't think we'll "overcome" this one before we start marching and chain ourselves to the tree^H^H^H^Htanks
I have a concern about this case - I think it's a little more serious than the possibility that the judge is biased or un-knowledgable about the technical issues here - and that is that despite all the enthusiasm and EFF support, the defendants just aren't making a good enough case.
:) From the statement I get the impression that more often than not, the defendants, <b>right or not</b>, are defending their positions poorly - both from a legal standpoint and a purely argumentative one. The judge's statement mentions repeatedly that the defendants failed to support various assertions in their positions - assertions many of us have probably made ourselves, particular, I expect, to a particular segment of computer-enthusiasts - if we agree with the defendants' position, the jusge and plaintiffs seem foolish - after all, how can they not understand that DeCSS is an interoperability tool? But the judge works in terms of law. If the defendants aren't prepared to state their position with a solid legal basis, they'll fail to convince the judge that there's a legal justification for their position, and may fail to convince the judge that the defendants' position is justifiable in any sense at all.
Think about it - the plaintiffs have a lot of money. You know they have five-star lawyers, and they may have even had a certain (limited) amount of sway over the court itself. Needless to say, anyone from the industry who was expecting to speak at any of the hearings has been thoroughly briefed by the legal team - ensuring that everyone on the plaintiff's side tells the same story in the same way, relying on the same legal precedents and avoiding contradiction altogether.
Now, I have no way of knowing if the defendants are really disorganized or poorly represented - but my impressions on this are based on the judge's statements and have gradually built into fears about this case.
Sadly, it's not the judge's responsibility to relate to every subculture's ideas of right and wrong - it wouldn't be practical anyway, and we're a bit egocentric to think that a judge is un-knowledgable about the subject of computers if he/she doesn't agree with us. I'm concerned the defendants just aren't making a good enough case at this point. I really, really hope the defense is gonna wise up, if this is really the problem for them (and us) that I think it is.
It seems as though the defendants need to demonstrate that this <b>is</b> an interoperability issue, <b>why</b> DMCA is a bad thing... support their positions...
I don't relish the idea of losing this one.
---GEC
(If DeCSS is outlawed, only outlaws will have DeCSS)
Bow-ties are cool.
1) Since when are defendants guilty until proven innocent.
IANAL, but presumption of innocence only applies to criminal cases, whereas this is a civil suit.
3) This one is a complete judgement call.
Not really, the DMCA actually does say "computer programs" when it refers to reverse engineering, which a DVD data file isn't. So the judge is actually legally correct on this point.
However, saying that "it runs on Windows, so that's what you Linux guys oughta use" is truly moronic and has no basis in law.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
I actually read through much of the court transcripts trying to figure out how the defense didn't manage to prove any of their points. After reading the transcipts, I see why. The defense was often mis-quoting the statutes that they were trying to invoke, did not realize that they were being sued on something that was not defendable under the fair use act, and were late in filing some of their evidence.
Now I know that the movie industry is spending a lot of money on this whole thing vs. a community that has very little money, but can't with all these new linux ipo companies with all this money burning holes in their pockets, I would think they would try to back the DeCSS folks. RedHat is not taking over the desktop if they can't play DVD.
There is no silver bullet. Plus, werewolves make better neighbors than zombies or vampires anyway.
How about this: instead of passively reporting, joking and complaining come election time, Slashdot could actually get involved in politics. I'm not trying to insert a tone of sarcasm here.
The reality is that to change things, you have to go through the systems. Why don't WE try to become one of those entrenched lobbying groups that at least get the attention of lawmakers? Slashdot could officially endorse candidates running for the US senate and presidency, the same way a newspaper would. We could have an extra section called "politics" or something. Heck, if there's enough IPO money from Andover and cash from that VA merger, it could make campaign contributions.
Anyways, what do you all think?
--
grappler
Vidi, Vici, Veni
The truth is, if Divx had suceeded, we might have had similar court cases and rulings. Enthusiasts and consumers defeated Divx because they didn't like what it did to the concept of ownership. No one should ever believe, though, that if Divx had caught on the Sony, Disney, WB and the rest would've been anything less than ecstatic (though, obviously, there was a problem with the power it would've given Circuit City, but they wouldn't have had a problem with the concept itself.)
The truth is, the anti-Divx activists basically didn't look very hard at the problems with DVD, because DVD was a lot less intrusive and nasty than Divx. Now, however, that Divx is dead and DVD is growing, the people behind DVD are willing to show their claws and fangs to consumers. The attitude seems to be that the consumers will continue to buy DVDs no matter what nasty, corrupt, price gouging thing they do. I think that people have to show them that they are wrong, by boycotting pre-recorded media which is giving money to these companies. Hey, I don't have a DVD player, but I guess I'm not going to be getting FF VIII and a lot of other video games until Sony stops stomping all over the consumer, or going to any new movies or buying any new tapes.
Don't buy anything from these companies:
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.(Sony)
Disney Enterprises, Inc.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.
Paramount Pictures Corporation
TriStar Pictures, Inc.
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
United Artists Pictures, Inc.
United Artists Corporation
Universal City Studios, Inc.
Warner Bros., a Division of Time Warner Entertainment Company, L.P.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Titanic, a huge movie which made lots of money, used Linux as a platform to generate it's special effects. Does anyone here have connections with anyone involved in that? Disney uses SGI, and SGI is Linux friendly. There are people making movies who know what Linux is.
Can anyone with connections with people inside movie studios find a sympathetic ear, someone who would be willing to champion the idea that we want to be able to play legally purchased DVD movies under Linux? Put any rhetoric on the shelf for a couple of minutes and just make the point to them that we want to have free software to play the movies. We want to be their customers.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
Firstly, it most certainly is not the only way to pirate DVDs, but, as at least one pirate admitted, it certainly is the easiest. However, the judge's wording implies that this is DeCSS's only purpose. He further states that no evidence to the contrary (that DeCSS is used for linux-interoperability) has been presented. I'd like to know why not. Did the defense really think the judge would take their word for it? Where was the laptop running linux that couldn't play DVDs until software based on DeCSS was installed?
This makes it painfully obvious that the judge has no understanding of the Open Source movement. Of course there is no commercially signigicant purpose; who's going to pay for OSS when it is freely (speech AND beer) available? Besides, the primary intent of DeCSS (unless you believe the judge) is to allow viewing DVDs that have already been bought under linux.
But wait, the judge doesn't buy the whole linux argument in the first place:
[A]ssuming that DeCSS runs under Linux...??? Where has this guy been??? Oh, wait, I bet he doesn't read SlashDot, does he? Anyway, if the defense had done its job, there would be no assuming this or that about DeCSS and Linux. Secondly, he completely misses the point about programs "running" under operating systems. It's computer code. Download it, compile it, and *poof* it runs on your computer. (The complete lack of proprietary MicroSoft foundation classes, libraries and 'extensions' of standards might be a clue that it was developed in a *nix environment!) Finally, where does he get off deciding what was going through the head of the anonymous German hacker who actually wrote the program? How does he know the intent with which the program was developed? Sure, some people may use the program for illegal gains, but that isn't what the judge is apparently concerned about here. Apparently, I can claim that I developed something with one purpose in mind, but if someone else finds a malicious use for it, that is somehow my fault. I think not! Otherwise, gun and/or bullet manufacturers would be held accountable for every firearms-related homicide.
Finally, I think the judge misses the point in the paragraph in which he quotes the following from the DMCA:
This statement specifically refers to reverse engineering computer codes that have been legally obtained. The point of the matter is that it is not clear whether it was an encryption algorithm that was reverse engineered or if the algorithm was discovered by "hacking" the Xing encoder. Maybe this point wasn't made clear enough in the hearing. (I won't even go into the argument about the legal status of click-through licenses. Suffice it to say that I've never read through one... I'll just make this point: how does paragraph reconcile with licenses explicitly forbidding reverse engineering? Which right trumps the other?)
Overall, from the judge's repudiation of the defendants' claims, it is clear that 1) the judge knows little about technology and 2) the defense did little in the courtroom to back up their assertions. Since this was merely the issuance of preliminary injunction, there will be further opportunities to back up the claims of the defense. I just hope they are more prepared then than they were last month.
Of course, having more than one weekend notice might help matters a bit...
Eric
Now, from an engineer's point of view this is the first step toward creating a viewing program, but from the POV of the MPA it's a copy program. It's hard for a lot of people to see it any other way, since that's exactly what it's doing.
While I cannot agree with the judge that this makes copying DVDs inexpensive (it costs a lot more for storage for the copy than it does to buy an original), all of the other points seem pretty well founded in fact and/or in law. DeCSS looks to be precisely the kind of thing that CDMA is designed to prevent.
This does not, however, mean that it's necessarily illegal to produce a DVD viewer for Linux without the permission of the MPA et al. Rather, it means that you need to produce software that does not have an data output function and can therefore not be seen to have any intent to circumvent copy protection (i.e. it cannot copy the work).
