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Interview with DeCSS Lawyer
Feed Mag currently is running an interview with Martin Garbus. Garbus is going to be the lead litigator in the attempt to stop the gag order on 2600 regarding the dicussion of DeCSS. Garbus is one extremely intelligent man, and the interview really shows that.
The authors of viruses can be prosecuted because that code may present a real danger.
Actually, writing a virus isn't illegal, but releasing a virus is. When they finally found the guy who wrote CHS, he wasn't prosecuted because he only wrote it, someone else put it out there. Of course, this was in Taiwan, not the US. And the US is pretty anal about enforcing 'anti-hacking' laws
Think about it like building a bomb. Designing the bomb would be like writing the code, building the bomb would be like compiling it. But you aren't breaking the law until you blow something up.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
More on point, you can be held responsible for yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theatre, but you can not be prevented from yelling it in the first place. Prior restraint is greatly discouraged by the Supreme Court.
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
Oh yes, the good old days. I still remember how excited I was the day I went out and upgraded to a 2400 bps modem. Almost as exciting as the day I upgraded to a 40 MB hard drive.
But still, nothing compares to finally getting enough cash saved up (i was a poor college student back then) to go out and buy a monitor that could display, of all things, COLOR!
It's almost sad, in a way. I love the fact that the technology has come as far as it has, but I do miss those days. None of the new toys coming out today seem as interesting and fun as that first color monitor did.
You'll have to wait until real 3D displays come out. It can take a while though.
As a user of glasses I'm wondering why there isn't small semi-transparent SVGA displays integrated in my lenses. Imagine: one 640x480 display for each eye - true flicker-free 3D. And you could watch those displays while doing other things because you could see through them.
Back to the topic I wouldn't try to compare DeCSS to VCR because DeCSS doesn't allow you to save anything, it just decrypts data files of special kind. On the other hand right to quote (from DVD) could be one good argument.
_________________________
_________________________
Spelling and grammar mistakes left as an exercise for the reader.
Actually looking around the net shows that you can get imported DVD-RW drives now (unfortunately most consumer level DVD players can't play these, but new ones will be able to) for about $3500+ now. Media is about 50 dollars a pop. Now I'm sure this will come down (if they even manage to sell these in the US). And the key to all this is I have never conclusively been shown that you need anything special to duplicate a DVD byte by byte. And if you duplicate it will it still play? It is still my understanding that the encryption on the DVD is about "Content Protection", not "Copy Protection."
Now in respect to you already paying a tax on that media. That is not true. Computer CD-R media is quite a bit cheaper than Audio CD-R media. Why? Because your not paying a tax on the Computer CD-R media. Nor did I pay a tax on my hard drive to store movies on. So the MPAA/RIAA isn't getting their percentage of it, and their pissed off.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for decss. I want very badly to not have to reboot to windows to watch dvd's on my laptop here. Why because I believe that after paying what I did for the DVD, I should get to choose what I view it on. Of course if you listen to the MPAA it's not because I wanna view it under linux, it's because I wanna pirate it and ship it out all over the planet. This is just as stupid as saying sue the gun maker because someone used a gun to kill someone with. Or sue GM cuz a car they build used by a drunk driver killed someone. Of course reality says that this is happening. I just think it's NUTS!
Let's get down to the true heart of this case. The DVD group is afraid of losing control. They have a monoply control over the movies and the viewers. And it's being threatened.
Plus on top of that, look around the net for movies in DivX/VCD/MPG/AVI etc. format. Last I checked 90% of them are movies that are currently in the theater, versus movies ripped from DVD. It appears that the appeal for these movies goes down once they are actually released on DVD.
According to an order Kaplan signed today, the parties and interested members of the press will be in court on June 6 to argue this one.
Openlaw will have as much detail as we can get.
-- Openlaw: Fighting for fair use and the public domain
>even putting destructive software one single,
>stand-alone box that does not belong to you is a
>crime, because you are damaging somebody's
>property.
Oh boy, the OEMs gonna be in trouble when somebody finds out they've been installing Windows all these years!
(Sorry, couldn't resist.)
--
Does narcissism count as a hobby? --Shawn Latimer
Unfortunately they stopped publishing online before we had to change engines and swap camshafts.
Of course if they had come up with a better encryption in the first place . . .
and the moral of the story IS.
~ppppppppö
No. Ultimately, the injunctions will be lifted and DeCSS will be freely available and publishable.
The damage will be done when they get an interim injunction, while they "gather evidence".
=====
This message is brought to you by the numbers Thirty One, Thirty Three and Seven
Is a script free speech 'cause it's text, or it not because it's executable?
When someone yells "Stop" or goes limp, or taps out, the fight is over.
Pillage and plunder pillage and plunder. When do we get on the rape and murder detail!
The lawyer seeems really smart. I didn't know that the linking think was still an issue, because there are literally thousands of links or places to download. This guy seems to have done his research. Hopefully he'll be able to help 2600 out on this. For example, all the decss code here.
I can second the recommendation of the Cryptome docs. Most of the docs related to this lawsuit are at their section on their DVD-DeCSS section. However, one interesting item is squirreled away here.
After having read many of the transcripts, I've gained quite a bit of respect for Judge Kaplan in the case. Garbus hasn't impressed me. He's mostly come off as evasive and ill-prepared.
Damon
Work as if you don't need the money,
Love as if you've never been hurt, and
Dance as if no one's watching.
So, rather than appear foolish afterward, I renounce seeming clever now.
BZZZT!
You've described a copyright, not a patent. If a process or device is patented, the patent owner owns it, even if you built it on your own from spare parts found in your back yard, with no reference to their designs. Period.
Copyright on the other hand covers only the right to copy or create derivative works, so cleanroom techniques work around it. If you put a thousand monkeys in a room with typewriters, and they pound out the script to "Battlefield Earth" without having seen it before, it's yours! All you have to do is convince the judge that it's a coincidence.
(Ok, I admit, it's unlikely it will be an exact copy. The monkeys would probably improve it.)
What if the only reason that the MPAA fought/fights so hard against DeCSS is so that it WOULD become so well known? Free publicity, and correct me if I'm wrong, but don't they make much of their money on the selling of the DVDs themselves, not the players? EGAD, what crafty little schnooks...
Ok, ok, not very likely. Had to exercise my consipirsy center in the ol' brain.
AHHHHHHH! I'm burning with goodness again!
- Reakk, Sluggy Freelance
Isn't this what got slashdot in trouble with MS? I mean, the only post that was clearly illegal was the one that posted copyrighted material... I'm not referring to the other ones. Won't someone get an injunction against andover/slashdot to try to remove that post?
Erf...
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
AOL IM: jeanlucpikachu
[o]_O
howbout a mailto link to an ftpmail server?
When someone yells "Stop" or goes limp, or taps out, the fight is over.
Here's a question: if you could start from scratch and define a new form of IP just to cover software, what would it look like?
Here's my half-baked idea: short-duration copyright, with source code held in escrow as a condition of obtaining the protection (perhaps the source could be distributed with the program compressed and encrypted, and the agency granting the protection would release the decryption key after 5 years or whatever so you wouldn't be stuck with an unusable binary if the vendor disappeared).
While many of the libertarians on /. (including myself) may see the merit of the "code is free speech" defense, the fact is that it has little legal merit.
I'm not a libertarian, but the code==speech has a great deal of legal merit. It has precedent in two different circuit courts (though not the circuit that the DeCSS case was filed in).
Free Speech dosn't shield you from the effects your speech has ergo the "Fire in a theatre" canonical example. But it should shield you from prior restraint of speech in all but the most extreme situations. The judge realizes the speech implications of the case and has moved up the trial date from December to June or July. The preliminary injunction should also be lifted for this very reason. That motion has not been heard yet.
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
In the first sentence,"14k modem" is a measure of time past; read "7 years" or so... In this context, "now it takes 30 seconds" clearly makes sense, since "now" means with cable, adsl, etc.
\
Try reading a bit more of the history...
No it's not the Cascading Style Sheets thing, its the basic _authentication_ algorithm.
DF
Think of libel or slander; just because you have a right to free speech does NOT mean you are completely immune from responsibility for its repercussions. If you say something that is wholly untrue about someone, specifically for the purpose of defaming them, you are not going to be protected by any free speech rights. Similarly, if you write code specifically to destroy data, cost people money, and negatively impact their lives, you are likewise not going to be protected by any free speech rights.
Note - that was only the authentication algorithm.
DF
http://www.theregister.co.uk/000525-000013.html
:) Amusing that the BBC got taken along that far, not to mention 80% of slashdot..
Heh.
BilldaCat
Slightly off topic, but I wanted to submit this suggestion to /.'ers:
Just wondering if any of you folks have considered
ways which hackers/users could benifit from the draconian copywrite laws like DMCA. Here's one quick example:
Host a website from which people can download, say, DeCSS. However to get to the code, viewers
must agree to a click-through contract whereby
they give up all rights to any motion pictures
they (or those they represent) own. Thus MPAA could never view such a site.
This is a far-fetched example but you get the idea. There are a lot of things which hackers would agree to which big corporations would not.
I know this goes against the spirit of freedom in software, but until DMCA is repealed or found unconstitutional, we may find cause, in certain cases to "fight fire with fire"
-C.M.
That's right. This is /.
Slashdot: The Truth is out there. But it's an AC post, nobody's moderated it up yet, and it's being buried in First Posts and petrified grits...
-----
The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
"The Source will be with you... Always."
I just got an offer in the mail to buy DVDs directly from a major motion picture company... I enjoyed gluing the postage-paid reply envelop to a brick and sending it back with the message: "Long live DeCSS" Several thousands of those would let the MPAA releazie the truth that they have declared war on their customers!
How could this possibly work, unless you had enough money to stand toe-to-toe with the MPAA? The fact remains that laws and rulings are for the most part bought, not voted or fought for, and unless you have the cash, you don't count. And if you DO have the cash, chances are you're just as big a problem as the people you're fighting.
Gods, I sound like a communist.
-Hentai [in vita non pacem est]
If I had the correct hardware (which I'm sure is expensive right now) couldn't I make an exact (bit for bit) copy of a DVD like you can do with a CD? I know I would still need a DVD Player/Decrypter to play it, but would it be any different from the original? The way I see it, DeCSS only restricts what you can use to play back a DVD (and also the ability to make digital conversions to other formats). If I have to compress a video to a format to distribute on a PC, is anyone going to notice that it went analog first? Furthermore, isn't it possible to use an encrypted DVD stream with a utility that makes it look like it's coming from a DVD?
