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Ask The DeCSS Legal Team
Martin Garbus and Robin Gross are the attorneys defending Emmanuel Goldstein and 2600.com in the DeCSS case that just had its first decision. Ask them whatever you'd like about the case - we'll do the usual, forward highly-moderated questions and get their answers back to you ASAP. Note that standard, boring questions like, "Where do you go from here? Will you appeal?" are going to be asked and answered in other news stories, probably many times over. This is an opportunity to ask those questions that won't be asked in other news stories.
Not redundant -- read all of the post before you start requesting the moderators to bring down the hammer.
What I'm asking about is how technology affects legal matters -- akin to how complicated medical terminology or complicated DNA testing results affect juries' decisions. Whether the judge knows what a "bit" is or not is point, nor the real question. It can be "bit", "debugging", "compiler", "interpreted language", or "malloc()/free()". Doesn't matter which. And, yes, I did read the ruling. I'm not asking about whether they brought up bit-for-bit copying in the case or not. I'm asking about educating (or not educating, as the case may be) the judge.
Moderators, please moderate down the post I reply to as "Inattentive, Quick to Judge, Seems To Think He Knows What's Best For Slashdot Without Giving Any Substantive Reason Why We Should Listen To Him".
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
1) What impact can you foresee should appeals to the Supreme Court fail? Would the scope be limited to deCSS, or would it suddenly be illegal to publish any sort of material that steps on the toes of large corporate consortiums, however innocently obtained? And I say publish, but would publishing be illegal, or are we only concerned with online posting, which I equate with publishing?
2) Given that deCSS was not written in the US, that its author is not a US citizen and thus not subject to any US law or court decision, and never entered into any agreements regarding trade secrets of the DVD consortium, the MPAA, etc., given these facts, isn't banning the publishing of this document something akin to banning any other foreign document, such as the Quran, The Satanic Verses, or perhaps a more instructional work such as the Kama Sutra?
3) This might qualify as a 'where do you go from here', but what will be the basis of your appeal? In my limited understanding of the appeals process, there must be some justification for making an appeal other than being unhappy with the outcome.
These people looked deep into my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined.
Why does the phrase McCarthyism come to mind? (Yes, your name did remind me of this) Wasn't that exactly what this seems to be turning into? The persecution of a group based on their beliefs that were deemed to be a threat to those in power? Of course, this could just be various people on Slashdot taking a quote in the judge's ruling and turning a molehill into a mountain. But it is such an offensive quote...
-RickHunter
You may have appreciated that this is a technical forum, but that most of its members add "IANAL" (for I Am Not A Lawyer) to comments on legal issues.
For all the not-a-lawyers here, perhaps you could explain what the procedural timetable for your appeal is, to which court, and what power that court has to overrule or set aside Kaplan's judgment? For instance, will the appeal be a full review of all the evidence and conclusions, or limited to review of his conclusions of law?
For the record, I am a lawyer, albeit a UK-qualified one, and I have trouble following US federal procedure without moving my lips. The confusion about procedural and forensic issues among the non-lawyers is painful to behold. A little route map of the way ahead for 2600 and DeCSS would go a long way to inform debate around here.
-- AndrewD
A Maze of Twisty Little Laws, All Different.
This has implications regarding such things as export controls. It's instructive to compare this decision with Bernstein, where the functional aspects were held not to weaken First Amendment protection.
So now we have conflicting decisions on this fundamental issue. Will this issue be pushed to the Supreme Court level to achieve resolution?
2. Learn how to spell correctly. The plural of Jew is not Jew's, it's Jewen.
thankyoudrivethrough.
--
"How many six year olds does it take to design software?"
dinner: it's what's for beer
Why does the argument keep continuing that DeCSS is only ment for pirating/copying DVD's when the cost of copying a disc is much higher than buying the DVD itself? Doesn't seem to me that the MPAA and prosecuters are really thinking about this when it's cheaper for me to buy two DVD's than it is to copy one (provided I had already purchased a DVD Recorder).
My other question stems from the first... By the time DVD Recorders are cheap enough and blanks are cost effective, do you think maybe we'll have moved on to some other standard for video/audio?
Why does there seem to be no mention of other ways to copy a DVD, means that have been in use for a while now? A $15.95 radio shack RF Modulator enables you to copy a DVD to VHS, at quality just as good as buying a retail VHS copy of a movie. Rent, dub, return. Out of pocket expense? Maybe $5.
Suppose this case wins in favor of the MPAA. What do you think will happen then? Everyone and their grandmother knows it can be done, and the resources can be had. Aside from making a scene by suing the fuck out of everyone (even those remotely not not even involved with the creation of DeCSS), they're not accomplishing anything, IMHO.
If the defendants win this round, we can certainly expect to see many future rounds of appeals. Aside from scare tactics from the MPAA, what do you think we can come to expect from a victory in this case? New-and-improved DVD encryption implentation rendering all current models useless due to new means of 'protecting' their content? I'm wondering if anyone else thinks that changes would be made to further "prevent" from these sort of things happening again. Or can we just expect more money being wasted by the MPAA trying to get their Lawyers to find new ways to sue people?
All in all, do you think the ends justify the means? (yes, this is intended to be an incredibly inspecific question)
if it ain't your ass, it's your elbow...
It seems to me that nowadays, we still have production companies in the MPAA, but we now have home "theatres" using equipment that the Judge said in his decision must be approved by the MPAA. That means that playback is now controlled by MPAA companies.
How is this different from the situation 50+ years ago? It seems to me that the judge, in this decision, basically said that movie production companies ARE allowed to own both the studio and theatre, essentially nullifying the antitrust breakup 50 years ago.
Will this have any impact on your appeal?
More important than the DVD issue which will all be obsolete a couple of years from now. What about the issue of making it illegal to link to the source.
This is not like the Ticketmaster case where deep linking to a corporate site was to be dissallow w/o permission. Here it is illegal to link is a site that is allow (begging?) you to link to it.
There are serious first amendmeny issues here! Or am I missing something?
The case was about a math professor, who posted code deemed illegal by International Traffic in Arms Regulations for his crypto class. The ruling states that "code" is protected under the 1st.
The ruling of the case is as follows;
The ruling can be found at:
http://www
The news of this was posted on
http://slashdot.org/articles/99/ 05/07/170240.shtml
Chris Gray
Systems Administrator
Cinematix Studios, Inc.
Chrgray@cinematix.com
Without computer security, there would be no hackers.
Don't you think that this case strikes against the fundamental things that make us human? We are inherently curious about the world around us, and I believe that cases like this prevent us from even being human anymore. Why can't I learn how works? Why shouldn't I be able to discover and learn?
--
Ski-U-Mah!
As most /. readers know, the United States is not the only country in the world. How does Judge Kaplan's ruling in this case affect those of us in other countries (Canada, for example)?
A working alternative to DeCSS can be found at http://www.lemuria.org/DeCSS/decss.html
Well not exactly easy, but the MPAA's arguement was that DeCSS is a PIRATE's tool. They claim it is required to use DeCSS to pirate a DVD. I know for a fact this is not true because I've downloaded DVD rips long before DeCSS. People simply captured the output from a licensed player and compressed it with MPEG1 or DiVX. The result looks exactly the same whether using DeCSS or not. So every time they claim CSS is necessary to prevent piracy they are lying. Can you use this arguement to show that CSS does not prevent piracy and therefore the only use for it is fair use. From what I can see, using DeCSS to pirate a DVD just adds extra steps.
This isn't just an honest question - it's a key question.
There are some issues that matter a great deal to a technically literate minority that possibly aren't as much of a big deal as that minority makes them out to be. Compile your own list here. The point is that everyone knows - even geeks know - that geeks' sense of proportion is skewed in some ways by the obsessive quality of their enthusiasms. Anyone who can get hot under the collar about which Unix-based text editor is best is living in a world that John Q. Public is probably better off not caring all that much about.
An unfortunate side-effect of this is that serious infringements of civil liberties can be passed off as inconsequential if the only people protesting against them are geeks: if the opponents of oppression are all certified eccentrics, then its easier to pass the oppression off as good old plain commonsense.
One way or another, people who are even less technically literate than I am need to be persuaded of the importance of this. We need to let people know precisely which liberties are at stake here, and what kind of a difference it would make if those liberties were lost. Talk about toasters or car engines if that makes it easier; just find a way of making this seem not inconsequential, not a minority concern, not a bunch of weird h4xx0rs crying wolf but your genuine civil-liberties-issue-type real deal.
Otherwise, expect more verdicts like the above...
"Knowledge is the continuation of ignorance by other means"
Judge Kaplan seemed want to sneak around on the complex issues raised by prof. Touretzkys demonstration by only looking at the exact code posted originally. (See the opinion, footnote 275: "Once again, the question of a substantially broader injunction need not be addressed here, as plaintiffs have not sought broader relief.") Does that mean what I think (IANAL) it does: that 2600.com can publish the english-language version(s) instead of the source code, as they are not covered by the injunction?
Firstly, how can any sane person possibly equate code with assassination? That's ludicrous! If that's the Judges attitute, surely there must be a plethora of procedural errors you can use!
Code causes computers to perform functions. How-to books cause people to perform specific functions. How can the books be protected, but the code not be protected, under the First Amendment??
Secondly, the site posted links to said code. Those links, being part of the site's expression of its opinions, are definitely protected under the First Amendment. Since there was no child porn on the linked sites, presumably, then there was every reason to protect the site's expression (especially given that they weren't ripping of others' copyrighted material). Did y'all argue that point to the so-called judge?
Lastly, there's the point of reverse engineering. Reverse engineering is protected by law and precedent. Why did y'all not also point out that said code is a reverse engineering of the DVD encryption process?
As far as I can tell, the alleged 'judge' was wrong on all sides. What direction are y'all planning on taking the appeal?
P.S. Anyone know where I can get a copy of the DeCSS code? :)
Matthew Vanecek For 93 million miles, there is nothing between the sun and my shadow except me. I'm always getting i
Jon Johanson's DeCSS was deemed inappropriate because it didn't satisify these criteria in DMCA
"(A) the person lawfully obtained the encrypted copy,phonorecord,performance, or display of the published work;
"(B) such act is necessary to conduct such encryption research; (C) the person made a good faith effort to obtain authorization before the circumvention; and
"(D) such act does not constitue infrigement under this title....." [Id. 1201(g)(2)]
What I am left wondering is that since he is a Norwegian citizen how do our laws apply to whether it was considered good faith encryption research? Does the law really have jurisdiction on a world wide scope? Is Jon expected to research the laws of DVD producers worldwide in an effort to comply with whatever IP laws they have? Clearly showing that DeCSS is illegal is the crux of the MPAA's case, without it there is nothing to traffick that is illegal.
I don't know what he does on other cases, but this article explains how he addressed his lack of knowledge on this particular issue.
Of course, the above article has been linked by /. before
Well, what they are doing in today's more-and-more networked world is basically first setting up a giant store, and then placing a sign in the window: "people living in certain countries are not allowed to purchase our merchandise". ...and then they act surprised when people get real angry at that treatment and try to get it.
During the trial, did you make any arguments that brought up the issue of the MPAA acting as a monopoly in the case of their outright control of how the DVD standard can be played back?
"get it" should be "get around it", of course...
Nowhere, however, in either trial testimony, the Plaintiffs' briefs, or the decision itself do I find any attempt to base the Plaintiffs' control of post-sale performance on either statutory or Constitutional law. It's just there. Nor is there any reference at all to 17 U.S.C. 109(c):
How does the Court get around this one? Or is it just begging to be reversed on appeal?
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
No doubt a *huge* concern with this unique case, and one of the many reasons for its publicity, is the danger of legal precedents. How would you predict the long-term effects of this case with other landmark cases such as Roe vs. Wade?
Source code is a lot like a parachute; it needs to be open in order to function properly.
Assuming that you cannot appeal, or that if you do appeal, you lose (NOT cheering for this to happen, obviously, but it IS a possibility), what possible action can the MPAA/DVDCCA/ take? DeCSS will still be out there, still be widely available, and so will DivX. Hell, the damn source for DeCSS is on a t-shirt, for God's sake!
IMO, they had lost before they started.
Email me.
Don't trust anyone over 90000.
+++ATH0
why does the court insist on saying DeCSS is used for copying DVDs when that is possible without DeCSS? How do you intend to prove that DeCSS is used for positive means?
To the EFF Legal Team: I understand it is your goal to take this to the Supreme Court and have the DMCA declared unconstitutional. Do you foresee the eventual resolution of this issue being affected at all by the results of the Presidential election in November? There has been much talk of the next President being able to appoint a number of new Supreme Court justices. --mibh
"Property is theft, therefore theft must be property, right?"
Can someone please explain this bizarre practice to me? I simply don't get it.
Email me.
Don't trust anyone over 90000.
+++ATH0
Do you feel that the judge in the case was biased in any way, or had some personal agenda he felt that ruling in this manner would advance?
If so, can you point out any indicators (without the risk of damaging the appeal) that would show your feelings on this matter?
----
Brazil has decided you're cute.
I'm a computer science student and I'm concerned about the future of coding, especially since many snippets of code is reused. This causes me to be curious with the fact that this case being the first of its kind, where do you think future cases against open-source code will lead the industry in the future?
Also what effect does the GPL have on this kind of thing and what would be the enforcement of this decision if this is somehow upheld in appeals?
There are an increasing number of cases in today's courts that deal with technically complex issues, where code is intrinsically a part of the subject matter. Do you feel that the existing legislative and judicial system in the United states is currently capable of dealing with these 'geek' issues? Is there sufficient technical expertise available to be able to create laws and make judgements on issues that require the understanding of intricate lines of code and the nature of the internet and digital distribution? Or, if laws are being made and upheld by Congress and the courts while lacking technical understanding, what can be done to remedy this?
---
"The Constitution...is not a suicide pact."
"Life. Don't talk to me about life."
What kind of timeframe can be expected before coming up for review by the Supreme Court? Also, for those that continue to use the software after the Usage portion of the DMCA goes into effect be liable for arrest and prosecution?