Splicing the decryption code of DeCSS into an MPEG viewer, and providing no option to emit decrypted data, would effectively circumvent the argument that it has any intent to defeat copyright protection. Furthermore, the application should clearly fall under fair use doctrine.
All told, the plaintiffs have a really strong case that DeCSS violates CDMA. I'd be astounded if they lost, although it will be something of a hollow victory since the program is already widely disseminated and they cannot control dissemination worldwide.
But this is neither here nor there, because DeCSS doesn't really give me the ability to watch DVDs under Linux. It's just the first baby step. So why don't we focus our energies on producing a real viewer rather than disseminating DeCSS?
jim frost
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
Hmm.. I like it. (-;
Ok, what if we took the source, and encoded it with a scheme SIMILAR to CSS. THEN distributed it widely witout keys, making sure that it's true nature (the source) is well known.
The source is intellectual property. If the MPAA's hired goons want to prove that the source is contained withing this stream of encrypted characters, they would have to violate the DMCA in order to get inside.
What do we think?
This is probably posted too late to get moderated up, but hopefully someone with some insight will see it way down here. (-;
If the MPAA has states and proved to a judge that the CSS system is designed for access control, rather than antipiracy, we need to inform people of this.
Together, we've managed to kill DIVX. DIVX, though, was just a more obvious evil compared to CSS and player licencing. Should you pay to watch a movie? Should the money you spend on a player go towards licencing fees?
I don't think it should. If you buy a copy of something that can be duplicated inexpensively and perfectly, it does not mean you have to start licencing it. Just make it against the law to copy it for purposes other than fair use. Indeed, the law supports this.
So why would the MPAA want player control? Why is it neccessary?
It is neccessary because it is just another step towards marginalising the fair usage of things you paid for. DIVX was an offshoot of this, and so is CSS. Show your disgust by NOT buying DVDs or their players. If enough of us stand up for our rights, we'll be able to keep them.
---
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Source code isn't a valid form of speech that needs to be protected, sure some of us can read it (although the code I've seen to DeCSS sucked ass, have those people ever heard of indentation?). But others cannot.
So free speech should only apply to material which is of universal interest and accessible to everyone?
It's always been framed as an 'us vs. them' situation
I think it goes both ways -- that the corporations have adopted at least as much of an confrontational "us vs. them" attitude as anyone. I think that point got hammered home pretty dramatically when police raided Jon Johanson's home.
The judge in this ruling may well be correct in maintaining that DeCSS is in violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. To me, though, there's a larger issue; that the industry is becoming dangerously greedy and irresponsible in its actions. Just because they have been successful in convincing the US (and other) governments to do their dirty work does not make their actions moral or correct.
The requirement of immediate and irreparable injury is satisfied in this case. Copyright infringement is presumed to give rise to such harm. In this case, plaintiffs do not allege that defendants have infringed their copyrights, but rather that defendants offer technology that circumvents their copyright protection system and thus facilitates infringement. For purposes of the irreparable injury inquiry, this is a distinction
without a difference. If plaintiffs are correct on the merits, they face substantially the same immediate and irreparable injury from defendants' posting of DeCSS as they would if defendants were infringing directly. Moreover, just as in the case of direct copyright infringement, the extent of the harm plaintiffs will suffer as a result of defendants' alleged activities cannot readily be measured, suggesting that the injury
truly would be irreparable. </I>
Just because I own a gun, does this mean I shot someone?
Come on, judge...
Of course, this changes nothing. You can't turn back the clock, you can't rebuild the dam once it crumbles. People still offer the files up, and that's all there is to it.
Now, I want to see someone build a Linux DVD player, and let the MPAA try to nail them over THAT. Admittedly, the injunction states in one of the footnotes that it wouldn't matter, but still, I'd like to see them try. So where the fully functional Linux DVD player? Use the DeCSS code, it won't matter.
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Code most certainly IS a form of expression, as evidenced by both the existance of perl poetry and the infamous Obfuscated C Code Contest! If it's not a form of expression, then why are people expressing their artistic (or simple masochstics) sides using it? Not to mention the terms in use like 'elegant' code...
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
You make a number of errors in your assertions:
Yes, the constitution does refer to economic interest in Section 8, Clause 8:
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the
exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries; "
That basically means 'limit freedom of copy for economic incentive, for the good of society'.
Furthermore: Yes, the DCMA has been finalized into law, except for a couple of portions. Namely, it is NOT yet a felony to actually circumvent technology, but it IS a felony to create a product whose sole purpose is circumvention.
- DeCSS can be used to pirate disks. There are MANY players available for Windows and (and to a lesser extent) Macintosh that allow the playing of unencrypted movies. Hint: buy any low-budget porn DVD, and I guarantee you it's not encrypted.
- DeCSS is not competition because it was released seperately from a "DVD player", and was also ported to platforms that already had plenty of players. Sorry, the authors goofed when they ported it to Windows.
This is all not to say that the DCMA sucks & trumps "fair use" law, but it is to say that, unless portions of the DCMA are modified, our DeCSS friends are screwed.
-Stu
Of course you know this and of course you don't give a fuck, but agent X can't provide you with a license for item Y if item Y isn't the property of agent X.
I'm fairly certain that this judge's idiotic decision will be promptly overturned.
There's absolutely no basis to challange this decision on appeal. This is just a preliminary ruling. One based on no evidence from the defense. The defense will have an opportunity to present a case with evidence and withnesses.
Furthermore, the EFF has been given a big whack with the cluestick on where to take this case. In reading the judgement, there is definately room to convince this judge of the merits of our case.
A friend of mine who works for the Federal Court system tells me that Judge Kaplan is one of the technically savvy judges in the district. Furthermore, he also tends toward the little guy.
Don't get me wrong, but there is enough wiggle room in this decision for the EFF to put up a good defense and get it past this Judge. If necessary, there is time later to discuss these same issues again in appeal.
This case will be heard.
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
What the judge seems to be saying about the DMCA is this:
If a device is created for unauthorized *copying*, that's okay as long as there is ANY other legitimate use for it. (This, I believe, is how the Rio case was won.)
BUT...
If a device is created for unauthorized *access*, that's not okay EVEN IF there are other legitimate uses for it!
It seems like those who (thankfully) inserted the reverse-engineering, fair use, and interoperability exceptions into DMCA didn't cover all the bases.
Of course, I (or the judge) could be wrong about what DMCA says.
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
Given how suprisingly clueless the courts are, couldn't someone
simply implement the algoritm from scratch again? It'd do the same thing,
but it "wouldn't be DeCSS". It would be a shame to have to
descend down to the mentality of these illiterate morons, but
apparently this is the game we have to play. Despite how it seems,
we're THE PUBLIC. When we're doing something that is THE RIGHT THING,
and our court system fails...something has to give. What ever happened to people
being in control of their country? THE PEOPLE. We're in the right on this!
This shit pisses me off. This case PROVES the courts are incapable of dealing with
modern technology (i.e. anything after 1970, apparently). Something has to be done...
-- www.bteg.com | bleh.n3.net | hac47.dhs.org
Somebody needs to point out that there are two items out there called DeCSS. One is a component of a poorly integrated Linux based DVD playback system. This one does not run under windows. The other (and the first to be distributed BTW) is a program for Win32 which takes tracks off of a DVD disk, decrypts them and stores the VOB file on your HD. This program does not run natively under Linux and never had anything to do with viewing movies under Linux.
It's difficult to understand the entire situation re. DeCSS because of these two different things. It's also difficult to perceive that the DeCSS program that was written and distributed by MoRE ever had anything whatsoever to do with viewing movies under different OSes. If you have a DVD-ROM and run Windows, run to your favorite ftp search and look for "decss121b.zip". Download it, and then run it and then tell us that it is relevant to watching movies under Linux.
I wonder what DeCSS files are being distributed by 2600 and friends. If it's the Win32 program, I can't see that this thread and this particular ruling have anything to do with each other (for the most part.) If it's the LiViD module, then the bozo attorneys for the defense need to get their arses in gear and address this issue properly, otherwise their clients might as well bend over and lube up.
It's clear that this judge believes that unauthorized DVD players are illegal under the DMCA, period.
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
The scene you describe is from Ferris Bueller's Day Off (the password was "pencil", IIRC) and not from Wargames. Both starred Matthew Broderick and both are great films, but let's not confuse them.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
IANAL, but as I see it, the argument is not whether DeCSS is speech or not. It's not whether the DMCA is unconstitutional or not. It's whether DeCSS is circumventing copy protection.
DeCSS is not really copy protection as anyone can still copy a DVD without the use of DeCSS. This wont be hard to prove in court for some good lawyers. DeCSS (in this case) is PLAY protection, designed to prevent you from playing a DVD, not from copying it.
The counter-argument to this, (as I see it) is that DeCSS can be used to obtain the video streams of a DVD, and then those streams can be republished, this is copyright infringement, and in this case CSS is being used as copy protection so DeCSS is defeating it. In this case CSS is being used as THEFT protection, and DeCSS is defeating the protection.
