Posted by
Hemos
on from the shouts-out-to-the-man dept.
DivideX0 writes "Emmanuel Goldstein's response and analysis of the decision against 2600 in the DeCSS case appears in this article at the 2600 website." As always, Emmanuel's lucid and interesting to read.
441 comments
Re:He just doesn't get it.
by
kel-tor
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· Score: 1
"It is unfortunate that we have built a society where security through obscurity is so vital to the status quo that disseminating knowledge is punishable as a crime."
I just liked this line:--)
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Re:ot(Star Trek reference)
by
ethereal
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· Score: 1
DMCA,Ucita and the Government - What to do!
by
gabrieltss
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· Score: 1
Sorry, but Republican/conservative = Corporate lover - FACT. Democrat/liberal = Government Lover = FACT.
Neither of these parties give a damn about the average joe - you and me! If they did they would pass such hooey as DMCA and UCita etc..
The US is NO LONGER "Government of the people, by the people, and for the people." Face it folks it's now "government of the government, by the corporations and for the corporations."
Since it seems that the DMCA passed with a overwhelming majority in the house and senate,
They best way to get the message to this stinkin' government is VOTE THEM ALL OUT. replace every one of them and if the next batch does the same thing vote them out. If that doesn't work start grass roots movements to start voting local everyday folks into offices. start with local stuff then move those people to higher state positions. Then move to the national positions. The everyday person just has to give a damn! But right now to many of the everyday people are lemmings and sheep. They let the media tell them how they should think, feel and act.
Folks, it's time to take our government back! Don't just sit in front of your monitor and talk here at/. and complain and be armchair problem solvers. Get out in your local neighborhoods, beat the pavement ring doorbells and inform & talk to people. Organize like thinkers and organize voters. Corporations can buy politicians but let them try to buy a very large organized movement that votes out those politicians they bought!
Folks, Don't listen to your union reps, don't let them tell you how to vote! Think for yourself, do research ask questions. This more than anything SCARES politicians and scares those in authority. Blately ask your state representatives and senators "did you vote for DCMA?" "Did you or will you vote for Ucita?". Ask them the tought hard questions. Call them, write to them. Folks with the Big election comming up in November we stil have time to make a stink. Email.write, call your friends and relatives and get them to organize.
Read the US constitution, your bill or rights etc.. Know what your rights are! DCMA and Ucita take them away! and if these fly easily others will follow. yes Even you 2nd amendment folks, you don't think they will stop at gun control do you? they want total gun confiscation just like in Australia. Look at recent polls showing major groups of teens want more gun control. They are getting to our kids folks! Does this scare you yet?
Take your government back! Before it's to late. Sorry, but Republican/conservative = Corporate lover - FACT. Democrat/liberal = Government Lover = FACT.
Neither of these parties give a damn about the average joe - you and me! If they did they would pass such hooey as DMCA and UCita etc..
The US is NO LONGER "Government of the people, by the people, and for the people." Face it folks it's now "government of the government, by the corporations and for the corporations."
Since it seems that the DMCA passed with a overwhelming majority in the house and senate,
They best way to get the message to this stinkin' government is VOTE THEM ALL OUT. replace every one of them and if the next batch does the same thing vote them out. If that doesn't work start grass roots movements to start voting local everyday folks into offices. start with local stuff then move those people to higher state positions. Then move to the national positions. The everyday person just has to give a damn! But right now to many of the everyday people are lemmings and sheep. They let the media tell them how they should think, feel and act.
Folks, it's time to take our government back! Don't just sit in front of your monitor and talk here at/. and complain and be armchair problem solvers. Get out in your local neighborhoods, beat the pavement ring doorbells and inform & talk to people. Organize like thinkers and organize voters. Corporations can buy politicians but let them try to buy a very large organized movement that votes out those politicians they bought!
Folks, Don't listen to your union reps, don't let them tell you how to vote! Think for yourself, do research ask questions. This more than anything SCARES politicians and scares those in authority. Blately ask your state representatives and senators "did you vote for DCMA?" "Did you or will you vote for Ucita?". Ask them the tought hard questions. Call them, write to them. Folks with the Big election comming up in November we stil have time to make a stink. Email.write, call your friends and relatives and get them to organize.
Read the US constitution, your bill or rights etc.. Know what your rights are! DCMA and Ucita take them away! and if these fly easily others will follow. yes Even you 2nd amendment folks, you don't think they will stop at gun control do you? they want total gun confiscation just like in Australia. Look at recent polls showing major groups of teens want more gun control. They are getting to our kids folks! Does this scare you yet?
being civil never hurts and it makes your arguments much more effective when presented to a wider audiance.
By being downright childish and petty all you do is weaken the argument that you are putting forward as your attitude becomes associated with your reasoning.
Hell, maybe they did. In case you weren't aware, CSS is pretty fscking weak. 40 bit keys (and it's not for export reasons; after all, how can someone use it to send a message?), and the algorithm isn't that great either. Xing's fuckup is what gave us the first key, but it was the small keyspace and weaknesses in the algorithm that let people grab the decoder keys for every vendor within a few months.
Hey, maybe even Xing's engineers were thinking ahead... If you can argue that the inadequate keyspace on CSS could have been intentional, you can argue that not adequately protecting the key at the player could have been an insightful engineering decision instead of a "fuckup"...
--Fesh
"Citizens have rights. Consumers only have wallets." - gilroy
-- --Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
Re:Are 2600 really helping?
by
vixiejvc
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· Score: 1
It seems that many content distributors (MPAA, RIAA) would like nothing better than to have everyone turn into mindless money-spending drones. They already see us like that anyway.
Virtually *every* kind of corporation with any kind of business that isn't people itself reacts in this manner - it's more cost-effective. Really.
Even at a fast-food restaurant (name removed because I don't have the guts to say it:) ) that I worked at encouraged being polite and nice to customers and deciding in their favor because it was more profitable to have repeat customers than it was to get the most out of that one sale. That's the most humanity I've ever seen in overall corportate policy.
(Granted, individual Members of a corporation can easily have more humanity than that (I was nice to the customer 'cause I figured they liked it:) ) but the corporation is not the individual members thereof, it's the corporation.)
I worry that if corporations continue to go the way they do, demonstrating every last virtue of Capitalism, then we're going to run into the same "too much of a good thing" that Communist economies ran into and falldowngoboom.
(IANA 'Commie', btw, so don't use that accusation:) ).
-Jo Hunter
--
If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed.
Wrong. U.S. law does not apply to the citizens of the Netherlands.
Ah, now that is a good point, and one that is central to most of the legal and moral issues that come up with the Internet.
But:
1. Technically it doesn't apply to people in the Netherlands. If you're a citizen of the Netherlands visiting the US, then US laws still apply to you.
2. Emmanuel and his buddies at 2600 aren't in the Netherlands.
3. Many countries, I don't know about the Netherlands specifically, have agreements with the US about copyright and other laws, and via these agreements they will either punish violators of US or international copyrights, or they will take criminals who have fled the US and send them back.
I admit, I don't understand why the Austrlian parliament would do this.
-- All the creatures will die,
And all the things will be broken.
That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Re:Help make a difference!
by
vixiejvc
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· Score: 1
Am I supposed to vote for them because I like their NAME?
Actually, yes. It's called "Name Recognition", and it's why George Bush Jr. is prob'ly going to win by a landslide.
Sad, isn't it? Wouldn't it be nice if we could have a governmental system based on citizen legislation and ditch the permanent ruling class? Gosh, if only.
-Jo Hunter
--
If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed.
Re:Not a Simple Issue
by
Troy+Roberts
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· Score: 1
Your analogy is a good one. It is legal to publish information about picking locks. There are many books on the subject.
The rest of your comments are uninformed. Read the story; read the depositions; read the transcripts, then tell me they did not prove their case.
Troy
Re:the other side of the story
by
KjetilK
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· Score: 1
Check out MPAA's FAQ. Then, read up, you'll understand that they are lying to you. The truth doesn't count there, it's the $ and the $ only.
-- Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Re:sobering prospects for future tech
by
alkali
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· Score: 1
"For the purposes of First Amendment analysis, this court finds that source code is speech."
Go read Part III of Kaplan's opinion. Kaplan agrees that computer code serves an expressive function as well as other functions -- that is, code is speech, and it's other things too.
(Simplifying greatly here:)
The Supreme Court has said that some laws which prohibit/punish things that are both speech and non-speech are constitutionally OK. Burning a draft card during the Vietnam War was certainly a form of speech. But in O'Brien, the Court held that the law against destroying draft cards is OK because it serves the significant purpose of making the draft system work, and the law is not aimed at punishing speech (it's "content neutral").
The anti-flag burning laws, on the other hand, are not OK because they are not content-neutral. It's OK, for example, to burn the Canadian flag, but not the American flag.
Kaplan holds that the DMCA is more like the no-destroying-draft-cards law than the anti-flag burning law, and therefore it's constitutionally OK. You might disagree with this part of Kaplan's analysis, but you can't say that "code is speech therefore we win." (If you disagree, explain why laws against passing bad checks could ever be constitutional.)
Re:It's time to stop being nice.
by
KjetilK
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· Score: 1
I'd say wait until the appeals....
-- Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Re:The Corporate States of America
by
billsf
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· Score: 1
Can the Internet survive without the US? - You bet it can! This is once again a largely US issue that
has had mostly positive impact on the world at large. All DVD playback systems sold in Australia
*must* be cracked and this will soon be the law here in Europe.
No matter what happens in the USA (or is it CSA?) Eric has done a marvelous job in assuring the
freedom of the 'real world'. It is worth fighting as if the US wins this battle the US loses the war.
Good riddance is what 95% of the world can say for the Facist States!
So the concept of "fair use" is now officially dead. Two-hundred years of constitutional protection down the crapper. This is the scariest thing I believe I've ever read....
Uh, the Consitution does not guarantee fair use. In fact, the Consitution would allow Congress to give the MPAA a monopoly on content for a billion years, if they wanted to. "Fair use" was created by Congress, and is not a guarenteed right. Copyright, on the other hand, is an enumerated power, and Congress can do whatever they like with that. Fair use is something nice - they could remove that if they wanted to.
Now that's scary.
(Congress is given the right to create copyright in the oft-quoted Article I, Section 8 of the United States Consitution. The relevant enumerated power reads "[Congress is granted the power t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries[.]" and can be read here.)
-- You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Flamebait: Not a Simple Issue
by
redelm
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· Score: 1
Journalists are certainly responsible for what they say. That's what "Libel" and "Treason" are all about. But outside of that they enjoy very wide freedom. Even to publish lock-picking books.
deCSS has NO national security issues. NONE.
I don't think 2600 brought up encryption is being anti-fair-use, an nor is it IMHO.
Re:I'm getting a little suspicious
by
ravi_n
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· Score: 1
There's another, simpler explanation for Kaplan's ruling. The law firm he worked for (while he was working there and after he became a judge) worked for Toshiba and Time Warner on antitrust matters related to DVDs. I'm sure he didn't want to embarass his old colleagues by ruling against the legal scheme they created (with CSS licensing and the DMCA), whether or not he was part of creating it.
As much as we complain about bad legislation, we (in the US) are fortunate that market forces still dominate.
I think that the best shot we have at redemption from DMCA and other bad laws is to boycott "content" and pay for "art."
WE have the technology to bypass movie studios and record labels.
WE as geeks tend to have non-technology interests and talents, such as music and film making.
If WE distribute art (as opposed to banal "content") with express forfeiture of certain copyrights (like
prohibition of fair use) WE can ALL have our rights!
If we fuse napster and paypal functionality in an OPEN way, I think we will be will on our way to overthrowing "content
tyrants" and restoring both art and freedom in our society.
Sorry if this sounds over-the-top, but I am upset by all of this.
The best way, IMO, to protest cartels like the MPAA and RIAA is to not buy their product. Steal it (by piracy), but always contribute to the actual artists who created it. Send in anon money orders.
This would be a true civil disobedience. Maybe for once they will get the message that reasonably priced, open products are the best anti-piracy program there is.
Every time an internet or tech related issue gets taken to court (or Congress I guess) it seems like the people who hear the case just can't grasp what is being discussed. Anyone who has worked with end users much knows the deer in the headlights look. It is really unfortunate when issues as weighty as these get treated with the standard Internet is evil crap, just because the judge doesn't quite grasp the technology behind it. His analogies illustrate this fairly well, he keeps trying to relate these issues to things that he understands a little better but the relationships don't quite fit. Mr. Goldstein (I feel funny addressing someone from 2600 as Mr.) caught this rather quickly. I'm guessing that Judge Kaplan gets most of his news from his TV or the WSJ. He reads as though he has been fed a steady diet of FUD about how evil hackers can roam free in the web, cause untold havoc, and steal food from the mouths of giant corporations.
We should hold out hope though. This is going to have to get to the Supreme Court before it will catch an enlightened judge but it might have a chance there.
-- Icebox
Re:I cant believe the hypocracy here . . .
by
cocknballz
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· Score: 1
Do you expect us to believe you didnt get paid to post that??? F**K! OFF!
You have to pay for Free Speech
by
Midnight+Thunder
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· Score: 1
Its sad when the right to free speech can be taken away from you if the other party has the money to do so. It sounds like the court is saying that the first amendment does noy apply to individuals when being attacked by corporations.
The one thing that I don't like about the new digital media, is that it allows corporations to control content and charge a fortune for the privilage. Imagine buying a computer and being charged to use it or allowing a friend to use it - scary.
One other thing that I would be interested in, is whether the judge had any conflicting interests, such a being paid, have defended such entities or having being given a few tastes of luxury in exchange for his services.
The direction that things are going in the USA, at the start of the 21st century, makes me feel that the corporate police state will become reality in 10 years. Maybe AD Comics got it right with Judge Dred? Remember even the politicians are being bought. I believe all judges and politicians should be be forced to publish a list of their affliations on the web, WITHOUT copyright.
IANAL, but since you purchased the shirt before it was illegal, isn't there some sort of ex post facto to judicial case law?
And shouldn't the MPAA be forced to offer a buy back program for the shirts? After all, depriving someone of an article of clothing involves a monetary loss to a third party whereas removing the code from a web site takes, at most, a minute.
----
--
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Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
That's what I always do. www.anonymizer.com is the most common one, but it's pretty slow at times. Try this link: https://proxy.magusnet.com:8090/-_-http://www.2600 .com/news/2000/0821.html ---
-- - Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
White hat? no... Grey Hat might be a better term... but still useful. After all, if group A, who has no malice, and no intent to harm any property, data, etc. breaks in and says, 'hey, look, this security bites' then group B, who DOES have malice, could easily do so as well. Thus, we need group A to make sure the security is strong enough to protect us from group B. That is Goldstein's point.
BTW, isn't the best way for a security firm to get business breaking into the place they want to protect in the future, to show the owners how much they need that protection?[true, it is best that they arrange this ahead of time with the business in question, but that is a matter of legality and pride, not logic]
-={(Astynax)}=-
-- -={(Astynax)}=- "Darkness beyond Twilight"
Did he change his name or did his parents really..
by
sips
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· Score: 1
I am just curious. I don't think most parents are that politically motivated to change their baby's name to something political like that.
Also wasn't Goldstein a creation of Ingsoc? So basically Goldstein is a propaganda tool.
Re:2600 a victim of their own reputation
by
pac4854
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· Score: 1
> 2600 is reaping the harvest they have sown the last few years.
I would've thought the MPAA was reaping the harvest they've sown as well. Half-a-century of churning out scandalously tasteless productions glorifying crime and criminals, promoting antisocial conduct, and cinematically flushing morals and ethics down the toilet. Wouldn't surprise me if Hollyweird's not already pounding on Corley's door for the movie rights to this nightmare....
To my defense I can say that I really tried to be as polite and civil as possible. But it isn't easy if english is not your native language, and all english you know is learned from american action movies:) Not that it matters though. If I can't express myself, that's 100% my own fault.
I'll do my best in the future to try be more polite in situations like this. And so should you - calling me an idiot goes contrary to your own post.
Re:I'm getting a little suspicious
by
JWhitlock
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· Score: 1
I thought something similar for a while. Except that the result is not just insulting, but damaging.
Back when this whole thing started, Judge Kaplan ordered 2600 to remove the DeCSS code from the web site. Emmanuel Goldstein made a hard decision to comply with the order. The alternative would have been to practice civil disobedience, to refuse and get himself thrown in jail. Although it may have made people think of King or Ganhdi, it was more likely that the MPAA and Valenti would have successfully spun it in their favor. The media was certainly leaning that way, anyway, so 2600 had to appear to be fighting the good fight, keeping it nice and legal.
The same injunction scared off most of the other defendants, into settling separately and keeping themselves out of court. This ruling will now prohibit linking, despite the fact it may not hold up in a higher court. With the ruling, the MPAA has the clout it needs to go after other sites, which will probably bow out and let 2600 do all the fighting.
Judge Kaplan's decision gave the impression that the MPAA won, which gives them the freedom to say all sorts of things , such as that the DMCA has been proven to be constitutional, that DeCSS is only a tool for piracy, and that the 2600 group are just hackers, like the hackers that brought us the Melissa and Love Bug viruses. In the minds of many non-technical citizens (which is still the voting majority), as well as lawmakers, this is now the truth.
This is not a judge wimping out, or a sly tactical move. This move ignores the big issues (copyright, reverse engineering, Free Speech), and delivers a victory to the MPAA and corporate interests. It gains the MPAA a large slice of public opinion, and makes the opposition feel a little more desperate. Maybe Kaplan isn't hoping for the higher-ups to make the decision for him, but instead for some pissed-off teenager to start doing rash things, like breaking into the MPAA site, or posting movies to his web page with a message like "F**K MPAA! I USED DeCSS TO CRACK THE MATRIX! POWER TO 2600!", so that the MPAA will actually have evidence that DeCSS was used for pirating.
I hope 2600 wins the next round, and eventually in the Supreme Court, but I'm sure he's aware that his own fans may be his biggest liability. I hope they can restrain themselves.
"and it's hard to see the writing through the flames." - Flaming Lips
And where were you when the courts ruled in favor of Connectix regarding their PSX emulator? Just read the quote from the story: "both copyright and trademark law favor broad consumer choice." DeCSS is just another consumer choice for decrypting DVDs, and thus should be protected.
Except the difference between Consoles and DVD Players is that the SNES and PSX architecture isn't "an anti-piracy measure" and therefore isn't protected from circumvention under DMCA. CSS is an "anti-piracy measure" and therefore is protected from circumvention. I don't claim that it's reasonable, only that it's the law.
Re:When neither option looks good, take the third.
by
No+One
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· Score: 1
They are going to try to force companies to have elections for management!! Banks being forced into the public domain!!?? If that's not purely unconstitutional, I don't know what is.
It's entirely constitutional. Corporations aren't people, and they have no rights whatsoever other than those granted them in their charters. (Or at least they shouldn't; we've had some courts in this country that were either bloody stupid or bought-and-paid-for.) They are creations of the government, they exist at the sufferance of the government, and their charters can be withdrawn if the government chooses.
Furthermore, as they have no rights, there's no constitutional reason for the government not to manage their affairs as closely as it desires. A corporation has no RIGHT to do business. It's a PRIVILEGE granted to it by the government; as such, it can have any conditions attached the government desires.
Advisable, now that's another story. But there's nothing unconstitutional about it.
--
--
There is no sin except stupidity -- Oscar Wilde
Re:Which brings us to the problem...
by
Danse
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· Score: 2
The problem with libertarians is that i'm afraid they would make an even bigger mess trying to fix things. Simply because we've gotten used to living so far from the libertarian ideal.
To do things like eliminate welfare altogether, eliminate income taxes, drastically reduce defense spending, etc, could have dire consequences. Not to mention that something would seriously have to be done about the power of corporations. I'm not sure that can be done effectively without causing huge problems with our economy. Has any libertarian candidate discussed how they plan to make the changes without destroying everything in the process? That would be interesting reading I think.
-- It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Re:2600 a victim of their own reputation
by
vixiejvc
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· Score: 1
Idiots and bigots who reveal their narrowmindedness shouldn't have any sympathy when they're flamed.
-Jo Hunter
--
If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed.
Re:Any history buffs out there?
by
vixiejvc
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· Score: 1
Thank you for saying what needed to be said.
If only I had moderator access this time around...
-Jo Hunter
--
If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed.
Re:Ahh! And here is yet another cruxt to the matte
by
Ketzer
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· Score: 1
Except one can't buy an SNES from Nintendo anymore. Sure, they can be bought on the used market, but what happens when all used "copies" are gone.
Several things. First of all, the copyright probably goes out of date, so it's legal to do whatever you want with them. If it has been renewed or hasn't lapsed yet, then the person who wants to make an emulator should contact the company and ask for permission. If they really have no plans to continue selling the console, they should be reasonable and allow the emulator. But maybe they aren't, maybe they're unreasonable. If so, then it's up to copyright law to sort it out.
I would be very wary of assuming you have the right to do anything. The right to play SNES games on emulators isn't specifically listed in the Constitution, so if I were you I would be a bit more specific as to why that qualifies as "fair use." But in this case you're correct, because as a fellow poster pointed out, courts ruled in favor of the PSX emu.
