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DVD/DeCSS: MPAA Wins In New York
A quote from the conclusion:
VI. ConclusionIn the final analysis, the dispute between these parties is simply put if not necessarily simply resolved.
Plaintiffs have invested huge sums over the years in producing motion pictures in reliance upon a legal framework that, through the law of copyright, has ensured that they will have the exclusive right to copy and distribute those motion pictures for economic gain. They contend that the advent of new technology should not alter this long established structure.
Defendants, on the other hand, are adherents of a movement that believes that information should be available without charge to anyone clever enough to break into the computer systems or data storage media in which it is located. Less radically, they have raised a legitimate concern about the possible impact on traditional fair use of access control measures in the digital era.
Each side is entitled to its views. In our society, however, clashes of competing interests like this are resolved by Congress. For now, at least, Congress has resolved this clash in the DMCA and in plaintiffs? favor. Given the peculiar characteristics of computer programs for circumventing encryption and other access control measures, the DMCA as applied to posting and linking here does not contravene the First Amendment. Accordingly, plaintiffs are entitled to appropriate injunctive and declaratory relief.
SO ORDERED.
Dated: August 17, 2000
When I have looked through the law before, I thought to myself how they could justify such tough constraints. Then I thought" Hmmm, wonder if the Senator from Colorado had anything to do with this? A long time ago see the 80's, Satellite dishes became the rage amoungst the redneck crowd. Now why you ask? Well because all signals sent by satellite for cable were unencrypted. All the yocals could just watch HBO and pr0n to their hearts content.
Then low and behold TCI and HBO were miffed, they didn't like 5 rednecks watching for free. So they consulted a defense contractor (Macomm) to build them a satellite transmision encrypter. What they got was an encoder. Analog TV is kinda hard to mess with they found out. So the rednecks (some of them educated) began to decode the signal - short a lead here, burn an eprom there.
Oops, HBO had problems. They had sold tons of the decoder boxes to rednecks assuming subscriptions and got nothing out of it (excluding the profit on the boxes of course). Rednecks figured that after paying $2000 for a system, they shouldn't pay $50 a month per channel. (Which was what HBO thought they were worth to satellite viewers, don't get me started that they only charge cable companies about $0.50 per subscriber.) They being typical business men immediately blamed their partner Macomm and bought them for their own company General Istruments. That didn't fix the tech problem, however now they had the technology and could use it on local cable too. More than that, it made the cash go directly to them and now the boxes were built as bad as their cable boxes.
So they immediately contacted their lawyers, and they said well it's the rednecks box he can do what he wants with it. So HBO began a legal campaign to send laws in about the "act" of decryption being illegal. They also wanted laws about tampering with the boxes. They also filled the box circuitry with epoxy to prevent rewiring. Oh the power of the Dremel.
They got some laws on the actual tampering sent through. (They basically took a chunk out of the right to own property by saying that the intent was malicious and use of their technology in this way was illegal.) This worked to kill the satellite piracy some what, however, the whole thing scared the crap out of all media vendors. For a while there they were completely not in control of their transmissions.
However, they were still being screwed by the distribtion of the technology to rewire their boxes. People were and still are (though the tech is not capable of doing anything like it used to do, due to increased key change rates) selling the video tapes showing step by step and schematics on doing the work. The individual could still crack his own box and no one would know he did it.
So they were ready to protect anything and everything at all cost with the DMCA. It was done to protect several very important(and since the eighties vocal) groups in media. It had absolutely no concern for any rights of the individual, because there were bigger implications that needed addressed. I am sure the lawyers who got this one lobbied had a chuckle after someone told them how many rights they stepped on and how far reaching it actually is. Could it have been written better? Yes! Is it more useful to media as it is? YES!
This is how most right restricting laws get passed. Now that it is law it is being abused by any group that is smart or at least originally very dumb and want to clean up their own mess. I won't go into the reason why this stuff occurs, lets just say a few states should rethink their representation, it goes with both extreme liberals and middle (not moderate or extreme, but the ones you only see a few times on CPAN) conservatives. Most of these people have absolutely no clue what their duty is or how the actual legal process works. They are talking puppets for hire. How many new laws do we actually need?
Now, now. The Canadian government has apologized for Brian Adams on several occasions.
I still think you ought to be able to overturn the DMCA, this case and every other recent case on the grounds that they define DVD's as being "Five inch wide disks". Break out a ruler and you'll see that no DVD or CD ever made was five inches wide... so these "protected items" are, by law, not covered.
Then again, I'm an engineer, not a lawyer. It's probably been years since the lazy bastards in Washington touched a tool of any kind.
It looks like this will bring this case one step closer to the supreme court. Once under the supreme court, the DMCA can be scrutinized, and this can be resolved once and for all.
Complient, in this case, is defined to be a liscenced DVD player. (Footnote 29 and text, page 10).
So, if you want to quote from a DVD, the judge expects you to either:
a) Sing it yourself.
b) Use a tape recorder
c) Use a video
I assume he would also accept
d) Act it out yourself
I'm sure that most people will realise that options a) and d) are rediculous for many purposes. Try showing why psycho is scary with only those options, for example.
So, for the audio, your expected to use a cassette, or similar [0], and a cable. Fair enough, really. Signal loss there is minimal.
But to use a Video recorder??
Uh, excuse me, but all 'complient' players employ Macrovision, to delibertly block the use of video recorders [1].
So how, exactly, are you ment to quote video? A camcorder and TV???
Obviously.
[0] Such as a computer and a sound card, if digital is your thing.
[1] Strictly, VHS. Betamax is unaffected by Macrovision. I don't belive that that's relvent here.
It is pretty funny that the judge does not consider computer code "expression", yet considers the typical focus-group Hollywood epic to be "Art".
You will be arrested by the fashion police and sent to a nerd re-education camp.
Mr. Johansen is a very talented young man and a member of a well known hacker group who viewed "cracking" CSS as an end it itself and a means of demonstrating his talent and who fully expected that the use of DeCSS
would not be confined to Linux machines. Hence, the Court finds that Mr. Johansen and the others
who actually did develop DeCSS did not do so solely for the purpose of making a Linux DVD player
if, indeed, developing a Linux-based DVD player was among their purposes.
Accordingly, the reverse engineering exception to the DMCA has no application here."
Whould it make a legal difference if the code was distributed anonomously?
Is code somehow contaminated by the intent of its creators?
If someone else created equivalent code with lily-pure motives would it be less illegal?
How about writing a program that, upon an instruction being executed, copies a block of 4k ( a page) out of an application.
This should be fine - after all it can have legitimate applications (consider a specialised debugger, or a game cheating app, like an action reply).
Then give away the necessary memory addresses (say two, one for the instruction, and one for the block). They can't really ban two numbers, which could mean anything.
Put them together and you have an infringement device - which shows that in the end it is *absolutely* down to the person who actually uses it. Either on their own should be fine
(Although, obviously, there should be strong non-infringing cases for the application).
Obviously you don't understand the statement "Information want to be free."
It is NOT "Information should be free"
It means that an inherent property of information is for it to spread and be free.
Notice how the very strong argument that pirating works without needing to decrypt (and therefore DeCSS doesn't help pirating) was never even mentioned in the Judge's report (at least that I saw. Did I miss it?).
My theory is that MPAA dislikes DeCSS not so much because of the piracy or the oft-mentioned country-code thing, but because of the "forced to watch" thing. Notice how a DVD contains sections you *can't* fast-forward through, and are required to watch? I suspect they see a possible advertising stream there. But this only works if they can retain control over all the playback devices, and force them to honor the "lockout flag", or whatever it is that they call this feature.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Only one court has the *FINAL SAY* in whether something is unconstitutional or not. And furthermore, Kaplan is a federal judge. You may have a valid point if this was in state court, but it isn't. It's in federal court.
--
Ben Kosse
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
It is not the sole perview of the supreme court to determine constitutionality. Any judge can claim something is not constitutional. Very few do that because they are afraid to go against what the supreme court may later find.
--
Ben Kosse
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
Go read the DMCA. Under the DMCA, it is illegal to circumvent, for any reason, an encryption system that was designed to protect copyrighted data. This is exactly what the defense did. This law goes too far and inhibits what we've come to know as "fair use", but it was not this judge's place to decide that. He was only to decide if the DMCA was broken.
I think Judge Kaplan was a little too friendly with the MPAA to see through their mudslinging. However, mud alone will wear very thin after a few appeals.
True, but it is his job to determine whether or not the DMCA is a constitutional law, and whether it can be exercised in a way that is constitutional. He's failed miserably there.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
So what happened to the counter to that... that large-scale piracy does NOT require decryption?
If I've got a DVD writer, I simply do a bit-perfect copy of a DVD. Encryption and all. What do I care if it's encrypted? It will still play, just like the original. Run it through a labeler and boom, now I can charge $25 for something that cost me a buck... perhaps two.
Yes, this happens quite a bit. Just not so much in the US as in places like Taiwan or Hong Kong.
No, the correct counter argument is this: "CSS is about region control. CSS is about price fixing. CSS is about forcing consumers to watch ads on movies they've already paid for. CSS has nothing to do with preventing copying."
--Dan
"... Code causes computers to perform desired functions. Its expressive element no more immunizes its functional aspects from regulation than the expressive motives of an assassin immunize the assassin's action.
In an era in which the transmission of computer viruses -- which, like DeCSS, are simply computer code and thus to some degree expressive--can disable systems upon which the nation depends and in which other computer code also is capable of inflicting other harm, society must be able to regulate the use and dissemination of code in appropriate circumstances. The Constition, after all, is a framework for building a just and democratic society. It is not a suicide pact."
What the hell is he talking about here? With this rationale one can make any first ammendment violation go away. It's a fatalistic approach to the problem: "Well, an assasin cannot kill the president as a form of expression, so therefore we can limit whatever we want to limit." I can't believe he is using this as justification for his finding!
It's fine that he found for the plantiffs, but please give us some real reasons why instead of liking a small group of people interested in viewing licensed DVD discs on their DVD drives to cold-war presidential assasination freaks. Could this judge be more biased?
The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
Frankly I think the quality of movies would improve dramatically if the movie studios didn't have a lot of money to spend on them. Special effects be damned, what is the point if there is no plot?
STFU about slashdot bias.
I think we lost this one partially because of the judges' view of our community! He doesn't believe what he heard from the author of the code as to it's purpose. (Where as I do) so he draws wrong conclusions about the effort.
Further, he ignores HOW code is developed in the open-source world when analyzing whether the DMCA was broken by those folks "showing the code" while in the process of reverse engineering same.
He goes on to state that code isn't covered by the first amendment because it's functional, yet other courts have held that it IS covered...
Lastly, I think the DMCA IS unconsitutional both for prior-restraint reasons, AND because it extends the power of copyright beyond it's original intent.
P.S. I gave up being a moderator by posting this - it was just TOO important!
Have you compiled your kernel today??
This is a great victory for property rights. I think justice...is served. :)
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It also means open source players cannot be included in official Linux distributions.
It means rather, that DeCSS can not be included in United States distros.. Btw.. did Linus at some point make a list of "official" and "unofficial" distro and I just missed it?
SB.
No, a better way to put it would be:
"The Defendents, on the other hand, are adherents of a movement which believes that once you have paid a reasonable price for information, you should be able to use that information in whatever way you wish so long as you do not violate the right of the copyright owner to sell that information."
Not that I really think the current way copyright law works, nor IP, are good, but the above is essentially what DeCSS is about.
The enemies of Democracy are
At the risk of starting a political argument, I'll point out the Democrats aren't squeaky-clean either. Tipper Gore invented the Parental Advisory stickers that now infest most prerecorded music, and Joe Lieberman wants to federally ban violent/sexy video games, movies, and TV shows. *sigh*
Thank god K&R entitled their book, The C Programming Language.:)
I thought that the DoJ were going to take this to the Supreme Court. I don't recall reading about such an appeal as of yet.
"Why even encrypt with a key? They could have xor'd the content against a 16bit key, and sued just the same."
From my reading of the DMCA (yes, I've read the whole thing), they could have just NOT-ed the entire bitstream, called that an "access control" mechanism, and had all the legal protection of DMCA. The efficacy of the mechanism is irrelevant, merely its existence.
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
I continue to be amazed by Kaplan's reliance on the content of written words, from the various 'fuck the lawyers' rants on DeCSS mirrors to the articles in the print version of 2600 itself. I wonder just how far the First Amendment (and related case law) should block this kind of consideration. By exercising its 1st amendment right to publish pretty much whatever the hell it wants, it seems that 2600 has earned Kaplan's ire. Pages 15 to 17 of the opinion make mention of some articles, and I'm wondering how this is relevant if he's only exercising his rights. In court, Goldstein put these articles into context, but that's conspicuously absent here. Without any evidence to the contrary presented, how can Kaplan get away with passing this kind of judgement on 2600's content?
Just curious.
But you can't argue that DeCSS is not used in significant part for piracy. That's simply not true. The defendants' suggestion that is true is more than a little disingenuous.
Well, it's painfully obvious that the MPAA never proved it was used for piracy, period. They proved it can be used for piracy, but did not, with its near limitless resources, prove it ever was. In the absence of proof, Kaplan is groping for anything to cling to, and so he's willing to commit a logical fallacy known as Post hoc, propter hoc ("after the fact, therefore because of the fact"). Look at it again:
And although the Court does not accept the list, which is hearsay, as proof of the truth of the matters asserted therein, it does note that advertisements for decrypted versions of copyrighted movies first appeared on the Internet in substantial numbers in late 1999, following the posting of DeCSS.
What he's straining for here is very much a logical error. Just because DeCSS came out and afterwards more DVDs piracy websites went up does not mean they were using DeCSS. And why is it any less hearsay that these sites 'advertise' decrypted DVDs. Bringing one of these website operators into court and getting them to testify under oath that they used DeCSS would have at least provided some evidence directly linking DeCSS and piracy, instead of hearsay.
They may have won the case, but DeCSS is already out there on countless websites. Granted, it may be illegal to have now, but that doesn't mean people are going to stop using it.
In actuallity, this may be a good thing. Maybe it will show the powers that be exactly what the internet can and will do. No amount of legislation is going to be able to control what is out there.
That was in April. Did Kaplan not consider this ruling in his decision? I'm no legal expert, but to me it seems that that law should take precedence over Kaplan's ruling. Perhaps somebody can enlighten me as to how the April ruling is related to today's?
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"They misunderestimated me." --George W Bush, Nov. 6, 2000
Ok, I read the article. I didn't see anything of substance in it -- it was just a bunch of Limbaugh-esque ranting, apparently because the Supremes made some decisions the authors didn't like.
--
Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems."
The NY Times is already watching where it links to. Notice that their mentioning of www.2600.com is not a url but merely a string. Oops, I meant to say www.2600.com. Am I going to be sued now?
Actually, this has been a sort of hacker motto for a long time... "information wants to be free". This goes back to the days when phreakers believed phone service should be free, among other things. I agree they are foolish idiots who think this.
What I don't know is how the judge linked the defendants to this kind of philosophy. Did they say something to link themselves?
----
"Oh, bother," said Pooh, as he hid Piglet's mangled corpse.
EFF were also defendants.
----
"Oh, bother," said Pooh, as he hid Piglet's mangled corpse.
My point exactly. Thank you.
----
"Oh, bother," said Pooh, as he hid Piglet's mangled corpse.
See, everything is legal, you just have to keep jumping the border to get anything done :)
Finkployd
Defendants would be in no stronger position even if they had authored DeCSS. The right to make the information available extends only to issemination "solely for the purpose" of achieving interoperability as defined in the statute. It does not apply to public dissemination of means of circumvention, as the legislative history confirms.151 These defendants, however, did not post DeCSS "solely" to achieve interoperability with Linux or anything else.
Effectivly what he is saying is that if a group were to set about reverse engineering CSS (Hell - it may not even be a problem to yank code from DeCSS) with the explicit aim of creating an unencumbered linux dvd player - that the player would deffinitly fall under the reverse engineering claim. IANAL, but I think this opens the door to such activity.
- The unexamined life is not worth leading -
In fact, I for one feel the statement by the judge ought to be considered slanderous, both against the defendants, and the members of the Open Source movement as a whole.
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
According to the ruling (as described on C|Net this morning), part of the reason the judge ruled against 2600 was that they linked directly to the files on the other sites. So maybe you would be safe to just say "well, we can't provide DeCSS, but please patronize these other sites in the save DeCSS webring", and when you go to those other sites they have a big DeCSS link on the front page?
I think that ruling against linking is a slippery slope - where do you draw the line that 2600 is no longer distributing something? If they can be liable for something that is stored on a machine they don't control, they really can be held liable for a lot of things. Especially since as a hacker site they usually have the first links to projects that are pushing the envelope.
This ruling is a strong blow against the underpinnings of the Web, no matter how the judge says that it wouldn't affect other circumstances. Linking is no more illegal than the phone books are if they publish the phone numbers of known criminals. Unfortunately, rulings like this may seriously cripple the 'net before we can get some people who really "get it" into positions of authority.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
I'm not sure if linking to those other sites is actually encouraging them to commit a crime, though. Distributing DeCSS is a crime but possessing it is not, so the only criminals would be the hosting sites. And presumably they were already hosting it before 2600 linked to them, otherwise 2600 wouldn't have linked to them. So I don't think the linking encouraged the crime; any crime that was committed by those mirror sites was already under way before they were linked from 2600.
The only way that I could see it as encouraging would be from an PR standpoint - if you wanted to get known in the hacker community, serving as a mirror for 2600 in this case would probably raise your standing. But that's a pretty tenuous connection IMHO.
I posted originally before reading the section which you quoted - it does explain a few things, thanks. I still don't agree with it, but oh well :)
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Well, in the U.S. the principle of Judicial Review allows the judiciary to strike down laws that they find are inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution. It is the duty of the judiciary (as codified by precedent although not really by the Constitution) to disagree with the philosophy of a law if that law is wrong. So technically no judge is "merely an executor", although in practice I'm sure that only a fairly high-level court would overturn such a federal law. I don't know if Judge Kaplan was high-level enough.
Judicial review is the best way to get it overturned - the judiciary is not beholden to the recording industry the way that Congress is. There are plenty of Sonny Bonos (OK, that was a little bit of an oblique reference) in Congress who are happy to support the DMCA; it is not likely to be overturned by the legislature.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
http://www.copyleft.net
Doesn't the DMCA qualify as such a law? At least if "accessing" involves "reverse engineering"...
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
(Ah, he tries to address it at the bottom of page 31.)
[Reading...] ... and yes, he screwed up. He concludes that authorization is not granted. There is no explanation here as to under what conditions authority is granted, so I must assume that Kaplan believes that it is always illegal to watch a DVD regardless of whether the manufacturer of the player is licensed by DVD-CCA or not.
In other words: Kaplan is wrong.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
In the tradition of insane people, I will reply to myself again. I was wrong. I almost missed it, but on page 32 Kaplan finally explains where the authorization comes in, and it's astounding. See my rant.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The real issue here is freedom, not the freedom of "information wants to be free", or the freedom of being able to watch what you want to watch/how you want to watch it. Grow up, information does not want to be free (it actually wants to be about $5.99). And the freedom to watch what you want where you want is not really valid (you get commercials without Tivo, you get previews at the movies, you get the picture).
This is pretty much a judgement against you being able to write the computer programs that you want to write. The US Government is taking a stand here that is going to limit (in an admittedly small way) what you're allowed to write, and what it can do. If we examine this in the light of what the pro-life folks are trying to do (slowly erode granted rights) or what the gun control lobby is trying to do (slowly erode granted rights) we begin to see what's going on here. This is a slow erosion of our rights to be able to create what we want.
Up to now, you could write any software you want. From now on, you'll only be able to write what's not on the government's proscribed list. Soon, you won't be able to write software at all without providing a warranty. The big companies are winning, and we either aren't fighting hard enough or the fight is already over and we've lost.
How long until the revolution?
Of course. And yea, probably only in NY.
And better still, only against 2600 and "those actual in concert with it" (possible misquote),
though that's an wonderfully vague description.
Cameron Simpson, DoD#743 cs@cskk.id.au http://www.cskk.ezoshosting.com/cs/
I've always wondered about this statement. Is it that information wants to be free, or *people* want information to be free. The government and military (for the most part) do a crack job keeping information they want secret secret. Seems like information can be kept secret if *people* don't spread it. And information only a dead person knows is completely secure. ;)
Speaking of information wanting to be free, doesn't the telephone effect become more pronounced as information becomes "freer" (that is, information becomes corrupted over time as it passes further and further along.) So, if information *wants* to be free, it *wants* to be misinformation?
Boy, I've got to lay off the peace pipe. ;)
George Lee
DeCSS doesn't facilitate piracy - nor does it inhibit it.
Excellent point. But it highlights, in my mind, one of the main questions surrounding this case: Is code a purely "neutral" thing? This is like the gun debate, where one side claims "guns don't kill, people do", while the other side claims guns function to kill people, hence gun-manufacturers hold some responsibility to making guns "safe". (Well, safe from accidentally discharge.)
DeCSS just filters data. It's the *users* who are either playing their DVDs with it, or making pirated copies of DVD. How much responsiblity do the authors of DeCSS have to prevent piracy using their code? One could say DeCSS is, at worse, neutral, since it just filters, *but* one could say DeCSS is (sort of) malicious if one could show that DeCSS could prevent piracy, but doesn't.
George Lee
What I think is really needed is a clear line between the legality of an action and the the tool that facilitates that action.
Maybe not the *legality* of that tool, but the legal responsibilities the maker takes upon him or herself by offering that tool. I mean, metal tubing that accelerates small objects with a hammer can be dangeous...you can poke an eye out with it! Should there be a net at the end of a gun barrel that catches projectiles? Close-source the specs of the barrel?
And note the word projectiles. What prevents mini-nerf bullets from being used? Nothing. Here's a question: Do gun manufactures make the bullets for their guns? If they don't make bullets, how can they be responsible for other people making bullets that just happen to work with their guns?
I guess my point is that I agree with you, and, also, I'm wondering what happens when it becomes unfestible/impossible for the maker of a tool to design it such that no illegal actions can occur with it?
George Lee
Yeah, so why don't they outlaw computers and the internet since you can break about every law in existance using it?!
I think Koplans quote should go down in history as he thinks Linux and everyone are a bunch of crackers and law breakers.
What needs to be done to get this judge disbared so it sets an example to other judges to not make bad orders?
It seems that the authors of the consitution had not intended in any way for Intellectual Property to be a financial protection in the way that it is currently interpreted.
Why would you conclude this? The goal, as stated, is to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts. Why would providing restrictions on the access to writings and discoveries related to scientific and artistic advancements/creations further that goal? If we assign the rights to their own creations to authors and inventors for a period of time, would this advance knowledge? Wouldn't it make more sense that such new information should be made immediately available to all to benefit from?
It makes sense to me that the Constitution provides for these types of restrictions because there is the expectation that authors and inventors will be able to benefit from their controlling interest for a defined period of time. Therefore, they have a greater incentive to apply their own effort toward artistic and scientific advancement.
Each author/inventor has to define for themselves the benefit they see in working towards the creations they produce. For some, the benefit they are after will be to solve an immediate problem. For others, it will be to help/benefit others. For still others, it will be to reap financial rewards. And, of course, for many, it will be a mix of all of these. But without the protections in place, the authors/inventors have no basis for expecting to benefit at all from their own work. Thus, far less incentives in place for far too many people.
Therefore, it seems to me that the section under discussion implies a wide variety of benefits going to those having the defined exclusive rights, and one of those benefits could reasonably be expected to be financial.
--
(Obligitory IANAL)
It doesn't matter what 2600 says on their web site. The judge shouldn't take that into account for ruling. The judge should only take into account what is presented to him in the court, not personal bias or outside influences.
Run. I like water. Push My rutabaga.
After reading that obnoxiously long document, I have come to two possible conclusions:
Now stay with me here.... During the trial (especially toward the end) his comments were pro-MPAA, but with a hint of pro-constitution thrown in. It's like he wants the MPAA to win, but realizes that that outcome would be very bad for free speech. So, what does he do? He sets himself up for a dive. I mean, that now-well-quoted comment about the defendants beliefs is so obviously inflammitory, that the whole thing could easily be thrown out on that comment alone. So, I have to conclude that he is either smart, and wanted to protect the constitution, while keeping his career alive; or he really is dumb as a brick...
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
Pretty strong language indeed :
... is not a suicide pact.''
DeCSS compared to ``... the assassination of a political figure'', and like computer viruses which can ``disable systems upon which the nation depends.''
``The Constitution
I guess the judge sympathized with the MPAAA screaming bloody murder.
Funny that he used examples that were so horribly flawed.
;-)
Well... I was being a little inflammatory. The examples were perhaps not legally flawed, just extreme to make a point, a reductio ad absurdum.
Say I get caught jaywalking, and in my defense I say I did it with a good intention, which was to help an old lady. The legal rejoinder to this could be: look, you broke the law, I don't care what your intention was -- if you assassinated someone with the intention of helping an old lady, that would still be a crime.
And I think that's the judge's point: look, you broke a law, so I don't care about what your intentions were, and if you don't like it, change the law so it's not illegal, or prove the law is unconstitutional.
Anyway, IANAL, but I imagine a non-lawyer being shocked by an assassination metaphor is a bit like a non-programmer getting worried that processes are getting "killed with maximum prejudice".
Well, all comments are owned by the poster right?
/*
/*
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, 0xd0,0x01,0x48,0x08,0x40,0x91,
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, 0xd2,0x0f,0x4a,0x0a,0x42,0x9f,
, 0x56,0x8b,0xce,0x8e,0xc6,0x1b,
, 0xb6,0xab,0xee,0xae,0xe6,0xfb,
, 0x0b,0x0a,0x0d,0x0c,0x0f,0x0e,
, 0x19,0x18,0x1f,0x1e,0x1d,0x1c,
, 0x2f,0x2e,0x29,0x28,0x2b,0x2a,
, 0x3d,0x3c,0x3b,0x3a,0x39,0x38,
, 0x42,0x43,0x44,0x45,0x46,0x47,
, 0x50,0x51,0x56,0x57,0x54,0x55,
, 0x66,0x67,0x60,0x61,0x62,0x63,
, 0x74,0x75,0x72,0x73,0x70,0x71,
, 0x99,0x98,0x9f,0x9e,0x9d,0x9c,
, 0x8b,0x8a,0x8d,0x8c,0x8f,0x8e,
, 0xbd,0xbc,0xbb,0xba,0xb9,0xb8,
, 0xaf,0xae,0xa9,0xa8,0xab,0xaa,
, 0xd0,0xd1,0xd6,0xd7,0xd4,0xd5,
, 0xc2,0xc3,0xc4,0xc5,0xc6,0xc7,
, 0xf4,0xf5,0xf2,0xf3,0xf0,0xf1,
, 0xe6,0xe7,0xe0,0xe1,0xe2,0xe3
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
2 4,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff
/* Reverse the order of the bits within a byte.
, 0x50,0xd0,0x30,0xb0,0x70,0xf0,
, 0x58,0xd8,0x38,0xb8,0x78,0xf8,
9 4,0x54,0xd4,0x34,0xb4,0x74,0xf4,
, 0x5c,0xdc,0x3c,0xbc,0x7c,0xfc,
, 0x52,0xd2,0x32,0xb2,0x72,0xf2,
, 0x5a,0xda,0x3a,0xba,0x7a,0xfa,
, 0x56,0xd6,0x36,0xb6,0x76,0xf6,
, 0x5e,0xde,0x3e,0xbe,0x7e,0xfe,
, 0x51,0xd1,0x31,0xb1,0x71,0xf1,
, 0x59,0xd9,0x39,0xb9,0x79,0xf9,
, 0x55,0xd5,0x35,0xb5,0x75,0xf5,
, 0x5d,0xdd,0x3d,0xbd,0x7d,0xfd,
, 0x53,0xd3,0x33,0xb3,0x73,0xf3,
, 0x5b,0xdb,0x3b,0xbb,0x7b,0xfb,
, 0x57,0xd7,0x37,0xb7,0x77,0xf7,
, 0x5f,0xdf,0x3f,0xbf,0x7f,0xff
/*
1 9);*/
;
/*
/*
1 9);*/
;
So the MPAA can come after me, in good old NZ.
I present to you css_descramble.c
(The same file printed on the back of my now illeagl t-shirt) I'll make a note not to ever visit the good ole US of A
/*
* css_descramble.c
*
* Released under the version 2 of the GPL.
*
* Copyright 1999 Derek Fawcus
*
* This file contains functions to descramble CSS encrypted DVD content
*
*/
* Still in progress: Remove the use of the bit_reverse[] table by recoding
* the generation of LFSR1. Finish combining this with
* the css authentication code.