What needs to be made clear is that protecting against unlawful copying (illegal, but DeCSS has nothing to do with it), protecting against theft (illegal, CSS protects against theft so DeCSS defeats it) and protecting legal copying (fair use, a legal use of DeCSS), are three separate issues that need to be addressed. The DMCA is unequipped to address this as the same software used to secure fair use is the software used to conduct theft.
-Rich
Just because you can't see the zebra in this painting doesn't mean it's there. And if you think obfuscated code is linenoise, you should listen to Michael Gordon or some of his comrades in arms (which isn't to say I don't like Michael Gordon).
Once you let the government distinguish between types of speech based on content, there's no going back.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
You made my point better than I could make it.
If I were a defendent, I'd demand that the plaintiffs perform a demonstration of how DeCSS makes piracy possible.
It might not help me legally though.
Reading the opinion, I kind of get the feeling that the piracy is more of a PR smokescreen than anything else. Oh, there's the usual throwing of legal gunk against the wall to see what will stick. But the key question is whether, under DMCA, creating a program that defeats a technical copy protection scheme and/or redistributing such a program is illegal even if defeating the technical copy protection measures is useless for making infringing copies.
If the plaintiffs win, it will establish the legal principle that you can infringe on the rights of copyright holders without making any unauthorized copies of protected materials or doing anything which helps anybody else to make unauthorized copies.
I know ignorance of the law is no excuse, but some legal points are so peculiar, it is an affront to justice to expect people to understand them. It is especially unjust, because this is an abuse of a law on the part of the plaintiffs. The DMCA at last purportedl is supposed to provide strong protections against copyright infringement, but the plaintiffs are using it not to prevent illegal copying, but to segment the international market and to charge higher prices to some segments for the exact same product.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
1) "Concerned about this risk [of lossless copying], motion picture companies, including plaintiffs, insisted upon the development of an access control and copy prevention system to inhibit the unauthorized reproduction and distribution of motion pictures before they released films in the DVD format."
Here he gets it wrong. CSS does NOT inhibit the unauthorised reproduction of motion pictures.
2) "The means now in use, Content Scramble System or CSS, is an encryption-based security and authentication system that requires the use of appropriately configured hardware such as a DVD player or a computer DVD drive to decrypt, unscramble and play back, but not copy, motion pictures on DVDs." (emphasis mine)
And here he gets this part correct. Weird.
3) "CSS has facilitated enormous growth in the use of DVDs for the distribution of copyrighted movies to consumers."
This is just silly.
4) "...an individual or group, ... managed to "hack'' CSS and began offering, via the Internet, a software utility called DeCSS that enables users to break the CSS copy protection system and hence to make and distribute digital copies of DVD movies."
Once again, this is plain wrong. Calling CSS a copy protection system is incorrect.
5) A phrase that's used repeatedly in the DMCA, "...that effectively controls access to a work protected under [the Copyright Act]"
and later on...
"even if DeCSS wereintended and usable solely to permit the playing, and not the copying, of DVDs on Linux machines, the playing without a licensed CSS "player key'' would "circumvent a technological measure'' that effectively controls access to a copyrighted work and violate the statute in any case."
This is scary, because it means that controlling playback (part of 'access to') is a legal right of copyright holders. Based on this, the judgement will be hard to overturn.
6) "First, defendants have submitted no evidence---as distinguished from unsubstantiated assertions at oral argument---to support these contentions."
OK, the judge sounds like an asshole but he has a fair point. Did the defendants expect to win over the judge by explaining things to him? Did they not have real lawyers there to present real evidence? (eg. the complete list of licensed DVD players)
Finally, the biggie:
7) "They contend that DeCSS is necessary to achieve interoperability between computers running on the Linux system and DVDs and that this exception therefore is satisfied. This contention fails for three reasons.
First, defendants have offered no evidence to support this assertion.
Second, even assuming that DeCSS runs under Linux, it concededly runs under Windows---a far more widely used operating system---as well. It therefore cannot reasonably be said that DeCSS was developed "for the sole purpose'' of achieving interoperability between Linux and DVDs.
Finally, and most important, the legislative history makes it abundantly clear that Section 1201(f) permits reverse engineering of copyrighted computer programs only and does not authorize circumvention of technological systems that control access to other copyrighted works, such as movies. In consequence, the reverse engineering exception does not apply."
First of all, if we're going to court over this, let's do it right--PREPARE YOUR EVIDENCE!
The second point is hogwash. DeCSS is portable code! Of COURSE it compiles under Windows! This fact does not dilute or negate the intent (to watch movies under Linux), no matter what the Judge says.
Finally, what the hell does he think these, "technological systems that control access to other copyrighted works" are? THEY'RE COMPUTER PROGRAMS!!!
OK, back to the list...
8) "There is no evidence that any of them is engaged in encryption research, let alone good faith encryption research. It appears that DeCSS is being distributed in a manner specifically intended to facilitate copyright infringement."
Right on the first point, and wrong on the second. DeCSS does not substantially facilitate copyright infringement. Nor will it, even when DVD-RAM blanks (and burners) get to be dirt cheap. It's simply not the point of the code.
The rest seems to be longish summary sorts of stuff. Still, the judge seems to be far enough out to lunch that this will DEFINITELY go to appeals.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
A group of us has been considering either lobbying various small/poor countries to set us up as a non-profit body that controls bandwidth issues as well as intellectual property issues for the country with total control over all such issues. For allowing us to make their country into a data haven they would get a percentage of the profits from us leasing the bandwidth to various organizations for net servers etc as well as the fact they'd be pushed into the information economy. For anyone who has watched small or 3rd world countries the past few years there has been a trend where they are trying to jump right over industrial into information. Singapore and Malaysia would be good examples. Look at all the countries who just let any shmuck company control their tld's! We get what we want which is freedom and they get what they want which is power and prosperity. If that couldn't be arranged we've considered the possibility of a floating data haven if we could buy an old aircraft carrier or something like that and set it up as a huge network serving platform out in international waters. By creating such a data haven we'd 1. make it so we were sure to have access to the data and 2. apply pressure to various governments around the world to lossen their laws. Look at how the U.S. is finally starting to allow encryption export, largely because so many foreign firms already had that freedom and American firms were suffering.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
The judge should most definitely have granted an extension. This looks a lot like a set of SLAPP lawsuits. The MPAA/DVDCCA are trying to push this through so fast that the judge won't even consider the consequences. Hell, they can't even wait for the damn DMCA to be finalized!
The DeCSS program is designed for DECRYPTION. Not copying, and somehow the lawyers for the EFF need to get that through to the judge.
The fact that DeCSS is intended to be used in Windows seems to have thrown the judge. It looks like this is want convinced him that the program was for copying purposes. If the program only ran under Linux, he'd have been more likely to see it our way. As it is, I get the impression that the judge thinks that the Linux community is a bunch of pirates trying to pull a fast one.
This is for the judges benefit (like he'll be reading Slashdot:):
Hopefully, our side will be given a chance to be heard, and this case will be tossed on the trash heap where it belongs. If not, I guess we'll have to look to China to protect our freedom - I doubt they'll knuckle under to American interests. A dark thought indeed ...
As a closing comment, I think I've developed an opinion on software as speech vs software as product. In my opinion, software source code (and therefore opensource software) are examples of speech, and should have copyright protections. Binary software is, in my opinion, a product. It should therefore have the same protections as any machine - including no protection from reverse engineering.
See, I can be logical and an Open Source Bigot at the same time :)
I just spent 40 minutes reading the court document in question. What I am seeing is the failure of the defense to effectively come up with a compelling argument. From what I can see here the Defense has submited little or no evidence to support their argument.
They better come up with something good when the actual trial starts or they will lose. It's been pointed out more that once that the Denfense is going about defending this case all wrong. I tend to agree.
Someone get those guys better lawyers!!
And I don't think I've ever seen a remark as utterly clueless about the nature of software as this one:
Somehow the meaning of "interoperable" and "portable" never got into Kaplan's grasp. Maybe the words have, but the meaning eludes him. Until he is educated, he's going to be extremely dangerous to people who are doing nothing more than trying to use what they've paid for.--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
The Current Situation
The judge is not clueless, and the lawyers from DVD CAA are not liars -- In this case we (the open source community) simply blew it by not figuring out how to deploy the resources to defend ourselves.
Brief credentials statement: I Am Not A Lawyer, Nor Do I Play One On Television; but I was a courts/copshop reporter for several years in the 1980's and have the general knowledge of copyright/IP that a journalist and a programmer picks up.
Read the transcript of the hearing, then the decision. The defendants and their lawyers were given nearly a week's notice of the hearing and arrived badly organized and with little if any evidence. As Judge Levin noted (by my count) eight different times in his decision, defendants presented no evidence to back up their arguments, while the plaintiffs (DVD CAA) had lots, including, IIRC, the transcripts of discussions here on Slashdot. The defense was just not ready to do the job. Two thirds of the legal staff there was from EFF in one form or another, but from the transcript it looks like they had not been able to spend a lot of time on the specific case ahead of time -- Judge Levin found (for good reason in some cases) a number of their arguments irrelevant to what he had to decide.