Come to think of it, that minidisc player probably used spdif internally already(optical input is anyway..). D/A's understand spdif too.. So just intercepting that signal and hooking it up to your sblive would do.. Might want to buffer it but it really should be strong enough to drive at least two receivers..
Re:Are 2600 really helping?
by
Mike+Hicks
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· Score: 2
Well, I don't think they had much choice once they were hit with the injunction and other steps leading up to their trial. Certainly, 2600 doesn't have the best reputation. I don't really like the idea that they seem to have, where people can go around and try to breach security and/or look around in the private stuff of other people or organizations. After all, I would not be happy if someone got into my apartment and started rummaging around, even if they never took anything.
However, I think we all have rights when it comes down to being our own stuff. I dare say that I should have the right to accidentally electrocute myself or to fry my hardware after ignoring warnings. I should be able to learn about anything that I own, discovering how those things work. I don't think that any of the knowledge I've gained on my own is the property of someone else. I should be able to redistribute that knowledge if I wish. If I receive that knowledge with permission to redistribute, then I should be able to do so.
IMO, there are many underlying issues that go beyond `what are my rights as a consumer?' to `what are my rights as a human being?' It seems that many content distributors (MPAA, RIAA) would like nothing better than to have everyone turn into mindless money-spending drones. They already see us like that anyway.
While I do not like some of what 2600 stands for, we need groups like them to exist. We need to be reminded what it is like to be the outsiders. They make an effort to be independent of corporate influence (their weekly radio show also runs on a non-commercial radio station, WBAI, which is funded only by contributions from individuals, not companies). In this age where virtually nothing is truly `made from scratch' by members of the public, people like that are a necessity.
This case (and the other similar ones running today) has shown me that we need to re-examine the role of copyrights, licenses, patents, trademarks, and anything else I forgot. So much of the last 200 years of laws on this subject have been greatly influenced by the publishers and distributors, rather than the original creators and the end consumers. We need to look at our rights as people and as a society, rather than those of the corporations. I want the content created today to be accessible to future generations, not locked behind encryption and licensing. -- Ski-U-Mah!
I believe step that will finally turn this issue around will be when someone prints the DeCSS code in a full page ad in Time magazine. That way when the MPAA goes after Time magazine, Time-Warner will be a party to both the defense and the prosecution. Or maybe they'll just sue whoever placed the ad, despite that Time agreed to print it.
--
I like to play children's songs in minor keys. "We're all sons of bitches now." --J. Robert Oppenheimer
Excuse me, I meant AOL-Time-Warner. And for that matter, would any AOL users out there care to publish the DeCSS code on your free however many megs of web space you get with your account?
--
I like to play children's songs in minor keys. "We're all sons of bitches now." --J. Robert Oppenheimer
Re:Stuck in the Sixties
by
AFCArchvile
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· Score: 1
That was the title to a Gallagher special.
It'll either take 20 more years, the Alzheimer's epidemic, the Arthritis epidemic, or 60,000 7.62mm rounds.
You decide.
-- "Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Last I checked there were two parties
by
sips
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· Score: 1
They each have their own agendas and want to do their own things. They rarely cooperate. What kind of dope do you smoke when you think otherwise?
Re:Last I checked there were two parties
by
bobv-pillars-net
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· Score: 1
Ask your congresscritter to list those bills where he/she voted
differently from the congresscritter of the opposing party. Then read
the text of the bills for yourself. (which is probably more than your
congresscritter did)
Ask your congresscritter what bills were recently passed into law
despite his/her opposing vote.
Ask your congresscritter which of those laws he/she will diligently
work to overturn during the next term.
I think that you will find that most of the "disagreements" between
the Democans and the Republicrats are trivial, and exist mainly to
persuade you that your vote has some real effect on the outcome.
If you find otherwise, please let me know where you live. I might
want to move there.
-- The Web is like Usenet, but
the elephants are untrained.
Hearing that even the DeCSS t-shirt is 'illegal' really stunned me. But it brought this to mind: what if you inserted one deliberate 'error' in the code? Like omitting an obvious semicolon, for example. Any competent programmer could find and fix it, but the code would be rendered uncompilable and unrunnable. Are you now in violation? How about a voice recording where you read the code? This whole issue just leads to more and more absurdity.
--
"If I have seen further than other men, it is by stepping on their glasses." - Michael Swaine
actually, since very few political candidates seem to be taking any stance on the issues that the EFF is working on (a quick search of bush & gore's sites only came up with their feelings on internet taxes) this could well be true.
don't equate getting involved with politics with just voting! why do you think that all of these big corporations have been able to get laws favoring them through congress (eg DMCA)? they've got special interest groups, we've got the EFF.
Minor nitpick: Judges are appointed by elected officials. Once they have been apppointed, they cannot be removed for any reason except if they resign or are found to be unethical.
We have laws that protect top-secret things. But guess what, if the document leaks to the press the press can report it. There have been cases in the past (a space shuttle lauch in the 80's) where there was a leak and the press all agreed not to publish anything unless someone else did. Someone else did, then everyone else did. Guess what, that's not illegal.
The press can publish anything they want if they can get their hands on it, the secrets acts are all based around trying to prevent the press from getting ahold of things. And when the press does get ahold of secrets, the responsibility part of "freedom of the press" is that they have to decide whether or not to publish it, but the decision that is made is not whether or not they CAN publish it. Welcome to the United States. Go read the Constitution.
Oh, yeah, and normal white-hat practice when you find a security hole is to notify the vendor, give them a "reasonable" amount of time to respond, and if they don't, then you publish. You publish to force action when you can't get it any other way. I look at DeCSS this way: They knew people were working on cracking DVD so they could write players. They didn't do anything to improve their security. They didn't build their security strong enough to keep anyone out. So how do they protect their stuff: litigation.
This is just another great offshoot of our new economy/old economy fight. The old economy companies really see litigation as their sole means of competition. They can't compete technologically (because of their entrenched fear of change) and they're scared of losing control of their markets. Boo-hoo. This isn't 1970 anymore, they're going to have to start looking at better ways to do business than hiring a bunch of lawyers and buying off some congressmen. What happens when the programmers all move to . They publish what they want, and the only recourse is to censor the entire Internet (welcome to China). Even better, you just publish it all anonymously on Gnutella or Freenet.
Re:Emmanuel Goldstein
by
da+groundhog
·
· Score: 1
as always slashdotters shine through
ORIGONALLY, Emmanuual Goldstein was a character in Orson Wells 1984, but yes it the character in that movie hackers was a nod to the 2600 guy. Sorry if it was harsh but 1984 is such a good book:)
-- "...through this door all my dreams come realities,
and all my realities become dreams..."
Emmanuel Goldstein is the name that anyone who wants to appear to "question" or "shake up" popular culture out of their (obviously) idiotic and braindead stupor. It's a throwback to the novel 1984, which every high school student has read, and which most every college student believes was "really understood" only by them, and perhaps a small cabal of fellow college students. At our school alone I have seen no more than five candidates run under the moniker of Emmanuel Goldstein. Personally, it's difficult to force myself to seriously listen to anyone after they introduce themselves as Emmanuel Goldstein. But, you know, I try.
Actually, if you really want to know, George Orwell is a pen name. George Orwell's real name was ERIC ARTHUR BLAIR. And, while we are on the subject, Mark Twain was a pen name too. Mark Twain's real name was Samuel Clemmons (sp?).
Re:Emmanuel Goldstein
by
TonyThompson
·
· Score: 4
Sorry - you missed too:-)
Orson Welles was a radio broadcaster who recorded H.G. WellsWar of the Worlds
H.G. Wells was a Victorian science fiction novelist. (granted, that's an irrelevent point, but credit where it's due, eh?)
George Orwell wrote 1984 which was indeed a good book, and featured Emmanual Goldstein as the head of a mythical revolution. Goldstein's figure was used to focus national pride and hatred of a most feared enemy. These feelings were used to keep the sheep like public focused on issues other then the corruption of their government
The important thing is that the script-kiddies and 15-year-old "cracker/hacker" stereotypes do exist -- the unfortunate part is that, though a minority, they have a loud voice.
Damnit. I'm really getting tired with this '15-year-old cracker/hacker' nonsense. I'm 16, and I consider myself a 'hacker', in the OSS sense of the word. I use Debian GNU/Linux + BSD at home (Solaris/SPARC at work), hack on Free Software projects in Perl, Java, C etc in my spare time, and work as a UNIX admin/web guy at a media company. I DO NOT crack into computer systems (although I might be able to, I've never tried, nor do I have any desire to try); I'm not a w3r4z d00d, or anything puerile like that. I'm not trying to boast or anything - but I think more people should be aware that not all - in fact, very few - teenagers are 'l33t hax0rs'.
I know that people like that do exist, and that's the stereotype that you were commenting on. But don't include the age group - there are many people like myself in the under-18 age group that feel sleighted at being associated with script kiddies - just like you would feel. If you want to refer to that group of peope, call them script kiddes, or crackers, or anything you like. But I don't think age has much to do with it.
Wow. That was a mouthful. I can't stand the way the net is moving these days. I feel afraid to do anything, because everything is tracked. Also, a lot of business brew-ha-ha holds true. One thing that I read really intrigued me from the 2600 talk. IMHO it states the real reason why the companies are flailing:
Because of this:
"Development and implementation of a new DVD
copy protection system, however, is far more
difficult and costly than reprogramming a
combination lock and may carry with it the added
problem of rendering the existing installed base
of compliant DVD players obsolete." So
basically, a security hole can be left in place
if it's too expensive to fix and anyone who
exposes the continued existence of the hole can
be prosecuted? Riiight....
This totally reminded me of the scene from Fight Club where Ed Norton is talking about company policy towards recalls and business policy:
JACK (V.O.)
Take the number of vehicles in the
field, (A), and multiply it by the
probable rate of failure, (B), then
multiply the result by the average
out-of-court settlement, (C). A
times B times C equals X...
CUT TO:
INT. AIRPLANE CABIN - MOVING DOWN RUNWAY
Jack is speaking to the BUSINESSWOMAN next to him.
JACK
If X is less than the cost of a
recall, we don't do one.
BUSISNESS WOMAN
Are there a lot of these kinds of
accidents?
JACK
Oh, you wouldn't believe.
BUSINESS WOMAN ... Which... car company do you work
for?
JACK
A major one.
I think that this holds true. I love the irony and satire of the whole situation (DeCSS and 2600). Kinda makes you sick.
Even the samurai
have teddy bears,
and even the teddy bears
--
Even the samurai
have teddy bears,
and even the teddy bears
get drunk
The discussion in "Fight Club" alludes to a legal doctrine called the Hand Formula, first enunciated by Judge Learned Hand in United States v. Carroll Towing Co., 159 F.2d 169 (2d Cir. 1947). In that case, the court considered whether a barge owner whose barge broke from from its moorings and damaged other ships while drifting was negligent for not taking precautions against that possibility. He held that a barge owner was negligent when the cost of taking precautions was less than the "expected value" of the damage:
Since there are occasions when every vessel will break from her moorings, and since, if she does, she becomes a menace to those about her; the owner's duty, as in other similar situations, to provide against resulting injuries is a function of three variables: (1) The probability that she will break away; (2) the gravity of the resulting injury, if she does; (3) the burden of adequate precautions. Possibly it serves to bring this notion into relief to state it in algebraic terms: if the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B; liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by P: i.e., whether B less than PL.
If you understand this, you understand 95% of American negligence law.
I never said that. Marketdroids are the scum of the earth (kind of), so engineers and scientists has to be very careful when they feed them. Was that any better? After all, engineers and scientists are the only people who are smart enough to see the consequences of what they're doing!:-)
-- Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Torx-like security breach.
by
GMontag
·
· Score: 2
We can all
laugh at such words but they represent something
very sinister. We are now expected to believe
that telling someone how to get a file with a
link is the same as offering it yourself. I want
to know if this works both ways - if I point
someone to a site or product that costs money,
is that also a "distinction without a
difference" that will allow me to be
compensated? This kind of logic is already
giving me nightmares.
It gives me other nightmares. It gives the tax man a reason to tax me for funds I have never been promised, nor have ever recieved. Or a Domestic Court deciding that a father must pay child support on same. But thank G_d that 2600 is not in either of those courts.
This smacks me as the judge saying that I have no right to remove the Torx nuts on (insert item) that I bought and paid for, because it needs a "special" security (?) Torx driver (tiny hole in the middle, purchasable anyplace). If I have the gumption to tell others about this, I am violating a "security provision" and then convicted.
For some reason, the same lie repeated over (not in this post) and over again, became "truth" in the press and in that worthless courtroom. DeCSS allows READING, nothing more.
To further PERSICUTE a simple magazine and web site for showing people how to read is absoutly outragious, but not unexpected.
Hopefully, when a court run by a TRUE conservative (USA style) gets hold of this, the mess will be over. Can you ever imagine a true conservative saying that a bunch of "lefties" in Hollywood should tell you what you can do with your own computer equipment? Can you really see a true conservative telling anybody that they can not give their own instructions to their own DVD player to decode and play their own DVD in the privacy of their own home? It is like imagining a conservative telling garage mechanics "you must not use your drill press for drilling 1/4" holes without a license from Ford".
Re:Torx-like security breach.
by
GMontag
·
· Score: 2
Can you ever imagine a true conservative even listening to the defense of some lefty
anarchist hacker punks who flagrantly flout the law and are proud of it, while an upstanding
MPAA man in a respectible suit is saying that they're stealing, pirating, corrupting others,
breaking the law, and probably showing people how to crack porn sites to boot.
Frankly, yes I can. Conservatives leaning toward the "law and order" point of view and seeing right through a law that is obviously a violation of basic property rights (since conservatives actually believe that property can be owned;-). There is no way that anybody should be able to license *origonal* instructions to a machine owned by someone else. It might be wrong to copy someone else's instructions and use them as your own, etc, but this is a case of someone coming up with origonal work to tell a machine what to do. I can see a "feel good" liberal/progressive (what is the pretty name these days?) throwing in stuff like "effictive piracy" or "virtual piracy" to make believe that an "idea" has been stolen, but it sure does not sound like a conservative arguement to me.
Try posing this arguement to a "gear head" sort of guy: you can not tell other people how to make milled valve covers in their machine shop, because GM has a copyright and the machining instructions are a "secret". Do you really think that ANYBODY will believe that telling "joe sixpack" what he can do in his own garage, with his own hands and tools, is a conservative arguement?
Re:Torx-like security breach.
by
-Harlequin-
·
· Score: 2
>Can you ever imagine a true conservative saying that a bunch of "lefties" in Hollywood
>should tell you what you can do with your own computer equipment?
Can you ever imagine a true conservative even listening to the defense of some lefty anarchist hacker punks who flagrantly flout the law and are proud of it, while an upstanding MPAA man in a respectible suit is saying that they're stealing, pirating, corrupting others, breaking the law, and probably showing people how to crack porn sites to boot.
Quite frankly, I think a liberal judge offers more hope, however, I don't think that such factors are even remotely significant next to the things that are actually important, like getting an open-minded judge who grasps the ramifications...
As a conservative, I oppose DMCA and the MPAA's opposition to DECSS. Why? Because it denies the free market the possibility of better engineered, cheaper DVD players. Which is in the best interests of everyone, the more who own DVD players, the more DVD's presumably will be sold. DECSS does not enable copying of DVD's, that can be done without it.
As for Hollywood, represented by the MPAA, most of their $$$ is pouring into the Gore campaign, not Bush.
The decision that Judge Kaplan handed down strikes a disturbing blow against source code as a protected form of free expression. Dave Touretzky has constructed a gallery of CSS descramblers which demonstrates the difficulty of establishing when a piece of code is more expression than it is mechanism. Kaplan's decision even suggests that his finding might have been different if the CSS descrambler in question (DeCSS) was not trivially translatable to an executable device.
But where do we draw the line. When a judge deems that pseudo-code, or a precisely worded prose description of a circumvention algorithm is too easy to turn into an executable circumvention device, are we going to see those forms of expression restricted as well?
I beleive "fair use" applies here. It's commonly accepted that it's within an author's rights to prevent redistribution. But the author can't make arbitrary restrictions (except maybe under DMCA).
It might. That determination would be up to the judge in the event that you actually got taken to court for watching a DVD on your unlicensed player.
For instance, what if a DVD EULA said that people of color can't watch the movie?
I don't know. I'm not sure where anti-discrimination laws come into play and how they stack up against copyright laws. I would say that such a EULA would be almost impossible to define, because "people of color" isn't a legally recognized term. But I tend to believe that anti-discrimination laws are stupid, and if such a EULA didn't explicitly violate Fair Use, then I would tend to say they have the right to use such a EULA. I would think they were stupid racists for excersizing that right, but I would grant it to them nonetheless. After all, there's already laws saying people under 17 can't watch certain movies; that seems pretty blatantly discriminatory to me.
Well I repeated most of my argument, but here's the link anyway.
Why you think that all these people wanted to keep DeCSS for illegal purposes I am not understanding.
Because DeCSS is inherently illegal. The "illegal" in the case of DeCSS is that it "circumvents anti-piracy measures" by decoding CSS, not that it makes copies. You don't need DeCSS to make copies, you make all the pirate copies of a DVD that you want by copying it bit-for-bit and viewing the illegal copies in a licensed player. That's not what I was talking about. I was addressing the fact that most people feel that if they purchase a DVD movie, they have the right to view it on any player they want, because they own that movie. This isn't true; they're only allowed to view it under certain conditions, one of which happens to be that it's on a licensed player.
Another thing that bothers me about this encryption is the ignorance around it. Technically, someone with the cash and the resources could build a burner that copies everything bit-by-bit and encryption would be incapable of stopping it.
This is true, and I've pointed this out on previous threads. But what DeCSS lets you do is not only display the DVD, but grab the mpeg data, which allows you to convert it into a smaller mpeg, like say a 650 mB mpeg. Very few people have DVD-burners, and the expense of that makes using it for piracy self-defeating. But lots of people have CD-burners, and VCD quality isn't that bad.
But my counter-argument to that is the same one I make against "secure" digital music. No matter what kinda of protection you put on media, it has to be outputted in plain, pure media at some level, and you can always copy it on that level. In the case of DVDs, someone with a legit player could just set their resolution to 800x600 16-bit and screen capture the DVD while it plays. Sure, it's more expensive and complicated than just DeCSSing it, but it's not all that hard.
If the people who hacked CSS did so because they wanted a linux player (and not the illegal purposes you speak of), and there was already one for linux, I doubt they would bother.
First of all, creating a linux player is one of the illegal purposes of which I spoke. Secondly, the legit Linux players were (and still are) under development, not finished.
I think it is unfair of the MPAA to have a legal windows compatible player, but make it illegal to make one for linux.
I completely agree. Very unfair. But not illegal.
Lastly though, I'm impressed that you left your email address (albeit at hotmail) and not one of the obnoxious spam-proofer codes that most posters here use.
Re:YOU just doesn't get it.
by
Ketzer
·
· Score: 1
So you're basically saying thatr WINE is violating Microsoft's "IP"?
I'm not sure, I leave that determination to the courts. It certainly seems borderline though. If it really works like it's supposed to, then it pretty much rips off the entire Windows OS and plugs it into Linux, minus a chunk of efficiency. That seems like the sort of business blow that we would all scream bloody murder at Microsoft for doing, but if the friendly Linux OpenSourcers do it, it's supposedly all good.
I'm sorry, it's people like you that seem to think that you can crush the human spirit along with the very idea of curosity.
That's a pretty low blow as well as a pretty empty statement. There's a difference between curiosity (reverse engineering CSS for research purposes, which is legal via the DMCA) and publishing a tool specifically designed to illegally circumvent current encryption. And would you be a bit more specific and explain where I was "crushing the human spirit?"
The DVDCCA licenses CSS out to people, because it's a (or was) a trade secret. It's no longer secret, so now people can do whatever the hell they want to/with CSS without a license.
Except they can't, you're wrong, the DMCA says it's illegal to "circumvent anti-piracy measures" (CSS) or to distribute a tool for doing so.
It's like saying I can't develop my own kind of tyre because I figured out how to put tyres on cars.
No, actually it's nothing like that. It's more like saying that if you discovered a way to steal tires, (note the i) it's illegal to develop and sell a tool for doing so. But that's actually not illegal, due to the principle I pointed out in the beginning of my post "punish the crime, not the tool." DMCA is an exception to this principle, and though I disagree with the DMCA, it's currently the law and it's the job of the judge to enfore that law.
I thought that reverse engineering was legal? Well i'm not exactly a lawyer, that's just the impression I had.
Yes and no. DMCA makes reverse engineering legal only in the specific case of research, which the judge decided was not the case with DeCSS.
Besides that, an encryption algorithm basically comes down to a mathematical formula. Why does the government allow the DVD-CCA to license a mathematical formula? I mean, can i get 2 + 2 = 4 licensed?