Walter
UNIX doesn't have a monopoly on Good Ideas, it just owns most of them. --Alan Cox
If you do decide to appeal, and if you lost it, what would your plans be? Would you take your servers offshore? or would you take DeCSS off your servers for good?
Buying a Dell computer is equivalent to dropping the soap in a prison shower.
Would a (functional, executable) series of implementations of the DeCSS algorithm in progressively higher-level languages be helpful on appeal? Perhaps in a Zork-like pseudo-English? I've got no time to do this, but all you students taking your first Lisp/Scheme class, consider this a homework assignment. :-)
I have seen the argument made that code is speech and therefore protected by the first amendment which, apperantly the judge disagreed with. Around here we have discussed how the DMCA effectively limits or eliminates the concept of "fair use" of digital works by allowing corporations to dictate and restrict exactly how one can access use a copyrighted work. It seems that the only way to make fair use of such a protected work is to break that protection. Doesn't this mean that software like DeCSS is necessary? Isn't there an iherent contradiction between DMCA and previous copyright law? How would/could this be argued in a higher court.
Encryption and decryption is difficult to explain to a non-technical person in general. Not all encryption is hard to explain: rot13 being a beautiful example. Now, if you are trying to make an analogy which cannot be misinterpreted, just replace CSS with rot13 (ok, maybe it simplifies a little too much, since in this analogy deCSS would also be replaced with rot13). If the DMCA is interpreted in the way that Judge Kaplan has done, to make it an offence to circumvent protection mechanisms, then a supplier who "protects" their product with rot13 suddenly can sue (and win) against users who perform the trivial decryption.
In fact, the DMCA has a provision for remote disabling of the software. So, suppliers can go further: by using ludicrously weak encryption, and scanning the user's hard disk for decrypted versions (say, a list of URLs to block from children's eyes), the software can automatically shut itself down and the user has no recompense for the (newly) non-functional software.
Note also that if rot13 is actually used, then decrypting the message must have been done with rot13, so the victim can't claim that they used some other method. Sweet victory for the dishonest and unethical commercial software vendor.
These are not the sorts of "rights" that copyright (or any other law) ought to uphold
--argumentum reductio ad absurdum (sp? I don't speak latin)
BTW, you should definitely try to get Bruce Schneier to give an overview of the technical problems in the case. No doubt he could say something about the security of the particular encryption scheme in use, and the process which was designed to keep it secret, and why neither provided any real security.
I think that the free speech/anti-DMCA avenue is more worthwhile than debating technical details, so throw all your weight into that. But I think given its simplicity, rot13 should be explained and entered in as part of the trial's vocabulary.
Open Source software could damage closed source commercial variants. There's always that disclaimer that no liability rights are given.
Does the non-free-speech-status for software imply that a programmer is accountable for his work?
Bizar technology?
(related to SMN's comment in this thread)
:-) compression or the full original DVD data. 4GB is just not very much.
Despite the MPAA's inability in 10 months to find an example of illegal Internet-based redistribution of one of their DVDs, this is not actually hard to do. Many campus dorm rooms have the bandwidth to enable this easily -- at either DIVX
Would it be helpful for people to start making movies, or portions of movies, in any format (including the "raw" DeCSS output) available on the Internet for download? Is there any reason why this would hurt the appeal?
It seems to me that a big part of the argument of the case was that there had been no piracy, and that DeCSS wasn't needed anyway. What if instead, in time for the appeal, there is rampant and uncontrollable piracy and illicit distribution on the Internet? (This is something like the "cat is out of the bag" argument, I suppose.)
We already have the means for providing shared directories to this type of content via the various Napster-like technologies. What we'd need to do is add better facilities to insure that it's much more difficult to trace back to who's actually made what movie available; also a way of obfuscating the actual data so there's no easy to tell that a particular bit stream on the Internet is a particular movie (something like winnowing & chaffing would work for this).
2^40 = 1,099,511,627,776 possibilities. Assuming a 600MHZ computer, with 1 clock per cycle, 1 clock per check (impossible) it would take 1832 seconds, or 30 minutes to check every key. Lets say you find the answer after 80% of the keyspace is checked, that will give you and absolute minimal time of 24 minutes.
More realistically lets say it takes 200 clocks to get the answer. Checking 80% of the keyspace would take 101 hours, or about 4.25 days. Definitely not 18 seconds, even if you get lucky and hit the key early in the whole scheme of things.
Speeding never killed anyone. Stopping did.
Do you believe the judge had adequate technical knowledge of how DVD piracy on the Internet actually works? (i.e. Files are still large enough to keep dialup people from downloading, video and audio quality are markedly reduced, extras are "stripped") Do you think if he realized this he wouldn't have considered DeCSS as much of a threat (which it isn't) to the movie industry as he did?
It seems to me that code is very explicitly "purely expressive". The who point of a comptuer language is to allow a developer to describe an idea (algorithm). Code frequentky is the MOST expressive way to do this. By analogy the MOST expressive way to state the equivalence of mass and energy is not a guy standing on a street corner yelling it, it is the written equation E=mc^2.
The MPAA ruling may not be directly relevent because we have the reverse engineering law in the EU where you can interface to or correct licensed technology.
The trouble is that Im sure that the MPAA will try to prove that the media is sold only for access by a licensed player.
Don't get me wrong - I still see DeCSS as both a matter of free speech and a valid tool with legal uses, and I do not want to see it lose these court battles, but I do think there is a need to be completely honest here - DeCSS can be a tool for piracy - as well as slashdot needing some devil's advocates to express the dissenting opinion now and then. I don't think anyone would disagree that DeCSS definitely has uses in DVD piracy. However, the judge's (IMO, incorrect) belief that DVD piracy using DeCSS/DivX is going to destroy the DVD industry fails to account for a few things: The files, while a fraction of the size of .vob files on DVD, are still large enough that your average dialup user isn't going to bother trying to download them.
The video and audio are markedly decreased in quality. (Granted, this is getting better, but I can still tell a lot of difference between real DVDs and DivX encoded files.)
The "extras" that make DVDs so much fun are usually missing from rips. (Last I checked, none of the pirated versions of The Matrix floating around had the alternate audio tracks, or the bullet-time feature, or etc. etc. Then again, I haven't checked in a while.)
In other words, I'd still much rather put down the $15-$25 for a good DVD than mess with downloading pirated stuff.
Judge Kaplan argued that computer code is "a matter of First Amendment concern. But computer code is not purely expressive." He goes further: "society must be able to regulate the use and dissemination of code in appropriate circumstances."
In other words, computer code is more than just speech, and as the courts have ruled since 1968, when laws "are limited to the noncommunicative aspect" of some form of conduct, they do not violate First Amendment protections.
This is a theme explored somewhat in a recent article in Salon (for which Mr. Garbus was interviewed, incidentally):
While code certainly has an aspect that could be deemed speech worthy of protection (as Professor Touretsky movingly testified), it has nonexpressive aspects as well. That seems to be at the heart of Judge Kaplan's decision, and you will have to work hard to get around that on appeal.
Hence my questions to you:
1. What level of Constitutional protection does software or computer code deserve? Will you continue, in appeal, to take the hard line that computer code is purely speech?
2. I know this may be somewhat out of your purview as lawyers, but do you hold out any hope for legislative remedy? If so, how would you want Congress would alter the DMCA?
3. And, finally, what possible implications does Judge Kaplan's ruling have for other cases relating to the legal status of software, such as the storm brewing over business method patents on software?
Thanks for your time.
Yours,
Adam Keiper
The Center for the Study of Technology and Society
Washington, D.C.
If you copy the data without DeCSS you can't EVER play it back, not without brute force decrypting it (witch probably wouldn't take that long, given that its only 40bit encryption, probably a few days).
Let me explain how this works. One of the first tracks on a DVD disk contains several copies of the 'session key' the session key is whats used to decrypt the video. The session key is encrypted with 'player' keys, each player, software or hardware has a copy of one of the player keys. When you go to play the DVD it reads the spesific copy of the session key that its supposed to, decrypts it with its player key, and then uses the decrypted session key to decrypt the data.
When you make a bit for bit copy of the DVD with a normal DVD-ROM drive (and I've never seen nor heard of 'non-normal' drives) it does not copy the section with the session keys, just the encrypted data.
beachse there are no session keys for the player to decrypt at all, the licensed player has no capablity whatsoever to decrypt anything.
When you license CSS, you get an algorithem, not a key that unlocks every DVD in the world.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
probably beacuse you can't make bit-for-bit copies of DVD movies. and anyone with a clue actualy knows this.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
For those of us who don't have buckets of money, it DOES make a big difference. I already have a computer with a DVD drive. Why would I want to buy a DVD Player too? I don't have a TV, so I'd have to buy that too. I'm a student, I don't have that kinda cash. I do, however, have enough cash to rent and/or buy DVD's. But I use Linux, not Windows. So I'm effectively unable to use DVD's in any manner, without DeCSS.
---
I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. That would be dishonest.
Hmm... using technological developments to evade laws controlling access to content... So the plaintiffs are guilty of the same crime as the defendants!
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
no, that is not his job. the lower courts are not tasked with determining the constitutionality of a law. their job is only to determine how a case fits within existing law (e.g. DMCA)
only the Supreme Court can declare laws unconstitutional. that's why this case must go all the way the the supreme court in order for the DMCA to be overturned (at least by being declared unconstitutional. it would be theoretically possible, though unlikely, that congress could be convinced to repeal the law.
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
Its like copying a book that has been encrypted. You can't go read it later, an no one else can ever read it either, not with out the key. and thats the whole fucking point.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
The Norwegian authorities do not seem to be in a great hurry to bring Jan Johansen to trial. If Norway declines to prosecute Jan, or if he is acquited, can links to his site from the 2600 site be illegal? Are links to Frank Stevenson's cryptanlysis of CSS still legal?
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
Well, many people have pointed out Kaplan's seeming bias in the judgement with such things as the reference to the defendant's beliefs. Theoretically, Kaplan could have been quite deliberate about putting in extraneous statements, specifically to make an appeal more effective. AFAIK, any flaw in the process is fodder for the appeal. I read about half of the opinion and is very carefully written. Perhaps all the "flaws" are deliberate.
BTW, IANAL.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
Shame on you, you lied to you mother.
Here is a better metaphore. I have a note writen in english, I use an enigma machine to encrypt it. I write the settings for the enigma machine in special inc that requires a chemical process and a special machine to read. Can I read the note? No. Would I need to be able to read it to make a photocopy? No. If I gave my photocopy to someone with ane enigma machine, would they be able to read it? No. The message can only be read if the origional paper, with the hidden key, is had.
Now, as we all know, enigma was broken, as was CSS. So if I had the origional paper (a legit DVD disk), and the chemical process, and another enigma machine, or a Bombe (legit CSS software, or DeCSS) then I could copy the unencrypted, but a copy of the encrypted data wouldn't do anyone any good. Infact, it would be inseparable from white noise.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
The issue here isn't even about free speech; it's about reverse engineering.
It is NOT illegal (even by the DMCA, as I understand it) to reverse-engineer an encryption scheme for the intent of playing the content on an alternate player device. It is only illegal to reverse-engineer an encryption scheme if the intent is to permit copying. Again, IANAL, so correct me if I'm wrong.
So, the defense's job should be to prove three
points beyond a reasonable doubt:
- That 2600 thoroughly investigated the
potential illegality of the content of
the DeCSS code before reposting it.
- That to the best of 2600's knowledge, the
purpose of DeCSS was not to copy discs but
to permit playback on Linux, so they could
only believe it was not a violation of any
law to repost the code.
- That to the best of 2600's knowledge, DeCSS
was written using legal reverse-engineering
technique, again meaning that DeCSS was not
illegal to their knowledge and thus reposting
the code was not illegal either.
If certain content is deemed classified, a corporate secret, an improperly reverse-engineered implementation, or is somehow otherwise illegal, then it is a publisher's duty to investigate the legality of that content before publishing it. As long as 2600 reviewed the content, reviewed the law, and saw nothing to indicate that the content was problematic, then they should not be held responsible for reposting the code. And until a court of law judges that DeCSS itself is indeed a violation of some kind of law, 2600 (and any other publication) should be free to continue reposting the code.
- "It's just a matter of opinion!" - PRIMUS
Popular media is still portraying this case as a hacker who made availible to the public the means by which to copy DVDs. The case still seems to be about piracy, even though we know that's not the purpose of the code. How do you intend to educate the courts of public opinion?
:-| have a day
Mr Garbus and Mr Gross, I, like most programmers, am gravely concerned with the First Amendment implications of the recent ruling against Mr. Goldstein. How can we best help your cause on appeal? Donations? Letters? What can we do?
I am a Goddamn Cosmic Miracle!
I read all the court transcripts as they were posted those two weeks and just finished reading Kaplan's judgement. Is it just me or did it seem he started every paragraph with comments like "The defense would try and have this court believe..." etc etc... what was Kaplan like in court? You only get so much from reading transcripts, but the only time he seemed really interrested in anything was when the AI Professor gave the testimony about code being expressive. Also, when reading Kaplans order, why is it his way of explaining things seems sorta intentionally "jumbled", like you would hear a lawyer speek "legalize" to you. For example, when he touched on the parts of the trial (like the first amendment issues, and the fair use issues) it was difficult for me to understand what the hell it was he was trying to say, and after he was done saying it, he would say "Therefore the defense is incorrect...". Is it just me or do you guys see that too? (i likened it to listenning to a tech guru try and explain something technical that even he doesn't fully understand)
One question for the legal team, that I didn't see asked anywhere else...
Can you continue the court process financially? IE, is adequate funding available for Appeals Court/Surpreme Court hearings that could last another year or two, or even more? I suspect Napster will face this problem if their court processes drag out...
Xentax
You shouldn't verb words.
A corellary to this question is why can't you "break into" data storage media which you have purchased and supposedly own, this is NOT the same as breaking into someone else's property no matter how many times the MPAA says it.
-------- This space intentionally left blank --------
Is there some "history" between you and Kaplin? If so, will that affect your chances on appeal?
It seems to me that Kaplin had to turn handsprings in reading the law the way he did. The law seems fairly clear that "fair use" was to be preserved, and Kaplin had to go a long way out to read otherwise. Am I wrong, or is reading the law the way Kaplin did the correct way to read it?