*
*/
#include
#include
#include "css-descramble.h"
typedef unsigned char byte;
*
* some tables used for descrambling sectors and/or decrypting title keys
*
*/
static byte csstab1[256]=
{
0x33,0x73,0x3b,0x26,0x63,0x23,0x6b,0x76,0x3e,0x7e
0xd3,0x93,0xdb,0x06,0x43,0x03,0x4b,0x96,0xde,0x9e
0x57,0x17,0x5f,0x82,0xc7,0x87,0xcf,0x12,0x5a,0x1a
0xd9,0x99,0xd1,0x00,0x49,0x09,0x41,0x90,0xd8,0x98
0x3d,0x7d,0x35,0x24,0x6d,0x2d,0x65,0x74,0x3c,0x7c
0xdd,0x9d,0xd5,0x04,0x4d,0x0d,0x45,0x94,0xdc,0x9c
0x59,0x19,0x51,0x80,0xc9,0x89,0xc1,0x10,0x58,0x18
0xd7,0x97,0xdf,0x02,0x47,0x07,0x4f,0x92,0xda,0x9a
0x53,0x13,0x5b,0x86,0xc3,0x83,0xcb,0x16,0x5e,0x1e
0xb3,0xf3,0xbb,0xa6,0xe3,0xa3,0xeb,0xf6,0xbe,0xfe
static byte lfsr1_bits0[256]=
{
0x00,0x01,0x02,0x03,0x04,0x05,0x06,0x07,0x09,0x08
0x12,0x13,0x10,0x11,0x16,0x17,0x14,0x15,0x1b,0x1a
0x24,0x25,0x26,0x27,0x20,0x21,0x22,0x23,0x2d,0x2c
0x36,0x37,0x34,0x35,0x32,0x33,0x30,0x31,0x3f,0x3e
0x49,0x48,0x4b,0x4a,0x4d,0x4c,0x4f,0x4e,0x40,0x41
0x5b,0x5a,0x59,0x58,0x5f,0x5e,0x5d,0x5c,0x52,0x53
0x6d,0x6c,0x6f,0x6e,0x69,0x68,0x6b,0x6a,0x64,0x65
0x7f,0x7e,0x7d,0x7c,0x7b,0x7a,0x79,0x78,0x76,0x77
0x92,0x93,0x90,0x91,0x96,0x97,0x94,0x95,0x9b,0x9a
0x80,0x81,0x82,0x83,0x84,0x85,0x86,0x87,0x89,0x88
0xb6,0xb7,0xb4,0xb5,0xb2,0xb3,0xb0,0xb1,0xbf,0xbe
0xa4,0xa5,0xa6,0xa7,0xa0,0xa1,0xa2,0xa3,0xad,0xac
0xdb,0xda,0xd9,0xd8,0xdf,0xde,0xdd,0xdc,0xd2,0xd3
0xc9,0xc8,0xcb,0xca,0xcd,0xcc,0xcf,0xce,0xc0,0xc1
0xff,0xfe,0xfd,0xfc,0xfb,0xfa,0xf9,0xf8,0xf6,0xf7
0xed,0xec,0xef,0xee,0xe9,0xe8,0xeb,0xea,0xe4,0xe5
};
static byte lfsr1_bits1[512]=
{
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
};
*/
static byte bit_reverse[256]=
{
0x00,0x80,0x40,0xc0,0x20,0xa0,0x60,0xe0,0x10,0x90
0x08,0x88,0x48,0xc8,0x28,0xa8,0x68,0xe8,0x18,0x98
0x04,0x84,0x44,0xc4,0x24,0xa4,0x64,0xe4,0x14,0x
0x0c,0x8c,0x4c,0xcc,0x2c,0xac,0x6c,0xec,0x1c,0x9c
0x02,0x82,0x42,0xc2,0x22,0xa2,0x62,0xe2,0x12,0x92
0x0a,0x8a,0x4a,0xca,0x2a,0xaa,0x6a,0xea,0x1a,0x9a
0x06,0x86,0x46,0xc6,0x26,0xa6,0x66,0xe6,0x16,0x96
0x0e,0x8e,0x4e,0xce,0x2e,0xae,0x6e,0xee,0x1e,0x9e
0x01,0x81,0x41,0xc1,0x21,0xa1,0x61,0xe1,0x11,0x91
0x09,0x89,0x49,0xc9,0x29,0xa9,0x69,0xe9,0x19,0x99
0x05,0x85,0x45,0xc5,0x25,0xa5,0x65,0xe5,0x15,0x95
0x0d,0x8d,0x4d,0xcd,0x2d,0xad,0x6d,0xed,0x1d,0x9d
0x03,0x83,0x43,0xc3,0x23,0xa3,0x63,0xe3,0x13,0x93
0x0b,0x8b,0x4b,0xcb,0x2b,0xab,0x6b,0xeb,0x1b,0x9b
0x07,0x87,0x47,0xc7,0x27,0xa7,0x67,0xe7,0x17,0x97
0x0f,0x8f,0x4f,0xcf,0x2f,0xaf,0x6f,0xef,0x1f,0x9f
};
*
* this function is only used internally when decrypting title key
*
*/
static void css_titlekey(byte *key, byte *im, byte invert)
{
unsigned int lfsr1_lo,lfsr1_hi,lfsr0,combined;
byte o_lfsr0, o_lfsr1;
byte k[5];
int i;
lfsr1_lo = im[0] | 0x100;
lfsr1_hi = im[1];
lfsr0 = ((im[4] >8)&0xff] >16)&0xff]>24)&0xff];
combined = 0;
for (i = 0; i >1;
lfsr1_lo = ((lfsr1_lo&1)>7)^(lfsr0>>10)^(lfsr0>>11)^(lfsr0>>
o_lfsr0 = (((((((lfsr0>>8)^lfsr0)>>1)^lfsr0)>>3)^lfsr0)>>7)
lfsr0 = (lfsr0>>8)|(o_lfsr0>= 8;
}
key[4]=k[4]^csstab1[key[4]]^key[3];
key[3]=k[3]^csstab1[key[3]]^key[2];
key[2]=k[2]^csstab1[key[2]]^key[1];
key[1]=k[1]^csstab1[key[1]]^key[0];
key[0]=k[0]^csstab1[key[0]]^key[4];
key[4]=k[4]^csstab1[key[4]]^key[3];
key[3]=k[3]^csstab1[key[3]]^key[2];
key[2]=k[2]^csstab1[key[2]]^key[1];
key[1]=k[1]^csstab1[key[1]]^key[0];
key[0]=k[0]^csstab1[key[0]];
}
*
* this function decrypts a title key with the specified disk key
*
* tkey: the unobfuscated title key (XORed with BusKey)
* dkey: the unobfuscated disk key (XORed with BusKey)
* 2048 bytes in length (though only 5 bytes are needed, see below)
* pkey: array of pointers to player keys and disk key offsets
*
*
* use the result returned in tkey with css_descramble
*
*/
int css_decrypttitlekey(byte *tkey, byte *dkey, struct playkey **pkey)
{
byte test[5], pretkey[5];
int i = 0;
for (; *pkey; ++pkey, ++i) {
memcpy(pretkey, dkey + (*pkey)->offset, 5);
css_titlekey(pretkey, (*pkey)->key, 0);
memcpy(test, dkey, 5);
css_titlekey(test, pretkey, 0);
if (memcmp(test, pretkey, 5) == 0) {
fprintf(stderr, "Using Key %d\n", i+1);
break;
}
}
if (!*pkey) {
fprintf(stderr, "Shit - Need Key %d\n", i+1);
return 0;
}
css_titlekey(tkey, pretkey, 0xff);
return 1;
}
*
* this function does the actual descrambling
*
* sec: encrypted sector (2048 bytes)
* key: decrypted title key obtained from css_decrypttitlekey
*
*/
void css_descramble(byte *sec,byte *key)
{
unsigned int lfsr1_lo,lfsr1_hi,lfsr0,combined;
unsigned char o_lfsr0, o_lfsr1;
unsigned char *end = sec + 0x800;
#define SALTED(i) (key[i] ^ sec[0x54 + (i)])
lfsr1_lo = SALTED(0) | 0x100;
lfsr1_hi = SALTED(1);
lfsr0 = ((SALTED(4) >8)&0xff] >16)&0xff]>24)&0xff];
sec+=0x80;
combined = 0;
while (sec != end) {
o_lfsr1 = lfsr1_bits0[lfsr1_hi] ^ lfsr1_bits1[lfsr1_lo];
lfsr1_hi = lfsr1_lo>>1;
lfsr1_lo = ((lfsr1_lo&1)>7)^(lfsr0>>10)^(lfsr0>>11)^(lfsr0>>
o_lfsr0 = (((((((lfsr0>>8)^lfsr0)>>1)^lfsr0)>>3)^lfsr0)>>7)
lfsr0 = (lfsr0>>8)|(o_lfsr0>= 8;
}
}
My email addy? should be easy enough.
AP? Aiming for the truth? You've gotta be kidding. The story on CPHack broke with AP publishing what was more or less a press-release out of Mattel!
The AP are a joke, and I told them as much as they tried to pry more information out of me, after they'd managed to generate lot's of commotion by their totally uncritical press-release-wire, of course. They tried their best to ensure me that they are indeed very serious journalists (using argument from authority and the like), and I'm sure they thought I'd be suitably impressed. Yeah, as if. They obviously have no interest in journalism, only sensationalism, or they wouldn't get so many stories wrong.
I will never trust anything they put out, I will never answer any questions from them, ever, and I urge others to treat anything they publish as highly suspect, and if ever in the position that they want to interview you, consider boycotting them.
/%/)+Eddy
Belief is the currency of delusion.
He acknowledges that sometimes copyright protection goes too far and inhibits legal use of material but he basically says "well Congress passed the DMCA and they weighed both sides of the issue so they must have gotten it right."
What about the judicial branch being a check on Congress? Division of powers? 8th grade civics man. It seems like the judge barely even considered the case!
on to the appeal...
Well lets look at that logic more. Guns allow you to kill, lets make them illegal (they are trying). Cars allow you to use them as get-away in crimes or to kill people, illegal!!! Wait, Wait, a person talking can commit a crime with words OH-MY god lets make that illegal.
Just because something can be used for illegal purposes does not make it right to make it illegal.
atto
I didn't use the preview button, so get over it!!!!
Mike
2600 has no case. I don't think DMCA is constitutional, but its going to be a long and expensive fight. The MPAA has way more dollars.
I'm not a layer either
IANAL, but I'm pretty sure that Judge Kaplan *can't* rule whether or not the DMCA is constitutional or not. I believe that power is reserved for the US Supreme Court.
Josh
Ultimately, they want to install compulsary implants into everyone's brains that detect watermarks in copyrighted stimuli and bill the victim accordingly.
Even better, how about the cost of putting up some billboards in various metropolitan areas, just to prove the point?
It looks like this judge is ruling merely on the merits of the DMCA as passed by Congress, rather than considering the larger question of whether the law is constitutional.
You are correct in your half-declaration that he merely an exectuor of the law. The DCMA clearly says this behavior is illegal, he can disagree with the philosophy all he wants, but the law is the law. He did his job correctly. If he didn't obey the DCMA, it would have been quickly overturned in appeal.
We need to get the law changed.
Looking at the ruling, the following line sticks out:
In this case, I don't even think that any such media exists. So doesn't this render this whole judgement null?
What about my copy of DeCSS for my digital VIDEO disks?
</smartass>Seriously though, I've not had a copy of the DeCSS source code put up -- time to mirror.
-ChrisOther Person: What that means, is that if you decode CSS, you're stealing information that doesn't belong to you. If you play the DVD in an unlicensed player, (like a Linux player written to use DeCSS) you are circumventing licensing agreements.
Me: Now maybe your DVDs are different than mine, but I don't recall seeing anything on them stating I could only play them in an approved player, nor did I sign anything to that affect when I bought any of them. It would be like buying a certian movie on VHS and being allowed only to play it in Brand X VCRS.
Not if you wear a sweatshirt over it so no one can see it, since then you aren't offering it for all to see.
You can only wear it in public when no one is looking.
Does a DeCSS t-shirt falling in a forest make a sound when there's no one around to hear it?
But if you want to take the analogy to it's extremes (usually not a good idea, and almost never actually relevant, but oh well) then a gun is just a metal tube that accelerates slugs of lead to high velocities. What I think is really needed is a clear line between the legality of an action and the the tool that facilitates that action.
See you, space cowboy...
Just thought you might be interested: the "wise man" to whom you refer is Robert Fulghum. I had the opportunity to hear him relate some stories on a PBS special; a gifted storyteller in the oral sense as well as the written one, not something many writers can claim today.
-TBHiX-
DVD-ROM drive and say a rare, expensive, elusive DVD Writer, you could perform a bit by bit copy of the disc.
1) Normal DVD-ROM drives cannot read the key tracks in normal useage, they can only read the one key you ask for.
2) Blank DVD media have the keytrack space already burnt out. no data can ever by written there no matter how exspensive your writer is.
In other words, you need a DVD plant to pirate DVD movies. with DeCSS, all you need is a DVD ROM, a Divx encoder, and a CD-R. Without DeCSS only large-scale 'real' pirates can copy DVDs, with it, anyone can. And, thats assuming that there even is equipment out there that can read the whole keytracks as normal data, I'm not sure there even is...
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
anyone know how much it will cost to make a few million copy's at kinko's
Hundreds of thousands of dolars... why?
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Likewise, the originally encrypted version can be duplicated, and you end up with a perfect copy with the encryption intact. The encryption still means you have to decrypt it, but you now have a mechanism whereby the movie producers are not rewarded for their efforts, and DeCSS is not even involved in this. Copying can be done without DeCSS
The encrypted data is worthlesse. And you would need to copy the encrypted-key tracks of the DVD as well (with special hardware, you can't do it with regular stuff). Since you can't get the keytracks normaly, you wouldn't be able to play the copied files ever again, unless you actualy had the disk. I'm not even sure you can use DeCSS to decrypt copied DVDs without the keytracks...
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I can't say I was ever that comfortable having 2600 being the ones standing up for us in this case. This is exactly the impression I was afraid of them giving.
Well, they were hand-picked by the MPAA....
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Why shouldn't we all be willing to sacrafice freedom of speach for some good movies! GIVE ME BREAD AND CIRCUSIS, DAMNIT!!!!!!
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
it is already possible to copy the media bit for bit and write another copy of DVD to play in any normal DVD player (i don't keep up with DVD writable stuff, but if that capability isn't already there, it will be).
NO IT IS NOT
You would need special hardware, hardware that you can't buy anywhere (at least that I've seen or heard of). Normal DVD-ROM drives can only read one of the keys off the keytrack, not all of them. Without the keytrack, you can't make a duplicate of a DVD. Also, blank DVD media have the keytracks already burned out, so they can't be written to. DeCSS is the only way to get a perfict digital copy of the movie on a normal computer. (but you could use a video in and compress, or something. )
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Actualy, what they want is to be able to grow a special geneticaly-enginered hemp with the THC or whatever removed. Even then, the plants many uses would be a boon to farmers (or so they think, I'd be willing to bet that if it was legalized, everyone would do it, and prices would go through the floor, but whatever...)
The drug ppl are against it beacuse it would 'send the wrong message', and probably beacuse you could grow the illegal stuff along with the non-narcotic stuff.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Everyone who cares already has the code, and can make a donnation to the EFF on their own.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
You are allowed to write and display viruses in source form (i think), you just arn't allowed to 'unleash' them. At least in Taiwan anyway, I know the guy who wrote CIH got off, beacuse he didn't actively distribute it.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
the pro-choisers destroyed the pro-lifers stuff, not the other way around, at least thats what linzeal said...
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
blank DVD disk have the keytracks burned out. You can put encrypted data on em, but they won't be able to be decrypted again, not even with DeCSS (I think...), so you'll end up with a coster if you try to burn a movie without decrypting it first.
Also, all the DVD-ROM drives have tech in them that prevents you from even reading the keytracks normaly (although you can still get at least one of the keys for the player your using).
So basicaly, you are completly wrong. The situation you've described is exactly what CSS is supposed to prevent, and does, unless you use DeCSS...
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
1) copy all the data files to a hard drive NOT using DeCSS, and make a DIVX copy without DeCSS? I know there are other ways to strip off the encoding
There are no other ways to strip off the encryption. If you don't have DeCSS or a player key, you don't have a movie. What is so hard to understand about that?
As for two, no one sells hardware capable of doing that, at least not comercialy. You can't read the whole keytracks with normal drives, and you cant write to the ketracks on normal DVD-ROM disks.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
and I have a natural tendance to want to break open the heads of people who try to apply the 3rd law of thermodynamics to things other then thermodynamics
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
It is posible to put unencrypted video on a DVD disk you know, supposedly most porn comes this way since the porn companies can afford the CSS stuff.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Um, think about it... why would they program their DVD pressing plants with a DVD disk, infact, how could they?
.vob files of a hard drive or something.
My guess is that they can read
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Well, in that case all your doing is using another program to do what DeCSS does, just that your using a legit CSS system to do it. That software would probably still be in violation of the DMCA, and might in fact be considered less legit then DeCSS... (I think)
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
You can copy an encypted DVD disc bit for bit, and play it back on a licensed player. In other words, you don't need DeCSS to pirate DVDs.
No, if the DVD is encrypted, you cannot do that. Thats the whole fucking point of CSS!
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
The judge's dismissal of the defense seems to pivot around the fact that he doesn't think code is protected speech. to quote :
... but computer code is not purely expressive any more than the assasination of a political figure is a purely political statement.
Computer code is expressive
So basically, code is expressive (like speech) but can be regulated (like porn) because it has side effects.
-spRed
.sig Karma out the wazoo, better to spend points elsewhere if this is above 2 or below 0
Then learn. It's not that hard. I read the opinion in about an hour, and to the extent it uses legal terminology, it is either in common usage or is defined elsewhere in the opinion. If you can read a man page, you can read a judicial opinion.
(Other contenders: Supreme Court of New York for the County of New York (the state trial court in Manhattan), Delaware Chancery Court (where many major corporate disputes are heard), U.S. District Court for the Central District of California (the federal court for Silly Valley).)
While the Southern District's decisions are technically precedent only for future cases within that District -- which includes Manhattan, the Bronx, Westchester County and a couple other counties -- its decisions are enormously influential. Judges in other federal and state courts take opinions from the Southern District very seriously.
I don't think the defendants made this argument. In any event, I don't think there's any evidence that there's a monopoly on the manufacture of DVD players: they are inexpensive and dropping in price all the time.
The U.S. Supreme Court is the final authority as to whether any law is constitutional, but until it rules, any lower court can decide the issue one way or another. The situation you hypothesize -- a conflict between the decisions of courts in different jurisdictions -- arises all the time. The Supreme Court considers conflicts of this sort particularly important in deciding which cases it will hear. See Sup. Ct. R. 10.
I refer you to pages 49-80 of the PDF version of the opinion (Part III, and particularly Part III.B), in which the judges discusses in some detail the constitutional arguments raised by defendants. In particular, I refer you to the paragraph on p. 63 or thereabouts (immediately prior to III.B.2, "Prior Restraint") in which he explains the scope of his ruling. I'm not saying he's right, but he certainly didn't punt the issue.
Common sense, really. The other items you mention may be put to hundreds or thousands of other potential uses. DeCSS has a handful of uses, one of which is piracy.
That's funny, 'cause on the planet I live on, DeCSS is used for piracy all the damn time.
You can argue, "DeCSS is used for piracy, but it's also used for valuable other purposes, and therefore on balance it should be legal."
You can argue, "DeCSS is used for piracy, but its distribution is technically permitted by the DMCA, and therefore it's legal."
You can argue, "DeCSS is used for piracy, but you can't ban DeCSS without violating constitutional principle X, and therefore it must be legal."
But you can't argue that DeCSS is not used in significant part for piracy. That's simply not true. The defendants' suggestion that is true is more than a little disingenuous.
The judge's opinion at the end of a case is not the right place to look for bias. The entire point of the trial (in non-jury cases such as this one) is to help the judge make up his mind about the facts. If at the end of the case, he has a view about one side's motives or conduct, that's to be expected, though perhaps he could have been a bit more restrained in his comments.
In any event, I don't really see any fault in the judge's factual rulings on this matter, which is where bias really matters (e.g., "I believe X's testimony; I don't believe Y's testimony."). Most of this case was decided on the law. If the judge is right on the law, it doesn't matter whether he's biased or not; if he's wrong on the law, it likewise doesn't matter.
Oh, please. As if this possibly could matter. This sounds like something the dorky scientist on "The Simpsons" would say: "J-j-j-judge Kaplan, I must object! According to my calculations, your opinion is in error by a factor of 2.4%!"
Well, they are, aren't they? Whether they're in the right is another question, of course.
unsigned int CSStab0[11]={5,0,1,2,3,4,0,1,2,3,4};
, 0x36,0x2b,0x6e,0x2e,0x66,0x7b,
, 0xd6,0x0b,0x4e,0x0e,0x46,0x9b,
, 0x52,0x8f,0xca,0x8a,0xc2,0x1f,
, 0xd0,0x01,0x48,0x08,0x40,0x91,
, 0x34,0x25,0x6c,0x2c,0x64,0x75,
, 0xd4,0x05,0x4c,0x0c,0x44,0x95,
, 0x50,0x81,0xc8,0x88,0xc0,0x11,
, 0xd2,0x0f,0x4a,0x0a,0x42,0x9f,
, 0x56,0x8b,0xce,0x8e,0xc6,0x1b,
, 0xb6,0xab,0xee,0xae,0xe6,0xfb,
, 0x32,0x2f,0x6a,0x2a,0x62,0x7f,
, 0xb0,0xa1,0xe8,0xa8,0xe0,0xf1,
, 0x54,0x85,0xcc,0x8c,0xc4,0x15,
, 0xb4,0xa5,0xec,0xac,0xe4,0xf5,
, 0x30,0x21,0x68,0x28,0x60,0x71,
, 0xb2,0xaf,0xea,0xaa,0xe2,0xff
, 0x0b,0x0a,0x0d,0x0c,0x0f,0x0e,
, 0x19,0x18,0x1f,0x1e,0x1d,0x1c,
, 0x2f,0x2e,0x29,0x28,0x2b,0x2a,
, 0x3d,0x3c,0x3b,0x3a,0x39,0x38,
, 0x42,0x43,0x44,0x45,0x46,0x47,
, 0x50,0x51,0x56,0x57,0x54,0x55,
, 0x66,0x67,0x60,0x61,0x62,0x63,
, 0x74,0x75,0x72,0x73,0x70,0x71,
, 0x99,0x98,0x9f,0x9e,0x9d,0x9c,
, 0x8b,0x8a,0x8d,0x8c,0x8f,0x8e,
, 0xbd,0xbc,0xbb,0xba,0xb9,0xb8,
, 0xaf,0xae,0xa9,0xa8,0xab,0xaa,
, 0xd0,0xd1,0xd6,0xd7,0xd4,0xd5,
, 0xc2,0xc3,0xc4,0xc5,0xc6,0xc7,
, 0xf4,0xf5,0xf2,0xf3,0xf0,0xf1,
, 0xe6,0xe7,0xe0,0xe1,0xe2,0xe3
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff
, 0x50,0xd0,0x30,0xb0,0x70,0xf0,
, 0x58,0xd8,0x38,0xb8,0x78,0xf8,
, 0x54,0xd4,0x34,0xb4,0x74,0xf4,
, 0x5c,0xdc,0x3c,0xbc,0x7c,0xfc,
, 0x52,0xd2,0x32,0xb2,0x72,0xf2,
, 0x5a,0xda,0x3a,0xba,0x7a,0xfa,
, 0x56,0xd6,0x36,0xb6,0x76,0xf6,
, 0x5e,0xde,0x3e,0xbe,0x7e,0xfe,
, 0x51,0xd1,0x31,0xb1,0x71,0xf1,
, 0x59,0xd9,0x39,0xb9,0x79,0xf9,
, 0x55,0xd5,0x35,0xb5,0x75,0xf5,
, 0x5d,0xdd,0x3d,0xbd,0x7d,0xfd,
, 0x53,0xd3,0x33,0xb3,0x73,0xf3,
, 0x5b,0xdb,0x3b,0xbb,0x7b,0xfb,
, 0x57,0xd7,0x37,0xb7,0x77,0xf7,
, 0x5f,0xdf,0x3f,0xbf,0x7f,0xff
, 0xaf,0x2f,0xcf,0x4f,0x8f,0x0f,
, 0xa7,0x27,0xc7,0x47,0x87,0x07,
, 0xab,0x2b,0xcb,0x4b,0x8b,0x0b,
, 0xa3,0x23,0xc3,0x43,0x83,0x03,
, 0xad,0x2d,0xcd,0x4d,0x8d,0x0d,
, 0xa5,0x25,0xc5,0x45,0x85,0x05,
, 0xa9,0x29,0xc9,0x49,0x89,0x09,
, 0xa1,0x21,0xc1,0x41,0x81,0x01,
, 0xae,0x2e,0xce,0x4e,0x8e,0x0e,
, 0xa6,0x26,0xc6,0x46,0x86,0x06,
, 0xaa,0x2a,0xca,0x4a,0x8a,0x0a,
, 0xa2,0x22,0xc2,0x42,0x82,0x02,
, 0xac,0x2c,0xcc,0x4c,0x8c,0x0c,
, 0xa4,0x24,0xc4,0x44,0x84,0x04,
, 0xa8,0x28,0xc8,0x48,0x88,0x08,
, 0xa0,0x20,0xc0,0x40,0x80,0x00
t ab0[i+1]]]^key[CSStab0[i]];
t ab0[i+1]]]^key[CSStab0[i]];
unsigned char CSStab1[256]=
{
0x33,0x73,0x3b,0x26,0x63,0x23,0x6b,0x76,0x3e,0x7e
0xd3,0x93,0xdb,0x06,0x43,0x03,0x4b,0x96,0xde,0x9e
0x57,0x17,0x5f,0x82,0xc7,0x87,0xcf,0x12,0x5a,0x1a
0xd9,0x99,0xd1,0x00,0x49,0x09,0x41,0x90,0xd8,0x98
0x3d,0x7d,0x35,0x24,0x6d,0x2d,0x65,0x74,0x3c,0x7c
0xdd,0x9d,0xd5,0x04,0x4d,0x0d,0x45,0x94,0xdc,0x9c
0x59,0x19,0x51,0x80,0xc9,0x89,0xc1,0x10,0x58,0x18
0xd7,0x97,0xdf,0x02,0x47,0x07,0x4f,0x92,0xda,0x9a
0x53,0x13,0x5b,0x86,0xc3,0x83,0xcb,0x16,0x5e,0x1e
0xb3,0xf3,0xbb,0xa6,0xe3,0xa3,0xeb,0xf6,0xbe,0xfe
0x37,0x77,0x3f,0x22,0x67,0x27,0x6f,0x72,0x3a,0x7a
0xb9,0xf9,0xb1,0xa0,0xe9,0xa9,0xe1,0xf0,0xb8,0xf8
0x5d,0x1d,0x55,0x84,0xcd,0x8d,0xc5,0x14,0x5c,0x1c
0xbd,0xfd,0xb5,0xa4,0xed,0xad,0xe5,0xf4,0xbc,0xfc
0x39,0x79,0x31,0x20,0x69,0x29,0x61,0x70,0x38,0x78
0xb7,0xf7,0xbf,0xa2,0xe7,0xa7,0xef,0xf2,0xba,0xfa
};
unsigned char CSStab2[256]=
{
0x00,0x01,0x02,0x03,0x04,0x05,0x06,0x07,0x09,0x08
0x12,0x13,0x10,0x11,0x16,0x17,0x14,0x15,0x1b,0x1a
0x24,0x25,0x26,0x27,0x20,0x21,0x22,0x23,0x2d,0x2c
0x36,0x37,0x34,0x35,0x32,0x33,0x30,0x31,0x3f,0x3e
0x49,0x48,0x4b,0x4a,0x4d,0x4c,0x4f,0x4e,0x40,0x41
0x5b,0x5a,0x59,0x58,0x5f,0x5e,0x5d,0x5c,0x52,0x53
0x6d,0x6c,0x6f,0x6e,0x69,0x68,0x6b,0x6a,0x64,0x65
0x7f,0x7e,0x7d,0x7c,0x7b,0x7a,0x79,0x78,0x76,0x77
0x92,0x93,0x90,0x91,0x96,0x97,0x94,0x95,0x9b,0x9a
0x80,0x81,0x82,0x83,0x84,0x85,0x86,0x87,0x89,0x88
0xb6,0xb7,0xb4,0xb5,0xb2,0xb3,0xb0,0xb1,0xbf,0xbe
0xa4,0xa5,0xa6,0xa7,0xa0,0xa1,0xa2,0xa3,0xad,0xac
0xdb,0xda,0xd9,0xd8,0xdf,0xde,0xdd,0xdc,0xd2,0xd3
0xc9,0xc8,0xcb,0xca,0xcd,0xcc,0xcf,0xce,0xc0,0xc1
0xff,0xfe,0xfd,0xfc,0xfb,0xfa,0xf9,0xf8,0xf6,0xf7
0xed,0xec,0xef,0xee,0xe9,0xe8,0xeb,0xea,0xe4,0xe5
};
unsigned char CSStab3[512]=
{
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24
};
unsigned char CSStab4[256]=
{
0x00,0x80,0x40,0xc0,0x20,0xa0,0x60,0xe0,0x10,0x90
0x08,0x88,0x48,0xc8,0x28,0xa8,0x68,0xe8,0x18,0x98
0x04,0x84,0x44,0xc4,0x24,0xa4,0x64,0xe4,0x14,0x94
0x0c,0x8c,0x4c,0xcc,0x2c,0xac,0x6c,0xec,0x1c,0x9c
0x02,0x82,0x42,0xc2,0x22,0xa2,0x62,0xe2,0x12,0x92
0x0a,0x8a,0x4a,0xca,0x2a,0xaa,0x6a,0xea,0x1a,0x9a
0x06,0x86,0x46,0xc6,0x26,0xa6,0x66,0xe6,0x16,0x96
0x0e,0x8e,0x4e,0xce,0x2e,0xae,0x6e,0xee,0x1e,0x9e
0x01,0x81,0x41,0xc1,0x21,0xa1,0x61,0xe1,0x11,0x91
0x09,0x89,0x49,0xc9,0x29,0xa9,0x69,0xe9,0x19,0x99
0x05,0x85,0x45,0xc5,0x25,0xa5,0x65,0xe5,0x15,0x95
0x0d,0x8d,0x4d,0xcd,0x2d,0xad,0x6d,0xed,0x1d,0x9d
0x03,0x83,0x43,0xc3,0x23,0xa3,0x63,0xe3,0x13,0x93
0x0b,0x8b,0x4b,0xcb,0x2b,0xab,0x6b,0xeb,0x1b,0x9b
0x07,0x87,0x47,0xc7,0x27,0xa7,0x67,0xe7,0x17,0x97
0x0f,0x8f,0x4f,0xcf,0x2f,0xaf,0x6f,0xef,0x1f,0x9f
};
unsigned char CSStab5[256]=
{
0xff,0x7f,0xbf,0x3f,0xdf,0x5f,0x9f,0x1f,0xef,0x6f
0xf7,0x77,0xb7,0x37,0xd7,0x57,0x97,0x17,0xe7,0x67
0xfb,0x7b,0xbb,0x3b,0xdb,0x5b,0x9b,0x1b,0xeb,0x6b
0xf3,0x73,0xb3,0x33,0xd3,0x53,0x93,0x13,0xe3,0x63
0xfd,0x7d,0xbd,0x3d,0xdd,0x5d,0x9d,0x1d,0xed,0x6d
0xf5,0x75,0xb5,0x35,0xd5,0x55,0x95,0x15,0xe5,0x65
0xf9,0x79,0xb9,0x39,0xd9,0x59,0x99,0x19,0xe9,0x69
0xf1,0x71,0xb1,0x31,0xd1,0x51,0x91,0x11,0xe1,0x61
0xfe,0x7e,0xbe,0x3e,0xde,0x5e,0x9e,0x1e,0xee,0x6e
0xf6,0x76,0xb6,0x36,0xd6,0x56,0x96,0x16,0xe6,0x66
0xfa,0x7a,0xba,0x3a,0xda,0x5a,0x9a,0x1a,0xea,0x6a
0xf2,0x72,0xb2,0x32,0xd2,0x52,0x92,0x12,0xe2,0x62
0xfc,0x7c,0xbc,0x3c,0xdc,0x5c,0x9c,0x1c,0xec,0x6c
0xf4,0x74,0xb4,0x34,0xd4,0x54,0x94,0x14,0xe4,0x64
0xf8,0x78,0xb8,0x38,0xd8,0x58,0x98,0x18,0xe8,0x68
0xf0,0x70,0xb0,0x30,0xd0,0x50,0x90,0x10,0xe0,0x60
};
void CSSdescramble(unsigned char *sec,unsigned char *key)
{
unsigned int t1,t2,t3,t4,t5,t6;
unsigned char *end=sec+0x800;
t1=key[0]^sec[0x54]|0x100;
t2=key[1]^sec[0x55];
t3=(*((unsigned int *)(key+2)))^(*((unsigned int *)(sec+0x56)));
t4=t3
t3=t3*2+8-t4;
sec+=0x80;
t5=0;
while(sec!=end)
{
t4=CSStab2[t2]^CSStab3[t1];
t2=t1>>1;
t1=((t1&1)>3)^t3)>>1)^t3)>>8)^t3)>>5)
t3=(t3>=8;
}
}
void CSStitlekey1(unsigned char *key,unsigned char *im)
{
unsigned int t1,t2,t3,t4,t5,t6;
unsigned char k[5];
int i;
t1=im[0]|0x100;
t2=im[1];
t3=*((unsigned int *)(im+2));
t4=t3
t3=t3*2+8-t4;
t5=0;
for(i=0;i>1;
t1=((t1&1)>3)^t3)>>1)^t3)>>8)^t3)>>5)
t3=(t3>=8;
}
for(i=9;i>=0;i--)
key[CSStab0[i+1]]=k[CSStab0[i+1]]^CSStab1[key[CSS
}
void CSStitlekey2(unsigned char *key,unsigned char *im)
{
unsigned int t1,t2,t3,t4,t5,t6;
unsigned char k[5];
int i;
t1=im[0]|0x100;
t2=im[1];
t3=*((unsigned int *)(im+2));
t4=t3
t3=t3*2+8-t4;
t5=0;
for(i=0;i>1;
t1=((t1&1)>3)^t3)>>1)^t3)>>8)^t3)>>5)
t3=(t3>=8;
}
for(i=9;i>=0;i--)
key[CSStab0[i+1]]=k[CSStab0[i+1]]^CSStab1[key[CSS
}
void CSSdecrypttitlekey(unsigned char *tkey,unsigned char *dkey)
{
int i;
unsigned char im1[6];
unsigned char im2[6]={0x51,0x67,0x67,0xc5,0xe0,0x00};
for(i=0;i6;i++)
im1[i]=dkey[i];
CSStitlekey1(im1,im2);
CSStitlekey2(tkey,im1);
}
signatures pending - ansa@kos.to - (dont mail there)
I'm afraid you're a little confused.
