DeCSS Depositions Begin

Booker noted that cryptome has the DeCSS deposition now online for folks to read it. Hopefully someone can post a translation: I'm reading it and just seeing a lot of objecting and refusing to answer questions.

Comments

Apply the Turing Test.

[luckykaa]

That looks almost like a bad turing test.

From that, I take it you have concluded that Lawyers are not yet intelligent.

he's gonna be pissed

[JamesSharman]

MR. GARBUS: If that is so, then we don't get into any disagreement about confidentiality.

MR. GOLD: That's not good enough, because, among other things, I don't want to wake up and see this transcript in the newspaper tomorrow, and I have reasons to believe that that is a possibility, but I won't get into that thoroughly.
In light of this discussion, I have designated the entire transcript as confidential.

Re:It's not the complete transcript

[alkali]

A common thing for a lawyer to do when beginning a deposition is to ask for the home and business address of the deponent. That's probably what was marked confidential on page 4.

Who's who (properly formatted, this time)

[tau_]

Since more than half the score 2+ comments at the time I write this (pretty early into the thread) have totally confused who's who, let's try to explain:

MR GOLD: The plaintiffs' (MPAA/studios) lawyer

MR GARBUS: The defendants' (2600, DeCSS) lawyer, who MPAA has tried to get thrown off the case

MR SCHUMANN: A witness for MPAA.

Re:Why this deposition is boring as paste

[plsuh]

JMS has it exactly right -- the whole point of this is for the defense to get the plaintiff's witness to establish what he does and does not know, and thus what he can and cannot testify about. Furthermore, notice the whole back and forth about Schumann's educational background and those of his partners on pages 20 and 60. This is part of the effort to undermine and disqualify the the witness as an expert, or at least limit what he can testify to.

For some more substantive tidbits, I actually read the whole thing (I have an advantage, I'm used to doing this sort of thing -- I used to be a consulting economist and I have read many of these puppies). Aside from the nice chunk pulled out by inquis, they cover:

1. Region-coding and fast-forwarding
2. Acutal piracy using DeCSS
3. Schumann's knowledge of decrypted movies
4. Linking to pages with DeCSS

To start, here's a good chunk from inside around pages 82 and 83.

22 Q. Does DeCSS also have the function of
23 permitting a consumer who has purchased a DVD to
24 evade the region coding?
25 A. No.

INTERIM COURT REPORTING

83
1 Schumann
2 Q. Does DeCSS permit a consumer who has
3 purchased a DVD to fast-forward through sections of
4 a DVD that the manufacturer has prevented from
5 being fast-forwarded?
6 A. DeCSS itself?
7 Q. That's my question.
8 A. No.
9 Q. Does DeCSS enable someone to use
10 with some other program, like a DVD player, to skip
11 the region code?
12 A. I think it is irrelevant to that
13 problem.
14 Q. You think DeCSS is irrelevant to
15 that problem?
16 A. To the problem of evading region
17 code?
18 Q. Yes.
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. You have reviewed some of the
21 declarations that the defendants have submitted?
22 A. Yes, I have.
23 Q. In a Declaration if there is a
24 statement that says that DeCSS permits you to evade
25 region coding, a region coding limitation, then

INTERIM COURT REPORTING

84
1 Schumann
2 that statement is incorrect?
3 MR. GOLD: I object to the form.
4 Q. You can answer the question.
5 A. In my professional opinion, DeCSS is
6 irrelevant to evading the region coding, in your
7 terminology.

To summarize, Schumann has stated for the record that DeCSS is not intended to evade region coding or fast-forward through copyright notices and the like.

From pages 106-109:

13 Q. So you have no knowledge of any DVD
14 that was burned, that was allegedly ripped off,
15 ever sold?
16 A. Burned on an individual writer?
17 Q. Yes.
18 A. Personal knowledge, no.
19 Q. Burned on any kind of writer?
20 A. No.
21 Q. Since you have been employed by
22 Proskauer, have you had any conversations with the
23 MPAA about how many DVDs they believe were seen by
24 anybody as a result of DeCSS?
25 A. No.