Best of luck.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
What are your thoughts, on if you lose on appeal (and I pray/incant/cast that it won't happen), on the implications this will have for things other than DVDs?
CSS is a content control system, not a copyright protection scheme. Under the DMCA, they (the MPAA and cronies) could have simply ROT13'd the data on the DVD and as soon as someone figured it out, the MPAA could have gone to court. The encryption doesn't stop copying - under the DMCA it becomes a legal method to prevent the use of a piece of software on a particular hardware platform, fair use be damned!
So what happens if for a new video/ethernet/sound card, microcode that helps control it (on the hardware itself), is encrypted, and by "breaking" it to allow, say, a competing OS to use the card (such as Linux), whereas before one needed the special drivers for Windows, happens? Suddenly, under the DMCA, this is ruled illegal - and thus all hardware could be easily tied to only work with certain software or OS's? Wouldn't this kind of product tying be illegal in and of itself?
And therein, if the DVD is regarded as software, and a seperate product from the licenced DVD player (say a hardware one manufactured by Sony) - requiring the use of one product to use another, isn't this tying illegal as well?
I support the EFF - do you?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
And that supposed circumvention is the heart of the matter. According to the letter of the DMCA, circumvention is descrambling without the authority of the copyright holder, or descrambling in such a way as to infringe the holder's rights. (Yep -- circumvention means two different things in different parts of the DMCA.)
With respect to the copyright holder's authority, their permission is granted when they order the production and sale to the public of a DVD, and by their advertising the disk as a movie to be viewed by the purchaser. Once a licensed DVD is sold, the new owner has the right under copyright law to view the content. It just like sticking quarters in a newspaper machine, opening the door, and removing a paper: I have the *right* to read that paper. Unless the copyright holder arranged some other binding contract before purchase, their only right is to prevent me from publishing copies of the newspaper.
No. My argument is that there are countless licensed disks (tens of millions?) in existence, owned by many (millions?) of people. And every licensed disk owner needs a player. So is that market substantially commercially significant? We don't need a poll to find out -- hunders of thousands of people have already shelled out hundreds of dollars apiece for players, and they started doing it even when the disk market was tiny and the selection limited!
Furthermore, a DVD by itself is worthless. If nobody had a player, there would be *no* commercial market for DVDs. Therefore, the existence of a DVD player in and of itself has commercial significance, by enabling a content market. Furthermore, anything that tended to make players ubiquitous would tremendously enhance the commercial market for DVDs. Ubiquity is a necessary prerequisite for a roaring media market, as has been demonstrated in the past by player pianos, phonograph players, cassette tape players, 8-track players, CD players, VHS players, 5.25 inch floppy drives, 3.5 inch floppy drives, and by the present geometric growth of DVD players. The enhancement of the media market alone means that every DVD player has a commercially siginificant purpose. This enhancement of media market is independent of a player price. With respect to movie sales, a no-cost player and an expensive player have the same commercial significance.
To summarize, not only are people are willing to buy players, the ownership of a player itself has commercial significance.
CSS was kept as a trade secret. No patent was issued for the algorithm, and algorithms are not subject to copyright or trademark. All businessmen know the risks of a trade secret: once it's public, people are no longer beholden to you for the secret.
Under the DMCA, a microfiche projector is a "technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title". Since a person *cannot* access a microfiche without a projector, this would seem to be a forgone conclusion. This does not, however, stop me from building and selling a microfiche projector, since a projector has non-limited commercially significant purposes.
Un-ask your question. The CSS decoder of an off-the-shelf player is neither licensed nor unlicensed, the MPAA's claims notwithstanding. The algorithm is a former trade secret that is now public knowledge (although the particular machine code or circuit implementing it is probably copyrighted by the manufacturer).
Read the letter of the DMCA. It says a decoder is contraband if any of the following are true:
My argument is that DeCSS has commercially significant use, both by what people would be willing to pay for equivalent decoders, and by encouragment of the disk market. Furthermore, the access provided by DeCSS is not infringing, because the MPAA *wants* you to watch the DVDs you bought from them.
That only leaves the first and third provisions, which are purely a matter of intent and advertising. As long as you intend for DeCSS to be used for law abiding purposes, and you clearly advertise it for those purposes, you're safe. 2600 may have trouble with the advertising bit -- anyone with a regular "Pay Phones of the World" section cannot have entirely pure intentions. ;-)
-- ;-)
Kuro5hin.org: where the good times never end.
I live in Canada, and thus am outside the scope of DMCA and the judge's ruling. Would it be helpful if I developed a Linux utility that undoes CSS?
Not that it should matter, but I use LinuxPPC, so the two commercial LinuxDVD players underdevelopment won't work on my system (since I'm assuming they'll be x86 binary-only). This gives me a very good and reasonable motivation to create such a tool.
Imagine not being able to make an MP3 from your CD's...
Imagine not being able to make a ZIP from your books... would you miss anything?
Okay, that was probably out of line, and I do agree with the point about mixing a tape. But on the industry side of things, I can also understand the reason, or at least a reason, for the ever-increasing protections on content: Piracy.
Whether you think information should be free (as in either speech or beer) or not, the fact that the Internet, and BBS's before them, have radically increased the ease with which information can be copied and published. Book publishers didn't need to copy-protect their books because no one else could copy them without a printing press. Cassette tapes could be copied, but if you tried to distribute copies on a wide scale they could catch you easily. But with the advent of the Internet and MP3, CDs have become an easy target for mass copying and distribution.
And, critically, people are doing it. Witness Napster or Gnutella, for example. No matter what the rationale may be, no matter what the effect on sales may be, public distribution of music (or any content) without the creator's permission is against the law. IANAL, but I suspect that if the RIAA wanted to, they could successfully sue each and every person who has offered copyrighted music through Napster (or other means) without permission. Of course, if they did that they might get shunned by the public, which would do even worse things to their bottom line, so what the movie studios (in this case) have chosen to do instead is add barriers to copying and distribution. Notice how they have been careful enough to avoid hindering normal playback in 99.9% of cases, and, according to what I have heard, even copying is possible using analog signals. They're not going after the average consumer, they're going after the pirate.
That said, I am in no way a fan of the DMCA, and I think 2600 has a very valid point in that the circumvention section is overbroad. But at the same time, I can fully understand why big business and Congress members claim it is necessary: The Internet looks for all intents and purposes as though it is trying to establish itself as a law-free zone--particularly when one considers the nonchalance with which users copy files these days. (Could you honestly have expected the judge to believe that just because no particular examples of copying had been found that copying would never occur?) Granted, there are many problems with international communications and differing laws between countries that remain to be solved, but I don't think we're going to be free of either the DMCA and its ilk or overprotective anti-copying schemes until Internet users learn to respect the law again.
As noted, the existence of DiVX did weaken the case substantially. I thought the judge made a significant error with respect to DiVX, though. He said several times that there was significance to the fact that decrypted movies became available on the Internet shortly after DeCSS was created. However, it seems to me that both temporally and causatively a much more likely explanation was due to DiVX becoming widespread, not DeCSS. Not brought up in the trial record was the fact that "transcoding" will lead to a lower quality than compression from the original digital transfer. There is a fair bit of value to having the DVD in its original compression rather than compressed down to 650MB, and much more value having the original film with no compression. That's why many DVD enthusiasts feel strongly about having an anamorphic transfer rather than a letterboxed widescreen transfer. You've lost a lot of resolution already. Getting a 650MB version of a movie is no substitute for having the DVD - as future compression technologies evolve, you won't be able to take advantage of them as you've already had something like a generational loss. Since that was the whole justification for an abomination like the DMCA in the first place, perhaps Congress should reconsider the whole thing.
In this hypothetical language, k stands for the command open, a stands for the keyword file, p stands for run decryption of, l stands for css, a stands for the keyword file, and n stands for the command save.
Similarly, the word "kaplan" will stand for something similar in pseudocode to:
Now if someone wrote a compiler that understood this language... hmmmm...... Would our high and mighty judge's last name become protected from use under DMCA? I'd like to see him pay his bills if he can't sign a check....
But seriously... does someone wanna write a language and an interpreter that makes the use of Sony and Disney and dare I say it... Microsoft (haha) protected as well? The first two because it would be nice to see them swallow their own medicine... the last because you know if they try to mess with Microsoft... well lets just say that that would be one fight that I'd actually buy off of pay per view ;)
Oh... and when that happens, we all know that I'll be in trouble for all these above examples of CSS decryption... oh well... I guess that's what happens when we no longer have free speech.
Does this mean that a copyright holder can put arbitrary restrictions not just on who can view the material but how they can view it?
But later on in the decision the judge says
this seems to say the answer is no, but it contradicts the judges earlier statement that simply decrypting CSS without a license to decrypt it(he didn't say that decrypting CSS is only prohibitted if you don't have a license to the underlying movie) is a violation of the act.If you need both a license to view, and a license to decrypt (the one that comes with the DVD player) that seems to be an arbitrary restriction put on how I can view my DVD.
So if a DVD maker can say that you can only view the DVD on players made by company X, Y, and Z(licensed players) then what stops the a movie studio from releasing the same movie on a VHS and saying that it can only be played on VCR's from Sony(for example?).
Aren't copyrights are granted in exchange for disclosure in the public interest for a limited period? How is encryption disclosure? How is it in the public interest? How is it for a limited period?
If code is not speech then what is this?
Answer this question in an essay of no more than a page in length. Submit for marking to the Slashdot community. Additional points will be granted for each major news source to publish the essay. If the news source in question is owned by the MPAA, you automatically pass.
Oh, and welcome back to high school Mr. Goldstein. ;-)
-RickHunter
Maybe if the judge had actually listened to some of the facts, the reason for its initial platform would be more obvious. The initial program had to be a Windows executable because Linux didn't yet have the support needed and all of the things they were reverse-engineering from were Windows executables.
Three step sequence. Reverse-Engineer, Support, Port. Why couldn't the judge work that out...?
-RickHunter
Say for a moment that a series of Linux Tutorial Videos were produced on DVD and were scrambled to protect the copyleft of the producer. Furthermore these videos were nominally descrambled by LiVid but by 'pure chance' could be unscrambled by an unlicenced player such as Sony's current player.
Would the EFF et. al. consider such a tactic to have the DMCA chucked out on it's arse. I can see the DVDCCA finding themselves in a real catch 22 situation over this one. Win and set a nasty precedent for the DeCSS case, or lose and find many of their licenced players banned from being distributed under the DMCA
It did seem to be referenced in his statement...
"Computer code is not purely expressive any more than the assassination of a political figure is purely a political statement"
Judge Kaplan
Stuart Biegel commented "I'm very troubled by the implications of the analysis in this case, particularly with regard to linking"
Too Right. Try these... (with excerpts for your convenience)
MPAA
"In 1955 he met the man who would have the largest impact on his life, the then Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate, Lyndon B. Johnson. Valenti's agency was in charge of the press during the visit of President Kennedy and Vice President Johnson to Texas. Valenti was in the motorcade in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Within hours of the murder of John F. Kennedy, Valenti was on Air Force One flying back to Washington, the first newly hired special assistant to the new President."
CIA
"President Kennedy's Checklist was published daily for two and a half years, capturing the regular attention of the President and serving his needs. Created out of an almost desperate desire to please a President who had found the Agency wanting, it proved to be the forerunner of the President's Daily Brief, the publication that was to serve all presidents from 1964 to the present.
For reasons undoubtedly growing out of the earlier political rivalry between Kennedy and Johnson, Kennedy's intelligence assistant, Bromley Smith, early in the administration had ordered that "under no circumstances should the Checklist be given to Johnson."
The Transition to President Johnson
The transition to President Johnson was as abrupt for the US Intelligence Community as it was for the rest of the country. In some respects, it was also as uncertain
Saturday morning, 23 November 1963, the day following Kennedy's assassination
The new President's Daily Brief, designed specifically for President Johnson, was delivered to the White House on 1 December 1964. Its fresh appearance obviously appealed to the President. His assistant, Jack Valenti, sent the first issue back to Bundy with word that the President read it, liked it, and wanted it continued."
Jack Valenti
"My greatest achievement? I survived - I'm not joking."
Niether Am I... Check out The List - JFK Assassination Key People
JFK
but I do think there is a need to be completely honest here - DeCSS can be a tool for piracy
Let's be completely honest. A gun can be a tool for crime.
Your argument is about restricting 1st Amendment rights. Mine is about the 2nd Amendment. Courts do not ban guns just because they can be used as a tool for crime. How is DeCSS any different?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
(Note: This stems out of a reply I wrote to another comment; read it for my more detailed view.)
Although you focused largely on the DMCA and the First Amendment in your defense, the issue the plaintiffs seem to be focusing on--and an issue which seemed important to Judge Kaplan as well, from reading his decision--is that of illegal copying. Although no examples of DVD distribution may have yet been found, it is undeniable that similar distribution of music and software (see e.g. Sega taking down ROM sites), at the least, is taking place throughout the Internet, and I honestly can't help but agree with the judge's opinion that "plaintiffs overwhelmingly have established a clear threat of injury by reason of defendants' violation of the statute."
Taking the DMCA to be unconstitutional at least in relevant part, how would you propose to prevent copyrighted works from being illegally distributed over the Internet? What kind of law could protect the interests of both copyright holders and the public and also be reasonably enforceable? Is such a law even possible without a basic change in the structure of the Internet itself?
In the United States, we have a judicial wing which handles all cases that revolve around taxation, which runs parallel to the standard criminal justice system. Presumably, this separation was deemed necessary once the tax law became sufficiently complicated as to require specialized judges and lawyers. Today, these specialized court officers appear quite capable of handling very complicated cases with lots of expert testimony that results in generally reasonable & predictable decisions.
Do you believe that we need a similiar judicial wing to handle the increasingly complicated and specialized cases brought on by new technology?
Here's some links to read before you post your questions:
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.
So, this is probably a work-around. Well, that wouldn't matter if it's illegal bits'n'bytes.