Well first of all, 2+2=4 isn't a formula, it's an equation. The example would be something more like x+2. This formula, when applied to the data "2" would result in an encoded result of "4". You can't get it licensed because it's so simple that it's already in use by the general public. Just like I couldn't get a trademark or copyright on the name "convenient store" because it's a simple descriptive term that I didn't invent and is already in public use. On the other hand, if I come up with a specific name on my own, I may be able to copyright it. Same with CSS. It's very specific and complicated (well, compared to x+2) and they developed it.
Ideas should just not be considered property -- and it shouldn't be illegal to disseminate them.
But they are, and it is. And I think it would destroy the software, research, and media markets if intellectual property and copyright were eliminated as a whole.
How exactly do you get to be a "legitimate" cryptography researcher with a ruling like this? 2600 hasn't committed any other crimes at all. As far as intent, their intent was to publish the information because they found it interesting.
Well for starters, you publish the workings of the encryption itself, not full source code for software that will decode it. A minor difference, I know, but it requires that someone specifically know how to write code to develop software, and that they apply that knowledge to the codec. Also, I believe that the reason that 2600 found it interesting is because they recognize that their readers would find it interesting, which is because it's a means for "circumventing anti-piracy measures" which is illegal, as is the distribution of tools for doing so.
The assertion that the purpose of developing DeCSS wan't for eventually making a Linux player is just silly.
I disagree, and no one has given evidence to suggest that it was.
Well, this law is wrong. IMO, legal is not always equal to moral. How can we have fair use if all content is behind encryption?
I agree, but it isn't the job of the courts to uphold morality. If it was, I would first shit my pants, then move to another country, because the idea of being legally subject to other people's ideas of morality scares the crap out of me. To some extent I already am, like anti-drug and anti-prostitution laws, but those are laws, and at least I know about them and I only have to worry about a judge punishing me because drugs and prositution are against the law, not because he finds them to be immoral.
Ah, then that will probably be included in the request for appeal.
For those who don't know, you can't just appeal anytime you lose. Appeals have to be approved and granted by the court you are appealing to, and they are only granted if you can show that something in your first trial went very wrong. They aren't just do-overs in higher courts.
Well doing it is bad, but writeing how to do it is just fine.
But "doing it" consisted of writing something that could be used as a tool to request nonexistent funds from the bank, as well as distributing that tool to your friends. It was your friends who actually requested the funds, so it's their fault, right? The bad check was just the tool.
There is a simple, agreed-upon, and (nearly?) universally implemented
way to make your wishes known regarding linking to your webpages by
search engines.
Of course, the court may be ignorant of that, as well.
-- The Web is like Usenet, but
the elephants are untrained.
I'm voting for Dubya because I'm worried about the moral and ethical decline of this country. We've let the nihilists run things for far too long. It's time to let someone who's made his mistakes and learned from them have a chance. We've suffered two terms now of someone who refuses to admit his mistakes, and lies instead.
Well, I own a shirt, and I don't think I'd sell it to the MPAA for any price. If they were required to pay what the market will bear for the shirts, that would be interesting indeed!
Re:2600 a victim of their own reputation
by
msouth
·
· Score: 4
As much as I hate to say it, as much as it sucks, I'm afraid 2600 is fast becoming a victim of their own reputation.
Although it appears that you're not trying to support the judges attitude, it appears to me that you're failing. Basically, you're saying, "it's too bad, it's not fair, but it's their fault that they are getting screwed by the system.", right? Explain to me how what you're saying is different than "well, she wouldn't have had such a hard time proving that she didn't sleep with Bob if she hadn't slept with Tom, Dick and Harry".
You go on to re-iterate that it's not fair. What I'm missing here is your point. I read "they are reaping what they have sown" to mean "they brought this on themselves", or, in other words, "it's their fault". Then later I read that it's wrong that this is happening. In other words, "it's the system that's wrong". I put these together to mean "reputations shouldn't matter, but they do, so they shouldn't have gotten a bad one, poor fools".
The article already points out that the judge was apparently biased against 2600 because of their previous publications, and that this is wrong. So what you are adding is that, because their description of what's wrong with various security models reads to you like instructions for crackers they have brougt it on themselves? It just keeps sounding to me like you sympathize with the judge even though you know you shouldn't.
Not a flame, just wondering if you can clarify your point, or tell what you think they should have done differently. Would it have gone better for them, in your opinion, if their past articles had been less of a how-to and more cold and clinical? I'm just not getting it.
someone correct me if i'm wrong... could one install a dvd player without agreeing to the licence... then proceed to reverse engineer the player and publish the source code.
We *all* need post DeCSS on our severs. Everyone. That means you! The only way we can combat harassment and restriction of legitimate free speech is if there are more of us than their money and time can reasonably assail. I do not think I am the only one who feels strongly about this (but I am one of few who is doing anything). Once you have posted DeCSS, link it as a reply to this message. You can find it on my web server in the clouds. If mine is shut down try gnutella. Resistance is indispensable.
My mirror of DeCSS stuff Contains lots of various decss related stuff along with livid/decss + source/mirrors etcetc
I happen to live in NZ, so none of this court crap
affects me
-- My email addy? should be easy enough.
Re:Another flaw of the bank vault metaphor
by
HerrNewton
·
· Score: 2
And furthermore, it's not illegal to know the combination to a vault which you OWN.
----
--
----
Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
Just for note on the MPAA 'about' page, these companies are listed as members of the MPAA, amongst others:
Walt Disney Company
Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.
Paramount Pictures Corporation
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.
Universal Studios, Inc.
Warner Bros.
I don't have a list of the subsideries. What you do with this info is up to you.
Yes, I've done all that and more. Of course, I haven't pumped millions into any election funds, or promised to build a corporate presence in anyone's district, so chances are my voice isn't being heard over the sound the corporate voice.
The signal to noise ratio is already past critical mass. The noise (braindead or single issue people who vote strait party tickets) has completly drowned out the signal (people who actually research candidates and vote based on their records and past actions).
So, I still vote/voice concerns/etc, but how many times DO you kick at a mountain before you realise it's not going anywhere?
Finkployd
CSS is not copy protection.
by
Andrew+Meier
·
· Score: 2
People, please repeat after me:
CSS is not copy protection.
CSS is not copy protection.
CSS is not copy protection.
I can't believe how well the MPAA has pulled the wool over so many peoples eyes. CSS does not prevent copying. CSS does not make copying difficult. The ONLY thing CSS does is prevent Linux users from watching their DVD's that they just shelled out $20-$30 for.
While I'm on the subject, Macrovision is also not copy protection. Macrovision forces people to shell out $70 for a deMacrovision device so they can watch DVD's through their VCR if they have a TV with RF only inputs.
What I would do is buy a DVD and return it if the content won't play in Linux. Keep returning the DVD's untill they give you one that is not broken. A CSS'd or Macrovisioned'd DVD is a broken DVD!
What 2600 did was to stand as an acid-test to the First Amendment rights and the "fair-use" clause of the current copyright law. By fighting to keep the MPAA from getting what they want, they strove to set a legal precedent.
do you think that the average Slashdot reader is too lazy or imbecile to notice and click on the article link in the story? This comment deserves a -1: Redundant at very least. Hairy_Potter is karma whoring.
If you had bothered to read a few posts you would have known that 2600.com was suffering from the mighty slashdot effect plus not everyone could even use that link because they are behind firewalls that won't let them through.
Pontiac
-- If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. --Red Adair
We have to give the MPAA points for picking its straw man to knock over. By going after a site that it knew would stand no chance in court, the MPAA has established a legal precedent to use as a club against everyone else.
As I have pointed out in another post the way bad case law is caused to exist is for the rich and powerful to pick first opponents that stand no chance in court. Then once an absurd, lopsided, decision is on the books everyone accepts that absurdity as the 'law' from that point forward. The legal system makes no note of the fact that you beat up somebody with ALS in a wheel chair in your judicial fist fight - all that gets recorded is the big 'W' in your column.
The law, 100's of millions of lines of code, not one line of which has ever been tested to see if it works.
I don't think this is comparable to lockpicking. Lockpicking requires different actions/technique on each lock.
I think what he was saying is something like "If someone discovered that you could instantly open any Master lock by tapping the combination dial with your knuckle twice, then Master would be at fault for negligence. It shouldn't be illegal for the guy who discovered this fault to publish the information in hopes of exposing weak security."
Also, when the DeCSS code was written, I don't think that there were any DVD players being developed for Linux. These closed source versions are also likely to only be available for Linux86, not any of the hundreds of other varieties (including LinuxPPC, etc). Also, (as far as I know) there are no DVD players available/being developed for the BSDs.
This is why this case is such a big issue. The MPAA is blocking you from watching movies without a technological reason if you have an "unsupported" platform. In effect, they are taking away the rights for us to watch the movies how we choose to watch them!
--
Doh!
Re:Austrialia 2600 will not comply
by
sporty
·
· Score: 2
Considering.au isn't under NY, much less US juristiction, they have a right. That's unless the.au's decide to follow suit and the likes.. of taking action against their 2600.
---
--
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
Re:Are 2600 really helping?
by
finkployd
·
· Score: 2
Perhaps they feel the obligation to fight because nobody else is?
Actually, they are fighting because that is the target that MPAA (intelligently) choose to hit first. Either way, they didn't ask for this, but I'm glad they are standing up for themselves and (in turn) us as well.
The 2600 article was well written and convincing. I admit I haven't followed the DeCSS issue, but if the 2600 article is correct then it seems like this case is a major threat to free speech.
Before sending a check to the EFF and posting DeCSS on my web site, I just have one question. Is there a well written piece telling the other side of the story? Even though I don't have any reason to doubt the 2600 story, its always best to hear both sides before making a decision.
It'll help if you've ever read an issue of 2600. I've got about a dozen of them, as the local bookstore carries it from time to time.
2600 is not exactly Scientific American. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of editing, and many of the articles are written in an informal, spoken-word kind of voice. It's not as bad as 3133t3 sp33k, but there's a lot of slang, bad grammar, and the like.
There's also a lot of "fight the Man!" rhetoric and quasi-revolutionary language, and the occasional thinly-veiled disclaimer. "This is totally illegal, and you should never do this, but if you wanted to here's how to do it...."
The impression created by reading a typical 2600 issue is eavesdropping on a conversation at a prison for tech-savvy criminals. It's not a fair impression, and it's more for show and image than substance ("We Bad! We 3133t3!") But 2600 manages to convey the message that it and its readership don't have much respect for law or law enforcement.
So when 2600 gets boned by a group of _real_ criminals (posing as Fine Upstanding Captialists) it's hard to imagine any judge reading a stack of 2600s and coming away with any sympathy for them. Page after page of "how to crack this system" and "how to phreak this phone" doesn't install much confidence in the argument that DeCSS wasn't intended as a copying/pirating tool. Page after page after tedious page of "Our legal system sucks. Judges are all corrupt. Free Kevin!!" rhetoric doesn't do much in the way of image building either.
What _really_ sucks is how much influence all this seems to have had on the judge - because once you get past all that noise and look at this case at the pure merits, it's obvious that the MPAA doesn't have a leg to stand on. If the legal system really was 100% pure logic and objective reason, the case would be done by now, and the MPAA would have been sent packing.
But that's not what happened. Obviously, 2600's somewhat grey-hat presentation style made a bigger impression on the judge than the actual facts of the case. And given that 2600 has worked very hard to create that "Hax0r 3133t3" image (that is now biting them very hard) they are reaping what they have sown.
I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that if 2600 was a little more like Scientific American, and a little less like the Hax0r Pravda, that their troubles would be a lot less.
And yet, the fact that a change of editorial voice could sway a judicial proceeding is truly a Very Bad Thing. That 2600 ran afoul of the law is just Karma; that the judicial system was unable to look past the bullshit and see the real case is... disturbing.
So I'm torn myself. On the one hand, I see 2600 getting a little Karmic balancing for all the "on the edge" stuff they've done. On the other hand, to see them lose a meritorious and _important_ case because of their image (and the associated implication that if you want to have your rights protected by the courts, you had better toe the editorial line) strikes me as wrong too.
And in all of this, I see the litigational genius of the MPAA's legal team. They've picked the perfect target, one that is going to have to work very, very hard to create any sort of judicial sympathy.
And in all of this, I see the litigational genius of the MPAA's legal team. They've picked the perfect target, one that is going to have to work very, very hard to create any sort of judicial sympathy.
That really is the key point and one we must remember. The MPAA didn't just pick any web site at random for this case; THEY picked 2600. Hopefully this doesn't come down to reputations and is decided instead by the facts and laws.
Re:sobering prospects for future tech
by
barleyguy
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· Score: 2
(If you disagree, explain why laws against passing bad checks could ever be constitutional.)
This one is simple, actually. The reason passing bad checks is illegal is because it falls under libel. In other words, free speech does not give you the right to lie. By passing a bad check, you are indicating that you have the money to pay it, and are willing to do so. If you do not have the money to pay, or are not willing to do so, you are lying. Libel law predates the constition, and being untruthful has never been guaranteed legal.
If you want a better example, how about license plates? In this case, the government is requiring you to tag yourself with a number, in order to utilize your constitutional right to travel. A direct violation of the right to NOT express things you choose not to.
However, the DMCA is NOT content neutral. It is illegal to publish source code to DeCSS, but it is not illegal to publish the source code of how to burn the Canadian flag. It is in fact the content of the source code that is being punished.
-- ---
"So THAT's what an invisible barrier looks like!" - Time Bandits
I think 2600 considers this type of thing implicit in all their articles. However, maybe they shouldn't be so surprised when the whole world doesn't see it that way, and maybe they should be a little more explicit there.
It is also correct that destroying the "security through obscurity" philosiphy of many corperations is a good thing. How long does it take a security hole to be fixed after its seen in 2600? The day it hits the stands?
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-- Not a typewriter
Re:If this goes to Supreme Court
by
HerrNewton
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· Score: 1
Generally sound, but your argument about technically inept judges falls flat on its face. Supreme Court Justices usually have been older, at the very least in their 50s, and that generation is not exactly the most wired generation.
It's equally likely that Gore would appoint justices in the same age bracket. HOWEVER, you are right that a Gore court would be far more liberally minded than a Bush court, and that liberal position will obviously factor into every case they hear.
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Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
Re:Linux DVD
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1
Yep. Open Source and the packaging scheme for DVD media are by definition incompatible.
Fume and sputter and rant and rave. You won't change reality.
And people like DVD content. Prices are starting to fall for the disks and the players. This year is going to be the 'Christmas of DVD' and you'd better get used to it.
The DMCA specifically outlaws any device whose purpose is to bypass encryption or other copyright devices (like macrovision). Hence this sort of mod would be illegal.
I don't think EC goes far enough in discrediting this analogy. He states its flawed in that DeCSS is more like instructions on how to commit an assassination.
I would go further, DeCSS is more like instructions on how to fire a rifle. Firing a rifle is not in itself an illegal act (at least depending on where you do it), and in fact is a constitutionally protected right.
DeCSS is not instructions on how to pirate or otherwise violate the copyright on a DVD. It is merely instructions on copying the decoded DVD data to another media, what the copier then does is up to his/her own conscience. Since there are valid reasons to perform such a procedure (such as playback on Linux - which arguably is also a protected right, since personal use of the disk presumably is included when you buy it), no implication of performing an illegal act is made simply by publishing (or linking to) the DeCSS code.
Re:Look on the bright side...
by
Greg@RageNet
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· Score: 1
The MPAA just spent four million on a single legal case to uphold their monopoly on information. How much airtime do you think four million can buy, especially if you are the one's who own the major networks?
How difficult do you think it would be for these networks to get Joe average american worked up enough to demand action? How hard would the desision be for the government on a cause the average american supports and for those who contribute so much to each of the political parties?
Sealand is of dubious standing as a sovern nation, and has a combined sea/land/air based armed forces of a rifle and a speedboat. It would not be hard to justify the forceful removal of servers by armed invasion. Not too hard to justify if you can convince people they help terrorists and child pornographers.
Unless sealand someday becomes a major NAP, then lets not forget that a few simple court orders to shut down their traffic at the NAPs or their leased-lines where they enter other nations could have the same effect.
If sealand becomes inconvienent to the large corporations or governments of this globe it can and will be silenced.
-- Greg
-- Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
"I'm rather jubilant now. What Judge Kaplan did was blow away every one of these brittle and fragile rebuttals. He threw out fair use; he threw out reverse engineering; he threw out linking."
I swear when I read that, that last word looked like thinking. Which sounds about right really...
-- I don't like fish. Reverse the fish to e-mail.
Kaplan makes me wish for a jury
by
SEAL
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· Score: 2
First of all, Judge Kaplan should've disqualified himself since he has professional ties to the MPAA.
But apart from that - it's shit like this that really emphasizes the need for a jury. The only ways Kaplan could spout off with such a poor ruling are either: a) prejudice against 2600, b) ties to the MPAA, c) plain stupidity, or a combination of the above.
A jury would've eliminated a and b. And as for stupidity -- well that's where you hope for a jury of your peers (in this case, hackers).
Ahh well... I think I better give up my romantic notion of a just justice system.
SEAL
Re:Kaplan makes me wish for a jury
by
techsupersite.com
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· Score: 1
Kaplan admonished Garbus for a much lesser conflict of interest than he himself admitted to having.
He refused to recuse himself, and now has made an illogical ruling in conflict with the facts.
Clearly his bias and conflict of interest played the defining role in his decision. There is no way that he EVER should have been permitted to handle this case.
As you pointed out, he is a Clinton appointee. The Clintons have long been the darlings of Hollywood, and receive much support. This could be quid quo pro.
However, I think that this ruling will be overturned in appeal, on the basis of his conflict of interest ALONE, much less tha facts. In some ways, this could be a good thing for those who oppose the MPAA, as what we have here in Kaplan's court was a lynching, in public, all on record.
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In 2000 America, is a non-lawyer truly free?
Re:Kaplan makes me wish for a jury
by
scruffyMark
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· Score: 1
Problem is, juries almost always introduce liberal doses of c.
And there's no way you'd get a jury of hackers - the MPAA's lawyers would get everyone with an ounce of technical knowledge thrown out as being prejudiced.
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What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
ANALYSIS OF THE DECISION AGAINST 2600 is the title of the article, and I was expecting an analysis. I don't think he really brought anymore information to the table besides complaining that he felt discriminated against. I haven't read all the transcripts, but I did read a few and I felt as though the issue isn't as black and white as everyone assumes. Judge Kaplan made a lot of good points in his decision, but, it did seem to contain an obvious bias against the 2600. I guess I expected Goldstien to review the decision and tell us why Kaplan was wrong. BTW, you're right about publishing "HOWTO: Pick a lock" and the fact that you can do it legally, however, that doesn't mean that you might not be responsible for what you choose to write. It's like the debate about whether bartenders should limit patron's drinking and whether bars are responsible...they aren't, but yet, are they? It's not an easy answer.
-- I need a TiVo for my car. Pause live traffic now.
IANAL either, but since the shirt was already "illegal" by law (DMCA), then it may only matter that it was bought after the law (DMCA) was made. The current court case is merely part of the execution of that law.
At any rate if the law states that displaying the source code is a violation of copyright, then the ex post facto thingy would apply to continued display, and not displays done before imposition of the law.
-- end of line
$200 more for legal defense..
by
otis+wildflower
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· Score: 2
.. and if any of you are overpaid computer geeks taking net.freedom for granted, I encourage you to do the same..
And yeah, they might not have premiums, but my liberty is worth more than a tote bag..
Re:And here it is with the proper format.
by
RickHunter
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· Score: 3
This is a very well-written article. The only problem I could really see is that Mr. Goldstein seems to be focusing a bit too much on "DeCSS provde to the MPAA that their protection was inadequate." This is probably just my bias, but that sounds to me like a "script kiddie" thing. "Its perfectly legal... we were just proving their protection wasn't strong enough." To me, the bigger issue is that DeCSS allows me to use my property (in this case, view a DVD I've bought from a video store) however I choose. If I want to take the movie and randomly rearrange the frames, that's my right, because its my property.
And CSS is a lock imposed on my property to prevent me from using it except as the person I bought it from intended. If I want to rip some five-second clips from it to use in a review, I can do that too, under fair use. Except CSS doesn't allow me to, and its now illegal to even tell someone about something that'll let them break it. To me, the fact that the MPAA's protection wasn't strong enough isn't the issue. Its that they had protection at all.
I've observed that some geeks tend to lose perspective with the outside world after spending too long in computerland. As I was reading this tirade, I was struck with the fact that Emmanuel is suffering drastically from this problem. Then I found that it wasn't limited to just him; almost all the posts on Slashdot went to the effect of "the judge is clearly biased, poor Emmanuel got shafted. Just another case of the Man trying to keep us down." PLEASE people, try to withdraw from your life on the net for a minute and think like normal people. Here, I'll work off his statements.
See, in my mind, this case has always been about common sense. Someone cracked someone else's badly protected encryption scheme. Game over. It's shot to hell. You don't continue to use bad encryption or pretend it didn't happen.
