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DeCSS Update
First, the Openlaw forum has filed an amicus brief in the case. This is a legal "position paper" filed by people who aren't directly involved in the case but have some interest in the outcome. The Openlaw participants developed it in a collaborative manner primarily using a public mailing list. The brief is intended to address the continuing injunction that the judge issued which prohibits publishing or even linking to the DeCSS code for the defendants and anyone acting in concert with them.
A completely separate issue has also come up within the past week. The MPAA has asked the court to seal the depositions given by their witnesses, claiming that they feel threatened due to receiving hostile email sent to their main contact address, hotline@mpaa.org, and probably prompted by a previous slashdot story... Depositions are question and answer sessions conducted under oath before the trial actually begins, so that the opposing lawyers have some idea of what people will testify to when they're actually in court.
The defense has actually offered to redact any home addresses or personal information from the depositions, and the mail that the MPAA received is no more hostile than any good flame, so it's rather doubtful that the MPAA could truly feel threatened. Most likely, they don't want to see quotes from their executives to the effect that DeCSS is not responsible for any illicit copying published far and wide.
John Young writes "Cryptome has submitted a statement to Judge Kaplan in opposition to MPAA's motion for a protective order to bar revelation of deposition materials. A hearing is scheduled for June 6.
"Read the MPAA's motion for the way complaining e-mail has been used to justify its appeal closed depositions... Anyone can submit a statement in opposition to or in support of the MPAA motion for protective order to bar the press and non-parties from revealing deposition materials. It must be submitted in hardcopy (no fax, no e-mail) to Judge Kaplan by end of day June 2, 2000 (4PM EDT is the hard and fast deadline) at the address given in the letter above.
"Cryptome will accept e-mailed statements in opposition or in support to the motion, print them out and submit them to Judge Kaplan on behalf of authors who cannot themselves submit hardcopy. Send to: jy@jya.com, with the subject: Protect Free Speech. "
They may not Take your computer but they will take an image of the hard disk. I have seen it done as part of a discovery on another lawsuit. If you do not want your personal and business data on that disk to be in the public record I suggest doing a low level format of the hard drive this weekend. Print out anything business related that you need. Or burn stuff to CD Rom and then do a low level format or better yet do a DOD format - 3 times with alternating patterns of chains of binary 0 & 1. If your hard drives are null then they have a harder time discovering 'disturbing data patterns' on your disk.
Good luck. God speed. Our hearts are with you.
I am not sure I got it right, but I think the WIPO treaty is more reasonable than DMCA. It says something to the effect that it is illegal to circumvent a technological measure that restricts one's acts related to the copyright owner's rights under the copyright law. DMCA took it further, and made it illegal to circumvent a technological measure that controls *access* to the copyrighted material. Now, if you think of it, accessing material has never been a subject of the copyright law, so I would think that bypassing an access-control device, rather than a copy-protection device, or a broadcast-protection device, or something like that, shouldn't be illegal under the WIPO treaty. But that's only my personal interpretation and IANAL.
In the latter case the consortiums that own CSS technologies would be in an awkward position. They would have to examine everything published using the technology and refuse anything with dubious copyright status. This would leave them open to charges of censorship and and monopolistic practices.
If this motion's granted, we will lose access to timely information that can help 2600.
When we know what's going on, we can spread the word and send advice with an immediacy that has never happened in civil law. MPAA has realized that this case is OpenLaw 1.0; they don't know what to do when an organization like 2600 gets support and advice from around the world. Lawyers like nice, orderly precedent. There is no precedent here. That's one of the big reasons Garbus took this case.
MPAA is like a a drowning sailor, /'ing out at support, but still able to cling to a few life preservers, like this motion to suppress.
Abusive, inflammatory e-mail only gives those buggers room to manoever. Keep your cool, but keep up the pressure. Don't fall prey to the emotions of facism. Blind, reactive behavior is easy to suppress in a court of law, and MPAA's legal team knows plenty of ways to stuff a sock in our collective mouth. Rational actors can do far more damage to MPAA in the courtroom than abusive e-mail and knives can ever hope to accomplish.
You can kill a man, but you cannot kill an idea
Does "rather have a large piece of a small pie than a small piece of a large pie" come to mind?
Yup. It's a commonly used business strategy when market share is the goal rather than actual dollar figures. Amazon does it with their patents. MS does it with Java (and is trying to do it with every other tech on the planet, too). The list goes on.
This could be a good argument to make in front of the judge. "Your honor, according to the plaintiff's own business practices they are more interested in maintaining their monopoly than in innovation..." Of course that would be more a antitrust issue but I think the point can be made in this case. After all, if it can be effectively argued that certain provisions of the DMCA harm consumers, it's all the more likely the law will be watered down or certain parts of it ruled unconstitutional.
What else could be said about this?
--- Journals are boring; Go to my web page instead
What about backups? My friends with VCRs tell me that a normal video tape has about a 25 playing lifespan. They further claim that their kid love to watch the same movie more then 25 times. Therefore they copy the movie so that when the copy wears out they still have to orginal to make anouther copy. (Generally the kids gets bored someplace in the middle of the second copy)
My expirence with music CDs is that they get scratched, and they do not take heat well. You can now buy VCRs, and I presume DVD players for use of backseat passangers in cars/SUVs. When blank DVDs come down in price I belive it will be common to make copies for personal use so that the orginial isn't damaged in harsh enviroments.
Lets assume that 99% of DeCSS users are illegaly coping DVDs. That leaves 1% with a legal use, is it right to restic them?
DeCSS is useful for ripping DVDs so they can be encoded in MPEG-(pick a number) format, and then distributed through your local warez d00d.
But if you're going to convert it to MPEG-1 (even with cable modems, MPEG-2 is just too big for practical internet distribution), one could simply do that with the analog video output and get about the same quality of output. And there's no practical format on which to copy digital DVD data that doesn't cost as least as much as the DVD or is hopelessly impractical (6 CD-Rs.) 99% of people would prefer lower quality and more practical use.
If DeCSS is banned, copiers will simply copy to VHS, or convert the analog output into MPEG-1 for internet distribution. It will have no practical effect.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
The issue is (apart from the fact that its already encoded into a compressed format, why waste quality re-encoding it) that it doesn't even have to be re-burned onto a dvd if you have a proper operating system.