There is a difference here in that a DVD is purchased goods whereas a ticket is admission to an event.
A more apt analogy might be that if I were to purchase a lawn mower and be told that it was illegal to manufacture my own gas or to use any gas but that which was "certified" by the lawn mower manufacturer.
Give a man a match, you keep him warm for an evening.
Light him on fire, he's warm for the rest of his life
One problem with Nader. He agrees with Buchanan on the issue of free trade. They are both isolationists in this regard.
Do you honestly believe this? I can't understand why being a conservative would preclude any Supreme Court Justice from weighing the merits of the case presented, and rendering a fair decission. I might add that in some of the more recent "litmus" test cases, the conservatives voicing minority opinions (yes, they loose sometimes, even with the perceived majority) have had much more objective views.
Before anyone accuses me as being either partisan or myoptic, I must confess that I am a former liberal, a former Democrat yellow dog. Somewhere along the way, I woke up and truely found myself somewhere between a libertarian and a conservative. Did my core values change? Absolutely not! The only thing that changed was my perspective of the world around me.
I moved beyond the silly labels and stereotypes that people attach to people that they don't know (or don't want to find out about). I suggest that you and all others reading this do the same.
I wouldn't be surprised if the SC does overturn this, for conflict of interest or whatever else people have already suggested here. As lame and unfitting as the "Freedom to Innovate" argument is for M$, it actually meshes well with the DeCSS defense. Reverse engineering is a protected act. I am not aware of the MPAA having a patent on the particular algorithm that is used on DVD's, this being the only way to actually keep the encryption method secret. If DeCSS has cracked it on their own, as a clean room effort (I believe that they have), then the conservative members of the court would probably recognize this and lead the charge.
If not, then I would just look like an ass for presuming their actions would follow their recent objective history.
DSL lines ... offer transfer rates of 7 megabits per second.
I wish.:( I get less than 1 mbps down.
IMHO, as per
J:)
Oh well, no point in steering now.
No footnotes with refferences. No source indicated.
How in the hell did the judge get this conclusion?
He makes a statement upon the mental state of an individual, without any justification. Therefore either he is telepathic, or is talking out of an incorrect orifice.
...is the IGNORANCE showed by the judge and often by the mainstream press surrounding this issue. Neither seems qualified to talk about, much less resolve this issue. They are f---ing clueless, and it's so frustrating to me and to all of you who have been following this story.
The "Defense of Marriage Act" is unconstitutional, but not for the reasons you cited. States already have the recognized authority to define marriage as they see fit, and numerous examples have been upheld by the federal judiciary (regarding varying restrictions on marriage between first-cousins, minors, etc.). Essentially, a state is allowed to declare certain types of marriage contrary to important public policy, and therefore not recognized, without implicating Article IV. (Fourteenth Amendment concerns are a completely different matter, of course.)
DOMA, however, exceeds congressional authority in that it purports to give the states rights that either they already have (which they do, unless you can mount a 14th-amendment equal-protection case as I believe should/can be done) or they don't have. Either way, congress has nothing to say, constitutionally, on the matter. And if the 14th amendment would require gay marriages be recognized, then congress moreover doesn't have authority under section 4 of the 14th amendment to abrogate that requirement -- congress is only granted power to enforce the 14th amendment against the states, not to negate it.
By the way, your info concerning Hawaii is a couple years out of date. Yes, the Hawaiin supreme course came down with Baehr v. Lewis back in 1994 or so, but there was a state-constitutional amendment passed in 1998 to allow the legislature to define marriage as it saw fit (to exclude gays). Same goes for Alaska. The current hotspot is in Vermont, which has approved domestic-partnerships after its own unanimous supreme-court ruling earlier this year, but domestic partnership needn't be recognized by other states with the same effect as marriage. Further litigation is likely to determine whether domestic partnership goes far enough to satisfy Vermont's equal-protection guarantee, which is among the broadest in the nation. Massachusetts is likely to be next, as it has an equal-protection clause as broad as Vermont's and it has an "equal-rights amendment" explicitly prohibiting discrimination based on sex. Rhode Island is also on the horizon, though that state may bypass the judicial branch altogether and do it all from within the legislature.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
All courts have the authority to declare a federal law unconstitutional. If two courts in two different jurisdictions make incompatible rulings, then it is the supreme court's job to resolve the question in either direction, but lower courts are free (in fact, required) to entertain the quesiton in advance. In fact, few cases proceed to the supreme court without such controversy.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Leavenworth, KS actually has four prisons. They include both a military prison and a Federal maximum security penitentiary. Be bad enough, and you too can visit there for a very long time. (Military service is optional.)
2)This is not a criminal trial.
True enough. I'm not contesting that. However, there are nasty Federal criminal penalties for violating copyright. Get someone interested in prosecuting you for that, and jail time is definitely possible. Big fines, too!
<RANT>
Hosting this tool (DeCSS) shouldn't be criminal, but it sure looks as if it's headed down the road to illegality. My opinion is that the judge was caught up in the politics of 2600, and ignored the fact that it isn't breaking and entering on your own property. You purchased a physical copy of something, not a license for it, and you can use it however you want -- yes, within the limits of copyright law. That includes fair use! If I want to make a videotape to watch in my Warner Bros. Special Edition Chevy Venture, where's the switch to turn off Macrovision? It's legal, it's fair use, but I am technologically prevented from doing it. Who do I sue?
</RANT>
3)Norway would piss their pants.
Norway doesn't have to extradite Jon. If he didn't commit a crime against their laws, they don't have to do a damn thing. Now... if he decided to visit the "good 'ole USA" again, all bets are off. He could be arrested by the MPPAA (Motion Picture Police Association... oh, never mind.) From what I understand, he has rather good standing in Norway, both legally and politically (from what he was put through back when this first hit the fan.) I hope Norway continues to keep it's clear head about reverse engineering.
Not to leave anything out...
4)Got any tacos?
Nope.
That is all. Thanks to Google for help in the fact finding!
"...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
Guess that wasn't all, huh?
"...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
This has absolutely nothing to do with distributing MP3s. This decision is about
the DECSS code that the kid from Finland wrote
that cracked some crappy encryption.
I for one will still be wearing my DECSS shirt
in the US. If code isn't recognized as free speech then we're all doomed.
The Information Revolution will be fought on the command line.
If I purchase something I should be able to view
it on any type of device I wish to. Once I own
the right to watch something it shouldn't be illegal for me to watch it the way I want to, on my platform.
This has nothing to do pirating. This has to do with control of the DVD player.
The Information Revolution will be fought on the command line.
I think that you might be confusing the DMCA with the UTICA. They are both quite onerous, but are in fact seperate pieces of legislation. I believe that the UTICA has to do with shrink-wrap licenses, and doesn't really address encryption like the DMCA.
I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person that I'm preaching to.
dont mention tivo. the more its swept under the rug the better. eventually those clueless morons at MPAA will catch on but by then there will be enough tivos in every home just like VCRs and they wont be able to stop it.
They (big businesses in general) make money selling hardware like tape recorders and CDROM burners. They also make money selling licensed DVD players. They don't make money if someone is giving a comprable product away for free.
One big problem I see with this and with many of the other injunctions as of late is that the judiciary has taken it apon themselves to be guardians of the booming economy over their responsibility of administering over a fair and just legal system.
Look at the desisions and injunctions handed down over the last few years. They have all come down on the side of whoever stands to make/lose the most money regardless of who's in the right or wrong.
I don't know if the judges fear that they could damage the strong economy by handing down rulings that hurt corporate profits or what; are they fearful of their 401K funds? I don't know.
What would I suggest? If the law is unjust just ignore it. There are enough people on the internet (not to mention enough nations) that any regulation passed down by one nation can all but be completely ignored by the little guys in all nations.
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
I have not read the ruling, but I've read some of the trial transcripts and the defense covered the issues you consider important points.
* If DeCSS was made for Linux DVD players, then why was the compiled Windows port made and released?
The reason why you need exactly this, a windows binary to decode DVD for development of a Linux player, was covered extensively by the defense; and in answering the first point, the remaining points are answered.
Linux, at that time, could not read the DVD filesystem format and there were no DVD-drive drivers for Linux.
Developers could use DeCSS to decode a movie using a windows box, then use that decoded data to develop the rest of their DVD player applications. They could write the portions that play the MPEG video and audio to the screen while others worked on the problem of DVD-drive drivers. Once a DVD-drive driver was written for Linux the DeCSS code that did the decoding could be integrated with the Linux DVD player.
As far as DeCSS as a tool for copying DVD's, the defense showed that there were several other DVD rippers out there that were both easier to use and faster.. Thus their emphasis on trying to get the plantifs to answer on if the pirated movies they found on line were ripped using DeCSS or not. Chances are the pirates used one of the easier tools.
The platifs alledge the poliferation of DVD piracy was due to DeCSS; The defense attempted to show (and what I think) that it's not DeCSS, but the availability of cheap broadband access and larger storage capacities that are the reasons DVD's are being traded online.
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
And so does DeCSS, you bootlicking toady.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
> There's always initiative and referendum
Is this true for federal law? I suspect not.
Ryan
from what i read of it, i half got the impression that the judge was saying "yeah this is a f****d up law, but i'm stuck doing what the law says, and you're guilty. take your case to the supreme court." same thing's going to happen with napster, only they have even less ground to stand on with regards to legitimate use. i dunno. i've got my copy, how about you?
alright, standard disclaimers and IANAL apply:
...anybody linking to the compiled version isn't following the intended purpose either, as stated in the case.
I'll admit it, I'm a little bit pissed off at the comments on this posting. First of all, Slashdot shows some bias to the case by only posting the conclusion (which of course looks horrible). Secondly, all the readers take this to mean that the judge is a hatemongerer and in the hands of the MPAA. Here are the most important points that the judge made, IMO:
* If DeCSS was made for Linux DVD players, then why was the compiled Windows port made and released?
* DeCSS's intended purpose was for a DVD player for Linux. This is an honorable and difficult thing to do and is protected by law. Releasing the compiled Win32 version does not help the Linux DVD project at all. Not only that, but...
*
* And finally, our elected officials in Congress passed the DMCA to "protect" everybody, including the MPAA. If there's a problem with the DMCA, it's up to us elected people to take it up with Congress and get some laws passed to overturn this ruling. The judge did concede that people are being restricted by the current implementation of CSS, but "Congress clearly faced up to and dealt with this question in enacting the DMCA"
So, finally, the judge passes the buck to where it belongs. His job was to apply the current law, and I believe that's all he did. He didn't show any real bias towards either side, (which angry script kiddies translate to "biased against us"), he just said that DeCSS is not helping the Linux DVD situation, and that when 2600 links to it, they're not helping the situation either.
It is the Supreme Court's decision to strike down unconstitutional laws.
I believe that any Federal court can declare a Federal law unconstitutional. State or Federal courts can declare state laws unconstitutional. I'm sure there are juristictional issues, you wouldn't want the traffic judge trying to overturn fraud statutes, for example. It's just that the Supreme Court has the final say.
The point in this case is the judge didn't want to rule on constitutionality himself so he said that DCMA was ok vs the First Amendment and leave it to the losing side to appeal.
I find it hard to believe that his ruling could include linking. How can he keep you from linking to a site in another country? What if a site that doesn't contain DeCSS that 2600 links to puts DeCSS on one of their pages after the fact? Is it 2600's job to verify every link on every page they link to recursively on a daily basis on the off chance that someone starts including DeCSS? How absurd!
I like a phrase I heard around here somewhere , "Anything that can be put on a t-shirt should be considered speech." That doesn't mean it is protected, "fire in a crowded theatre" or obscenity (unlike pornography) but at least is recognized as falling under the auspices of the First Amendment. I haven't read the whole judgement yet but can he keep people from putting DeCSS on a t-shirt and wearing it to court?
As a side note, isn't it strange that cuss words like d*mn and f*ck are said to be "obscenities" while the picture of an unclothed female in a possibly lewd position or pose is pornographic? Stay with me here, the strangeness comes from the community standards rulings that relate back to the First Amendment, things that are considered *Obscene* by the community can be legislatively prohibited, so why is the witchhunt going after plain-ol' naughty pictures instead of all that obscene language? Ain't people the strangest animal? Go figure!
Mith
We the Sheeple...
As far as I can tell it's not only illegal to wear it. It's illegal to own it. It's illegal to tell us you have it (which is just a method of linking to it). It's illegal for Slashdot to allow you to post your comment, since ultimately their web site is saying that one way to find DeCSS is on your shirt.
Or will it continue to be, "On the one hand, we hate Fox for their role in DeCSS, on the other hand, they've got that keen new X-Men movie out let's all go see it."
Everyone, don't buy movies and DVDs!
Oh, and the way you can really, really, hurt them.. don't work for them, the movie industry, in any capacity.
What do you call that? A work-cott?
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Defendants, on the other hand, are adherents of a movement that believes that information should be available without charge to anyone clever enough to break into the computer systems or data storage media in which it is located.
Without charge? Hey Judge Kaplan, I PAID GOOD MONEY FOR THIS DVD. I just want to watch it.
Is that concept really so hard to understand?
--
My word processor was written by Stanford Professor Donald Knuth. Who wrote yours?
What Kaplan says is, coding malicious code is no more a form of self-expression than assassination is a form of political expression. It makes perfect sense: free speech, yes, but code is more than free speech. It's also a tool that can cause harm and break the law.
If you want another analogy, here's one: free speech in the US entitles you to say anything you want; but giving someone the go-ahead to kill another human being is outlawed. Will you fight for your right to tell people to kill other people? If so, you're confusing the issue: it's the conscious act of ordering the death of someone THROUGH SPEECH that is wrong, not the speech itself. Likewise, the issue here is not the code itself, but what is done with the code.
This 'code is free speech' crap is so typical, and is used once again to justify disregard for law and the work of others. Message to all the 13 year-old crackers out there who don't want to pay for your movies and CDs: GET OVER IT.
No they do not, at least not in an unlimited manner. See the concepts of "fair use" and "first sale".
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
more important than whether the point was raised would be whether it's relevant.
might we all be dancing happily right now if the defendants were, say, freemasons? or devout episcopalians?
the point, i suppose, is that such an affiliation on the part of the defendant (forget the fact that the judge seems to have made this up) should weigh little in terms of the legality of the tool. this belies judgie's predisposition to view hackers as snotty disrespectful punks.
moronmoronmoronmoron. and rather disingenuous. what we as techies ought to do is boycott doing work for government agencies, and the courts especially. god knows there are tons of jobs, freelance and otherwise, for IT's -- why not cut them off for a while? let kaplan do the DBA work over there for a while -- heck, do you think he even put the docs into pdf by himself?
this is mean, and petty, but it's a perfectly valid way to return the disrespect that he's shown to hackers. I know, i know, it's just a dream, but i've got this image of big louie trying to figure out how to configure a ppp connection -- you know, hands hovering shakily over the keyboard, big old-person glasses, motionless except for a big vein pulsating in his forehead. effing genius. i write code. i pay my taxes. this guy insulted law-abiding coders everywhere, and he can *ahem* kiss my upstanding, law-abiding ass.
god is just pretend.
But to critisize them for getting a BIT radical and tearing down some posters??? That's such a fucking hipocritical attack you make me ill.
What about when pro-lifers shoot and kill doctors they suspect of performing abortions?
What about when you people bomb clinics where abortions take place, regardless of whatever else goes on in there?
Those distance orders you people whine so fervently about are there to protect the lives of the paitents and workers. Perhaps if you weren't so egear to assault them, those restraining orders wouldn't be there.
Just how the hell do reconcile being pro-life, but being more than willing to commit assault and murder? Fucking hipocrite.
Why don't you do us all a favor and just die.
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Imagine all the people...
No, he believes that by having this software, people can decrypt DVDs, compress them into a smaller format like DivX, and post them on the Net. And he's right.
The judge obviously missed the point though... when I read that garbage about breaking into computer systems I thought, "Huh?"
"Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try."
No, I doubt it would have made a difference, but this statement does show (at least to us) that Kaplan didn't even listen to the defense.
"Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try."
1) Do nothing and pray a higher court does understand the issues and overrided this judgement. This is the normal response of about 75% of the people.
2) Respond mindlessly and rudely, spamming the shit out of the judge. Usually 5% of the people take this response.
3) Write letters to newspapers and elected officals or people running for office, educate others, protest about this issue, elect officials who understand the issues. The last 20% of people actually do this.
I would encourage more people to try 3) and not 1) (which is essentially doing nothing) or 2) (which is just counterproductive).
One last thought: given that the technical sector is one of the fast growing parts of the economy, why don't we exercize more political muscle?
See, I bet even Joe Sixpack could understand that.
Is there any other industry other than the entertainment industry that insults it's clients by flat out assuming that they are criminals?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
ObDisclaimer: IANAL.
I think that this will have to go to the Supreme Court now. We have two courts in two different jurisdictions with differing opinions on an important Constitutional issue, to wit, "Is Source Code Speech, which is protected under the First Amendment?"
In the Bernstein case, a court in California (part of the 9th Circuit) said yes, Source Code is speech. In this case, a court in New York (don't know the Circuit, anybody know?) said no. Given that this is a major constitutional issue, and that courts in two separate circuits disagree, the Supreme Court almost has to take this issue.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
[snip]
c.) You are a christian (just TRY being agnostic/athiest/anything else)."
Note: Joseph Lieberman, currently Senator from Connecticut, is an Orthodox Jew. True, he's still part of the Judeo-Christian tradition, but he's not a Christian.
My sister and a few friends and I were arguing yesterday about whether to count the deist Founding Fathers as "Christian" or what. I maintain that, while their culture was Christian, the actual religion of such as Ben Franklin WAS NOT.
A Salon article a few days ago proposed, somewhat in jest, that our next non-Christian higher-up federal official will be a Muslim secretary of state, since Muslims, like Jews and Christians, have connections to the Judeo-Christian heritage, have one holy scripture, etc. I could see a strict Sunni Muslim as Secretary of -- well, not State anytime soon, but maybe something like Transportation (blanked out for a moment -- thanks, Google!).
[sarcasm] But a black man? Heavens, no! [/sarcasm] Except for Colin Powell, who makes up for being black by being a hawk. Rednecks just don't know what to do!
Speaking of race and power -- wasn't it an Indian-American judge, one Marilyn Patel or something, who made one of the recent Napster rulings? Go, Indians!
http://www.cia.gov/cia/ciakids/index.html
Ceterum censeo Microsoftam esse delendam.
How, oh, how will we explain this to our (non-script-)kiddies?
The CIA for Kids Homepage!
Doesn't it make you feel like expatriating?
Ceterum censeo Microsoftam esse delendam.
-- Dave
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
What is, perhaps, more disturbing though is that the judge passed the buck on the ruling. There's this thing in the US called checks and balances, and one result of this system is that the Legislative branch makes the laws and the Judicial branch is supposed to interpret them. In this case, the judge said that the Legislative body has already made the decision by passing the DMCA. I think the judge needs to take responsibility for the fact that it's his call.
Plan on seeing an appeal. There were serious First Amendment issues raised that can only be fleshed out on appeal. (And no, IANAL.)
-- Dave
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
25. Not too many years ago(c. 30000 BCE), the most common form of round object was a square. Their complete lack of roundness caused them to be referred to as disks. Today we have invented the wheel and other things which are round. The earlier name for a square housing stuck and they continue to be called disks.
Alright how clueless is that?
________________
They're - They are
Their - Belonging to them
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
If someone just marks it 'flaimbait' it will have them all. I believe.
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- If this were 1982 and the IBM BIOS was never reversed engineered?
- If the Pentagon during the cold war couldn't reverse engineer?
- If the British weren't allowed to reverse engineer the enigma?
- My old company revenues if I wasn't allowed to reverse engineer thier unsupported data readers and write new software?
Enough said. This isn't free speech, it's enclosed within a code comment section
**/
It's just the normal noises in here.
Looks like RedHat is going to have to move to Sealand and sell its distro only online!
mailed? you footing the bill? now i see why we call it "bigger government."
no - in all actuality they have the right to request it. postage will be their concern. the actual document production cost will also be their concern. trust me, i worked in Federal District 11 for two years doing just that - providing copies of pleadings, judgments, abstracts, motions, etc. to everyone: read as lawyers, messengers, bankers, regular joes, and even the indigent (which surprised me by how many people live on the street with no food or clothing, but would pay $.10/page for some obscure case that they had nothing to do with (as far as i could tell....) guess toilet paper comes from odd places!)
/* Half alive and half dead too, work is for suckers and the sucker is you. - "Half-life" by Local H*/
By offering legal documents only in PDF format, the government is assisting Adobe in gaining market share, at the expense of those people who don't want to or can't download the Acrobat reader (Plain text browsers, people with slow computers, people who are too illiterate to install Acrobat....
http://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/courtweb/
The document will be in PDF format. You may need to download a (free) copy of Acrobat Reader, if you don't already have it, or visit the Help page for links to additional instructions and technical support.
i see your arguments, but truthfully, i don't see how using the free PDF format is a bad thing. it has instructions for how to config with AOL, so we know that the ignorant masse are being covered. there is a text-only reader for those who need/prefer and the reader version is only 5.6mb.
i don't think the, by providing documents in this format, they are denying anyone. by your logic, do the people without PC access should have the right to have a free copy mailed to them?
/* Half alive and half dead too, work is for suckers and the sucker is you. - "Half-life" by Local H*/
I agree that this statement by the judge seems anything BUT impartial...
I also balk at the idea that the whole community or "movement" feel that information should be available to those who are "clever" enough to break in to systems. I believe that the attitude of most members of this community are more that of favoring free and equal information SHARING.. not breaking into and stealing.
but a bias is quite clear in the judge's case...
-- "This is my sig... there are many like it but this one is mine"
Hey, where can I get one anyway?
---
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
It has always been a perfectly clear cut, b&w decision obvious to anyone with the ability to read english and the ability to admit to the facts of the case.
What does that do for TIVO?
Actually, given the existing RIP legislation, it would be a laugh for the UK Government to try implementing the equivalent of the DMCA.
...
view conversation with police officer
Cop: Alright, sunshine - what's on this disk?
You: It's just a DVD of a home movie, officer.
C: I don't buy that. It's obviously encrypted information that we need to see. Hand over the decryption keys.
Y: I can't do that officer - I don't have an authorised DVD player, so revealing any decryption keys would be in breach of the Digital Recording Protection Act 2003.
C: Right. I am arresting you on suspicion of refusing to reveal an encryption key [under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.] You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not say something which you later rely on in court. Do you understand?
They would have you coming and going. Yes, I know that if the law forces you to commit a crime either way, you can probably get off, but that's still an awful lot to go through (especially if they decide to make it a Section 51 situation which means that it's an offence to even tell the Judge in your case that a decryption order exists).
It may not look like it's about piracy, but it is when you get down deeper. Those who make something have the right to control it. They can't make it secure if they make it an open standard. So it may not be directly involved with copying DVDs, but a ruling the other way would open the door to that a bit wider.
I am with you in that I would like to be able to play it on whatever I choose, but those who own the technology don't agree, and they should not be forced to give up their rights.
I feel that it is childish for the Technical Community to ever have persued this case. One of the reasons that we have good movies with large budgets is that it is financially beneficial to do so, ie, there's profit. No profit, no big budget thrillers, no Star Wars. I can copy a videotape and sell it, but that doesn't make it legal. Those who spend the money have every right to make it back.
One of the complaints I have with the ruling is the implicit assumption that the open source community is out to pirate everything. While this is certainly the case in many instances, he's basically calling everybody with DeCSS a pirate.
There are also omissions of logical conclusions, like stating that JJ created DeCSS simply to bypass CSS (anti-circumvention restriction of the DMCA). Yet, carried to the logical conclusion he wanted to bypass CSS so that he could engage in fair use viewing of DVDs.
Futher, he uses the fact that DeCSS was developed on Windows to support an argument that it was to be a general purpose cracker, instead of a means of viewing just on Linux. As JJ stated in the trial, they created the windows version first because that's where they had a working version to compare against.
Finally, the judge's ruling against linking is a fallacy. Just as it is not illegal to post instructions to making a bomb, it should not be illegal to post a *direct* link to information on DeCSS. The information is not illegal, the use of it is (by his ruling anyway).
So personally, I think criticism of his conclusions is certainly in order. In any case, I agree that the supreme court is a much better place for this case.
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
1. Is it illegal to run a website which links to the DeCSS source code if visitors must click through a link on the front page labelled "The following page may contain links to the DeCSS source code. Only click here if you wish to be exposed to these links"?
2. Is it illegal to run a website which links to the DeCSS source code if visitors must type "DeCSS source" into a text box on the front page to view the links?
3. Is it illegal to run a search engine which links to the DeCSS source code if visitors must type "DeCSS source" into a text box on the front page to view the links?
Where does it stop?
It never should have started for the simple fact that the allegations are incorrect. If I were a judge I'd be highly pissed off if some lawyer tried to pull the wool over my eyes by stretching the facts the meet his/her personal agenda rather than the truth.
-User
Emacs is for experts. Pico is for beginners. VI is a disease.
In the idea you describe, Sony's DVD player still wouldn't be breaking the act, because it still wouldn't fall to one of the three categories (primary purpose is circumbention, limited commercially significant non-circumvention purpose, or marketed for circumvention).