So, isn't the MPAA just trying to take away my ability to view DVD's I've already paid for? Don't my personal rights outweigh the coporate profits? I mean, I could use my computer to crack the pentagon, but they haven't taken it from me yet.
link to the story
I came up with an idea a few months ago (even posted it here on Slashdot) but no one took it seriously. I'll summarize it...
Premise: the CSS scrambling scheme is not patented. Nobody owns it. A case can be made, using DMCA, to prevent people from using its inverse (descrambling), but not scrambling.
Action: Create a CSS-scrambled DVD. Do not sign any agreements with MPAA or DVD-CCA in order to get the info. Specifically, do not grant them any authorization to circumvent your protection.
Conclusion: Every single DVD player on the market becomes a DMCA violator, since it circumvents the protection. DVD-CCA is also a DMCA violator, since by licensing CSS, it "traffics in tools to circumvent."
Nobody has taken my idea seriously, though. As far as I can tell, the only weak link is using CSS to scramble, since some might say CSS is protected by trade secret. When DeCSS loses its trade secret status, though (and I think this is inevitable), then CSS could be inferred/REd from DeCSS. This it's curtains. All you need then is a single DVD without a pre-burned key track, and you can start suing everyone left and right, or negotiate authorization fees (assuming DMCA is still standing by then).
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Even if such a license were enforcable, the RIAA and the MPAA would simply purchase a new law from congress post haste (a relatively inexpensive proposition), which would then make the license unenforcable, probably retroactively.
As to your first point, I don't think your strategy would succeed. If you put up just a link, or a decoy, then either (1) you've disclosed that fact, and no one would click through, or (2) you've concealed that fact, and the contract is unenforceable on the ground of fraud.
As to your second point, there are Fifth Amendment limitations on Congress' power to abridge a person's rights under existing contracts, though I wouldn't dismiss the possibility entirely.
Today, if you have a Gnome Terminal screen you can "cat" a file with a link in it. The text then is just being displayed on the screen, so no program other than Gnome Terminal is involved.
Move your pointer over a URL (http://wilcoxon.org/) and notice the pointer changes from an arrow to a pointing hand, and the URL is underlined. Hold down the CTRL key and push the right mouse button -- and you'll see that menu has an option to open the URL in a browser.
So already you can chase a URL which is not in HTML, merely in a text file.
would be to here. :-)
--
not plane, nor bird, nor even frog...
So anyone who can play a DVD doesn't need DeCSS to copy it :-). It's like trying to ban footballs because they can be kicked through windows.
Somebody neary put a gag on this item.... :-)
--
It could be coffe.... or it could just be some warm brown liquid containing lots of caffeen.
At least it'll get me through the night.
I certainly hope someone can smack the DVD industry. Never underestimate the industry's ability to give consumers the fat shaft as often as humanly possible.
Fook
The price we pay for immortality... is death. Narnia The Great Fall
Who had the money to initiate an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft? Only the U.S. government backed by our tax dollars.
The day every american pays 20% of their annual income to a company is the day that company becomes more powerful than the government.
feed story
the memorandum order (from 2600)
<//-------------//> /. but you can tell it was designed by programmers..."
"I like
What if the MPAA had simply ignored DeCSS and done nothing at all about it? Mr. Garbus makes a good point in that DeCSS probably wouldn't have spread nearly as quickly if not for the publicity caused by the lawsuit. It's entirely likely that it would have faded into the background until the day a linux DVD player based on the code emerged. It strikes me as trying to kill dandelions by cutting off the seed heads, not only do you not kill the weed, you spread the seeds farther than they would have propagated by themselves.
jim
I've wrestled with reality for 35 years and I'm happy to say, I finally won out - Elwood P. Dowd
6th Circuit Court: Code Is Speech
I understand where both parties are coming from. On one hand you have the Constitutionaly given right to say whatever the hell you feel like without the worry of prosicution, while on the other you do have to protect people's (including companies) private rights intact.
These companies have the right to make a profit off of their products. Granted they have a tendancy to overcharge the customer and destroy anyone who attempts to damage their profits. But hell, we all live in this capitalistic, consummeristic society and if we didn't like it we'd move to China.
However, we also have the press and the internet. Two groups were it is believed that we can not be quashed for what we say. Still, that doesn't make them right. One is a more proffesional invironment that I see as being too tainted by big buisiness and the other an unrully mass or rioters.
Then you have to add in the Crypto-Kids. Cryptography is practically an open challange to the denizens of our technical society and they like to talk to each other. Something like this was bound to happen.
Don't think I'm leaning more to the MPAA's side, because I think that the digital era needs some new rules that allow more freedom, not more restriction. But, we, as the possible offenders, need to realize our own boundries.
Keep Cracking, just keep it a little more quiet!
Capitalism Served Fresh Daily
Why is this difficult to understand?
You cannot write a program in a group without discussion.
You cannot discuss a program fully without code.
EOT
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
hahahahah SWEET! And to think I used to believe that 14.4 actually referred to kbps!
I agree. What's the difference between a link and a URL anyway? Not much. It would be pretty simple to program a web browser which automagically "linkized" anything it found which looked like a URL. Outlook Express does this with emails already!
Ok, since you acknowledge that currently, copies are more expensive than originals, I'll let that go for now, although I think it is a very good reason for lifting the injunction against 2600 since any damage that could currently be done will be extremely insignificant.
I was pointing out that currently the only remotely viable method of copying dvds produces an inferior product, since you have to re-encode them with divx or some other codec in order to end up with something of a reasonable size. But you are correct, it will be easier to copy them when we have 2TB hard drives and 100GB removeable disks, for prices that are comparable to todays hard drives and zip disks. And yes, we should focus on our rights to access content that we have purchased in any manner we like, just as we have done with books, videotapes, cassettes, cds, and any other media you care to name. Only now are they trying to take those rights away, even though, as you point out, the DMCA explicitly states that it does not remove those rights.
In short, you're right. I was taking the short-term view of the matter in my post. Probably because I just finished reading the amicus brief and was focused on the 2600 injunction which was put in place ostensibly to stop rampant "piracy".
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
On the other hand, if you haul a bomb to the middle of a stadium, wrap it around a cardboard box, crawl into the box, detonate it, and stand up and wave to the crowd then you're not likely to have any trouble in court -- if you followed appropriate procedures for that jurisdiction.
There are bombs, and then there are bombs...
Noone sues gun companies for making guns that are used to kill
Oh, yes, that's been done quite recently. They also sue tobacco companies for making cigarettes. The difference here is that gun companies and tobacco companies have deep pockets which means more money for lawy--um, victims. 2600 and Napster don't...
* And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."
No kidding. Bad moderator. Take away all his points.
I think Jerry doesn't have much to say about it... Being dead and all...
Hey Rob, Thanks for that tarball!
"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion." - Jed Babbin
(As we have worldwide readership, I'll clarify that I am referring to a telephone commercial which features an operatic diva hurling her spear at, and impaling, the cell phone which some dolt is using during the opera.)
Uh... except of course that Linda _does_ have a point - one of the key elements of the eToy(s) case was the fact that eToy had been _using_ their name longer than eToys had, even though eToys had purchased the right to the mark from a company who owned the mark before eToy started using it. There is no question, in my mind, of who has been using "Chunky M(o)(u)nk(e)y" longer.
You are right, however, that the mere fact that a business cannot survive without its trademark does not make that trademark "famous".
If their trademark is "famous", though, I'm afraid they may have exactly the rights they claim to, however much that sucks.
-=Best Viewed Using [INLINE]=-
Well, see, this is a problem. Obviously, the link was useful. It made the story more convenient to find. Equally obviously, it was not 5 points' worth of convenience. Maybe it should have been a 2 or a 3. But when you're Meta-Moderating, you can't really tell which moderator you're metamodding. So how can you punish an arbitrary one, in the hopes that it was the one who made it a 5?
Switch the . and the @ to email me.
Am I the only one who thinks that the real reason the MPAA is fighting DeCSS is precisely to control the how, when, and where of viewing copyrighted content? Am I the only one who envisions a brave new world in which you can no longer *buy* books, but must license the content for a limited time and for specific purposes?
We talk about how we live in the Information Age, but noone seems to understand how that fact will change our society and its laws. When our societies were land-based and agricultural, the owners of the land organized society in such a way as to protect their own interests at the cost of the poor saps who worked the land. It stands to reason that in the Information Age, the owners of the information (i.e., copyright holders) will do the same.
Picture yourself as an Information-Age serf and you will have a clear idea of what the MPAA has in mind. We are presented with two choices: lie back and enjoy it, or become authors ourselves and use our copyright/copyleft authority set up an alternative to their vision of the future.
But here's what gets me. My understanding is that the case(s) have been on hold while Mr. valenti is too busy to testify.
I believe that Mr. Valenti made himself too busy to give the pirates time to figure out how to start pirating. The MPAA knew no DeCSS oriented piracy was oging on then, but just needed time to wait until the pirates did what pirates do.
Now, with DeCSS ripped DiVX movies, the MPAA has new amunititon to strike down DeCSS with.
True, it's my own personal conspiracy theory, but it's good, ain't it?
>Get the "other side" on ABC, NBC, CBS, etc
Just hoping that it will creep up there after it makes the rounds of the likes of Wired and Feed and Salon.
>Jack Valenti's propoganda
Anyone else happen to catch this shining example of humanity on the tube the other night (God help me, but he looks like a slicked-down car salesman)? CNN headline news was running a bit about some university had done a study of G-rated movies and cone to the conclusion that there was a considerable amount of violence in some of these movies and the MPAA should consider maybe adding more information to the rating system to reflect violence in G-rated movies. (which, I don't completely agree with anyway, but...)
Valenti's response? Well, the movie rating system has been working just fine for many years and we did a poll of parents recently and 87% of them said they were moderately-satisfied to mostly-satisfied with the rating system's ability to inform them of a motion picture's content.
Translation: This is not our biggest problem right now so bugger off!
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
This is just the same issue. Let them prove monetary damage when /. can prove the "Slashdot"-effect has suddenly made the magazine stupid rich -- or something..
/. should be shot for this!!
It's probably a breach of distribution of copyrighted material though. So it's illegal and immoral and
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
It's known that a troll has been impersonating Steve Woston on Slashdot. This is NOT THE REAL Steve Woston!!!
Thanks all, please visit Steve's site and see what he has to say about the issue.
no sig
Code can't run itself anymore than a shopping list can do the buying for you.