In reaching the decision, Judge Levin pointed out real weak points in the defence case. The core problem is the "reverse engineering" argument that gets used around here a lot. Here's the relevant portion of the opinion:
Pretty devastating, legally. They really didn't present any evidence to support their arguments, but the defendants lawyers did apparently admit that DeCSS worked on Windows as well (is this true?) so is not exclusive to Linux (so much for it being just for playing DVDs on Linux), and the reverse engineering exemption is explicitly not applicable here.
Our Goals
Do we want to get a Linux DVD player, or do we want to get rid of or modify the new copyright law? These are two different goals, with two different sets of actions to carry them out. As others have pointed out, if all we want is Linux DVD, then it is probably only a matter of money -- sombody call Larry at VALinux.
Action
If you want to change the law, learn and use the tools that are needed to do the job.
Groups of people get the law changed all the time -- but it takes attention to detail, advanced social skills, persistence, and some money. We can do it if we really want to.
In the USA, most such source code is written in the English language, not the C language. Would the judge say that English text is not free speech either? Because someone might invent a tool that translates C source code to English text...
In fact, such tools already exist. They could stand some improvement (if you're a programmer, consider this an invitation!).
One tool that converts C code to English text (and back) is described here. And this is an example text document corresponding to source code for a real program.
P.S. Some people have posted things like "stupid judge". I don't think that he is particularly stupid; he wrote lots of nice long words into his opinion. I think he was merely reading verbatim the script the plaintiffs gave him.
The Autonomous Cow. Moo.
hack was motivated by the intent to duplicate work, which by the DMCA
is bound to be a violation.
So it looks quite possible that this case would be lost. *But* it
would be quite possible to do a *new* hack, a Nu-DeCSS whose intent is
solely intended to play CSS discs on a linux box, and whose authors
refuse to cooperate with anyone they know to be promoting the
technology for the purposes of duplication. Since the intent is
different, the law is different.
The clause of the DMCA cited in the judges injunction provides the
following intent test:
"(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of
circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls
access to a work protected under [the Copyright Act];
"(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other
than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively
controls access to a work protected under [the Copyright Act];
or "(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with
that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a
technological measure that effectively controls access to a work
protected under [the Copyright Act]."
Clearly such a modified Nu-DeCSS would fail all three clauses and so
be legal.
The EFF just got the money I had been thinking about spending on a DVD player. BTW - didn't some of the earlier articles mention that certain key clauses of the DMCA don't even start applying until October of this year?
The judges blockheadedness with regard to 1201(f) Reverse Engineering is extremely frustrating. He seems to be ignoring the plain text of the law, especially:
... Section 1201(f) permits reverse engineering of copyrighted computer programs only and does not authorize circumvention of technological systems that control access to other copyrighted works, such as movies.
... [OR] for the purpose of enabling interoperability ..."
1201(f)(2) (2) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsections (a)(2) and (b), a person may develop and employ technological means to circumvent a technological measure, or to circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure, in order to enable the identification
and analysis under paragraph [1201(f)](1), or for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program
with other programs, if such means are necessary to achieve such interoperability, to the extent that doing so does not constitute infringement under this title.
We're going to need to counter all three of his objections:
1. [No evidence for Linux Interoperability] We need to get testimony from Linus, Eric Raymond, Lots of LiViD members, and Johansen into evidence. Selected portions of the LiViD mailing list should also support this. I think a petition of Linux users expressing the desire to have DeCSS solely to allow playback under Linux would be appropriate evidence as well. No evidence was presented because of the judge's failure to give adequate time to the defense. We should ask for a new judge on the grounds that this shows clear bias.
2. [DeCSS runs under NT]
A) It is ANSI standard C, so of course it compiles and runs on windows. The task that DeCSS alone performs is not operating system specific. The judge has invented some test other than the one in 1201(f)(2). Read the part about "if such means are necessary". This is the proper test.
B) Johansen has stated that the reason it runs under windows is that in Linux, WINE emulation of windows mpeg2 players work. This is a reasonable intermediate step in a development effort and clearly shows a Linux motiviation even though it might appear otherwise at first glance.
C) What we're really after is open source software interoperability, which does not preclude it from running on windows, since one could write GPL code for windows. Linux is the predominate open source software platform, but by design interoperating with Linux would not preclude interoperation with other platforms, including windows.
D) DeCSS is not a complete thought. It is (only) a part of LiViD. To establish intent you must look at the whole production. It is absolutely clear from his regular posts to the LiViD mailing list that Johansen released DeCSS to advance LiViD.
(E) This is a "red herring" argument. Nothing in the statute precludes incidental interoperability with other specific programs.
3. [Reverse Rngineering exception not applicable] I really don't understand what the judge is saying. This seems like absolute nonsense to me. I really would like to just say "what are you talking about you Moron". I'll try a less insulting arguement. The judge wrote:
A) CSS is what was reverse engineered - it IS a computer program and we meet this misreading of the criteria
B) The "computer programs only" part is confied to 1201(f)(1) which grants exceptions to the access prohibitions of 1201(a)(1). This is not the applicable part of 1201(f), and 1201(a)(1) is not effective until October of 2000, so no exception to it is needed.
C) Indeed 1201(f)(2) does grant circumvention to access control for movies and anything else. Read the word "OR" just after the reference to (f)(1), which expands the exception beyond the judge's reading of scope. Taking the applicable parts of the sentence we are left with:
"...a person may develop and employ technological means to circumvent a technological measure, or to circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure,
D) The most pertinent part of "legislative history" is the plain text of the statute. 1201(f)(2) contains no language to support the asserted limits on the exception.
What if public libraries never yet existed. What if someone just now, for the first time ever, suggested creating a collection of publically funded buildings which would buy large quantities of copyrighted material (books, video, music, software, etc.) and then made them freely available to the public? The person suggesting this would be accused of "advocating piracy", "ruining business", "intellectual property theft", etc. Thank God poor Ben Franklin isn't around today to see what goes on today. The man would be locked away in prison, his house ransacked by police, his possessions siezed, all to protect corporate intrests an IP holders from his "dangerous" behaviour.
Other Ways To Fuck With These Assholes:
- Convert the source code into English. It's not source code, it's free speech!
- Anonymously E-mail copies of the source to every e-mail address at mpaa.org, fox.com, paramount.com, disney.com, etc., then sue them for possessing it. (Hey, if linking to it is illegal, then having it must be!)
- Make our own DVD player, except instead of including the CSS system, encrypt DeCSS with our own encryption and include that instead. If the CCA reverse-engineers our software, sue them under the DMCA. If they try to sue us for not having a license, countersue against their monopoly and antitrust practices.
- If they're going to accuse us of piracy, then, well, I'll be damned if I'm going to be accused of something I'm not doing. Therefore we must flood the world with cheap ripoffs of every DVD that's ever released.
Of course, this is assuming we have no other recourse. Hey, doesn't the DMCA say that I can now be legally shot to death by Jack Valenti personally for saying this?"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
How many people who've posted in this thread have actually looked at one of the sites in question, dvd-copy.com.
Can anyone really claim that a site with headlines like:
How to find/trade FREE DVD Movies online
and
What you need to trade Moviez online
is only interested in playback under linux? This is a site about pirating!
I'm all for DeCSS distribution, but this site isn't helping our cause. Championing this case is like the NRA championing a murderer as an example of responsible gun ownership.
//Express this
enum ERights{rtFreedom,rtReligion,rtGuns,rtDeCSS};
int main()
{
CCountry *USA=new CCountry();
USA->AddCorporation(new CMPAA());
if(!USA->IsLegal(rtDeCSS))
{
CCorporation *corp=USA->FirstCorp();
while(corp)
{
if(!corp->AgreesWith(rtDeCSS))
{
cout<<"fuck the "<<corp->GetName()<<endl;
USA->RemoveCorporation(corp);
delete corp;
corp=USA->FirstCorp();
}
else
corp=USA->NextCorp(corp);
}
}
return 0;
}
Obviously they've figured out how to do this after getting access to the source code which Rob and co. so generously released.
Rob, I'm sorry this happened and you must be tearing your hair at the moment, but on the other hand this may be good - no security through obscurity after all. (Easy for me to say as I'm not the one being targetted like this).
Two issues.
First, there is a lot of confusion here between the notions of COPY protection, and COPYRIGHT protection. This is no accident. One of the tactics of the MPAA is to attempt to equate the two in people's minds. To say, in effect, "We must have copy protection, otherwise our copyrights are unprotected." This is COMPLETELY untrue. Their copyrights are every bit as protected now as they were before DeCSS was written. If you make an unauthorized copy of a DVD, their legal standing to sue you is unchanged by the existance of DeCSS.
COPYRIGHT protection is a monopoly, granted by the government, giving you the exclusive legal right to duplicate a work.
COPY protection is a technological measure used to prevent third parties from duplicating a work.
