Slashdot Mirror
The Village Voice On The DVD Wars
Phantom writes: "The Village Voice has great story (here) about DeCSS, 2600.com, and the legal battle about to ensue. Looks like the MPAA may be in some trouble. " Well written piece - things have been quiet here for a while, but I think both sides have been lining up necessary support. The lawyer, Martin Garbus, is going to be defending Eric Corley aka Emmanuel Goldstein, and is a /very sharp/ cookie.
Periodically, I feel obligated to remind people that the famous phrase "shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic" (actual quote) is not only prone to abuse, it was born of judicial abuse
;->
Justice Holmes coined this memorable phrase in Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919). Schenck printed 15,000 leaflets: the front contained the text of Section I of the 13th
Amendment, and the flip side of the leaflet had phrases and slogans like: "Do not submit to intimidation", "Assert your Rights", "your right to assert your opposition to the draft", and "If you do not assert and support your rights, you are helping to deny or disparage rights which it is the solemn duty of all citizens and residents of the United States to retain."
Schenck spent 10(?) years in jal for merely telling his citizens their constitutional rights The 'fire in a crowded theater' argument was used to allow the Supreme Court uphold his conviction
This is not a precedent that should be blithely tossed around without noting the history of abuse that it engendered.
This court ruling, and others explicitly based on it led to the Pulitzer Prize winning author Upton Sinclair was arrested for trying to read the text of the First Amendment at a union rally (1923) and many others being arrested for belonging to, or participating in, groups espousing views regarded as "radical" by the government in this period (I'm talking about unions and religious societies, not the Communist Party or subversive groups)
In short -- "the crowded theater" can and has been something as seemingly innocuous as Slashdot, and the cry was not false Better put a lawyer - a criminal lawyer - on retainer before expressing any opinions in public
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If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
One thing I repeatedly saw in this article is the phrase 'get it', as in certain people (Garbus, hackers, etc.) 'get it' and certain other people (the MPAA) don't 'get it'. I love it when a group of people on either side tell others how things should be and when the other side doesn't agree, they say, "You just don't 'get it', man!" Personally, I think Corley's a numbskull. The court tells him to quit distributing DeCSS so he goes out and provides links to it. It's not a hard argument to make that he's at least aiding the distribution of the material. It would've been just as easy to let others provide links. God knows there's enough sites, and hell, all you have to do is link to the filed briefs.
The MPAA's a bunch of morons as well. The article points this out as well as they are attacking the author of the DeCSS code when they could be attacking known piraters in Asia who are actually producing illegal material.
As for the argument of free speech, well, hell, I guess I don't 'get it'. I understand why linking as an activity should be considered free speech (possibly, although the court orders people to shut up all the time, and when they break that law they're found in contempt), but DeCSS as free speech? Are you saying that all code should be free speech? If I write a virus that destroys half a hard drive and distribute it and some government or company criminally prosecutes me, can I claim my free speech rights or is it still illegal? I sure as hell hope it's the latter, because code is not the same as speech. Words may hurt feelings, but they can't damage physical property or rights (except in the case of libel or slander). Code has the potential to be much more destructive.
Personally, I think DeCSS is the wrong battle to be fighting for both parties. But then again, I don't claim to 'get it'.
Perhaps the best hope is to compare cracking code with criticism, parody or satire which are already protected. All relate some original work (CSS), and are published without the consent of the original author (MPAA) and usually in the face of his vigorous objections.
The lawyer seems to have worked out an intriguing twist on the DeCSS case. While the DMCA is ostensibly about regulating copyright and hence well within the legitimate purview of Congress, it does have First Amendment implications. The real question will be whether the prohibition on publishing cracking code is seen as a necessary limitation on Freedom of Speech.
Freedom of Speech is _not_ absolute. You can't falsely shout "Fire" in a crowded theatre. Nor can you slander or libel others. The issue will boil down to whether the cracking code is a separate work. We all know it is, but do Judges? They will have to be convinced, and some have shown themselves capable [Penfield].