So instead, you store a $20 DVD on $50 worth of hard drive space. Ya still gotta put it somewhere... Now admittedly, college kids with high-speed lines can essentially use multiple machines as a distributed file system, but for the rest of us that's not really practical.
But this is the most fundamental truth: even if DeCSS is shut down, people will still pirate just as much. Given how much trade there is in pirated tapes made by smuggling a video camera into the movies, perfect copies just aren't an issue here. If DeCSS goes away, people will just make copies of the analog outputs.
>P.S. - I wonder if thats why no unix players were made in the first place?
People who write free software aren't real keen on paying licensing fees, and other Unices aren't really big in the home market. So UDF support existed only in Windows, so DeCSS was written for that.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Considering that OpenLaw is composed of both lawyers and programmers, its not surprising that some of the more "childish" tactics have been shot down. The DeCSS case could well be critical in determining the legality of "anti-circumvention" laws, and so it important that the hacker community doesn't "blow it." On the other hand,OpenLaw forum has tried to defend the world wide linking campaign. As for the faux DeCSS program-- you might be interested in reading some of the forum's archives
Amusingly enough, though, they're more expensive than a genuine .uk domain, which costs £7.50 for 2 years at http://www.f2s.net. The subscription form is available in MS Word or PDF formats.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
And it's a wrong one. All past precedents indicate that they are DEAD WRONG in that regard.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Does this sound like FUD to anyone else? How do we even know this incident was DVD related? Maybe the MPAA representative had recently slandered someone in their effort to "fight piracy."
I hope someone who sent in a response challenged this innuendo
He's just out to defame me, I guess. None of it makes much sense to me.
Bruce Perens.
Remember: Lawyers are trained to intimidate people. Don't allow yourself to be intimidated. Answer factually and rely on your lawyers. You have my best wishes!
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
And this helps my alphalinux how? Or those with a Sparc/Linux. Is it available SMP & UP, which version of the kernel?
get your DeCSS and M$ Kerberos here... :P
Cybie! aka Ralph Bonnell
You might think so - but this is exactly the kind of thing that CSS is designed to try and prevent!
Ding ding ding! ... New Jersey! :-)
You win an all expenses paid vacation to
I'm impressed that you picked it out that easily.
Sam TH
Sam TH
AbiWord Developer
Bonus points for getting the quotation.
Sam TH
Sam TH
AbiWord Developer
If you haven't got a copy of the file, they can't ask you for it -- they don't know you ever had it. Is simple prudence and best practice for data security now against the law ? Presumably not, until you are notified to retain everything related to the case. At which point one unsubscribes from lists, alerts everyone you have email contact with, and so on ?
Clue me in, someone ?
Camaron de la Isla 'When I sing with pleasure, my
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Uhh... maybe you are thinking of Kevin Mitnick?
This is the reason not to email hate mail/threats to the MPAA or RIAA. The people who did that gave the MPAA ammunition in their effort to keep the lawsuit out of the public eye and out of the press.
I think it's amazing, DVD's popularity in the face of the controversy. Compared to CDs, for instance, DAT was great. However, it had the grubby fingerprints of Control on it, players were only made by a few companies, and ultimately it didn't see widespread use. I think this is largely due to freedom and availability of players and copying tech. Meanwhile, CDs, Cassettes and VHS videos, which are easy to copy and have a great many companies distributing players, make tons of cash and see widespread distribution.
Well, for me the issue has always been the longevity and copyability of the format. I've only ever bought a couple of video tapes because they wear out, and I can't make perfect backup copies. It just never made sense to me to buy a movie under those conditions. VHS is fine for renting, but I look on my media collection as a library, not a consumable slowly going bad in the fridge. The same argument applies to audio as well. I've only bought I think two cassette tapes in my life, as compared with something like 300 CDs.
So even though the dvd format is a technical disaster (and because it's a lossy format we'll be stuck with most of its silliness forever) I've started buying movies. Because the discs will last decades and because I'll be able to make backups as new storage media becomes available. Not that I won't buy re-releases in 30 years when a higher-resolution format becomes available.
That's what's motivated me, anyway. I suspect the durability and improved quality of the format has most to do with its success. That and the studios standing behind it, unlike laserdisc. I doubt the average buyer is terribly aware of the CSS controversy.
Today I wrenched my back while placing my CSS protected DVD of Apocalypse Now in my DVD player. While I do not suggest the plaintiffs were responsible for this deplorable incedent, had the CSS protection been absent I could have played the DVD in my computer, which runs Linux and is at a height that does not require me to bend over. I recently posted an anti-MPAA post on Slashdot, and this deplorable incedent reinforces my claim that CSS is harmful and inflicts needless pain on programmers everywhere. (strange but true -- feel free to forward to the judge)
So civil disobedience is childish to you?
What do you think of people Ghandhi or Martin Luther King?
Were they childish for refuing to compromise their beliefs?
Just because you don't like a behavior isn't a good enough reason for you to start calling names.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
All the filings relevant to my case are on http://www.eff.org. Press coverate was really good early on, but the California case has really been overshadowed by the 2600 case.
There's an article on my case on pg 96 of last month's Wired (the one with the cute asian chick on the cover).
The reason the 2600 case has gotten more coverage is because, frankly, it's more interesting. For the DVD CCA to sue people all over the world under California trade secret law is pretty ridiculous. Not only that, but they're completely in the wrong. The consensus within the community is and has always been that decss was not "illegally" reverse-engineered.
With the 2600 case, they're being sued under the DMCA... this law has two conflicting clauses. Our side quotes the clause that says it's OK to break the encryption for purposes of interoperability. Their side quotes the clause that says you can't distribute tools to break the encryption.
So, to resolve the 2600 case, a very important ambiguity in the DMCA will have to be cleared up.
Hi. I'm Andrew Bunner... one of the named defendants in the DVD CCA case.
/.
On June 6th, I'm due to give my deposition. Here's what's happened so far on this topic. We're right now in the "discovery" phase of the trial which means we have to give them stuff and they have to give us stuff.
I've been asked to provide copies of everything I've ever written or read about DeCSS or any other technology used to encrypt images. Huh. I guess they want my copy of PGP.
They're probably going to try to take my computer from me so they can comb through the hard drive at their leisure.
We're going to object to this course of action since my drive is full of nuclear secrets, FBI informants and the witness protection database. Not to mention the fact I do all my work from this box.
On the 6th, I'm heading down to Cupertino to meet with a bunch of the plaintiff's lawyers, a court recorder and a bunch of our lawyers. Then they're going to swear me in and ask me questions all day.