:)
Not neccessarily. Crypto export was only prohibited for machine readable code. The books weren't considered to be machine readable (though of course they were with OCR software). In this case (thanks to that modern marvel the DMCA), any kind of possesion or transfer may well be illegal (those as IANAL, I'm not sure).
Ah, well, there's always good 'ol civil disobedience.
Yes, DIVX failed because of market forces. That's why they wrote a handy law that made sure the next time, market forces would be irrelvant - because the next e-book standard, the online movie/music distribution standard, could very well be DIVX in nature - and the next time they might not make the mistake of making a DVD like standard. What do you do when e-books by all the major publishers require certain devices to read and make sure you have limited readings.
Yes, you and I know DIVX was a stupid idea and bound to fail. But that's why I think of it as the PERFECT example, because it's the most nightmarish solution possible for future digital formats and it could have the force of law instead of the consumer behind it! Sure such badly put together schemes would fail in the end, but why should you and I endure the years of misery it would take for companies to come up with a resonable standard for these things? To get back to the main point, that's exactly why you should care NOW about the result of this case because it could throw us for a ten-year loop where they try and pawn of BIVX for books.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Is it illegal to say the code verbally?
Is it illegal to give a detailed explanation of how the code works?
Suppose, as a joke, I put a copy of the code on the back of our family's Xmas letter. Is that illegal?
According to this ruling, that is.
The Slashdot home page mentions that Martin Garbus "has been before the Supreme Court /19/ times"
How many of those cases have you won?
Yes, DIVX failed because of market forces. That's why they wrote a handy law that made sure the next time, market forces would be irrelvant - because the next e-book standard, the online movie/music distribution standard, could very well be DIVX in nature - and the next time they might not make the mistake of making a DVD like standard. What do you do when e-books by all the major publishers require certain devices to read and make sure you have limited readings.
I'm afraid I don't understand how DMCA (I assume that's what law you're referring to) causes market forces to be irrelevant. DIVX failed because consumers didn't buy it. I fail to see how making it illegal to decrypt the disc will make consumers more likely to buy into a new restrictive format. It may have the force of law against decrypting it, but no law can force consumers to buy it, and they have showed that they won't buy extremely restrictive schemes.
According to this CNN article:
r net.vote/index.html
..."recent Supreme Court decisions... [have equated] ...money with free speech, including one in the 1970s that sanctioned the use of soft money in political campaigns."
http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/08/18/inte
Compare the expressive possibilities of code in all its dialects, permutations and presentations - now contrast that with handing someone a dollar.
It's completely illogical that the latter would be covered by the 1st and the former not.
Has this been considered?
This is so frustrating! I mean, my god, they're LANGUAGES!!!!
I am a Goddamn Cosmic Miracle!
Is it illegal to wear it now?
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
I think the 18 second figure is the time it takes to crack a player key and unencrypt the session key (an effective encryption level of 26bits). Not crack the session key itself (40bit). Brute forcing a 40bit key should take a few days, with a regular PC
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
I followed the trial closely, it seemed to me that the judge was fairly well versed in the technological aspects of this case. In many cases Judge Kaplan seemed to know as much or more about the technical aspects of the case then the lawers.
Did your team have any trouble getting prepared for the technical parts of this trial, since even the langauge used was in many cases more technical then the average person would be comfortable with?
Before the appeal will your team focus on getting a better understanding of the technology involved, since this might give you a little edge over the attorneys on the other side?
Environmentalists are their own worst enemy. ~tricklenews.com
What effect does today's verdict (in combination with this obvious trend) have on freedom of speech given that in a few years, it may be possible to implement DeCSS in pure English? Will rulings such as Judge Kaplan's (if upheld) be used as precedent to quell real speech in the future? If such English-like computer languages become possible, will it be illegal for me to even have a conversation on a BBS or newsgroup about how DeCSS works at some point in time, since that discussion may be directly translatable into a program which decodes DVDs?
If computer source code does not qualify for First Amendment protection due to its inherent "functional" qualities, how can computer source and object code justifiably be protected by copyright?
The DMCA anti-trafficking provision may be upheld in the United States, but how do you think it will affect those who actively mirror and "traffic" in DeCSS in other countries? Will this not just hurt organizations in the U.S. as does ITAR if-you-publish-crypto-you're-an-arms-dealer regulations?
My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!
Do you think that 2600, as well as the defendants in the California case, are in danger of further prosecution. Specifically, Do you think monetary damages be sought?
How much is the DeCSS fight costing EFF?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Before you flame me: I ask this not with animosity, but because it is a concern I think could be brought up by "outsiders" (i.e. non-geeks)--
Why should source code be considered free speech and protected as such? Wouldn't this argument, if upheld, make us powerless to prosecute those who author and deliberately spread malicious code such as viruses? If DeCSS deserves diferrent protections than a virus, what criteria would you use to make such a distinction?
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
Fair use is not protected in the constitution;
Fair use is protected by the constitution. Without fair use, copyright would not be constitutional, and thus could not exist at all.
Which DVD was used first to try out whether DeCSS works?
A monkey is doing the real work for me.
I'm truly curious if the legal experts, of which I am not one, feel that 2600 being the "instigator" of this legal test of the DMCA had any effect on the outcome of the case? Do you believe that if the Wall Street Journal had published this would the judge have thought differently?
In your opinions, were you successful at getting your points across to the court? Where were the shortcommings? And finally, what points were you able to get across to the american public that you felt were important?
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
From the finding:
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.
At what point did Judge Kaplan determine this to be the case?
Did the plaintiff make this claim?
Do you feel this ruling will have any residual effects on the Open Source Community?
Do you think the Napster case hurt (or helped) your defense?
Browser? I barely know her!
Imagine, if you will, that the book publishing industry decides on a standard which allows for limited readings of a purchased text, which cannot be transferred to another person, without that person paying the publisher again, and reports your reading habits to the publisher. (ie: DIVX for books or 'BIVX'). Imagine that when this happens there is no less-hassle alternative on the market because all of the publishers agreed on this one.
This is why we have anti-trust laws. Unless the entire publishing industry colludes, the non-colluders will make a killing by selling unrestricted books while their competitors sell BIVX books. If the entire industry colludes, they are probably guilty of an anti-trust violation.
The way I look at source code and the deCSS issue is this:
There have been books written on how to make explosives... some of these instructions have even been put on the net. There are books and websites that describe in detail how to cultivate your own marijuana.
Source code is nothing but an idea - a list of instructions telling you this deCSS program should be built. You can look at... you can realize what it does... Like I said before, you can read instructions on the net for anything... get the recipe for anything from pecan pie to dynamite. This is called free speech and freedom to know.
making a small explosive from instructions I found on the net would be analagous to compiling the deCSS code I just read into a binary executable. Now, I have the explosive/executable binary. What I do from that point determines the legality of my actions.
I can use the explosive to unroot some nasty treestumps so I can pave a little concrete sidewalk on my farm or I can blow up my neighbors tractor. I certainly have the right to "fairly use" this exposive for productive means. I can use the deCSS executable to watch movies in linux or I can rip a movie and copy it on cd for all my friends. I bought my DVD legally and I believe I should be able to watch DVD movies in linux. Unless of course the MPAA wants us to use windows only players - hmmm, maybe the MPAA should be brought to trial for contributory acts/aiding and abetting Microsoft to maintain an anti-competative position. Seems a bit far stretched but hell, who knows really.
Conclusion - The code, while not in English, is in the C language - a language understood by those fluent in C. While not a human language, it is a language which communicates an idea and a list of instructions for accomplishing that idea. This case will have to go to a higher court which bases their decisions strictly on the basis of constitutionality. This case will set a very important precedent in the law books. This is why this case is so important to the geeks and to the general population.
Where do you go from here?
Will you appeal?
What is your favorite color?
Face it Micheal, this is what the American public wants to know. (disclaimer: I'm Dutch)
I have heard that there may be 3 or 4 Supreme Court Justices that will retire in the next 1-2 years.
Which Presidential hopefull(Bush or Gore), do you feel, will appoint Supreme Court Justices who are more likely to rule in your favor?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Would this ruling also ban all expressions of URL's that weren't hyperlinked? For example, some websites I visit don't include links (due to things like Geocities restrictions) - but they'll type the plaintext of the address in for someone to cut and paste. It's not a hyperlink, but is info to a location that could be used to get DeCSS. Could this be the next alternative to a mirror list of hyperlinks?
----------
ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
Considering submachine guns are tools to kill somebody and break the law, and DeCSS is a tool to break copyright thus breaking the law, why is it that the U.S. law is so adimant about protecting the right to bear arms, but not so adimant about the right to bear code?
So, if we can demonstrate that it is feasible to electronically distribute (and thereby 'pirate') DVD movies without DeCSS, would that help this case?
I'll assume now that it does :-). Leaves the question how. I see two ways:
Now should we start coding or do you feel this won't it help the defence at all? (After all the judge apparently fails to see the primary purpose for DeCSS too).
From the online reporst and the judge's summation, it seems you've based your defense on the issue of computer code as free speech? Why hasn't more of an issue been made on the overly restrictive DMCA and and the MPAA's disdain for citizens' rights of fair use?
"Anyone that has ever gotten an idea based on any of my work and done something better with it-good for you."--J.Carmack
I know this was mentioned earlier.. so maybe someone will answer this will it's a thread.. how exactly did the US become the country where this was to be tried? One of the guys was from NE europe (the 16 yr old if I'm not mistaken..) another from Germany.... and yet they're getting tried in NY? Why exactly is the U.S. policing this?
----------------------------
--Loco3KGT
--http://www.creepingdeath.com
Blessed be he who reads this post, Cursed be he who tells my boss.
People here need to realize that you can't copy DVDs bit-for-bit. If you want to prove me wrong, write a program that does it.
Actually, you can copy DVDs bit for bit, just not with the commonly available consumer players in most computers. A number of early models of DVD-ROM burners supported that feature, and although the newer models have specificly had this feature disabled, one cannot get around the fact that the DVD Forum did license those earlier players. In fact, it is entirely plausible that the reason they demanded this change was specifically to affect the outcome of this trial (the timing was just a little too coincidental) - they certainly didn't have a problem with it prior to that.
In addition there are numerous custom hardware implimentations being used by large publishing outfits in Asia for wholesale copyright violation.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The judge's ruling made much of the instantaneous access provided by a link: just point and click, and you're there. Providing a link is thus in some sense a participatory enabling action on the part of the publisher, not just a posting of information. In contrast, a published URL not actively linked is simply dead text information. Using it requires a copy-and-paste, which takes a little longer. But the judge in no way implied that he would enjoin publishing URLs. He knows that he cannot forbid such publication under the first amendment, DMCA or no. Indeed, he seems to know that the motion picture industry and the congress are fighting a lost cause. As he notes on page 64 of his ruling, "Given the virtually instantaneous and worldwide dissemination widely available via the Internet, the only rational assumption is that once a computer program capable bypassing such an access control system is disseminated, it will be used." Bye-bye, copyright.
What is your recommendation, both as a legal team and as a team for deCSS, for those of us who have linked to or have deCSS source and/or binaries on our web sites? Should we take it down to avoid legal troubles, keep it up, or spread it around as far as possible, to keep the MPAA from being capable of stomping it out?
--
Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
Kaplan said:
If I understand this, Kaplan's interpretation is that DVD CCA can grant authority to circumvent because of its agreements with MPAA (the copyright owners), and DVD CCA gives that authority to licensed DVD player manufacturers, who in turn grant that authority to consumers in the form of licensed DVD players. Apparently Kaplan neglected the fact that the CSS algorithm is unpatented and now widely known (partly thanks to your client), and that therefore anyone can create a CSS-scrambled work, even non-MPAA members. Therefore, DVD CCA might no longer grant circumvention authority on behalf of all CSS-protected copyrighted work, so even Sony's licensed players may be no more authorized to circumvent than DeCSS is, if Kaplan interprets authorization that way. He has basically made the mistake of equating the algorithm designer with the copyright owners.
My question is: Mr. Garbus, why didn't you call this to Kaplan's attention? Has the defense, up to now, proceded from the assumption that only the MPAA members can create CSS-protected DVDs?
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
(Mods: It's a joke - remember that someone wrote a DeCSS to remove stylesheets but really it was just to confuse the legal people looking for DeCSS download sites)
-- Football Unlimited - The worlds biggest football site
From following the DeCSS case, it appears that the CSS system was designed to control usage of the material, rather than to protect copyrights. That is, CSS controls how users access the material (e.g., via the Region Code), rather than simply allowing/denying the access. This violates the first sale doctrine, and I would think eliminates any relief the plaintiffs would be entitled to under the DMCA.
Does this reasoning hold up? And would it be profitable to argue in court? If not, why not?
To quote:
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.
What did you do to give him this idea? Or rather, what could you have done to educate him otherwise? (Or was it a hopeless case of previou$ly held bia$?)
Less radically, they have raised a legitimate concern about the possible impact on traditional fair use of access control measures in the digital era.
Possible impact? What sorts of research did you do (or could you have done) to help show that there is already a huge impact and that the laws as they are just won't jive with today's tech?
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
is this judge as big a corporatist asshole as he sounds?
/* no comment */
My major concern in all of this is the stretching of this analogy. I will try to give a couple of examples to illustrate this.
:). But these files and streams can be represented very easily (one to one) by numbers, this is the whole concept of digital. One of the side projects I am working on (so far unsuccessfully) is making direct use of the fact that files can be represented by numbers, and putting them into a very basic standard mathematical context. The idea is really super simple. Suppose I take a few Metallica mp3's and tar them up. I have a file that can be represented by a really big number. It's a file full of material that is currently protected by copyrights. Lets call this file ajfa.tar ( and justice for all ;). My idea is this --
h -2.4.0-test6.tar.bz2)+w | x,y,z,w are small enough to be "human readable"
Example one-
Suppose while I walk down the street or in the mall, I say that the combination to the safe at the local burger baron is 1-2-3. Then I tell other people it's 4-5-6, and so on. Also suppose I have no way of knowing the validity of what I'm saying, and I haven't been entrusted to the combo of the safe at the burger baron. Further suppose that somebody is crazy enough to believe me, break into the place, and actually open the safe with one of the combos I spoke. Did I commit a crime? Furthermore, did I incite disruptive behavior that would deny me protection under the first amemdment? (While this example seems to have no bearing on reality, it is somewhat analogous to the DeCSS case)
Example two-
This example is a little more relevant to what's going on today. Bear in mind what digital means. Files and streams are not numbers physically, they are pulses and aranngements of electrons (or something, please don't laugh at my lack of physics
ajfa.tar = x*(linux-2.2.16.tar)+y*(ppp-2.4.0.tar.gz)+z*(patc
Now as we know the three component files are also protected by copyrights, but they are freely
distributable, while ajfa.tar is not. I understand that the equation itself doesn't break copyright laws, and I also understand that evaluating the equation would leave me with a pattern of bits that I don't have permission to own. My real concern is if by spreading this equation around, am I enciting disruptive behaviour that also denys my protection under the first amendment?