God I wish I had penny for every time somebody said there is no reason computers cannot be easy to use.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
The fact that code presents danger is somewhat irrelevant to the free speech defense.
The landmark case on this was a case about 60 years ago involving a book about nuclear bomb technology. The publishers of the book were sued based on the "danger" of the information. The court held that the book was protected by the First Amendment, even though the information contained in it was undisputedly dangerous.
You can send the source code of a virus to anyone you like, as long as you never compile it or attach it in an active form. The fact that Outlook will run scripts attached to a message as source complicates this issue. But just because Outlook is broken doesn't mean you should arrest people for distributing source code.
The other issue is that our government is prosecuting people who violate our overdependence on technology. What they are essentially doing is enforcing the status quo - requiring that things are allowed to stay the way they are. You're not supposed to rock the boat, and you can get in big trouble for it. However, the boat will eventually tip over, and things will go the direction they are naturally inclined to go. All that resistance does is delay things a little.
--- "So THAT's what an invisible barrier looks like!" - Time Bandits
Is it linking if you write the link in plain text ? .wav file where you speak the url ?
Is it linking if you post a
Is it linking when you post a phone number where people can listen to an answering machine telling you the link ?
Is linking just defined as the A HREF tag ?
You can't draw the line between linking and not linking. There is no difference, it's just the 'clickability'.
But does it really matter if I can click onto some text or if i gotta copy/paste it ?
I leave that up to you.
.. it would be nice if www.feedmag.com would quit timing out.
Also, it seems feedmag.com shares the same point of view of the defendants. This is sort of like saying "Rush Limbaugh reported on a facinating story today which called Bill Clinton a liar..".
This sort of stuff preaches to the converted in the choir loft. Get the "other side" on ABC, NBC, CBS, etc. Then when mainstream American sees it they can decide for themselves rather than listen to Jack Valenti's propoganda over and over again.
Certain people hold the reins in this country. The rest of us are left out like cattle in the rain. Quit believing in terms like treason, censorship, freedom and liberty. They just don't exist any in the US any longer.
Similarly, if you write code specifically to destroy data, cost people money, and negatively impact their lives, you are likewise not going to be protected by any free speech rights.
is it illegal to write a book saying how to build a bomb? how to cost people money? there is a HUGE difference between explaining how something is done, and actually doing it. in software, that difference may be the diffence between have source code and compiling the source code, but the difference is still there.
---
I post links to stuff here
"If you now went to the Disney Infoseek site, you would find references to DeCSS -- you would get through that site the exact thing that Disney's trying to stop in this suit. You would find that the search engines that are owned by these very plaintiffs do exactly the same thing that they're trying to stop. They link. What the MPAA is doing is trying to stop certain people from linking."
What this means, effectively, is that the search engines will be the only legal source of links to the DeCSS source. It is then only a trivial matter to track down the posters, and throw them to the lawyers.
Ultimately, DeCSS will be sent underground, and that could possibly strengthen the MPAA's argument that DeCSS is a tool of piracy (Oh look, they're hiding behind handles on secret undernet channels. They must be 31337 pir8ez.)
Just my tuppence worth. (Yep, I'm a tea drinker!)
==========
This message brought to you by the numbers Thirty One, Thirty Three, and Seven.
And the key to all this is I have never conclusively been shown that you need anything special to duplicate a DVD byte by byte.
Consumer DVD-RW drives cannot write to the "key sector" of the DVD disc, and the key sectors of blank dvds are pre-burned with zeros. Without the key that would normally exist there, the DVD player cannot decode the movie, nor can it read an already decoded movie burned onto a dvd disc.
Now in respect to you already paying a tax on that media. That is not true. Computer CD-R media is quite a bit cheaper than Audio CD-R media. Why? Because your not paying a tax on the Computer CD-R media. Nor did I pay a tax on my hard drive to store movies on. So the MPAA/RIAA isn't getting their percentage of it, and their pissed off.
You're right about this. I remembered after I had posted. Either way, it should be illegal for them to tax the discs in the first place. Seems like a form of prior restraint.
Seems like we agree on everything else though. I was just pointing out that the MPAAs claims that people will be pirating DVDs left and right is just false. That's why there's no reason for the injunction against 2600.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I might point you to CNN's presentation of it...
* And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."
That was a damn fine response. Please moderate it up!
--
Unfortunately, I don't have the link, but if you go through the "Your Rights On Slashdot" you should be able to find his response to this in his submission to court.
If I remember correctly, it goes along the lines that even if the "A href" tag isn't there, some browser software will recgonize the format of a URL and make it into a link automatically.
And he proceeds to argue that to ban putting the URL onsite is obviously against the first amendment.
KWiL
(why does hitting return automatically submit? It should automatically preview)
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
Consumer DVD-RW drives cannot write to the "key sector" of the DVD disc, and the key sectors of blank dvds are pre-burned with zeros. Without the key that would normally exist there, the DVD player cannot decode the movie, nor can it read an already decoded movie burned onto a dvd disc.
Is this a limitation of consumer level equipment (much like the fact that consumer level audio cd-recorders require that special audio cd-r media)? Or is it that you just can't buy (without paying some huge fee to the DVD group that controls the keys) a player that can record the key sectors of the dvd disc?
So is the encryption on the disc truly there for copy protection, or are there commercial outfits somewhere duplicating DVD's just as easily as CD's in mass quantity. That's my whole point. I all along have dis-agreed with calling the encryption copy protection. It's content protection from every angle that I see.
And yeah, right now pirating DVD's isn't an option. No way I would sacrifice the quality/features/etc. But how long before I have gigabit to the home, and 100gig hard drives are the standard?
Be sure to direct her lawyer to Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream as well.
Sheesh.
KWiL
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
It is most certainly not irrelevant. If code is not protected as free speech, you have only a few fair use statutes to hide under.
If it is protected as free speech, you have to balance in the things you and the article both mentioned, such as does the threat justify the restriction. There are all sorts of issues, such as the huge burden of evidence required to justify prior restraint, and so on and so forth.
But they adopted it from the image of the dashing, daring, and good-hearted pirates being portrayed on TV at the time in pirate and swashbuckling movies.
Basically, it's a reference to Hollywood pirates, not real pirates.
This is the 'Napster generates sales' defence. I've often seen it used, but never seen it verified. Anecdotal evidence aside, is there any hard evidence that 'piracy' leads to increased sales and/or readers?
This argument implies that there is hard evidence to prove that 'piracy' leads to decreased sales. The argument works both ways. It's not as obvious as you would think.
As in... try before you buy? Yes thank you that's very true... I buy more CDs now because I hear more good music through mp3s. I even specially imported a CD that was unavailable in my country because I loved a song I heard as an mp3.
I've heard many many others say the same thing. If you look at the actual sales, have they gone down over the last years? No, they've increased (despite the record industry's hard attempts at scaring people away with crap like Britney Spears).
Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest
"view source" on above comment to read the formated code
-matt
The X-Files are kid stuff compared to this...
"The Internet is made of cats."
How about the fact that the music industry lost negative $1,400,000,000 in CD sales in 1999? Okay, it's not hard evidence, but it certainly seems to indicate that increasing your audience will increase your sales.
My future's determined by Thieves, thugs, and vermin -- The Offspring
On a related note, how about if we modify the Samba code to include an HTTP transaction with Microsoft's server that simulates the process of downloading the "MSKerberos" spec and clicking the "I Agree" button? After a few weeks of getting hammered by Samba servers, Microsoft would surely back down on their licensing requirements...
I agree. The next logical step after that would be to post a pre-defined Google search that will result in hits containing the DeCSS source.
Would the MPAA then go after Google and other search engines since they would now be the sites providing the links?
It is bad enough to ban posting the links (which I assume has to be done by magistrates within each jurisdiction according to the laws within that jurisdication) but once you go after links you are essentially declaring US authority over the whole Internet. And last I checked, US magistrate can't regulate what goes on outside the US except maybe in the case of crimes against humanity, and then only with the blessing of the UN.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
Someone read aloud (and recorded) the DeCSS code.
Then it was transcribed.
Judge Kaplan said code didn't fall under free speech protection.
Now does it?
Think.
e to the i pi equals negative one
The authors of viruses can be prosecuted because that code may present a real danger.
Writing a virus, or even publishing one, is not and should not be illegal. In fact, such restrictions would interfere with the creation of anti-virus software. What is outlawed is the act of unleashing a destructive self-replicating program out into the world... for that matter, even putting destructive software one single, stand-alone box that does not belong to you is a crime, because you are damaging somebody's property.
Just as the courts have decided to impose limits on verbal expression ... they will place restrictions on the distribution of code.
One concept that could perhaps be re-examined here is the nature of software: is code invented (like a coffee maker) or authored (like a novel)? One is protected by patents, the other by copyright.
Programs are mathematical constructs. They are important for their functions, not their forms. "Good design" is only valued because it improves the functionality (runs faster, debugs with less trouble, etc.)
In this sense, software is more like an invention to be pantented than a document to be copyrighted. If you invent a formula that tastes just like coke, or write a program that decodes DVD's, and do so using honest reverse-engineering methods, then you should be free and clear to do what you like.
IANAL, but it seems to me that this might turn into a case that brings up a lot of questions that the courts need to ask.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Years ago, they made the motion-picture studios give up their control over theaters because they found it was a violation of antitrust. There are similar issues here.
As I understand it, the principal members of the MPAA are the major motion picture studios. And the MPAA controls the licensing to produce DVDs and controls the licensing to produce DVD players. IANAL, but that does sound like a potential antitrust violation.
OTOH, who has the motivation and money to initiate a lawsuit?
// TODO: fix sig
That's pretty damn insightful.
W
The weird thing is, there really is a crowdedtheater.com... sigh.
-------------------
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
What you have to do it copy the above ccs code into a file and compile it.
Aw Great.... Now I'm going to get sued by the MPAA...
Microsoft was angry when someone on slashdot said that you can unzip an auto-extracting file with winzip. What next?
On a normal day, I get a a couple of hundred hits on my DeCSS site. However, whenever some DeCSS site gets shut down somewhere, or when somebody gets arrested, or when the MPAA wins another injunction, then this number immediately jumps to a couple of thousands hits per day, until it levels off again after a week or so. Really, if the MPAA hadn't bothered, the whole thing would have been long forgotten by now, and everybody would think that CSS just meant "Customer service site" or other such nonsense...
Say no to software patents.
Quoting Garbus: Right now the MPAA has got an order from the court which makes it possible to stop the posting of the DeCSS. The MPAA has now made a motion to expand the injunction to include linking. What I'd like to know is, if links themselves are prohibited, can simply posting the text of the URL itself be prohibited as well? If we get to this extreme, I think we've gone way over the first amendment line.