That's not at all what it's about. This isn't a crypto war. It's like someone robbed a bank, and told all his friends how to get past security, then got caught and tried to convince everyone that he's the good guy for revealing that the bank had bad security. The point is that it was illegal to crack the encryption, and illegal to distribute the tool for doing so. If anyone doubts that it was really illegal, check out the DMCA. And it was the judge's job to uphold the law. So when he saw some kids arguing "Sure, we broke the law, but it was really their fault because their crypto sucked ass." of course he treated them with contempt. Their few defenses were bullshit. Development of a Linux player? Well besides the fact that developing an Open Source Linux player would be drastically violating DVD-CCA's intellectual property, (they spend money developing CSS, and they get that money back through licensing) the code was developed in Windows. But wait, he has another defense:
So now we have this law that basically says we are not allowed to show people the failings of technology if the people controlling that technology decide they don't want us to.
No, not true. DMCA "Does permit the cracking of copyright protection devices, however, to conduct encryption research, assess product interoperability, and test computer security systems." They didn't just "show people the failings of the technology," they took a program to exploit those failings and distributed it. It's one thing to tell Xing "Hey, we found a crack in your security and reverse engineered your program." and quite another to build a tool to use that crack and distribute it to the public. 2600 wasn't aiding crypto research, they were distributing a tool that not only had no legal use, but its very existence was a violation of copyright laws and the DMCA. They were fighting a war with an opponent that wasn't even aware they were being attacked. It's not the corp's responsibility to have good crypto anymore than its your responsibility to wear Kevlar. If you crack their crypto, just like if you shoot somebody, you're breaking the law. The crypto is only there to assure them some protection from lawbreakers. So what's their next point?
Oh, and let's also point out that no matter how hard they try, nobody can wipe the paint off the wall.
The fact that they can't stop all the criminals doesn't mean you shouldn't stop any. It's pretty much impossible to completely prevent all murders, but that's no reason to legalize murder.
He goes on to complain about how he was treated unfairly due to 2600's reputation. They earned the reputation. They're subversives, plain and simple. They teach people how to break the law. He says that if 2600 wasn't able to post their tutorials on things like stealing domain names and intercepting cell phone calls, that those security holes would still be there. Maybe so, but I don't believe for a second that 2600 published that info in the hopes of aiding the industry. If they really wanted the holes closed, they would discreetly explain the problems to the companies responsible, not publish them to a huge public audience of hackers.
Another thing that bothers me is that it doesn't seem to matter in the least WHY DeCSS was written. The fact is that DeCSS was written to circumvent CSS and, even if that was done specifically to cure world hunger, in the eyes of the court, it was a violation of the DMCA.
Actually it does matter. As I've already quoted, the DMCA makes it perfectly acceptable to crack encryption for research purposes. But the judge looked at the situation and determined that that was not why DeCSS was written.
And ironic that none of us even HAS a DVD player.
I find that pretty ironic, but probably not the same way he does. I think that for people who cry out so much about their "right" to view a DVD on whatever they want, they haven't actually purchased even one legitimate player. No wonder they want the illegal Linux player.
Now I don't agree with the MPAA, (though I end up defending them a lot around here, since the average Slashdotter doesn't even stop to think for a minute before crying out that MPAA is some giant conspiracy headed by evil warlords seeking to oppress all of us poor netizens.) I think CSS is pretty stupid and I think that the DMCA goes too far. Hatch even admits that DMCA goes too far. Hopefully it will be fixed soon. But in the meantime, it's the law, and the judge isn't biased and stupid by upholding the law. That's his job.
Re:He just doesn't get it.
by
kurowski
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· Score: 1
There are so many silly bits of flaming bait in that post, none worth responding to, but I just couldn't let this one go by:
I find that pretty ironic, but probably not the same way he does. I think that for people who cry out so much about their
"right" to view a DVD on whatever they want, they haven't actually purchased even one legitimate player. No wonder
they want the illegal Linux player.
I do believe that the man was talking about not owning the hardware necessary to play a DVD. See? The irony being that they are defending software that they can't use. So, they couldn't perform the criminal act of DeCSSing a DVD even if they wanted to.
sheesh.
Re:He just doesn't get it.
by
Supercoz
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· Score: 1
That's not at all what it's about. This isn't a crypto war. It's like someone robbed a bank, and told all his friends how to get past security, then got caught and tried to convince everyone that he's the good guy for revealing that the bank had bad security. The point is that it was illegal to crack the encryption, and illegal to distribute the tool for doing so. If anyone doubts that it was really illegal, check out the DMCA. And it was the judge's job to uphold the law. So when he saw some kids arguing "Sure, we broke the law, but it was really their fault because their crypto sucked ass." of course he treated them with contempt. Their few defenses were bullshit. Development of a Linux player? Well besides the fact that developing an Open Source Linux player would be drastically violating DVD-CCA's intellectual property, (they spend money developing CSS, and they get that money back through licensing) the code was developed in Windows. But wait, he has another defense:
First, Courts are supposed to uphold the law, but they also _make_ the law. Everyone knows about historic court decisions like Brown vs. Board of Education or Miranda. The courts have overturned laws as unconstitutional before. This is clearly a groundbreaking case: one of the first if not the first use of the DMCA. As such, he should definitely consider the constitutionality of the DMCA in his decision. In my opinion, by the time this thing is over, MPAA vs 2600 will be a landmark case that is used to determine digital rights for some time.
Secondly, I have trouble with ANY real-life/internet analogies. In your bank analogy, there is no question: the bank lost money. But, DeCSS is more tricky: there ARE legitimate uses (LiViD) and one can argue how much money the MPAA really lost to DeCSS. I would argue that it's actually quite small.
Third, I honestly think intellectual property, already under drastic assault by the web, is going to die. It simply is going to be too difficult to enforce. I don't think information wants to be free, but I do think that trying to prevent piracy of digital media will be impossible. As more and more people get broadband net access, the MPAA will face the same problems as the RIAA.
I agree with a lot of what you've said, and/. does tend to be a lot of rabid GNUists:) But the fact of the matter is you (and Judge Kaplan) are applying laws to the internet that were not designed with it in account.
Boo hoo hoo. The MPAA is SUCH a victim here. They must feel violated - the rights that they could only wish for a few years ago were attacked. My sympathy for those poor, poor saps is overwhelming.
not.
2600 broke the law. But the point of this case was to contest a law that obviously treads on the rights of citizens. The fact is that CSS goes beyond the rights of the MPAA as purveyors of copyrighted materials. The fact is also that the MPAA is simply targeting a patsy with a bad reputation so they can get legislation in their favor.
there's more at stake here than i-was-right bragging rights. This case questions the constitutionality of the DCMA and the legality of the MPAA's actions with repsect to CSS. It's critical for the future of the internet and in determining if online publishing is a tool of the people or of corporations.
this rhetoric may be overblown, but the fact is that we believe the MPAA is in the wrong. As those who stand with a significant intellectual and emotional stake in this case, it's our duty to have an opinion, and as hackers it's our duty to stand up for our principles. This was the first field test of the DMCA, and a ruling in its favor is an attack on our beliefs.
and if you don't think so, think of a world where all your code is relegated to 'presidential assassination' status.
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Get back to me when my brain starts working.
Re:He just doesn't get it.
by
juju2112
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· Score: 2
The point is that it was illegal to crack the encryption, and illegal to distribute the tool for doing so. If anyone doubts that it was really illegal, check out the DMCA.
It should not be illegal to crack encryption, it should be illegal to pirate movies. Pirating movies is the problem, and that is the problem that should be dealt with. The fact that someone cracks encryption, or even has in their possession a tool for cracking encryption, does not mean they pirated anything! Why is 2600 being held responsible for an action that another individual may or may not do?
I believe that the MPAA should go after people who actually pirated movies. That is my idea of common sense. None of the defendants in this case have ever pirated a movie!
It's not the corp's responsibility to have good crypto anymore than its your responsibility to wear Kevlar. If you crack their crypto, just like if you shoot somebody, you're breaking the law. The crypto is only there to assure them some protection from lawbreakers.
So, should it be illegal for me to shoot a hole in a suit of Kevlar, or should it be illegal for me to assassinate someone?
Computer code is not only speech, but also a tool. It's a weird aspect of computer programs that doesn't really exist anywhere else. You're writing instructions for the processor, but those instructions can also be used as a tool by someone else. The solution should be to enforce personal responsibility, not security through obscurity.
He goes on to complain about how he was treated unfairly due to 2600's reputation. They earned the reputation. They're subversives, plain and simple.
You're right that they earned their reputation, and I doubt they're ashamed of it. But this is a court of law! It is supposed to be objective Cases should be judged based on the facts, not on personal character.
Actually it does matter. As I've already quoted, the DMCA makes it perfectly acceptable to crack encryption for research purposes. But the judge looked at the situation and determined that that was not why DeCSS was written.
Yeah, and he was wrong. The creaters of DeCSS have stated that the intent of the program was a step in creating a DVD player for the Linux operating system. That's not piracy, that's fair use.
It's true that these are two different things. But the point is, they are both speech. If someone finds themselves with knowledge of how to defeat something, it is THEIR choice on how to handle it. It is not Xing's choice, it is not the government's choice. It is the choice of the person who has knowledge who to tell about it.
No, it's not that simple. 2600's only significant legal defense was that this was reverse engineering intended to aid reserach. Intent is key in that clause, and the fact that they posted it to a bunch of hackers instead of discreetly reporting it to Xing shows clearly where their intent was.
The free speech argument is definitely an important one, but free speech already has many restrictions in cases where free speech leads to uncontrollable situations, like inciting a riot. The distribution clause of the DMCA is in that same spirit, trying to prevent an outbreak of uncontrollable violation of the law. It goes too far, but it's not as clear and simple as "DMCA restricts speech so it's unconstitutional."
It is unfortunate that we have built a society where security through obscurity is so vital to the status quo that disseminating knowledge is punishable as a crime
I agree, this is unfortunate, and it's not the way things should work. But right now, it's the law, and that's what the judge is supposed to concern himself with.
While it's refreshing to read a thoughtfull post such as this I think that it misses the fundamental reasons why people are so passionate about this topic. The law itself is flawed.
No, I didn't miss those reasons, I just didn't argue with them, because I agree with you. I agree that the law is flawed, but it's not blatantly unconstitutional, so it was the judge's duty to uphold it. Most people were arguing that 2600 should have won because they were legally in the right, and that because of that they will likely win on appeal. Most of them also claimed that the judge was biased and wrong in his failure to recognize the law. I'm merely trying to give these people a bit of perspective and make them realize that 2600 was legally wrong and that the judge was just doing his job. In the case of laws that are unreasonable but not outright unconstitutional, it's up to the Legislature to fix them, not the Judiciary.
Kaplan took a very narrow view of this situation in that he seems to be of the MPAA mindset by nature.
I don't see it that way. I got the impression from his statement that he recognized that moral ambiguity in the law, and he specifically pointed out that even still, it's his job to uphold it.
I do agree however that as this escalates, DMCA may take the beating it well deserves.
And yes, there were legitimate uses. The original reason the teenager over in Europe wrote this was to be able to watch the DVDs that he had bought. He didn't write it to copy DVDs, he just wanted to be able to watch that which he had bought on his Linux box.
Except that is not a legitimate use. To be legitimate, players must be licensed to decode CSS. It's much like writing a SNES emulator for PC, and using it to play SNES games that you own. Intuitively, this seems quite fair. You own the game, why can't you play it? But now you don't need to buy a SNES console, and the people developing the game in the first place were only licensed the information needed to develop because Nintendo wanted them to develop games in order to help sell SNES consoles. There is a legitimate financial framework involved, and by bypassing that you potentially deprive that company of revenue.
Then the Anarchist Cook book should also be illegal.
No, because there isn't (to my knowledge) a law that forbids the distribution of information than can be used to build explosives. There is however a law that forbids the distribution of information that is used to circumvent anti-piracy measures. If you want to argue the justice of that law, I'll agree with you. DMCA is unjust and should be repealed. But if you want to argue that it is unconstitutional, I disagree. It's not that simple. Speech has been restricted for quite a while, with copyright being on of the most significant restrictions. DMCA was founded in the spirit of copyright, meaning to implement neccessary measures to preserve copyright in the face of the Internet. Some say it goes to far. I say it goes to far. But it's not quite blatantly unconstitutional.
The act of breaking into a bank is illegal, and it should be rightfully so. The point Emmanuel is making is that the law against distributing information is unconstitutional.
The act of distributing information about how to break into a bank in general, or a branch in particular must be protected under the First Amendment, just as instructions on how to build a bomb are currently protected.
The act of distributing information about how to decode a DVD, protected by cryptography, must also be protected, for source code is speech. The distribution of the source code does not constitute an act of theft, just as publishing instructions on how to build a bomb does not constitute an act of terrorism.
Both instructions can be used for legal and illegal purposes. The act of using such instructions to perform an illegal act is, and must continue to remail illegal.
--
My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!
I don't own a DVD player, but I do own some DVD's. I paid money for the content, for the film. Why make it illeagal for me to watch a movie I already paid for without spending more money on a 'licensed' player.
I've covered this before, but it was in another thread. You didn't pay for the content, for the film. I know that sounds stupid, but it's true. You do not own the information on that DVD. If you did, you could sell it to whomever you wanted, or edit in lots of swear words and broadcast it. What you paid for was the right to view the DVD in a manner consistent with a myriad of copyright laws and licensing agreements, and those laws and agreements say that you can't use an unlicensed player.
Is it? I thought the police upheld the law; the judge and jury decided if that law should stand? I believe the key phrases here are 'unconstitutional', and 'case law'.
No, the police just bring you before the judge. It's up to the judge to actually uphold the law. If the judge kept releasing criminals, it wouldn't matter that the police kept bringing them into court. Yes, it's also up to the judge to determine if a law is unconstitutional. I don't think DMCA is outright unconstitutional though. And the judge apparently agreed with me. That doesn't make him biased and it doesn't mean he's not doing his job. It just means that he saw it differently than you did. We'll see how the next judge(s) see it.
It should not be illegal to crack encryption, it should be illegal to pirate movies. Pirating movies is the problem, and that is the problem that should be dealt with. The fact that someone cracks encryption, or even has in their possession a tool for cracking encryption, does not mean they pirated anything!
I agree with the principle of "punish the crime, not the tool," but it's not that simple here. DVD-CCA developed CSS and licenses it, just like Microsoft developed Windows and licenses it to people. If you reverse engineer their tool and distribute the source code, you're violating their intellectual property.
I believe that the MPAA should go after people who actually pirated movies. That is my idea of common sense.
Yes, but judges aren't there to apply common sense, they're there to apply the law. It's true, no pirating was actually occurring, and MPAA was just conjuring this image of a future where all movies are pirated in order to show the court theoretical damages. That's bullshit. But legally MPAA was still right.
You're right that they earned their reputation, and I doubt they're ashamed of it. But this is a court of law! It is supposed to be objective Cases should be judged based on the facts, not on personal character.
Not true, personal character is often pivotal to a case, and intent was pivotal to this one. If they had been legitimate cryptography researchers and their intent was to analyze CSS to aid in further encoding schemes, then they would have been legally in the right. But if they were just a newsletter for hackers and skript kiddies, then they were legally in the wrong. The judge (and I) decided they were the latter.
Yeah, and he was wrong. The creaters of DeCSS have stated that the intent of the program was a step in creating a DVD player for the Linux operating system. That's not piracy, that's fair use.
What they've stated is not neccessarily the truth. The code was written for Windows, not Linux, which is why the judge was so skeptical. But even if that was their intent, it's still not fair use, it's infringment upon DVD-CCA's product (CSS) and violation of the DMCA.
Re:He just doesn't get it.
by
barleyguy
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· Score: 3
It's one thing to tell Xing "Hey, we found a crack in your security and reverse engineered your program." and quite another to build a tool to use that crack and distribute it to the public.
It's true that these are two different things. But the point is, they are both speech. If someone finds themselves with knowledge of how to defeat something, it is THEIR choice on how to handle it. It is not Xing's choice, it is not the government's choice. It is the choice of the person who has knowledge who to tell about it.
It is unfortunate that we have built a society where security through obscurity is so vital to the status quo that disseminating knowledge is punishable as a crime. If someone has enough knowledge about you to pretend to be you, then you become responsible for their actions. And if you build an empire out of paper cards, you can force our society to guard your card house. In turn, the people of that society have to give up freedoms for that protection.
The reason for freedom of speech is because speech is not a physical act. The way you respond to that speech is your own choice. "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." If someone IS hurt by speech, it is either because of their response to that speech, or because they built a framework of lies that is destroyed by the truth.
The truth is that much of our society is built on fiction, and secrets, and dependence on ignorance. Dispelling that ignorance should be encouraged, because in the long run, knowledge rises to the top.
-- ---
"So THAT's what an invisible barrier looks like!" - Time Bandits
Re:He just doesn't get it.
by
ubermuffin
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· Score: 1
The point is that it was illegal to crack the encryption, and illegal to distribute the tool for doing so. If anyone doubts that it was really illegal, check out the DMCA. And it was the judge's job to uphold the law.
It is not the judge's job to uphold the law if he or she decides that the law is in error. That's why the judicial system is an effective check against the other branches of government. Civil disobedience of the type practiced by 2600 and the authors of DeCSS has been shown historically (read: Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Thoreau) to be one of the best ways for individuals to make a difference in law.
The constitution is subject to interpretation by individuals and judicial officials, not just large corporations and the policymakers under their employ.
Many of us believe the DMCA should not be the law, and one of the best ways to challenge that is to show that upholding the DMCA violates the Constitution.
-ubermuffin
Re:He just doesn't get it.
by
Vanguard(DC)
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· Score: 1
"And which is worse, having that hole reported to your sysadmin, or having it posted on a website frequented by hackers? Bugtraq is not the same as 2600. Intent is relevant to the law here, and 2600 has a very different intent than Bugtraq."
Ok, i have to inject at this point as you are VERY wrong. Being a very active and careful Security Specialist myself, with a great deal of experience at higher levels, I must say a few things:
1. 2600 IS NOT DIFFERENT FROM BUGTRAQ, as each is open to anyone who wishes to participate in viewing it's material, and that material is written by nearly anyone who wishes to contribute.
2. I GO TO BOTH 2600 AND BUGTRAQ on a daily basis! And the irony here: I HEARD ABOUT DeCSS ON TV, on what I think was 60 minutes! 5 minutes later, I had a copy of it after hearing that a poor super-coder kid was in some sort of trouble for reverse-engineering it. I didnt use 2600 or any link for that matter. It was out there everywhere for the taking. I, like Eric, don't own a DVD player on any box running linux, so my intentions were simple curiosity. BUT IT WAS NOT 2600 THAT STEERED ME TO THE SOFTWARE, IT WAS A MAJOR PRIMETIME NEWS SPECIAL ON TV!
should NBC, ABC, or CBS be held responsible for the distribution they merely "inspired" or "linked" to in their broadcast?
1. 2600 IS NOT DIFFERENT FROM BUGTRAQ, as each is open to anyone who wishes to participate in viewing it's material, and that material is written by nearly anyone who wishes to contribute.
I realize I'm repeating myself, but it IS different, because their intents are different. Intent is very relevant under the law, and I don't believe for a second that Bugtraq and 2600 have the same intent.
Suppose I give my friends checks which we both know are bad and which they will use to buy goods. I wrote the checks, so they're speech. They demonstrate the weakness of the payment systems of the various vendors whose goods I've acquired. Why isn't my passing of bad checks protected by the Constitution?
It is not the judge's job to uphold the law if he or she decides that the law is in error. That's why the judicial system is an effective check against the other branches of government. Civil disobedience of the type practiced by 2600 and the authors of DeCSS has been shown historically (read: Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Thoreau) to be one of the best ways for individuals to make a difference in law.
LOL. I can't believe you're comparing 2600 to Ghandi and Martin Luther King.
But lousy comparisons aside, judges aren't allowed to decide whether or not a law is in error, only if it is unconstitutional. I personally agree that DMCA goes to far, and that distribution of material that is used to break encryption should not be termed illegal. Just like I don't believe guns should be illegal just because they can be used for murder. But it's not as cut-and-dried as "the Constitution gives us free speech, and DMCA restricts our speech."
The problem is that even the founding fathers decided to trim back on so-called "Free Speech." Long before DMCA it was accepted that yelling "Fire!" in crowded buildings, as well as speech intended to incite riots, or death threats, or copyright violations, are all illegal, despite being speech. So the problem with DMCA isn't exactly that it's unconstitutional, because free speech has accepted limits for a while now. The problem is that it takes copyright law farther than it was ever intended to go, and in doing so it treads on a few laws like fair use, as well as principles like "outlaw the crime, not the tool."
I agree that something needs to be done about the DMCA, as do many of the original supporters of it. But it's not as simple as declaring it to be unconstitutional.
Re:He just doesn't get it.
by
interiot
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· Score: 2
I second that.
Which is worse? Having a security hole in your firewall but not knowing it? Or being blissfully ignorant because the vendor is sitting on its butt?
It seems like the DMCA, if upheld, would make things like Bugtraq illegal.