My lawyers tell me that is expressly prohibited for them to apply electrodes to my nipples during the questioning process.
Although I can't be sure, my guess is that their line of questioning is going to be aimed at showing that somehow I knew or should have known that DeCSS was a stolen trade-secret. Their case pretty much hinges on this.
This will be hard for them since they are trying to prove a falsehood.
I'll ask my lawyers if I'll be allowed to talk to the press about the deposition after it's done. If so, I may try a summary to
Anyhow... wish me luck!
(*) Note that the MPAA case depends on a much different section of law. The DVD CCA is suing me under California trade secret law. 2600 is being by the MPAA sued under the DMCA.
i'm going to go out on a limb here and risk coming off as flamebait. i agree that your point is valid, but i also think that portion of the population that is as well traveled and worldly as you are is not the same portion that the mpaa wants to target.
most of the people i know who spend boatloads of money on home electronics, including home theatre systems and dvd players (and dvds) are... well, are moderately loserish (which is as polite a term as i can come up with). i know someone that owns upwards of 300 dvds, two players, and an amazing system. i don't know the last time he left his house, let alone the state or the country.
i mean, really, how much money do you think they should plan to make off of americans purchasing their own copy of "galaxy quest" while on tour in europe? (compare this figure with the money they'll make on the same movie from guys who never kissed a girl).
i agree region encoding is stupid, but i disagree that it's necessarily bad business. corporations typically try not to take actions that cost them profit.. and if you prove them wrong on this one, they'll adapt.
- pal
i didn't say every movie collector was a loser. that would be a stupid claim.
i just wanted to make the point that the mpaa can't possibly believe they are losing all that much money by selling dvds on other continents that don't play here, and vice versa.
the control they gain doing this is not really hurting them.
- pal
I, for one, do not own a DVD player. I am being a little cautious (and more than a little broke), and want to know how things are going to pan out before chucking down my couple hundred dollars with which folks can fuel their legal crusade against those who'd want to watch dvd video from an 'unregistered' platform (say, Linux).
I think it's amazing, DVD's popularity in the face of the controversy. Compared to CDs, for instance, DAT was great. However, it had the grubby fingerprints of Control on it, players were only made by a few companies, and ultimately it didn't see widespread use. I think this is largely due to freedom and availability of players and copying tech. Meanwhile, CDs, Cassettes and VHS videos, which are easy to copy and have a great many companies distributing players, make tons of cash and see widespread distribution.
Of course, now I'm just babbling.
--ben
-- build a man a fire and he'll be warm all day. set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Wouldn't it be perfectly legal for, say, a no-name electronics manufacturer to reverse engineer a hardware DVD player in order to create a compatible DVD player to sell to the market?
Would it be just as legal then for the same electronics manufacturer to reverse engineer a Windows DVD player, and then apply that to hardware, to create a DVD player to sell to the market?
Then wouldn't it be just as legal for them to just package a PC with a software DVD player, crafted from their efforts of reverse engineering, to sell to the market as a DVD player?
Besides the difference of selling a player to the market, how does anyone see DeCSS as any different, other than the ability and desire to spread the information on the market via the Internet?
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Or better yet, sci.fi
Karma: Good! Napster: Baad!
(1) It shouldn't surprise you that a brief is very readable; after all, it's intended to persuade. Some briefs are less readable by non-lawyers because they don't go into detail on concepts that lawyers and judges take for granted (e.g., rudiments of contract law or civil procedure). In general, however, a well-written brief or judicial opinion should be quite comprehensible to the intelligent nonlawyer. An unreadable brief is a bad brief.
(It's not always the case, however, that well-drafted statutes and contracts are readily comprehensible, though there's considerable interest in improving the present state of affairs. If this interests you, I particularly recommend taking a look at the SEC initiative on the use of "plain english" in disclosure documents.)
(2) I agree that the description of linking is a bit verbose. (E.g., instead of saying that HTML "allows Web authors to format text to add emphasis or design layout," why not say that HTML "allows Web authors to specify how their text should appear on the page"?) That's basically nitpicking, though. The real question is whether such a description was necessary, and whether a demonstration or the like wouldn't be preferable. In my view, the description was necessary.
A couple years ago, some lawyers got very excited about the possibility of putting together multimedia briefs, which would supposedly be far more informative than text on paper. The truth is, however, that a 25MB .AVI of a plane bursting into flame conveys far less significant information for legal urposes than a declaratory sentence such as "Because of a design flaw in the frobulator, Flight 123's fuel tanks caught fire, causing the plane to burst into flame on the runaway, killing all passengers and crew." Likewise, persuasive writing strips away nonessential information to focus on key facts. Here, the key fact that hyperlinks -- however implemented -- are nothing more than references to other documents just like citations in legal briefs. You might guess that to be true from seeing a web browser in action, but then again, you might not.
Someday, the industry honchos will figure out that DeCSS can actually be very good for DVD. The technology, if used correctly, can actually be used to generate a much wider market of DVD users, and produce higher sales of DVD merchandise.
My office has been taken over by iPod people.
As the 'other' defendant in the DeCSS/MPAA case (ct2600.org) I would like to extend this opportunity to the MPAA:
You can, only for the next 24 hours walk away from this case. You may send me in writing your letter of dismissal cc Judge Chatigny at my home address or contact my Legal counsel.
I know this may seem odd to many but I just don't want the MPAA to be wasting their time on a case the will not nay, cannot win. Since it's inevitable that we (Emmanuel and myself) will win these cases I thought I would let the MPAA off the hook now... if they choose... I understand that we all make mistakes.
With love,
Jeraimee Hughes
a.k.a. A.Sleep
ct2600.org
DO NOT TAUNT THE OCTOPUS
the .cx TLD is for Christmas Island, a small Island in the Indian Ocean, just south of Java.
.cx domains are freely available and cheap. 20 UKP for the first year and 10 for every year afterwards. International TLD's are sort of fun, because you can make up nifty domain names like yes.no or eat.it ;)
Hackers saw the need
Time and code broke trade secret
RE is legal!
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
It must be submitted in hardcopy (no fax, no e-mail) to Judge Kaplan
RTFA
-jpowers
-jpowers
Well, both are wrong. HTML is really about mapping one quantity of information to another relevant quantity somewhere else. The fact that it can sometimes also be used to specify the layout of that information is a side-effect and has been largely poorly bolted on (as demonstrated by the numerous ways different browsers have of rendering the same page, within appropriate leeway).