While the second example might not seem to bear directly on this case, I have a feeling that this very problem will present itself at a later date. Digital information is really a two edged sword, as it allows copyrighted material to existed in a form that cannot be copyrighted. The US government states that you cannot copyright a number -- http://www.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ1.html#wnp
-- Works consisting entirely of information that is common property and containing no original
authorship (for example: standard calendars, height and weight charts, tape measures and rulers, and lists or tables taken from public documents or other common sources) --
I consider a number to be common property containing no original authorship (except maybe by God). Suppose that the decimal representation of ajfa.tar can be found somewhere in the decimal expansion of pi. Is ajfa.tar copyrighted, or is it common property?
I have a feeling that even if the DMCA is banished from the books, the "fire in a theater" may come
back in weird ways to haunt people. I'm sorry if what I am saying is hard to understand, as I can have great difficulty at times expressing myself. I also apologize that this question(s) do(es)n't relate directly to the case at hand, but I just felt a strong urge to write about this. I have been running these thoughts through my head for many months now, and I can't come up with a likely judicial reaction to what I have described. I don't really expect you to respond to this post, although I would really like you to read it and mull the ideas around in your minds for a little while. It might help your perspective on what's going on a little bit. If you have already mulled similiar thoughts before, I apologize for possibly insulting your intelligence and depth of thought. I think that if you were to think about this for a while, you might be in a good position to help someone who might need it, and help bring about new insight on the emergence of new technology and forms of expression, where its implementation is not very well understood.
Thank You for your time and persistence.
Thank You also for your excellent work in this suit.
Joseph Rawson
umeboshi2@yoohoo.com (yoo is ya)
Exactly. "First, you must type an 'h', then next, you should type a 't', and you can wait around for a while before you type another 't', then comes the obligatory 'p', the colon, and two slashes...."
With a slight change, this method worked on my 5 year old brother. Why doesn't Kaplan get it? I don't know...
Q:Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?
A:All my autopsies have been performed on dead peop
Do you think that Judge Kaplan should have recused himself from this trial given the appearance of impropriety since his lawfirm had done work for the plaintiffs? Is there any higher authority to which you can issue a complaint regarding the judge's lack of ethics in refusing to recuse himself? Will you do so?
"There are laws that enslave men, and laws that set them free. " - Sean Connery as King Arthur
This is why we have anti-trust laws.
Anti-trust laws do not prohibit industry collusion in the creation of industry wide standards. In fact, such is generally encouraged.
It is not at all unreasonable to expect DIVX style "standards" to become defacto, or even officially sanctioned by [insert standards body here], particularly if it allows the entire industry to gouge the consumer without signficiant consiquence.
Then there is the reluctance of the government to enforce anti-trust legislation, preferring to wait and hope the market corrects the problem. Whether it is Dubya Bush's pledge to stop the litigation against Microsoft, or Clinton's procrastination of looking into the price fixing by the recording Industry, the result is largely the same: nothing is done until it is often far too late.
The current trend in both copyright law and court rulings is such that the very constitutional purpose for copyright (the creation of a public commons of cultural material) is being destroyed, at the direct behest of the Copyright Cartels and the expense of everyone else, including the artists themselves.
Even more dramatic, it is quite possible that emerging internet technologies such as FreeNet could be destroyed or banned, along with rights we the people are constitutionally entitled to, simply to protect the revinue streams of these large cartels, to which they are not constitutionally entitled.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I believe the best bet for protection of digital media is to provide a better product than a pirate can. At the moment, the MPAA has the technology. I've watched DiVX ;-) movies and I haven't been particularly impressed, especially considering the fact I've laid down the cash to get a dolby digital home theatre system to enjoy the superior audio quality of dvds, and dolby digital isn't available in DiVX ;-) movies. Because of this, I buy dvd movies; however, I'd be interested in Linux dvd software, if for no other reason for novelty value. I also believe that it's important we stand up for our rights; the current trend towards complete corporate control of media frighten me, as it tends to dissolve my rights as a consumer. Restrictive laws, regardless of whether they can be enforced, frighten me, as they dissolve my rights as a citizen. This isn't about piracy; that's the cut and dried explanation that the MPAA would like to use to win the case. It's about the future of the Internet, and the future of our rights as consumers and citizens. If the courts do not rule that the DMCA is unconstitutional, you'll see alot of your freedom disappear immediately. Not only that, but you'll have to face the fact the courts seem uninterested in your rights.
That, my friends and readers, is the most frightening part of all; the courts, which have been the last bastion of the rule of law and citizen's rights have ruled in two cases against the people and for the corporations. They've sold us out because of the way the laws are written and look uninterested in rectifying that situation. If for no other reason than to protect ourselves, we must do something now.
If this message was a troll, boy is my face red.
However, does this also mean Napster can just move all their servers outside USA and continue running like before?
Only if they moved the rest of the corporation outside the USA along with the servers. If they stayed in the USA but set up servers international, they could still get in trouble in the USA if there were an adverse ruling. IANAL.
>why does the court insist on saying DeCSS is used for copying DVDs when that is possible without DeCSS?
Because that's what would make it illegal. Duh.
>How do you intend to prove that DeCSS is used for positive means?
What would that do? It wouldn't make it any less illegal.
Have you ever even looked at the DMCA!?
Do new codecs like DIVX weeken your case? For example, now poeple can turn a 4GB DVD movie into a nicely sized 600MB file. Perfect for the average CD or fast Internet connection download. And quality isn't lost (much).
Corporations like the MPAA (& RIAA) are protecting their profits, not the copyrighted material. The internet takes away their power as distribution becomes easier. They are now able to control the channels that the content is delivered, but for how long. How much money are they going to be worth if artists & filmmakers start distributing their work independently of these corporations?
"I have been around the world and found that only stupid people are breeding" -- Harvey Danger
>I have seen the argument made that code is speech and therefore protected by the first amendment which, apperantly the judge disagreed with.
There's an exception in the first amendment for speech that violates copyright law.
>Isn't there an iherent contradiction between DMCA and previous copyright law? How would/could this be argued in a higher court.
Well, the DMCA does amend the previous position, if that's what you mean. But there's no contradiction.
If you came up to me and said "Bit-for-bit copying of DVDs is and has been available for years", I'd know what you meant, as would most of Slashdot. However, does a judge know what a "bit" is?
Is it a plus or a minus for your cases to be technical? Can you dazzle 'em with bull, or do you have to have a LOT of "experts" up to explain what C or C++ is?
I know that a lot of medical cases are won or lost on the complexity of the issue at hand, but these are generally jury trials. This judgement comes from a judge. Is it a plus or minus to have a technically savvy judge?
Good luck in the next stage -- I wish you all the best, and thank you for your work!
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
On what grounds are you basing this appeal?
You're flat wrong. See many other threads in this very discussion.
The constitution is THE law that federal powers derive from, therefore federal judges must always consider it.
He was lazy or hesitant for some reason. He certainly wasn't doing his job.
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
'nuff said
But what if you had no choice but products that had licences like I outlined (esentially, DIVX)?
Well, DIVX failed miserably through good old market forces, so that probably wasn't the best example to bring up to try to support your point. Heavily encrypted and otherwise encumbered products can always be made available regardless of the eventual constitutionality of the DMCA. It will be consumers' dislike of them that prevent their adoption.
The difficulty is in modern mass media, where the reporters rarely follow up on their reports or correct themselves, (at best, running their transcripts through a spell checker) when they're found at fault...
Example: About 10 years back, one of the news networks in the Bay Area was running a report on some sicko who was shooting stray cats with a bow and arrow... They showed an X-ray of one of the cats, showing a destinct arrowhead, with a blunt tip and springs sticking out of the side... The reporter decided she was suddenly a forensic expert, and an expert on archery to boot, claiming the arrow was "obviously designed so it couldn't be removed"... I'm an archer and bowhunter in the meanwhile, and identified the type of arrow the moment they showed it, known as a "judo point", it's an arrowhead designed for stunning small game, such as rabbits, at a distance... In the case of the cat they showed, it was obvious that whoever shot the arrow was within only a few feet of the cat, which is why it penetrated the skin... Anyway, I contacted the news channel, and informed them of the error, to which I got a "Yeahyeahyeah, we know, thank you. *click*"... Meanwhile, no retraction, no correction, nothing... Some ignoramous on the news was paid to broadcast a lie, whereas someone offering the truth was given a simple brushoff...
Of course, when you're talking mass media that is owned by a major motion picture corporation in part or in whole, then you're talking about something with a definate bias...
Case in point: Every news network has stated the same thing, that "DeCSS enables users to copy DVD's to their HD for viewing"... What they don't mention, is how large it would be, how it's preferred only on non Windows systems (come on, why use DeCSS when there's a plethora of players available for Windows systems?), due to the lack of support those non Windows systems have to play DVD's, etc?
Or one could simply look at the difference between the DeCSS case and Napster in the media... In the case of Napster and mp3's, the majority of the media isn't villifying them quite as much as they did with DeCSS, because they have less vested interests in the music industry... Out of all of the studios, perhaps 2 or 3 of the news producers are actually associated with the music recording industry... As opposed to the movie industry, which pretty much owns every single one of them... The printed news, in the meanwhile, is the most comprehensive (despite obvious technical inadequacies) source for unbiased information regarding the case...
As for providing it's importance in a manner that John and Jane Q Public can comprehend, use two analogies, one being the printing press (ie: A book publisher who wants to prevent you from reading anything, unless it's printed on a press they approve of), the other the gun (the US wants to take away your guns because you're using them for wall decorations and not killing anything with them like you should)... Those usually get both sides a little more enlightenment...
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
The fact that you can already make a bit-for-bit copy doesn't make DeCSS any more or less legal.
What do you think of Judge Kaplan's characterization of the defendants as "adherents of a movement that believes that information should be available without charge to anyone clever enough to break into the computer systems or data storage media in which it is located."
I'm assuming that you'd take issue with that view of the defense's arguments.
In hindsight, do you see any errors in judgement on the defense that might have caused this (in my opinion) wildly off-base view of the defense?
Going forward, what impact will this characterization have on the appeals process? By my reading (and many others'), the DMCA specifically allows DeCSS by virtue of the interoperability clause. Is there any hope of the case returning to this focus, or has it wandered irretrievably into the socio-political arena?
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
It hasn't become more expensive to produce movies. It has become more expensive to produce movies which stand out, which look expensive. It has gotten cheaper to produce movies.
For this field, I'm not sure that pure capitalism works. Pure capitalism requires that monopolies don't tend to form.
I can imagine not-so-capitalistic approaches which might work. But I never hear of record companies funding starving artist dormitories for local artists.
If such monopolistic abuses are legal, is their occurance the fault of the companies, or of the laws? If money determines the outcome of elections, is that the fault of the politicians, or of the electorate? If consumers tend to buy the same movies that everybody else does - just because everybody else does - who's fault is the resulting monopoly?
By "Congress has resolved this clash [...]", I assume he means that this issue is addressed in the legislative history.
Anyway, the first amendment has specific exceptions relating to copyright law that probably take out any first amendment challenges.
Did you have something else in mind?
If by blame, you mean not only for killing some people, but also for stealing a gun, then you'd probably be right. =)
What I'm wondering is this: the MPAA is an American-only institute (as far as I know, correct me if I'm wrong)
So, does the judges decision matter at all outside the USA? Is it also illegal to distribute DeCSS in Europa (or wherever as long as it's outside the US?)
Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
All software is is a list of instructions. It describes how to perform a specific task, humans can read that software and perform the task, however in most cases computers can perform the task faster.
Whilst I have never looked at the decss source code, I am 99% sure that given a print out of it, a print out of a CSS'd dvd, and a very long time I could unencrypt that dvd.
Possibly the best solution for 2600 is to describe the algoritm and how one would write a program to decrypt it. That way they dont link to the decss source code yet anyone who would actually be talented enough to use it can code their own version.
I also fail to see what the mpaa actually intend to prove through this case. True they can prove that people on this planet have increasingly less rights (since this affects everyone really what with global capitalism) but their actions (and the riaa's too) will merely push what they are trying to control even harder, drawing more attention to it.
What i would like to know however is what the international ramifications of this case are. As far as I know i would be doing nothing wrong if i put my decss source code on my uk based website. Surely i'm outwith the jurisdiction of such american organisations, or am i?
>A DVD may be copied without decrypting it.
So what? This doesn't make decrypting it any more or less legal.
>However, it must be decrypted in order to be played.
Yes.
>Therefore, the purpose of cracking the encryption scheme was to facilitate playing, not copying
This doesn't really matter. As you say, playing is still decrypting, and unauthorized decrypting is still illegal, even if you're just playing the output.
Did you even skim the DMCA?
In the end, the Internet is a "law-free" zone.
Which is exactly the point I'm trying to make. The Internet as it exists now is "law-free", and if you think Congress (or its equivalent in other countries) will let it stay that way--even if that way is best--I think you may be setting yourself up for a big disappointment. Remember that Congress's sole purpose for existence is to pass laws; I find it extremely unlikely that they will meekly admit that the Internet has rendered them obsolete. If people do not obey ordinary laws when using computers or the Internet, Congress will come up with new, stricter ones, like the DMCA.