I went a bought a Creative DXR3 decoder card as a package part of Encore. It is based on a Holywood chipset, and acording to them, this is a very good thing.
I have been using Windows 98 for some time now, as I am an avid Quake 3 player, but with the recent changes in NVidia's beta Linux drivers, I can go back to Linux for this.
Windows 98 is really getting on my nerves - I cannot stand the crashes any longer, and have investigating alternatives. There is one common problem (apart from ther not-so-big problem of NT4 and DirectX 7), and that is: DVD playing!
There JUST AINT NO SUPPORT FOR NON_WIN98 users!
So I'm basically stuffed. Creative has no info on their site regarding this, leaving me, the customer, totally in the dark.
If it was not for my extensive movie collection, I would have been running Linux long ago. (as my primary games machine - since I already do most of my work on Linux)
I have a large collection of original DVD's, including quite a couple that our local distributors have no intention of importing. I don't think I will ever pirate it, and see all this ZONE shit as really a drag... fortunately I hack my drive and software with Remote Selector 1.74, or otherwise I would really be stuffed.)
So I really really hope this DeCSS case will get things sorted out propperly... as I have paid quite substansial (3rd world income, you see...) amounts for this, and am totally legal, and for my troubles I get screwed.
Hehe... talk a lot, don't I.
'nough said.
I do sympathize with the DeCSS cause, but DeCSS (or any similar program) per se is of no use to me. I don't watch Hollywood movies. (And rarely non-Hollywood ones.) I have better things to do in my life.
Now moderate me down as troll or something.
--
Industrial space for lease in Flatlandia.
The lawyer, Martin Garbus, is going to be defending Eric Corley aka Emmanuel Goldstein, and is a /very sharp/ cookie.
Look a little further in the article and you'll see that there is a good chance that Time Warner can stop Garbus from defending Corley:
On April 25, attorneys for the movie association filed a motion to disqualify Garbus from the case. Garbus's firm, it turns out, represents Scholastic in an unrelated case. Time Warner, a member of the association, owns Scholastic, and you're not supposed to defend and attack the same client at the same time. This technicality may be enough to kick Garbus out of the suit. "He probably has a 50-50 chance," speculated one legal observer close to the action.
That would seriously suck. I appreciate the hard work of the EFF attornies, but Garbus has an awesome track record and is well respected in the legal system. Losing his support will be a great loss to Corley and anyone else that cares about things like fair use.
numb
This is one of the most popular examples used when people talk about the limits on freedom of speech. While it's a valid example, I once heard someone tell an amusing tale about it.
I was talking to an old friend several years ago, who at the time was majoring in psycology. She told me about this one study she did concerning people's perceptions of catchphrases.
One of the ones they asked people about was some variation on "you can't shout 'fire!' in a crowded theater". The results were interesing, and showed how this particular phrase is perhaps becoming a little antiquated.
- A majority of people attempted to clarify the statement, most often asking, "You mean, like a movie theater?" (So much for the arts.)
- An overwhelming majority (90%+, IIRC) stated that if they were in a crowded (movie) theater and someone shouted "fire!", if alarms weren't going off, they would most likely completely ignore the person. (A significant portion of the respondants stated something along the lines of "it'd probably just be kids.")
I guess it takes more to incite a panic in today's jaded society. Perhaps it's time for a new metaphor for the argument of limits on free speech?"You know, there are limits on free speech. I mean, c'mon, it's like, you can't just reverse-engineer content-protection mechanisms and post the code on the Internet or something." :)
Assignment #1-Read this article.
Assignment #2-Read it again.
This how you write a properly researched, low rhetoric article about a tech/sociological subjet. See how separate subjects aren't intermixed as if they were equal.
Assignment #3-Read the article again.
Assignment #4-Read the NYT DeCSS article
Assignment #5-Go back and read that awful mp3.com 'article' that you wrote last week.