I am not American, so this stuff doesnt really apply to me. However, I doubt this is a matter of expression with all that DMCA crap. Code does have some form of personal and political expression, but nowhere near as much as a book or song. Even movies are more expressive than code (how ironic isn't it?). The movie industry lawyers could have just said they wanted the right to express their clients view through the film, and "pirating" (
You assassination comparison doesn't really apply here, no matter how much you cry "freedom of speech" at your murder trial they wont listen. Plain and simple, they dont care if its freedom of speech; and that applies in the DeCSS case as well. In my view, saying DeCSS is personal expression is just a coverup. Geeks think that copyright system is old and being abused, but its still there. We are using "freedom of speech" to get what we want because we know any other way won't work. It our only defence in the world of corrupt politicians and sneaky lawyers. Respond all you like saying I am full of shit, but you know its true in your heart. PS: My bad grammar is a result of me not looking over my post, so I suggest you get a life trying to degrade someone because it appears their english is bad.
Buying a Dell computer is equivalent to dropping the soap in a prison shower.
Who cares who wins or loses? I know damn well that DeCSS is never going away unless the world explodes in a giant fireball (or something better comes along). They may have one the battle but they will never win the war.
Buying a Dell computer is equivalent to dropping the soap in a prison shower.
1)Leavenworth is a military prison.
2)this is not a criminal trial.
3)Norway would piss their pants
4)Got any tacos?
Buying a Dell computer is equivalent to dropping the soap in a prison shower.
Forget Lieberman, Clinton is even better proof!
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
I wonder why they havn't given his computer and stuff back yet, then?
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
That's true, we would have ended up in appeals anyway. And this was such a patently rediculous ruling that it should help our argument a bit.
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
The DMCA isn't just a stupid law, its an unconstitutional law. And if this is found to be so in a court of law, then it will be taken out of law. That makes the fact that it's stupid rather important.
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
Perhaps not, but my Linux PC has a DVD drive while the Econoline, I'm sure, does not. DVD drives are made for playing DVDs. And stopping people from playing DVDs they own even though there is a utility that would make this possible is wrong.
For the record, I installed the DVD stuff before I converted to Linux, and I am pissed off because that is a major reason why I can't just mkfs the Windows drive.
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
Another one of which is viewing DVDs I payed for.
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
Just bear in mind that these people should be treated similarly as script kiddies who call themselves "Hackers."
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
As I understand it, it's only valid in New York. And this has nothing to do with MP3s, just the DeCSS program.
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
Can regular courts rule a law unconstitutional? I thought that only the Supreme Court could do that? This is an honest question coming from a Limey living in the U.S.A.
Certainly they can. IANAL, but they can and they have, as a quick google search can assure you. When they do, of course, the decision is almost always appealed, but they can and should make the correct decision to begin with. There is a rule of american jurisprudence which says that "No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law (or rule) and no courts are bound to enforce it." Also, one among many precendents that imply it:
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Now I am too lazy to read the whole of the text the judge had written, but I must say that any offenders who have broken the law (ie. DMCA) should be prosecuted. After all, it is a law, and we can't be selective about the laws we say should be enforced and those that shouldn't.
I'm reminded of the "monkey trial" case .. where what's his name taught evolution -- against a written law. He was prosecuted and lost. The judge realized how rediculous the law must have been but also realized that the individual had broken the law. He fined the offender because he broke the law. But at least it was not the maximum which would have been twice as rediculous.
Just a thought..
The code is on the back, so just tell them you never noticed it.
If there is hope, it lies in the trolls.
DeCSS could be seen as having a key to someone's house that you made yourself.
I would say that DeCSS could be seen as having a key to YOUR house, that you made yourself without the 'authorisation' of the locksmith company.
They'll have to rip the shirt from my dead body! (referencing the wicked cool Copyleft t-shirt I bought a few weeks ago)
OK, hear me out on this. From the outside, I really got the impression over the course of this whole thing that DeCSS was sort of a standard (as in flag) for the Open-Source/Linux/free everything/etc. movement. I know that is incorrect. I know this case was technically about players on various platforms and suchforth. But the uninvolved outsider may very well see it the first way... And I wonder how much of that is the outsider's fault...
Before you all flame me, let me point out that for the most part, I support the DeCSS people's arguments. All right? Just seeing another side of this.
-J
Karma: T-rexcellent.
This ruling is not the end. We have an appeal, and the Supreme Court up our sleeves still. The judge left us a life boat:
Ruling in their favor would have been the end of the already thin defense fund. PLUG-> Join EFF!
Remember-- This is not only about playing DVDs, or free speech, the DMCA is a grossly written piece of law that went unanimously through Congress. If this law prevails, other industries/companies that hold the edge will have a blue print of how to keep an entire sector out of a a technology.
"[C]omputers come down to one basic premise: They operate with a series of on and off switches, using two digits in the binary (base 2) number system--0 (for off) and 1 (for on). All data and instructions input to or contained in computers therefore must be reduced the numerals 1 and 0.
Some highly skilled human beings can reduce data and instructions to strings of 1's and 0's and thus program computers to perform complex tasks by inputting commands and data in that form.15 But it would be inconvenient, inefficient and, for most people, probably impossible to do so. In consequence, computer science has developed programming languages. These languages, like other written languages, employ symbols and syntax to convey meaning. The text of programs written in these languages is referred to as source code.16 And whether directly or through the medium of another program,17 the sets of instructions written in programming languages--the source code--ultimately are translated into machine "readable" strings of 1's and 0's, known in the computer
While I am against monopolistic practices, in some industries, in some times they can be warranted and a positive thing. I am behind 2600/DeCSS in this one, but other cases do not have the same conditions. Many cited uncivil practices against Rockefeller when he consolidated the oil industry under Standard Oil. At his time, the industry suffered from overproduction that drove the price of kerosene and crude oil so low that many producers could not afford to keep in business. The rags-to-riches-to-rags lives of most refiners and drillers was caused by a lack of organization. Standard Oil provided a haven, while a stifling haven, for these producers and brought stability to the industry. Without the monopoly, the industry might have collapsed (at least for a while) and production ended. Sometimes a giant umbrella can keep more dry than lots of little, flimsy ones. :)
Pornographic DVD's are not encrypted under CSS.
I haven't investigated whether the MPAA won't allow CSS lisences for porn, or whether pornographers just didn't bother to try.
Ed Craig "Who cares what you think?" George W. Bush, 4th of July 2001
Sitting Walrus Blog
i know which one of my copyleft shirts i'm wearing tomorrow....
-J
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." - U.S. Constitution, 10th Ammendment
These rights would presumably include the right to be able to view a disc that you've legally purchased, right? I don't remember ANY state passing a law that says you can't play a DVD that you've bought. Therefore, this ruling is unconstitutional, and should be overruled.
Sure, such people exist. But was it ever shown in court that the defendents of THIS CASE subscribe to that mindset? This isn't about the legality of DeCSS, it's about 2600's right to post it. Now if you can quote Corely/Goldstein as saying "information needs to be free", and you introduce that into the court record, then sure, that could be used in the finding.
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WWhhaatt ddooeess dduupplleexx mmeeaann??
This sig intentionally left justified.
Posting DeCSS may not be an incitement to commit a crime, but the judge apparently thinks that the main use of the program is to illegally copy DVDs. I don't think the defendants properly got that point across. Yes, DeCSS can be used to help 'pirates' in copying DVDs at smaller sizes, but you can copy DVDs without DeCSS (just can't really play the copies back AFAIK).
The thing I got from the findings is that the judge was biased against the defendants, but in fact suggested ways they could have handled the case to reverse the findings (Footnote 217, page 64).
The thing I'd like to see is, since the source code that decrypts CSS is considered functional as well as expressive, what if you posted most of the other source code (I/O, etc.) involved in DeCSS, and then posted the rest as some form of pseudocode on the web that people would only have to translate into actual code and link with the other stuff to make a fully working product. And make sure to make the pseudocode with grammatical mistakes, etc. that prevent the possibility of making a pseudocode compiler. That way, it can only be seen as expressive, as it teaches the user how this piece of encryption software works, and it is not functional without the user thinking about it and translating.
To hijack your example; it seems to me the judge isn't saying 'it doesn't matter if you were trying to help, you still broke the law' it seems like he's saying 'don't try and help any ladies across the street because you could jaywalk while doing it'.
Love your last bit, 'officer, he said he was gonna kill nine. Stop him before those nine people die'. Hah!
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
You came so very close to stabbing right where the center of the issue is. My big question is: why should people who want to watch DVDs be forced to view it under the MPAA's terms? Why can't they view it any way they want as long as it doesn't break regular copyright law? What gives the MPAA the authority to decide how I watch DVDs? I bought the DVDs. I didn't buy a "license to watch it based on their terms." I bought a DVD to do with as I wish, as long as I didn't distribute copies.
Sure you can. I did.
Thanks. If that actually holds up, (and there has to be something to contract that somewhere) then I consider that situation to be completely utterly bizarre.
Okay, here's one from the MPAA: select the FAQ
Mmmmm. Generally I've found that if you're asking if a license is legally enforcable, the person wishing to enforce the license is generally not the best person to ask. It's like asking the tobacco companies if cigarettes are really all that dangerous. The answer you get might not really be all that close to truth, and the people giving the answers will often let opinions masquerade as fact. There is no agreement between DVD buyer and seller. There is only copyright law. That is why charging "friends" to view the DVD you bought is illegal -- because it's against copyright law, not because it's against any type of license. Of course, the license is often going to reflect and reprint copyright law, which makes those parts of the license legally enforcable. But again, that's only because it's already against the law.
See, I believe this statement is somewhat misleading. You are legally allowed to view it under any conditions you want, as long as, again, you don't violate copyright law. Now it just so happens that the only way to view DVDs is through players that had licensed with the CCA, and breaking that encryption is illegal. But that's different. If the DVD-CCA could legally enforce what circumstances you watch DVDs on, they wouldn't even need to bother with encryption. The ban against breaking encryption gives them a roundabout way to get what they want, but it's still not the same as legally obligating someone to only view in a certain manner. The end result is pretty much the same, true, but what the law allows and disallows is different between those two cases.
In fact, I believe you are actually allowed to develop some type of CSS-DVD-player, but it's the actual distribution of such tools that is illegal. I haven't actually looked into this though, so I might just be repeating SlashDot rumor (ie, talking out of my ass).
Be careful. Many capture cards coming out these days will refuse to capture a video stream that has a macrovision signal in it.
There was a motion for Kaplan to step down when the trial started, because of a conflict of interest. He actually helped the MPAA (actually one of the Member Studios) create the DMCA, as I understand it. His law firm advised the studio regarding the DMCA and antitrust issues.
The MPAA bought themselves a law, then they bought themselves a judge to enforce it.
Woney
In a country that is supposed to be free there sure are a heck of a lot of restrictions on our freedom to use copyrighted works that we purchased. Maybe we should change our motto from "in god we trust" to "USA copyright 1776, all rights reserved.".
If the DCMA is unconstitutional then overruling it is his job -- it is the role of the courts to make sure that Congress stays within the powers that it was granted in the constitution.
It is not Judge Kaplan's job to decide whether he thinks what Congress did was a good idea or good policy. Congress was elected precisely to decide what public policies are good ideas, and which ones are bad ideas, as long as they stay within the limits of the powers the constitution gave them.
Obviously, Judge Kaplan thought that Congress had stayed within the lines, and wasn't going to second guess Congress on the wisdom of the law once he reached that conclusion.
exclusive Right to their respective Writings
seems quite similar to
exclusive right to copy and distribute those motion pictures
And what else would someone use an exclusive right for except for economic gain?
Let's have a rational discussion about this OK?
The parent post has to be one of the most pecularly moderated posts I have ever seen. Right now it's at:
Moderation Totals:Troll=1, Insightful=1, Informative=1, Overrated=1, Underrated=1, Total=5.
I can't believe that someone thought it was insightful, informative, or underrated. It seems pretty clear to me that instead of attempting to post something insightful or informatice, he was looking for that elusive fist p0st. He did get #3, but I'm sure he'll be back another day for another try. The only explanation I can come up with to explain the moderation is some kind of conspiracy. I hope it gets corrected in M2.
Well, the weird moderation continues - current count is 9 moderations, with the current status at:
Moderation Totals:Troll=1, Insightful=2, Informative=1, Funny=1, Overrated=3, Underrated=1, Total=9.
Guess this one appealed to both sets of moderators :-)
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
Could someone please post a link to a true html or (better yet) txt version of the story?
thanx
--DV
"Kermit the frog, cuz he gets all the hos!"
--DV
In this day it is safer to be a ninja than a samurai
Since it treats code in a more utilitarian manner, does this ruling give traction to the idea that software manufacturers can be held liable for damage caused by their software..?
More like "if you get into your house by picking your locks" (after for example losing your key). Or even "if you get into your house by using key you have made yourself". After all you have already bought the DVD disk you are trying to use. IMO because CSS algorithm isn't patented decrypting it with your own program should be legal.
_________________________
_________________________
Spelling and grammar mistakes left as an exercise for the reader.
Mea culpa. You're right, of course. My mistake.
Lee Kai Wen
It'd be pretty hard for them to repeal the provisions of something that isn't even law . To date, DMCA has only been passed in two states, and gone into effect in only one -- in a heavily modified version to boot. DMCA has been rejected by more states than it has been accepted by.
I don't claim to be an expert in US law, but I'm a bit mystified as to how lawyers could be be getting so much mileage out of something which, to date, isn't a law anywhere outside the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Lee Kai Wen
Yeah. You can make CD-Rs that are 'DVD-Video' compliant; MPEG-2 video, ac-3 or DTS sound, etc etc. It's just a UDF filesystem with a TS_VIDEO and TS_AUDIO directories, and various 'standard' filenames hold the menus and video and the like. If you have access to a DVD-ROM, go take a look at any DVD video in your favorite file explorer. Of course, your CD-R will be able to hold maybe 10 minutes of DVD quality video. :-)
There are softwares available to do this to things like home movies and the like, assuming you have some form of vid capture card. Can't find the links off hand, though.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
You'd have needed to license CSS from the MPAA in the first place. It's still THEIR software, not yours. But they still refuse to admit that it's playback protection, not copy protection.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
"Who cares who wins or loses? I know damn well that DeCSS is never going away unless the world explodes in a giant fireball (or something better comes along). They may have one the battle but they will never win the war."
This isn't what the case is about, nor what you should be focusing on. The case is about trafficking in tools that circumvent protection devices, eg CSS. The fact is the case makes A HREF="someCSS.site.com"> illegal. That in and of itself has very broad implications as court cases use eachother as precidents. Destroying a person's right to link to other sites could very well bring about the downfall of the Web. There have already been cases where Plantiffs sought damages for 'deep linking', which seems insane.
Also, you can bet that these court cases are the first step in MPAA's plan to enhance their encryption technology for the next round of DVD's. They can't (hopefully) increase the encryption levels too high since they have to ensure that all the DVD players out there now will work with the newer ones, however if this case stands making a new deCSS will be hampered. It will be illegal for the author to distribute newDeCSS when it comes out and the MPAA will have a case precendent to work with making things that much easier for them. Somehow (having a judge who consulted for them is a start) they have fooled the courts into believing that as a legitamate consumer of DVD products I still have the right of fair use. It's quite obvious now (as my DVD player sits on a linux box) that I don't.
Ugh, 93 pages of legaleeze to march through.
I have to admit, though that I am rather disturbed by the paragraph in the conclusion that states:
"...Defendants, on the other hand, are adherents of a movement that believes that information should be available without charge to anyone clever enough to break into the computer systems or data storage media in which it is located..."
Which was not the core issue of the case, in my opinion. It seems that the defendants in the DECSS case are being treated in a "guilt by association" sort of manner. I wonder how much that this line of thinking affected the Honorable Mr. Kaplan's decision.
I know that the judge spelt out in the end that he felt that DECSS and the subsequent distribution of the DECSS code was a violation of the DMCA, but that one paragraph really bothers me.
Is that the future for situations that deal with free speech that involve "hackers"? Will they all be viewed in that sort of damning light that makes judges ignore the potential First Amendment concerns?
anyone know how much it will cost to make a few million copy's at kinko's? I've got some code to distibute to the people.
What's next? Is the MPAA going to decide that I can't have a group of friends over to watch a movie without paying them a royality per viewer? How about the RIAA deciding that I can't play my CD's in my Pioneer CD player and instead I have to buy a new RIAA "approved" CD player at an inflated cost.
We all need to contact our members of Congress and get the DMCA revoked because it stomps all over our rights to fair use.
Long Live DeCSS!!
-CH
Well, that's bullshit. You know it and I know it. Laws can get passed that strike a portion of existing laws (or repeal them altogether). There's always initiative and referendum... Get enough people to sign a petition, then let the population vote on it. Laws don't have to start in Congress.
As for not being able to create unconstitutional laws, Congress is free to do that as much as they want. It is up to the people and the Judicial System to keep them in check. If the Judicial System interprets it as constitutional, then it is allowed to stay. However, they don't look at every law. Recently a bill went through that allowed each state to define what marriage is. Sort of goes against Article 4 of the constitution, doesn't it?
NB: Article 4 provides that a legally binding contract in one state is valid in all of the states. If each state defines marriage differently, then a marriage contract is not really a contract. I'm just waiting for a gay couple in Hawaii (allows gay marriages IIRC) to sign a prenuptual contract, move to California (no gay marriages), then take the prenuptual contract through the courts. I'm curious how that will work.
I am just as disappointed as anyone here about the DeCSS ruling. But honestly, I hope nobody thought it was going to turn out the other way. I mean, we all wish it would, but there is way too much law to protect Corporations over individual rights (something I think fair use was intended for).
How's that go? Outlaw coding and only outlaws will code? Shit, doesn't have the same ring as when the NRA says it. :)
Network Security: It always comes down to a big guy with a gun.
Send me a TiVo recording and I'll count it relevent...
--
The inventors, and manufacturers, and distributors have all been found guilty. A spokesman for a large unamed home improvement store has stated under anononimity, "Its rough, but were going to help efforts to appeal this to the highest courts of the land if necessary."
As a result of the decision, the plaintifs are considering bringing lawsuits against our ancient ancestor's who discovered rocks, and invented primative tools like the club and hammer guaranteeing that everyone will be sued.
-- A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard
The court should be banning guns and knives. Wait and bottles too. cigarettes (esp cigarettes) should be banned so long ago cos it does not even serve a useful purpose.
DeCSS is NOT a player, all it does is dump a 4 gig file to your hard drive. A far far cry from being a player.
Hmm lets see, I rent a DVD for $3 and use DeCSS to get the vob file, with 75 gig drives its no big deal. Whats legal about that?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
I agree that it wouldn't last long. IT does use a number of the points that the MPAA made to protect it though.
However the point of the exercise could be interpreted as simply a means to make sure there was a list of sites that people who were not covered by US law would be able to use, and those who were in the US would not be able to see. (Since that would be breaking the law) My previous suggestion would have to be modified so that they would send written copies of the decryption key on request as long as they were sending to an overseas address.
You have captured the essence of where things went wrong for the DeCSS defendents, though.
There were a lot of points - Looking through the documents, it appears that the judge was under the impression that an encrypted file could not be copied.
It makes no difference whether or not the DMCA is a stupid law or not. DeCSS breaks the law, and that all I'm going to say.
I refer you to the recent RIP legislation as evidence of this. At least I can still encrypt things
Great! So we can decrypt anything, but aren't allowed to encrypt it in the first place. You can encrypt anything, but aren't allowed to decrypt it. Ah well, at least there's symmetry
My Version:
Mr.Kaplan s a very tallented man and a member of a well known political body who viewed "protecting" his clients as in end in itself and a means of demonstrating is loyalty and who fully expected that the appreciation of the MPAA would not be confined to non-monetary rewards. Hence, the people find that Mr. Caplan and the others who actually did issue this ruling did not do so solely for the purpose of upholding the law if, indeed, upholding the law was among their purposes. Accordingly, the reverse engineering exception to the DMCA had no application here.
"If you don't own a gun and someone breaks into your home, how are you suposed to shoot him?"
-Dale (from King of the Hill)
Oh, no, you've circumvented Acrobat! This is a violation of the DMCA!
I don't think that's a good idea. It'll get twisted around to look like the same people who [paraphrase] "believe info should be free to those who can steal it" [/paraphrase] are just throwing a tantrum.
If we shun them completely, they will suffer a labor shortage and start paying more. Then we'll come right back because we're more concerned with our own well-being than that of society. I mean, who gives a shit about DeCSS when they're paying twice what anyone else is? Be honest....
I will say this: I won't pay to see any more movies until the MPAA backs off. I won't work for them (not that I ever did) and I won't contribute to their success. I will write to my elected officials and ask them to repeal/rewrite the DMCA.
If you want to leave your job with an MPAA-affiliated company, more power to ya. Maybe we should shun those tech workers who keep working for MPAA (and RIAA) members. That's probably more effective.
-------------------------------
But doesnt the disk come with the needed keys? In my mind, that the same as authorizing me to be able to decrypt information that I bought a copy of.
Hey, why are you picking on Brian Adams? He's Canadian. Canadians are nice. Eh?
m
It looks like this judge has got Napster and DeCSS confused. Does he actually believe that people are going to be able to view DVDs that they did not purchase simply by having this software? That it's magically going to create/locate/receive/assemble random bits of information on your computer into an actual movie that you can see and hear?
Someone missed the point.
Long signatures suck.
Entropy dictates that an ordered system is more energetic than a disordered system. By this argument it could be said that money would 'rather' be all over the place than in a bank. However, we have laws about people breaking into banks and 'freeing' the money.
Just my $0.02
love is just extroverted narcissism
Could you be sued for linking to a site that's linking to someone offering DeCSS also?
If it's unlegal linking to a site offering DeCSS - wouldn't it be unlegal linking to NASA or any other site where someone could permit an unlegal action such as breaking in? knock, knock!
Oh come on... how hard would it be to show that regular VCRs and video tapes are being used for piracy? This mean we should make VCRs illegal? No. You can prove that it's being used for piracy all you want, that doesn't take away its other uses in any way.
Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest
PDF guidlines are freely availabe, and they make no requirements as for liscensing. There was an article some time back that mentioned a system that was using Display PDF rather than Display Postscript due to this very reason.
Besides which, I've got xpdf or gv, or any number of other PDF viewers not made by Adobe.
Looks to me as though the judge just passed up the responsibility for making any sort of decision. "Don't blame me! Congress makes the laws!" Never mind that one of the functions of the Judiciary system in America is to judge the constitutionality of a particular law.
Well, as far as I am aware (IANAL) numbers can't be copyrighted (hence the Pentium) so, surely the best solution is to write out the entire source as a (lenghty!) binary number, convert to decimal and post it on your webpage / T-Shirt / Car etc.
Whilst your at it post the encryption key numbers up too.
Then see the legal wranglings go ahead.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
What difference does it make if the students are "honor students" or "local idiots"?
Also, it doesn't matter who brings knives to school, they are just as dangerous in the hands of smart people as stupid people.
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
Defendants, on the other hand, are adherents of a movement that believes that information should be available without charge to anyone clever enough to break into the computer systems or data storage media in which it is located.
"Without charge to anyone clever enough to break in..."? What is this judge thinking? I *PAID* for the DVD, the least the MPAA could do is let me watch it. And as far as needing a "licensed" player -- you don't need a licensed player to play CDs, tapes, or VHS movies -- so why all the fuss over needing such players for DVDs?
Seems a lot of modern-day judges have no idea what they're talking about when they make rulings on large technoligical issues. Another example than this one would be the Microsoft split-up -- the OS company will still have a monopoly.
=================================
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
According to the judge, section 1201(a)(2) prohitibts "... creating and making available certain technologies . . . developed or advertised to defeat technological protections against unauthorized access to a work." He also says that he's not convinced about DeCSS being about Linux, as it was written for Windows. :)
Ergo, Windows was just advertised to defeat a technological measure, in conjunction with DeCSS!
Woohoo!!!
PS - I am not a lawyer, obviously.
May I ask where you get that idea? I like your statements, however the idea that this ruling will somehow cause piracy to triple just sounds like air to me. Can you give a reason why that would happen? Meaningless and untruestatistics don't do anything but weaken your argument.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
You can buy blank DVD's without the keytrack space burnt out. You just have to know where. . .
I tried copying the VOB files from dos, I tried copying the VOB files from Windows. Both give the same error "Operation Not Supported". That's why I say its impossible (by normal means). While I agree that it is only 1 generation of lost quality, the fact is, you can notice a difference. I've seen a few of these copies, and they aren't pretty. While you do get the movie, the ultra high compression makes it suck compared to the real thing. Sure, there is a market for these sucky copies. I'm not denying that. In fact, that's my whole point. There's nothing they can do to stop the hackers from doing what they want with it.
witty sig goes here
It DOES facilitate "downcoding" DVD's. 1) by copying the file to the hard drive, which if you have ever tried it with windows, is impossible. 2) by decrypting it, it allows the "screen capture" in most dvd player applications, thereby giving you a higher quality capture than before. Even so, you have to have a the DVD to copy it, and recompressing it would be super-lossy, which most people would prefer the DVD to the copy anyways. Even without DeCss you could still put the files on FTP and distribute the encrypted files. Granted you'd saturate the bandwidth of most connections to download it, but that's just my point.
witty sig goes here
I have my DeCSS link up since the first lawsuit on European servers as i am a EU citizen(find it in the nearest DeCSS dis site.).
I sad that corp* can buy laws but that is indeed true in this case. I could care less for napster
but its absolutely absurd to forbid source.
Now the big fight has begun-mcorp* against freedom.
Its time to move underground.
is how does breaking encryption stop anyone from making illegal copies of a dvd? you can burn all the dvds you want right now and sell them, and pretty soon it will actually be worth it to do it. who cares if the encryption is broken, when you can mass produce and sell illegal copies. sure you still need a "blessed" dvd player or software, but piracy is still possible, and i'm sure it's going on right now. people will still buy a blessed dvd player and then pay 5 bucks for a bootleg dvd, i know i'd be tempted.
That the program and the source are not to blame for people violating copyright. If that is the case, why didn't they make cd writer's illegal? They too are an tool used to violate copyright protection. Why not make tape recorders illegal. Better yet, lets make guns illegal. They are used as tools to kill people. DeCss in itself is not breaking any laws. It's the people who are using DeCss to violate copyright law (placing Decrypted DVD's on ftp servers etc...) ARGH!
can anyone translate this to enlish? i can't read legalese
Is this the same judge that looked at the person who testified that all source code is speech and said "That's exactly the kind of thing I've been waiting to hear for this entire trial."? Something is very wrong here...
In post-9/11 America, the CIA interrogates YOU!
Boycott the MPAA
Not with digital copies. The telephone effect is the equivalent of say, degredation in photocopying (or more appropriately, faxing). With people passing links around, the information doesn't degrade. Even with people passing vague rumors around, the information CAN be checked (where it would be more difficult without the web), and degredation prevented. And of course, with digital copying of recorded/written works/software, the telephone effect doesn't even come into play, because you've usually got either a perfect copy, or one that doesn't work at all. (With the exception of partial copies of songs getting propogated across Napster)
By having a DVD player, and good video capture hardware, they can decrypt DVDs, compress them into a smaller format, like DivX, and post them on the net. DECSS just makes it a LITTLE bit easier. It won't drastically increase the number of people encoding movies. When I read the garbage about breaking into computer systems, I thought "Hmm...someone's missing the point. That's all pretty irrelevant here."
Defendants, on the other hand, are adherents of a movement that believes that information should be available without charge to anyone clever enough to break into the computer systems or data storage media in which it is located.
I don't even need to mention this, but this is obviously not even close the the truth. This is about playing movies you own, etc, etc, while the above statement makes it looks like these people want to have legal right to break into other people's systems.
Pathetic! This is all pathetic! *sigh*
--
--
grep "xercist"
www.copyleft.net is still selling T-Shirts :)
If I order one, will I still get it? Or will it arrive with a court order to not wear it ?
Cheers,
Winton
PDF is the way to diistribute documents online. Complex Formatting with HTML is a pain in the ass. Load an HTML page in five similarly-cofigured but slighty different computers and you'll get five different looking files. Heck, it's what the inventors of HTML envisioned--the viewers has control of the content, not the publisher. PDF maintains consistent formatting, and it's free, so stop whining about "Proprietary" software just because Adobe won;t give you the source code.
-- I've never seen electricity, that's why I don't pay for it.
in my life have I ever been so un-suprised. However, all is not lost. There are still several stages of the game left to play, and each of those steps may prove to our advantage. Only at the end, when all is lost, and Mordor, err, MPAA has the Supreme Court on their side, will it be time to panic, as it were.
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
Professor Touretzky told me jokingly in an email a while back that if he had a better singing voice, he would have sung the source code in front of the judge. All joking aside, though, technology is already far enough that the DMCA is meaningless (as has been pointed out). Forgive me for giving the ultimate example:
/., I think) about a brain implant that is allowing a paralyzed man to move a mouse cursor around on his monitor. Well, in singing the DeCSS song, I've started to kind of memorize it. It's a pretty easy algorithm (nothing like an md5 hash or anything). So, if I get one of those implants, am I not even allowed to think about how to decrypt a DVD? The scary thing is, the technology is already here! (I know this scenario has holes, but I think it demonstrates the unusability of the DMCA in my mind)
I wrote a song about DeCSS. The lyrics are the source code for deCSS in plain english (descramble mp3). If I perhaps was a little more technical in the rendering of the song- If I had actually sung the hex for a tar'ed source code, it wouldn't be that big a deal (at least for our friends at MIT) to write some software that would read it and then run it. The song is then illegal, right?