From the bugtraq faq:
Benefits include:
A large number of individuals get to review the system for security weaknesses.
Vendors are pressured into providing security fixes quickly.
Programmers and system designers can learn from others mistakes.
Users can identify similar vulnerabilities on systems other than the original.
I'd like to also add: Organizations that have a lot at stake can realize that they're vulnerable and doing something quickly to remove the risk while a fix is being developed.
The fact is also that the MPAA is simply targeting a patsy with a bad reputation so they can get legislation in their favor.
Now this is an excellent point. I think you're probably dead on. This is why MPAA isn't trying to stop all the billion other sites that have/had DeCSS, but instead is picking on 2600. Because ironically, it may not be 2600 that causes MPAA's nightmare future where everyone pirates movies, but instead 2600 may prevent it just by being such a perfect scofflaw-asshole-target for MPAA's arguments to bolster DMCA. Their own personal strawman.
The point is that it was illegal to crack the encryption, and illegal to distribute the tool for doing so. If anyone doubts that it was really illegal, check out the DMCA.
<P>Wrong. U.S. law does not apply to the citizens of the Netherlands. --------
"I already have all the latest software."
Although there are several other posts talking about the same stuff that I am about to discuss I feel the need to reply to this.
If anyone doubts that it was really illegal, check out the DMCA. And it was the judge's job to uphold the law.
A judges job is not only to uphold the law but to interpret the law. If a law is unjust, unconstitutional, etc... it is their job to set the precedent. Just because a law is on the books doesn't mean that it is a good law.
Sure they broke a law, a law that until now was untried in a court of law. A law that they fundementally disagreed with. Their argument is not, 'their crypto sucks, so tuff shit.' They are trying to exend open code to the relm of free speech, and therefore protected by the constitution.
They were linking to sites that had copies of some OSS that along with the legitimate uses that it was originally written for it could also be used for illegitimate uses, like copying. And yes, there were legitimate uses. The original reason the teenager over in Europe wrote this was to be able to watch the DVDs that he had bought. He didn't write it to copy DVDs, he just wanted to be able to watch that which he had bought on his Linux box.
The question of this week is: Is Linking, or even hosting, something that COULD be used for illegal purposes illegal in of itself?
NO!. Here is a link to the Anarchist Cook book, By Jolly Roger which is a published book, and now an online resource, of how to do illegal stuff. I don't think that there is one single legit use of this book but it is protected by the 1st Amendment. Heck, the Anarchist Cook Book gives information on how to KILL people, which IMHO is a much bigger problem for society than the copyright of some mega-corp. That protection has been upheld in court, and frankly I'm happy about that. According to your argument:
2600 wasn't aiding crypto research, they were distributing a tool that not only had no legal use, but its very existence was a violation of copyright laws and the DMCA. ergo they should be punished. Then the Anarchist Cook book should also be illegal. So should this post because it links to the Anarchist Cook Book, so should your post because it will have a link to my post, etc...
You are very right in saying that this is not a crypto war. It has never been a crypto war. This is a war for our rights. The DMCA is an unconstitutional law and needs to be removed.
To quote Ben Franklin (I may not get this exactly), "Those that are willing to give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither the liberty nor the safety."
If you want to give up your essential liberties so that a monopoly can keep their strangle hold on society go right ahead, just DON'T expect me to.
Third, I honestly think intellectual property, already under drastic assault by the web, is going to die. It simply is going to be too difficult to enforce. I don't think information wants to be free, but I do think that trying to prevent piracy of digital media will be impossible. As more and more people get broadband net access, the MPAA will face the same problems as the RIAA.
But that's not the point. Judges shouldn't ignore laws just because they're difficult to enforce. I think that the "war on drugs" is a perfect example of law enforcement assigned an impossible task. And I believe that drugs should be legal. But if I was caught with drugs in my posession, I wouldn't expect a judge to let me off because drug laws are hard to enforce.
Also, when most people say "information wants to be free," they don't mean that intellectual property is unjust and that information should be free to all. Some of them think that, but it's not what the phrase means. The phrase simply states that information tends to disperse, just like most energy systems tend toward entropy.
But the fact of the matter is you (and Judge Kaplan) are applying laws to the internet that were not designed with it in account.
No, the law being applied is DMCA, which was designed quite specifically with the Internet in mind.
The point is that it was illegal to crack the encryption, and illegal to distribute the tool for doing so. If anyone doubts that it was really illegal, check out the DMCA.
Wrong. U.S. law does not apply to the citizens of the Netherlands. --------
"I already have all the latest software."
Re:He just doesn't get it.
by
searlea
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· Score: 1
I find that pretty ironic, but probably not the same way he does. I think that for people who cry out so much about their "right" to view a DVD on whatever they want, they haven't actually purchased even one legitimate player. No wonder they want the illegal Linux player.
I don't own a DVD player, but I do own some DVD's. I paid money for the content, for the film. Why make it illeagal for me to watch a movie I already paid for without spending more money on a 'licensed' player.
Ever viewed a PDF? That's a nice way of doing things. Pay for the authoring, make the player free.
Do you think the authors of competing office suites should have to pay royalties to Mircosoft to include the ability to import, view, or edit Word documents?
CSS is plain wrong; the whole regional coding thing is wrong. I take a laptop with a DVD player with me on business trips - but there's no point me buying a movie abroad because I can't watch it thanks to regional encoding
I think CSS is pretty stupid and I think that the DMCA goes too far. Hatch even admits that DMCA goes too far. Hopefully it will be fixed soon. But in the meantime, it's the law, and the judge isn't biased and stupid by upholding the law. That's his job.
Is it? I thought the police upheld the law; the judge and jury decided if that law should stand? I believe the key phrases here are 'unconstitutional', and 'case law'.
Course, I only watch TV
Re:He just doesn't get it.
by
Vanguard(DC)
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· Score: 2
you are trying to equate 2600 vs. Bugtraq (vs. Newsweek for that matter!) as POLAR OPPOSITES based purely on intent!
That is not the case. They are both VERY similar as a matter of fact. Holes in security and how-to-exploit them is the intention of each! 2600 has always stated very clearly that their information is NOT to be used for any illegal activities, and that they are merely pointing out society's and technology's fatal flaws. The difference you are trying to define is not of intent, it is audience. That is where I come along and shatter that theory by visiting both on a regular basis, as well as several other security depots!
It is the "intent" of the USER of DeCSS which should be questioned, not the source of "the news of its existance"!
Bugtraq has links to tools definately more "destructive" than DeCSS could ever be. I could steal information on National Defense and Security with the tools and scripts linked to on Bugtraq, Pen-Test listserv, or any of the dozens of other mailing lists for security personel. (funny thing is, I DO use bugtraq to break into computers, but it just so happens IM ALLOWED...go figure). Therefore should they be illegal for disclosing this information and allowing the discussion of such information? No, they shouldnt.
I also wish to point out that nearly every member of the security staff of any worthy LEGITIMATE security team I've EVER been a part of, has at one time, if not consistently, reviewed, owned, AND ENJOYED 2600 Quarterly! hmmm, and we protect the nation! look out!
-a very irate Vanguard.
"..Excellent Kaplan, release the hounds and activate the artificial lightning!..."
-- "I think, therefore I get paid."
Re:He just doesn't get it.
by
DeeKayWon
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· Score: 1
To be legitimate, players must be licensed to decode CSS. It's much like writing a SNES emulator for PC
And where were you when the courts ruled in favor of Connectix regarding their PSX emulator? Just read the quote from the story: "both copyright and trademark law favor broad consumer choice." DeCSS is just another consumer choice for decrypting DVDs, and thus should be protected.
Well doing it is bad, but writeing how to do it is just fine.
Re:He just doesn't get it.
by
interiot
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· Score: 3
You didn't pay for the content... If you did, you could sell it to whomever you wanted.... What you paid for was the right to view the DVD in a manner consistent with a myriad of copyright laws and licensing agreements, and those laws and agreements say that you can't use an unlicensed player.
I beleive "fair use" applies here. It's commonly accepted that it's within an author's rights to prevent redistribution. But the author can't make arbitrary restrictions (except maybe under DMCA). For instance, what if a DVD EULA said that people of color can't watch the movie?
Re:He just doesn't get it.
by
juju2112
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· Score: 1
I agree with the principle of "punish the crime, not the tool," but it's not that simple here. DVD-CCA developed CSS and licenses it, just like Microsoft developed Windows and licenses it to people. If you reverse engineer their tool and distribute the source code, you're violating their intellectual property.
I thought that reverse engineering was legal? Well i'm not exactly a lawyer, that's just the impression I had.
Besides that, an encryption algorithm basically comes down to a mathematical formula. Why does the government allow the DVD-CCA to license a mathematical formula? I mean, can i get 2 + 2 = 4 licensed?
Ideas should just not be considered property -- and it shouldn't be illegal to disseminate them.
Yes, but judges aren't there to apply common sense, they're there to apply the law. It's true, no pirating was actually occurring, and MPAA was just conjuring this image of a future where all movies are pirated in order to show the court theoretical damages. That's bullshit. But legally MPAA was still right.
I guess we agree there. But shouldn't the laws be founded in common sense? When the law doesn't make sense, the judges should rule them unconstitutional.
Not true, personal character is often pivotal to a case, and intent was pivotal to this one. If they had been legitimate cryptography researchers and their intent was to analyze CSS to aid in further encoding schemes, then they would have been legally in the right. But if they were just a newsletter for hackers and skript kiddies, then they were legally in the wrong. The judge (and I) decided they were the latter.
How exactly do you get to be a "legitimate" cryptography researcher with a ruling like this? 2600 hasn't committed any other crimes at all. As far as intent, their intent was to publish the information because they found it interesting. In that sense, they were effectively serving the cryptography community by telling them(us)about it. Hmm.....maybe the definition of "legitimate cyroptography researcher" is WAY too fuzzy.
What they've stated is not neccessarily the truth. The code was written for Windows, not Linux, which is why the judge was so skeptical.
The code was written for Windows because, at the time, Linux did not support the filesystem used on DVDs. DeCSS was merely a stepping stone in the eventual creation of the DVD Linux player. The assertion that the purpose of developing DeCSS wan't for eventually making a Linux player is just silly.
But even if that was their intent, it's still not fair use, it's infringment upon DVD-CCA's product (CSS) and violation of the DMCA.
Well, this law is wrong. IMO, legal is not always equal to moral. How can we have fair use if all content is behind encryption?
Re:He just doesn't get it.
by
digitalmind
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· Score: 1
I've covered this before, but it was in another thread. You didn't pay for the content, for the film. I know that sounds stupid, but it's true. You do not own the information on that DVD. If you did, you could sell it to whomever you wanted, or edit in lots of swear words and broadcast it. What you paid for was the right to view the DVD in a manner consistent with a myriad of copyright laws and licensing agreements, and those laws and agreements say that you can't use an unlicensed player.
I would like a link to the other thread, alright?
Yes, it is not yours. Technically the movie is intellectual property, so you do not own it. In the same way, it would be illegal for you to make illegal copies, and it would also be illegal for you to claim the a movie as your own (i.e., cross out steven spielberg and put in joe pirate)
Buying the Videodisk/Tape/CD/DVD or whatever media that you choose basically has a licenceing agreement saying that you and only you can watch it. Basically it is illegal for you to start a blockbuster with tapes that you bought at target because when you bought the target tapes they came with a licence agreement that you agreed to by buying the tape (incedentally, I talked with the local video rental guy here and he said that the DVD's cost him a few hundred dollars apeice).
Why you think that all these people wanted to keep DeCSS for illegal purposes I am not understanding. If the 2600 staff made illegal copies of DVD's, it would do them no good because they haven't got DVD players anyway. I doubt, with their legal staff, that they would be stupid enough to sell pirated DVD's on the streetcorner.
Another thing that bothers me about this encryption is the ignorance around it. Technically, someone with the cash and the resources could build a burner that copies everything bit-by-bit and encryption would be incapable of stopping it.
This whole thing is a control issue. If the people who hacked CSS did so because they wanted a linux player (and not the illegal purposes you speak of), and there was already one for linux, I doubt they would bother. I think it is unfair of the MPAA to have a legal windows compatible player, but make it illegal to make one for linux. If they didn't want them to crack it, do what they ask. The people who use linux are, for the most part, more computer savvy than the ones using windows or MacOS, and have the skills to crack weak crypto (like CSS)
It's time to stop being nice.
by
cocknballz
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· Score: 1
I cant take it any more, the U.S. "Judical" system has degraded into a complete and utter farce. People need to wake up! Try this one on, I think it is high time that the powers that be i.e. greedy corporations get what it is they have been crying about "Hacked"! Come on we all know besides the dreaded dos "Hack Attack" on those high profile websites there hasnt been an organized effort to really put things in perspective for these greedy bastards. I know I sound like an outraged militant nutcase, but you know I bet that guy who said "Give me liberty or give death" sounded the same way. Come on people lets give the MPAA and the like something to cry about. Woo Hoo!
You use the term "special interest groups" like it's dirty. What do you think that the EFF is? The EFF is a special interest group. Just because they
stand for something that many of us happen to believe in doesn't change that.
actually, i was trying to say exactly the opposite! special interest groups don't have to be a dirty thing. my point was that the EFF is in fact a special interest group and those of us who care about the issues that it pursues should support it. To repeat/clarify myself: big organizations have special interests groups, why should individuals feel that they are limited to participating in politics only through their vote? We should form/utilize special interest groups for OUR issues too.
i think you're actually agreeing with me, but the wording and tone of my original post was probably misleading.
Just for the fun of it, I tried to find out who had voted for the DMCA, so I could make an extra effort not to vote for them. But they did it with a voice vote - there is no record. How reassuring.
The DMCA was passed by voice vote in the House and by Unanimous Consent in the Senate. As I understand from watching CSPAN, both of these mean that no one objected strongly enough to passage to insist on a record of the vote (only a single objection is necessary to force a recorded vote). So the answer to the question of who voted for the DMCA: they all did.
This is only to be expected. The movie industry spent its lobbying money lavishly to buy the politicians. As we have just seen, since the politicians appoint and confirm the judges, this means they are also slowly buying the judiciary. We might win in the courts this time, but unless something changes, we will lose in the future.
Just goes to prove - the US Congress is the best legislature money can buy;)
Seriously, though, I like America, I spent two weeks there in May and loved every minute of it. But the US system of government is really broken. They seem to be getting closer to the Gibsonian "Ruled by the corporations" every day.
this is a very troublesome issue. the way i interpret it is if the mpaa actually wins in the appellate/supreme court then the first amendment means nothing.
we all lose our right to link to something on the internet...
we cant speak out against things large corporations dont want us to...
plus so many more things i cant list them all.
am i interpreting this correctly?
This case says nothing about linking in general. The judge was very specific in pointing out why he ruled against linking the way he did. It is illegal to knowingly link to illegal material (in this case made illegal by the DMCA) for the purpose of spreading known illegal material. You could link to a site and say "HEy, this place has the deCSS code on it, let them know you think it's wrong" and not be breaking the law. You could link to a page and not know it has illegal material (and they have to prove you had exact knowledge of the illegal material) and not break the law. All you lose is the ability to deny everything because it's not on your server, even though you are the one helping spread it.
As for code being speech, I think it's somewhere in between. It is speech, but it is speech that can be directly used as a tool. The only decent comparison I can think of is if you could make a car you could fold into a briefcase. While it's folded, it's not a car (when it's not compiled, it's not usable), but with an easy and quick modification (unfolding the briefcase or compiling the source) it becomes something entirely different. It is somewhere between speech and a tool, and it should be held somewhere in between.
--
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
Hopefully, when a court run by a TRUE conservative (USA style) gets hold of this, the mess will be over. Can you ever imagine a true conservative saying that a bunch of "lefties" in Hollywood should tell you what you can do with your own computer equipment?
No, they'll say that "the good capitalist owners of the Intellectual Property on the DVD have the right to protect their property, and as good, True Conservatives(tm), we will preserve property rights and fend off the godless free software communists!"
Couching this issue in a "conservative" vs. "liberal" cockfight is disingenuous and misses the point completely. Both conservatives and liberals have an appalling voting record when it comes to digital media, be it efforts to censor the internet (CDA), to entrench existing monopolies (DMCA), to prevent encryption (remember the defense fund for the Author of PGP?), or to gain control of the internet and silence its many non-conformist voices.
It was Orrin Hatch who cosponsored the DMCA, for crying out loud.
And Bill Clinton who signed it (and the CDA) into law.
It really doesn't matter whether you elect the Republican or Democratic branch of the Corporate Party of America, the policies on all but a few social issues deemed unimportant to the almighty bottom line (e.g. pro-choice vs. pro-life) have been decided at a higher level of authority and are nearly identical in both branches of the Corporate Party.
Personally, I'm voting for Ralph Nadar in the hopes he gets a high enough percentage to impact the policies of those who do win (Ross Perot succeeded in this, giving us the balanced budget we enjoy today). In addition, I am preparing a way to get the hell out of this country quickly. With nearly all of our civil rights in tatters and most peaceful means of effecting change neutralized by Corporate America, change, when it inevitably does come, will probably be extremely violent. I don't want to be anywhere near this country (the USA, or "CSA" as another aptly named it) when that happens. In the meantime I'll vote and raise a voice of protest, but if and when the shit really does hit the fan I'm outta here. I refuse to sacrifice my well being because the rest of America is to lazy and stupid to stand up for their own rights.
FreeUser - who (after following the conventions and the treatment of the attendant protestors) now believes the system to be broken beyond all possible repair.
Re:Look on the bright side...
by
-Harlequin-
·
· Score: 1
>It would not be hard to justify the forceful removal of servers by armed invasion.
>lets not forget that a few simple court orders to shut down their traffic
I know your point, but I think you oversimplify - armed invasion requires the UK's blessing regardless of whether Sealand is independant or not, and aquiring court orders in every one of all the different back-up countries they'll have servers in is no mean feat either - it just takes one slightly-patriotic judge to think "Our nation will not simply kneel to every whim of the USA".
Use of force would have repercussions such that would be a last resort unless the police could handle it. As it probably needs military action, they'd have to have _really_ offended some big cheeses!
(Mind you, the USA deliberately bombed (without warning) a factory of innocents in another country a couple of years ago, citing "intelligence" that turned out to be simple hyperbole, then walked away under media silence without repercussion, so it's pretty clear that These Things Can Happen).
Anyway, I didn't actually mean Sealands vs the MPAA, I meant that oppressive USA legislation will create an environment in which Sealands flourishes, not that foes of Corporate America will use Sealands in their fight or whatever.
I never realized that the judge said that the use of videotape would uphold our fair use rights. Unfortunately the judge apparently does not realize that most videotapes released today are protected with macrovision. They cannot be copied with modern VCRs without some sort of macrovision remover. The DMCA makes macrovision removers illegal.
what you want is a time-base corrector, a device designed to correct for the fact that it is almost impossible to find 2 vcrs with the exact same playback characteristics: mechanical alignment, guide wear, playback speed, etc. They may be close but not identical. Think of it as a analog variable data in, constant data out.
Macrovision tampers with the vertical sync pulses in the video - vcrs have an AGC (automatic gain control), which adjusts the record level so that the sync pulses are at the correct level - macrovision tricks the agc circuit into cranking the gain up and down, like trying to listen to your stereo while turning the volume from min to max constantly. Better tbc's also allow you to adjust brightness, hue, etc, but the most basic box is perfectly legal - just don't buy/sell as a macrovision stripper.
In any case macrovision is an Analog system, and DMCA refers to digital protection, so you are probably still ok.
sorry if i went a little off-topic
-- The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2
Section 1201(k) mandates that all analog VCR's must include Macrovision. However actually rereading this I am wondering if Macrovision removers will not be illegal (this is from the summary, not the actual bill so maybe this is wrong):
Section 1201 divides technological measures into two categories: measures that prevent unauthorized access to a copyrighted work and measures that prevent unauthorized copying2 of a copyrighted work. Making or selling devices or services that are used to circumvent either category of technological measure is prohibited in certain circumstances, described below. As to the act of circumvention in itself, the provision prohibits circumventing the first category of technological measures, but not the second.
This distinction was employed to assure that the public will have the continued ability to make fair use of copyrighted works. Since copying of a work may be a fair use under appropriate circumstances, section 1201 does not prohibit the act of circumventing a technological measure that prevents copying. By contrast, since the fair use doctrine is not a defense to the act of gaining unauthorized access to a work the act of circumventing a technological measure in order to gain access is prohibited.
The strange thing is that according to the above section DeCSS is not illegal when used to copy a DVD (for your own personal use, ie fair use), only to view it. so lets say you DeCSS a DVD, copy it to a DVD-R, then view it in a MPAA sanctioned player, are you breaking the law? doesn't look like it.
I think the real point is that we only have 2 candidates for president that have any real chance of winning, and they are both crappy choices. It hardly matters which one you vote for. Even the third party candidates suck this time around. Reform Party can't even figure out who it's candidate is. Any way you cut it, you're just deciding which way you'd rather get screwed. The real decisions are being made behind the scenes, and apparently with little to no accountability for anyone. As someone pointed out, the DMCA was passed with a voice vote. Can you believe that?! A law that important and we can't even know who voted for or against it. Just Congress doing a great CYA job.