You can have copy protection on something that is not copyrighted, and vice versa. This does NOT equate the two concepts, as the MPAA would like you to believe. Please do not play into their hands by accepting their distortion and melding of the two, completely independant concepts of copyright and copy protection.
Second, the DVD consortium had two options in the design of CSS. They could have either based their copy protection system on a patent, and disclosed the patent. This would have prevented third parties from legally creating their own DVD players. Instead they chose to rely on keeping their copy protection a trade secret. Unfortunately, they were not successful in maintaining their trade secret. Now they are arguing that they should receive patent-like protection for their broken trade secret.
They should not receive this protection because they did not disclose their invention. This is the entire purpose of a patent. You have a choice whether to publish, and receive a government monopoly, or maintain the secret, and take your chances that someone will reverse-engineer your trade secrets. The fact that the DVD consortium has based their entire copy protection on a poorly-kept trade secret should not change the legal status of that trade secret. It was broken, and the reverse-engineered DVD specification has entered the public domain.
If this interpretation of the DMCA is allowed to stand, it will in fact eliminate the entire concept of fair use. Given that traditional media will be eventually replaced by digital media, all of which will be presumably copy-protection enabled, under this interpretation it will become ILLEGAL to attempt to save a web page, capture a video or audio stream, or even videotape a broadcast, so long as the content provider has made even the most basic, ineffective effort to hinder you from doing so.
The DCMA has a lot of bad language. One of the worst bits is the notion of a device "effectively" controlling access to a copyrighted work. What does it mean to "effectively" control access? CSS "effectively" controlled access until DeCSS was invented. Now CSS is an ineffective protection scheme. The mere fact that a television broadcast was transmitted and received in real time "effectively" prevented duplication of television programs, until the VCR was invented. Should the VCR have been made illegal because it overrode an "effective" copy-protection method? Should the photocopier have been outlawed because it overrode the "effective" copy-protection method of a book being printed on paper? How much poorer our culture would have been.
This is the real threat posed by this court case. It is VERY important. It is the most important case I have seen in years. The rulings on this case will determine the very meaning of fair use in the digital age. It will determine whether or not the DCMA has eliminated the concept of fair use, as the MPAA is claiming, or not.
One of the great things about slashdot is it's simplicity, text only and limited tags.. I sure hope this 31337 crap ends soon.
Never knock on Death's door:
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
I have only given the opinion a brief review, but I see at once an obvious failure of reason.
The opinion inconsistently found BOTH that: (1) DMCA anti-circumvention is constitutional because the Copyright Act has been found to be constitutional; and (2) Fair Use does not apply because DMCA anti-circumvention provision does not incorporate the Copyright Act provisions for a fair use defense.
It is certainly the case that the Courts have been kind to Copyright laws when defendants have raised First Amendment-based defenses, and in particular, that the Courts have found that the LIMITED monopoly granted by the Copyright Act does not fall afoul of the First Amendment (particularly given the force of Article I, Section 8 -- the Copyright Clause).
However, most judicial discussions of First Amendment constitutionality of the Copyright Act make reference to two specific facts: (i) that Copyright protects particular expressions, and does not protect ideas; and (ii) that the scope of a Copyright monopoly is limited to the extent a fair use defense is offered.
If the Court wishes to rely on this authority, it must then consider whether the DMCA protections offer both protections for Society. In fact, it fails in each case:
DMCA UNCONSTITUTIONALLY PROTECTS FOR AN UNLIMITED TERM IN PATENT-LIKE FASHION AN APPARATUS THAT MIGHT NOT ITSELF BE PATENTABLE
Let's be real, DMCA anti-circumvention protects the mechanism for protecting a work, not the work itself. DeCSS attacks the mechanism, not the work. This mechanism might be routine, un-novel and wholly obvious (hence unpatentable), yet DMCA would nevertheless protect it. And, so long as the underlying content is within its term, DMCA protects the mechanism FOREVER. (A patent would be limited to at most 20 years).
Thus, DMCA actually gives IDEA protection for the decoding apparatus for a security scheme, for an unlimited term, and (as noted below) without adequate protection for fair use. Indeed, I think an even stronger argument of unconstitutionality would be one based upon Article I, Section 8 -- this bill grants de facto super-patent rights (which also may not protect ideas) to an apparatus without any term limit, and thus violates the requirements of the Constitution that the grant be for a limited time.
(N.B.: I am not advising anybody to do so, I am only wishing those were the facts of this case -- it might very well be illegal to do so as this law seems to be developing in the Courts).
IF DMCA DOES NOT HAVE FAIR USE READ INTO IT BY JUDICIAL CONSTRUCTION, THEN IT IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL UNDER THE FIRST AMENDMENT BECAUSE IT DOES NOT HAVE FAIR USE LIMITATIONS.
The Fair use provisions of Section 107 were not originally made by the Congress. The Courts read them into the 1909 Copyright Act out of equitable fairness (and because of the First Amendment issues arising from suing a critic for quoting an article). Section 107 expressly stated that it did not replace, but merely codified the existing case law. If the Court decides not to read those cases into the DMCA, it can not AT THE SAME TIME, ignore the Constitutional implications on the ground that the DMCA is "just like copyright."
Again, we needn't investigate whether the DMCA is unconstitutional for these reasons -- its just that if the Court is going to rely on the similarity and Constitutional status of the Copyright Act itself under existing case law -- it must ask if DMCA satisfies those parameters.
None of the preceding is well-researched, or even carefully considered. But the inconsistency (and unfairness) of this reasoning struck even me between the eyeballs. (And you guys know what a hard-assed pro-IP guy I am.)
Accurate language to inaccurate language (and back) translator c2txt2c
http://personal.sip.fi/~lm/c2txt2c/
Created for precisely these reasons, actually. To demonstrate that source code is speech.
OK, I see how to do it. You can look at the posts by changing the threshold in the location bar to a low number and then view source.
Never knock on Death's door:
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
"One day, you'll be able to see the movie you want to see- _when_ you want to see it" - AT&T ad
Turns out that day's already here, for music, and everything will have to change to accomodate this new reality.
The irony is that, now, today, I can already tell a non-geek friend about, say, the MPAA arranging to have police arrest a 15-year-old, and my friend will be shocked and surprised. As these horrible attacks on civil liberties and 'the underground' continue, there's one very obvious result- it will _make_ an underground, where there wasn't one before. Force people to take sides and you might not be able to always control which side they pick. The more horrible the news, the more heinous the abuses, the more well-established and well-equipped the underground will be.
I personally am happy to be a musician and sound engineer- it means I have the opportunity to align myself with this new underground without specifically getting heavy into pirating and ripping other people's work. I may think that the whole paradigm change makes their desire to control said work kind of antiquated (read: doomed), but the happy truth is that I personally can remain unpunishable, 'legal' even w.r.t stupid and inequitable law, and still noisily side with those who are totally 'illegal'.
All this has opened my eyes, frankly. I've got a friend who's basically an obsessive warezpuppy. I'm not, and I always used to act a bit superior about it. Well, what's with that? Maybe my friend is just living out the fluidity of the Net more than I do. I see the temptation, and tend to play it boring and safe and not try to get away with anything, but exactly what am I supposed to be respecting here? The system that is gearing up to tromp me into the ground and take away the promised wonders of the 21st century, to lock me into a strictly 80s model for how the world, commerce, media work?
People should look at that aspect. Because we _will_ have the 21st century. We _will_ have the worldwide connectivity, the effortless exchange of information and media, and that _will_ change the way the world works.
The only question is, will this be in harmony with business and government, fought by business and helped by government, strictly underground for only those smart enough to know the ropes, or an outright civil war of some sort with police kicking in geek doors over and over throughout the first years of the 21st century?
The DMCA passed the Senate unanimously in May 1998 (see here) so you can blame every senator in office at that time.
It passed the House by a "voice vote" which means no record was made of how individuals voted (so just blame them all).
It was signed into law by "President" Clinton in September 1998 (see here).
All of this was done to "prepare" America for conformance with WIPO and WTO.
Things are getting scary when Pat Buchanon starts making sense!
People here should also know of the Digital Future Coalition.
-- OpenSourcerers
But at least the judge ponted out weaknesses that can be used next time. Keep in mind that he didn't need to do that.
If you don't like what the law says, check your suit, call your congress critter and make an appointment to talk to them.
Never knock on Death's door:
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
Read a bit about this one - the motion was filed at the last minute, before a 3 day weekend, (if I remember correctly.) I am fairly certain that the defense team was not even able to attend the hearing, but did it by teleconference (hence, no chance to show LiViD or anything). They requested a delay to prepare, and the judge denied it, telling the Suits that if they wanted a "runaway train on this one" he would give it to them.
I don't fault the EFF - they did the best they could in a seemingly hostile court.
----
That's from Jewel's book of poetry, isn't it?
Never knock on Death's door:
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
moderate the previous comment UP !