The Openlaw DVD Forum is going to submit an amicus brief making exactly this point. We're currently at the 4th draft and are trying to finish up by this weekend.
Garbus and his associate Edward Hernstadt have been very supportive of our attempts to apply open source methods to crafting legal arguments. Both have even posted to our mailing list. Anyone who wishes to get involved should check it out. There is also a very good resources page there.
Then isn't a simple matter to change your links to become a link to a search engine's results on a search for +decss +source or something?
Then what are they going to do? Stop all the search engines?
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Well, the owner of the (chunkymunky) domain is currently seeing a lawyer. Also, the lawyer for the sueing site is in New Jersey, while the chunkymunky domain's owner (and lawyer) are in England.
Everyone behind ChunkyMunky.Com wants to fight this - that's for sure. As I said, the owner is currently seeing a lawyer, so we'll see where it goes from here.
You should never take life too seriously - You'll never get out of it alive.
Actually, they (Chunky Monkey) *licenses* the name to Ben and Jerry's for use as their ice cream flavor.
:P
So, they win on that point
You should never take life too seriously - You'll never get out of it alive.
Well, that news is kinda old by the mailing list standard :P
If you actually see the woman's e-mail, it says "allowed" (as you hinted in your post). The problem with this is, if chunkymunky accepts this, then it's like saying "Okay, you *do* own the rights to 'chunkymunky' and we accept your grant to use the domain." The thing is, the domain was never hers to grant the rights to - it's the domain name owner's and *NO ONE ELSE'S*.
You should never take life too seriously - You'll never get out of it alive.
Just because you can't yell fire in a theatre, that doesn't mean it's illegal to speak at all in a theatre. Point: DeCSS isn't illegal, piracy is illegal.
Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest
Actually, the opinons of most of the OpenLaw people is just the opposite. Garbus is clearly very knowledgable, and very capable. Despite his inexperience with the technology, he has learned very quickly. If I were on trial, I would want him as my lawyer.
On the other hand, Kaplan seems to be very heavily biased against the defense. If you read over the transcripts again, he dismisses defense arguments without consideration, and accepts arguments by the plaintiffs with similar cause. He has managed to earn the ire of several people (including John Young, of Cryptome).
Sam TH
Sam TH
AbiWord Developer
Qualify that. Please do.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
I want that code.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
What if you don't explicitly state that the "DeCSS" link is linked to the DVD decoding code? What if you simply put up a "DeCSS Code" link, that links to code that removes cascading style sheets code or something? Would the clickthrough then be enforceable?
Is it actually fraud if you're not selling anything? Hell, if Microsoft can disclaim everything with their licenses, including fitness for use for any purpose at all, you should be able to use some similar disclaimer.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
What search engine do you use?!?!? I get more than ten billion hits for "sex" on my hard drive alone!
As with the $150,000 burger flipper post, you are again, sadly misinformed.
This case may not seem to have any significance to you, however, this case could set a precedence in the future for cyberlaw. Although the recent cases have remained a "civil" matter, future cases could be criminal matters and all precedents are vital.
Perhaps you are correct in your assumption that in 10 years this case will have little significance, but if you were one of the defendants, I am sure this case would be quite significant. (That is, if your ass was at stake!)
Code is free speech, ok. I'm glad about that.
Personally, I like the "they didn't provide it" defense. My bias. Your welcome... but I don't know if that will fly either.
FAIR USE is Very Important!
For more information on the case, if you are interested
Berkman
-m
"One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries." (A. A. Milne)
Running code is a person under the law.
Oh, sure. "Separate but equal," right? What are you, some kind of code-racist? Hmph.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
There are a dozen lawsuits going on right now that have been filed against firearms manufacturers - many by cities and municipalities under the auspices of collecting damages caused by criminal use of firearms made cheaply availiable by arms manufacturers. And its not just the cheap Sat night specials getting hit, but Smith&Wesson and Beretta.
I think it's called democracy :P
~ppppppppö
GNU/Linux. The Freshmaker.
And what does one do with these ripped DVDs? You end up with an inferior product, just like a cassette tape copied from a CD. You still have to purchase blank media to store the copies you make, and the industry has already imposed a tax on that media, ostensibly to compensate them for piracy losses, so what's the problem? This is not the huge problem that they make it out to be. It's just the VCR or cassette tape issue all over again. When will they learn?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
WTF is with the 'offtopic' moderation on this!!! People aren't allowed to respond appropriately to other posts without losing karma! It's not like we were using our +1 bonuses or had been mis-moderated up. The original poster might have been off topic, but I don't expect people replying to get dragged down.
That's it, fuck this place.
Sucks too much time out of my day anyways.
My password is 'ncLxReVL'. The time is 9:30 EST, I currently have karma of 30. Go wild ACs.
EOF
This argument implies that there is hard evidence to prove that 'piracy' leads to decreased sales.
It wasn't meant to imply anything. It was simply a question based on the argument used in the post I was replying to. I don't know the effect unauthorized copying has, positive or negative.
The argument works both ways. It's not as obvious as you would think.
Agreed, I don't think it is obvious at all. I phrased it the way I did because my experience and anecdotal evidence is such that it does increase sales.
But anecdotal evidence is all I have.
Steve M
Vehement disagreement, at least in the documents which I have read. The article listed at the top of this thread is by far the most incisive summary about why the DeCSS court case in front of Judge Kaplan is so damned important, and in the "interesting item", although he got a bit long winded and apparently loud some times, he was exactly on point -- wanting the injunction reversed because of First Amendment issues, and failing that, to argue for speedy depositions (which the movie companies are trying to evade), in order to get the case in front of the Supreme Court by fall.
This is a man on a mission, focused, angry, and ready to do battle on behalf of the constitutional issues raised by the DCMA and DeCSS.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
In the next few days, we'll be filing an amicus brief arguing against the MPAA's proposed injunction on hyperlinking.
Join the fight!
-- Openlaw: Fighting for fair use and the public domain
Posting content like this is undeniably useful when a server gets Slashdotted, but I can see it now: FeedMag joins Microsoft in suing Slashdot for hosting posts that they claim are copyrighted material...
Sure, but they'd be fools if they did. They're enjoying a lot more eyeballs than they would have otherwise, even with the mirrored text. They can't even serve up the text to the potential readers anyways because they've been slashdotted.
They may also get new readers. I'd never even heard of them before this.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I'm sure the concept that a word can have more than one possible meaning just blows your fucking mind, doesn't it?
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Using Disney's go.com
I have great faith in fools - self confidence my friends call it. - Edgar Allan Poe
Keep your pants on.
1. The MPAA is not arguing about copyright. That's a public opinion ruse. EFF screwed up assuming they were and lost the injunction hearing.
2. Capitalism and consumerism are completely different things. Selling a product and forcing shit down ppl's throats are different things.
3. It is not an unruly mass of rioters. Frankly I don't think the hacker/cracker debate is over it's just beginning to rise. Just as there are physicians, surgeons, nurses, coroners, forensic scientists, and axe murders there are several classifications of programmers, users, crackers, hackers, slackers, cypherpunks, white hats, black hats, etc. To say only the criminal element exists I take as a serious threat to my chances at an online contracting business, satisfaction from the tools I use, plus access to a teaching tool no university can match. This issue IS NOT GOING AWAY.
4. The denizens of blah society... please stop editorializing and filling in the blanks. It's shameful. This isn't the X-Files
5. No offense but you're not leaning in any direction. Just going in circles.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
As much as I support DeCSS and the ability to reverse engineer things, your argument is not as strong as you think it is...
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
>But as of today, nobody that I have spoken to
>can claim that any particular movie that was
>ever shown on the Internet ever came off a DVD,
>and nobody is even claiming that.
This is incorrect. Many DivX movie rips do in fact use DeCSS to rip from the DVD to disk. Not that the DivX movie is an exact copy, but it does use DeCSS to make a copy and since these movies are shown(downloaded) from the internet, he is wrong.
Of course there are other ways to rip movies w/o using DeCSS, but thats not really the point.
BTW when I refer to divx I mean the codec, not the stupid-dead rental thing.
Is it linking when you post a phone number where people can listen to an answering machine telling you the link ?
I think my grandmother would be really confused if she got my answering machine, and it said, "Hi, http colon slash slash www dot plankensteiner dot com... BEEP"
Another neat trick would be to go into a crowded theater with little slips of paper with my phone number... and when people called it, the answering machine said, "FIRE!!!"
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
Source code should be free speech. It's just text, after all.
Compiled code is property.
Running code is a person under the law.
Treat these accordingly. ie if a virus causes widespread damage, arrest it and jail/execute it (no pun intended!).
If MS-Outlook helps the virus along, indict it as an accomplice to terrorism.
First, make it work, then make it right, then make it fast, then, make it bloated!
I'm not making a value judgment either way, just pointing out that piracy isn't a terribly inaccurate term.
I'm using this on my website to tell people "please don't ask me about links, just link the site if you like it" :-),
BTW, I couldn't connect to feedmag.com, did it go down (responds to ping)?
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
In fact, maybe they should arrest
Transmission interupted!
this was supposed to be a reply to the MS splitting up thing... I should learn to look before I click... apologies all around folks...