-- It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Damn this thing is annoying - how do you fight your own favourite movies?
:) Let me rephrase that--"Damn, sometimes it's hard to do the right thing!".
I agree, sometimes it is. Doesn't change the fact that you should do the right thing, though.
I hear that a lot of the peace activists (and let's face it, there were certainly a lot of people doing that just because it was what was cool) would argue that they weren't opposed to the war because they were afraid to die--they would be willing to die for what was right. But when a couple of them were killed by whoever it was at Kent State, everyone went home...
What you're doing is seeing the larger problem of living morally encapsulated into the tiny little question "will I refuse to buy the DVD of the X-Men in protest of what the MPAA is doing?" [NOTE--I do NOT know if that DVD applies. I don't know where all the arms of the MPAA octupus are attached. please pardon my ignorance].
The fact that the majority of people really woudn't want to be bothered with not buying the DVD of a movie they really like is the biggest threat to our freedom. We act like it's "the corporations" or "the government". The truth is, it's us. If we were willing to go through the pain of product boycotting, we would control everything. It could easily be organized (the internet exists), but how do you get people to care? --
Society does have a tendency to fear -- and thus discriminate against -- "hackers" or anyone with a reasonable amount of technical knowledge. Why? People fear what they don't understand -- and even mor, they fear people who do understand what they cannot.
I kept wondering when Kaplan was gonna say something along the lines of, "if he weighs as much as a duck...":P
-- Karma: Excellent, but still won't get you laid.
I'm getting a little suspicious
by
Bill+Currie
·
· Score: 5
I've only gotten 75% of the way through the article, but it's beginning to sound like Kaplan ruled in favour of the MPAA in order to force the issue up to the next level. Yes, he was insulting, but that is actually why I'm beginning to suspect this: being insulting never gives your argument strenght. If anything, insults detract from your argument.
Too many of the analogies mentioned in the article are just too ludicrous to get past a higher court, and so this seems to be a way of passing the buck. My guess is that Kaplan knew that no matter how he ruled, he would not have the final say, and thus made things even more likely to move up.
I'ld better stop now. I'm having too much trouble passing my thoughts to my fingers.
Bill - aka taniwha --
--
Bill - aka taniwha -- Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
Re:I'm getting a little suspicious
by
The+Kow
·
· Score: 1
Glad I'm not the only one who quirked an eyebrow.
-- Moo
Re:I'm getting a little suspicious
by
Odinson
·
· Score: 2
I wish this could be moderated up to six! There is no way, even in NY that a DCJ could be THIS STUPID! Generalized opinions on personality, working for the MPAA, comparisons to assasination and other countless ill fitting analogies, attacks on Garbus, it seems so childish. He knows he is out of his league. Obviously Judge Kaplan believes that makeing sure this is appealed is worth marring his image.
Not to mention Slashdot should make a larger range of scores!
The open source DVD player (Thank you!) uses a brute force attack against CSS to unlock the disc.
This is an interesting approach that hasn't really been considered, at least in the 1000s of/. comments. Processing power is getting way cheap, so over time this would get better and better!
Do you have a link to the brute-force attack tool? Is this part of LiViD?
LiVid is where I got my last copy.. css-auth is the programs name. Otherwise you can find a working, albeit stale version at my homepage (click karma mafia gaff in.sig, click Download DeCSS in the link stew on top)
-- .sig: Now legally binding!
Just a quick question.
by
Tulsa+T+Nawi
·
· Score: 1
If you cant link to someone who has DeCSS on there site, are you breaking the laq by:
Linking to someone who linked to someone who linked to someone who linked to 2600.com ?
Does that mean that the court could just go get 2600's referrer logs and prosecute everyone?
How far back is far enough?
Why arent the ISP backbone's in court too... They ARE distrobuting, or helping in the distributing of such information... No?
Hell, slashdot linked to 2600, as did many other sites.. Where does this end?
If you want to donate serious money and have stock or options, consider donating them instead. The EFF gets
the full value of the equities, you get to tax-deduct the full value of the equities, and you don't have to pay capital gains tax - for some tax brackets and option grants, this makes the donation practically free.
I agree, this is the scariest thing I've heard (the the link, BTW). I have really hard time understanding that anybody would say such a thing, it is a fundamental free speech-right. Obviously, this is something that the defense should use against him in the appeals. It makes so extremely clear that Jack Valenti is a cynic, he is totally corrupt and has a sense of morality that is despicable. Whew....
-- Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
As far as I'm concerned 2600 should have just removed it and said, "remember, it's still everywhere else". They would have saved time and money.
This fight needed to be fought. Sure, meekly complying with the bully would have kept 2600 et al out of court, but where would we be in terms of getting fair use back? The MPAA might be fighting a battle that, in all practicality, is as good as lost, but that doesn't mean they deserve the legal clout the DMCA gives them. What would happen if more laws (similar to the one alluded to on 2600 now, regarding reverse engineering - anybody got more info on that?) further restricting your rights to use/peruse/disseminate information get passed?
I don't like slippery slopes - and the good folks at 2600 are fighting tooth and nail to keep us from taking the first step down this one. They deserve our help, everyone - support the EFF!
-- Karma: Excellent, but still won't get you laid.
Re:And here it is with the proper format.
by
RickHunter
·
· Score: 1
I thought so... Thanks, AC#2. (If I read your post correctly, you're saying you agree with me?) AC#1: Unless you're a copyright lawyer, I don't see how you're any more qualified than I am, and I've read quite a few works on copyright. Can you provide a link to back up your claim? Or any information at all to back it up? Just so I can see the relevant sections of law and interpret them for myself.
-RickHunter
Because the 2600 site is blocked where I work.
by
_Lint_
·
· Score: 1
Quite annoying, actually.
Re:2600 a victim of their own reputation
by
DG
·
· Score: 2
If you staple $100 bills all over your clothing, walk through the most crime-ridden part of down, and then duck into a back alley - and then get robbed - it doesn't mean you're not a robbery victim, and it doesn't mean that you shouldn't be given legal recourse.
But neither does it mean you're very _smart_, either. It's not good that you got robbed, it's not right that you got robbed, but it's not suprising you got robbed. And in retrospect, the decision to walk around with $100 bills stapled to your clothing doesn't look very bright.
RIAA could Benefit from this..
by
Uberwonko
·
· Score: 1
This ruling seems to support the idea that since you can get information in a different medium (a video tape instead of DVD) that a copy of a DVD is unneeded. Thus the software to copy a DVD can only be used for supposedly evil purposes. If this is indeed true, would it be so unlikely for the RIAA to use the same judgement with cd rippers? You don't need a copy on your computer since you can buy a regualar cassete tape?
This is of course completely illogical. It seems to show the judge's incredible bias that Kaplan would ignore the fact that there is a difference in bot quality and content.
Point 1. The Presidential election isn't the only one this november. Have you ever heard of a little thing called the SENATE?
Yep. My choices aren't much better in the congressional elections. I can choose between republican, democrat, green, libertarian, or natural law candidates. The green and natural law candidates are so obscure that I can't find any info on their positions. The libertarian kinda scares me, but I've downloaded her book in the hope of gaining some insight into exactly what her vision is and how she plans to go about it without completely destroying the country. The republican and democrat candidates are the usual. Nothing special. Nothing different. Nothing at all about their views on tech or IP issues.
Point 2. There is a world of difference between the two major party's candidates for president. Didn't you know that one of them invented the internet?
I think you're making my point here. Neither of them really have a clue about tech issues except insofar as they effect the corporations that contribute to their campaigns. Maybe if we could elect their cabinet it would help, but we can't. Both have taken tons of money from the corps that want legislation like the DMCA to be in place and that pretty much makes them both completely worthless to vote for.
but you have to vote for whomever is closest sometimes.
Exactly. And since no candidate comes within sight of my views on things, I can't think of any reason to vote for any of them based on the issues we're talking about here. There are other issues that I can base my vote on, but that's not going to improve the IP situation at all.
-- It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I very much doubt that *any* judge wants to get his own ruling overturned. It's a nice theory, but I don't buy it. Particularly since I don't think it would do much good.
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
I'd like to take the text of EG's article and send it to all my relatives as an email to help spread the word. I can't depend on them to click on a link, and it's more compelling if the text is right there in front of them. I figure 2600 would probably not mind, but since it's a copyrighted work...
Of course, I guess I'll just email and ask for permission. But that thought did give me pause.
--Fesh
"Citizens have rights. Consumers only have wallets." - gilroy
-- --Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
To: emily_cutner@mpaa.org
Subject: decss
Sent: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 12:29:03 -0700
did not reach the following recipient(s):
emily_cutner@mpaa.org on Mon, 21 Aug 2000 12:35:47 -0700
The recipient name is not recognized
The MTS-ID of the original message is: c=US;a=
;p=MPAA;l=MPAAEXCHANGE0008211935Q0DV34PV
MSEXCH:IMS:MPAA:MPAA-HQ:MPAAEXCHANGE 0 (000C05A6) Unknown Recipient
--
YouTube & Google Video -> podcast
http://castcluster.blogspot.com/
On Current Judgements (potentially off-topic)
by
zip+the+pinhead
·
· Score: 1
This issue, and the others surrounding it (re: Napster vs RIAA) seem to have uncovered some inherent problems in the U.S. legal/justice system(I'm up in The Great White North.. so pardon me if I infer something that may not necessarily apply).
1) The Judges and prosecutors, but more so the Judges don't seem to have a good grasp of the technological issues surrounding these trials. It would be tantamount to having a programmer sit as a trial judge on a contractual law case. It seems that potentially, all electronic rights will go on being violated until either Judges educate themselves with the technology of particular cases or they assign a technological "advisor" (for the lack of a better word) to cases such as these to properly de-brief the Judge and if necessary, the jury. Someone with as little bias as possible.
2) The failure to see that Hackers DO provide a benefit to companies/corporations seems to be a loss of insight on the part of the court (at least this court in particular). Without the ability to point out security flaws (and that's exactly what 2600 did), much more damage could have been done to the MPAA's precious CSS.
3) The old addage "If guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns" comes to mind. This information was publicly available. I used to be able to pick up the 2600 at my local bookstore. Now, it's difficult to find a copy. Now, the ultimate concern for MPAA and RIAA and others should be that information such as DeCSS will go underground and disappear into the ether. There will be bigger problems around the bend for such institutions if this occurs.
--
"The answers are always inside the problem, not outside"- Marshall McLuhan
Emperor's New Clothes?
by
Jason+Levine
·
· Score: 2
Anyone else reminded of the Emperor's New Clothes fairy tale?
<sarcasm>
Everyone ignore the fact that the DVD encryption was cracked. It's uncrackable. And those clothes Emperor MPAA is wearing look spectacular, don't they?
</sarcasm>
-- My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
And they ignore the fact that with the internet, which is communication that is cheap, international, and accesable to millions by one, will always make sure Emperor Kaplan's nudity is exposed and discussed.
Which makes me wonder... In the future, if Kaplan's extreme interpretation of the DMCA is upheld, will the USA go to war against small nations that allow net freedom (which they will to gain the $billions that it will bring them)?
I shudder at this thought. As a Conservative, strict-constructionist Constitutionalist, I would advocate burning draft cards in such a war.
--
In 2000 America, is a non-lawyer truly free?
Re:2600 a victim of their own reputation
by
Skald
·
· Score: 2
Allow me to interject $.02 here...
What I'm missing here is your point. I read "they are reaping what they have sown" to mean "they brought this on themselves", or, in other words, "it's their fault". Then later I read that it's wrong that this is happening. In other words, "it's the system that's wrong". I put these together to mean "reputations shouldn't matter, but they do, so they shouldn't have gotten a bad one, poor fools".
More to the point, we are reaping what they have sown. "We" being everyone whose life is influenced by computers, ultimately. Reputations shouldn't matter, but they do, so how the hell did so many people with good reputations (like the free software camp, with squeaky-clean leaders like Linus and Larry) wind up with their interests represented by 2600?
To the extent that 2600 was unfairly a victim of their own reputation, they deserve everyone's sympathy and support. But if we could untie our fortunes from theirs, it'd be a good thing.
--
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton
I think it a little uncharitable to be smarmy on the dubious premise that you have supernatural insight as to his voting habits.
Besides which, while both parties are owned by the MPAA and the RIAA, the only thing that voting affects is the nameplate on the desk of the guy whose job it is to rubber-stamp the MPAA's legislation. Votes have nothing to do with the leaders of the USA, votes are only pick which lackeys do the same dirty work.
Actually, I don't quite believe that - I think that all those strange people who vote for one of the big two (and thus ensure corporate rule) should wake up and vote for the smaller parties. If the two-horse race can eventually become an 11-horse trifector, buying the Whitehouse won't be so easy anymore.
In this country (not the USA), the voting process was reformed before the second-to-last election. Previously we had a two horse race. 6 Years later, the politicians brains of those two parties are still locked in us-vs-them two-horse thinking, but they lack the numbers for a straightforward majority and need to co-operate with one or more other parties to get their way, and each election, they grow weaker and the alternatives grow much, much stronger (and are much less hindered by deep us-vs-them dogma)
Like stupid children, both old parties unthinkingly oppose the other in pitiful kneejerk reaction because oppose the other is what they've always done. There is a lot of inertia in politicians, and a lot more "my way or no-one's way" than "the people's way", but the poison is in the system and it is a thrill to watch the first hints of democracy emerging from what used to masquerade under the name.
My (quasi-realistic-in-the-near-term) ideal of Democracy is when there are a multitude of parties representing a multitude of ideals and demographics, and not one of those parties has anything even close to a majority.
My (poor) understanding of the USA suggests a fundamental electoral overhaul might be necessary first.
But damn is it a thrill to watch politicians who put kindergartons to shame wake up to the repercussions. Politicians don't like genuinely working democracy very much. They much prefer the version where votes give them the power to to ignore the voices of the other representitives of socitey and steamroll over any opposition.
The point is that it was illegal to crack the encryption, and illegal to distribute the tool for doing so
Some of what you're saying is true, but some of it is way off base. Let me try to cut through some of the mindless babbling.
1) 2600 didn't create the tool to bypass the encryption. Someone else did. Regardless, that's not the core issue of this case.
2) The judge has now prevented 2600 from linking to DeCSS. That in itself is pretty questionable.
3) The judge should be interpreting the law. So is his ruling correct? Perhaps so -- the DMCA may not be palatable to us, but it is there. However, he is still a judge. He should be setting aside his personal biases towards 2600's reputation.
4) The basis for appeal will probably be on First Amendment grounds, regarding the distribution of source code. As others have already pointed out, other cases have already succeeded in this area. That's 2600's goal, and if it works, it is likely that the DMCA or portions of it will be ruled unconstitutional.
Their few defenses were bullshit. Development of a Linux player?
Yes, and as you pointed out already, there is a clause in the DMCA which specifically allows reverse engineering for interoperability purposes.
Well besides the fact that developing an Open Source Linux player would be drastically violating DVD-CCA's intellectual property, (they spend money developing CSS, and they get that money back through licensing)
The encryption was a trade secret which is more or less fair game once the cat's out of the bag.
Best regards,
SEAL
Re:I bought a Copyleft T-Shirt and I worry
by
JCCyC
·
· Score: 1
I'm relieved to know it arrived without a SWAT team attached to it. BTW, how long did it take?
Oh, and I'd HARDLY call a BRAZILIAN govt organization "The Man". More like "The Poor Bastard".
Our company's stupid filtering software won't let me look at an article on 2600, no matter how relevent it is. I don't suppose someone (from a non BESS-blacklisted site) could mirror it for poor saps like me?
Our company's stupid filtering software won't let me look at an article on 2600, no matter how relevent it
is. I don't suppose someone (from a non BESS-blacklisted site) could mirror it for poor saps like me?
Does this guy check Slashdot all day long just to post this stuff?
--
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
class action or antitrust?
by
beeblebrox
·
· Score: 1
Hypothetical question: If I sell/distribute a Linux DVD player program that incorporates DeCSS or similar code, would the DVD-CCA have grounds to sue? If they attempted to stop me from selling my software, could that form part of a basis for an anti-trust or class action lawsuit of DVD (media and/or players) owners against the DVD-CCA and its members? I'm obviously not a lawyer, but I know some do read shashdot so I'm hoping they can shed some light.
Those are usually the first things blocked
by
sips
·
· Score: 1
FYI when I dealt with a filtering proxy anonymizer.com was blocked under every possible filtering type possible like hate speech and the like porn and such.
Just wanted to share an interesting experience I just had. Summary: I called the MPAA, as 2600 suggested. I eventually spoke with their PR Manager for Anti-piracy. She recommends that anyone who wants to discuss the DeCSS case feel free to email her personally at: emily_cutner@mpaa.org.
At the bottom of the 2600 article, it reads: We would give out an address for the MPAA but they've been blocking e-mail for some time and blaming hackers for every problem they have. So give them a call at (818) 995-6600 from 9 am to 5:30 pm Pacific Time. Be civil but make sure you get your point across. After all, where do you think that $4 million ultimately comes from?
So, I called. The call went something like...
MPAA-Drone #1: Hello, Motion Picture Association of America.
Me: Hello, I'd like to speak to somebody about the DeCSS case.
MD1: The what?
Me: The DeCSS case.
MD1: Ok, um... [fumbles around] Let me transfer you.
MPAA-Drone #2: So-and-so's office, how can I help you?
Me: I'd like to know if the MPAA has an official position on the recent DeCSS ruling.
MD2: You want what? In what capacity would you like to know?
Me: I am a consumer of many of the MPAA's fine products, and would like to discuss the DeCSS case.
MD2: [thinks long and hard] OK, let me transfer you...
Emily Cutner: Hello, MPAA PR dept. How can I help you?
Me: Hello, I would like to discuss the DeCSS case with a representative of the MPAA.
EC: Well, we would greatly prefer it if you would send us your opinions via Email. You see, we have only a few legal analysts on staff [ed: yeah right!] and they are busy pursuing other matters. With Email, your digital voice can be heard, and we will gladly respond. Also, please check out our web page, where we have a FAQ [etc. etc.]
I tried to send her this mail, but it bounced. So I sent it to hotline@mpaa.org instead:
To: hotline@mpaa.org
Subject: CSS preventing me from buying DVDs.
Hi.
I'm not sure if you are the one I should write to. It appears that you are involved with
anti-piracy, but I don't want to discuss piracy, just CSS. However, this was the only address I
could find. Feel free to forward it to whoever might be more appropriate.
I don't buy any DVDs. The reason is quite simple, I don't know how to watch them. Heck, it is
even ILLEGAL for me to know how to watch them.
Of course I could buy one of those MPAA-approved players. Or, strictly speaking, I _cannot_ buy
one. Simple because they are not for sale.
If I own something, I have the right to use it. I have the right to open it and look inside. I
have the right to modify it as I please. I have the right to fiddle with it to see how it works.
If I don't have these rights, I don't own it. Maybe even more importantly, if I own something, I
can control it. It cannot fuck with me, because if it did and I could control it, I would use
that control to stop it from fucking with me.
You cannot buy a legal DVD player. All you can do is buy the right to take it home and connect
it to your TV set.
I'm no different from most people. If something is fucking with you, you get pissed, right? I
know I do. Imagine you are driving a car, but the car had a GPS device that turned off the
engine whenever you tried to drive into certain areas, chosen at random. Unfortunately, your
home is in one of these areas, so you have to take the bus the last mile just to get home. This
would piss you off, right? I would get furious. But of course I wouldn't be angry if a car I own
stops because the engine is broken. That's not the cars fault.
See the difference? If the car is broken, OK, it's broken. If the car is not broken, but
_designed_ to fuck with me, I get mad. Of course, if I own the car that's no problem. I just rip
out the GPS device and get rid of the problem. If I cannot do that, then I don't control the
car. The car controls me.
Of course, I wouldn't expect that I have the legal right to run over people, even with a car
that I own. But what I do with my car in my own garage is strictly my business. If it isn't,
then I don't own the car.
That's the main reason I only want things in my home that I own. The ownership gives me a
guarantee that my things are not fucking with me.
Now, you might ask, why would I ever want a device in my home that I don't own and that I _know_
is designed to fuck with me? Of course I don't want it in my home. I don't want your DVD players
in my home, and I don't want your encrypted DVDs in my home. Simply because they are still
_YOUR_ player and _YOUR_ discs, not mine, and I know you designed them to fuck with me. I don't
pay money just to get pissed off.
Of course, all this would change if the encryption was made public. That would mean that I could
actually _buy_ DVDs and DVD players.
Re:It's time to help you
by
Peter+Dyck
·
· Score: 1
No problem. We can get cheap nukes from the Russia, too. Now how can we help you with these?
Did they really expect the judge to think they were the good guys?