Re:Well everyone must be thinking (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 03, @03:20PM EST (#202)
Finally, and most important, the legislative history makes it abundantly clear that Section 1201(f) permits reverse engineering of copyrighted
computer programs only and does not authorize circumvention of technological systems that control access to other copyrighted works, such
as movies.21 In consequence, the reverse engineering exception does not apply.
But what about this text ? Has it no legislative value ? Remarks of Chairman Bliley from the Congressional Record
Mr. BLILEY. Mr. Speaker, as Chairman of the Committee on Commerce, I want to make some additional comments. Specifically, given that the
Conference Report contains several new provisions, I want to supplement the legislative history for this legislation to clarify the Conferees' intent, aswell as make clear the constitutional bases for our action. Given the inherent page and time limitations of spelling everything out in a conference report, I wanted to share our perspective with our colleagues before they vote on this important legislation. Moreover, given the unfortunate proclivity of some in our society to file spurious lawsuits, I don't want there to be any misunderstanding about the scope of this legislation, especially the very limited scope of
the device provisions in Title I and the very broad scope of the exceptions to section 1201(a)(1).
[...]
As advances in technology occur, consumers will enjoy additional benefits if devices are able to interact, and share information. Achieving interoperability in the consumer electronics environment will be a critical factor in the growth of electronic commerce. Companies are already designing
operating systems and networks that connect devices in the home and workplace. In the Committee's view, manufacturers, consumers, retailers, and professional servicers should not be prevented from correcting an interoperability problem or other adverse effect resulting from a technological measure causing one or more devices in the home or in a business to fail to interoperate with other technologies. Given the multiplicity of ways in which products
will interoperate, it seems probable that some technological measures or copyright management information systems might cause playability problems. To encourage the affected industries to work together with the goal of avoiding potential playability problems in advance to the extent possible, the Committee emphasized in its report and I made clear in my floor statement that a manufacturer of a product or device (to which 1201 would otherwise apply) may lawfully design or modify the product or device to the extent necessary to mitigate a frequently occurring and noticeable adverse effect on the authorized performance or display of a work that is caused by a technological measure in the ordinary course of its design and operation. Similarly, recognizing that a technological measure may cause a playability problem with a particular device, or combination of devices, used by a consumer, the
Committee also emphasized that a retailer, professional servicer, or individual consumer lawfully could modify a product or device solely to the extent necessary to mitigate a playability problem caused by a technological measure in the ordinary course of its design and operation. The conferees made clear in their report that they shared these views on playability.
I wonder....
What happens if you just shift all the characters in the file left one character, or up by a value of 0x10. Would the source still be under copyright?
You have modified the bit string of the source to represent something that is not usable to a human.
Thus, it is no longer reconizable as the orginal source code without applying an algorithm to it to return it to it's original form.
Could you distribute the bit shifted file then or would this represent a derivative work?
If it did represent a derivative work, then the argument could be made that all programs are just derived code from other programs, since there exists an algorithm to convert one bitstream to any other bitstream.
This is the problem with digital representations. The same bitstream could represent an infinite number of different copyrighted works. Which of these copyrights are valid?
So does the act of interpreting a bitstream into a human readable form cause the condition of copyright to come about? What constitutes human readable form? If I can read the bitstream of an MP3 of copyrighted song, am I violating copyright? If I had an equally valid interpretation of the bitstream that represents a song in MP3 format, am I still violating copyright?
I personally think the whole idea of digital copyright is null and void. Welcome to the freedom of bits.
(I was only an egg, but then I cracked)
Does anyone know what is involved in producing (not reading) an encrypted DVD?
I recall someone mentioning in an earlier discussion about some pr0n DVDs that implemented some little-used DVD features, and I would expect (perhaps mistakenly) that most pr0n DVDs are made by rather small companies (i.e. not Disney).
If it's not too expensive to publish a DVD, then I have an idea that maybe could be useful in hurting the plaintiff's case. They made a big fuss that DeCSS was only used to remove access control to a copyrighted work. What if someone donated one DVD's contents (e.g. "Sloppy vs the Beer Bottle From Outer Space" starring yours truly in an epic 60 second tale of vanquishing an extraterresial threat disguised as a Sam Adams) to the public domain? Then DeCSS would be an important tool in defeating the access control on a non-copyrighted work. DCMA would not apply.
As an extension to this idea, there's another: let's start using CSS for everything. Let's start publishing documents that need to be DeCSS'ed to be read, along with notices that everyone is allowed to read them, if they can only figure out how. Let's make CSS a (useless) defacto standard so that everyone has to have a DeCSS-like tool, just to do everyday things.
Just an idea. And I would love to star in the movie. I'll work for beer. Nudity will cost you extra, though, since I was hoping to show off my fashionable wardrobe, which includes a Copyleft anti-DVDCCA shirt.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Well, your analogy isn't really complete. AFAIK, the DVD people aren't claiming that the DeCSS is illegal in and of itself, but that it's illegal because it:
1) contains a trade secret
2) was reverse-enginnered illegally (by violating the Xing license agreement)
By contrast, the rifle-modification information was (presumably) not obtained illegally.
As for the Supreme Court hearing this case, I'd consider that unlikely...they hear around 75 to 100 cases per year out of around 6000 that are appealed to them. Your chances of having an appeal heard are exceptionally bad.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Plaintiff: Your Honour, plainly this software is intended to defeat our copy protection scheme, something which can't be done now. (Bear with me, I'm just using some of their arguments)
Defendant: How many The Matrix DVD's have been sold worldwide?
Plaintiff: I'm not sure. 500,000?
Defendant: Wait. I'm confused. How did this many copies come into existence?
Plaintiff: We uhh... we used a DVD mastering/copy system...
Defendant: Ahh. And you didn't need DeCSS to copy these DVDs did you?
Plaintiff: Well of course not. *pause* Oh.
One can dream ;-)
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
Let me make an analogy, if I may (those who've seen my other post where I make a similar point, feel free to skip this).
In The Begining...(TM)... there were no compilers that ran on the PalmPilot. But people wanted to write programs that ran on the Palm. So PC compilers were written which generated files (in this case machine code) which worked on the Palm. The compilers themselves ran on a PC, but their sole purpose was to allow them to achive interoperability with their PalmPilot.
Fast forward to DeCSS. In The Begining, Linux couldn't read the UDF filesystem. Therefore, a program which worked under Windows (which could), which would generate a file which worked in Linux could have as its sole purpose achieving interoperability with Linux, without DeCSS itself ever running on Linux.
That may or may not have been its original intent, but the fact that it was originally Windows-only at a time when such a program couldn't be written under Linux is irrelevant to that.
[TMB]
You know, the joy of it is that DVD CCA doesn't own CSS. They use it, but apparently didn't patent it (since that would have shed the light of day on it). So we can all use CSS for our own purposes, maybe make it so that you can't read Slashdot without a DeCSS plugin. Whatever.
That'll kill their case right there, since DMCA won't apply.
But are you thinking what I'm thinking? Why stop at winning? Why not drive the bastards before us, ruthlessly pound them into oblivion, rape their women, burn their houses, and salt their farmland? Let's have Vengeance!
My idea is this: What if I use CSS encryption to protect my own copyrighted work? But instead of donating it to the public domain, I will, under the DMCA, sue anyone who makes a device that defeats the access control to my copyrighted work. You Linux guys are all too slippery to whack like moles, but I think I know someone who is mass producing hardware and software that has a primary purpose which is to circumvent the copy protection on my copyrighted materials. I refer to every single DVD player manufacturer, of course. Has DVD CCA illegally distributed DeCSS-like code to them? What?! They're actually commercially selling products for cracking SloppyWare? I am shocked and outraged.
Oh well, then I guess I'll include them in the suite too. Sure, they're authorized to break the protection on MPAA's DVDs, but I sure don't remember authorizing them to break the protection on my stuff.
That's it. I just killed it. Because, you see, in order to comply with the DMCA, licensing CSS from DVD CCA isn't enough. You have to license it from everyone who decides to use CSS to control access to their work. And since CSS encryption isn't patented, everyone can use it, whether they invented CSS or not. That means no one, not even DVD CCA & MPAA, is authorized to use DeCSS-like tools.
I apologize to everyone for making the cost of consumer DVD players rise to 5 trillion dollars per unit. Oh well, maybe another standard will come by.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
OK, Guys, the next time you are in court do the following:
Bring a short DVD Movie with you, bring a computer with a DVD player and a good expensive DVD burner, bring a few blank DVD Disks, the DVD copying software should be preinstalled and TESTED at home, you will have to do this under Windows, so learn how to use it before-hand, I think you start by pushing some "Start" button...
Put the blank into DVD Burner, put the movie into DVD player, make a complete copy of the movie onto the blank DVD.
Play DVD Movie from both disks on a normal DVD player (you will have to bring a home theater type DVD player and a TV with you too.)
Show judge both disks. You will need to do alot of stuff like this, use EVIDENCE!!!
You can't handle the truth.
In order to successfully reverse engineer a product, you have to have two steps. The first is to study the current product, to understand how it works. The second is to develope a new product that works the same way, without duplicating the specific methods of the current product.