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
I've heard the argument that DeCSS isn't useful for piracy--this is mostly crap. Sure, professional pirates could already copy DVDs bit-for-bit, but home users can't since there's a small section that's pre-burned on most DVD-RAMS that prevents that.
And real blank DVDs (not DVD-Rs) cost upwards of $50 for a home user.
DeCSS is useful for ripping DVDs so they can be encoded in MPEG-(pick a number) format, and then distributed through your local warez d00d.
That would kinda defeat the purpose of ripping a DVD; I may as well go download a DivX video or rent a tape. I reiterate the words of Jim MIller, Warner Home Video president, back on Jan. 11 to CNN: "There is no economic incentive to pirate this product." Translation; a pirate wouldn't save any money using this method. A full MPEG-2 ripped DVD is several gigabytes, and an MPEG-1 downconversion is still nearly a gig in size. Even then, a movie burned to a VCD can easily span discs; keep in mind, there is no layering system for CDs like there is for DVDs, much less home-burned ones.
Until a good number of people get home access to the equivalent of T3s or greater, ripping DVDs and sending them out won't be a problem. It's a straw man created by people scared that their precious control method was figured out.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
DeCSS has two uses: ripping DVDs for distribution over the net, and integration into an open source linux player.
I've heard the argument that DeCSS isn't useful for piracy--this is mostly crap. Sure, professional pirates could already copy DVDs bit-for-bit, but home users can't since there's a small section that's pre-burned on most DVD-RAMS that prevents that. DeCSS is useful for ripping DVDs so they can be encoded in MPEG-(pick a number) format, and then distributed through your local warez d00d.
The legit use of DeCSS is to build an Open Source linux player. With the advent of one or two closed source Linux DVD player projects (with the blessing of the DVD consortium), why do we still need this? For all the reasons Open Source is superior to closed source. The commercial LinuxDVD player will probably be x86, at least at first, which means my iMac running Linux PPC is SOL. In short, for the freedom Open Source gives us (insert RMS or ESR rant here).
Is it right to ban something because one of its uses is for piracy? IMHO, no. What if it's primary use is piracy? That's much more difficult to decide...
Of course, piracy is not the only claim the DeCSS opponents are making. They also claim DeCSS was created illegally. This is, to my knowledge, bull, as it was created outside the jurisdiction of DMCA, and CSS was cracked through reverse engineering, not industrial espionage, so there was no illegal theft of trade secrets.
As I understand things, there are two ways to protect proprietary technology: patent it and make it public (but nobody else can use it for 25 years), or keep it a trade secret (anyone is free to do it as long as they come by the knowledge legally). CSS was a trade secret, not a patent, so, now that the cat is out of the bag, there's not much the powers that be can do from that legal angle.
Yes, I am ignoring DMCA. Why? The US isn't everything--I personally don't live there. Most countries don't have DMCA-like laws, but they do have trade secret and patent laws.
If someone can convince me that the primary use of DeCSS is a Linux DVD player, I'll firmly support the effort to fight the restraining order. Otherwise, I'm not so sure what's right...
I am not sure I got it right, but I think the WIPO treaty is more reasonable than DMCA.
What appears to keep being missed is that DeCSS is protected by exactly the same laws and treaties which the MPAA is attempting to use against it. Especially interesting is Article 8.
It says something to the effect that it is illegal to circumvent a technological measure that restricts one's acts related to the copyright owner's rights under the copyright law.
Are the MPAA using any technological measures against the use or distribution of DeCSS? If so then the MPAA would appear to be breaking the DMCA.
DMCA took it further, and made it illegal to circumvent a technological measure that controls *access* to the copyrighted material.
Large Non-Governmental Organisations in the USA are both lobbying hard for draconian legislation as well as marketing to try and presuade people that laws which don't (yet) exist are already in force. This isn't helped by the US consitution not preventing the creation of laws which violate it. With it then being prohibitivly expensive for the ordinary citizen to do anything about it.
Now, if you think of it, accessing material has never been a subject of the copyright law, so I would think that bypassing an access-control device, rather than a copy-protection device, or a broadcast-protection device,
Also the region encoding is itself questionable under international law. Interstingly there has been little mention of the MPAA in places where selling players which are region locked is against the law.
8. On May 24, 2000, a country manager for the MPAA in Malaysia was returning home from dinner with a female friend when the two were confronted by a man who brutally slashed the friend's face, inflicting a wound which required 22 stitches to close. Again, while I do not suggest that defendants were responsible for this attack, I believe, based on the circumstances known to me, that the attacker intended to hurt the MPAA representative, rather than her companion, because the MPAA representative had received threats recently as the result of her anti-piracy work, and that this deplorable incident reflects the very real danger faced by MPAA personnel and others who work to fight piracy in an increasingly contentious atmosphere. Similar incidents have occurred in the past.
Unfortunatly there is not enough information about this incident to draw any conclusions. Especially since the "friend" is unidentified, robbery, racism and this "friend'" (legal or illegal) business interests would be just as possible.
Also the MPAA makes the bogus link between DeCSS and anti-piracy. It should come as no surprise that real pirates employ thugs.
Judges should not take into account anonymous hate mail presented by a petitioner as evidence that there is a credible threat against the petitioner.
:)
Or if they do they should consider it to harm the petitioner's case
This is because the petitioners can create throwaway accounts, generate as much hate mail as they feel they need, and send it to themselves.
I've been really impressed by the legal and non-legal input in the forum -- people helping to poke both technical and legal holes in the MPAA arguments and in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act itself. I'm working on a letter to the judge to emphasize how much of that would be lost if the public were denied access to the proceedings.
Thanks for all the help!
-- Openlaw: Fighting for fair use and the public domain
I should remind you that as "radical" as it sounds, my view is in fact the status quo. Until recently there was no question that you owned your copy of a book or recording or any other sort of copyrighted material. Software, movie, and recording companies are trying to extend their rights under copyright law to levels that are completely unprecedented historically. The questions that we should be asking is why should we grant them these extra rights? In this time of soaring profits, do they really need more control in order to stay in business? Will these expanded rights be good or bad for us as citizens and consumers?
I do not advocate eliminating copyright, but recent advances in technology are forcing us to reexamine its role in society and in the marketplace. Old laws will have to be scrapped, and new ones written to replace them. When that happens, social justice, not profit margins, should be the primary concern.