The chains are broken
Loki is free
Ragnarok is at hand...
css-auth.h ---------- typedef unsigned char byte; struct block { byte b[5]; }; extern void CryptKey1(int varient, byte const *challenge, struct block *key); extern void CryptKey2(int varient, byte const *challenge, struct block *key); extern void CryptBusKey(int varient, byte const *challenge, struct block *key); css-auth.c ---------- /* * Copyright (C) 1999 Derek Fawcus * * This code may be used under the terms of Version 2 of the GPL, * read the file COPYING for details. * */ /* * These routines do some reordering of the supplied data before * calling engine() to do the main work. * * The reordering seems similar to that done by the initial stages of * the DES algorithm, in that it looks like it's just been done to * try and make software decoding slower. I'm not sure that it * actually adds anything to the security. * * The nature of the shuffling is that the bits of the supplied * parameter 'varient' are reorganised (and some inverted), and * the bytes of the parameter 'challenge' are reorganised. * * The reorganisation in each routine is different, and the first * (CryptKey1) does not bother of play with the 'varient' parameter. * * Since this code is only run once per disk change, I've made the * code table driven in order to improve readability. * * Since these routines are so similar to each other, one could even * abstract them all to one routine supplied a parameter determining * the nature of the reordering it has to do. */ #include "css-auth.h" typedef unsigned long u32; static void engine(int varient, byte const *input, struct block *output); void CryptKey1(int varient, byte const *challenge, struct block *key) { static byte perm_challenge[] = {1,3,0,7,5, 2,9,6,4,8}; byte scratch[10]; int i; for (i = 9; i >= 0; --i) scratch[i] = challenge[perm_challenge[i]]; engine(varient, scratch, key); } /* This shuffles the bits in varient to make perm_varient such that * 4 -> !3 * 3 -> 4 * varient bits: 2 -> 0 perm_varient bits * 1 -> 2 * 0 -> !1 */ void CryptKey2(int varient, byte const *challenge, struct block *key) { static byte perm_challenge[] = {6,1,9,3,8, 5,7,4,0,2}; static byte perm_varient[] = { 0x0a, 0x08, 0x0e, 0x0c, 0x0b, 0x09, 0x0f, 0x0d, 0x1a, 0x18, 0x1e, 0x1c, 0x1b, 0x19, 0x1f, 0x1d, 0x02, 0x00, 0x06, 0x04, 0x03, 0x01, 0x07, 0x05, 0x12, 0x10, 0x16, 0x14, 0x13, 0x11, 0x17, 0x15}; byte scratch[10]; int i; for (i = 9; i >= 0; --i) scratch[i] = challenge[perm_challenge[i]]; engine(perm_varient[varient], scratch, key); } /* This shuffles the bits in varient to make perm_varient such that * 4 -> 0 * 3 -> !1 * varient bits: 2 -> !4 perm_varient bits * 1 -> 2 * 0 -> 3 */ void CryptBusKey(int varient, byte const *challenge, struct block *key) { static byte perm_challenge[] = {4,0,3,5,7, 2,8,6,1,9}; static byte perm_varient[] = { 0x12, 0x1a, 0x16, 0x1e, 0x02, 0x0a, 0x06, 0x0e, 0x10, 0x18, 0x14, 0x1c, 0x00, 0x08, 0x04, 0x0c, 0x13, 0x1b, 0x17, 0x1f, 0x03, 0x0b, 0x07, 0x0f, 0x11, 0x19, 0x15, 0x1d, 0x01, 0x09, 0x05, 0x0d}; byte scratch[10]; int i; for (i = 9; i >= 0; --i) scratch[i] = challenge[perm_challenge[i]]; engine(perm_varient[varient], scratch, key); } /* * We use two LFSR's (seeded from some of the input data bytes) to * generate two streams of pseudo-random bits. These two bit streams * are then combined by simply adding with carry to generate a final * sequence of pseudo-random bits which is stored in the buffer that * 'output' points to the end of - len is the size of this buffer. * * The first LFSR is of degree 25, and has a polynomial of: * x^13 + x^5 + x^4 + x^1 + 1 * * The second LSFR is of degree 17, and has a (primitive) polynomial of: * x^15 + x^1 + 1 * * I don't know if these polynomials are primitive modulo 2, and thus * represent maximal-period LFSR's. * * * Note that we take the output of each LFSR from the new shifted in * bit, not the old shifted out bit. Thus for ease of use the LFSR's * are implemented in bit reversed order. * */ static void generate_bits(byte *output, int len, struct block const *s) { u32 lfsr0, lfsr1; byte carry; /* In order to ensure that the LFSR works we need to ensure that the * initial values are non-zero. Thus when we initialise them from * the seed, we ensure that a bit is set. */ lfsr0 = (s->b[0] b[1] b[2] & ~7) b[2] & 7); lfsr1 = (s->b[3] b[4]; ++output; carry = 0; do { int bit; byte val; for (bit = 0, val = 0; bit > 24) ^ (lfsr0 >> 21) ^ (lfsr0 >> 20) ^ (lfsr0 >> 12)) & 1; lfsr0 = (lfsr0 > 16) ^ (lfsr1 >> 2)) & 1; lfsr1 = (lfsr1 > 1) & 1) combined = !o_lfsr1 + carry + !o_lfsr0; carry = BIT1(combined); val |= BIT0(combined) 0); } static byte Secret[]; static byte Varients[]; static byte Table0[]; static byte Table1[]; static byte Table2[]; static byte Table3[]; /* * This encryption engine implements one of 32 variations * one the same theme depending upon the choice in the * varient parameter (0 - 31). * * The algorithm itself manipulates a 40 bit input into * a 40 bit output. * The parameter 'input' is 80 bits. It consists of * the 40 bit input value that is to be encrypted followed * by a 40 bit seed value for the pseudo random number * generators. */ static void engine(int varient, byte const *input, struct block *output) { byte cse, term, index; struct block temp1; struct block temp2; byte bits[30]; int i; /* Feed the secret into the input values such that * we alter the seed to the LFSR's used above, then * generate the bits to play with. */ for (i = 5; --i >= 0; ) temp1.b[i] = input[5 + i] ^ Secret[i] ^ Table2[i]; generate_bits(&bits[29], sizeof bits, &temp1); /* This term is used throughout the following to * select one of 32 different variations on the * algorithm. */ cse = Varients[varient] ^ Table2[varient]; /* Now the actual blocks doing the encryption. Each * of these works on 40 bits at a time and are quite * similar. */ for (i = 5, term = 0; --i >= 0; term = input[i]) { index = bits[25 + i] ^ input[i]; index = Table1[index] ^ ~Table2[index] ^ cse; temp1.b[i] = Table2[index] ^ Table3[index] ^ term; } temp1.b[4] ^= temp1.b[0]; for (i = 5, term = 0; --i >= 0; term = temp1.b[i]) { index = bits[20 + i] ^ temp1.b[i]; index = Table1[index] ^ ~Table2[index] ^ cse; temp2.b[i] = Table2[index] ^ Table3[index] ^ term; } temp2.b[4] ^= temp2.b[0]; for (i = 5, term = 0; --i >= 0; term = temp2.b[i]) { index = bits[15 + i] ^ temp2.b[i]; index = Table1[index] ^ ~Table2[index] ^ cse; index = Table2[index] ^ Table3[index] ^ term; temp1.b[i] = Table0[index] ^ Table2[index]; } temp1.b[4] ^= temp1.b[0]; for (i = 5, term = 0; --i >= 0; term = temp1.b[i]) { index = bits[10 + i] ^ temp1.b[i]; index = Table1[index] ^ ~Table2[index] ^ cse; index = Table2[index] ^ Table3[index] ^ term; temp2.b[i] = Table0[index] ^ Table2[index]; } temp2.b[4] ^= temp2.b[0]; for (i = 5, term = 0; --i >= 0; term = temp2.b[i]) { index = bits[5 + i] ^ temp2.b[i]; index = Table1[index] ^ ~Table2[index] ^ cse; temp1.b[i] = Table2[index] ^ Table3[index] ^ term; } temp1.b[4] ^= temp1.b[0]; for (i = 5, term = 0; --i >= 0; term = temp1.b[i]) { index = bits[i] ^ temp1.b[i]; index = Table1[index] ^ ~Table2[index] ^ cse; output->b[i] = Table2[index] ^ Table3[index] ^ term; } } static byte Varients[] = { 0xB7, 0x74, 0x85, 0xD0, 0xCC, 0xDB, 0xCA, 0x73, 0x03, 0xFE, 0x31, 0x03, 0x52, 0xE0, 0xB7, 0x42, 0x63, 0x16, 0xF2, 0x2A, 0x79, 0x52, 0xFF, 0x1B, 0x7A, 0x11, 0xCA, 0x1A, 0x9B, 0x40, 0xAD, 0x01}; static byte Secret[] = {0x55, 0xD6, 0xC4, 0xC5, 0x28}; static byte Table0[] = { 0xB7, 0xF4, 0x82, 0x57, 0xDA, 0x4D, 0xDB, 0xE2, 0x2F, 0x52, 0x1A, 0xA8, 0x68, 0x5A, 0x8A, 0xFF, 0xFB, 0x0E, 0x6D, 0x35, 0xF7, 0x5C, 0x76, 0x12, 0xCE, 0x25, 0x79, 0x29, 0x39, 0x62, 0x08, 0x24, 0xA5, 0x85, 0x7B, 0x56, 0x01, 0x23, 0x68, 0xCF, 0x0A, 0xE2, 0x5A, 0xED, 0x3D, 0x59, 0xB0, 0xA9, 0xB0, 0x2C, 0xF2, 0xB8, 0xEF, 0x32, 0xA9, 0x40, 0x80, 0x71, 0xAF, 0x1E, 0xDE, 0x8F, 0x58, 0x88, 0xB8, 0x3A, 0xD0, 0xFC, 0xC4, 0x1E, 0xB5, 0xA0, 0xBB, 0x3B, 0x0F, 0x01, 0x7E, 0x1F, 0x9F, 0xD9, 0xAA, 0xB8, 0x3D, 0x9D, 0x74, 0x1E, 0x25, 0xDB, 0x37, 0x56, 0x8F, 0x16, 0xBA, 0x49, 0x2B, 0xAC, 0xD0, 0xBD, 0x95, 0x20, 0xBE, 0x7A, 0x28, 0xD0, 0x51, 0x64, 0x63, 0x1C, 0x7F, 0x66, 0x10, 0xBB, 0xC4, 0x56, 0x1A, 0x04, 0x6E, 0x0A, 0xEC, 0x9C, 0xD6, 0xE8, 0x9A, 0x7A, 0xCF, 0x8C, 0xDB, 0xB1, 0xEF, 0x71, 0xDE, 0x31, 0xFF, 0x54, 0x3E, 0x5E, 0x07, 0x69, 0x96, 0xB0, 0xCF, 0xDD, 0x9E, 0x47, 0xC7, 0x96, 0x8F, 0xE4, 0x2B, 0x59, 0xC6, 0xEE, 0xB9, 0x86, 0x9A, 0x64, 0x84, 0x72, 0xE2, 0x5B, 0xA2, 0x96, 0x58, 0x99, 0x50, 0x03, 0xF5, 0x38, 0x4D, 0x02, 0x7D, 0xE7, 0x7D, 0x75, 0xA7, 0xB8, 0x67, 0x87, 0x84, 0x3F, 0x1D, 0x11, 0xE5, 0xFC, 0x1E, 0xD3, 0x83, 0x16, 0xA5, 0x29, 0xF6, 0xC7, 0x15, 0x61, 0x29, 0x1A, 0x43, 0x4F, 0x9B, 0xAF, 0xC5, 0x87, 0x34, 0x6C, 0x0F, 0x3B, 0xA8, 0x1D, 0x45, 0x58, 0x25, 0xDC, 0xA8, 0xA3, 0x3B, 0xD1, 0x79, 0x1B, 0x48, 0xF2, 0xE9, 0x93, 0x1F, 0xFC, 0xDB, 0x2A, 0x90, 0xA9, 0x8A, 0x3D, 0x39, 0x18, 0xA3, 0x8E, 0x58, 0x6C, 0xE0, 0x12, 0xBB, 0x25, 0xCD, 0x71, 0x22, 0xA2, 0x64, 0xC6, 0xE7, 0xFB, 0xAD, 0x94, 0x77, 0x04, 0x9A, 0x39, 0xCF, 0x7C}; static byte Table1[] = { 0x8C, 0x47, 0xB0, 0xE1, 0xEB, 0xFC, 0xEB, 0x56, 0x10, 0xE5, 0x2C, 0x1A, 0x5D, 0xEF, 0xBE, 0x4F, 0x08, 0x75, 0x97, 0x4B, 0x0E, 0x25, 0x8E, 0x6E, 0x39, 0x5A, 0x87, 0x53, 0xC4, 0x1F, 0xF4, 0x5C, 0x4E, 0xE6, 0x99, 0x30, 0xE0, 0x42, 0x88, 0xAB, 0xE5, 0x85, 0xBC, 0x8F, 0xD8, 0x3C, 0x54, 0xC9, 0x53, 0x47, 0x18, 0xD6, 0x06, 0x5B, 0x41, 0x2C, 0x67, 0x1E, 0x41, 0x74, 0x33, 0xE2, 0xB4, 0xE0, 0x23, 0x29, 0x42, 0xEA, 0x55, 0x0F, 0x25, 0xB4, 0x24, 0x2C, 0x99, 0x13, 0xEB, 0x0A, 0x0B, 0xC9, 0xF9, 0x63, 0x67, 0x43, 0x2D, 0xC7, 0x7D, 0x07, 0x60, 0x89, 0xD1, 0xCC, 0xE7, 0x94, 0x77, 0x74, 0x9B, 0x7E, 0xD7, 0xE6, 0xFF, 0xBB, 0x68, 0x14, 0x1E, 0xA3, 0x25, 0xDE, 0x3A, 0xA3, 0x54, 0x7B, 0x87, 0x9D, 0x50, 0xCA, 0x27, 0xC3, 0xA4, 0x50, 0x91, 0x27, 0xD4, 0xB0, 0x82, 0x41, 0x97, 0x79, 0x94, 0x82, 0xAC, 0xC7, 0x8E, 0xA5, 0x4E, 0xAA, 0x78, 0x9E, 0xE0, 0x42, 0xBA, 0x28, 0xEA, 0xB7, 0x74, 0xAD, 0x35, 0xDA, 0x92, 0x60, 0x7E, 0xD2, 0x0E, 0xB9, 0x24, 0x5E, 0x39, 0x4F, 0x5E, 0x63, 0x09, 0xB5, 0xFA, 0xBF, 0xF1, 0x22, 0x55, 0x1C, 0xE2, 0x25, 0xDB, 0xC5, 0xD8, 0x50, 0x03, 0x98, 0xC4, 0xAC, 0x2E, 0x11, 0xB4, 0x38, 0x4D, 0xD0, 0xB9, 0xFC, 0x2D, 0x3C, 0x08, 0x04, 0x5A, 0xEF, 0xCE, 0x32, 0xFB, 0x4C, 0x92, 0x1E, 0x4B, 0xFB, 0x1A, 0xD0, 0xE2, 0x3E, 0xDA, 0x6E, 0x7C, 0x4D, 0x56, 0xC3, 0x3F, 0x42, 0xB1, 0x3A, 0x23, 0x4D, 0x6E, 0x84, 0x56, 0x68, 0xF4, 0x0E, 0x03, 0x64, 0xD0, 0xA9, 0x92, 0x2F, 0x8B, 0xBC, 0x39, 0x9C, 0xAC, 0x09, 0x5E, 0xEE, 0xE5, 0x97, 0xBF, 0xA5, 0xCE, 0xFA, 0x28, 0x2C, 0x6D, 0x4F, 0xEF, 0x77, 0xAA, 0x1B, 0x79, 0x8E, 0x97, 0xB4, 0xC3, 0xF4}; static byte Table2[] = { 0xB7, 0x75, 0x81, 0xD5, 0xDC, 0xCA, 0xDE, 0x66, 0x23, 0xDF, 0x15, 0x26, 0x62, 0xD1, 0x83, 0x77, 0xE3, 0x97, 0x76, 0xAF, 0xE9, 0xC3, 0x6B, 0x8E, 0xDA, 0xB0, 0x6E, 0xBF, 0x2B, 0xF1, 0x19, 0xB4, 0x95, 0x34, 0x48, 0xE4, 0x37, 0x94, 0x5D, 0x7B, 0x36, 0x5F, 0x65, 0x53, 0x07, 0xE2, 0x89, 0x11, 0x98, 0x85, 0xD9, 0x12, 0xC1, 0x9D, 0x84, 0xEC, 0xA4, 0xD4, 0x88, 0xB8, 0xFC, 0x2C, 0x79, 0x28, 0xD8, 0xDB, 0xB3, 0x1E, 0xA2, 0xF9, 0xD0, 0x44, 0xD7, 0xD6, 0x60, 0xEF, 0x14, 0xF4, 0xF6, 0x31, 0xD2, 0x41, 0x46, 0x67, 0x0A, 0xE1, 0x58, 0x27, 0x43, 0xA3, 0xF8, 0xE0, 0xC8, 0xBA, 0x5A, 0x5C, 0x80, 0x6C, 0xC6, 0xF2, 0xE8, 0xAD, 0x7D, 0x04, 0x0D, 0xB9, 0x3C, 0xC2, 0x25, 0xBD, 0x49, 0x63, 0x8C, 0x9F, 0x51, 0xCE, 0x20, 0xC5, 0xA1, 0x50, 0x92, 0x2D, 0xDD, 0xBC, 0x8D, 0x4F, 0x9A, 0x71, 0x2F, 0x30, 0x1D, 0x73, 0x39, 0x13, 0xFB, 0x1A, 0xCB, 0x24, 0x59, 0xFE, 0x05, 0x96, 0x57, 0x0F, 0x1F, 0xCF, 0x54, 0xBE, 0xF5, 0x06, 0x1B, 0xB2, 0x6D, 0xD3, 0x4D, 0x32, 0x56, 0x21, 0x33, 0x0B, 0x52, 0xE7, 0xAB, 0xEB, 0xA6, 0x74, 0x00, 0x4C, 0xB1, 0x7F, 0x82, 0x99, 0x87, 0x0E, 0x5E, 0xC0, 0x8F, 0xEE, 0x6F, 0x55, 0xF3, 0x7E, 0x08, 0x90, 0xFA, 0xB6, 0x64, 0x70, 0x47, 0x4A, 0x17, 0xA7, 0xB5, 0x40, 0x8A, 0x38, 0xE5, 0x68, 0x3E, 0x8B, 0x69, 0xAA, 0x9B, 0x42, 0xA5, 0x10, 0x01, 0x35, 0xFD, 0x61, 0x9E, 0xE6, 0x16, 0x9C, 0x86, 0xED, 0xCD, 0x2E, 0xFF, 0xC4, 0x5B, 0xA0, 0xAE, 0xCC, 0x4B, 0x3B, 0x03, 0xBB, 0x1C, 0x2A, 0xAC, 0x0C, 0x3F, 0x93, 0xC7, 0x72, 0x7A, 0x09, 0x22, 0x3D, 0x45, 0x78, 0xA9, 0xA8, 0xEA, 0xC9, 0x6A, 0xF7, 0x29, 0x91, 0xF0, 0x02, 0x18, 0x3A, 0x4E, 0x7C}; static byte Table3[] = { 0x73, 0x51, 0x95, 0xE1, 0x12, 0xE4, 0xC0, 0x58, 0xEE, 0xF2, 0x08, 0x1B, 0xA9, 0xFA, 0x98, 0x4C, 0xA7, 0x33, 0xE2, 0x1B, 0xA7, 0x6D, 0xF5, 0x30, 0x97, 0x1D, 0xF3, 0x02, 0x60, 0x5A, 0x82, 0x0F, 0x91, 0xD0, 0x9C, 0x10, 0x39, 0x7A, 0x83, 0x85, 0x3B, 0xB2, 0xB8, 0xAE, 0x0C, 0x09, 0x52, 0xEA, 0x1C, 0xE1, 0x8D, 0x66, 0x4F, 0xF3, 0xDA, 0x92, 0x29, 0xB9, 0xD5, 0xC5, 0x77, 0x47, 0x22, 0x53, 0x14, 0xF7, 0xAF, 0x22, 0x64, 0xDF, 0xC6, 0x72, 0x12, 0xF3, 0x75, 0xDA, 0xD7, 0xD7, 0xE5, 0x02, 0x9E, 0xED, 0xDA, 0xDB, 0x4C, 0x47, 0xCE, 0x91, 0x06, 0x06, 0x6D, 0x55, 0x8B, 0x19, 0xC9, 0xEF, 0x8C, 0x80, 0x1A, 0x0E, 0xEE, 0x4B, 0xAB, 0xF2, 0x08, 0x5C, 0xE9, 0x37, 0x26, 0x5E, 0x9A, 0x90, 0x00, 0xF3, 0x0D, 0xB2, 0xA6, 0xA3, 0xF7, 0x26, 0x17, 0x48, 0x88, 0xC9, 0x0E, 0x2C, 0xC9, 0x02, 0xE7, 0x18, 0x05, 0x4B, 0xF3, 0x39, 0xE1, 0x20, 0x02, 0x0D, 0x40, 0xC7, 0xCA, 0xB9, 0x48, 0x30, 0x57, 0x67, 0xCC, 0x06, 0xBF, 0xAC, 0x81, 0x08, 0x24, 0x7A, 0xD4, 0x8B, 0x19, 0x8E, 0xAC, 0xB4, 0x5A, 0x0F, 0x73, 0x13, 0xAC, 0x9E, 0xDA, 0xB6, 0xB8, 0x96, 0x5B, 0x60, 0x88, 0xE1, 0x81, 0x3F, 0x07, 0x86, 0x37, 0x2D, 0x79, 0x14, 0x52, 0xEA, 0x73, 0xDF, 0x3D, 0x09, 0xC8, 0x25, 0x48, 0xD8, 0x75, 0x60, 0x9A, 0x08, 0x27, 0x4A, 0x2C, 0xB9, 0xA8, 0x8B, 0x8A, 0x73, 0x62, 0x37, 0x16, 0x02, 0xBD, 0xC1, 0x0E, 0x56, 0x54, 0x3E, 0x14, 0x5F, 0x8C, 0x8F, 0x6E, 0x75, 0x1C, 0x07, 0x39, 0x7B, 0x4B, 0xDB, 0xD3, 0x4B, 0x1E, 0xC8, 0x7E, 0xFE, 0x3E, 0x72, 0x16, 0x83, 0x7D, 0xEE, 0xF5, 0xCA, 0xC5, 0x18, 0xF9, 0xD8, 0x68, 0xAB, 0x38, 0x85, 0xA8, 0xF0, 0xA1, 0x73, 0x9F, 0x5D, 0x19, 0x0B, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x33, 0x72, 0x39, 0x25, 0x67, 0x26, 0x6D, 0x71, 0x36, 0x77, 0x3C, 0x20, 0x62, 0x23, 0x68, 0x74, 0xC3, 0x82, 0xC9, 0x15, 0x57, 0x16, 0x5D, 0x81};
Disney's go (formerly Infoseek) as per the link in the parent post
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
downloading a three megabyte file was ridiculously slow over a 14k modem. But now it takes thirty seconds.