As far as I remember, Jon Johansen explained why the original development of DeCSS was on the Windows platform - because it was the only platform that could run the current product!
Once the developers were satisfied that their code performed the same way as the current product, on the same platform, without duplicating code, they then could port their code to the intended platform - Linux.
This is perfectly sensible, and it's unfortunate that the EFF lawyers present in court could not find a way to explain and demonstrate this to the judge.
I AM, therefore I THINK!
In fact, the Library of Congress suggests that bypassing protection to copy is protected under the DCMA, but bypassing protection to view is illegal:d f
-----------------------------
The Library of Congress interpretation of the DCMA
From http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/legislation/dmca.p
Emphasis changed for this audience.
Section 1201 divides technological measures into two categories: measures that prevent unauthorized access to a copyrighted work and measures that prevent unauthorized copying of a copyrighted work. Making or selling devices or services that are used to circumvent either category of technological measure is prohibited in certain circumstances, described below. As to the act of circumvention itself, the provision prohibits circumvention in the first category of technological measures, but not the second.
This distinction was employed to assure that the public will have the continued ability to make fair use of copyrighted works. Since copying of a work may be a fair use under appropriate circumstances, section 1201 does not prohibit the act of circumvention of a technological measure that prevents copying . By contrast, since the fair use doctrine is not a defense to the act of gaining unauthorized acess to a work, the act of circumventing of a technological measure to gain access is prohibited.
-----------------------------
Later on, seven exceptions to the circumvent-to-view are mentioned -- the right of the Library of Congress to make exceptions through rule-making; for library, archive, and educational nonprofits to decide if they want to buy the work; reverse engineering of computer programs for compatibility purposes; encryption research; protection of minors; personal privacy; and secruity testing.
Frankly, if my interpretation of the LoC's interpretation of the DMCA is correct, our best argument is that css-auth/DeCSS has as its primary purpose the creation of backup copies, not the playing of DVDs.
Steven E. Ehrbar
If we can't sit around and discuss the ethics of laws that will greatly affect our careers (think for a second how this affects software companies, independent programmers, and so forth), then what is the point of free speech? These discussions are exactly what are needed to figure out what the hell to do. It was these so-called "amatuer lawyers" that pointed out in the court room that the DeCSS code was meant for playing DVD's under Linux rather than for illegal copying. The EFF lawyers didn't even catch that one. So much for the professionals.
And exactly who the hell are you to decide what is worth serious discussion or not? Some anonymous coward replying to your message agreed with you, calling this discussion a "circle jerk"... oooo effective argument there. Without this discussion the MPAA lawyers would have a field day and make our lives miserable just because it suits their bottom line. The online community (and the Slashdot community specificly) have shown amazing coordination and organization considering the circumstances in fighting this and publicizing the ramifications of the new law going to effect soon.
Well, ok maybe you're right. Let's just sit back and let Congress legislate whatever it wants according to the convenience to the large few. I mean, what right do we have to sit around and actually talk about serious issues that seriously affect the future development of technology? We've got no imperative to do so, because if we do, it's tantamount to a great big circle jerk. Let's go home folks... nothing important going on here. We're just annoying the important folks and making their lives hard by questioning their reasoning.
i think it's about time all the amateur lawyers on sloth stop trying to tell us how the legal system works, and marking each other up a zillion points.
I don't see you doing anything constructive. All you've contributed is the putting down of those who are trying to do something constructive, namely discussing the legality of a blanket restriction that may put a number of us in the poorhouse (unless of course we want to work for giant media conglomerates, but hey doesn't everyone want to do so, deep down in their hearts of hearts?).
if the judge thought the DMCA is corrupt and unconstitutional (which it is) it is the duty of his position to kill it.
Glad to see you seem to think so. However these sort of things don't happen on their own. It takes effort on the part of the defendants here to prove a law is unconstitutional. A judge has to do nothing if no one thinks he must do otherwise. Law is law, but the reality is a lot murkier, with human nature and all that.
I'd rather be the fool fighting for something I believe in rather than be the fool telling me I'm a fool for doing so.
--- Journals are boring; Go to my web page instead
Hmm, how can there be 6 posts beneath my threshold when I'm at -1?
Erhm, this has already been done. css-auth is the rewritten DVD decoder. But the problem is that it still uses the key from DeCSS, so the DVD-CCA still has the trade secret argument.
Besides this, however, there is the issue of the DMCA. The DMCA certainly applies to DeCSS; but whether or not it would apply to css-auth is slightly more arguable. According to the judge here, it would still apply.
What really needs to be done is to get the DMCA thrown out. It was voted in uninamously by the senate, so write your senators and make sure they know that this is an issue for their constituants!
Our hopes (I'm not full of hops!) now rest with getting the ruling, then getting the judge overturned. I flat gar-en-tee that he will rule for the MPAA, and this will have to go another round.
First, join EFF.
Our next step is to make this case to John Q Public. We do that by telling our friends, neighbors, bosses, strangers, and the drunk in the gutter. In short, everyone.
Next, we write our newspapers, television stations, radio stations, and our elected officials. (As a note, you might let the local officials know you will help with their databases come next election. It is amazing how much talant they need and they don't even know it!)
Starting Friday, Feb. 4. 2K, we stand in front of the movie theater with our signs and the flyer from 2600. We need to have some effect, we have to be noticed, we can't go gently into that good night.
See ya on the picket line!
---
"If brains were radium, the MPAA wouldn't have enough to make a watch dial glow."
Me.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
> Then you win a few million dollars, the lawyers take most of that, then you put ads out so that people who have been affected can get a few dollars.
I fear you're right, but that's rather beside the point. I'm not suggesting a get-rich-quick scheme, I'm suggesting a way to make them stop using region codes.
Now the question is, can region codes be construed to be in violation of any national or international fair trade agreements?
IMO, the reason they're rabid about DeCSS is because it would allow anyone to write a player that ignores the region codes, and loss of the region-code mechanism will cost them far more money than pirating will over the life of the system.
Which is what I mean when I say, "It's the region codes, stupid." The injunctions aren't about piracy, they're about unrestricted playacy. Break up the region code scam and they won't have much reason to press the injunctions.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
At that point, the case will be appealed, and he will be overturned.
Congress and its masters (MPAA) have really made a mess of things with DMCA.
New XFMail home page
IntellectualCapital has on of the most even-handed accounts of the DeCSS controversy and the DMCA that I've seen in the mainstream media. The author concludes, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act "effectively gave [copyright] owners the power to write their own intellectual-property statutes."
That is what this is all boils down to, the efforts of the industry to rewrite copyright law outside the halls of Congress. The Judge's opinion, unfortunately, affirms the ridiculous MPAA legal argument against fair use.
Finally, defendants claim that they are engaged in a fair use under Section 107 of the Copyright Act.27 They are mistaken.
Section 107 of the Act provides in critical part that certain uses of copyrighted works that otherwise would be wrongful are "not . . . infringement[s] of copyright.''28 Defendants, however, are not here sued for copyright infringement.
In other words, since the defendants are being sued for violating the DMCA not for infrigning copyrights, fair use does not exist!
That's the first thing that struck me reading the finding. It deserves massive attention by the community and in the media.
Defendant Roman Kazan alone argues that his conduct falls under Section 512(c) of the Copyright Act,15 which provides limited protection from liability for copyright infringement by certain service providers for information resident on a system or network owned or controlled by them.
...
Section 512(c) provides protection only from liability for copyright infringement.18 Plaintiffs seek to hold defendants liable not for copyright infringement, but for a violation of Section 1201(a)(2), which applies only to circumvention products and technologies. Section 512(c) thus does not apply here.
In other words, if this interpretation of the law holds, Slashdot could be sued and held liable because people have posted the source in comments.
I've seen people scoff at the MPAA's attempt to "sue the Internet." The MPAA doesn't want to kill ISPs, they want to be able to fire off letters to every ISP on the planet forcing them to proactively prevent DeCSS from appearing under threat of lawsuit. We need to win this in court, because the MPAA really does believe it can sue the Internet - and if this interpretation of law holds, they may very well be able to!
So, since this is both a highly controversial law and its brand spanking new, its very likely we can get it overturned. This law is VERY open to interreptation, since the higher courts have not reviewed it yet - and the supreme court certainly has certainly not had its finaly say on this.
The down side is that the issues are really hard to explain to lay persons (which include the judges), I have less faith in the highest court this time than I did with the CDA. The CDA was an easy call: it was unconstitutionally vague. This is far more insidious, its a subtle attack on the first amendment cloaked as an IP law (written to "protect property", which makes it even harder to get a a judge to see the REAL issue at stake here - this judge in the MPAA case thinks this a property case!). So its more likey to confuse the judges and get through thru in favor of the MPAA and those in favor of this law.
Be not confused by the rhetoric of those preaching the virtues of this law, this is a First Amendment Case. This law strikes at the very core of your right to freely express yourself, which is why it must be ruled unconstitutional, or we are all doomed.