-rpl
One of the basic principles of our society is that people have the right to use and dispose of their personal possessions however they see fit. The recent trend toward licensure of goods instead of sales threatens to undermine that principle by stripping the common man of his ability to own any possesions at all; instead he will license them and use them at the suffrance of the companies who retain ownership. As we saw with DIVX, that license can be revoked at any time, and for any reason. For movies on DVD, maybe that isn't such a big deal, but for truly important goods (say, your car, or your home, or the textbooks you need for your education), licensure keeps you under the thumb of the license holder for as long as you need to use "his" goods. DeCSS is about fighting this trend on every front. It's about not starting down the slippery slope that leads from unimportant stuff like movies and entertainment to the things that really are essential to modern life. Petty concerns like piracy, or even Linux, pale by comparison.
Bringing the subject back to DVD specifically, I think the DIVX fiasco has spooked a lot of people. People that thought they had bought a permanent copy of a movie on DVD suddenly found that they could lose that copy (or, more correctly, the right to watch that copy) at the whim of the company that had sold it to them. This has made a lot of people skittish about any scheme that separates them from the content that they have legally bought and paid for. Few people want to be dependent on the good graces of an organization like the MPAA for anything, not even something as trivial as one's movie collection. (Speaking of DIVX, does anyone know if DIVX discs use CSS? If so, then that might be another legitimate use of DeCSS; DIVX-silver owners could recover the movies that they are no longer allowed to watch owing to DIVX being discontinued.)
-rpl
Even better, why not ask them to make a mirror immage of your hard drive, and take that instead?
It's not as diffacult as it sounds. It's the same thing that backup software does, so basicly you're asking them to make a backup copy of your hard drive and to take that copy instead.
Even if they don't have the equiptment on them, they should be able to get it quickly and easily enough to justify the wait.
This isn't anywhere near as diffacult a feat as it was a couple decades ago, and portable mass storage drives are readly and cheaply avabiale, so I don't see why they would have any problems doing that.
Good luck, Mr. Bunner. Stay calm and think carefully about what you say.
Incidentally, do you know where more information can be read about your trial? 2600 does a fine job posting trial related documents, which are a facinating read, but I haven't heard a word about the California case since it started.
Is it because it is a weaker case? Or just because it has fewer 1st amendment implications?
If your slashdot report isn't posted, I'd still be interested to read it on any web site.
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
...asking for an agreement that the transcripts and video tapes not be disclosed to persons not directly involved in this litigation...
I'm sure that everyone on the internet is directly involved through them wishing to take away our right to fair use. So therefore they should let us all see the Depositions.
Judges should not take into account anonymous hate mail presented by a petitioner as evidence that there is a credible threat against the petitioner.
This is because the petitioners can create throwaway accounts, generate as much hate mail as they feel they need, and send it to themselves.
The same applies to Anonymous Slashdot postings, as well.
(This is not to say that there haven't been genuine stupid emails and postings. But who knows how many, if any, of them are real?)
"On the internet nobody can tell you're the MPAA." B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
"Even if you are on the right track, you'll
get run over if you just sit there." Will Rogers
"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there" - Will Rogers
So, is the QOTD copyrighted, patented or a trade secret? If it's patented, I can show prior art. (http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~dbaxo/quote.htm) If it's a trade secret, the beans were spilled in the 1920's. If it's copyright,
Besides, I've been using that sig since before there was a slashdot!
Insolent puppy. 8)
"Even if you are on the right track, you'll
get run over if you just sit there." Will Rogers
"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there" - Will Rogers
IANL, but I play one in the shadowbox show in my head.
"Even if you are on the right track, you'll
get run over if you just sit there." Will Rogers
"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there" - Will Rogers
Moderate this down.... It's not even a good flame....just flamebait...
I found this paragraph quite interesting. Early on, they describe how URLs work:
Cool! A technical description written in lawyerspeak. Can we have the next RFC in this format, please?As an aside, wouldn't it have been enough for the judge to be sent a link to the article (along with the hardcopy)? I am sure he could have figured out what role URLs play on the Web, then.
To finish up, here is a choice quote: Sreeram.----------------------------------
Observation is the essence of art.
NUKE THE MPAA
Send them all a mail to hotline@mpaa.org!
Don't do that. It's a childish waste of time and could end up backfiring.
If you want to participate constructively, I suggest you join Openlaw's mailing list. If you want want to rant and raive then I suggest you go to a WWF match.
1 June 2000
, and that most of them appear to be signed by their originators, common sense would seem to dictate that the few threats received are childish outbursts that don't represent actual intent to harm.
Hon. Lewis A. Kaplan
United States District Judge
Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse
500 Pearl Street, Room 1310
New York, New York 10007-1312
Re: Universal City Studios, Inc., et al v. Reimerdes, et al, 00-CIV-0277
Opposition to Motion for Protective Order
Dear Judge Kaplan,
This is submitted in opposition to plaintiffs' motion for a protective order, May 30, 2000.
My name is Bryan Taylor, and I am a member of the public who has followed the DVD litigation on the internet since its inception. I have followed nearly every legal filing, every news story, every judicial decision in this case since it began. I oppose the overreaching protective order now before you. This is yet another in a series of legal maneuvers brought solely to secure tactical advantage.
Any member of the public has a right to follow the details of litigation that may affect the boundary of free speech, fair use, and legitimate sharing of information for reverse engineering. This is an important case which will set an important precedent that will affect the public. The mere possibility of "big money" interests overprotecting their intellectual property rights at the expense of rights traditionally enjoyed by consumers, scientists, and programmers is one that I believe demands public scrutiny.
I have studied the extensive resources available from a variety of sources on the internet that are relevant to the DVD cases. These include mailing lists and their archives, court documents, online discussion forums, news sites, news site feedback forums, government cites, online databases of US and European statutory and case law, as well as the websites of the plaintiffs, defendants, and their respective law firms.
In my research, I have encountered many levels of discontent with the position of the MPAA, et. al., in this case. I have not, however encountered anyone who seriously advocated violence or other forms of criminal harm to the Plaintiffs. The emails submitted on behalf of the Plaintiffs represent a variety of opinions, a few of which clearly go beyond the range of acceptable discourse. However, considering that these emails appear to have been sent to a public point-of-contact email address (hotline@mpaa.org) which is advertised on the Plaintiff's website at http://www.mpaa.org/anti-piracy/contact/index.htm
The handful of threatening emails, which like all the emails submitted, are dated in January of this year. In my observation, emotions have cooled somewhat in the following months. These isolated threats from half a year ago bear no relation to the effect that will be produced by allowing open access to the deposition and discovery material. I make this observation having tracked many similarly relevant documents that have become available over this same half year.