Of course not! Everyone knows the Indians are the bad guys. We offered them some pretty beads for Manhattan. How dare they refuse us;-)
Re:Austrialia 2600 will not comply
by
ravi_n
·
· Score: 1
A DMCA-copycat is moving through the political system in Australia. I can't find the article I read about it, so I don't know how far it is, but 2600.au will probably be in trouble soon enough.
Re:Not that I'm complaining, mind you...
by
geekoid
·
· Score: 1
My firewall at work won't let me go to 2600. or any site with 2600 in its domain.
So I'm glad they did post the entire article.
-- The Kruger Dunning explains most post on/. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Find the D/A chip used in your minidisc(open it up first), find the docs for that chip online, locate the pin(s) that is(are) used for input (clk, ground, data), hook up a chip that can understand the data format(explained in the docs for the d/a used for minidisc) and convert it to spdif format and then hook the output for that to your sb-live..
Could most likely fit the whole thing on a solderless breadboard. Necessary IC's require really few extra components anyway. Hardest part would be to make the connections to the digital signal inside the minidisc(maybe solder some wires to the d/a-chip).
Not really detailed information but this is the general idea. As long as you hook up the chips correctly (follow the application notes on data-sheets) it's pretty much like playing with legos(digital electronics is that easy). If everything doesn't work right an oscilloscope is going to be helpfull..
an idea.. reverse precedent.
by
Restil
·
· Score: 2
Ok.. Now linking is illegal if the subject matter being linked to is illegal or if the subject being linked doesn't want to be linked to.
Here's what you do.
Grab a large number of domains. Set up numerous webservers with all the domains. Set up LOTS of webpages. LOTS of them. Get lots of geocities accounts and accounts on every free webserver you can. Set up numerous pages on all these sites and make sure you have a lot of links to them that will be discovered and followed. Don't forget copyright notices on each page that linking to these sites is expressely prohibited and copying of the material on any of these pages is expressely prohibited.
Then wait a few months so the search engines will find all of them.
Now go on google and find your pages being linked, along with *gasp* a COPY OF YOUR PAGE HOSTED ON GOOGLE!!!! (cached pages in case you don't get it)
Find this extremely revolting and have a laywer draw up a form letter for you to send ceise and desist orders for EACH page in violation. Dont' forget the other search engines as well, as they're also illegally linking to you.
Wait a few days, or however many days you gave the engines to remove those links. Check all of them again. If any of them are still there, then they have willfully defied your order and you are now justified in suing for excessive damages.
And precedent has already been set to allow this. It no longer seems so horribly silly anymore.
But the judge in that case might actually have some degree of common sense and realize that the search engines can't be held responsible for every link on their site. This will have the effect of creating a precedent where linking IS permitted, even against the wishes of those who do not want it.
Of course, someone else will have to do this. I don't have the time.:)
Re:Help make a difference!
by
Lord+Kano
·
· Score: 2
Both of the big parties will probably support the RIAA, the big movie studios, and other large companies...
Because studio executives donate big steaming piles of soft money to both parties. If the EFF would establish a PAC, they'd be able to grab some ears?
The Democrats, I think, are only slightly more likely to work on solving this problem.
You need to ease up on the crack pipe. Neither party will do anything about DMCA. That's what the courts are for. Because of the number of supreme court justices that will be appointed by the next president, this election is EXTREMELY important. Do you want judges to be independant minded or do you want justices to pass a few litmus tests before they're appointed?
Therefore I stand by my statement - donating money to the EFF will make more of a difference than voting.
You could make and then stand by the statement that your feet smell like peaches. That doesn't make it any more or less true.
LK
-- "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Re:Goldstein and friends - the solution.
by
Vanguard(DC)
·
· Score: 1
hmmmmmmmmmmmmm
let me share this with you my friend: communism failed for a reason!
"..simply raid their residences"...jesus!!!???
for a virtual link to a virtual space to some digital code??? easy there stalin. take a breather. The US of A is not a place to start calling for residential raids and restrictions of human, let alone civil, rights.
You have missed the implications of this decision. Look at thr possibilities. Perhaps this analogy will help you:
--- If putting a piece of scotch tape over a small hole in a cassette tape allows you to record on that cassette when you run out of blanks became punishable in a court of law, would that be OK?? If you engineered this method of recording on a cassette YOU OWN but was originally only intended to be used to play (in your case old communist propaganda) the commercial music, would you feel as if you have committed a crime?? ---
i didnt think so.
wake up sir, and if you are an American citizen, do us all a favor and MOVE! GO BACK TO NORTH KOREA or wherever you rolled out of.
-Vanguard
-- "I think, therefore I get paid."
Bush, Clinton, Gore, and The Supremes
by
Jeremy+Erwin
·
· Score: 1
Despite being a democrat-- a liberal democrat no less, I feel morally obligated to point out that Kaplan was a Clinton appointee.
This is not to say that the choices of "Shrub" would be any better. In fact, his court would most likely be more hostile to free speach doctrine, while at the same time, more friendly to the demands of corporate entities, possibly including the MPAA.
I don't know if Nader has a position. I don't want to even think about Buchanan's nominees...
I find section 1201(a)(2)(A) to be pointless with regaurd to CSS.
If I use a compliant DVD player and play a DVD, then capture the out put in digital form. I could easily distrubute the digital recording. CSS would not stop me and I would have incurred only degradation related to one conversion to analog.
If the Judge Kaplan believes that DivX does not perceptably change the movie, I would suspect he would feel the same about this method. The DMCA would not come into play in this senario, but effective pirating would be accomplished, because of this I do not believe CSS is effective at all.
You do not have to crack CSS to pirate.
Leave it to Charles Dickens, a couple of hundred years back, to be amazingly prescient -
"If the law supposes THAT, sir, then the law is an ass!" -- Great Expectations
Ditto for Judge Kaplan, although I simply can't seem to dig up any surprise that, once again, american courts decide in favor of the biggest wallet. The Romans said it best - "Qui Bono?"
-- "...they may harpoon us, but they ain't gonna pick us up on no radar screen!"
This may look off topic, but since the subject is a bad legal ruling it is really not.
I would like to challenge slashdoters to do design a legal system to do the following:
Favor evil as much as possible.
Create the appearance of fairness.
Allow some people to behave as tyrants.
Frustrate good.
Punish the innocent as much as possible.
Do everything possible to let the guilty off.
Be constructed in such a way that 'the public' accepts it as legitimate.
Spend some time thinking about this. At the end of that time see if there is ANYTHING you would change in the current system that would better meet the above criteria. I have been thinking about it for a long time, I haven't been able to come up with anything, how about you?
Good suggestion, but the legal system has long had the ability to put gag orders on the press. Remember, it can't be obviously evil - you have to sell it to the general populace; it has to create the appearance of fairness.
I agree that this case extends the legal systems' ability to silence critics - but that is part of the actual - as designed - legal system - not part of a new - hypothetically evil system that I asked for.
"Prior restraint" means restraint prior to a decision on the status of the particular speech (or action) in question, and is never permitted. (An example of prior restraint would be cops demanding that a bookstore remove objectionable magazines on the grounds of obscenity before any judicial ruling had been made on those specific magazines.) But once a judicial decision has been made, even if it's still under appeal, it can no longer be "prior restraint."
OK then. Which of the parties do you think I should vote for?
Which one do you think is going to appoint supreme court justices that attempt to stick to a literal reading of the constitution instead of bending it? And support free speech at the expense of corporate control?
I'm so happy that you can tell me, because I'm damned if I can tell from the ads on TV! I honestly don't know!
< rant >
By the way, why do candidates put up signs with just their freakin NAME on them? Am I supposed to vote for them because I like their NAME? Why the h3ll don't they put something like their policies on the stupid signs if they are going to print ten thousand of them and stick them on lawns all over the city?
</rant >
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
-- Torrey Hoffman (Azog) "HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
Re:Help make a difference!
by
Lord+Kano
·
· Score: 1
I think the real point is that we only have 2 candidates for president that have any real chance of winning, and they are both crappy choices.
Point 1. The Presidential election isn't the only one this november. Have you ever heard of a little thing called the SENATE?
Point 2. There is a world of difference between the two major party's candidates for president. Didn't you know that one of them invented the internet?
Unless you're running, there will never be a politicial that agrees with you on 100% of the issues 100% of the time, but you have to vote for whomever is closest sometimes.
LK
-- "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Which brings us to the problem...
by
Danse
·
· Score: 2
Given the candidates that are out there, what difference would it make to our rights which one we vote for? Thanks to tons of corporate money and a virtual monopoly on media coverage, we only have 2 viable candidates in this election. Neither one of them will do a damn thing to restore or protect our rights.
-- It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I've never seen a DVD player with a video digital out. The only kind of output that DVD players is for sound. What is trying to be accomplished here is digital output of sound *AND* video signals. This of course is exactly what CSS is designed to protect. ________________
They're - They are
Their - Belonging to them
-- I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
If more of us would get off our duffs, and research the candidates, and then vote, maybe we could avoid this kind os censorship in the future.
Re:Its Political!
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1
ah, but in our system you are rarely allowed to choose between candidates on the basis of clear distinctions on substantive issues. 2party government is an illusion to keep one party in power with minimal disruptions. And that party is hostile to your freedoms and liberties as a mere citizen. There is very little to research; just clam up and do your patriotic duty as a citizen and accept the blame as part of the lazy, apathetic mass. They want few people voting and they want you to feel guilty for the unmoveable Kafkaeasque system they have created.
The difference to me is that a nice encryption *algorithm* is simply a process, even it if has example implementations, but DeCSS by its nature requires additional data, namely the keys for decrypting the DVDs. AFAIK, the algorithm wasn't a well-kept secret, but the keys were (well, maybe not so well-kept.
I liken it to having a key to my truck that would let me put stuff in the bed. Maybe GM wanted to keep the key to the bed so that I could only use the bed when I was doing certain things, like hauling around DVD players.
Everyone knows that if I were to get the key, I could haul around dirt, chickens, or whatever. Now someone breaks into GM's super-secret key-shack and posts a key-code that can be used by consumers to make their own truck-bed keys.
I, among millions of others, get the key code, and take it to my friendly locksmith (or GM repo-man) to get the key made. Now I have free use of my truck bed, and I am happy. However, GM views this as a terrible thing, and they decide to sue for an injunction to remove the key code from the Web. They win, and get the code removed from at least the most prominent sites. Several smug quotes from their lawyers are printed in articles, "We are glad that the court has rectified the illegal use of truck beds, etc."
On appeal, a judge with stock in GM hears the case, and agrees with GM since it is obvious that people with the code are carting around all sort of stuff that GM doesn't want carted.
Finally, the US Supreme Court takes the case and tells GM that they are silly, and that consumers actually do have some rights, and that GM has to provide bed-keys to all people who bought their trucks.
Disclaimer: I like my truck a lot, and it is from GM, so I have no complaint with them, but I would if they tried to tell me how I could use it.
But, nobody had to break into the super-secret-MPAA-DVD-key vault. The decryption keys were stored in the clear in one of the DVD player programs (Xing's I think), so getting the keys didn't even require an illegal act.
Given the circumstances surrounding the trial, an appeal will almost certainly be heard. Kaplan was clearly biased, and was hostile towards the defense.
He probably should have rescued himself before the trial started, because this left a huge case of conflict of interest. His personal opinions of Mr. Garbus destroyed any chance at a fair trial.
SO yes, the MPAA won this round... But there will be multiple appeals. Probably all the way to the supreme court. Given the court's recent history in copyright/tradesecret cases, it wouldnt surprise me if 2600 wins at this point. It may have to go all the way to the Supreme court before they win, though.
tagline
-- ... hi bingo...
Re:sobering prospects for future tech
by
bwt
·
· Score: 4
I located a copy of the Bernstein v Dept of State ruling (http://www.eff.org/pub/Privacy/Crypto_export/Bern stein_case/Legal/960415.decision), which among other things states this:
"For the purposes of First Amendment analysis, this court finds that source code is speech."
The UTTERLY FRIGHTENING thing is that Kaplan held that DeCSS WAS speech! He said it was also functional, and that banning it was a content-neutral regulation that was narrowly tailored to advancing an important governement interest. That is he applied the intermediate scrutiny test, citing US v O'Brian that the governement can ban burning draft cards.
He ignored without comment the fact that Congress explicitly stated that the DMCA did not "diminish any rights of free speech or the press for activities using consumer electronics, telecommunications, or computing products. " [1201(c)(4)].
He then put elipses (!!!) over "but in no event shall impose a prior restraint on free speech or the press protected under the 1st amendment to the Constitution; " when he quoted 1203(b)(1)'s empowerment of judicial injunctions. [p83]
Once again. Kaplan admits DeCSS is 'protected under the 1st amendment' !!!! In his own words:
"As computer code--whether source or object--is a means of expressing ideas, the First Amendment must be considered before its dissemination may be prohibited or regulated. In that sense, computer code is covered or, as sometimes is said, 'protected' by the First Amendment." [p51]
"It cannot seriously be argued that any form of computer code may be regulated without reference to First Amendment doctrine." [p50]
Re: Prepare to lose this one in the Supreme Court
by
alkali
·
· Score: 1
I think you've just hit on the big legal problem here, though: Judge Kaplan has MADE UP FACTS.
Out of thin air.
Which finding of fact which has actual significance to Kaplan's opinion do you contend to be false? Delete Kaplan's suggestions that the 2600 bunch are somehow unsavory, and the opinion's still there.
Re:Help make a difference!
by
Lord+Kano
·
· Score: 1
I can't presume to tell you who to vote for. I know who I'm voting for. I find it laughable that you can see no difference between the two major candidates.
LK
-- "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Killing DeCSS may make illegal copying worse
by
Eccles
·
· Score: 2
I think killing DeCSS may cost the MPAA folks money. Maybe others have made this observation, but anyway, here goes...
DeCSS offers two nice features for movie copiers. First, with high-speed DVD readers, a movie can be ripped much faster than real-time. (6x, 10x, etc.) Second, the quality of the rip is as good as the original, since it is the original. But feeding a video stream straight into a video capture card will work to copy a DVD, and there's no reason to believe this won't be available tech for a long time to come. Movies for internet download will probably be converted to some format like DivX;-), where the quality difference from a straight rip probably isn't an issue. For someone willing to copy a movie, neither advantage is such a big deal that it will stop them from doing so. So there's no reason to expect that sources of downloadable movies will be slowed by eliminating DeCSS.
No, for the MPAA to keep people buying DVDs, it must encourage people to stay away from those sites. DeCSSing stuff for private use, while illegal under the DMCA, isn't what they care about; they want those fat checks rolling in. Now, as an average consumer, I probably won't seek out pirate sites normally. But if I find that a DVD imposes some annoyance on me that I want to get rid of, I may buy the DVD and then seek out a download site, and download and create a VCD without the forced commercials (or whatever). But once I've done that once, I've found a gateway. I know where to get those files, and I have a grievance (in my mind, at least) with the DVD vendor. In that situation, I'm more likely to go ahead and download other files, simply because I know where they are and how to get them.
If DeCSS and the like were available to me, I probably wouldn't seek out the distribution sites. Paying money for a DVD seems a fair system to most of us, and if it is overpriced, I simply don't buy it, or else I rent it. Allow me to convert it when the need arises, and then I won't seek out those download sites, and I won't get into a situation where I can easily download movies I never purchased.
Meanwhile, if I am the type to seek out such sites, the lack of DeCSS just means the files I download are trivially lower in quality. Big whoop.
-- Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Re: You just don't get it
by
Hard_Code
·
· Score: 2
I didn't say they did. But by passing on that tool, they were still breaking the law.
And some backwards places have crazy laws like "You cannot put an ice cream cone in your pocket". Just the other day I heard that some guy, under some stupid no-tolerence law, is spending 35-years-to-life for stealing a bicycle. A friggen $100 BIKE!
Are these people technically breaking the law? YES
Are these laws dumb and should be abolished? YES
Should these laws be challenged and brought to the Supreme Court? YES
People owned slaves once. Don't make it right.
And how do you know he was personally biased? Intent is key to the case, so he has to decide what 2600's motives were in posting it. And he decided that those motives weren't the aid of encryption research, which was really the only thing that would have made it legal.
Well, I read the transcripts and thought he was getting it. But then he found the opposite way, which really surprised me. Sure seems like he was soaking it all up, just to say, "well, I don't believe you, tough". He totally disregarded (or discredited without cause) a lot of testimony.
Yes, but the reverse engineering wasn't done to assess interoperability. That was one of the defenses used, and the judge didn't buy it. The fact that some people later used it to develop an illegal Linux player doesn't change the original reverse engineering. Plus, the key word is "assess," not "implement."
We've already (hopefully) established that DMCA is brain-dead and should be abolished. Reverse engineering, even to *implement* competing products is well established as legal. The player was only illegal insofar as it was contradictory to DMCA, which we've established is wrong in the first place. The judge could have questioned the constitutionality of DMCA...but he didn't. In fact he didn't even make any allowance that this was a grey area, and instead, went the extreme in the other direction, even banning linking to DeCSS code. And I thought that another court just upheld the constitutionality of that.
No, the encryption was intellectual property, like any copyrighted source code. The code to Windows 2000 isn't a "trade secret," and even if it was, you still violate the law by stealing that trade secret.
IANAL, but "trade secret" and "patent" and "copyright" are all different flavors of what could generally be called "intellectual property", and each have their own ramifications. There is a trade-off in using "trade secrets" along the lines of "you don't have to announce it, but if somebody discovers it tough for you". (Is there a lawyer in the house?).
IMHO, the rhetoric is still all wrong. E.g., it is impossible to *steal* a trade secret. I can *discover* a trade secret, but I can't deprive the originator of it. This mentality of physical property is just what MPAA, et al., want to foist on the consciousness of the American people. They want us to think their enemies are all peg-legged pirates roaming some digital sea "stealing" and pillaging their intellectual property, depriving them of a product won by their hard work. It just doesn't work that way.
I can't believe it. I just can't believe it. How ignorant is it possible to get? Yes, today, analog versions exist, but they won't in a few years. I mean, I have a hard time awarding voting rights to people who are as ignorant as Kaplan was in this case, and when a judge exhibits such extreme ignorance, then democracy is at stake.
When I was reading your comments, I immediately thought of the quote you use for your signature. You obviously answer your own questions. I also thought of a favorite quote from Einstein. He compared the limits of the universe and stupidity;-)
The decision from Kaplan was an interesting read. I could see how he was struggling to find an intelligent response. I see no malice in his views. I hope the next court does a better job of looking intelligent;-)
I'll remind you all again that its time to get involved in your government. Write to your representatives in Congress and tell that that you don't like the DMCA, that it takes away your rights to such traditions as fair use, and grossly favors the large media corporations over the average citizen. Tell them that you want to see the DMCA repealed and a laws past to protect your rights, not the intrests of the media corporations. Then, get out and vote in November!
What's nice about the distributed nature of the net is that code like decss can never be truly removed. Does anyone remember how in elementary school, someone would grab somebody elses paper, and then pass it along to other people, causing the initial person distress? Yet there was nothing you could do. DeCSS code works the same way. As far as I'm concerned 2600 should have just removed it and said, "remember, it's still everywhere else". They would have saved time and money.
If the DMCA is upheld by the Supreme Court, which is clearly what this is leading to, then we may find ourselves with a severely limited First Amendment. As you noted:
The UTTERLY FRIGHTENING thing is that Kaplan held that DeCSS WAS speech!
If DeCSS is speech that used to be constitutionally protected, but now a prior restraint is permitted, then we have enabled a wide range of censorship, not only by corporate entities such as MPAA/RIAA but anyone else with money and power.
Re:Republican!=conservative nor Democrat!=Liberal
by
kindbud
·
· Score: 1
Why you are throwing these meaningless political parties into the mix is beyond me.
Why you are throwing these meaningless political labels into the mix is beyond me.
Does it matter who claims to be a true conservative, and who doesn't? Every one of the so-called conservative Republicans who voted for the DMCA, and the CSA, considers themselves a true conservative. The term is meaningless.
I think the term you're looking for is a strict constitutionalist. Those people speak and act as you describe. No one who claims the label conservative believes what your hypothetical true conservatives believe.
Makes me wonder why type of engineer, what type of geek, will create something like CSS, barking on command from a suit, without even giving it thought, without being ashamed. I would quit my job if I was ordered to do something like that (or to lie about a hole in software, or to insert an unethical backdoor, etc.). I think this goes for a lot of the geek/techie/engineer/whatever community. The more proficient you are, the sharper you are, the higher esteem you are held in, the MORE ethical you are - you realize while it may be display of skill, cracking is lame; you realize that instead of flaming newbies, you should actually help them along, etc. I think it's called something, hmm...ah, yes, maturity. Sort of an unwritten code.
So I wonder what type of engineers these were, and how they rationalized what they were doing (perhaps they weren't told). Or perhaps the fact that a couple of teenagers cracked CSS in a matter of days, sheds enough light, with respect to the above paragraph.
what will the DMCA bring in the future?
by
cwebster
·
· Score: 2
After reading this article, and everything else i have read pertaining to this case, this trial so far has been biased to say the least. I've read a couple quotes that clearly show the judge in this case already has his own picture of the ideals of a hacker and applies them to this case without really looking at what is going on. With the DMCA and judges like this one, the world of IP and corporate technology may be far different in a couple years than we know it today. Its scary to think of all the implications this legislation carries if someone doesnt stand up to it and try bringing it to a higher court.