Your very rights are on the line here. This is not some Open Source case, or something about DVD players - this is about your right to speak your mind, figure things out and build. Without those things, there can be no innovation, no free discourse and no freedom.
Don't sit by and let this happen. Join the EFF and help win this fight! The price of Freedom is Eternal vigiliance.
--
Python
Python
Why did anyone here post DeCSS? Was it to pirate films? I doubt it -- pirates would want to keep a low profile. Was it to see DVDs on Linux? Maybe, but I don't have Linux on my computer, nor do I have any DVDs to play on it. Even those of you who do, though, didn't need to post the software. But you did, didn't you? Or maybe you just linked to it, or downloaded it from one of the sites, like the gzipped files that are lurking on my hard drive somewhere, still unopened.
So, what does that leave? Only one thing.
It was an act of protest. Wasn't it?
It was for me. I'm complaining about the DVD-CCA, which practiced security-through-obscurity, and now want the government to protect their trade secrets. I'm objecting to the MPAA, which is using its influence to arrest Norwegian teenagers. And I'm protesting the DMCA, which allows these companies to tell me exactly when and how I can use the bits I bought from them. And I think the record shows that is the case for the vast majority of the people who have an opinion here.
The right to free speech is the right to protest, and that's what 99.9% of the people here are doing. And that's the freedom of expression we should be focusing on in these cases.
The only objection that I can see to this is that our actions are causing harm to others -- "fire" in a moviehouse, etc. I don't accept that -- the code's been out and about for months, plenty long enough for anyone to get it. I'm not causing any additional harm, except to the extent that I may cause the plaintiffs to stop their current practices.
(I'm sure there are holes in this argument. Feel free to point them out.)
In closing, I read the transcript and the memorandum, and I don't think this judge is an imbecile. He had strong evidence to support the plaintiff's claims, minimal evidence from the defendants, and a law that seems to say that they're wrong. He made short work of the defence offered because it was poorly supported. He's just interpreting the law as he sees it, and doesn't understand the average /. poster's views on the subject. But I think he could be educated, with the right arguments and the right evidence. (In the transcript, didja notice the point where he called the defendants the plaintiffs? He's used to seeing the big companies on the the other side of the suit.) Here's hoping.
Patrick A. Bowman
Everything on the 2600.com flyer seems fairly calm, collected, non-inflammatory but pursuasive. Great argument for giving out the flyers.
but...Infringing on the Disney Company's visual trademarks and copyrights is not a good way to stay financially secure.
The 2600 flyer has a very legible, very distinct, very simple graphic of Mickey Mouse's face, pasted onto the War Bonds Uncle Sam's body.
In the 80s, during the Iran Hostage crisis, some very crude people expressed their frustrations with very similar images of Mickey Mouse flipping his middle finger at the Ayatollah. "Fuck you, Iran!" read the caption.
Due to *that* infringement then, the Disney Corporation began adding the (C) and/or TM to every instance of their artwork. They *vigorously* protect their corporate image by prosecuting just about every case they find. I mean, every case.
This is similar to my thoughts on the mirror-site issue. If you are going to show that a law stinks, and get support for your cause on a *level-headed*, reasoned approach, then doing *more* things that are in known or potential violation of the existing statutes is very risky. Not only to your own assets, but to the very cause you're trying to support.
[
It is possible, but not with any off-the-shelf DVD ROMS. They have the part of the disc that stores the keys written over with zeros. You couldn't duplicate a DVD onto one of those. I don't think consumer-grade DVD burner software will let you write to those portions of the disc either (although someone could probably write one that does let you do that). Real DVD pirates use commercial-grade equipment and ROMS to copy DVDs. The DMCA has no real effect on them since what they're doing was illegal before the DMCA anyway.
As near as I can tell, the reason they're freaking out is because they think we're all going to start downloading 2GB+ files from each other and watching them on our puters. I think that that is pretty farfetched at this point in time. The number of people who can actually do that is rather insignificant right now. It will certainly become possible at some point in time in the future, but I certainly don't think it can be considered to be the primary use for DeCSS, which is one reason why I think the plaintiffs have a bogus case.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
If it's contract law, that's fine, but only if there is a contract. A customer should have to read and understand a contract in order to purchase a DVD with extreme penalties for non-compliance with the terms. No shrink wrap licences either.
The point I'm trying to make is that in the absence of a binding agreement it is eminently reasonable that I may use a legally obtained copyrighted work for any private means I choose and that I may sell that work if I give up my entire ability to view the original or any significant derivatives. Because this is eminently reasonable and indeed legal, any restrictions on the technology which enables me to exercise my freedom should be viewed with extreme scepticism.
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
At first this discussion ammused me. The first mentions of the legal action on Slashdot struck me as silly. How could the industry claim that decrypting data in-place, that was easy to copy in the first place equated to copyright violation? Isn't the copyright violation the distribution of encrypted or unencrypted coppies?
Then I started to get mad. People are taking these crackpots seriously, and trying to enshrine their dirty tricks as a reasonable business model.
Now I'm just confused. The more I think about it the less sense it makes. We're practically begging to be allowed to spend money. If they simply give in an produce source code for a Linux kernel module that decrypts DVDs, they'd see a short-term spike in sales and then it'd be business as usual. What are they afraid of?
I have about 20 DVDs. If I could view them under Linux I'd probably have about 60. I don't want pirated movies, and let's face it, the people who do, aren't their customers. Sure, I know people who would take a pirated copy of Shakes the Clown for free if someone handed it to them, but that doesn't mean that the industry just lost a Shakes sale. I also know dozens of people who pre-ordered The Matrix DVD, knowing full well that they could have gotten it "through channels" from Asia for less money. I want the real deal. I want to be able to return it if the "White Rabbit scenes" are broken. I want my A/V fix. Don't they realize they've won? All they can do now is alienate customers.
Perhaps someone should write the compliment of DeCSS. We should come up with DVD content authoring tools that allow artists to cut their own DVDs. Isn't this what the opposition wants? Don't they want to protect the interests of these poor artists? That's what they keep claiming in court, and we know they wouldn't lie.
let alone arrest everyone outside the US. Guess how much difference a US ruling means to me...
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
While we're at it, let us outlaw:
-pens: they can be used to copy books
-pencils: see pens
-white-out fluid: This can obviously be used to alter the content of copyrighted material.
-singing: only the original artist is allowed to reproduce the song/whatever. singing in public could make copyrighted material available for everyone who happens to walk by.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
These days, a lot of graphics cards come with software DVD players that contain valid decryption keys. If DeCSS allowed us to use these keys instead of the key that was cracked in Norway then there would be a ready legal avenue for use of the code.
We've purchased the right to use these keys when we purchased our graphics cards, and I can't see how the judge could claim that said keys can be used only with their original players, given that there is no such restriction mentioned in the shrink-wrapped licenses accompanying the cards so the keys are under no specific additional protection.
Note that copying keys within a given computer has to be legal otherwise the software DVDs wouldn't be able to access them for decrypting the DVD content. In the absence of restrictions to the contrary tying the keys to the software-DVD players, DeCSS could use these keys in exactly the same way for playing our legally purchased movies, as long as the keys stay on the owner's machinery.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Much though I disagree with the MPAA / DVD-CCA, and joined the EFF last month on the back of the recent cases, I disagree that source code is always free speech. The law provides exceptions to freedom of speech for such areas as trade secrets and national security.
It seems odd that the law in this area is moving in a direction that is going to make it impossible for people to obey it in the normal course of their lives, if they wish to play their legally purchased DVDs on their Linux or *BSD systems.
In effect, by creating rules that do not follow commonsense, they are making the law appear out of touch with reality and hence irrelevant.
There's an analogy in the motorway speed limit legislation in the UK, where the law ends up being seen as irrelevant to people's needs. (The average free cruising speed on the southern motorways is 85-90mph, but the legal limit is 70; barely 5-10% of drivers drive that slow.)
At the end of the day, the law requires consensus to operate, so stupid laws become unenforceable. So be it.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
The friend that I mentioned also said that the EFF attorney's made a big mistake in trying to introduce expert testimony in the TRO hearing. These things are supposed to be brief and they are not a mini trial.
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
Why can't we let two fucked up systems fight out our battles for us?
Why doesn't someone patent the CSS method? It's not currently patented, beause they didn't want to give out the information. Now why doesn't someone (other than the DVD-CCA) go ahead and patent it?
If the patent went through (which knowing those bozos at the patent office it probably would), wouldn't the DVD-CCA have to present evidence of prior art (read: source code) showing they created it first?
Wouldn't the prior art become part of the public domain after being introduced at a hearing? Regardless, while the patent would be being appealed it would be part of the public domain.
Anyone see any serious flaws with this plan?
Given how effective the defense attorneys were in this case, perhaps it's time for a new defense team...
:b
presenting, SLASHDOT! Yes, we hook slashdot up to a text-to-speech program and have it present our arguments.
I can see it now! "First Post, your honor."