Based on my observations participating in Harvard's Openlaw/DVD project, the effect of preserving public access over the internet to the raw source or original materials is that intense scrutiny will be applied to the documents. As of 6/2/00, the mailing list program lists 171 Openlaw participants. These include a self selected group of lawyers, professors, students, programmers, scientists, and technology people and other interested members of the public. The diverse backgrounds and self-selected nature of our forum ensure a high degree of quality and rigor in the discussion.
Typically when a new document is posted somewhere on the internet it will come to the attention of someone in our forum who forwards the link to the rest of the list. Often a discussion will follow. If mistakes, inaccuracies, or misrepresentations are present, the diversity of the participants will likely lead to the truth being flushed out. This works on both sides of the argument.
In several cases, members of our group have contacted non-participant experts to settle questions. The range of knowledge accessible in such a way to our diverse group is immense. Openness and calm public examination foster truth seeking and truthfulness. This should benefit the parties, their attorneys, the Court, and Justice generally. The desire for public access to the material in question is not intended for any other purpose than to seek the truth.
For these reasons, I hope that you will deny the Plaintiffs motion to hide important deposition and discovery information from the public. If there are any situations that call for confidentially, I hope that you will treat them narrowly and restrict only the minimal content needed.
Sincerely,
Bryan Taylor
Similar incidents have occurred in the past.
similar incidents have occurred...
To whom?
How similar?
How long ago? (before this whole thing started?)
How many times?
It's like a limbo... How low can you go?
penguinicide... when jumping out a window just won't do.
Take a look at the MPAA's FAQ about DeCSS and copyright in the digital age - it would be funny if it weren't so downright scary.
http://www.mpaa.org/Press/DVD_FAQ.htm
Among other things, they claim Fair Use effectively no longer exists:
It is a right to use what is available, not a right of access to works for fair use purposes.
Most importantly, this concept of fair use does not override specific statutory enactment such as the DMCA, which are intended by Congress to give clear protection to the rights of the creative community to use technological means to protect its product.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
That's not correct. The plaintiffs have requested that the judge expand the injunction against 2600 posting DeCSS to include linking to any site offering DeCSS as well. The judge has not enjoined linking so far.
--
314-15-9265
Wait a minute... this Bruce Perens doesn't have a period after his name. Is this some kind of mind trick? And not a jedi mind trick, although I'm thinking that Natalie Portman is probably involved somehow...
lf.o
Yeah, and what is up with the price-controlled regions built into DVDs? This can't be legal - this is blatantly artificial price-controlling on an international scale. How can they say that the same movie that I buy in Japan shouldn't work on my home played in the USA? So if I take my portable DVD player to Japan and buy a new movie, I have the buy that same movie again when I get back to the US???
We NEED this DeCSS to protect our rights as consumers! Entertainment companies are sidestepping international economic laws and copyright issues, and we're supposed to sit by and smile as our personal property becomes nothing more than a digital copy of a something that someone else owns and licenses to us? NO!
lf.o
Declan McCullagh of Wired News along with Mike Goodwin, senior legal editor of E-Commerce Law Weekly, are filling a motion today to open proceedings in this case to the public:. 060200.html
http://www.politechbot.com/dvd/intervene.motion
...both ears and the tail.
My guess is that it's from Lord of The Rings.
Wendy Seltzer deserves a lot of credit for the coordination and sorting wheat from chaff.
Now, as to depth and quality of legal arguments which the non-lawyer participants came up with on their own, well, you've been surprised before :-). As a class, programmers are intelligent and logical and very hard-working. IF someone can break them free of their tendency to repeat "This is how it SHOULD be" (instead of dealing with how it IS), then all the qualities that make one good for at coding a program can be harnessed in the service of coding a brief.
Since anyone can write as a watcher, but relatively few people can write as anything else, the balance seemed to favor pressing whatever advantage I had to distinguish my letter.
This has been a highly political case from the start. That's one way of viewing the reason that the MPAA is trying to choke off the information flow.
Honorable Lewis Kaplan
United States District Judge
Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse
500 Pearl Street, Room 1310
New York, New York 10007-1312
Dear Judge Kaplan:
I would like to add my voice in opposition to the plaintiff's Notice Of Motion For Protective Order of May 30, 2000.
I am a signatory to the amicus curiae brief of openlaw participants in Universal v. Reimerdes Any contribution made by myself, or others not present in the courtroom, would be hindered by the lack of a free and open flow of information. This is a case where networked participation through use of the Internet is not a buzzword or cliche, but a reality. The brief above proves that. Choking off information about the proceedings then has the effect of impairing potential further amicus curiae briefs. Have the plaintiffs shown any evidence at all that would justify such drastic consequences? Please deny their motion.
Sincerely,
Seth Finkelstein
Senior Software Engineer
OpenLaw/OpenDVD participant
--
not plane, nor bird, nor even frog...
Will the real Bruce Perens please stand up
...Please stand up
...Please stand up.
Much Love,
"S"HM
*****
(I refuse to spellcheck out of contempt for your belief system)
Four hours of sleep
Warm beer and cold pizza
And five hours of Sailor Moon
Ciao
nahtanoj
Additionally - try to compete with them...
There's currently a (first?) attempt at making
an entirely GPLed movie at
http://www.freefilm.cx/.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
As one of the lawyers who helped (a little) to write the thing, I found it enlightening also.
It is no secret that I was highly skeptical at first, since I've been writing briefs the old-fashioned way for longer than many here have been alive. But I was quite pleasantly surprised with the process and the result, and, giving credit where it is due to Wendy Seltzer, most of the credit does go to programmers, not lawyers.
As those who were involved know, the brief was a lot shorter than it could have been, for good tactical reasons. But I was fairly well amazed at the depth and quality of legal arguments which the non-lawyer participants came up with on their own, backed up by legal research they had never done before.
It is worth reading for many reasons, not least of which is to show that there are things which slashdot readers can do besides just post their outrage here.
-J, a lawyer who made minor contributions to the brief.
> There is only one thing left to do... stop watching MPAA movies entirely. Never fear, though... there are lots of good imports (Anime looks promising), and this could give rise to the independant films.