Now, I do agree that having companies release materials of better quality than pirated files would be the most effective way to stop pirating of that data. However, that doesn't solve the basic problem; as I stated in my earlier comment, the problem is that people don't see anything wrong with piracy; witness the Napster/Gnutella crowd, among others. And while I think the copyright law could use a bunch of fixes--restoring the original 14-year copyright period, for one--I don't think eliminating copyright is the solution, especially given the greediness of corporate America.
That is also, by the way, (probably) why the courts are siding with the companies; for better or for worse, the companies have the law on their side. And while a number of good questions on the DMCA were raised in the DeCSS case (which I am expecting will get better consideration on appeal), I personally think Napster deserves to lose--they started it for the purpose of piracy, for crying out loud.
IMHO.
Techies do all sorts of things that _we_ understand to be consumer protection. The thing that I find odd is that no techie groups ever say loudly the words "consumer protection".
Organizations such as Consumer Reports and persons like Ralph Nader have made their successes by breaking other people's products. This is a valid and perfectly acceptible thing to do in our society. I say that cracking CSS is the same thing.
Saying that one "reverse engineered an algorithm" or that one "found a vulnerability" doesn't mean anything to anyone but techies. I don't care how smug and smart nerds think they are (self included) the courtroom audience are not techies.
I am saying that a spin problem is causing hacker/crackers a legal problem.
What if organizations such as 2600 said this?
"We provide consumer protection in our expert laboratories in much the same way that Consumer Reports tests fire retardant baby clothing. We burn the baby clothing in our labs. If a product fails we will inform the consumer. We provide proof based on science." (One should still be held accountable for lible if there science can't back up their claims.)
Is there anything illegal about reporting of consumer protection information? I doubt it. Are the techies loosing credibility in courts due to a failure to communicate to an audience that understands and accepts "consumer protection" but doesn't understand "reverse engineering an algorithm?"
Would Americans retain any power anymore to decrypt, reverse engineer, or otherwise pry into the workings of future technological applications? Considering that most everything will be encrypted in the future, from our toasters to our cars, the implications here seem to be complete control of capitalism by corporations.
www.eissq.com/BandP.html Ball and Plate System. Amuse your friends. Crush your enemies.
I am computer programmer full time and go to law school part time. In your opinion what is the best way for law students or attorneys to help with legal issues that effect the open source world?
http://www.windmeadow.com/
This isn't flamebait -- it's a honest question. Why should I, John Q. Public, care about this case? What's in it for me? What would I lose if the MPAA were to ultimately win? What would I gain from a 2600 victory? In other words, please explain why this case should matter to the average American citizen.
Do you think that 2600.com's continued practice of posting URL's where DeCSS can be found, without making them hyperlinks, is in violation of the permenent injunction? It seems to me that even just posting a URL in plain text could be construed as trafficing?
I am in the US with a US webpage. At this point, it's obvious that I cannot link or publish DeCSS. My question is, how will this apply to international pages published by US residents. For example, can I put up a web page using some service in, say, Germany and still be held liable in the U.S. when the offending material and content is outside the United States?
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ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
So, if I buy a DVD player, I have the right to use that key. Does it mean I have to use it on that DVD player, or can I use it elsewhere, like, say, in a piece of software that rips DVDs to my hard disk drive?
So, one could say that by bundling DeCSS with a licensed software DVD player (the nice folks at Xing could perhaps oblige), it suddenly becomes legal...?
If it is necessary to break the DMCA in order to allow me to "fairly use" a DVD, which is worse (legally)? The fact that I broke the DMCA, or the fact that I can no longer "fairly use" a DVD that I validly purchased?
More powerful, more expensive computer systems are known as servers
I know my freeBSD server is cheaper than my M$ box.
If the Judge had gotten these basic premises correct, would things have turned out differently.
And why did the Judge feel the need to say Eric Corley's handle was from 1984 and was the leader of an underground movement.
I have only read some of the judgement but it seems that the judge was wholly against the idae of hacking and thus didn;t like the defendant. I don't think people in Europe (where I am) would stand for this.
I thought I learned that there are severe punishments for doing that.
Unless you can get all of your friends, coworkers, and underlings to tell everyone that it was "all about sex" and then you'll get off scott free.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Please don't take this as an attack on anyone's competence or intelligence, but I would imagine that, as lawyers, there are probably technical parts of this case that are beyond your scope of understanding. Heck, I work with computers for a living, and my eyes start glazing over reading descriptions of source code and reverse engineering techniques. My question is, How do you handle cases (not just this one) that deal with material beyond your field of expertise? Do you find it difficult to rely so heavily on "experts" when creating your defense? Do you ever find yourself thinking, "Is this really the way we should approach this?"
this statement in the judge's ruling surprised me:
<i>Defendants, on the other hand, are adherents of a movement that believes that information should be available without charge to anyone clever enough to break into the computer systems or data storage media in which it is located.</i>
<BR><BR>
was this ever a part of the argument of either side? i can see how it would be beneficial to the MPAA to try and argue this interpretation of the case, but it would seem to be a very difficult claim to support. how could the judge make such a wildly inaccurate statement regarding the purpose and significance of this case?
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
And it's true. Eric Corley/Emmanuel Goldstein does have those beliefs, or something recognisably like them. It would be extremely hard to read a few issues of 2600 (named after a method of stealing telephone services), and not come away with an impression something like the judge's. Goldstein thinks he has a set of rights which, in the opinion of the judge, he does not have.
And you've been covering free speech issues long enough to know a bit about the ambiguous status of instructions for breaking into computers when it comes to "freedom of the press". In so far as the "unpopular opinions" expressed in 2600 magazine are expression, they are protected. But articles like "Fun at Costco" aren't really opinions -- they're more like instruction manuals. "Freedom of the press" doesn't mean that 2600's past can't be taken as persuasive when considering their current motives (which Garbus portrayed as ludicrously pure-as-the-driven-snow)
Given that motive is an important part in the construction of the offence under the DMCA, the affiliation and past publications of the defendants are clearly relevant. Your two statements about "freedoms" are wrong both as general assertions and in application to this case.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
In the ruling, the judge stated:
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.
Is the judge's "hacker-esque" view of your clients what was intended? How did the judge come to percieve your client in this manner??
-- "Almost everyone is an idiot. If you think I'm exaggerating, then you're one of them."
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Yes, I understand this. What I am saying is WHY? What do the companies have to gain?
It's simple, by doing so, they are able to make more money.
(The folowing explanation repeats some points already made, just thought you should know...)
To use one of the more common examples:
North American movies in Europe are usually released later than movies in North America. Now this means that by the time that (or even before) the movie hits theatres in Europe it may already be out on DVD.
One of the things that the MPAA doesn't want is for someone in Europe to buy the movie from N. America and view it/show it to their friends before it has come out on DVD in Europe, as by doing so, they have lost revenue generated by ticket sales, revenue which would help pay for the advertisements that are still showing for the movie. Previously with the incompatible formats for video cassettes this wasn't a problem.
Another thing this allows is for a form of price fixing, in N. America, the economy is able to support a higher price for such goods than other parts of the world. Say country X isn't a very rich country, therefore the citizens pay less for their DVD's than residents of the US, Canada, the UK, etc.
Now, if I set up a business which purchased the movies from country X and then sold them much cheaper to residents of other countries, the MPAA members would (theoretically) not be able to charge as much for the DVD's they sell to retailers in those countries. Now the strange thing is, technically this should be possible with CD's (I personally don't know of any incompatabilities, having ordered (more expensive) imports plenty of times, anyone know if they exist?) yet it doesn't seem to have happened.
(What follows is a personal opinion, and as such may be ignored by anyone looking just for the reasoning behind regional encryption)
Now, being a bit of a movie buff, let's say I had an extensive collection of DVD's (I don't as long as the regional encoding remains, I won't) At some point I get a job offer in Europe and move over there, I now have to either A) order all my movies from N. America to play them on my DVD player, or B) have to buy a seperate DVD player (which would be liscenced, which means money goes to the MPAA's European equivalent) So, there's my first problem, the next thing is, let's say my original DVD player breaks down, I now have a large number of DVD's which, it must be noted, I legaly purchased, and as such legally own. I have two choices I can: A) replace them all with the European equivalent or B) order a new player from N. America (and expect to pay a whole lot extra than buying a local one)
I personally would like to make a MPAA member take the stand and say that (under oath) that this point never once came up while the regional encoding was being discussed.
For more information on regional encoding and DVD's in general, check OpenDVD
-GreeHell
"I won't mod you down - I feel the need to call you a twit explicitly, rather than by implication."
Having read all the transcripts (and you guys did a great job BTW) I feel that somewhere along the line that the point of this case has gone adrift.
I maybe wrong but wasn't the case to determine if the posting and linking of DeCSS was a crime, rather than anything to do with the program itself? If this is the case then the argument should have gone along these lines (forgive my over simplistic view).
Fred makes shovels (Jon), Mark distributes Fred's shovels (2600). If Paul (DVD Pirate) goes and beats someone to death with a shovel he got through Mark (and then probably uses it to bury the body as well)
Does this mean that:
a. Mark should be convicted for selling a potentially offensive weapon
b. Fred should be convicted for making a potentially offensive weapon
c. Paul should be be convicted for murdering someone, but given credit (or possibly punished further) for original thinking from a weapon point of view
Now if this is the case (I'm from the UK so bear with me) this seems a bit of a no-brainer, but the bottom line is the MPAA can't be bothered to chase the actual pirates (as their ace pirate buster proved on the stand - and don't even get me started on Jacks testimony). Shouldn't the MPAA be thrown out and told to "Come back when you actually have a case".
In actuality the outcome in the US won't matter. The MPAA still managed to frighten my ISP into submission when I mirrored the code with just an email.
Keep up the fight.
Just my £1 worth (about $1.75 I think)
....but all they found there was a man who repeatedly said that nothing was true, but was later found to be lying.
It seems that most judges have a history of political science or other liberal arts oriented educations, and of course a stellar legal career. Do you think the court system is flawed by having such individuals make rulings on computer-related cases such as this?
Should we (United States) consider amending the current legal system, instead of just amending the current laws, in our attempt to prepare for the future?
Source code is a lot like a parachute; it needs to be open in order to function properly.
As someone who has been a practicing First Amendment lawyer for a very long time (22 years), though not as long as you (this is directed to Martin Garbus), I was, at first, highly skeptical of the idea that a group of mostly programmers could make any meaningful contribution to an actual court case.
But as time went on, the discussions became more focused, my view on that, borne of my own traditional way of doing legal briefs, came to change considerably. I saw arguments being developed (and trashed, where appropriate) that likely would not have happened but for the massive input into that list. Your colleague Ed Hernstadt posted there occasionally, my understanding is that your team was getting good information from there, and even one of your expert witnesses (Ole Craig) seems to have come to your attention as a result of his contributions to that list.
So my question, primarily for Martin, is how much did you really gain from that list? Was the Openlaw/DVD forum really of meaningful help to your efforts, or, at least in the context of providing specific help to the trial lawyers, was it a waste of time for those who participated?
I know, of course, that Kaplan ruled against the defense today, but I'm really looking at the broader implications of something like that forum. Do you see it as something which, in the appropriate circumstances, can have real value to a case?
He IS part of the judicial branch. Didn't you mean that Kaplan had failed in his responsibility to "Check" the legislative branch (the one that passed DMCA in the first place)?
Eric
"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."
There is a large Medical following that is presently hacking a program called the DNA molecule. Their intent is to Reverse Engineer the molecule, or parts of it, to improve its operation and function. The UK has passed a law allowing the duplication and execution of the program leading to a clone of the human species. The structure of this molecule speaks so loudly that from time to time it condems men to die. The DNA language speaks so strongly that the U.S. Courts will accept its evidence, more so, than a passing witness. Is this not protected speech? If not, I hereby declare a copyright on the human genome and all its variations. By right of the DMCA, all research into decrypting or breaking the DNA code shall stop immediately. The U.S. government is in violation of the DMCA by declaring the DNA to be open source. There shall be no duplication or Reverse Engineering without the consent of the owner and a proper license. The attorney general shall advise the UK that they are in violation of the DMCA.
Stopit!Stopit!Stopit!
How does it feel to be taking on, more or less, 'The Man'? The DVDCCA has enormous resources at it's disposal, and while this may not be the first case you've tackled where you're facing off vs. Big Business, this has to be in the top 5 high profile cases of the year. Defending a group of media-appointed 'hackers' doesn't really seem like it would endear you to the judge. Moreover, how does it feel to be arguing a highly technical point in front of a judge who doesn't seem to have, need, or want a grasp on the real nitty gritty technical stuff?
It seems kinda like the Scopes monkey trial, with you the in place of Darrow, arguing points of law or logic to a judge who's already inclined to side with the plaintiff.
Og took my stick! Why he do that? That was mean! That's bad! That's kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? C'mon. Ever had something stolen from you? It sucked, right?
Basically, you've presented a good argument showing that licenced commerical DVD players are a commerically signifigant segment. You also suggest that there is a large market for DVDs themselves. Putting two and two together, I'd then assume there is a "black" market for obtaining DVD content without compensating the owner.
Enter DeCSS. What does it do? At the most basic level, it circumvents CSS protection and allows the disc to be read. What's done with data read that way? It's copied. Into memory. On the most basic level, DeCSS copies protected data by circumventing a protection device. What's done with that data is anyone's guess, does it get used to display content, and then get flushed? Does it get copied to a file and passed around those with giga-bit connections? Who knows - DeCSS does one thing: It circumvents a protection mechanism. That's all it does.
Moving back to your argument. What does it say? It says that there is a large market for authorized DVD players. Well, if there were a small market, or people weren't willing to pay $200 to get a decent DVD player, I'd be more willing to agree that DeCSS was fair use. But according to your facts, DeCSS is just a method to cause commerical harm to people selling DVD players and DVD content!
I think that your argument is fairly good at disproving the idea that DeCSS is for "watching DVDs on your operating system of choice." It suggests that people are willing to obtain licenced DVD players. Kinda puts DeCSS on shakey ground - if it's needed for playing DVDs, why not use one of the preexisting DVD players? Seems to me to suggest that DeCSS is not meeting an ignored market.