INTERIM COURT REPORTING

107
1 Schumann
2 Q. Have you had any conversation with
3 Universal concerning that?
4 A. No.
5 Q. Other than Time Warner, putting them
6 aside, have you had any conversations with the
7 other plaintiffs concerning that?
8 A. No.
9 Q. Have you ever seen any MPAA records
10 indicate that they know of a DeCSS being used to
11 gain access to a DVD, particular access?
12 A. Is this different than your earlier
13 question?
14 Q. Yes. Talking about records now
15 rather than people.
16 A. I believe before lunch I said that I
17 had no knowledge of any records of any shape from
18 the studios, relative to -- I guess pirated movies.
19 I don't remember the exact question, but I think we
20 have went over this. I apologize, but I don't want
21 to waste any of our time.
22 Q. Have you ever seen any records that
23 Proskauer has --
24 A. I have not.
25 Q. -- concerning whether or not they

INTERIM COURT REPORTING

108
1 Schumann
2 know of any particular case of DeCSS being used
3 with respect to DVDs?
4 A. I have not.
5 Q. Do you know if Proskauer or any of
6 the plaintiffs or the MPAA has retained any firm or
7 any third person to see the application or to
8 understand the application of DeCSS to DVDs?
9 A. I have no knowledge.
10 MR. GARBUS: Can I hear the last
11 question, please.
12 (Record read.)
13 BY MR. GARBUS:
14 Q. Do you know whether either Proskauer
15 or any of the plaintiffs had ever seen the DVD that
16 had been decrypted by DeCSS?
17 A. I have no knowledge.
18 Q. Have you ever seen any reports from
19 Proskauer or the MPAA or any of the plaintiffs
20 indicating whether or not they had ever seen the
21 DVD after the application of DeCSS?
22 A. You were referring to pirated DVDs
23 when you clarified?
24 Q. Yes.
25 A. I have no knowledge.
INTERIM COURT REPORTING
109
1 Schumann
2 Q. Do you have any knowledge whether
3 anybody at the MPAA claims that there ever was a
4 pirated copy of a DVD sold, a copy that had been
5 enabled by the use of DeCSS?
6 A. I have no knowledge.
7 Q. Would your answer be the same with
8 respect to Proskauer and the seven plaintiffs in
9 this case, excluding Time Warner?
10 A. I believe so, yes.

So Schumann has does not know about (even secondhand) any DVDs that have been pirated using DeCSS; nor do the plaintiffs, the MPAA, or their lawyers.

From pages 119 and 120:

24 Q. Have you ever tried to make a
25 determination as to the quality of a film that is

INTERIM COURT REPORTING

120
1 Schumann
2 shown from an original DVD that is now being shown
3 because DeCSS has "broken the code"?
4 MR. GOLD: You can answer that
5 "yes or "no."
6 A. No.
7 Q. Do you know if anyone at the MPAA
8 ever has?
9 MR. GOLD: You can answer.
10 A. I have no knowledge.
11 Q. Do you know if anyone at the seven
12 plaintiffs, other than Time Warner, have?
13 A. I have no knowledge.
14 Q. Have you ever seen any reports from
15 either the MPAA or any of the other seven
16 plaintiffs?
17 MR. GOLD: Yes or no.
18 A. I have no knowledge.

So Schumann can't say anything about the quality of a video file after it's passed through DeCSS -- he can't contradict the Toronto Star article. It does not matter whether or not the MPEG file plays properly or not; only that Schumann can't say anything about them. Folks reading here will know that the bits from the file are the same after such a symmetric encryption/decryption, anyhow.

On pages 134-136:

22 Q. With respect to the Disney site, do
23 you know whether the Disney site links to any DeCSS
24 postings?
25 A. I have no knowledge.

INTERIM COURT REPORTING

135
1 Schumann
2 Q. To your knowledge, has anyone at the
3 MPAA tried to determine whether the Disney site
4 links to specific DeCSS postings?
5 A. I have no knowledge.
6 Q. Do you know what strings are?
7 A. Strings?
8 Q. Yes.
9 A. In the computer sense?
10 Q. Yes.
11 A. I believe so, yes.
12 Q. Tell me what they are.
13 A. Strings is typically a term used to
14 define a sequence of text characters.
15 Q. Do you know whether the Disney
16 search engine, for example, will do a search if you
17 put in DeCSS?
18 A. If Disney has a search engine, which
19 I will believe is true, I would presume it would.
20 Q. And do you know how many sites then
21 come up under the Disney search?
22 A. I have no knowledge.
23 Q. Is your answer "no knowledge," would
24 that be true with respect to any of the other
25 plaintiffs in this case?

INTERIM COURT REPORTING

136
1 Schumann
2 A. Yes, that's correct.
3 Q. Do you know if the Disney search
4 engine will take you to CSS.auth?
5 A. I have no knowledge.
6 Q. CSS.cat?
7 A. I have no knowledge.