OK, but really worse case scenario. I remember reading (here on
I really didn't appreciate the judge's comments "Computer code is not purely expressive any more than the assassination of a political figure is purely a political statement."
(I know this is going to sound like Katz a bit): Since when was assassinating someone on par with a corporation losing market value? That's wrong.
Joe
Networking vs notworking: only one letter away.
Noetworkong -- one letter away from "not working."
Is this valid _only_ is the US, or is it throughout the world? Is distributing MP3s still valid in a country like India? I know there is a lot of US pressure to comply to its rules, but I dont think other countries are obligated to implement this.
Could Judge Kaplan decide in favor of 2600? No he couldn't. Justice is blind in following the law. So whatever happened in NY court is only a preface to the real thing at the Supreme Court.
I am reasonably optimistic regarding 2600's chances there. However it has to be demonstrated that there is a big, united and competent comunity that sees computers as merely another area to expand the basic liberties. It should be made clear that it's not only 2600: it's the whole IT community.
It was so with segregation, and while the 2600 vs. MPAA may be significantly less important, the issues that stand behind this case are very complex and deep. A ruling will be made that will favor 2600's philosophy; however if it is not made soon, the same issue will have much more devastating effect. Jefferson's original intention was to abolish slavery using the Constitution. Had he managed to do so, America would be spared the Civil War 80 years later. Let's hope they won't procrastinate until the issue will become THAT substancial.
If my knowledge of how this stuff works is correct, if they got an unguilty verdict by this low-level judge then it wouldn't have meant much. Its is a good thing that it has to go to the appeals court.
Can someone more knowledgable about this comment on this?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"microsoft windows ("windows")is an operating system released by Microsoft Corp. It is the most widely used operating system for PC's in the United States, and it's versions include Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT and Windows 2000. Linux, which continues to be developed through the open source model of software development, also is an operating sytem. It can also be run on a PC as an alternative to Windows, although the extent to which it is so used is limited. Linux is more widely used on servers."
Anyone else offended? Maybe this is flamebait, off topic, troll- If so moderate down, but am I the only one who sees a couple errors here?
are you down with the penguin platform?
the odometer lives!
Well, fine. People shouldn't profit from other's work. That's what copyrights are for, contrary to what "people in charge" will tell you. Copying anything for your own use should never be illegal, it's when you try to take credit for it and/or profit from something that's not yours that it gets 'bad'
I'm not a big fan of bootlegging/piracy/information liberation/whatever you want to call it, but I do think that the corporations are taking things too far. Of course, that's true with just about anyone. Give 'em an inch and they'll want the whole world.
Well, better luck next time....
-Space for rent
the verdict seems to say that the owner/author of something has total control over how you can view information -- that if the owner/author has encrypted something, you CANNOT decrypt it without her permission (via the "license").
Turning this idea upon itself, let's just encrypt the DeCSS code and then distribute it with a license saying "this file is offered as is and cannot be decrypted under any circumstances which lead to its use for purposes which break the law".
Then those who distribute DeCSS would be no more responsible for its use in piracy than Oneida is responsible for knifing deaths.
Or better yet, have the license say, "this file may not be decrypted at all". Then nobody can accuse anybody of violating Kaplan's order by possessing or distributing DeCSS -- since you would have to break the law to know that it contains DeCSS.
---
the problem with teens is they're looking for certainties.
Hollywood, Television, has become the dream machine. We need to take that back; each of us is a Dream Machine
Well considering the precedent set here how about this.. Software is a tool.. DeCSS is a tool that *can* be used to break the law.. posting DeCSS is a crime. Hammers are tools.. Hammers *can* be used to hit people which is against the law... So... I am now filing suit against all makers and sellers of hammers for the damages that I *could* recieve if someone uses a hammer to hit me. I think i know just the judge to bring this case to.
1) copy all the data files to a hard drive NOT using DeCSS, and make a DIVX copy without DeCSS? I know there are other ways to strip off the encoding
2) make a copy of the DVD using current technology (bit copies, etc)
and use that to prove that all CSS is for is to limit who can watch the movie?
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
Look, I don't even disagree with you. But the issue here is not the way we wish things were, but the way things are. The DMCA is bad because it dictated this decision. If it didn't dictate this decision, it wouldn't be bad. To paraphrase you, If we can't get judges to enforce the DMCA, why the hell *have* a DMCA ? But, the problem with that argument is that we can get judges to enforce it, and the enforcement leads to sites getting shut down. This argument that CSS is not "good" so therefore you should be allowed to ignore the law is silly. If a doorlock is not good enough should you be allowed to open it and go inside?
I think you should be allowed to reverse engineer and decrypt, but the law says otherwise.
Certainly it's possible that the judge saw the programmers as punk kids (heck, the defendants may actually be punk kidz) and it's certainly possible that the judge is as crooked as all get-out. I have no particular info about any of the three sides in the trial so I'm trying not to come down on any side. But I wanted to offer an explanation that's consistent with the facts I know and which does not entail a crooked judge. "never ascribe to ill-intent that which can be explained by incompetence"... but in this case I'm referring to the potential for incompetence on the part of the defendents.
Courts try to get at the "truth" in a very plain way. Nerds, who grew up smarter than their parents and teachers, are used to outwitting authority by providing complex (where complex equals a delta more than their parents can understand) explanations for why rule transgressions should not be treated as rule transgressions. Nerds get so used to getting away with this, and they've seen enough TV where the defendants get off on a technicality, that they begin to believe that this is what flies in a courtroom.
This is what happened to Bill Gates in his anti-trust defense. He came up with what he considered to be a plausible explanation for Microsoft's behavior, and an explanation which did not entail monopoly behavior. But the courts didn't buy it, because Microsoft engaged in other activities (in particular, emails) that were consistent with a monopoly misbehaving. Distill it all down: MS is a misbehaving monopoly because they from time to time seemed to consider their own behavior in that light as they engaged in it.
MP3.com... do I need to go into detail about this one: they came up with a nice excuse, yes, but they also had emails which showed that they were trying to figure out a way to facilitate copying of copyrighted material. That kind of evidence really taints the defendent in the eyes of the court. Had they from the start pursued a messianic goal of allowing indie artists an alternative means of distribution, they'd have a much stronger leg to stand on.
What's my point? Defendants, on the other hand, are adherents of a movement that believes that information should be available without charge to anyone clever enough to break into the computer systems or data storage media in which it is located. Now, if that's not literally true, I think it is true enough. Remember, the judge is not an expert in this domain. Defendents are adherents to a movement believes that if you "buy" the DVD at the store (I put that in quotes because I don't want to address the issue of what exactly you are buying, a license, plastic, etc.) you should be allowed to do whatever you want with it, exclusive of giving copies to other people. I believe that too. The law unfortunately does not agree with us.
I'm bringing this whole harangue up in hopes that some of you kidz out there can save yourselves a lot of grief: if you want to get involved in this sort of stuff, testing the limits of the law and whatnot, that's great, but keep your motives pure, no winking, no smirking, and you'll be better off at the showdown. The judge is not necessarily your enemy, but he will be if he thinks you're a smartass. Start by taking off that T-shirt.
Did judge Kaplan miss the point? Yeah. Was he biased? No.
you should have said: Was he biased? This [having worked at a lawfirm that did work for the MPAA] cannot be taken as evidence of bias.
My point is, you do not know that the judge is otherwise not biased.
I'm not siding against you, just warning you as somebody on the same side that no court would let you get away with that, especially now that you've detailed the whole point of the enterprise right here in black and white. You have captured the essence of where things went wrong for the DeCSS defendents, though.
Well, without rereading or reading more than is interesting to me, what I did read was that the judge said [paraphrase] "for playing on players without the special decrypter", so at least in that example the judge was going to the trouble to point out that he understood the technology. The judge probably, I'm not a mind-reader, extended that to mean "which decrypter was designed to thwart copy protection schemes which in turn the DMCA was designed to protect, therefore this is a violation of the DMCA."
Why is everyone on Slashdot having trouble swallowing this explanation of the verdict? The moderators are having a field day squelching any attempts to find a rational explanation.
(Dice Rolling)
Sorry guys, it seems that you've landed on a biased judge.
Go to the Appeals Court. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.
Hope you roll up someone with sense next time.
Alas, Babylon.
One question: WHY?
While I'm not of the oppinion that ALL data should be available to everybody - eg. Items pertaining to national security, I feel, should be protected by the legal system. Hell, your credit card number while being transmitted - I also believe it should be illegal for a 3rd party to even attempt to attin that. If someone disagrees with me on these points, that discusion is for another time, but feel free to email me @ soch@whatthefuck.com - I do feel that code ld not fall under copyright laws, but under patent law. If I write a program that does something new or something old in a better way, I've INVENTED it. You can patent a process, so why not code, which is the instructions to a computer for manipulating numbers according to a certain process.
One must also take steps to aggresivly defend a patent, or one cannot open litigation against someone. Now this CAN apply to, eg. , movies, as the movie consists of code telling the program what to dosplay, in what position, in what order. Applying this phylosophy to this specific case is tough though.
Anyway, while I disagree that DeCSS can be summed up as 'simply' playing back media, it certainly doesn't BY ITSELF do anything illegal. The distribution of DeCSS is the distribution of an editing tool. DeCSS is nothing like a virus, who's very distribution causes damage, and is justly illegal.
Did anyone else notice what the judge compaired DeCSS to though? 2 things in the opening few pges infuriated me. 1) As I've mentioned, a virus. 2) AN ASSASSINATION. WTF? Where does that come from? This just about proves that the halfwit of a Judge knows nothing about which he was ruling on. A virus to an assassination is a streach - for now anyway - but a line can be drawn, vaguely. BUT A TOOL THAT HAPPENS TO HAVE THE ABILITY TO CIRCUMVENT STANDARD DVD-VIDEO SECURITY??? Aren't we being a little to creative? DeCSS ? John Wilkes Booth or Lee Harvey Oswald??? I can only say thank Gd that I don't live in the country that allowed an alarmist like this, who will make decisions based on extreem circumstances and comparissons, and ignorance to become a Judge!
Everything and everyone is an aspect of Gd. So remember to show proper respect!
Yeah and "SHALL" has been ruled to mean "MAY" when used in a statute, (Garfield Vs. U.S.) but does that stop the IRS from writing it in ALL of their material and people think it means HAVE TO. If there is no big machine to push the finding of a Supreme decision it usually means nothing. But that is another story....
The NY Times piece was interesting. Kaplan's thinking seems a bit skewed to me.
``Society must be able to regulate the use and dissemination of code in appropriate circumstances,'' the judge wrote. ``The Constitution, after all, is a framework for building a just and democratic society. It is not a suicide pact.''
Aside from the fact that the last sentence is a direct ripoff of Tom Clancy (who may have ripped it off from someone else), I fail to see how disseminating information is the equivilant of assasination. After all, posting instruction for making explosives has been upheld as protected, right?
I already have my t-shirt.
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
Here's where I start to question the copyleft shirts:
From the conclusion of the ruling:
"Given the peculiar characteristics of computer programs for circumventing encryption and other access control measures, the DMCA *as applied to posting and linking here* does not contravene the First Amendment. Accordingly,plaintiffs are entitled to appropriate injunctive and declaratory relief."
So, did the ruling cover the T-Shirts, GIF files, etc, or just the posting and linking of the information? Do the arguments, presented regarding the T-Shirts, now fall under this catagory? Does he say anything about non-internet based media forms of DeCSS?
"break into...computer systems" as in "breaking and entering" as in "breaking the law". The judge's statement is contradictory. He clearly has a one-sided viewpoint but is trying to portray himself as unbiased. His weak attempt at appealing to both sides is sarcastic and insulting.
Using this logic....Would the cd writer, the cd and the computer be 'piracy-assisting technology'
Or for that matter the desk that the computer sits on.
The chair the person sits in.. the floor the desk sits on.
The house the desk sits in. The land the house sits on.......The Univere. Come on people
Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels.
My basic point was I really couldn't imagine any lawyer presenting as an argument "hey, it should be free if they can break in and get it" when in actuality, IMSM, the legal argument was the process of deencryption of and by itself does not infringe upon any copyright.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
Well, it's true that they're not particularly stylish, so the fashion police would have a case...
sulli
RTFJ.
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
I forget who said, "Of course I smoke cigarettes! I'd hate to die of nothing at all!"
Hmm, what would be a better way to put it?
Defendants, on the other hand, are adherents of a movement which believes that information should be available without charge because proprietary impelementations, "Trade Secrets" and current copyright laws stifle innovation and ultimately hurt the consumer.
Would that be better? I don't really think so, because this really strips away any possibility of a creator controlling his creation. I think we're going to have to get away from the concept of Intellectual Property. We can still give people credit for their ideas, but once an idea is out, it's out, and there is no really reliable way to keep it in.
Any opinions?
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
My major concern in all of this is the stretching of this analogy. I will try to give a couple of examples to illustrate this.
:). But these files and streams can be represented very easily (one to one) by numbers, this is the whole concept of digital. One of the side projects I am working on (so far unsuccessfully) is making direct use of the fact that files can be represented by numbers, and putting them into a very basic standard mathematical context. The idea is really super simple. Suppose I take a few Metallica mp3's and tar them up. I have a file that can be represented by a really big number. It's a file full of material that is currently protected by copyrights. Lets call this file ajfa.tar ( and justice for all ;). My idea is this --
h -2.4.0-test6.tar.bz2)+w | x,y,z,w are small enough to be "human readable"
Example one-
Suppose while I walk down the street or in the mall, I say that the combination to the safe at the local burger baron is 1-2-3. Then I tell other people it's 4-5-6, and so on. Also suppose I have no way of knowing the validity of what I'm saying, and I haven't been entrusted to the combo of the safe at the burger baron. Further suppose that somebody is crazy enough to believe me, break into the place, and actually open the safe with one of the combos I spoke. Did I commit a crime? Furthermore, did I incite disruptive behavior that would deny me protection under the first amemdment? (While this example seems to have no bearing on reality, it is somewhat analogous to the DeCSS case)
Example two-
This example is a little more relevant to what's going on today. Bear in mind what digital means. Files and streams are not numbers physically, they are pulses and aranngements of electrons (or something, please don't laugh at my lack of physics
ajfa.tar = x*(linux-2.2.16.tar)+y*(ppp-2.4.0.tar.gz)+z*(patc
Now as we know the three component files are also protected by copyrights, but they are freely distributable, while ajfa.tar is not. I understand that the equation itself doesn't break copyright laws, and I also understand that evaluating the equation would leave me with a pattern of bits that I don't have permission to own. My real concern is if by spreading this equation around, am I enciting disruptive behaviour that also denys my protection under the first amendment?
While the second example might not seem to bear directly on this case, I have a feeling that this very problem will present itself at a later date. Digital information is really a two edged sword, as it allows copyrighted material to existed in a form that cannot be copyrighted. The US government states that you cannot copyright a number -- http://www.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ1.html#wnp -- Works consisting entirely of information that is common property and containing no original
authorship (for example: standard calendars, height and weight charts, tape measures and rulers, and
lists or tables taken from public documents or other common sources)
I consider a number to be common property containing no original authorship (except maybe by God). Suppose that the decimal representation of ajfa.tar can be found somewhere in the decimal expansion of pi. Is ajfa.tar copyrighted, or is it common property?
I have a feeling that even if the DMCA is banished from the books, the "fire in a theater" may come back in weird ways to haunt people. I'm sorry if what I am saying is hard to understand, as I can have great difficulty at times expressing myself. I also apologize that this question(s) do(es)n't relate directly to the case at hand, but I just felt a strong urge to write about this. I have been running these thoughts through my head for many months now, and I can't come up with a likely judicial reaction to what I have described. I don't really expect you to respond to this post, although I would really like you to read it and mull the ideas around in your minds for a little while. It might help your perspective on what's going on a little bit. If you have already mulled similiar thoughts before, I apologize for possibly insulting your intelligence and depth of thought. I think that if you were to think about this for a while, you might be in a good position to help someone who might need it, and help bring about new insight on the emergence of new technology and forms of expression, where its implementation is not very well understood.
Thank You for your time and persistence.
Thank You also for your excellent work in this suit.
Joseph Rawson
umeboshi2@yoohoo.com (yoo is ya)
sorry I posted to the wrong article
:)
Sorry abour that
you can ONLY be president/senator/representative if:
c.) You are a christian (just TRY being agnostic/athiest/anything else).
What about Joe Lieberman?? I don't think he is christian.
-These aren't my pants.
The original article>
and I do not have a link to the article in which they lost. Something to the effect of no civil rights were violated and the pro-lifers at some level instigated these injustices by sitting down in front of a bench handing out leaflets.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
or
"Would you like help with your unborn child"
*within a certain distance of an abortion mill in some states and localities*
and in canada it's worse (at least for pro-lifers).
Watch this video of a pro-choice student group destroying the table and posters of a pro-life student group and tell me that the political views of those in power are not protected at the expense of those that are not, because not a damn thing happened to those pro-choice students not a damn thing.
VideoAn Education is the Font of All Liberty
I haven't seen such a poorly written straw man argument since I was in high school. Consider an opposite ruling in which the judge wrote:
Plantiffs, on the other hand, are adherents of a movement that believes that information is the sole property of the creator or distributor and that the sound, images, words and data produced by their studios belong not to the purchaser but to the corporation. They argue that the corporation shall define exactly what uses you can make of your own books, movies or CDs. Less radically, they have raised a concern that tools for viewing DVDs on *nix or Be boxes may lead to increased levels of unauthorized reproduction.
The use of inflammatory and misleading prose in the section of the text most likely to be quoted by the media (short paragraphs, no footnotes, no Latin) is hard to construe as anything other than an attempt to direct public sentiment against hackers/crackers, and geeks by association.
Wait... you mean you still haven't joined the ACLU?
Don't bet on it.... Check this article on the Supremes... http://www.FreeRepublic.com/forum/a399c16ed3f39.ht m
I think that someone should start 2 companies that each sell half of the DeCSS code for $1. Of course, the home user has to "assemble" them so it's totally legal. The profits go directly to EFF. Who's with me?
email me.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
The Congress shall have Power... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
So, to promote the "Progress of Science" in the encryption field and computer science, shouldn't Congress grant the author of DeCSS exclusive right to his writing/discovery?
Sounds the provision of DMCA applying to DeCSS is, practically word for word, unconstitutional. In fact, they're doing the exact opposite of what the Constitution created them to do.
One thing that's been puzzling me for a while:
The WTO treaties which gave us many of these vicious copyright laws also absolutely prohibit the creation of artificial barriers to free trade and free import/export between countries.
It seems to me that CSS is precisely that -- an artificial barrier erected to prevent people from being able to import and export DVDs between countries. It was created so that the movie companies could fix prices and control distribution. What I'd like to see is someone take the movie companies to court for breach of WTO import/export regulations.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Anti-IP folks remind me of the pro-hemp crowd. Sure, hemp should probably be legal. Maybe it really is environmentally friendly, and dirt cheap, and stronger than Kevlar (or whatever.) I'm still not going to take those claims seriously when I know that few (if any) hemp supporters could give a shit about making rope.
Why would the fact that some people enjoy smoking/eating marijuana invalidate or trivialize other uses of the plant? I don't follow your logic...
Of all people in the world to point out this argument, was my accountant. His take on this is that DeCSS is a tool, and just like trying to find Stanley guilty in a breaking and entering case, DeCSS is a tool used for viewing DVDs. Furthermore, it's not illegal to own lock picks. It's just illegal to use them for illegal purposes.
"...is the judge just and idiot?"
This is increasingly one of my main complaints about the American judicial system: the judge is one of the uncontrollable aspects of the trial process. The jury is selected to be impartial, but nothing stops the judge from controlling the trial with his/her personal bias.
Now, IANAL, and haven't followed this case that closely, but reading the judge's statement about the defendants, I agree that he is definately showing bias.
The case was about the industry contolling and limiting access to their product using only approved hardware. To me, this case sounds similar to the airlines saying "you can only fly with us if you use Brand X luggage." or, more directly, the Bleem/et. al. cases where the console makers say you may only play our games on their console. I don't know what makes a monopoly, but how is this different from the phone or cable companies saying "you may only use our equipment to use our systems" which was ruled to be illegal?
Looks like I may have to move to England soon. Go Arsenal!
-----
Planning to be moderated ± 1: Bad Pun.
Last I heard, the US was a democracy.
Actually, the U.S. is a Representative Republic, not a Democracy. Our government is modeled more on the Roman Republic than Grecian city-states such as Athens. There are not, as far as I know, any true democracies in existence today.
- Rob
"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." -George Bernard Shaw
Don't equate the American people with American politicians. That is an undeserved insult.
<rant>
But, we the people created this political bordelo. We allowed it to happen out of sheer laziness and apathy. So, who should we blame? The Republicans? The Democrats? The British or French, maybe? No, we are to blame; it's the people's fault plain and simple. If you don't like the current situation, get off your lazy butt and fix it. Get out and vote. Get your freinds out to vote. Sitting in front of your computer and bellyaching about it, refusing to take responsibility, accomplishes nothing.
</rant>
-Rob
"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." -George Bernard Shaw
How should I take this post? Do you say that the American democracy have ended?
:)
:)
No, I'm saying American democracy never existed in the first place.
You, the people, have voted the politicians in, and so the people==the politicians. If you don't like it, get out and vote!
That's what I was saying. Get of your lazy butt and vote.
Make people accept political debates on TV
I'm not too sure exactly how you mean this. Do you mean people should be made to watch the debates or do you mean everyone should be allowed to speak at the debates?
I think the debates should be open to all the candidates. This year all we'll get is the two major parties because they've made an arbitrary rule that a candidate must have at least 15% in some poll. This effectively eliminates any thrid party candidate from speaking.
Ban political TV advertising. It only leads to the person with the most money for advertising winning
I agree in principle, but disagree because of the negative effect this would have. There are a lot of people in this country whose primary source of information is the TV. By banning any and all political advertising, you would prevent these people from hearing what the candidates have to say. Then you have the free speech issues. Political speech is specifically protected under the first amendment, and political advertisements are political speech. Hopefully you would see the difficulty in creating any law that bans political advertising.
Make Bush explain what he means by "lower taxes to rip down the wall between rich and poor"...
Well, I would assume he means lowering taxes on the poor so they have more money.
-Rob
"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." -George Bernard Shaw
idiots...
-- Sig (120 chars) --
Your friendly neighborhood mIRC scripter.
* Q
P.S. If you don't get this note, let me know and I'll write you another.
Let's say I made my own DVD-movie, and unambiguosly stated at the back of the DVD-case, that it would be perfectly legal to use DeCSS to play my movie on different platforms and for backup purposes.
So who is MPAA to say that I don't have the right to use DeCSS on my own disc? Or allow the usage of it for others?
Or better yet, what if I INCLUDED the DeCSS software on the DVD-disc itself?
In fact, I believe you are actually allowed to develop some type of CSS-DVD-player, but it's the actual distribution of such tools that is illegal.
Nope, fraid not. The DMCA "Makes it a crime to circumvent anti-piracy measures built into most commercial software."
That means you're not allowed to crack it, even on your own.
Ironically though, the No Electronic Theft Act, of 1997 amends copyright law to "Exempt from criminal prosecution reproduction or distribution that is not done "willfully" or that constitutes small-scale non-commercial copying (copyrighted works with a total retail value of less than $1,000)"
So as I read it, you're actually allowed to pirate copyrighted material, as long as it's cheap and you don't redistribute it. But you aren't allowed to crack any "anti-piracy measures" in the process.
Me: No, because it doesn't have to say that. Just like guns don't have to say "don't shoot people!" on them, because it's already the law.
EricEldred: So guns are now illegal?
No, just like DVDs aren't illegal, only certain uses of them, like copying them or playing them on un"approved" players. Just like certain uses of guns (like shooting random people on the sidewalk) are illegal, and they're illegal regardless of whether or not the gun packaging says so. Same with DVDs. You aren't allowed to do those things (copy them or play them on unapproved players) even though it doesn't say anything on the DVD packaging about how you can't. It doesn't have to say that on the packaging, because there's already a law out there that says that (DMCA).
Well, I say I did buy it and I claim I have those rights. Show me the piece of paper that proves you are correct. You refer to some "license" I never saw nor heard of, even from Kaplan.
Okay, here's one from the MPAA: select the FAQ
Q: Don't consumers have the right to view their DVDs on the operating system of their choice?
A: Consumers looking for the DVD experience have many options from which to choose. A wide array of DVD players has been licensed for the consumer market. Companies ranging from Sony to Toshiba, Panasonic to Creative Labs, make DVD players that plug into television sets, work on PC or Macintosh platforms, or fit into palmtop devices. These manufacturers all have one thing in common: They applied for and secured a license from DVD-CCA to use the CSS technology.
Buying a DVD does not grant the purchaser the right to violate copyright protections enjoyed by the creators of that work, nor to use software that circumvents copy protection.
The emphasis was mine, but the point is that one of the myriad of ways that the movie industry makes money is by licensing their technology to manufacturers. They can do this, because that technology is their intellectual property, and circumventing it (like by using DeCSS) is illegal.
Me: In the case of VHS, they license you to view it under certain conditions, and if you view it under different conditions (like in a big movie theater with 1000 "friends" who paid to get in) then you are breaking the licensing agreement.
EricEldred: No, you might be breaking copyright law (it depends on what the copyright owner agrees to, when it comes to redistribution--it is not always illegal--look at the GPL for example). However, in some "license" (but not with DVDs) a copyright owner might try to restrict you from making a backup copy. In that case, you need not comply with the license, because that is unconstitutional.
On almost all VHS movies, at the beginning there is a little warning that says "this is for personal use only" and elaborates a bit on that and the illegality of using it for commercial use. Maybe this qualifies as copyright law, not licensing agreement, in which case my terminology was wrong. The case of making a backup copy (of VHS) is allowed under the Home Recording act, provided it fits into that act's definition of Fair Use.
Me: In the case of DVDs, those conditions are a bit stricter, in the sense that they restrict the method of viewing to a licensed viewer.
EricEldred: Who says? I never made a contract or bought a license from the DVD-CCA.
The MPAA and the US Government say. This is referred to in the Q/A I cited from their site. This is where the gun metaphor came in. It doesn't matter if you made a contract or bought a license, because the law is already the law out there, and they don't need you to acknowledge it with your purchase.
There are no "Fair Use" laws,
Oh but there are. The Home Recording act defines what uses of your media classify "Fair Use."
DMCA (not DCMA) doesn't make it illegal to "break that encryption." If that were true, any playing of a DVD in a player would be illegal, because every player has to decrypt the scrambled files.
Yes, it does. That's one of its main functions. It makes it illegal to "circumvent technical protection measures that restrict access to or prevent infringement of copyrighted works." Playing DVDs in players is only legal because those players are specifically licensed to decrypt the scrambled files. They were given explicit authorization to decrypt the information. Without that license, that explicit authorization, you are correct, any playing of DVDs is illegal. I don't like that MPAA does it that way, but they are well within their legal rights to do so.
Me: which protects information owned by the movie studio.
EricEldred: There is no "property owned by the movie studio." The movie studio has certain statutory rights for a limited time.
Not true. There is property owned by the movie studio. They own the information that composes the movie itself, and the DVD-CCA, not the studio itself, owns the encryption methods on the DVDs. The movie studio retains the rights to that information. If you wanted to say, decrypt and copy that information to your hard drive, change it, and resdistributed it, that would be well within your rights, if you owned that information. But you don't. The movie studio does.
But the purchaser of a DVD owns the DVD and can use it, view it, decrypt it, resell it, put it under a scanning electron microscope to examine the pits on the disc, play it on her dishwasher, use it to shingle the roof, or whatever use she wants, after she has bought it. There is no license, no different law for DVDs than for other digital or analog content under copyright law.
That is also not true. Once again, refer to both the license I pointed out from the MPAA site, as well as the DMCA's provisions about "circumvent[ing] technical protection measures that restrict access to or prevent infringement of copyrighted works."
Yeah, this is the "crime" that the MPAA accused 15-year-old Jon Johansen of, "breaking into" his own computer and "taking their info" so he could play the DVDs that he purchased on his own computer (GNU/Linux).
So you want to lock this kid up or give him a medal?
Neither. Yes, he commited a crime. No, I don't really want to lock him up, because I think that while his actions were illegal, they weren't particularly immoral. I also don't want to give him a medal, because his actions were not particularly heroic, not were they (I believe) done in any great magnanimous spirit of helping DVD owners everywhere. As the MPAA has gone to great pains to point out, he didn't develop anything for Linux, all he did was develop a Windows-based decoder. I think he decided to break CSS to see if he could do it. It was a challenge. This is the classic spirit of the hacker, and I don't think it's immoral. Nor do I think it is inherently heroic. Many hackers have caused damage in their efforts to "see if they could do it" and many others have lead to great advancements in technology. Their drive to hack is no more moral or immoral than gravity. It's just an impulse they have.
Now I hate to be stuck in the position of defending the MPAA, because I really disagree with most of their decisions, but much of the Slashdot and indeed the entire hacker community has gotten the impression that DeCSS is perfectly legal and that the MPAA is legally in the wrong. This is not true, and that's all I seek to point out here.
Mmmmm. Generally I've found that if you're asking if a license is legally enforcable, the person wishing to enforce the license is generally not the best person to ask.
I realize this, and I had to skim past a bunch of MPAA propaganda to get to that section, but if you'll actually read the section I posted, you'll note that they refer to a license with the DVD-CCA. Regardless of what you think of the MPAA, I don't really think they would just make that up. If you think they would, feel free to check it out and find a more reliable source that refutes my statement.
That is why charging "friends" to view the DVD you bought is illegal -- because it's against copyright law, not because it's against any type of license.
