DeCSS Litigation Update

Winston Smith writes "Law News Network has posted this article on the current status of DeCSS litigation and how a Connecticut intellectual property attorney, with the help of Yale, Harvard and Quinnipiac law students, is fighting the MPAA." For more background on this issue, read our last news posting on the MPAA DVD issue.

Comments

Re:Copy protection?

[Anonymous Coward]

DVD players are crippled to stop you playing discs in countries where the movie studios don't want you to.

They claim this is to prevent people in other regions from watching a DVD from a region where the film already played its run while the film is still coming to or hasn't yet hit local theaters. I might agree with this if the region lockouts expired after a resonable amount of time but, WHY ARE FUCKING 50+ YEAR OLD MOVIES COMING OUT WITH REGION LOCKOUTS ENABLED? Kinda lays waste to the distribution-scheme argument, eh?

Or maybe it's to prevent competition with licensed local distributors/translators. Well, when these local distributors "port" a DVD to their region, they often cut out the extras, change the audio format (5.1 -> 2ch stereo), muck with the screen formatting, add in hard subtitles, edit for content, ..., in short, IT'S NOT THE SAME PRODUCT ANYMORE, so how can it 'compete' with the local version.

Third, lots of films NEVER SEE A LOCAL RELEASE in other regions. How long is reasonable for me to wait "in case" the title is picked up locally? 5 years? 10 years? 50 years? forever? I import a lot of anime from Japan to the US that will never see the light of day here.

Region coding violates fair use, IMO, and I am doing everything in my power to circumvent it. And not through lobby efforts or other bullshit that'll take decades to never to happen. Region coding is wrong now. So I have DeCSS, as well as several hacked PC and stand alone players.

I pay for all my DVD imports. They're legitimate copies. The original IP holders got their fair cut of the sale. Isn't that what all this region coding stuff is supposed to protect? I am following the spirit of the law. So what's the problem? Fuck you MPAA. Am I being wrongfully arrogant here?

Re: Access Control or Use Control?

[PhilHibbs]

The American Libraries Association's comments point out an even better rebuttal of the MPMA's case. Access control refers to prevention of acquisition of a copyrighted work, not use of that work once it has been acquired. Access and use are separate and distinct terms in copyright law. As CSS is not an access control mechanism, but a use control mechanism, bypassing it isn't illegal. Anyway, under the "first sale" principle, the copyright holder has no right to control the use of a work once it has been sold to a customer, and the DMCA has a get-out clause that says that no existing rights should be considered to be revoked by the DMCA.

Copy protection?

[Ed Avis]

The article contains a common error - 'a computer program which removes DVD copy-protection'. As I understand it, DeCSS has nothing to do with copying. It removes the playback 'protection'.

DVD players are crippled to stop you playing discs in countries where the movie studios don't want you to. However, in most countries copyright law does not allow them to impose such restrictions (IANAL), so use of DeCSS is not illegal. In fact, it is just letting you exercise rights granted by law.

Equal rights for consumers...

[CodeShark]

In my view, the deCSS and DCMA battles are more like the civil rights battles of the late '50s and the '60s than we might realize. Here's my comparison:

• Slavery was outlawed and supposedly equal rights based on race were guaranteed by constitutional amendments during and shortly after the Civil War. However, for the next 100 years, the local, state, and federal governments and courts allowed the so-called "Jim Crow" laws to deny legal equality.
• The movie and recording industry via the DCMA )and the software companies via the UCITA) are seeking to create and enforce rights that are ultimately anti-consumer, telling me what I may view /listen to / analyze /reproduce data and how I may view / listen / analyze / reproduce data -- not based on technological patent, but on copyright.
• This is a fundamental change, because if I buy a book which is copyrighted, I am free to read it whenever, however, and for whatever purpose I can think of. Within "fair use" limits I can quote from it, skip pages, cross out sections, etc.

But if that wasn't bad enough, the industries are attacking the Net citizenry as if we are citizens with lesser rights -- by the broad based attacks on the freedom to disseminate information via the web.

But if the critical mass of people do not move the political forces to protect our rights, we may spend the next 100 years fighting for personal vs. corporate rights.

Re:But why the error?

[DaveHowe]

You're right, of course... but why the heck is this fact going completely unrecognized by both the media and the court? I realize I'm a geek, but the idea that you can't protect against somebody copying a disc bit-by-bit doesn't seem that complex to me.
So far, it appears to be because the lawyers have tried to fight it on free-speech grounds, where it is a thorny and borderline problem. even the densest judge would start to get a glimmer of sense if you presented him with the following:

1. show him piece of paper with the letters "y3oo9 294oe" on it
2. tell him it is a message in code - that without the secret key, you can't decode it
3. get a second blank sheet, and write on it "y3oo9 294oe"
4. show him that, without understanding the code, you have successfully copied it to a blank sheet - so that the copy can be used to decode the message as well as the original could

Mind you, judges can be pretty stubborn if they want to be :+)
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