I think you're being overcomplicated here since there are still MPAA members' movies which are worth watching.
So go rent a DVD of them somewhere, rip 'em off in MPEG (or preferably DIVX). If you can get a few friends to do the same, you can easily get an archive of hundreds of movies for almost free, which means no $ for the MPAA.
And whoever still cares for IP on the verge of the 21st century is anyway lost...
Actually, since the whole DeCSS thing started, I decided the MPAA wouldn't get any money from me.
The only thing I care about now is the LOTR movies coming next year =)
"Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king."
"Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad." -- Terry Pratchett
I must agree. The quality of almost every single anime I've seen to date has been far higher than almost every live-action movie I've ever seen. A lot of anime is also (if I remember right) producted and distributed by compnaies that are a LOT smaller than the MPAA's members. Of course, a lot of the stuff being released on DVD is lisenced by some DVD CCA subsidy, but VHS quality is good enough for me.
-RickHunter
Whats that on the banner page of the WIPO website? It looks like arms in handcuffs or something... thats hardly the signal they want to give out.
I agree that information that could be used to identify the deposition-givers should not be disclosed... That's just good sense. But to withhold relevant information bearing on the case itself is definitely un-kosher.
--Fesh
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
The problem with that is there is *no* way to get enough people to stop watching their movies. A good portion of people don't care what the MPAA is doing... they just want to see their movies.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
It's not what it is, it's something else.
I'm not saying that at all. But, if you look at the aforementioned examples, wouldn't a better (at least from my point of view) course of action (as far as civil disobedience goes) be to keep THE DeCSS source in full view, nevermind the consequences of such?
It seems like there are a lot of people shooting themselves in the collective foot by distributing dummy copies of DeCSS - If we want it to be free, and be free to use it (which is what this is all about, isn't it?) then why are we going out of our way to create confusion on "our" side, if you will?
I'm not saying that the cascading style-sheet remover is a horrible idea, just perhaps not the best, and almost definitely not the most well-thought-out.
"I'm not even supposed to BE here today!"
It seems an awful lot to me like there are three distinct angles on the whole DeCSS mess - those who want DeCSS stopped in it's tracks (like the MPAA), those who want to see if nothing else a REASONABLE solution to the issue (like the OpenLaw forum), and those who want to use anarchistic, practically childish methods to wear down the MPAA's defenses ("Hey! I wrote a program that strips Cascading Style Sheets!")
Please, if you're trying to make a point about what should be done in this situation, COLLABORATE! It's time WE all pull together and JOIN the forces for whatever side we agree with. Let's not attack each other and drag the matter out.
"I'm not even supposed to BE here today!"
MPAA will just forward the email to your ISP, who will shut off your access for "illegal activity."
Will I retire or break 10K?
The issue is (apart from the fact that its already encoded into a compressed format, why waste quality re-encoding it) that it doesn't even have to be re-burned onto a dvd if you have a proper operating system. You think its hard to create a virtual device for a player to interface with? Think again.
;)
- Rei
P.S. - I wonder if thats why no unix players were made in the first place? Operating system too powerful? hehehe
Hey, guys, I'm just pleased as punch to report that it's a fleet of a hundred Vogon Battle Destroyers!
putting out my copy by email
:)
I can't believe I just did that. Seriously thouhg, reverse engineering is a protected form of fair use. That is part of the point of this case.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Acck! I screwed up the HTML on the Hiaku. Damn, I almost thought I was being clever. ::Slap! "Use the Preveiw button!" Slap!::
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
As a Malaysian, I totally agree. We Malaysians are a bunch of street thugs who run around with choppers slashing anti-MPAA people!
:)
P.S. Wanna see my Chopper?
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
Can you explain please
What was stolen? It's not clear.
You have confused me.
You are thinking of goatse.cx, which is a very nasty link often thrown out by trolls like you.
The link given was perfectly fine.
It sounds to me like the MPAA is not liking the bad publicity they are getting. If a savvy politician clued in to the rising sentiment against the MPAA, due to their censorship and monopolistic practices, it might be very bad news for them indeed.
Well I looked, and the two emails below seem
_ __________
to be the only two real "threats" that I saw.
content: If you even dare try to put forward your litigation
and lawsuits, I will kill you and your lawyers and anyone else
who supports you in your fight against piracy. I will also kill
your attorneys and judges who think piracy is bad.
Also, I hope kill at least one thousand of you!
I have hired several hitmen to kill
Elian when comes back into cuban soil
They repeated this email? Elian.... heh....
REDACTED
Subject: Fwd:fuck you
Screw you. You mother fuckers need to learn what
battles to fight and when to fucking learn the laws
you think are being broken. we're going to kill each
and everyone of you.
_______________________________________________
Do You Yahoo?
Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://im.yahoo.com
Boy, Yahoo has some good advertising. This seems
to be a more believable threat than the first one.
My Personal Favorite.
Austin; Kathy-
From: Anthony Teague [ATeague@arcmail.com]
Sent: Friday, January 21, 2000 2:29 PM
To: hotline@mpaa.org
Subject: 2600 magazine
You guys fucking are assholes. I hope you all rot in hell. Goddamn corporate
lackey fuck-up capitalist shitheads. ANARCHY!
But what really bothers me is this claim...
8. On May 24, 2000, a country manager for the MPAA in Malaysia was returning home from dinner with a female friend when the two were confronted by a man who brutally slashed the friend's face, inflicting a wound which required 22 stitches to close. Again, while I do not suggest that defendants were responsible for this attack, I believe, based on the circumstances known to me, that the attacker intended to hurt the MPAA representative, rather than her companion, because the MPAA representative had received threats recently as the result of her anti-piracy work, and that this deplorable incident reflects the very real danger faced by MPAA personnel and others who work to fight piracy in an increasingly contentious atmosphere. Similar incidents have occurred in the past.
I guess MPAA personnel don't have too much to
worry about, as their "attackers" don't seem
to bright, attacking the wrong person and all...
It's about an alleged "right" the merchant has to insist on selling encrypted, controlled-access intellectual "property"* and then to bring the full force of the state to bear upon people who hack around the encryption. It's about the alleged "right" of the merchant to enjoy the protections of copyright while encircling, diluting, and ennervating the rights of Fair Use and First Sale. Yet these rights are well-established prices one must pay to enjoy the protection of copyright.