Yes, you're right, I admit that I was wrong to use the word "license" there. But the point that I mean to emphasize is that copyright law says that the movie studio retains ownership of the actual information, the actual movie, on your DVD. It seems incredibly intuitive that you have just bought a movie, but you haven't. What you bought was the right to view that movie under certain specific conditions. They don't need to state those conditions explicitly on the DVD, because those conditions are already a part of the law.
I agree that posting DeCSS is in violation of the DMCA, and that it is the judge's job to uphold the law.
But there is an exception to that, which is that if a law is unConstitutional, it is the judge's job to say so, and to reject it.
The argument put forth by "certain Slashdot readers" is that DMCA is unConstitutional, which is why the "source code is free speech" argument was made, and that the judge should have ruled in favor of the defendants and declared DMCA to be unConstitutional.
I happen to agree that it should be legal to publish information (like DeCSS) that helps people break the law. Now if they used DeCSS to decode a DVD, and posted the contents of the DVD for free download, this I would disagree with, because they are actually breaking the law.
The "information wants to be free" crowd would disagree with me and go even farther, saying that sharing that DVD is the right thing to do, and the movie studio has no right to control that movie.
Looks like the MPAA's investment was worthwhile. We're all fucked now.
No, if it hasn't occurred to you yet, you can ONLY be president/senator/representative if:
a.) You are rich
b.) You are willing to pander to some extreme special interest groups.
c.) You are a christian (just TRY being agnostic/athiest/anything else).
Or you could work your way up in a corporation and gain more power than you could in politics.
The ruling says "[Publishing DeCSS] is analogous to the publication of a bank vault combination in a national newspaper. Even if no one uses the combination to open the vault, its mere publication has the effect of defeating the bank's security system, forcing the bank to reprogram the lock." It seesm very clear to me that publishing a bank vault combo would be legal as long as I obtained the info legally. I.e, all bank vaults by a particualr manufacturer come with a defalt combo. I buy a vault, and publish the combo. This is clearly protected. The courts have ruled that publishing a how-to build a nuclear bomb article is legal, so clearly the much lower stakes publication of De-Css is also legal.
Even the posted snippet of the discussion left open too many avenues for debate. If you re-read it, the judge seems quite reluctant to go up against the DCMA. That is something the higher courts will definitely have to consider - there's too much of a conflict going on here between Congressional actions and the First Amendment.
Many more rounds to go!
'ARRGH! Pirate Designers of the Internet, we be!'
Given that supposedly all sites on the 'net are at most 6 links apart, I'd say it's time for the MPAA to sue itself over linking to DeCSS.
Copyleft was not added as a defendant in this case - - the MPAA v 2600 case has no bearing on them. Copyleft has been subpoenaed in a different (similar) case in California.
Is Orrin Hatch the only Republican with any sense? If this is overturned, it's going to take years. Napster and the RIAA is one story; the day will come when a good number of artists will be able to circumvent the music cartels and sell directly to the consumer via technologies such as MPEG Layer 3... This started as a case about a platform (Linux) written as open source from the beginning, that would not have DVD support unless someone took the time to write it. And the MPAA's greedy asses aren't about to help at all. You can't have it both ways; expect me to buy the product, and then tell me how I can use it.
Blacker than my baby girl's stare. Black like the veil that the muslimina wear. Black like the planet that they fear...
Which can be read (to me) that technologically sophisticated persons wishing to make fair use are entirely allowed to do so. The implication is that _possession_ of DeCSS strictly for fair use purposes is not illegal under this decision. _Distribution_ is, however.
With all the digital media formats on the way(SCD, DVD Audio, DVD2) rulings such as this could be the kiss of death for open source media players.
-------
We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
q2k said: > So am I breaking the law if I wear my DeCSS shirt tomorrow? No. And if you had read the opinion handed down by the judge you would see why. The ruling made relied on past judgements which state clearly that computer code is protected by the First Amendment. However the government (of the people... so if you don't like it go run for office and do something about it) is allowed to regulate the non-content based portions of expression even if that regulation impacts the speech portion of the expression provided certain conditions are met. The plaintiffs asked that the defendents not be allowed to "traffic" in the DeCSS specifically because it was against a provision of the DMCA. The DMCA is law and the judge rejected the speech based defense on the grounds that the act did not regulate the content of the speech in advance but its ability to contrevene a copyright protection system. Your T-shirt will not contrevene that copyright protection in and of itself. In fact you are wearing the shirt in a manner which greatly increases the speech portion of the expression (and since the shirt won't play DVDs the functional non-content based portion of the expression is lessened). Wear the shirt! Excercise your First Amendment rights! But don't compare apples to oranges by implying that providing computer code online is the same thing. -CZ PS - My personal view is that the reverse engineering that occured broke the trade secret status of the CSS. The injunction was sought on a different basis so the ruling should not be a surprise.
According to the top of page 10, "A kilobyte ("K") is 1024 bytes, a megabyte ("MB") 1024 kilobytes, and a gigabyte ("GB") 1024 kilobytes."
Is this a bug, or is this freedom of expression? :)
And I fell real sorry for that Norwegian kid, is he going to get extradited to the US and put in Leavenworth?
I'm betting on an appeal, any lawyers want to comment?
> Looks like I may have to move to England soon. Go Arsenal!
Well, the good thing is we (in the UK) don't have the DMCA so you can buy multizone DVD-players in the high street, but the downside is the RIP bill which gives the govt huge powers to scan your emails and over your encrypted data.
-- Nick "Hallo this is Beel Gates, und I pronounce weendows as
As others have said, this judgement will obviously appealed. In the interim, before the appeal works it's way through the system, will this precedent have any affect on other software issues that are or are about to be brought to court?
Why not? It can easily be contrued that everything one says and does is in some way a creative work. Just copyright yourself as a full-time performance artist and voila! - you become a real-time continuos art piece! Just think of all the fun you could have with this, no one could repeat anything you said or record you with security camera's without being held liable for piracy.
I can think of no better way to subvert what has become a corrupt copyright legal framework, than to copyright yourself in your entirety.
www.enthea.org
(sigh) Score one for the evil forces of monopoly and control. Still, I'd be willing to bet the EFF is already filing it's appeal. Hopefully the Supreme Court will be willing to go out on a limb against the big-money MPAA and declare the DMCA unconstitutional.
"Property is theft, therefore theft must be property, right?"
The shit-brained, goose-stepping judge in this case appears to have ruled in essence that it's a crime merely to post this string:
a href = 'http://cryptome.org/dvd-hoy-reply.htm#Exhibit B'
Should I now flee the country? Go into hiding and join the First Amendment Underground?
See the earlier Slashdot article on this:
http://slashdot.org/articles/00/01/24 /118240.shtml
A truly excellent pizza parlor is a delight unto the heavens. Treasure the sauce and the toppings!
But what will become of the copyleft shirts!?
What exactly does the mean for the T-Shirts? Does this mean that if I wear the code on my shirt the MPAA can sue me because of my intent? worse yet, can they sue a site for selling the shirt?
Hey, my site is HERE - decss.cyberspace.cz. It is located in Europe, where DeCSS is completely legal. It's 14th in Google and 11th in Altavista when searching for "DeCSS".
What will MPAA do with all of these Int sites ? Are they going to win a suit in every country ? And what about say Russia or China ? Or are they going to force American ISPs to "filter" the international traffic somehow ?
And the latest decisions on EU level show that DeCSS will probably be explicitely declared legal in EU...
My DeCSS site.
First, it forbids sharing beyond the original author: ((page 37))
"Section 1201(f)(3) permits information acquired through reverse engineering to be made available to others only by the person who acquired the information."
Second, it forbids modification beyond the scope of the initial program.((page 18))
Although Mr. Johansen testified at trial that he created DeCSS in order to make a DVD player that would operate on a computer running the Linux operating system, DeCSS is a Windows executable file; that is, it can be executed only on computers running the Windows operating system. Mr. Johansen explained the fact that he created a Windows rather than a Linux program by asserting that Linux, at the time he created DeCSS, did not support the file system used on DVDs. Hence, it was necessary, he said, to decrypt the DVD on a Windows computer in order subsequently to play the decrypted files on a Linux machine. Assuming that to be true, however, the fact remains that Mr. Johansen created DeCSS in the full knowledge that it could be used on computers running Windows rather than Linux. Moreover, he was well aware that the files, once decrypted, could be copied like any other computer files.
Not necessarily true... I don't have any links handy, but I have read about various software DVD players that have been hacked in order to copy DVDs. I recall one neat trick that sat just below the video driver and captured the raw pixel data as it was being written (although this would still need to be recompressed and hence lose a bit of quality). Another one supposedly read the process memory of the DVD player program and grabbed the MPEG2 stream after it had been decrypted but before it was handed off to the MPEG codec. That would give you a perfect digital copy; the same exact data infact that DeCSS would have...
The scary part is that since they're not actually breaking the encryption algorithm, does that mean that the anti-circumvention part of the DCMA wouldn't apply? Of course it would still be illegal to make copies using it, but it could probably be posted more freely than DeCSS can now... :(
How should I take this post? Do you say that the American democracy have ended?
The point about democracy is that the politicians represent the people. You, the people, have voted the politicians in, and so the people==the politicians. If you don't like it, get out and vote!
My plan for saving America:
- Make people accept political debates on TV. Here in Norway the TV stations compete on having the hottest politicians dicuss rationally in the two months before election...people like wathcing political debates...
- Ban political TV advertising. It only leads to the person with the most money for advertising winning.
- Make Bush explain what he means by "lower taxes to rip down the wall between rich and poor"...
This is not troll bait. I'm trying to be serious here! Way too many Americans think they are on the top of the world. You was. 50 years ago. The only area you have superiority now is weapons (what is worse...you seem to be proud of it)...
You even lag five years behind the rest of the world in (non-weapon) technology nowadays. 25 years ago people usually looked up to USA and copied their culture, but now most people have opened their eyes and is now influencing US rather than the other way around.
And when it comes too freedom, give me any other country anytime! US isn't free. It's a bunch of confused people believing they are.
let me just get a few things straight.
source code is not exactly the same as a set of instructions.
a set of instructions, say to produce a bomb, is protected by the first ammendment. this set of instructions can be used for numerous things--chemical research, properties of chemicals and how they behave, well i'm not a chemist, but you get the point--it is not limited to creating a bomb. the purpose it is most likely used for, however, could possibly be to make a bomb. the author's intent is most probably to teach the reader to create a bomb, but it is not impossible that their intentions were otherwise. in the united states of america, a man is innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt, and however improbable the chances of legitimate uses of a bomb recipe may be, they cannot be ruled out.
source code differs mainly in one way: its intentions can be proved beyond reasonable doubt, as it is programmed to serve a particular function. or at least this is one of the queries of the case.
i see 2 main questions in this case, the first not crossing the legal/illegal boundry, but the second doing so:
1. does source code in fact classify as free speech. personally, i believe not.
2. does the use and intent of deCCS directly or indirectly to a substantial level disagree with the DMCA, and can be held responsible for any piracy that may occur as a result of using the deCCS code. here i strongly believe not. this is getting ridiculous. lets not forget the law--it is fully legitamite to make a single backup copy for personal purposes (please excuse me if im out of date).
i have not read the PDF, but i do intend to. i am not legally qualified, nor am i doubting the ability of the defendants' attourneys. after all, they are qualified professionals. but judging by some of the reader comments on slashdot, i feel some of you are missing the point.
i am 100% behind 2600 and the likes, and feel this case is ridiculous. if their attourneys are infact focusing on the point that source code must be protected by free speech, i feel they are running on a very thin thread... why do so when the suspension bridge is just meters away. however i feel the attourneys are not focusing on this point as much as the slashdot readers are.
the MPAA must lose this case. it is absoletly ridiculous.
as long as movies exist, movies will be made duplicateable in some way, shape or form. lets not forget in order for us to enjoy movies, they must be in an analogue format--god forbid we ever find joy out of staring at scrolling hex code to represent a movie. as long as this analogue transformation is made, there is space to duplicate them. how does your dvd player connect to your tv? what if you connected it to your video input card instead? and then distributed it? how many people will buy a tv with an included dvd player, with no form of output. not i, that is for sure.
source code isnt the same as a set of instructions--lets not lie to ourselves, the ONLY purpose possible of deCCS is to, alas, decode CCS. however can deCCS be held accountable for dvd piracy, most certainly not. legal uses of deCCS do exist, so they cannot be held accountable and responsible beyond reasonable doubt.
i've probably missed the point, after all, how many readers have said otherwise. i am neither arrogant nor superior. well anyway heres just my 2c.
maybe i've been watching too much of dylan mcdermott. maybe we should get him on this case.
There's no reason for copyright except for economic gain.
No, the reason for copyright is not to enrich authors. The reason for copyright is to provide an incentive to publish works. The public benefit comes from:
1) The ability to utilize the work during the copyright term (much of copyright law is concerned with what "fair use" is.)
2) The reversion of the work into the public domain at the end of the copyright term.
The continuing extension of the copyright terms has rendered (2) meaningless. Clearly, the copyright trust has firm control over Congress, and there is simply nothing we can do about that. They have the most money to spend, and whenever the last term extension is about to run out, you can bet they'll lobby Congress to create a new one.
The disturbing part of this case is that it has rendered (1) meaningless. Kaplan's ruling essentially allows companies to disregard the entire part of the copyright code that defines fair use, and lets them instead, by the inclusion of pretextual encryption, write their own "copyright laws" in whatever way they want to. You thought you had the right to watch your DVD? As of today, you don't. This decision gives the MPAA the right to dictate the conditions under which you can watch DVDs that you own, on equipment that you also own. That's a right that they never had before.
So my question is?
Does copyright have any remaining public benefit?
If not, then should it be discarded or ignored?
To summarize the facts:
The reason there's no evidence to support a piracy case is because bootlegging a DVD is like photocopying a document with encoded data - even if you don't have the key to view it yourself, a copy will be perfectly viewable to anyone who does have a copy of the key.
The real issue here is control:
- The MPAA feel that they have the right to control which areas of the world a
DVD may be viewed in - it's not a case of not offering it for sale; if you
buy a DVD in another region, you'd need to buy a DVD player there as well.
Legally you have no options if a given movie is never offered for sale in
your region. The other benefit is that the MPAA can get those nice licensing
fees from player manufacturers.
- The more serious issue is fair-use. The DVD encryption technology is also
intended to prevent recognized legal uses of copyrighted material. The
copyright law changes the MPAA lobby was unable to get passed are now
installed by technical means.
Of course, Judge Kaplan ignored all of this. Note that claim "[the d]efendants, on the other hand, are adherents of a movement that believes that information should be available without charge to anyone clever enough to break into the computer systems or data storage media in which it is located."? That's the big lie. Did anyone hear this claim? Did anyone of the defendants state that content producers should not be paid? I seem to recall the arguments focusing on whether the MPAA could dictate the software program you use to play back your legally-owned DVD.This is the value in repeating a lie often enough - the MPAA managed to convince a judge to base a ruling on a straw-man argument which was never actually made!
Now, if you start talking state laws and the like, a federal judge may be able to declare these unconstitution wrt to the US constitution, but they will generally not see these: state law disputes typically go from state supreme court to the US supreme court unless issues of interstate commerce come up.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
There's just one little problem with his analogy - as far as I know, writing a virus is perfectly legal.
The criminal act embodied in spreading a virus is not the authorship of the virus, it's the malicious (or negligent) unleashing of that virus into the wild. It's not free speech to deliberately trick someone into running a destructive program.
It is, however, protected speech when you write one. Academics and security specialists must have the right to author virus code in order to demonstrate potential real-world security threats, to critique existing security and anti-virus systems, and generally express their technical ideas in the most convenient manner possible. In this context, it's perfectly reasonable to allow someone to write a dangerous virus and distribute it to others - the intent is to convey ideas, not to wreak havoc. It is only when the act of malicious distribution occurs that the distributor becomes a criminal.
In the same way, DeCSS is a Constitutionally protected embodiment of ideas about DVD content control, and deserves the full protection of the First Amendment. Those who use it for movie piracy can rot in jail for all I care, but DeCSS is more than just movie piracy. It is the expression of someone's knowledge and understanding, and when we forbid that, we lose a very real piece of our free society.
This is an illegal law, and hopefully the S.C. will realize that.
--
Ben Kosse
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
Well, 54 in the pdf, but page 50 logically. The document discussed whether or not source code could be considered speech. Fortunately they do come down on the side of source code and even object code being forms of expression that do fall under the rules of Free Speech as given in the First Ammendment (to the US constitution).
It's not the ruling we wanted, but at least it doesn't say that code isn't speech -- a precident like that would make other rulings harder to win in the future.
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He can rule that the case is not applicable because of Constiutionality. (Remember encryption source was ruled as protected speech (Meaning that ITAR was viewed as Unconstiutional in the jurisdiction that the ruling was handed down from)) Basically, any Federal court can rule based off of Constitutionality- it just only applies in their jurisdiction (The Supreme Court can effectively erase a law- their jurisdiction is the whole country...).
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
It sounded like they might have shifted things a little- but it appears that Kaplan at the last moment went with a literal interpretation of things, the Constitution be damned. (He did have the room to declare the case in favor of the defendants on Constitutional grounds (and he seemed like he might do so in the transcripts from the last day...)- but he chose the decision he came up with, going so far as to tar and feather us as being pirates.)
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
If they only took it up with the University, then there's little that would be done- the University will not act on things like this. What the Pro-choicer's should have done was filed a criminal mischief charge (that IS what it was!) against the Pro-lifers.
While I'm pro-life and I feel strongly about the whole thing, it's not appropriate (nor, is it Christian in my case) to comport myself in that manner- and it's illegal to boot. Two wrongs (well, one less than the other...) don't make it all right, now does it?
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Well, that explains his decision - computer code, free speech, murder - they all need curtailing equally.
For no reason I understand, the original PDF kept instantly crashing my copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader 4.0/Linux. So, I text-ized that baby. It's not quite as pretty, and you'll need an xterm that's about 95 characters wide to really appreciate it, but it's here nonetheless.
Well, Fargo, the movie. It takes place in Minnesotta, doesn't it?
The governor of Minnesotta, Jesse Ventura. Hey my ex girlfriend is from Minnesotta (now that's an interesting input, isn't it?) and from what she told me about this state, I can say that's the only positive thing to remember about it -- okay, maybe Fargo.
Are you still following me? Well my ex's girlfriend was a typical middle class american women, church bigot and shit, and she actually believed that god talked to her. I never ever talked to her! I even refused to meet her.
Have you ever read 2600?
DNA just wants to be free...
[emphasis mine]
Is this really the public perception of the Free Software/Open Content movements? Unfortunately, I fear this particular segment of the ruling is going to be bandied about a great deal in the media from now on. If it's not now, it may well be.
I can't say I was ever that comfortable having 2600 being the ones standing up for us in this case. This is exactly the impression I was afraid of them giving.
DNA just wants to be free...
This month's issue had all the info on a Dept. of Justice computer system from some state or other, including a helpdesk number to call to do some "social engineering" of the system...
Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of 2600, but don't be surprised if the judge isn't!
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Kaplan all but admitted that the case is beyond his scope to do anything interesting. I'm looking forward to the real action, either in the appeal(s) or in Congress (anyone contacted Senator Hatch about this, since he seems clueful about fair use and moreover has the power to make it stick?).
Its hard to accept the verdict because, as some people are having fun illustrating with reductio ad absurdum arguments, giving legal force to copyright holders attempts to control access to their works is unclear in its meaning and of dubious practicality.
CSS is not a very good access control system. You can copy DVDs wholesale, given some expensive equipment, without decoding them. Similarly, if you decode the movies you need more storage space and bandwidth than any domestic pirate might reasonably be expected to have. Thus it neither stops big pirates, nor small ones (who the nature of the medium has already stopped). Its only real effect is to prevent reading and copying the disks in unlicenses equipment, hence this whole thing is a blatant use of copyright in restraint of trade.
Taking this into account, the whole question of what an access control mechanism is comes into account. If we're going to enforce the anti-circumvention provision even against ineffective access control, why the hell *have* access control ? Why not just let the copyright holder set the license conditions and enforce those ?
Of course the answer is rather clear: copyright holders have no interest in fair use, and given their choice they'd prevent it. You can of course see from this that the DMCA shifts the balance of power in favor of the copyright monopolist, and on those grounds it may very well be unconstitutional.
Well first, I am allowed to reverse engineer and decrypt software, but thats because I'm an EU, not USA, citizen. So nyah. On the other hand seeing people do stupid things upsets me. I should however point out that under *your* constitution congress passing a law is not the last word in the matter. If it conflicts with existing law, or with the constitution it doesn't count. To take that a little further: I don't consider the law to regulate what I'm allowed to do, merely the consequences if I do it and get caught. Thus if I think the law is stupid I'll break it if I can get away with it, and try to get it changed.
In my view the issue is not that the DMCA is bad because it dictated this decision. The DMCA is bad because its nonsensical. To give "access control" legal status is either a) unnecessary because if access control works there is not need to back it up with laws or b) an attempt to allow copyright holders to dictate the conditions of sale by the back door, and hence circumvent fair use. Given that I believe unbreakable access control to be impossible, the DMCA seems likely to be unconstitutional as fair use is protected (but not defined) in the US constitution.
CSS not being "good" is relevant because how the DMCA is enforced is as yet undecided. It may be that it only applies ot "good" access control under some criterea not as yet decided.
At trial, defendants repeated, as if it were a mantra, the refrain that plaintiffs, as they stipulated, have no direct evidence of a specific occasion on which any person decrypted a copyrighted motion picture with DeCSS and transmitted it over the Internet. But that is unpersuasive. Plaintiffs expert expended very little effort to find someone in an IRC chat room who exchanged a compressed, decrypted copy of The Matrix, one of plaintiffs copyrighted motion pictures, for a copy of Sleepless in Seattle.
-Snip-
I'd call this a major weakness in the analysis. Very little effort does not describe the process (and this witness's testimony was under attack because of the methodology used.. the test was actually done by someone familiar with the movie-trading underground, not an 'average consumer') and this swap does not prove that anyone outside the MPAA has ever used DeCSS to pirate a movie. Why is this presented here?
And although the Court does not accept the list, which is hearsay, as proof of the truth of the matters asserted therein, it does note that advertisements for decrypted versions of copyrighted movies first appeared on the Internet in substantial numbers in late 1999, following the posting of DeCSS.
We all suspected this kind of logical analysis would happen, and sadly Kaplan too easily falls into this basic false analysis. Is this the kind of thing that makes for good appeals?
Say goodbye to academic journals:
First, Section 1201(f)(3) permits information acquired through reverse engineering to be made available to others only by the person who acquired the information. But these defendants did not do any reverse engineering. They simply took DeCSS off someone else's web site and posted it on their own.
Defendants would be in no stronger position even if they had authored DeCSS. The right to make the information available extends only to dissemination solely for the purpose of achieving interoperability as defined in the statute. It does not apply to public dissemination of means of circumvention, as the legislative history confirms. These defendants, however, did not post DeCSS solely to achieve interoperability with Linux or anything else.
This interpretation is unconstitutional on its face. (IANAL, just pissed off) What Kaplan is saying here is that the right to report the results of reverse engineering is restricted not only to the person who directly reverse engineered but when it is reported it must be done with the intent to achieve interoperability.
Which form of speech has been restricted in this manner previously, that would allow Kaplan to get away with it here?
Well, in order to MAKE that DVD, you have to ENCRYPT it, and it is that ENCRYPTION that grants the "autorization" to DECRYPT the DVD by a "legal" DVD reader.
I know that several organizations (the Washington Post, for example) have printed photographs (or partial photos) of the DeCSS t-shirts. Has anyone thought about collecting those various photographs together, with proper attribution, and putting them on a web page? I'd bet if you get enough of them any reasonably industrious person could piece together the original code...
What would happen to the trade secret issue then? Collected legitimately from multiple legally published photographs?
Just a thought....
So am I breaking the law if I wear my DeCSS shirt tomorrow?
...
You are if you happen to be one of the people specifically covered by the judgement:
The Remaining Defendants, their officers, agents, servants, employees and attorneys and all persons in active concert or participation with them who receive actual notice of this order by personal service or otherwise be and they hereby are permanently enjoined and restrained
mirror in the Netherlands of the 3 PDF files of Courtweb.
I agree 100%. What seem people can't handle is that this form of "speech" does erode the rights of copyright holder. In essence, the copyright allows the holder to (mostly) assert the terms and conditions of usage, so that they may profit as they see fit. DeCSS's sole purpose is to poke a hole in those terms and conditions. Whether or not the DeCSS advocates agree with the particular terms is a totally different issue and is largely irrelevant. The court just determined that these means are not legal, and the using the "speech" argument as a cover for going around the backway is not sufficient. That's the law, and they obviously have very little understanding of it.
you can't create laws that conflict with the constitutional dogma
I kinda prefer it that way. The constitution is pretty open and vague, allowing plenty of new laws to be passed (in fact, detailing HOW to pass them). What problem do you have with the Constitution?
Finkployd
As an American I'm outraged at what you just said. I'm even more outraged that you are right.
Maybe you should go back to mother england and hope things are better there.
They aren't, I refer you to the recent RIP legislation as evidence of this. At least I can still encrypt things.
Finkployd
you can't create laws that conflict with the constitutional dogma...
Why is it that you seem to have a problem with the constitution? Even though it's no longer respected by our lawmakers, the constitution was intended to be a leash to keep our government from taking too much power out of the hands of the people.
Just in case you hadn't realized it, our constitution would forbid it if some law maker wanted to make it a crime to criticize a politician and make anal rape the penalty.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
the important phrase there is "by securing for limited Times"
there's no reason for copyright except for economic gain. The theory here is that by granting exclusive rights, then the authors and inventors will have an economic incentive to produce new works. The problem is that large IP companies have successfully lobbied the Congress by to extend by definite periods the length of copyright. Effectively, the limiting factor on copyright has been stripped away, because whenever an important property (Mickey Mouse is the classic example used here, i suppose) is up to expire, Congress extends the duration of copyright protection. This retains the incentive for new creation, but there is a net loss of progress of "Science and useful Arts" because appropriation becomes impossible. The use of access controls to limit fair use, noted by Kaplan, is probably the most disturbing stifling effect of this trend.
This is not a cool thing. For those of us in the US, our representatives passed it. There's an election in a couple of months, so take a good look at who are the defenders of freedom and progress, and who are its enemies.
Admittedly, there's a bit of "this is stupid" in his tone as I read it as well, but he definitely doesn't seem inclined to want to be the person to rule the DMCA unconstitutional. Damn pussy. ;-)
I'm not sure if we're just quibbling over words or what, but isn't that exactly what all DVD players must do, in order to get plaintext out of a DVD?
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Huh? If the protection hasn't been circumvented, then I wouldn't have unscrambled plaintext, and my TV would display snow.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
They picked on DeCSS because the DCMA says that technology designed to circumvent copy protection encryption is now illegal. DeCSS is designed to break the encryption and decode the data. Therefore DeCSS is the illegal component.
--
The gift of death metal does not smile on the good looking.
If you read the entire judgement rather than just the conclusion, you will find that DeCSS allows an encrypted DVD to be turned into an unencrypted data file. This unencrypted data file can be compressed using DivX to a file size small enough to fit onto a writeable CD. It was shown that these unencrypted and compressed files were already being openly traded over the 'net. This unfortunately lumps DeCSS into the heading of 'piracy-assisting technology', rathern than what I truly believe it was developed for - just a method of extracting fair use from a product whose manufacturers were trying to unfairly control and extort their market.
--
The gift of death metal does not smile on the good looking.
Indeed, Judge Kaplan clarifies his position with the following statement:
"The policy concerns raised by defendants were considered by Congress. Having considered them, Congress crafted a statute that, so far as the applicability of the fair use defense to Section 1201(a) claims is concerned, is crystal clear. In such circumstances, courts may not undo what Congress so plainly has done by "construing" the words of a statute to accomplish a result that Congress rejected. The fact that Congress elected to leave technologically unsophisticated persons who wish to make fair use of encrypted copyrighted works without the technical means of doing so is a matter for Congress unless Congress' decision contravenes the Constitution"
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The gift of death metal does not smile on the good looking.
The only problem with releasing 'just a DVD player' within the Linux/Open Source community is that it IS an Open Source community. People would just download the source of your player, modify it to allow saving of the unencrypted movie, and re-release it back to the community again.
Either way this argument is moot. The DeCSS source was already released to the community.
--
The gift of death metal does not smile on the good looking.
The lawyer representing their clients did not make their case well enough to overcome the misstaken assumtion that reverse engineering has malicious intent.
Would that have actually had a bearing on the case, I wonder? What is being claimed is that DeCSS is in violation of the DMCA. As far as I understand it, the DMCA states that any method of circumventing a commercial encryption scheme is illegal. It doesn't make provision as to whether the circumvention was malicious or not.
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The gift of death metal does not smile on the good looking.
But VCR copying is currently protected under fair use doctrine. Digital technologies have just had that right revoked by Congress through the DMCA. Hence, VCR technologies and the like now have no bearing on this case.
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The gift of death metal does not smile on the good looking.
Can regular courts rule a law unconstitutional? I thought that only the Supreme Court could do that? This is an honest question coming from a Limey living in the U.S.A.
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The gift of death metal does not smile on the good looking.
It is air. But it is also a sense and feeling of the pulse of the community. It is typical for semi-legal and illegal activities to be driven underground when there is a crack-down in enforcement. This ruling does not directly change enough of the internet (it prohibits 2600 and some related sites from offering or linking to offers to provide DeCSS) to have any effect on reducing or eliminating the availability of DeCSS or the motion pictures that are the legitimate concern of the MPAA. It's all available domestically and beyond, and still will be. It will hide. It will move. But there will be more looking for it. And that won't be enforcement (because they don't have enough of a clue to go find it).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
The special hardware is available. It just isn't cheap. Those involved in mass production operations have it. I've heard some lower cost figures on this, but don't have a way to verify it at the time. So far we have heard nothing about the DeCSS pursuing these "pirates".