I had no idea that 14K modem technology had progressed so much in the last few years! =)
OrcSlicer
So, Lone Star, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb.
The intro to the interview (here, if you need it), compares Garbus to a modern day Daniel Webster. I'm not convinced; it seems to me that he has more of a Clarence Darrow case on his hands. (From the Scope Monkey Trial, if you don't remember him.) Both were dealing with a case of the PTBs trying to squelch what is (was) a novel idea, and should have been protected as Free speech. Of course, Darrow lost....
Oops, you're right. I lost track because on that mouse it's CTRL-FRONT button.
Then there's the question of Links to links. Anyone want to play "Six degrees of DeCSS"? In the same vein, anyone got the time to figure out what the Degree of DeCSS to MPAA.org is? Napster to RIAA.org?
BTW, what a brief piece, from the buildup in the description I was expecting a meaty sized dialog.
* Be that as it may, I did notice that perhaps the most salient point in the DeCSS discussion is missing: The movie industry has shifted the real discussion away from the fact that DeCSS is not presently needed for copying DVDs! Bit-for-bit copying is doable now. *
Perhaps this point was mentioned as a story here in
Thanks
Thanks
Jaco
That's because Go.com has adult content ("sex" etc.) filtered by default.
Will I retire or break 10K?
> How would you distinguish the DeCSS case from the Napster disputes of late?
Nice tie-in with recent events but the two are far from related.
It may not be related in details, but with think tanks recommeding "tightening" the DMCA to apply to cases such as Napster's, and with the RIAA now suing software developers such as those making Pan, you can bet Napster's case will be just as bad for us as 2600's
---
> How would you distinguish the DeCSS case from the Napster disputes of late?
Nice tie-in with recent events but the two are far from related.
>What happens if you link into the Coca-Cola code?
Why'd they put it on the web , where it could get linked to?
>A different legal system is going to have to be constructed to deal with these issues on the Web.
That's something most people can't grasp, they are still trying to fold the old laws over the new world.
It is however a very good point about more bandwidth leading to larger case of piracy (see end of interview). I would never have been able to trade MP3s on my original internet connection, not that I had a sound card or anything.
Devil Ducky
Devil Ducky
MY peers would get out of jury duty.
If you look at the actual sales, have they gone down over the last years? No, they've increased (despite the record industry's hard attempts at scaring people away with crap like Britney Spears).
I know that they have increased. But is there a direct link between unauthorized copying and CD sales?
As pointed out with respect to the Napster Hurts Album Sales? thread, correlation is not causation. The fact that CD sales have gone up may be a side effect of a booming economy. Or it may be because of try before you buy. I don't know.
Steve M
Serve your pages through a script that checks the "referer" field. You can reject:
Will I retire or break 10K?
Adding to bwt (Howdy pardner!) understand this generally as that the First Amendment is not determined by convenience. This also applies to the Napster case, IMO.
---
Piracy has little to do with DeCSS. Even the MPAA cannot cite an example of it being used for this. This is a case about communicating ideas learned by examining copyrighted material. This does not present a "danger" - in fact, just the opposite, suppressing it is the far more dangerous path.
.ASF format from a website, FTP site, News Server or (theoretically) via DCC on IRC, this DeCSS thing would seem quaint if it weren't for its possible ramifications on our future.
This is what kills me. With the whole VCD and DivX thing going on right now, and the fact that you can download a full length movie in MS's
Kinda like suing Napster... Really, what's the point? What about Scour or Gnutella, or Freenet, or the countless other FILE SHARING utilities that are popping up...
It's ludicrous to go after the people making the tools and utilities necessary to commit illegal acts of piracy. Noone sues gun companies for making guns that are used to kill, or for posting schematics that could be used to build them.
Code is free speech. Utilities can be shared. Just don't get caught using them.
Quit believing in terms like treason, censorship, freedom and liberty.
Aside from that... how do you suppose we got where we are: They just don't exist any in the US any longer.
Couch potato politicians like yourself are useless. I'm 24. I may live to be 120 god forbid. There's no fucking way I'm going to put up with crap for the next 96 years.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
In all my reading on the subject, not only have I found this to be true, but I haven't even found any argument to the contrary beyond, "No, you're wrong."
So is it bad when the lawyer hired to protect DeCSS doesn't seem to grasp this point in an interview? Was he just simplifying the matter for the interviewer, does he really not understand the nature of the software he's defending, or is there something I'm missing?
--Colbey
Beyond the 2600.Com Cease and Desist controversey, another one (though less popular) has risen on the internet...
:P
ChunkyMonkey.Com, a children's site owned and operated by a nice old woman who owns the trademark to the name "Chunky Monkey" (a lovable little monkey cartoon character) sent a cease and desist letter to ChunkyMunky.Com, a site devoted to desktop customization.
This is eToys vs. eToy all over again! E-mails sent back and forth between myself and ChunkyMonkey's lawyer are posted at my website here. I don't own the chunkymunky.com domain or anything, but I'm part of its community, so I took a stand
You should never take life too seriously - You'll never get out of it alive.
2,081,730 matches for decss
The same search engine only shows 1,065,121 matches for sex
Therefore decss is more popular than sex
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
Okay, my pants are still on... ...and in reply:
reply to 1. I never said anything about copyright. I was more talking about the publics (press included) ability to say what they feel like saying. I want to know, however, where is the line of too much? When is it too damaging? We have a tendancy to see corperations as faceless beings, but if you kill a comapny, you take a lot of people down with it. Most of which do not make the multi-million dollar salaries that the corperate heads do.
reply to 2. Yes, you are right. Up to a point. If you care, I haven't moved to China yet. I quite enjoy spending my money on stupid shit. But, there is no line between them, they blend together almost too much. I admit to making a generalization though. Too much of either lends to trouble.
reply to 3. Once again, I've made a horrid generalization. You are right, there are too many catagories out there to make an point without being a stereotyper. Unfortunatly, as with anything, the negative is what stands out most. Especially to the news media who thrive on stories that lend to sensationalism (back to point 2). There are more of us out there who are on the "side of good" than those who do damage and raise a ruckas. We get overshadowed, unfortunatly. That is why we have to make sure that legaslature is in tune with the real world. People who use computers and the internet for legitimate buisiness and healthy education need to speak up. This issue IS NOT GOING AWAY.
reply to 4. Oh come on, Give me a break! I'm an artist, I have to use way too many silly adjectives to make my point! And if I come off as editorializing all the better. You've made your points in response, people have read both, and they'll think about it. But, I can get carried away. By the way, is there a show you'd rather have me emulate?
reply to 5. I agree totally! I'm not learning, you're not learning, no one is! We've been chasing our tails for longer than I've been alive. We make the same mistake our parents make only with new headlines on the front page. It's all bushit! But, there is nothing out there to "choose wisely" from. Until someone can think of something better we have to pick the lesser of the bullshit choices. And I don't know which one is the lesser.
So, where do we go from here. Everything we can possibly say has been said by someone else, already. All we can do is go around in circles until one of us falls off and drags the rest of us with them. Maybe you can find it because I can't, but I'll keep trying. I may say the wrong things and I may make some generalizations, but some idiot has to.
Just laugh, it makes life easier...
Capitalism Served Fresh Daily
For instance, the FAST search: 11,009 for deCSS and 19,985,801 for sex.
-----
FEED: What's the evaluation process when you decide to take on a case like this?
GARBUS: I think you decide based on the significance of the case: What are the values that get involved? What are the social values? Why is it worth spending the time and energy? And it seems to me what this case basically deals with is balancing First Amendment values -- the right to an open Internet, the right to free speech, the right to the preservation of fair use with software materials -- against the claims of the people like the MPAA that permitting fair use just allows for piracy and the bringing down of their industry. I think it's the question of how you achieve that balance, protecting the artist/publishers who are entitled to be paid for the work that they do, while on the other hand making sure that other people can use what is appropriate for them. It's a balancing act.
I also think what the case will probably deal with or will affect is how the entertainment business or how the media business will change because of this new technology. Generally what happens is the law sets up a cage under which the technologies operate. Here the technology is outstripping the law, and the law is going to have to adjust somewhat to the technology. Law is based on two hundred years of precedence, and I think the precedent is the structure, and I'm not so sure that that structure can handle these demands. So the question is how do you build new structures, and what are those new structures going to be. And this is going to be the first case to define those.
FEED: How would you distinguish the DeCSS case from the Napster disputes of late?
GARBUS: The most important difference is that there's been no piracy that they've found through the use of the DeCSS. There are a lot of reasons why that's so: because it takes so long to download, etc., etc. Now, if there's no piracy, there's absolutely no reason why this DeCSS shouldn't be discussed, explained, posted. If, in fact, there was substantial piracy coming from it -- or the potential for enormous piracy -- then one might come to a different conclusion. But clearly here, based on all the testimony to date, there has to be a better balance. There was a case here -- the Betamax case -- where the movie companies came in, and they said you shouldn't have VCRs. You shouldn't be able to copy movies that come off TV because that's an infringement. And the court said, "Yes, it may be an infringement. The question is, is it a substantial infringement, and what are the other values that it serves by permitting that infringement?"