Honestly, how many of you own DVDs? How many of you watch your DVDs on licenced players? Why are people still complaining about no Linux player? The only possible argument is fair use, which your "facts" do nothing to help. Fair use is the real question, and that's what the appeal will focus on. Fair use is not protected in the constitution; I wouldn't expect a rosey outcome for DeCSS.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
And do said boxers or briefs have the DeCSS code printed on them?
If so, where can I get a pair?
- Joe
-Joe
Since it seemed obvious from the outset that this Judge is as cluefull about electrical devices as, say a strict traditional Amish man (no offence to any of that faith reading this), how do you propose to convince the appeals court that *we* should be able to: use our choice of decoder, running in our choice of legally obtained operating system, running on our choice of legally obtained computer, with our choice of legally obtained playing device, playing our legally obtained DVD? It seems that is the issue here, not the political motivation of Emmanuel, or anybody else for that matter.
;-)
If the question looks long to you it is because, to me, it looks like legal stuff I have had to read in the past
Visit DC2600
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Well said, but I think more to the point is the following...
If someone has a XYZ lock on their home, and I find a way to successfully break into their home, by using some diabling the lock, then I have violated the law. Why? Because I broke into their home.
If I bought an identical lock and showed all of my friends how it worked and then published the inner workings of the XYZ lock, am I violating the law? I don't believe so, except in certain cases where National Defense (e.g. creating a nuclear bomb), are involved. BTW: You can easily find nuclear bomb instructions on the Internet.
Is the 'Right To Use' portion of copyright law (a la the RIAA suit against MP3.com) at all in conflict with the judge's declaration that the DeCSS is an illegal coding effort? If I have a right to view a DVD that I purchased, how does it's encryption status affect that right?
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
How many lawyers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
-- "Almost everyone is an idiot. If you think I'm exaggerating, then you're one of them."
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Seriously, though, do you think that the judge had a bias due to his previous employment (see article below)?
Judge Conflicted Interest in MPAA/2600 DeCSS Case?
Do you believe that some of the more extreme proponents of DeCSS, who advocate the "Information wants to be free (as in speech AND beer, whether the person who made it wants it to be or not)" philosiphy and the 1337 warez m0nkeys who take pride in being assholes towards authority are being used as a scapegoat to ignore those who are legitimately concerned over their right to fair use? The ruling did a decent job of typecasting everyone invloved in the former category, one which I don't wish to be included in.
We won't bother with the sparrow and the coconut question, or the shoe size question as they fall by the wayside in comparison to the question which leads to the answer of "42"
Would it likely help or harm the defendant's case on appeal if other software that served the same purpose as DeCSS was independantly developed and released?
Would you think that such an occurance would seriously undermine the utility of the court's award of 'injuctive relief' for the plaintiff? Would that be enough to call the judgement in this case into question?
It would also seem that if the alternative software was specifically intended as a Linux executable, that it would overcome one of the judge's problems with the defendant's case, that being the apparent contradiction with the stated desire to make a Linux DVD player and the fact that DeCSS was originally developed as a Windows executable. Would that difference help or hurt the defendants in this case if/when they appeal?
Does it ban the specific utility DeCSS, or all software which decrypts CSS? Does it only apply to Emmanuel Goldstein and 2600, or to everyone in the court's jurisdiction? The ruling bans linking - is the court's definition of linking restricted to hypertext tags, or is it more expansive than that?
the spirit or the decision of the ruling?
On the 2600 web page I saw something along the lines of "If we're forced to stop linking to the DeCSS source, then we'll link to other people's lists of DeCSS sources. If the judge orders us not to do that, then we'll host a text file that contains links to DeCSS mirrors. We'll keep finding ways until the judge is forced to leave us alone or sompletely gut out first amendment rights." or something of that nature.
Is your client going to engage in civil disobedience like that or are they going to give up?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I realize that this is a legal team here, but, for the record: Did you eat Maruchan Ramen to prepare for the case?
I feel that this could have been a pivotal resource that would have helped win the case. I realize that Lawyers != Hackers, however legal geeks are not that far from computer geeks.
Thank you.
the real shiftaling has user number 5134
the real shiftaling has user number 5134
Karma: -43 and DROPPING!!!
Why was the judge hesitant to see the unconstitutionality of the law? He said that "Congress has resolved this clash in the DMCA and in the Plaintiff's favor."
Isn't that his job? Can you fathom how he justifies this backwards view of the judicial-legislative relationship?
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
Have you ever bought a book you couldn't loan to someone else to read, or indeed even re-read once you'd read it once?
Have you ever bought a music recording you could only play while the playing device was connected to the internet?
Have you ever had your choice of video output devices limited just because better quality outputs would allow copying?
Have you ever seen a whole world based on the concept you don't actually own any music/books/video you buy?
Unless the DMCA is fixed, You Will!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So exactly how much money is at stake here you greedy bastards ? ascii- ascii-
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
is it just me or did it seem like the judge didn't understand that the original purpose of the encryption was incorrectly implemented?
my other question is does software get any protection from being censored if it is release under the GPL? or any other liscences for that matter?
1337
It seems that Judge Kaplan handed the responsibility of the case to congress rather than examine the constitutionality of what congress had done. In the USA's current political structure, there is supposed to be a system of "Check and Balences". Do you feel that Judge Kaplan failed in his responsibility to "Check" the judicial branch?
Politics, Culture, Food?
Ooops on the links sorry
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
But we must first explain how this affects the public. Some reasons ahave already been given, but a true legal perspective from the horse's mouth would be helpful.
Something that's always confused me about this case is what victory would mean. If, for example, at some time in the future, the Supreme Court were to find for the defendant, would that mean:
A) DeCSS is legal and thus linking to DeCSS is protected since the software was legal in the first place
or
B) DeCSS is or isn't legal, but it doesn't matter since linking is as constitutionally protected as a newspaper.
Are those two resolutions mutually exclusive? Did you decide early on that A was more important constitutionally than B and decide to focus on defending the legality of DeCSS? If B is outside of the scope of your desired outcome, should we be worried that this whole fiasco will repeat itself when someone comes out with DeSDMI or some other cool hack that everyone wants to link to?
Right now there seem to be architectures evolving for both the "everything for free" (Napster, Scour, Freenet, etc) and the "everything for a price" (SDMI, DeCSS, etc) approaches, but do you see anything that is seeking a middle ground? Do you see any developing architectures (both in the legal sense and in the technological sense) that promote a middle ground, protecting copyright holders without trampling on the rights of consumers? If there is nothing out there right now, do you have any suggestions on a framework that might work?
---
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
By many metrics, the case up until now has been very swift. Do you expect the MPAA to use slow-down tactics as you progress into the appeals process?
(My thinking is, they wanted to shut down DeCSS quickly, then stall the legal process.)
--
Ski-U-Mah!
Given that it has been ruled that code *is* href=http://caselaw.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl ?court=6th&navby=case&no=00a0117p>speech ,at least in one court, and that as explained by this "As always, proponents of censorship misuse Justice Holmes' dictum that the government can make it illegal to shout fire in a crowded theater. To be precise, Justice Holmes wrote that "(t)he most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic." [FN91] The point of Justice Holmes' example is not that any kind of speech that might have harmful long-term consequences can be banned. Rather, the question is whether the speech makes impossible any reflection on the part of the audience, and thus impels instantaneous action. In a theater, when someone yells "fire," people will not have an opportunity to investigate and make their own determination about whether there is a fire; rather, they will head for the exits posthaste, perhaps trampling others in a panic."
href=http://www.constitution.org/2ll/2ndschol/136p re.htm>here It seems to be the appeal should be a no brainer. I assume you have been over this info. My question is did you use it in the case and if so why did the Judge reject it and if not why? Thanks and carry on the good fight.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
How much of the defeat do you attribute to the judge's association of DeCSS with "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"? Was this decision in large part, small part, or no part about the prosecution's demonizing of hackers, rather than the (supposedly) relevant impact of DeCSS on fair-use?
god is just pretend.
1. I was often mystified by Mr. Garbus's questioning of witnesses. He seemed to ask a lot of meaningless questions, and seemed to have a very hard time expressing some of them.
Mr. Garbus is no dummy. What was he up to?
2. It was clear, reading the transcripts, that Judge Kaplan understood more clearly what the trial was about than the plaintiffs did (and sometimes better than the defendants did), and, more to the point, far better than was expressed in his final decision. None of his evident understanding seems to have leaked into his final decision; it reads like it was written by someone who wasn't there.
Who's pulling Kaplan's strings, and how?
On p.86 of the decision, the judge quotes a case involving the "Religious Technology Center" (aka Scientology) to support his position.
What is your take on the judge using tactics fostered by Scientology to attack dissenters?
Alan DeKok
It is my understanding that Xing's DVD player had the key in cleartext, making it trivial to make DeCSS. In fact, one could argue that if it wasn't done by a 16 year old child, then it would have been done eventually, perhaps by somebody with less aimable motives. Where is Xing's liability in all this?
My question is actualy two related questions.
How does in you point of view does this case interfeeres with other countries? I ask this because the USA is known to use economic bully startegies to force other contries to agree with patents and stuff (I know that this was the case for medicines here in Brasil, for instance).
I live in Brasil, but as much as anyone else would like to watch DVDs in linux. Do you think that we here can develop a player, or the developer would be tagged as terrorist (as some people who sent prank emails with threats to the white house) and would never be allowed to set foot in the USA?
--
"take the red pill and you stay in wonderland and I'll show you how deep the rabitt hole goes"
[]'s Victor Bogado da Silva Lins
^[:wq
I currently do not own a DVD player even though many of my friends and co-workers do. I have been asked many times why I haven't purchased one yet and my reply is that "I currently refuse to purchase one because of the strongarm tactics the MPAA is using to control the industry." I try to educate as many people as I can on the events that are going on with the 2600 case and most people seem to agree with me.
The question I have for you is how do you feel about a boycott of the DVD industry until this case comes to a favorable conclusion? Is it worth pursuing, and is it possible that enough interest could be stirred up through an organized effort to really make a difference?
The vast majority of DVD porn doesn't use CSS.
Pah - here's /. restricting freedom of expression.
Ascii art is banned -
lamer troll-faced geek people !
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
Judge Kaplan, who had previously advised the MPAA, showed a lack of understanding in many fundamental aspects of this case. Of course, the areas I'm refering to are the internet, the open-source movement and the programming community in general.
Do you feel you could have been better understood if the judge had at least a general knowledge of these things before the preceedings occured?
My point is that the laws concerning 'The Internet' and what is inherently right or wrong for its users to do are being determined by an ignorant beuracracy. Cases such as this one will be setting dangerous precedents and laying the ground work for a 'Policed Internet'. I consider this case akin to teaching my 60 year old father how to operate in a Windows environment. Sometimes you cant teach an old dog new tricks, and I think thats what we saw in this trial.
Harder.. Better.. Faster.. Stronger
It seems the focal point of the case that the MPAA team is pushing is the copyright protection, leveraging the DMCA's analogy of "breaking into a vault to make a copy of a book". CSS does nothing to protect unique disks if a bit-for-bit copy was made of a DVD, so DeCCS isn't this grand break in their duplicate protection scheme. What of other motives of them winning this case? Specifically the control of information, the controlling and licensing of DVD decryption to player and decoder manufacturers. This obviously is of concern to them, and maybe even moreso than me downloading 700MB in twenty minutes :) Is this something you can bring up in the case?
What do you guy think of algorithmic vs. legal security?
This is a very old issue. There have been laws against going into somebody's residence and taking their stuff, without their permission, since about 5000 years ago. This is legal security - if you steal, you will be punished by the legal system. This has probably worked - probably there have been less thefts than there would have been without laws against stealing. In fact, had these laws never been written, there might be no such concept as "theft" and therefore no way to discuss "theft" and decide that it is a bad thing.
When the Industrial Age began, mass-produced locking devices became accessible to the general population. Sure, there might have been functioning locks on the gates of large walled cities, but there wasn't the technology to provide a lock for the door of every dwelling. Now there is. Locks are algorithmic security.
And now, if you don't lock your bicycle and it gets stolen, you'll get no sympathy from the legal authorities - there will be no legal security for you. In fact, police in some towns claim the right to confiscate any unlocked bike and, if you haven't registered it with them previously, the right to keep it and sell it at auction themselves. Basically, the legal powers have decided that it is mandatory for property owners to implement algorithmic security in order to claim legal security.
However, legal security is still required. Were there no laws against theft, there would be no law against cutting the lock of a bicycle with a blowtorch. But algorithmic security is now considered the main way to secure your property - the legal security is now only a backup plan. Algorithmic security is better, because it works automatically and takes a lot of the work off of legal people.
Therefore, algorithmic security is necessary for a property owner to implement before he can claim a right to legal security.
The MPAA's case extends a little bit further. Algorithmic security, in their view, seems to be not only necessary to a claim of legal security, but is also sufficient.
Their argument is that putting a form of encryption on their product should entitle them to property rights, such as restriction of fair use, that, were there no encryption, they would not have. Normally, fair use rights would belong to the public and the MPAA would not be able to claim any sort of ownership or restriction over these rights. Algorithmic security gives them legal security against theft of things that they wouldn't even own otherwise!
It is as if they're saying that if you have the right to lock a bicycle, that means you own it. And then they requested, and received, the right to lock bikes that they don't own.
So haven't they subtly altered the pre-existing notions of security and property rights? I don't see how I could legally go around locking other people's bikes and then claiming that they were mine, but that is precisely what the MPAA, with the blessing of the United States Congress, seems to be doing.
Which, if any, of your arguments do you regret having presented to the court? What do you now see as your own stumbling blocks in your case? For example, your argument that since CSS uses weak encryption, it is not 'effective' thus plaintiff's Section 1201(a)(2)(A) does not apply. This seems to be an argument that probably served only to anger Kaplan further (as characterized in his ruling). Another example is your argument that "the copyright holder has no statutory right to prohibit decryption" (ruling, page 35) which Kaplan calls 'pure sophistry'. Might any of these apparently hostile words be used later to argue that he has an obvious bias here?
