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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
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?
* If DeCSS was made for Linux DVD players, then why was the compiled Windows port made and released?
If Contrex wanted to clone the Sony Playstation entirely, why did their early versions use the Sony BIOS?
For those who don't recall, the court rules that even though Contrex used Sony copy righted code for devolpment, that is fair use. that is they needed to test parts of their system seperatly (ie the hardware simulation from software), and the only way to do what was with copyrighted code. Legal because they did not sell said code.
Or to put it simply, deCSS had to be a windows program first because the part to read DVDs in linux was not working. By making it a windows program they can test the relavent part (that which they were working on) without waiting for other code to be debugged.
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
Because the Sony player only allows playback, not direct conversion to an unprotected form. If you took DeCSS and made it into a program that *only* played the DVD and didn't allow it to be saved as .mpg or whatever, then you'd have a defensible case.
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....
This is not true. In principle, any judge can rule any law unconstitutional, if they feel confident and correct in doing so, and have the courage. As a matter of practice, striking down a law as unconstitutional is a risky proposition for a lower court judge, who winds up looking foolish and/or reckless if his decision is promptly overturned by an appeals court.
That's why most lower court judges tend to bend over backwards to find a constitutional interpretation of even bad laws, but that doesn't mean that they aren't empowered to toss out an unconstitutional law.
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 put a CSS-protected movie into the machine, and unscrambled unprotected plaintext video comes out through the video-out jack. To me, that sounds like a device whose primary purpose is to circumvent. That's exactly what the machine does. Furthermore, the Sony DVD player has limited commercially significant non-circumvention purpose: do you think many of them would be sold if they couldn't play CSS-protected movies?
I'm pretty sure that the MPAA's position is that the Sony player does circumvent, but that it has authorization, and DeCSS does not have authorization. If they take the position that the Sony player does not circumvent, then how could they argue that DeCSS or Livid does circumvent?
BTW, for reference, DMCA says:
(I don't see how that helps either of our arguments, but I guess we should keep the definition in mind as we discuss this.)---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
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.
Tsss.... Norway is not an opressive country. From what I know, their government have even oficcially said it is sorry for the original traitment of him... He won't be extradicted. But he better not plan a tripp to the US any time soon...
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
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.
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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
I hate to be cynical like this, but don't trust public opinion polls to be a sign of declining public racism. When someone calls you up on the phone and asks, "Would you vote for a competent Jew for President?" you don't want to sound like a raging anti-Semite so you say yes. "Would you consider Colin Powell to be the same as any white candidate if he were to run for President?" You definitely don't want to sound like a racist or a bigot, so you say yes.
Prejudices come out in other ways, too. Personally, I find it curious when people segregate themselves into little race-pride groups. If you're all for equality, then why separate yourself into a different homogenized group of friends?
For more information, click here.
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
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
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
One more time. This is _not_ about copying DVD's. Hell, I hope hollywood makes sevaral googleplexs of us dollars this year. Then maybe I'll finally get to see a six movie series of the Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever books.
I just hope if I lay out $129.00 for the dvd set, I can view it on the OS of my choice. That is what it is about. I don't want to be told what OS I can run, which is _WHY_ I run linux.
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.
Good Lord, you're a masochist. I made the mistake of reading that entire series while I was sick for a couple of weeks in high school. I'm afraid to say that it probably made me sicker, and caused me permanent emotional trauma.
When I was better, I tried to go back through the books & find out why I had gotten sucked into reading all 6 books. After about 100 pages, the book's constant & gratuitous angst drove me so nuts I became physically ill whenever I got near the books (ala Clockwork Orange?).
If they came out with movies covering that entire series, I'd probably end up being arrested for stalking the writer/producer/director/actors and trying to wrap that damn white gold ring around their necks.
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
Not true; the DMCA specfically has a "reverse engineering exception", for decryption aimed at facilitating the interoperability of computer systems. This was actually the kingpin of the "Linux Argument" in the DeCSS defense, and they would have got away with it if it weren't for those pesky kids ^H^H^H^H^H the judge's ruling that Corley and Johansen did not really have this intention.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
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.
Hey! I'm only 41. But thanks.
"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
---
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.
Whether intentional or not, your entire post comes across as condescending. The belief that somehow this is a "lesson to all the kiddies" is demeaning and manages to portray the idea that all the people involved were naive and ignorant imbeciles.
The defendant, the 2600 website operator, was a 40+ year old journalist. Not a punk kid.
Experts for the defence included 50+ year old Professor Touretzky. Not a punk kid.
The defence lawyers have 20+ years experience and have acted seriously from the start.
But the point you raised which annoys me the most...
You haven't even bothered following the case else you wouldn't even make this stupid claim. The defendants never once argued along this line of reasoning that "information must be free". I don't believe that rot, and clearly the defence and the defendants didn't either.
This case is far more chilling than the lame need to watch hollywood movies. What the judges decisions effectively says is that an encrypted material cannot be decrypted without the author's consent. This has far-reaching implications not for DVDs or even movies. This has the potential to destroy Linux and open source itself. Imagine your next video card has the GPU microcode kept in encrypted flash: you can't even use the card without using the vendors drivers unless you want to circumvent the encryption method. This means the DMCA allows vendors to prevent open source drivers from being traded and improved.
I think you've done a great disservice with your post. Not only did you trivialise the entire defence, implying that they were just a bunch of unruly "punk kids" who were giggling and swearing while acting disrespectfully to the court, you also manage to completely misunderstand what has happened here and why it is so important.
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.
---
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.