The MPAA and other intellectual "property"* owners want to eat their cake and have it too: They want the government to protect them but they don't want to uphold their part of the bargain. They want unprecendented control over access and content use, yet they want to rely on the precedents for enforcement and protection.
To be succinct, the MPAA does not want to play fair. And I think this is the chord that has been struck. I hope you can forgive the following Americentrism, but that's where I'm from. And I believe that Americans have a very deep and abiding belief in fair play. Sometimes (many times, even) we do wonders convincing ourselves that the thing in our own interest is also the most fair -- but I have real faith that most Americans can recognize the grossly unfair and that most are repelled by it.
* Intellectual property is property in the way that fool's gold is gold.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
And what is this?!?!
He is blaming DVD activists for the attacks of a street thug. The sheer gall amazes me.
TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
From: John Schultz[johnschultz@mindspring.com]
.. Did they just need to fill up paper?
Sent: Friday, January 28, 2000 12:45 PM
To: hotline@mpaa.org
Subject: DeCSS
Shame on you. you jack-booted thugs. The lies you're telling to the ignorant courts will come back to haunt you when the public catches on.
OK - some of the other notes were 'threatening', but this one?
-
air and light and time and space
My question is about the idea of a signatory to the amicus curiae and the effect of writing a letter to a judge. After all, a judge is not supposed to be a politician, right? However it seems that nowadays judges in high-profile cases must consider politics on par with complaints, ordinances, statutes, laws, rights, and constitutions. If not moreso.
I think it has been demnonstrated many times that once people realize that "others are watching" something going on such as a court case, people start to really think about the decisions being made. It's easy to go to work, throw a couple of unknown bums in jail, and throw away the key, but a in a case that's being watched avidly by hundreds, if not thousands?
I encourage people to also write in expressing interest in the case, if not to just let them know that people are paying attention
. Make 'em lose some sleep.
[pink beam of light]
I think the parent of this post suggests an idea worth further thinking. I suggest a higher profile :-)
It seems pretty clear that the vast majority of "threatening" email is pretty tame - vocal dissent. The judge will likely not be aware of this - my guess is that each email will be printed on a seperate sheet of paper, making a stack an inch thick. Pre-selected (nasty) quotes will be read from the stack. The judge is not going to read the entire stack (if any of it). The defense, or our own letter writing should call attention to the fact that the MPAA has very few even remotely threatening emails, because if we don't do this, the MPAA will seemingly have a _lot_ of _very_ threatening emails, and thus a more solid case.
Perhaps suggest name (but not corporate rank) suppression as a way to ease their dubious fears.
It's probably too late in this case, since a subpoena has already been issued and post-subpoena attempts to conceal the data might be considered obstruction (perhaps someone with a legal background can comment), but people who have an expectation that their data may be subpoened ought to consider encrypting the hard drive. It appears to be a difficult thing (at least in the U.S.) to compel disclosure of the password. "As a practical matter, getting past the encryption may not be easy, but there are several approaches to try. First of all, the computer crime lab or the software manufacturer may be able to assist in decrypting the file. Investigators should not be discouraged by claims that the password "can't be broken," as this may simply be untrue. Some can be done easily with the right software. If that fails, there may be clues to the password in the other evidence seized--stray notes on hardware or desks; scribbles in the margins of manuals or on the jackets of disks. Agents should consider whether the suspect or someone else will provide the password if requested. In some cases, it might be appropriate to compel a third party who may know the password (or even the suspect) to disclose it by subpoena (with limited immunity, if appropriate)." And there's always the "I forgot it" claim. One word of warning, though: one well-known person (sorry, my memory fails me) encrypted his hard drive, and the government refuses to give it back to him until he gives them the key. They claim that he might have dangerous material on it (nuclear launch codes, perhaps?) and need to inspect it before returning it. Keep off-site backups.
Further info on how the government goes about conducting information searches can be found here. (I am not a lawyer).
Exactly. Real market pressures are the best way to effect this change.
The problem here is that MPAA members constitue a colluding monopoly, since regardless of market pressures (witness the /. outcry), no member can break ranks to sell DVDs under different (more open) licensing without being subject to other anticompetitive practices by the remaining MPAA members.
Bingo Foo
----
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
There is no stealing involved with DeCSS. The disc could be copied with the same technology used to burn them in the first place, so it's not suddenly starting something that didn't exist before. The end user bought the DVD medium and a licence to watch the contents, so it can't be that. So, where's the stealing? WHERE?
While the morality of mp3s can be argued, there is no possible way this could be stealing. People want to play the DVDs they purchased. Or maybe even they want to make a backup copy (which, last time I checked, was still legal).
Thanks, and i'm sorry to hear about your Linux insecurity.
-legolas
i've looked at love from both sides now. from win and lose, and still somehow...
I'm bored of action-packed shoot-em-ups anyway.
-legolas
i've looked at love from both sides now. from win and lose, and still somehow...
Really, what crime is it to watch my dvd on linux or windows? How do you think it is stealing? If you are referring to the Rediculous claims by the MPAA then you can stop now. DVD-R media costs $40 a pop so unless someone has a couple of million dollars to buy a factory and machines which can actually press the dvd's then they aren't going to be copied... Oh wait! That's happening in Asian, my bad... still doesn't have anything to do with Decss.
2600 reported this typo/freudian-slip "Posting information about MPAA's anti-privacy [sic] operations and techniques will make that information easily available to those engaged in, or planning for, digital piracy of individual works," extracted from the section 5 of the Motion (below). Glad they can "admit" what they're really up to. 5. Public dissemination of the information described in subsections (a) and (b) of paragraph 4 above, especially over the Internet, would facilitate harassment of plaintiffs, their witnesses, and other persons who may be identified in deposition testimony, as I understand plaintiffs' counsel have previously advised the Court. Disclosure of the information described in subsection (c) of paragraph 4 would substantially hinder ongoing anti-piracy investigations, frustrate future investigations, and undermine future security measures. Just as the FBI needs to protect its agents, sources, and methods, so as to safeguard their safety and effectiveness, so too the MPAA needs to protect those engaged in its anti-piracy operations. The focus of audiovisual piracy is rapidly shifting to Internet, DVDs and other digital transmissions. Posting information about MPAA's anti-privacy [sic] operations and techniques will make that information easily available to those engaged in, or planning for, digital piracy of individual works.
Can I bum a sig?
DeCSS sued
Openers of encryption
The crime is knowledge