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Read the DMCA in the context of other laws, not in isolation.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I do not have to reverse engineer anything to access. The reverse engineering was done where no law against it exists. What we have in the USA is a tool. That tool allows me to examine what I own. Through its infinite ignorance, the DMCA omitted this and fair use still applies.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Why do you say it is impossible with Windows? How well have you tried it?
Quality is ubiquitous. We already use compression to "ruin" quality and people are still happy with it. Nth generation VHS duplicates had, and probably still have, a huge underground market. The digital age changes that even if you have to capture it from the analog video outputs. You have one generation of quality reduction there, but no more after that.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
If you have *any* feelings about the DMCA and the effect that it has on all of our lives, please go to the EFF Site and Donate Now! I just gave them $100 on top of my annual membership fee of $65. They appreciate your moral support against the MPAA but, what they really need at this point is cold, hard cash!. The MPAA has really deep pockets and can spend years in court.
Help the EFF fund this appeal and overturn the DMCA before they fuck us again like they are doing with other Un-Constitutional laws like UCITA, COPA, and the original CDA.
the spread of different kinds of disease.212 In a common source epidemic, as where members of a population contract a non-contagious disease from a poisoned well, the disease spreads only by exposure to the common source. If one eliminates the source, or closes the contaminated well, the epidemic is stopped. In a propagated outbreak epidemic, on the other hand, the disease spreads from person to person. Hence, finding the initial source of infection accomplishes little, as the disease continues to spread even if the initial source is eliminated.213 For obvious reasons, then, a propagated outbreak epidemic, all other things being equal, can be far more difficult to control.
This disease metaphor is helpful here. The book infringement hypothetical is analogous to a common source outbreak epidemic. Shut down the printing press (the poisoned well) and one ends the infringement (the disease outbreak). The spread of means of circumventing access to copyrighted works in digital form, however, is analogous to a propagated outbreak epidemic. Finding the original source of infection (e.g., the author of DeCSS or the first person to misuse it) accomplishes nothing, as the disease (infringement made possible by DeCSS and the resulting availability of decrypted DVDs) may continue to spread from one person who gains access to the circumvention program or decrypted DVD to another. And each is infected, i.e., each is as capable of making perfect copies of the digital file containing the copyrighted work as the author of the program or the first person to use it for improper purposes. The disease metaphor breaks down principally at the final point. Individuals infected with a real disease become sick, usually are driven by obvious self-interest to seek medical attention, and are cured of the disease if medical science is capable of doing so. Individuals infected with the disease of capability of circumventing measures controlling access to copyrighted works in digital form, however, do not suffer from having that ability. They cannot be relied upon to identify themselves to those seeking to control the disease. And their self-interest will motivate some to misuse the capability, a misuse that, in practical terms, often will be untraceable.214
These considerations drastically alter consideration of the causal link between dissemination of computer programs such as this and their illicit use. Causation in the law ultimately involves practical policy judgments.215 Here, dissemination itself carries very substantial risk of imminent harm because the mechanism is so unusual by which dissemination of means of circumventing access controls to copyrighted works threatens to produce virtually unstoppable infringement of copyright. In consequence, the causal link between the dissemination of circumvention computer programs and their improper use is more than sufficiently close to warrant selection of a level of constitutional scrutiny based on the programs functionality.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
Jeez, calm down man. You're blatently wrong in that you think you need to decrypt in order to copy. If you copy the entire disk, byte for byte, you've made a copy that will play in any DVD player. Simple.
And yes, you can get the session key. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to play the damn thing, would you?
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- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
They may have deeper motives, but the obvious way to argue the case is that CSS is not a copy protection system. I have no idea how easy that is to show to a non-programmer, but it's fairly obvious to any computer professional.
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- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Anyone had this thought yet, to turn the Kaplan ruling into a DeCSS program?
It could be done by creating a new machine and language that does CSS-decryption, using the official PDF for both code and data? The grammar would be horrible, of course, but what can you expect from legaleese? .-)
If nothing else, it might be an interesting project to persue. Humm...
"Here you have the specification for our Kaplan-machine and our Kaplan-language, now download the official ruling and decode some VOBs you evil hacker!"
/%/)+Eddy
Belief is the currency of delusion.
__________________________________________________ ___
rooooar
Right. Thanks for the clarification; I *think* I have relocated my brain now. :-) Indeed, the decision points out that because this was the first constitutional challenge to the DMCA, that
he would not award legal fees to the plaintiffs,
although he could have, under the law as it was
written.
On the other hand, a lot of the decision was about the applicability of the DMCA to the case of computer code as the access control mechanism, and other minutia of this case, and I would not suspect that it would have been entirely kosher for Kaplan to have made any broad ruling about the act beyond the parts he decided were relevant to this case. So some other slashdotters points about potential problems with the DMCA probably didn't come up (this wasn't the case for it) or weren't considered relevant (ditto).
But I do stand by my statement that it was the fair use angle rather than anything else that Kaplan found most potentially worrisome about the DMCA.
Babar
. It is also interesting to say that the current framework is one that protects and harbors a monopoly.
Why is that interesting? Copyright is pretty much by definition a monopoly. A legally granted monopoly, but a monopoly nonethless.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
"Defendants, on the other hand, are adherents of a movement that believes that information should be available without charge to anyone clever enough to break into the computer systems or data storage media in which it is located."
This idiotic statement will come back to haunt the judge.
The information is already available to the defendants--through a normal DVD player. And not "without charge"--they purchased the disk with data included. To imply (no, to rule) that I can't view my own DVDs on the player of my choosing is so antithetical to the real purposes of copyright and fair use that....I can't even finish that sentence.
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Nothing in DeCCS makes it easier to illegally use DVDs, unless viewing DVDs is in and of itself illegal in some way (now I guess it is).
This is incorrect, DeCSS gives you the raw MPEG data, witch can then be copied. If you tried to copy an encrypted DVD to the hard drive, you would have nothing but white noise.
The 'licensed' software players can do the same thing as DeCSS ('sort of') but they only dump the MPEG data to the screen, not the hard drive (or wherever else you want it, DeCSS works with UNIX pipes to transfer data). True you could reverse enginer the players, but you could also just undo the encryption, witch is what DeCSS does. but anyway, DeCSS does make it easier (and without it, getting a bit-for-bit copy of a DVD would be imposible)
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
The judge said that the code wasn't purely free speech because it has a law-breaking side effect (it is against the DMCA). His clarifying example was that computer viruses (which are code) are not considered free speech, even though they are expressive, because they break all kinds of laws in the process (not just speech, but action).
-spRed
.sig Karma out the wazoo, better to spend points elsewhere if this is above 2 or below 0
The DMCA is a law. Anyone posting DeCSS is in direct violation of that law. It's really really simple.
Allow me to provide a grounding in a 3 branch government, and the concept of checks and balances.
The 3 branches exist so that if one of them gets out of hand, say...does something blatantly unconstitutional (the DMCA for example), one of the others can put a stop to it.
In this case, the Legislative branch (read: the people who make the laws) took it up the ass from the corporate scumfucks who run the motion picture industry, and conveniently whited-out some bits of the constitution that weren't in their financial interest.
Now, it's up for the Judicial branch to notice that the Legislative branch was huffing rock up on capital hill, and declare this unconstitutional.
This is how the legal system works. It's "really that simple" as you say.
Very simple...
anthony
"I think any time you expose vulnerabilities it's a good thing." -Attorney General Janet Reno
It is also interesting to say that the current framework is one that protects and harbors a monopoly.
:)
<sarcasm>
So, wait a second. Are you daring to suggest that the court system, or politicians for that matter, would base their decisions on who's got the money rather than rational, legal, or common-sensical reasons?
The audiacity! Here? In the land of the free? The home of the brave? How could you suggest such a thing?
</sarcasm>
Anthony
"I think any time you expose vulnerabilities it's a good thing." -Attorney General Janet Reno
Okay.
In the interest of impartiality, couldn't the judge also have said:
Sigh.
Look for this to continue. As long as the MPAA and their corporate lackies can give this whole thing the appearance of a war between the Good Guys and a bunch of pimply teenaged hackers bent on destroying the economy, they will continue to enjoy support from the media and from the legal community. It is only by pointing out the preposterous implications of their restrictions that we can frame this debate in the proper light.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
All code should be covered by free speech. If the instructions to making bombs at home, how to commit credit fraud, and how to make drugs are free speech, then the instructions for making a program that is malicious are free speech as well.
Source code in and of itself can do nothing.
Distributing binary programs or creating binary programs out of the source code might be illegal, depending whether you consider a compiled program to be instructions, a machine, or both.
Regardless of any other moves he's made, Kaplan has accurately identified the crux of this case. Given DMCA in its current form, the defendants are guilty.
Our collective bone is that 1201 is dumb, should have never have been passed in the first place, and need to be repealed. These remedies are not within the scope of this case at this level. I most certainly hope that the appeal is framed in such a way as to allow DMCA to be ruled unconstitutional.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the United States of America.
Can anyone refresh me on any victories we've had in the courts lately?
It's becoming pretty clear to me that we "punk hackers" aren't doing any good by griping online. And Joe and Jane Everyman don't care about this issue, because it doesn't impact them (in ways that they notice anyway). We need a new strategy here. Something big.
I remember reading about Gandhi, and how he explicitly disobeyed the British authorities in India by conducting a march to the sea to make salt. The manufacture of salt was controlled by a British monopoly, and any attempt to make it one's self could be punished by law. He went to jail for his actions, but the movement to subvert the British salt monopoly was too powerful to stop.
Could we organize a large scale, visible, and very flagrant violation of the tenets of the DMCA? Something everybody would have to notice? And would we be willing to suffer the legal consequences for it?
Think Different
I don't see any clause in this law that exempts politicians, and enforcing it against them would focus their minds wonderfully upon their oaths to the Constitution.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
In the conclusion of this trial, the judge made the following statement:
I believe that he should have immediately followed it by this:
This second quote comes from Robert A. Heinlien's short story "Life-line" and is one of the most insightful legal quotes I've ever heard.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
This code is NOT MALICIOUS CODE! Have you even looked at it?
DeCSS is essentially a filter, taking input at one end, and producing viewable output (actually, not even that - you need to pipe the output to an mpeg player for that) at the other.
DeCSS doesn't facilitate piracy - nor does it inhibit it.
For your information - I DO want to pay for DVD's - I would love to buy a few DVD's, to watch at home - on any system I own, whether that is a licensed player from Sony, a DVD player on a doze box, or on my Linux system.
I want to watch what I want, where I want, when I want, on whatever system I wish. I don't want the information shut behind a lock and key, that only a few worthy (or brain dead, as the case may be) may view.
CSS isn't about copy protection - it's about content control.
I support the EFF - do you?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
You posted:
"by your logic, do the people without PC access should have the right to have a free copy mailed to them?"
Actually, yes, they do - it's called public information.
I support the EFF - do you?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
You state that "pretty soon it will actually be worth it to do it". I say it is closer than we really think...
I would be willing to be that one can already purchase pirated DVD's via some "underground" asian market - probably even via the internet - today. I have never seen such a site myself, but somehow I think it exists. What I am talking about here is a "stamping" operation - not a DeCSS copy type system (and why you would ever use DeCSS to create a copy of a DVD is beyond me - maybe going from DVD->VCD or something, but not DVD->DVD).
The other day I was at Fry's - and I noticed that an off brand of DVD-RAM disks (not DVD-RW, I know there is a difference) were going for $15.00 a pop - name brand disks were going for $25.00 a piece. I know these can't hold a full-size DVD movie, but it does show a price drop - I am sure you can get DVD-RAM disks cheaper online, as well.
I have never seen DVD-RW media for sale (media capable of holding a full DVD), probably for the reason that a) DVD-RW drives are not consumer items yet, and are very expensive b) even if they were, each person buying one would have to get a license key to make DVD's - given the limited keyspace, this isn't likely.
I support the EFF - do you?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
So, is this a free speech issue? Please read my story, I only want help...
/search?q=source+code+. This helped the web grow, and become larger and more important in the everyday lives of people. Then along came DVDs and DVD Players. However, none of these players ran on Linux, and thus was born a program to allow people who had purchased DVDs to play their DVDs on their platform of choice. This program had a name - it was named decss.
Once upon a time, there was no World Wide Web. Then lo!, along came http:// - and all was good. Sites sprung up all over the world, and people began to wonder - "How can we find the information we need?". The idea of search sites became popular, and they were provided. One came late, but proved most useful - it's name was www.google.com. It had a simple interface, and used standard URL/CGI code to work, thus a programmer could look up "source code", and the URL would have extra stuff tacked on the end, like
I support the EFF - do you?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I dare you to point out how code, when written down on a piece of paper or spoken out loud, can cause a malicious act! Only upon execution, by some form of Turing/Von Neuman machine, can code have the possibility of causing a malicious act.
Some can say a virus is a malicious piece of code - you would obviously agree with this statement. The problem is that a computer virus much more closely resembles their real-world biological counterparts, yet we still have yet to see an "immune system" built for computers, that works as well as immune systems in nature (and sure, even natural ones aren't perfect). What happens when there exists self-replicating programs, that have the ability to erase/wipe/quarantine other self-replicating, "malicious" code - do these benevolent "viruses" become malicious code as well?
Finally, on your comment of my "childish" comment - I simply want my freedom, as defined by the Constitution of the United States (of which I am a natural citizen). I am tired of seeing my rights, and those of my fellow citizens, being trampled upon in the name of greed and power, by other individuals and corporations. I am not asking to be allowed to shoot someone, I am merely wanting my right to use the DVD that I paid money for, on any system - bought, hand built, hand coded, or spun on a pencil! - that I may own or devise.
I support the EFF - do you?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
IANAL. I stand corrected (wish I could mod my own post down). I'm surprised he didn't question the constitutionality of this law, because he seemed to be rather "with it" in the transcripts I read.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Well, only insofar as "speech" is an action. Sure, you have to move your lips or press the "print" button. Buf it is not the action itself that has relevance. Free speech is more than moving of lips. On the other hand, murdering somebody is not much more than commiting a violent physical act on them.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Buchanan opposes free trade for purely isolationist reasons. Nader opposes free trade because it sells out our own workers at the same time it is exploiting those in third world countries.
I'm not an isolationist. I think it is impossible and impractical to be an isolationist in such a global economy. However, I do oppose trade agreements that simply give free passes to global multinational corporations, with no regard to the responsibility to a nation's citizens.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Look, the judge had a job: see if this activity is illegal under *CURRENT LAW*. It was, because the current law is *brain-dead*. So hopefully this will be brought to the Supreme Court. But don't think the judge is biased...it was his *job* to find them guilty, if in fact, under the current law they were, even if he didn't like it and that law was unconstitutional. It is the Supreme Court's decision to strike down unconstitutional laws.
So please, don't reinforce any ideas that these were just a bunch of "punk kids" by now flaming the poor guy.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Damn, and from the transcripts, and with all the testimony from those computer scientists and professors, I though he actually had a clue. He is probably correct in saying this violates the law, but that law needs to be challenged in the supreme court and broken into a billion pieces then thrown in a black hole.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Who's box-cracking?? And what you call whining, others call protesting, boycotting, etc. "Pushing for a change in the law" is not mutually exclusive with "whining" and "name-calling", although there are more effective methods than that. Of course when *corporations* whine and name-call it's called "advertising". Witness the Tobocco ads - "sob sob, the gov slapped our hand", and the Microsoft Ballmer ad - "Bill Gates and I blah blah innovation blah blah children blah blah future".
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Sheesh, assassination is a political *action* not statement. Saying that a political figure is corrupt and should be removed is a *statement*. Showing how CSS works is a *statement*. It's not like the second you see the code you will have deprived somebody of their rights.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Unfortunately, many of the loudest pro-DeCSS voices have another agenda entirely, as the judge noted above. I don't think that most intelligent Americans would agree with the contention that "information wants to be free," against the wishes of its authors. Besides, even if copyright is wrong, it's still the law of the land, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that a judge would have little sympathy for people who flagrantly disregard it.
Anti-IP folks remind me of the pro-hemp crowd. Sure, hemp should probably be legal. Maybe it really is environmentally friendly, and dirt cheap, and stronger than Kevlar (or whatever.) I'm still not going to take those claims seriously when I know that few (if any) hemp supporters could give a shit about making rope.
We need to have a clearer separation between the two arguments in favor of DeCSS. (The first being that it is protected speech, and the second being that evil corporations don't have any right to control the information that they create.) As long as the second argument keeps drowning out the first, our freedom of speech will continue to erode... and free speech is much more important that free DVDs.
(Since this will undoubtedly be a hot topic, let me repeat that I do not agree with the judge's decision. For that matter, I think drugs should be legal too.)
MSK
MSK
You can copy an encypted DVD disc bit for bit, and play it back on a licensed player. In other words, you don't need DeCSS to pirate DVDs.
---- ----
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
You forget that the constitution is THE LAW, which federal judges are to uphold higher than every other one.
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
I stand corrected regarding his being a consultant.
I do stand by however my statements regarding his bias verging on bigotry against not only the defendant and the whole open source community. If you read the ruling you will see DeCCS compared to a presidential assination AND you will be inform that we (the open source movement) believe that information should be free essentially by any means ness. Last time I checked that simply was not true for the majority of open source individuals. It is a gross parody of what I understand OS to be about. There are a number of parrells that could be made here.... but I leave that as an excersise for the reader.
Myddrin
Hrm.
yes. that does show a disturbing lack of logical reasoning -- partially on your part but that's ok as you're not paid to reason logically (sorry 'bout the unavoidable flame, but I'm making a point here), and more disturbingly on the judge's part, as he is paid to.
spot the error:
A thinks X
B thinks Y
on issue Z both A and B agree
hence A thinks Y.
ah. oops. I flamed too soon Sorry. I was under the impression that 2600 were not the only defendants.
<flame off>
From page 84 of the ruling:
"Upon being enjoined from posting DeCSS themselves, defendants encouraged others to "mirror" the information--that is, to post DeCSS--and linked their own web site to mirror sites in order to assist users of defendants' web site in obtaining DeCSS despite the injunction barring defendants from providing it directly. While there is no claim that this activity violated the letter of the preliminary injunction, and it therefore presumably was not contumacious, and while its status under the DMCA was somewhat uncertain, it was a studied effort to defeat the purpose of the preliminary injunction. In consequence, the Court finds that there is a substantial likelihood of future violations absent injunctive relief."
IANAL
It seems to be his reasoning regarding linking that it is not just soley providing a link, but the advocacy involved in encouraging people to provide and/or use the mirrors that 2600 then linked to. This exceeds anything that search engines or newspaper websites have done, though SlashDot may be on the borderline.
This again brings up First Ammendment concerns, but encouraging others to commit crimes has been found to not be protected at least in the case where the crime is of a sufficiently serious nature (for example, if you advocate killing an elected official you can be arrested, even if you yourself don't intend to commit the act.) Whether downloading a tool that can potentially be used to pirate films meets this standard is doubtful.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
Yes, but can we geeks get our act together and push for a change in the law without resorting to whining, box-cracking, and name-calling? If the /. community is any example, the great majority of us are loud-mouthed a$$holes.
Just look at the tone of replies whenever a Napster story is posted...
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
Obviously, the argument that 'code is free speech', as discussed in GENERAL, was one of the arguments of the defendents. What this says is, no it's not.
Your kitchen knife example is so pathetic I won't even discuss it.
I like how this ruling on why proprietary formats are good for the world is contained within the proprietary PDF format.
If you look at the PDF document, you'll see that the ruling is all text, which means that the document can be provided the in a plain text (Maybe use HTML for a little formatting...). But instead, the government requires us to use a propietary program to view this docuement. PDF doesn't add any value for the reader, but it does add unnecessary bloat to my workstation. I can search, enlarge and reformat any TEXT documents with my favorite word processor. I don't want to rely on Adobe to do my formatting for me, thank you very much
By offering legal documents only in PDF format, the government is assisting Adobe in gaining market share, at the expense of those people who don't want to or can't download the Acrobat reader (Plain text browsers, people with slow computers, people who are too illiterate to install Acrobat (but still have a right to this information), etc).
They really don't get it, do they...
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
*heh* Even better, I'm a Canadian going down to the States in a week, and I want to know if they'll take me down at the border when I wear my DeCSS shirt.
-- Dave
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
To quote the ruling: (somewhat redundant, but selective in the quote, please don't moderate down)
------------------
Computer code is expressive. To that extent, it is a matter of First Amendment
concern. But computer code is not purely expressive any more than the assassination of a political
figure is purely a political statement. Code causes computers to perform desired functions. Its
expressive element no more immunizes its functional aspects from regulation than the expressive
motives of an assassin immunize the assassin's action.
====== PARAPHRASE ======
New ideas are expressive. To that extent, they are a matter of First Amendment concern. But new ideas are not purely expressive any more than the assissination of a political figure is a purely political statement. Ideas cause people to perform their desired actions. Their expressive element no more immunizes their functional aspects from regulation than the expressive motives of an assassin immunize the assassin's action.
--------------------------------------------
In an era in which the transmission of computer viruses--which, like DeCSS, are
simply computer code and thus to some degree expressive--can disable systems upon which the
nation depends and in which other computer code also is capable of inflicting other harm, society
must be able to regulate the use and dissemination of code in appropriate circumstances. The
Constitution, after all, is a framework for building a just and democratic society. It is not a suicide
pact.
====== PARAPHRASE ======
In an era which the transmission of new ideas --which, like DeCSS, are simply principles to action and thus to some degree expressive --can disable dogmas upon which the nation depends and in which other ideas are also capable of inflicting other harm, society must be able to regulate the use and dissemination of ideas in appropriate circumstances.
-----------------------------------
So here is a juror, setting a precedent, for the regulation of expression (ideas/code/art/whatever) (same principle, as he admits in his opinion) because they may have functional aspects -- code can be used to pirate, a book can be used to incite rebellion, art can move a subculture to offend some sense of community standards, etc... "to promote a just and democratic society"?!
Perhaps an alternative, well reasoned, approach would be to attack those who use the code (idea) to perform ILLEGAL acts. In the case of DeCSS, attack pirates. In the case of other politically impalatable notions, those who perform assassinations.
I may not like some legislator or government official. Does that justify imprisonment? It's just an idea. That same notion, in the mind of someone less scrupulous, could end up in assassination. We had the same basic idea: "I don't like this guy", but applied it differently.
DeCSS is the same basic code. I may use it just to watch a DVD that *I* own. No harm done. Someone else may use it to pirate it. But it isn't the pirate who is persecuted. It is the creator of a new idea, of the CODE, that empowers the just AND the unjust to realize their desires.
Does anyone else see anything wrong with this?
Remember, the Appeals and Supreme courts are where laws like the DMCA get declared unconstitutional. Now that the case is in court and enough people care about it there's a good chance it'll be overturned on constitutional grounds. Even if it doesn't, it's like trying to stop the Niagra with a cork. By the way, it's time to distribute the source everywhere. Post it on Usenet, make more shirts, engrave it on artwork, etc. Write it on the sidewalks if you have to.
And all I need to do is refer to a past Slashdot article to prove my point.
"Judge Conflicted Interesting in MPAA/2600 DeCSS Case?"
One serious defect in US law is that there are no consequences for violating the constitution. Imagine the parallels for a business operating as congress does. You sign a contract, and then the business unilaterally extends the contract. You need to go to court to say "I didn't agree to that", and even if you win, you can't win any damages.
If the constitution represents the legitimate origin of governmental power, then attempting to get around it is no different than trying to overthrow the government. In an era when the people still had balls, that was usually punished by death. At the very least, you don't leave the usurpers in power.
Legislators should be held criminally accountable for attempting to pass unconstitutional laws. If, for example, the Berkeley city council passed a law prohibiting distributing political literature in public places, we should just say "you can't do that." I'm thinking the closest crime we currently have is impersonating a police officer, which I think carries something like 1-3 years in prison. We need explicit "abuse of power" laws.
Another change we need is that if the law is unconstitutional, then you can't be punished for anything you did getting around it. This means that if your federal income taxes are being spent on unconstitutional activities, like supporting a church, you can refuse to pay that portion of your taxes. Or, if you are on probation for violating an unconstitutional law, you can't go to jail for violating your probation if the law is found unconstitutional.
I'd almost suggest that if a public official engaged in breaking the law (enforcing an unconstitutional law), then they shouldn't be considered a public official. That is, a cop without a warrant shouldn't be considered a cop. If you punch a cop who is beating you, it shouldn't be assulting an officer, it should be self defense. I say I'd almost suggest it because I know too many wackos with strange interpretations of the constitution.
So, when Lieberman sets up his National Movie Censorship Office (read his record), throw him in jail for "federal civil rights offenses". When Bush gives federal money to church run charities, throw him in jail for misuse of public funds.
Unfortunately, "kill all the lawyers" doesn't seem feasible right now, but if we can lock them all away where they won't interfere with us, maybe we can all get on with actually doing something again.
Accordingly, there may be no injunction against, nor liability for, linking to a site containing circumvention technology, the offering of which is unlawful under the DMCA, absent clear and convincing evidence that those responsible for the link (a) know at the relevant time that the offending material is on the linked-to site, (b) know that it is circumvention technology that may not lawfully be offered, and (c) create or maintain the link for the purpose of disseminating that technology.
The problem for Slashdot is, who are "those responsible for the link"? Does it mean me for submitting the link? Or CmdrTaco for allowing it to be submitted?
Does Slashdot have a responsibility to prevent me from submitting links to the source code? To enforce that interpretation you'd have to shut down every news site and message board in the US.
Well maybe I'm responsible for the link. But I'm in the UK, outside the jurisdiction of Judge Kaplan, the Supreme Court and the DMCA. They can't stop me submitting comments to American sites.
How's this ban on linking supposed to work again?
Now we all know that reverse engineering, by itself, does not have any malice, so where does the judge get the above stated belief?
From 2600:
At last Kevin is free! and, associating the secret service with the natzi SS
I'll defend 2600 and their right to free speach to the last but, would it hurt to tone down the rhetoric a bit? If you get hit by lightning, you have a right to complain. If you, time after time, try to attract that lightning, you can't bitch when it strikes.For whom would you have more pitty?
1) A golfer gets caught in the rain with a club in his hand.
2) someone who waits for the rain before standing on the highest ground with 9 irons in both hands.
All I'm saying is 2600 could still provide the same content without all the wannbee hacker noise that attract snap judgments like the one made by the judge in this case.
WANTED The ideal defendant:
A middle aged soccer mom/hacker who used DeCSS to show her 6 year old daughter the Teletubbies DVD on daddies linux box. Then, "It's all about the children".
http://dail ynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000817/tc/multimedia_hacker _dc_1.html
(my emphysis added)
Defendants, on the other hand, are adherents of a movement that believes that information should be available without charge to anyone clever enough to break into the computer systems or data storage media in which it is located. Less radically, they have raised a legitimate concern about the possible impact on traditional fair use of access control measures in the digital era.
Actually, the thing that annoyed me about that statement is that it sounded like the judge was saying that the defendants were proposing breaking into other people's computer systems, stealing & publishing their data - instead of using their own purchased equipment & their own purchased piece of media and fiddling with the bits from that piece of media. I doubt the defendants were claiming that this was okay.
After reading WAY too many descriptions of this trial, it does kind of feel like the judge decided that the defendants were troublemakers and that he had a perfect right to make life as difficult as possible for them.
Actually, the judicial concept of "conservative" can throw you a few screwballs, occasionally.
I got the impression that while, legislatively, "conservative" usually got attached to pro-money, pro-Christian individuals, "conservative" in the judicial sense tended to mean "narrow interpretation" of the law (including the Constitution).
This "narrow" interpretation usually means that they throw out laws which have vague or ambiguous wording, or tighten the definition to a very specific meaning.
So, just because the SC justices have been labeled "conservative", don't lump them into the same category as "conservative legislators".
On the other hand, if Bush DOES get to appoint a bunch of new SC justices, he could very well stack the court with justices who oare "conservative" in the partisan sense. In which case, since all three branches of the government would be partisan-conservative, I fully expect some sort of class conflict to raise its ugly head.
This is the heart of the matter, and why the court should have, and hopefully the next court to hear the case will, rule the DMCA unconstitutional and void.
Congress does not have the authority to revoke fair use. Fair use is a consequence of basic rights.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
i just read through the first 71 pages (argh, i hate legal talk, that's why i couldn't make it all the way) and it seems that 2600 was hit where it counts. all their arguments were dismissed as invalid. this could turn out to be very interesting.
The DMCA is a federal law, passed by congress (in 1998, I believe). Since you mention virginia, you're probably thinking of the UCITA, which is the even-more-ridiculous software law, which would abuse open-source software writers in a variety of ways, and abuse consumers of commercial software likewise. (permits software to scan your drive for unlicensed software, permits intrusion onto your computer from afar to delete "offending" software, and requires warrantys on software (bye, OSS))
And this has always been a problem with being a "fringe" consumer. You want to view dvds on WHAT OS? Meanwhile, I have a pretty defeated attitude in regards to, say, boycotting DVDs. The majority of the consuming public are only going to use them on dvd players.
Isn't DeCSS a content-scramling system for playback control, not copy control? And isn't the purpose of DeCSS to enable playback, not permit copying? After all, one could do bit-by-bit copying of a scrambled source without DeCSS.
I've contacted AP to see if there is any recourse for such invalid facts. After all, the AP's Code of Ethics clearly states they aim for the truth.