Schumann doesn't know about Infoseek (owned by Disney, one of the plaintiffs) having links via their search engine to DeCSS, CSS.auth, etc.

There's some more stuff, but it does get repetitive after a while. Hope this helps some of the folks who are less legal-oriented.


--Paul

Re:It's not the complete transcript

[bwt]

Parts of it are marked confidential, see begining (lines 8-13 on page 4), so it looks like Mr Gold got his way.

Um, no. Gold wanted the whole thing marked confidential. The fact that you are reading it means Gold lost. They had a hearing and the judge sided with Garbus (except that journalists can't actually attend the depositions - they can only get the transcripts). Only personal information and things that are truly trade secrets will be redacted. Otherwise, 'prominent' people's depositions will be released to the public within 3 days, all others within 10 days. Anything released can be posted on the net.

Linux BSD vs. Linux/BSD

[Sir Tristam]

I've noticed that there are a lot of posts about this article to the effect of "These MPAA lawyers are so dumb; they're talking about Linux BSD, and there is no such thing." Now, don't get me wrong, I think that the MPAA has their collective cranium firmly lodged up their rectal orifice on this one, but I'm not sure that the lawyers deserve the flames they're taking on this point. We have to remember that we are reading a transcript typed up by a court reporter who has proabaly not spent much time researching the technical aspects of this matter. It is entirely possible that the lawyers' notes read 'Linux/BSD' and the court reporter is taking down what they say, losing the silent slash.

Guys/gals, put this one down as a typographical error before we start looking too petty, and let's start looking at the real substance of what the two sides are saying.

Why this deposition is boring as paste

[jms]

The whole thing looks like a bunch of back and forth bickering, and to a certain extent it is. Once you understand what is really going on, things become more clear and the exercise becomes more useful.

The purpose (for the defense) of a deposition such as this serves two purposes. First, you try and find out what the potential expert witness knows and has witnessed.

Secondly, and more importantly in the case of this particular expert witness, Mr. Garbus has placed into the record a long list of what Mr. Schumann does not know and does not have knowledge of. For instance, among the hundreds of factoids teased out by Mr. Garbus, it came out that Mr. Schumann has no knowledge of anyone ever using DeCSS to create a pirate DVD disk that was then sold.

This limits the value of the witness to the MPAA at trial. He can't claim that he has seen or heard of anyone using DeCSS to burn a pirate DVD and sell it, because he testified that he hasn't in his deposition. This also gives Mr. Schumann about a hundred different chances to blow his credibility on the stand by contradicting his deposition.

Think of it as seeding the minefield.

This is how the game is played, and you have a front row seat. Enjoy!

New lawsuit launched.

[Richy_T]

In a press release today, the American Automobile Association announced that it would be launching a lawsuit against large numbers of internet users "as soon as we can find something to litigate about". A spokesperson for the organisation said "With the recent lawsuits instigated by other companies with acronyms ending with 'AA' such as the MPAA and RIAA, we felt we were in danger of falling behind in terms of publicity and dilution of the brand. Our members need to be reassured that the triple-A will always be doing its upmost to be first, whether it be ensuring its members get from A to B or initiation spurious lawsuits"

When asked if "Alcoholics Anonymous" would be jumping on the litigation bandwagon, their spokesman said "Our lawyers are looking into whether is is sufficient to simply have an acronym ending in 'AA' or whether the actual name must also include the words 'American' and 'Association'"

Rich

Funny -Zen and the Art of Depositions

[BoLean]

Q. Do you know what Linux is?
A. I assume so, yes.
Q. You assume you know?
A. As much as anybody knows what Linux is.

It's not the complete transcript

[BlueUnderwear]

Parts of it are marked confidential, see begining (lines 8-13 on page 4), so it looks like Mr Gold got his way.

Jesus

[Dr. Sp0ng]

Look at this:

UNIVERSAL CITY STUDIOS, INC., PARAMOUNT
PICTURES CORPORATION, METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER
STUDIOS, INC., TRISAR PICTURES, INC.,
COLOMBIA PICTURES INDUSTRIES, INC.,
TIME WARNER ENTERTAINMENT CO., L.P.,
DISNEY ENTERPRISES, INC., and TWENTIETH
CENTURY FOX FILM CORPORATION,

Plaintiffs,

vs.

ERIC CORLEY a/k/a "EMMANUEL GOLDSTEIN"
and 2600 ENTERPRISES, INC.,

Defendants.

Am I the only one who's getting visual images of an 18-wheeler hitting a Civic at 110 mph?
--