Which, if any, of your arguments do you regret having presented to the court? What do you now see as your own stumbling blocks in your case? For example, your argument that since CSS uses weak encryption, it is not 'effective' thus plaintiff's Section 1201(a)(2)(A) does not apply. This seems to be an argument that probably served only to anger Kaplan further (as characterized in his ruling). Another example is your argument that "the copyright holder has no statutory right to prohibit decryption" (ruling, page 31, footnote 137) which Kaplan calls 'pure sophistry'. Might any of these apparently hostile words be used later to argue that he has an obvious bias here?
Do you see any relation between this locking up of information and the political wind, which as it blows from the mouths of Hillary and "Just Plain" Joe this week, strongly favors being able to "protect" children (and they want us all to be their children) "from" all media?
What level of speech is most obviously protected, when it comes to transmitting the DeCSS code and the like, and even referencing where it can be found? Seeing a need for civil resistance to the encroaching infantilization of the general population, and the wisdom of building a good final line of resistance, in case the front line heros like yourselves falter, how can those of us well behind the lines (but often with great access to information technologies) fortify the fallback position so that we can in some future year, like the fabled monks of Ireland, re-establish civilization?
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
I read the if 2600 was forced to take down its links it would resort to other things like lists or other methods of "linking" that cant be lumped together with hyperlinks. My question then, is when can we expect an injunction against lists?
I've always wondered this about attorneys. Boxers of briefs? And also, along a similar track, Hanes, Fruit of the Loom, or Jockey?
CmdrChalupa, who finally changed his sig (drop -FlogSpammersNow- for my real address)
Since a judge's primary job is to interpret the law, it seems like the DMCA is going to cause the defense quite a headache. I'm not a lawyer so my question may be overly simplistic. But in a nutshell: what angles are being pursued by the defense to win the case, and is it possible that some of these could convince a judge to overturn some provisions of the DMCA?
Best regards,
SEAL
News reports state that you used DeCSS on a thinkgeek t-shirt as evidence that code is a means of expression, but page 3 of Kaplan's ruling says "..computer code is not purely expressive any more than the assasination of a political figure is a purely political statement".
When you appeal, are you going to use more examples of code as expression to counter this court opinion? Have you considered using examples of code that generates fractal art or music?
How does this ruling affect me, as a Canadian? How does it affect an Australian? A Brit? A Norwegian? A Cuban? Can this ruling in any way impact on our rights to display the DeCSS code or distribute it outside of the United States? What are the repercussions if it can or cannot? I don't want to think that the United States is now creating rulings that all people of the world must follow where the Internet is concerned.
Thank you very much for efforts so far in this case, I have a personal and professional stake in the continued protection of freedom of speech on the part of computer programmers and the right to reverse engineer. I hope you continue to stay on the case through appeal, we need your efforts.
I have a few questions for you.
How time dependant is the chalenge to DMCAs constitutionality? Will the appeal be based solely on legal precedent or will the passing years that the DMCA stands work against you?
I am planning on purchasing a laptop with a DVD rom in the near future. Now that the judge has rendered DeCSS illegal to own or use, what kind of legal consequenses do I face I use DeCSS in Linux to view DVD disks on my laptop. Is their any kind of law that would protect me if I am doing it as a protest or civil disobediance?
I live and work in New York state.
Thanks again for your time.
Matthew Newhall
President of the Long Island Linux Users Group
president@lilug.org
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
So, is he in trouble (if he would ever return to the USA)?
As a computer programmer I am very concerned that my right to code whatever I please is protected. By making this distiction (between algorithm and key), am I not preserving that right while at the same time protecting the intellectual property of the consortium? How would the situation change if someone developed a key-generating algorithm?
Thank you.
Axel
Axel
mhm23x3, alt.fan.karl-malden.nose
-Foxxz
Now the real point and question: Why is speech that can cause computers to perform an action not protected, but speech that can cause humans to action (and be much more dangerous) protected? Why can't those in the system recognize that computer code is really no different than propaganda or a user's manual, regardless of what the manual explains how to do? I've always thought that making those 'dangerous' instructions or 'dangerous' ideas was the whole point of free speech. And isn't the point to protect the concepts and ideas of the 'speech', not just a representation of those? Does that mean that if someone were to take the DeCSS source code, and rewrite it as a sonata, or even just specify that it should be read in iambic pentameter, and comment out single function call that it would then be legal? It seems like almost like thought crime. What would it take to once and for all make computer code protected under free speech? and could this case lead to it?
Also, the summing up sounded very harsh, wrt the defence. However, earlier, he'd also sounded somewhat critical of the prosecution, from the reports. Was he equally critical of everyone, or more slanted towards the "safe and familiar"?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
While I was reading through the Court's decision today, I picked up the impression that Judge Kaplan was not pleased with the conduct of 2600 before and during the case regarding DeCSS. He seemed to be particularly perturbed about the ongoing linking to DeCSS, the seeming defiance of the law in the encouragement on the website to spread DeCSS, and the use of the phrase 'civil disobedience'. It looked to me that he really bought the 'DeCSS=Piracy' argument that the plaintiffs kept bringing up to the exclusion of all of the important issues raised by the defendants, especially with the part in the last page where he said that "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." (my emphasis). This really disappointed me, because I thought the judge was really getting it until I read this.
I guess my question is the following: do you believe that 2600's stigma caused by being a member of the hacker community, or by encouraging civil disobedience, distracted the judge from really diving into the issues that you presented at trial? Also, do you believe that this decision, as well as the defendants conduct, would have a significantly negative effect on appeal?
I do want to add that I appreciate the work that you, the EFF, and the defense put into defending the rights of the Linux community as well as those of DVD owners. I've followed this case from the beginning, and it looks like you guys put out a top-notch effort.
Well, bit off-topic; but I recall PGP being as protected as a newspaper when it was published as a book; and thus it was allowed to export it, since it was regarded as "free speech".
So, this is probably a work-around. Well, that wouldn't matter if it's illegal bits'n'bytes.
benjamin
www.informative.f2s.com (yay)
After the Microsoft trial, numerous comments and speculation were made on Slashdot and other forums about how the appeals process is highly unlikely to overturn the Finding of Facts. Any action is more likely to focus on the Findings of Law and the Remedies.
First off, this trial doesn't appear to have three parts, like the Microsoft trial did. I don't pretend to know the differences at work. Can you enlighten us further on why things appear different?
Second, based on the Microsoft trial discussion, it appears that the appeals process is not merely 'redo the lower court trial', but rather focuses on certain aspects of that trial. Accordingly, the decision of the lower court must have in some sense set the stage for the appeal. Can you comment on how this decision sets the stage for a deCSS appeal?
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
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rooooar
Is it the DeCSS C source as publicised, or the very concept of what DeCSS does?
If I were to develop a DeCSS work-alike tool in a different language...
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Okay, you got me there. I meant Europe ofcourse, not Europa (though we spell it that way over here in the Netherlands. Yes, there actually exist continents besides the USA :-)
Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
He explains that this is OK by analogy of defamation law: if you say something bad about a public figure, part of what they have to prove to convict you is that you knew it was false when you said it. So, your state of mind at the time of the alleged crime becomes legally significant.
The judge is looking for a way to uphold the DMCA without creating a chilling effect that will prevent webmasters everywhere from having to worry "am I going to get in trouble for linking to the wrong thing?" But the act of deliberately linking to a URL cannot be distinguished from desiring to disseminate the information at that URL. That is the whole point of linking: disseminating the information at the other end.
Do you think the judge has noticed that the New York Times -- the same newspaper he frequently references in the titles of precedent-setting legal decisions -- has linked to the DeCSS links on at least three occasions -- April 28, June 16, and July 14? Most reasonable people would conclude that the Times had "a desire to bring about the dissemination" [of DeCSS] in so doing. What else could it have had in mind?
The Times obviously has a vested interest in keeping it legal to link. In the June 16 article, titled "Is Linking Illegal?", the opening sentence is: "A crucial aspect of online journalism is the ability to garnish articles with hyperlinks that instantly refer readers to Web sites related to newsworthy issues."
Do you think the Times will get more involved in this issue? How about if 2600 replaces its links with meta-links (links to links) -- exactly as the Times did -- and gets re-sued?
Jamie McCarthy
Jamie McCarthy
jamie.mccarthy.vg
By the same token, couldn't Microsoft have called pkunzip, unzip, gunzip, and their ilk "circumvention tools" back when the MS vs Slashdot storm was brewing over MS-Kerberos? After all unzip was used as a "circumvention tool" to bypass the Microsoft licensing agreement pushbutton. This is about as effective as locking my front door with a thumbtack.
Think of the number of mirrors they'd have to go after, since only distribution of circumvention tools is currently illegal. Circumvention doesn't become illegal until October.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I, like most slashdotters, used to firmly believe that DeCSS was in no way involved in DVD piracy at all and the MPAA was just spewing total bullshit when they accused it of such (in fact, I had a post hit a score of 5 based on just that argument). But since then, I redownloaded the DivX codec, and the following little ditty on how DVDs are ripped struck me:
In case you didn't catch that - and it's pretty hard not to - the process of ripping a DVD to DivX not only uses DeCSS, but requires it to descramble the content.It seems to be that this completely obliterates any argument saying that the MPAA is lying, that DVD piracy is not feasible (you've seen the amazing DivX compression ratios), etc, etc.
Don't get me wrong - I still see DeCSS as both a matter of free speech and a valid tool with legal uses, and I do not want to see it lose these court battles, but I do think there is a need to be completely honest here - DeCSS can be a tool for piracy - as well as slashdot needing some devil's advocates to express the dissenting opinion now and then.
So I suppose my question for Mr. Garbus, Mr. Gross, and anyone here on slashdot who sees fit to stick in their two cents, is this: how do you fight such a potentially incriminating angle in this case? Do you focus on the fact that DeCSS was developed for and is often used for just and legal purposes? Do you ignore that altogether and focus on the fact that making linking illegal will destroy the utter foundation of the internet? Do you continue to focus on the free speech aspect, possibly claiming that the legality of the program's operation is irrelevant in light of past "software is speech" rulings? Is it a combination of several of the above, or something altogether different?
And, on a closing note, good luck to Mr. Garbus and the rest of 2600's legal team - I've been interested in pursuing a career in law and following this case closely since the MPAA's complaints against DeCSS were first disclosed, and I've been very intrigued by how it has been handled so far (by the defendants, the MPAA, and the judge as well). Keep fighting the good fight =)
-- Imagine how much more advanced our technology would be if we had eight fingers per hand.
It may very well be legal to distribute DeCSS on Europa. However, how many of the inhabitants of this moon of Jupiter are really interested in DVD movies?
Q.1
:) but to tress the point: nano-tech).
:)
... no clocks ( both from good old China) no numbers (Asia, and thanks to the old muslims for the math ;)... Oh boy. Copy the Open Source Code! :) Movies.... they aren't even a tool...
Isn't the judge influence too big? The decision of the judge counts not only for the America's but also for the rest of the world. When a 16 year old boy is lifted up of his bed under pressure of the FBI by European authorities... then I believe the DeCSS matter must lay in the hands of a international court and not under the jurisdiction of the US court. Do you agree?
Q.2
Could you bring this case on a international level? If the answer is no; is it that the US doesn't recognizes the higher jurisdiction of international laws. Maybe it would be a very good time to advocate for this, not only in the US but world wide. The new technology certainly knows no boundaries (little bit of-topic
Cheers and God speed.
History
....In China they love to copy, so did the US in the 18'th century and upward (copy industrial ideas from Great Britian), until they had a stronger industry then the British Empire. Where would mankind be if we weren't allowed to copy? No explosives
What is the theoretical limit of the enforcement of the "no linking to the source" part of the case?
If I break a link into two pieces, with a description of how to put it back together, is that still a link? How about four pieces? Or eight?
If there's a widespread understanding that every tenth letter of one of my posts to Slashdot combine to form a URL (they don't, but I suppose they could if I worked at it), would that also be illegal under this judgement?
Obviously, we could obfuscate the link to an arbitrary degree. Does this really come down to making it illegal for me to express (in any way) a method of finding the source code?
It sure seems to me that that's a violation of my rights to free speech... regardless, it's problematic!
I suppose these same questions apply to the source code itself.
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bukra fil mish mish
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Monitor the Web, or Track your site!
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
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First of all, let me say that I (as many other Sladoters) appreciate your efforts.
/dev/null" also point to code being speech. On the other hand, if I steal a bunch of credit card numbers and print them on T-shirts, I could try to argue that I am exercising my right to free speech.
My question is about code is speech. I have heard an argument that goes something like "If it can be printed on a t-shirt it is speech". The examples like obfuscated Perl contest, or programmers expression ">
Question: What are your arguments (and will there be any) in favor of code being free speech? [BTW, I think many people on slashdot could come up with wonderful examples of code as speech]
Thank you
And yet it also pleases me and seems right that what is of value and wisdom to one man seems nonsense to another -Hesse
My question is whether or not the first sale doctrine can/will be used in the appeals. If so, how would that argument go?
can hold the opinion it does. It simply doesn't make sense to me.
I don't see the fundamental difference between publishing source code and publishing, say, a recipe for cookies. They are both simply lists of instructions. The computer code CAN BE executed by a machine at high speed, but it does not HAVE TO BE -- I can execute source code with pencil and paper. Machines aren't too good at running cookie recipes yet, but that's coming.
If I were to extrapolate from this ruling, couldn't it be declared illegal to publish instructions on how to open a safe? There could certainly be both legitimate and illegal uses for the information. It seems obvious to me that I could host safe-cracking instructions, er, safely. People might not LIKE THEM (or me) very much for publishing them but I don't think anyone could argue that A) I had to take the instructions down, or B) that I was liable for someone else using the instructions to commit a theft. Is this a correct interpretation of the law in this country?
If this is the case, let's say a new brand of safe-cracking robot was released onto the market, programmable in a particular machine-readable language -- let's call it UnSafe. If I then rewrote my English instructions into UnSafe format and published those, am I not suddenly treading on the DMCA, and couldn't I now be sued?
And what do we do when computers gain the ability to read ordinary English instructions? I'm betting we see rudimentary forms of this within 10-12 years. Will that mean we are no longer able to talk about bypassing security at all, in any way, shape, or form?