Kaplan claims that In our society, however, clashes of competing interests like this are resolved by Congress. HELLO?!? I thought the Legislative branch made laws and the Judicial branch interpreted the laws. Here, Kaplan is saying that the Legislative branch get's to make and interpret the laws.
Did the defendents really spin it with such an extreme view, or is Kaplan simply looking for something controversial to form his ready-made decision on?
The judge is not stupid she/he is just doing what helps herself politically, all of the ju=dges decisions are political. The constitution is for the people by the people and ignored by the people. Lawyers judges and politicians interpret the law any damn way they can to try and protect their interest regardless of whether it is consistent with the bill of rights etc....that is why we have federal government to the extent we do today. If they actually tried to follow what is in the constituition 90% of the federal agencies would be declared illegal theft from the american people.
Following Judge Kaplan's ruling that code should not be protected as free speech because it can harm society, the Internet community was in an uproar.
However, one group, the Norwegian hacker collective known as PoMoRu say they saw this coming.
"We've known that code can destroy society for a long time. That's why we learned to code. Most programmers start coding in middle school, when they hate the world and want to destroy society, and that angst never leaves them."
When asked how exactly code could harm society, they responded with a perplexing answer.
"Well, we've got a perl script to kill the president. It's still pre-alpha, but we plan to release a beta at Defcon 9. We wanted to generalize it to kill everyone that ever wronged us, but we're developing under windows and so fork doesn't work in perl. We plan on switching to Linux and achieving genocide as soon as there are better GUI configuration tools."
Actually the United States is a Republic not a Democracy, and it suffers from the problems of all Republics, in that the elected representatives rarely are as concerned with the well being of there constituents as they are with their own well being.
all persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental. - Kurt Vonnegut
Why even encrypt with a key? They could have xor'd the content against a 16bit key,
Which means that you could distribute a list of (overseas) mirrors with original comments (Not sure if a plain list could be copyrighted) as long as you encrypt it, and make it clear that decryption is not permitted except by people with specific written permission from 2600.org or the EFF. Refuse to give written permission to anyone
Since any decent hacker would be able to crack it in a matter of seconds, it would not really be a problem for us.
Since the sites would be overseas, they would not be breaching the DMCA, so any claims that decryption is legally neccesary would be on pretty shaky ground. On the other hand, the lawyers would be in breach of the DMCA if they did manage to break it.
The DMCA is a law. Anyone posting DeCSS is in direct violation of that law. It's really really simple.
That's all there is to this case. That's what the judge's summary says. The "information wants to be free" quip is more-or-less irrelevant. He found that the DMCA covered the case and applied it.
I mean, yeah, if I got busted with Marijuana I might complain that the law was stupid in that respect. But I wouldn't go around saying "oh, our legal system doesn't work." It does work. It upholds the law.
Now, you wanna change the law? Let's talk ...
--
It's a
-- Danny Vermin
I wonder where this leaves Apex? Their players have secret menus for unlocking DVDs, yet I've not heard of them being taken to court.
--
It's a
-- Danny Vermin
Look up "circumvent".
--
It's a
-- Danny Vermin
it was his *job* to find them guilty, if in fact, under the current law they were, even if he didn't like it and that law was unconstitutional. It is the Supreme Court's decision to strike down unconstitutional laws.
Not exactly. ANY court can say a law is constitutional or unconcstitutional. The whole ladder of the court system, from your village and town courts, all the way up to the supreme court can say ANY law challeneged before it is unconcstitutional.
The purpose of the supreme court is to be the ultimate resolution of a question of constitutional question.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
to quote: (page 7) "But computer code is not purely expressive any more than the assassination of a political figure is purely a political statement."
lovely metaphor. so now people who copy games are Pirates (arrr), people who buy domains are Cybersquatters, and coders are Assassins...
*sigh*. it's not that i disagree with his statement (too much), it's just that his choice of words is gonna be jumped on by every newspaper hack in the country and the net result is more bad public opinions...
shaolin punk, activist post-industrial
I won't quote the passage, but I really loved how Judge Kaplan danced around the issue that computer program code is both "expressive" and "functional," and that his judgement is based in the main on the functional aspects of code.
So we can't use code to discuss algorithms and processes? Fine. Then let's get the Congress to tell the Courts that they could no longer use Latin or words as defined in Black's Law Dictonary in their oral arguments, legal briefs and judge rulings. Instead, the Court and the lawyers have to use words as defined in a standard dictionary -- I might propose the Merriam-Webster Dictionary (ISBN 0-671-60388-4) as the "offical dictionary" of the Law.
Yes, they can continue to do their job, but the existing lawyers and judges would be hampered and the bar lowered for entry into the legal profession. People with high school diplomas would be able to read all those damn agreements -- assuming they even bother to read the five pages (from one) that the agreements would require.
Wouldn't it be great if words like "heretofor" and "estoppal" were forever banned from contracts, statue, and rulings?
In fact, even the EFF said that the MPAA would probably win, and that this trial was mainly to set the stage for an appeal.
``...in an era in which the transmission of computer viruses.... can disable systems upon which the nation depends and in which other computer code also is capable of inflicting harm, society must be able to regulate the use and dissemination of code in appropriate circumstance.'' US District Judge Lewis Kaplan
I'm all in favor of regulation (not censorship) of code, in this era of script kiddies running amok causing millions of dollars of damages. But my question is, who exactly constitutes society, in the eyes of Judge Kaplan?
Is it the programmers who developed the code?
Is it the companies that distribute the equipment that uses such code?
Is it all the people in the computer area?
Is it *gulp* the US Government?
Until we determine exactly who's got the right (or the power, or the intelligence) to regulate this kind of information, I'd say we're just running around in circles, and we're not gonna get anywhere soon. That's my opinion, in any way.
PS: Here's a link to the Yahoo News article from which comes the quote: Judge Orders Injunction in DVD Hacker Case
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Learning to fly, Pink Floyd.
Now, IANAL, but did 2600 have any legal defense for their actions? As far as I can, they relied entirely upon dogma, which is why the judge labeled them a "radical" group. I wanted to see them win too, but it simply wasn't within the boundaries of the law for them to do so. What should happen and what the law says are two totally different and unrelated things.
Yes, 2600 are the moral winners in this case. But why did we expect them to win in court when they have no legal footing?
DeCCS doesn't "break into...computer systems", it plays back media!
Well, technically it breaks into "data storage media in which [information] is located."
See the whole point of CSS (not CCS) is that it puts a lock on the media, and in theory you are not buying the information in that media. You're just buying the media itself, along with the right to play it on any player that has been properly recgonized and licensed by the industry.
What that means, is that if you decode CSS, you're stealing information that doesn't belong to you. If you play the DVD in an unlicensed player, (like a Linux player written to use DeCSS) you are circumventing licensing agreements.
I disagree with these licensing agreements, and perhaps if they sold unencrypted DVDs I would buy them instead, but legally speaking it's not bullshit, and the judge isn't missing the point. Legally speaking, using DeCSS is wrong. Of course, I still object to the claim that DeCSS itself is wrong, just like Napster, because they "aid or encourage" breaking copyrights or licenses, even if they don't do it themselves.
By this precedent, Fight Club should be way illegal. In Fight Club they reveal some simple techniques for making explosives, and they advocate using these explosives. It doesn't actually blow anything up, it's just "speech". More than speech, technically it's information, just as DeCSS is information. Now I doubt the MPAA liked Fight Club, but they let it through, so it's one of their products now.
aahhh, the atmosphere. aahhh.
Now maybe your DVDs are different than mine, but I don't recall seeing anything on them stating I could only play them in an approved player, nor did I sign anything to that affect when I bought any of them. It would be like buying a certian movie on VHS and being allowed only to play it in Brand X VCRS.
No, because it doesn't have to say that. Just like guns don't have to say "don't shoot people!" on them, because it's already the law. You didn't buy a movie, you bought a DVD. Nobody signed over ownership of the information contained on the DVD to you. So you don't have the right to do whatever you want with it.
If they did give you ownership of the information, either on VHS or DVD, you could make however many copies of it you wanted, and distribute it to whoever you wanted, for fun and/or profit. So instead, what they do, is they license you to view the information. In the case of VHS, they license you to view it under certain conditions, and if you view it under different conditions (like in a big movie theater with 1000 "friends" who paid to get in) then you are breaking the licensing agreement.
In the case of DVDs, those conditions are a bit stricter, in the sense that they restrict the method of viewing to a licensed viewer. The legal difference is that for VHS, the conditions are determined by Fair Use laws, which say what conditions you are allowed to copy or view the info. In the case of DVD, Fair Use doesn't even come into play, because the info is encrypted, and DCMA makes it illegal to break that encryption, which protects information owned by the movie studio. Just like the encryption on their email or files, it's protecting their info and it's a crime to break it and take their info.
"Mr. Johansen is a very
talented young man and a member of a well known hacker group who viewed "cracking" CSS as an
end it itself and a means of demonstrating his talent and who fully expected that the use of DeCSS
would not be confined to Linux machines. Hence, the Court finds that Mr. Johansen and the others
who actually did develop DeCSS did not do so solely for the purpose of making a Linux DVD player
if, indeed, developing a Linux-based DVD player was among their purposes.
Accordingly, the reverse engineering exception to the DMCA has no application here."
I wonder what the application to LiVid will be.
Even a foolish idiot wouldn't make such a spurious claim.
That's essentially the claim that most of the "information wants to be free" crowd uses though. They say it's mathematically/physically impossible to prevent people from copying the data, so there shouldn't be laws against it. In other words, "information should be available without charge to anyone clever enough to [get it]". Yeah, they probably wouldn't use the term "break into" (like thge ruling), but rather somethiung that means the same thing but sounds more benign...
Now before I get flamed, I should point out that I don't agree with the ruling. (oh, and IANAL) I think the DMCA goes way too far. I think that copyright protection doesn't need legal protection. Copyright alone should be enough. If people use DeCSS to illegally copy DVD's, then go after them. People using DeCSS for fair use aren't doing anything wrong. So in other words, DMCA is unnecessary, and makes things illegal that shouldn't be.
Unfortunately, because of the boneheaded way American law works, once a law is passed, you pretty well can't get rid of it unless you can prove that it's "unconstitutional", and likewise, you can't create laws that conflict with the constitutional dogma...
Let the flaming begin!
People in a democratic society need to be able to exchange information. A vibrant culture needs artists that can build on each other's work and that can reuse cultural icons (as we know from several hundred years of experience with the arts and culture in Europe). A society and culture in which every bit of information and every cultural icon is owned in perpetuity by corporations with specific financial interests and concerns about their "brand image" is a dead end.
It is this tradeoff that is at the core: should we put corporate profits over the interests of our society? Or should we be conservative and return to the roots of copyright law: to fair use provisions that allows individuals to use content, build on each other's ideas, and reproduce content for scientific and analytical purposes, and to limited (20-30 years) protection?
To me, the answer is pretty clear. Kaplan is right that this needs to be done by the legislative branch, not by the judicial branch of government, but without a serious political finance refort, that is unlikely.
It looks like this judge is ruling merely on the merits of the DMCA as passed by Congress, rather than considering the larger question of whether the law is constitutional. Perhaps at this level of the legal system the judiciary is unwilling (or unable, IANACS (constitutional scholar)) to overturn a federal law as unconstitutional. I think it was pretty clear on the basis of the past few months activities that this case would go against the defendants.
The DMCA itself is bad enough, but the upholding of an injunction against the defendants linking to freely available information (well, at least until the hosting sites are also sued) is really troubling. I hope that facet of the case is an important part of the appeal as well; otherwise the New York Times and other major news venues will have to watch what they link to. If linking to a site with controversial content is prohibited, how about linking to a site that does the linking? For that matter, how about linking to AltaVista?
This ruling represents an unconscionable attack on the underpinnings of the Internet. The powers-that-be have won the first battle to halt the changes that are coming to the world they own; I hope that the EFF, Mr. Garbus, and other people of good will are able to win the war for freedom of information and the right to free speech online, even if it does hurt someone's bottom line.
</soapbox>
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
This is to be expected, infact from what i've read, the EFF and company were even counting on this. This sets the stage for a constitutional challenge, which will set precedent on a national level.
Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, nor do i play one on television =:-0
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Play Six Pack Man. I
Am I breaking the law if I read out load the DeCSS code?
If DeCSS was pseudo-code, would it be protected by the first ammendmant? What if it were written instructions?
If I rename decss.c to decss.bmp (which would probably look like noise), print it, and frame it, is it art? If I print it large enough, a scanner and the right software could compile it directly off the bitmap (just change the lexical analyzer to recognize a series of dots instead of a byte corresponding to an ASCII value).
Basically, I'm saying that source code should obviously be protected free speach. The instructions for making a bomb (including measurements, chemical mixing, and all) have already been established as protected free speech. So obviously, an english step-by-step instructional essay on how to break CSS would be protected free speach. Source code is just a form of shorthand for writing a limited set of instructions that a compiler can then translate into code a computer can understand. The DMCA is saying we cannot shout, "the emperor has no clothes."
*idea*: Write a perl script that translates C code into English that can always be perfectly re-translated back to C code. Maybe run that through a speach synthesizer or read it. Let's see the courts say that isn't speach.
Do lawyers and judges routinely remove themselves from cases to avoid even the mere appearance of impropriety? Yes. Should this judge have? Yes.
Does he give the appearance in general of being biased against the defendants for ideological reasons? Yes. Does he give the appearance of being personally biased against the defense team? Yes.
Kaplan's behavior will be a liability to the plaintiffs in appeal for plenty of good reasons, even if his former law firm's role in advising Time Warner on issues germane to the case isn't itself the best reason.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
It's pretty clear that the judge from the begining has seen the programmers as a bunch of punk kids. The legal treatment of those involved has been amazingly shoddy. I could see the judge being disbarred for this, he oversaw the trial even though he'd been a consultant with the MPAA just a few years ago.... Yeah, they give him a large sum of money and he's supposed to be un-biased???
It's appeal time.
Myddrin
Unfortunately, because of the boneheaded way American law works, once a law is passed, you pretty well can't get rid of it unless you can prove that it's "unconstitutional", and likewise, you can't create laws that conflict with the constitutional dogma
It's pretty easy to get rid of a law once it's been passed. You just bury a rider 500 lines deep in a budget bill that says "The DMCA is hereby repealed", get both houses to sign off on it, and start watching movies on your platform of choice.
IANAL BIRA LOS (I am not a lawyer (but I read a lot of Slashdot)).
... and there is no doubt, that one day he will be
where the eye of his telescope has already been
It is NOT his purpose to decide whether that existing law is bad or not, and his own views regarding the law itself should not be relevant to the task at hand. So, protest the law, not the judge.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Of course personal responsibility, the basis of a free society, takes a distant back seat to corporate greed these days.
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
That's as close as I've ever seen an opinion come to "Congress, this is a stupid law, and you should fix it -- but, given that it's Constitutional, there's nothing I can do about it."
No, he decided that source code was worthy of Constitutional protections, and said so, very plainly in the ruling. However, Constitutional protections do not rule out content-neutral regulation of "expressive actions", if the public benefit of regulating the "action" outweighs the restriction which is thereby put on expression. Since the DMCA does appear to fit into this category, it is Constitutional in this sense. He noted that the "fair use" argument was stronger, but decided on balance that CSS did not sufficiently impair fair use to render the DMCA's application in this case to be unconstitutional.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
I am convinced now more than ever that the best way to destroy DMCA is to use it. Make a CSS-protected DVD...
It only takes a little money and the cooperation of one DVD mastering and manufacturing company.
Create 4.7GB of Free Software (including, of course, DeCSS.c). Encrypt it with the CSS algorithms derived from the DeCSS reverse engineering. Prominently display a copyright notice, together with a license that the only way the disc can be used is with DeCSS. Supply DeCSS and necessary other viewing programs on an accompanying floppy. Take it to a friendly DVD manufacturer. Print up a license and contract to go with it. Have all the Linux distros sell it online.
The point is, DeCSS does decryption--but so does any CSS implementation. Obviously, in this case, DeCSS would be doing it with the consent of the copyright holder--the Free Software Foundation and all the other copyright holders on the DVD.
Yes, the MPAA and the DVD-CCA will not like this. So they sue. On what grounds? It could only be on trade secrets--but that is a loser--they would have used that in New York if they thought it would win. They use Judge Kaplan's decision, that distributing DeCSS is illegal? But where in his decision does it say that it is illegal to distribute and decrypt a copyrighted work with the authorization of the copyright holder?
I am really offended by Kaplan's decision. It almost libels the Free Software movement. If it is allowed to stand, then the liberty of all of us using computers and the Internet is in question. Even reporting the code to a virus would be illegal, according to his way of thinking.
Fairly soon, we will think about using the expanded storage power of DVDs to record computer data. It is time we made sure that we will be free of the monopoly on DVDs by Hollywood. They don't want us to produce content--they want to rent us content on pay-per-view.
I'm willing to donate money and help for this project. Anybody else?
If you had actually read the ruling, or even to about page 50, you would have found repeatedly mentioned the fact that our beleaguered defendents here are on trial for trafficking in encryption circumvention technology, not for piracy, copyright infringement, or aiding and abetting such infringement. The specific section of the DMCA that is at question is noted several times both by reference and at least once in quotation. You would have also gotten to an entire portion of the essay devoted to this question. In fact, had you, Stary, invented DeCSS for your own personal use on a Linux system and decrypted every DVD you could buy, you would likely have found Kaplan's ruling in your favor, since he clearly seems to think this would have been acceptable.
The judge is convinced that the emergence of the decss.exe binary for Windows machines and it's "disease"-like spread (yes, I love where he compares internet file sharing to disease transmission) undermines any verity to the claim that this is a Fair Use issue at least for these defendents.
Personally I think the DMCA is a great reason to never vote for any Democrat or Republican again. I had gone to great trouble to find links to all the Congress members who voted for this, but the Senate link was session-based (it was a unanimous "yea", btw), and the House had a voice vote, which seems to have prevented a voting record from being made.
I do not have a signature
I don't think the defense made that statement in court, but the plaintiffs were able to convince the judge that this was, in fact, the case.
Moreover, if you read the judgement (nobody much here seems to have done this, however), Judge Kaplan thought the strongest aspect of the defendent's case was not the "legitimate player" aspect per se, but the possibility that the situation without the availability of DeCSS would prevent fair use of the copyrighted works encrypted under CSS. Indeed, Kaplan points out that this kind of argument was one of the biggest controversies involved in the passage of the DMCA, and that the act is a compromise of sorts. But over-ruling the DMCA was certainly not his job. Kaplan's job was to decide whether the DMCA would apply in this case (it did), and if the plaintiffs were entitled to any damages if the DMCA had been violated (it was violated, but all he gave them was court costs rather than attorneys fees).
The presumed appeal here won't be on the facts of whether or not the DMCA was the correct statute to use to grant a permanent injunction on the posting of DeCSS , but whether the "compromise" to fair uses of copyrighted work posed by the DMCA is, in fact, unconstitutional. That would be a much more interesting case, but not the case the judge was in any position to decide.
Well, I think so; I am not a lawyer. I'm crossing my fingers that Doc Hawke, Esq., will post something more informative on this.
Babar
Defendants, on the other hand, are adherents of a movement that believes that information should be available without charge to anyone clever enough to break into the computer systems or data storage media in which it is located.
While there certainly are those on the DeCCS side who may come off this way, it misses the issue by a mile. DeCCS doesn't "break into. .
For people paying attention to the trial, is this misunderstanding due to a bad job by the defense lawyers, or is the judge just an idiot?
The judge was NOT a consultant for the MPAA. A lawfirm he was somehow associated with employed some lawyers who did some consulting for the MPAA. I was furious when I first read that, but after some research I found out that it really wasn't a big deal.
Did judge Kaplan miss the point? Yeah. Was he biased? No.
-B
I don't find that funny.
MSK
It is bizarre that a judge would include in his conclusion statements about the beliefs of plaintiffs and defendants. Isn't the whole point of blind justice that decision is made based on actions, not the personal beliefs of those who act?
The judge indicates that he clearly took into account the intent of 2600 to distribute DeCSS to be used for other than fair use. Also, he cites there posting of links to DeCSS to another example of 2600's intent to get other to not only download DeCSS but to use to rip DVDs for other than fair use.
Intent (ie the belief of the defendant/s) has always been a necessary element of proving a crime has been committed. That is why when you kill someone in an auto accident while obeying the traffic laws, you are not considered to have commited murder or even manslaughter, since you had no intent to kill anyone. (if you were violating other laws then you may be convicted based on extreme negligence, but that is a whole seperate story).
What I fail to understand, is that the judge comes to the conclusion as to the intent of the original author of DeCSS, aparently soley on the basis of MPAA testimony. The author wasn't on trial, but his intent is crucial in finding that the primary purpose of DeCSS was to violate copyright protection, rather than to enable fair-use.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
Indeed, and I think the summary nicely reveals that clearly the point that people buying a DVD have a right to view it as they please has not been made. However, this is unsurprising, as this was actually a predicted result when the DMCA was being considered as law. If a poor precedent is set, expect the DMCA to protect any and all information with enough lawyers. Why even encrypt with a key? They could have xor'd the content against a 16bit key, and sued just the same.
I'm going to take the time and write my legislators about repealing the provisions of the DMCA which enact the absurd restrictions on reverse engineering encryption systems, just because they protect copyrighted works. The criminality of that activity should require a burden of proof that it was intended for the illegitimate access to the protected work.
Obviously a first victory for the money interests. a shame that the dvd script kiddies who had to go trading these things around screwed it up for the rest of us.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I may be way off course here, but I don't believe the defendants would ever make the argument as stated above. Even a foolish idiot wouldn't make such a spurious claim. The fact this judge has interpreted the argument in this fashion implies a clear biased.
I am not making a comment on the ruling as a whole, just this judge's view of the defendants. It is also interesting to say that the current framework is one that protects and harbors a monopoly.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
It is bizarre that a judge would include in his conclusion statements about the beliefs of plaintiffs and defendants. Isn't the whole point of blind justice that decision is made based on actions, not the personal beliefs of those who act?
In First Amendment cases in particular, it is very important to distinguish beliefs from the content in question.
If I post a photo on the internet which is not obscene, for example, the judge cannot throw me in jail because of my beliefs.
And if I make a statement about someone which is not libelous, to pick another example, the judge is not allowed to decide based on which movements I belong to. Freedom of association is another freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment; it is unconstitutional in this country to use one set of laws for people in organizations we like, and another set for those we don't.
Jamie McCarthy
Jamie McCarthy
jamie.mccarthy.vg
No, it isn't. DMCA talks about circumventing the protection without authorization, but so far (I haven't finished reading Kaplan's whole opinion yet) the judge has not explained why the owner of a DVD does not have authorization to watch the movie.
Remember: DMCA strongly implies that whatever authorization there is, comes from the copyright owner of the work, not the inventor of the encryption algorithm. Furthermore, the DVDs are sold without the buyer contractually agreeing to certain conditions (i.e. using an approved player) in exchange for that authorization. Therefore, the question of whether I have authorization or not, is identical whether I play the movie with LiVid or a Sony DVD player.
If I am violating DMCA when I play a DVD with LiVid, then I am violating DMCA when I play a DVD with a Sony DVD player. I am pretty sure this situation was not Congress' intent, therefore I think authorization has been granted, and therefore DeCSS does not break the law.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
It looks like Kaplan found a hole in the Plaintiff's case and tried to patch it himself by pretending that some additional legislation has been passed! Maybe he always wanted to be a congressman instead of a judge. Check this out, from from page 32:
I call your attention to the phrase "by purchasing a DVD player or drive containing the keys pursuant to such a license." Where did this come from? It's not in DMCA. Kaplan pulled it out of his ass.
Why is this important? Why did Kaplan make this up? Because: The plaintiffs need for the "authorization" to watch a DVD to not be granted by purchasing the DVD. If authorization is granted by buying the DVD, then DeCSS and LiVid do not violate 1201(a)(2).
Kaplan could conclude that authorization is never granted, but that would mean that watching a DVD is always illegal, regardless of the player. Clearly, that would be contrary to Congress' intent when they wrote DMCA. Coming to a conclusion that is contrary to the intent of the law would be a very bad thing. Sort of like an indirect proof in math, where you assume the opposite of what you want to prove, and show that it leads to a contradiction. Kaplan must dream up some way for authorization to be granted to watch the copyrighted work, without it being implicitly granted when one purchases the copyrighted work.
One way that a consumer could get authorization would be to sign a licensing agreement when they buy a DVD, where the terms are that the consumer gets authorization, in exchange for agreeing to not watch the DVD on unlicensed players. That would work perfectly. Just one problem: it is ridiculous. People don't sign license agreements when they buy DVDs. So that idea is out.
At this point, Kaplan is in a real pickle. He can't say that authorization is granted by an explicit agreement, because DVDs just aren't sold that way. He can't say that authorization is never granted, or the defense wins. He can't say that authorization to watch the DVD is granted when the DVD is bought, or the defense wins. And of course he can't let the defense win, because that would make his old firm look bad since they did consulting work for MPAA. (If only he had recused himself, it would be someone else's problem, and they could just rule for defense. But he didn't recuse himself. Oops.)
The poor man is in a real bind here. What can he do? He has to invent some other way for authorization to be granted, and here's what he came up with: "by purchasing a DVD player or drive containing the keys pursuant to such a license." DMCA pretty strongly implies that authorization comes from the copyright owner. There certainly isn't anything in DMCA that says that authorization comes from the algorithm inventor. Maybe if it had been patented, that would have worked. But CSS isn't patented. Oops.
There's my challenge to Kaplan and the plaintiffs: explain how I get authorization to play all CSS-protected works (even CSS-protected works where the copyright owner is not a member of MPAA and has no agreements with DVD CCA) by buying a player. Show me the part of DMCA where it says that I can get authorization to circumvent the protection of a copyrighted work, from a third party who may not be acting on behalf of the copyright owner. Show me. I bet you can't.
I am convinced now more than ever that the best way to destroy DMCA is to use it. Make a CSS-protected DVD and sue Sony for trafficking in a player that plays it. Let Sony's lawyers explain how they, not me, grant consumers the authorization to circumvent the protection on my work. Let Sony's lawyers explain how they bought that right from DVD CCA. Let them explain how DVD CCA has universal authority over all copyright works that are scrambled by an algorithm that is unpatented, public domain, and available from thousands of sites across The Internet.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I know it's going out of style these days, but let's see what the consitution has to say on the matter of intellectual property.
This clause is varyingly known as the "copyright clause" or the "patent clause" depending on what kind of a lawyer you are. Either way, this is the exact wording in the Constitution (section 8) that provides for the creation of Intellectual Property.
It says:
The Congress shall have Power...
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
It seems that the authors of the consitution had not intended in any way for Intellectual Property to be a financial protection in the way that it is currently interpreted. Seemingly in direct contradiction, the judge says:
Plaintiffs have invested huge sums over the years in producing motion pictures in reliance upon a legal framework that, through the law of copyright, has ensured that they will have the exclusive right to copy and distribute those motion pictures for economic gain.
(emphasis in both cases rather obviously mine)
Something smells fishy here...
Anthony
"I think any time you expose vulnerabilities it's a good thing." -Attorney General Janet Reno
But over-ruling the DMCA was certainly not his job.
The Supreme Court of the United States disagrees with you, as does the vast majority of Constitutional scholars in this country.
Any and every Article III Judge in the United States (and Kaplan is one) has a Constitutional duty to see that the law of the land is upheld.
The nation's highest law is the Constitution. It is therefore the required duty of all Article III judges to review laws which come before them for Constitutionality.
Judge Kaplan did so in this regard; he came to the conclusion that the DMCA's more odious provisions do not violate the First Amendment. Overruling the DMCA, if it is unconstitutional, is definitely his job...
... he just decided that source code is not worthy of Constitutional protections.
When the Supreme Court handed down a ruling that Andrew Jackson disagreed with, Jackson refused to execute the Court's order and commented: "[The Court] has made its ruling; now let it enforce it."
I'm tempted to write a letter to Judge Kaplan saying the exact same thing.
By the by--many lawyers and judges will disagree with me here, but I strongly encourage people to write letters to Judge Kaplan. Keep them polite, respectful and intelligent--trust me, you do not want to piss off a Federal judge. He will not respond to your letter, no matter how much he wants to; Federal ethics laws forbid him from responding to citizen complaints.
However, the First Amendment guarantees that we have the right to petition the Government for the redress of grievances. The First Amendment nowhere states that we can only petition our President and Representatives.
and if I point at you while you are wearing your T-shirt, am I guilty of linking?
-tim
So am I breaking the law if I wear my DeCSS shirt tomorrow?
I understand the limitations on "calls to action" like incitement to crime or yelling fire in a crowded theater. But if that's the basis for eliminating the First Amendment as protecting DeCSS, there's a contradiction between that and the protection that Loompanics books get, which include guidelines on credit fraud, making and using explosives, manufacturing illegal drugs, escaping from jail, etc. Posting DeCSS isn't an incitement to commit crime anymore than posting a description of how to make a submachine gun is - what the user does with the information is the user's responsibility, not the information's.
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Klactovedestene!
I followed this case kind of closely, and I don't remember even a shred of the DeCSS defense revolving around the argument that intellectual property should be free to all. The strongest DeCSS argument, in my opinion, was the one that the reverse engineering was specifically legal because it allowed the content to be played on platforms for which there was not a "legitimate" player.
But regardless of that, I think this ruling shows a fairly huge amount of bias on the part of Kaplan, since I don't believe someone who actually read and understood the defensive filings would summarize the defenese's position in this manner.
Or, to be less sinister, maybe it was just a serious lack of understanding on Kaplan's part. One way or another though, the gross misrepresentation of defense's argument in the ruling should be strong grounds for appeal.
-b
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.