The other thing this case is about, which is very interesting to me, is that it's kind of going to be an Internet legal trial in the sense that some of the people on the Internet and some people who deal with the Internet are very interested in this particular trial -- and every document, witness's word, judge's ruling, and lawyer's call will be on the Internet within a day. Now, a federal court -- such as this court with Judge Kaplan -- is closed to cameras, but can't be closed to the Internet. There's going to be this extraordinary high-stakes battle for the control of the Internet on the Internet. In the sense that O. J. Simpson was the first TV trial, this becomes in a peculiar way the first documented Internet trial.
FEED: Now, tell me if I'm getting this correctly. It seems to me that there are three layers to free speech elements of this case. There is the fair use element, which is that the technology itself enables people to take small samples from DVDs and "quote" them effectively in their work. There's the right of the cryptography community to discuss techniques of getting through encryption schemes in some kind of public way. And then there's also a question, if I understand it correctly, of people linking to pages where these things are discussed.
GARBUS: Exactly. Right now the MPAA has got an order from the court which makes it possible to stop the posting of the DeCSS. The MPAA has now made a motion to expand the injunction to include linking. Now, the New York Times has talked about this case on its Web site. The New York Times has linked when it talks about the right to carry the DeCSS. Under the logic of this case, if you ban linking, you can stop places like the New York Times from doing that. The Associated Press, both in its pieces of paper and its Web site, has also referred to linking sites. Now, the New York Times is allowed to say that crack is being bought on 120th Street -- a different kind of linking -- without being told that it can't say that because it's going to be a participant in the crime that ultimately occurs. So I think the linking and posting, while separate issues, are related. If you now went to the Disney Infoseek site, you would find references to DeCSS -- you would get through that site the exact thing that Disney's trying to stop in this suit. You would find that the search engines that are owned by these very plaintiffs do exactly the same thing that they're trying to stop. They link. What the MPAA is doing is trying to stop certain people from linking.
FEED: It seems to me like this has been an issue from the early days of the Web: Linking itself as a technology has challenged a lot of our assumptions about the legal status of copyright and free speech, and so on. And we've still not figured out how to handle it.
GARBUS: Right. I think nobody has quite figured it out. What happens if you link into the Coca-Cola code, and you know that everybody can get that secret formula? Is Coca-Cola entitled to protection? We do have trade-secret laws. My estimate is that there probably have been three hundred thousand downloads of the DeCSS now in the United States. Now, once that's out there -- putting aside the question of whether it should be out there -- how do you put it back? How do you enforce trade secret laws? A different legal system is going to have to be constructed to deal with these issues on the Web. And this case is going to play a large part in that construction.
FEED: Is there a case from your past that this most resembles, or does it seem very different because of all the technological issues?
GARBUS: I think the technology makes it really different. Take the matter of operating systems -- there's another and very separate issue that you have with the Linux operating system. One of the reasons that there's so much interest in the DeCSS is that DVDs are not yet licensed to play on the Linux operating system. Now, to bring us back to the Betamax case, is Linux like a VCR? Can the motion-picture industry control distribution from the very beginning to the very end? Maybe the only platforms that can play DVD are those that pay the licensing fees. Or can you have other systems? Is that a violation of antitrust? Years ago, they made the motion-picture studios give up their control over theaters because they found it was a violation of antitrust. There are similar issues here.
FEED: Obviously the objection in terms of the piracy question is that the technology and the bandwidth is expanding so fast that in a few years software like DeCSS will enable widespread piracy. I mean, you look at the case of Napster -- three years ago, what goes on now with Napster and audio files was impossible because downloading a three megabyte file was ridiculously slow over a 14k modem. But now it takes thirty seconds.
GARBUS: I think that this process of copying data will always be longer and more expensive than traditional pirating methods. But one really can't project out until the end of time. Let's assume that at the end of the year, one percent of the total piracy is caused by the DeCSS, and let's presume that the discussion is there are First Amendment values with respect to the discussion of the DeCSS. How do you balance that? Now, in the Betamax case, the court did balance it. They said there will be infringements, but we don't look upon that as substantial infringement. We don't look upon that as infringement sufficient to override, let's say, a fair-use defense. So I don't rule out the possibility of piracy. I know enough now about the way things are copied to believe that, no matter how good the machinery ever got, there would be faster and more inexpensive ways. But as of today, nobody that I have spoken to can claim that any particular movie that was ever shown on the Internet ever came off a DVD, and nobody is even claiming that.
But in the end, I think Napster was too difficult a case for the court to accept at this time. Our case may be too difficult for the court to accept at this time. Piracy has a very large and powerful meaning. In the Rio case, a witness testified about the negative and positive effect of piracy. I don't think anybody believed it. No one wants to hear it. In the Napster case, there was -- if you want to use that word -- piracy. People were downloading files; you had ten million criminals. I think the problem is with the DeCSS if you have ten million criminals, what do you do then? And the other issue is how quickly the copyright holders have to move. Look at what happens in something like this MPAA case: A small group of people find out about these potential violations, and they bring a lawsuit. And then there's an extraordinary proliferation. Probably if the MPAA had left it alone, fewer people would have heard about it. If the MPAA weren't claiming that you could make these wonderful copies, that people were making copies, then I think most people would have left it alone. So I think that what this case may teach the MPAA and other copyright holders is that you can exacerbate a situation by trying to stop something that really is not affecting you.
Share your thoughts on DVD piracy, copyright protection, and the ramifications of the DeCSS case in the Loop.
Photo of Martin Garbus by Bruce Davidson
© FEED Inc. 2000
http://www.feedmag.com/re/re340.2.html
introduction: http://www.feedmag.com/re/re340.html
> The burden on the government, before it upholds a content based ban on speech is
>called the "strict scrutiny" standard.
In theory, in fact practically nonthing survives "strict scrutiny", so the question is what do the justices want. If they cite strict scrutiny then they want the DMCA dead, but that is a big if.
Will there be five justices against a law by which congress helps big business screw consumers? I'd say it is a pretty close call.
-- look, cheese ahoy!
So what is Richard Stallman doing about open-sourcing the act of getting laid?
.02
My
Quux26
My
Quux26
www.crashspace.net
Quoting Garbus: Right now the MPAA has got an order from the court which makes it possible to stop the posting of the DeCSS. The MPAA has now made a motion to expand the injunction to include linking. What I'd like to know is, if links themselves are prohibited, can simply posting the text of the URL itself be prohibited as well? If we get to this extreme, I think we've gone way over the first amendment line.
-Agreed.. (are we completely off-topic yet?).. this is not such a good thing(tm).. I am a bit flabbergasted that they could claim the domain-name infringed on their identity.. it has nothing whatsoever to do with them, and is essentially nonsensical.. I can't see how they have a legal leg to stand on. -I was simply glad (after reading your communication) to see some sort of conciliation from the CM folk.. You can probably see the hesitation in my post (i.e -solved? and 'allowed')- I dont think that the ChunkyMunky folk should give in to this agreement, mainly due to the terms"This does not include using the name Chunky Monkey or chunkymunky or any other version of the name in any commercial or marketing manner, such as tee shirts or any other product."
So they cant print up shirts and give them away promotionally? The whole thing is ridiculous.. I'm just waiting for someone to claim Trademark rights for PopeAlien.com... I'm sure common sense will prevail.
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air and light and time and space
While many of the libertarians on /. (including myself) may see the merit of the "code is free speech" defense, the fact is that it has little legal merit. The authors of viruses can be prosecuted because that code may present a real danger. Just as the courts have decided to impose limits on verbal expression (i.e. the overused fire in a theater example) that can present a public danger, they will place restrictions on the distribution of code. One of the questions that is raised is: is the *threat* of piracy a public hazard that justifies the restriction on expression.
While we will answer that question one way, the MPAA is sure to present an alternative answer. The fervor with which they advocated the DMCA and prosecuted the DeCSS case indicates that *they* see the free distribution of Digital Media as a threat to their billions in revenue and their shareholders' interests.
This is a simple case. Whether code is a form of expression that is protected is *irrelevant*. The fact is that DeCSS can be used for *legitimate* purposes as previous copyright law defines "fair use" and will thus be permitted to be distributed. This is not a "test case" and 10 years from now will be seen as having little significance.
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
The point being that context is everything. litigation against DE-CSS is like outlawing warning people against notifying audiences in crowded theatres about fires despite the fact that
a)There have never been any incidences of people maliciously shouting "fire" in theatres to cause a panic
b)It will cause the death from incineration of several dozen people per year.
OK, people aren't (likely) going to die over DE-CSS ut the principle stands.
Rich
They have 'allowed' chunkymunky to use the domain for non-commercial purposes.. Good news!
The story is here
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air and light and time and space
(1) Legal unenforceability: In the example you give, assuming for sake of argument that DeCSS is illegal,(*) you're offering to sell an illegal product, not in exchange for money but for a release. It follows that the contract you propose is unenforceable because it is supported by an illegal consideration.
You are correct, although not necessarilly for the correct reason.
One could host one's web page, complete with click-through license, in one of the two American States foolish enough to have passed UCITA legislation (which explicitly makes click-through licenses enforcable).
Then, have the aforementioned "click-through" license on your web page, followed by a link to download DeCSS.
What makes this unenforcable isn't the law, or even the illegality of DeCSS (after all, maybe it is the decoy DeCSS program, which is undisputably legal and merely bears a superfical resemblence to DeCSS, in the similarity of their names). It is the fact that you are a powerless, unrepresented individual on the one hand, going up against a large cartel of corporate conglomerates by whom the government is employed on the other.
Even if such a license were enforcable, the RIAA and the MPAA would simply purchase a new law from congress post haste (a relatively inexpensive proposition), which would then make the license unenforcable, probably retroactively.
Really, until we seize back our government, all of this discussion will be more or less moot.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Sure, but they'd be fools if they did. They're enjoying a lot more eyeballs than they would have otherwise, even with the mirrored text.
The author and the editorial staff may be happy that their work is reaching a larger audience. I doubt Feed's advertisers feel the same way.
They may also get new readers. I'd never even heard of them before this.
This is the 'Napster generates sales' defence. I've often seen it used, but never seen it verified. Anecdotal evidence aside, is there any hard evidence that 'piracy' leads to increased sales and/or readers?
Steve m
Unless it's a prank, he can't spell worth a damn and also manages to get his home phone number on the net.
I thought Jon Johansson (sp?) came up with DeCSS. Who is "Derek Fawcus"? Or is that the cascading style sheet" thing?
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