Re:what will the DMCA bring in the future?
by
malfunct
·
· Score: 1
I think this comes down to a case of "a few bad apples" spoiling the public opinion of a group. Ask anyone that is not up on technical issues about a hacker and they automatically assume its someone thats out to destroy them.
Something we can do to fight against this is to actively fight all the script kiddies and other "destroyers" that are out there in the world today. I think from this article I got the feeling that 2600 is trying to do this.
The best thing I think that can be done is to promote your rights of free speech and "fair use" while fighting piracy and destructive "hacking" with all of your might.
http://www.google.com/search?q=DeCSS+source+download+&btnG=G oogle+Search
Is slashdot breaking the law by allowing
this link to be published ?
Did I break the law by composing the query ?
Did google break the law by giving results to it ?
If I run the query, and it return's no results,
then no-one has broken the law. But if later it
does return the location of the forbidden program,
does the previously published query suddenly become illegal ? And become legal again if
the query stops returning resulsts ?
Does Mr. Kaplan smoke crack ?
Yes,
today, analog versions exist, but they won't in a few years.
It's already happening! I'm pretty sure "Detroit Rock City" came out on DVD almost a full month before VHS.. a few other movies have come out this way also.. not only that there are MANY features and extras on a DVD you just cant get with VHS. So that dudes argument about going to get the analog version is total crap..
good comment... (psuedo moderation)
--
YouTube & Google Video -> podcast
http://castcluster.blogspot.com/
We're also extremely fortunate that the Electronic Frontier Foundation was around to fund our defense. If anything has proven the value of the EFF in looking after civil liberties in the modern age, this has. I can't emphasize enough the importance of heading over to http://www.eff.org/support/joineff.html and donating as much as you possibly can to keep this case going. Explain this to as many people as possible and get them to do the same.
The thing I don't understand is that companies like Indrema are already making linux DVD players. There are even some opensource projects floating around. How can they get by with this. Were they able to license the code? And from whom?
I'm amazed at how low these prices are. These fees are not supporting any corporations. That's chump change! The suit alone cost like $4 million. Is this really what they're fighting for?
That would be because the hardware DVD decoder manufacturer has paid the DVD licence fees, and you don't get access to the inner workings of the hardware... so no problem?
The problem is, of course, that you'd need drivers and/or a client program to tell the hardware DVD decoder card/whatever to play the DVD... whether these exist for Linux or not, I have no idea.
Besides, how common is hardware that does the entire DVD playback process? And how much processing does the software have to do before it's liable for needing a licence -> covered by an NDA -> cannot be released as source... ?
don't forget about the $1 Mil deposit required. If your player results in CSS being cracked, you kiss it goodbye. Also you are given a player key, which you can also lose if your player becomes hacked (ie if they can turn off Macrovision), making all your customers only able to play previous DVDs.
The licences are obtained from the DVD Forum (formerly the DVD Consortium) which originally consisted of 10 big electronics companies (Hitachi, Matsushita, Mitsubishi, Philips, Pioneer, Sony, Thomson Multimedia, Time Warner, Toshiba and Victor).
There's definately some licenced DVD players for Linux in development (e.g. PowerDVD-Linux), but I don't see how any open-sourced version could ever be legal under the terms of the licence; disclosing the decryption source code is not allowed, as any and all information that you get with the licence is covered under an NDA.
This snippet from the site linked above shows the prices involved:
3. License Fees are now required for the right to use the Format Books. The License Fee is US$10,000 per DVD Format for each Product Category, as specified in Schedule A-1 of the Definitive License.
Example: If a licensee wishes to manufacture DVD-Video players, the licensee shall pay US$20,000 since it needs to obtain licenses for DVD-Video Book and DVD-ROM Book, both to be used for Product Category II (DVD Players).
Example: If a licensee wishes to manufacture DVD-RAM drives and DVD-RAM discs, the licensee shall pay US$40,000 since it needs to obtain licenses for DVD-RAM and DVD-ROM Books, to be used for Category I Products (DVD discs) and Category II Products (DVD drives).
Indrema licensed the CSS routines from the DVD CCA. Unfortunatly, their product is vapor. I expect to actually see it Christmas season 2001.
The open source DVD player (Thank you!) uses a brute force attack against CSS to unlock the disc. CSS uses a dinky little key space that even my Commodore 64 could cover in a day. But it's slow, requiring almost all the horsepower of my dual Celery@500 and about half of my quad Xeon@450. It's perfectly able to play unencrypted DVDs as well, so those Taiwan-made pirate copies you can buy almost anywhere play without a hitch.
Yeah - if you do the decryption in hardware it's
apparently no problem. Also not all DVDs use
encryption, so you can play these anyway with opensource players.
LiViD (the open source project) merged in code from DeCSS, so they don't have any sort of license from DVD-CCA. IMO, this is a good thing.
As for the commercial products, I would assume that they obtained a license in the usual manner. Last I heard, however, they were all vapourware... not to mention closed source.
--
I'm sorry, but your comment amuses me greatly:-) The MPAA's entire diatribe over the DeCSS issue is that it enables piracy of DVDs when we all know that's not the case. The technology threshold is just too high for Joe Average and even Jane Hacker. (You need to be Josh.com-IPO to afford a DVD burner, iirc)
Now look at this: The lack of a CSS capable player for Linux is encouring the purchase of true pirated DVDs.
[sarcasm]Geez... who'd'a thunk it? [/sarcasm]
----
--
----
Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
Important buried link emily_cutner@mpaa.org
by
GMontag
·
· Score: 2
But first, OB response to da groundhog:
1984 was not written by Orson Wells, it was written by George Orwell.
And now for the link:
my MPAA phone call... by eries. (please mod him up?)
The link is so far down that many might miss it (no excuse, just the facts) and it has this e-mail address for MPAA PR emily_cutner@mpaa.org
Facing a major lawsuit is a lot like facing a major illness. It's expensive, time consuming, and there are a million other ways you'd like to be spending your time. But if you don't devote all of your attention to fighting it, your continued existence is profoundly endangered.
That's how this thing has been affecting us since it started back in January. It's greatly interfered with the magazine, production of our film, and organization of our conference. But it was necessary - essential, in fact - and most people seem to understand why.
It's a real shame Judge Kaplan wasn't one of those people.
From the first teleconferenced hearing to the pretrial motions all the way through the trial, I was amazed by what appeared to be unfettered hostility towards us and the many points we attempted to make. I don't see how anyone looking through the transcripts would have any difficulty seeing this. But we all held out hope that this wouldn't be present in the decision.
Were we ever wrong.
See, in my mind, this case has always been about common sense. Someone cracked someone else's badly protected encryption scheme. Game over. It's shot to hell. You don't continue to use bad encryption or pretend it didn't happen. Yet in November, that's exactly what we saw happening. And even worse, we saw people being intimidated into taking down web pages that had the offending code on them.
It was insane! It reminded me of the one car crash I've ever been in where a garbage truck ran through a stale red light right in front of me on 8th and Avenue A in the East Village. The driver tried to intimidate the people who came forward as witnesses, telling them, "You didn't see anything. Get out of here!" But if you know the East Village, you know it's not the place to intimidate people and get away with it. It's also where a lot of the "weirdoes" hang out. So to me, it's always had the mindset of the net. And that's why I've always been comfortable in both environments. And, yeah, the garbage guy got in a shitload of trouble.
The kind of honesty you get by having individuals who aren't afraid to express themselves has always been a threat to those who imagine themselves in power. Until recently, the net was the only place where individual opinion actually had a chance. If the media wouldn't tell your story, YOU could become the media and tell the story yourself. The whole world could be your audience.
I won't even get into how the net is being destroyed by advertising and conglomeration. There's no time to go on the offensive when so much time has to be spent defending one's very existence. Every day we get new reports of people being threatened in some way by some huge corporate entity because their opinions and free expression don't sit well. Years ago, this sort of thing would have been laughed at. Today, it's a very different story. Voices are being silenced, criticism is being eliminated. And very unfortunate precedents are being set.
This is all made possible through bad legislation, things like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which has made this lawsuit possible. Unless stopped, there will be many many more like it in the future. And many more bad laws as well. Until we overturn this thing, the danger to all of us is incalculable.
Just for the fun of it, I tried to find out who had voted for the DMCA, so I could make an extra effort not to vote for them. But they did it with a voice vote - there is no record. How reassuring.
So now we have this law that basically says we are not allowed to show people the failings of technology if the people controlling that technology decide they don't want us to. An expansion of this law which could go into effect in October would make it illegal to even TRY to find failings in such technology.
It makes you want to scream. Concepts that most 12-year-olds can grasp and understand the value of are being signed away to entities that are already far too powerful. And the result is what we have been going through extended to however many more want to try and stand up for our vanishing rights.
To get back to the naive notion of common sense that we've been clinging to throughout this ordeal, we thought, no, we KNEW the right thing to do last November was to report the story and to publish the programs. And nobody here is ashamed of the fact that part of the reason for doing this was to show support for people who were being bullied. I've never liked bullies, whether they be kids, teachers, parents, cops, governments, or corporate giants. What they were doing to these people was wrong and we felt that our standing up might make a difference.
Well, it did. But not in the way we expected. Suddenly, WE became the problem even though we had nothing to do with the encryption being cracked or even with the initial release of the story. It was as if someone painted an insult on the side of a building that everyone in the world could see. A newspaper comes along and does a story on this and prints a picture of the building and is then blamed for the insult. Oh, and let's also point out that no matter how hard they try, nobody can wipe the paint off the wall. The way things are today, we're supposed to pretend nothing is wrong and if we dare to report otherwise or present evidence to the contrary, we will take the full brunt of the blame. Sounds like some weird medieval monarchy to me.
The sad fact is that we never had a chance in this court. A mere reading of the decision shows this more clearly than anything I could possibly say. "Not surprisingly, 2600: The Hacker Quarterly has included articles on such topics as how to steal an Internet domain name, access other people's e-mail, intercept cellular phone calls, and break into the computer systems at Costco stores and Federal Express." The fact that he would use the phrase "not surprisingly" speaks volumes as to his opinion on our value to society. It is, at best, utter ignorance and only proves beyond any shadow of a doubt how thoroughly Judge Kaplan bought into the MPAA's warped notions of what our magazine is about. We printed an article on weaknesses at Network Solutions that allowed domain names to be stolen. Guess what? They FIXED it as a result of this article and now, domain names, including our own, are not at risk of being stolen, at least, not as much. (Had Kaplan ruled on THAT issue, it would have been illegal for us to tell anyone this and the security holes would still exist.) The same holds true for many of the other security weaknesses we report on. But, as we tried fruitlessly to explain, we exist to report the story, period. Someone may fix the problem because of the story or someone may exploit it. We cannot and will not determine what happens as a result nor will we allow fear of that to make our editorial decisions for us.
Kaplan also seems to share the MPAA's amazement that we would actually copyright our magazine and our web site. ("Interestingly, defendants' copyright both their magazine and the material on their web site to prevent others from copying their works.") It's clear he believes that we have no respect for or belief in the concept of copyright. He either wasn't paying attention during my testimony or simply refuses to believe that copyright is necessary to prevent someone else from taking credit for and control of your work. I repeatedly said that copying was not our concern. What the MPAA is attempting to do with copyright is not at all in line with its original intent.
I also find it amazing how Jon Johansen's credibility is wiped away on two occasions with a single sentence. ("[T]he Court finds that Mr. Johansen and the others who actually did develop DeCSS did not do so solely for the purpose of making a Linux DVD player if, indeed, developing a Linux-based DVD player was among their purposes." "Substantial questions have been raised both at trial and elsewhere as to the veracity of Mr. Johansen's claim.") Yet not a single ounce of proof that he wasn't being totally honest is ever presented. I mean, we had PLENTY of questions both at trial and everywhere about the MPAA's veracity. But our saying that wouldn't be enough. Why is it that the MPAA is able to so easily put words in a judge's mouth?
The flaws in logic abound. At one point publishing DeCSS is compared to "the publication of a bank vault combination in a national newspaper. Even if no one uses the combination to open the vault, its mere publication has the effect of defeating the bank's security system, forcing the bank to reprogram the lock." First off, this isn't at all similar to what happened. If this analogy were to be correct, someone else would have already published the combination and we would simply have published the SAME information that had already been made public. Second, the security system of the bank was compromised the moment the combination was released or leaked to the public, NOT when this fact was reported in a newspaper. This method of blaming the messenger for the message has been used throughout the world to shut down opposition newspapers and imprison people who don't follow the party line. It's troubling to see it applied here.
Now, on the question of this theoretical bank being forced to reprogram its lock, would anyone hesitate to suggest that that is PRECISELY what they SHOULD do? A bank that didn't do this would probably be prosecuted for negligence. So why doesn't Kaplan apply this logic in his own analogy to the MPAA? Because of this: "Development and implementation of a new DVD copy protection system, however, is far more difficult and costly than reprogramming a combination lock and may carry with it the added problem of rendering the existing installed base of compliant DVD players obsolete." So basically, a security hole can be left in place if it's too expensive to fix and anyone who exposes the continued existence of the hole can be prosecuted? Riiight....
Meanwhile, a few pages later "the Court holds that CSS effectively controls access to plaintiffs' copyrighted works." That made me laugh. Would we be here today if THAT were true?
At one point, DeCSS is compared to an epidemic. But even in that odd analogy, it's recognized that finding the original source of "infection" accomplishes nothing. It's a nifty metaphor but I don't see what it does for the case against us.
Another time, DeCSS is compared to an assassination. No kidding. "Computer code is expressive. To that extent, it is a matter of First Amendment concern. But computer code is not purely expressive any more than the assassination of a political figure is purely a political statement." You get the feeling he's deliberately equating computer code with something bad? Maybe it's me. But let's look at this somewhat logically. A political assassination is a completed act. A computer program isn't completed until someone copies it, compiles it (if it's source), and executes it on the proper platform in the proper setting. A more accurate comparison would be to compare INSTRUCTIONS for an assassination to a computer program. They both require someone or something to act upon the instructions before the task is complete. By outlawing all talk of assassination, including those within works of fiction, we achieve the same level of protection that outlawing dissemination of DeCSS accomplishes.
Naturally, one of the most important issues here is that of "fair use" which is something the DMCA appears to be taking away from us. In other words, you are entitled to excerpt portions of copyrighted works for all kinds of purposes. It's also not illegal to make backup copies. These are very fundamental and important concepts. So how do we get around the restrictions that we're now finding in new digital media? Judge Kaplan addressed that important issue this way: "[A]ll or substantially all motion pictures available on DVD are available also on videotape. In consequence, anyone wishing to make lawful use of a particular movie may buy or rent a videotape, play it, and even copy all or part of it with readily available equipment." THAT'S the solution to the "fair use" issue - use old technology that isn't affected by the DMCA?! Not exactly a graceful way of ducking the issues.
Another thing that bothers me is that it doesn't seem to matter in the least WHY DeCSS was written. The fact is that DeCSS was written to circumvent CSS and, even if that was done specifically to cure world hunger, in the eyes of the court, it was a violation of the DMCA. If this is the case, then it's pretty obvious that the DMCA is one screwed up piece of legislation that has to be thrown out. But the judge goes way beyond this, insulting our integrity and existence at every possible opportunity and making no secret of the disdain he feels for the entire case of the defense. One has to wonder why he found that necessary if it was such a clearcut violation.
Naturally, one of the most disturbing parts of all of this is the ruling on linking. "The only distinction is that the entity extending to the user the option of downloading the program is the transferee site rather than defendants, a distinction without a difference." We can all laugh at such words but they represent something very sinister. We are now expected to believe that telling someone how to get a file with a link is the same as offering it yourself. I want to know if this works both ways - if I point someone to a site or product that costs money, is that also a "distinction without a difference" that will allow me to be compensated? This kind of logic is already giving me nightmares.
Finally, there are the disturbing words on who we are and what we stand for and how this is somehow relevant to the decision. "Defendants are in the business of disseminating information to assist hackers in 'cracking' various types of technological security systems. And while defendants argue that they promptly stopped posting DeCSS when enjoined preliminarily from doing so, thus allegedly demonstrating their willingness to comply with the law, their reaction to the preliminary injunction in fact cuts the other way." Interesting, isn't it? Our "reaction" is enough to condemn us, even though we followed the injunction to the letter. By speaking our mind and encouraging others to do what we alone were forbidden from doing, we are somehow in the wrong. How is this even relevant to the law? Are people who believe in certain things or associate with certain people to be treated differently? In Judge Kaplan's mind, we "are adherents of a movement that believes that information should be available without charge to anyone clever enough to break into the computer systems or data storage media in which it is located." This is, to say the least, insulting and just plain wrong. I challenge him to find a single instance where we have ever supported piracy or accessing private information. These ignorant generalizations sound more like the work of Jack Valenti's ghost writer.
What too many people don't seem to realize is that the rules have changed overnight and it WILL affect them. Imagine not being allowed to lend a book to a friend. Imagine not being able to play music that you bought in another country. Imagine only being able to watch "approved" content on your DVD player. And just wait until HDTV comes around and makes it impossible to record anything unless you pay. These are all natural extensions of the existing restrictions and they are all now perfectly legal. You've lost the right of "fair use" with copyrighted material that you think you own. In actuality, you've just bought a license to do what they tell you.
So, after all is said and done, I have to echo what all of the legal experts have said so far: I'm not at all surprised. This is how we expected the first round to go. It's now time to focus on the Appellate Court and eventually, since whoever loses next will most likely appeal, the Supreme Court.
Everyone is asking what will happen to us and how they can help. Well, we were pretty fortunate that Judge Kaplan didn't choose to hit us with the MPAA's legal bill, like they wanted him to. Their legal fees are believed to be in excess of $4 million so that definitely would have caused a delay in the next issue. It should also make it pretty clear that the MPAA has no qualms about utterly destroying anyone who gets in their way. And it should also make it clear how important we think this is that we would risk such a thing. And ironic that none of us even HAS a DVD player.
We're also extremely fortunate that the Electronic Frontier Foundation was around to fund our defense. If anything has proven the value of the EFF in looking after civil liberties in the modern age, this has. I can't emphasize enough the importance of heading over to http://www.eff.org/support/joineff.html (I'm actually afraid to make a link now) and donating as much as you possibly can to keep this case going. Explain this to as many people as possible and get them to do the same.
If there's anything good to come out of this decision, it's that we'll get to continue working with our legal team who have been absolutely amazing from the start. I've never seen a group of people so dedicated to learning and understanding the facts. It's a real honor to be among them and it's really changed the way I look at the entire legal profession.
As for what you can do to help, apart from the above, that's really up to you as it's always been. If you believe DeCSS is a form of speech, a means of access for alternative operating systems, or a necessary step towards "fair use" of digital media, then spreading it throughout the world is extremely important for the preservation of those freedoms. If you're in the United States, be aware of the risk you are taking. And if you're one of those people who really buys into the MPAA notion that DeCSS is a tool of piracy, please DON'T do the above because you're missing the entire point.
We can no longer post DeCSS on our site nor can we link to it. We still have the right to list those sites that have it in non-linkable form and we also have the right to speak out against the injustice we're being hit with. The MPAA would like those rights taken away as well. We cannot allow them to succeed.
There will be further leafleting campaigns in the weeks ahead. Keep checking this web site for details. And please let us know your opinions - dvd@2600.com. We would give out an address for the MPAA but they've been blocking e-mail for some time and blaming hackers for every problem they have. So give them a call at (818) 995-6600 from 9 am to 5:30 pm Pacific Time. Be civil but make sure you get your point across. After all, where do you think that $4 million ultimately comes from?
emmanuel
-- Viva Anales!
Re:Not that I'm complaining, mind you...
by
jmccay
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· Score: 1
karma fishing!
-- At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
Not only inmoral, but IMHO, if CSS was designed INTENTIONALLY to circumvent "fair use" then it is illegal as well.
--
In 2000 America, is a non-lawyer truly free?
Re:CSS doesn't create a DVD monopoly...
by
techsupersite.com
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· Score: 1
It could happen that the MPAA could impose restrictions in their license to require CSS/DVD player makers to not allow non-CSS DVD's to be played.
If there ever WAS an "indie" studio that took off and decided not to play the MPAA game, they could do this to effectively kill of competition. Another reason why ALL monopolist cartels, be they industrial (RIAA, MPAA), or otherwise (AFL/CIO, NEA) should be outlawed, as they are not in the best interest of the consumer.
--
In 2000 America, is a non-lawyer truly free?
Enforcement of the DMCA isn't mandatory
by
Kris_J
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· Score: 2
Imagine not being allowed to lend a book to a friend. Imagine not being able to play music that you bought in another country. Imagine only being able to watch "approved" content on your DVD player.
Just stop for a moment and realise that no artist has to use these laws. No artist has to region code their work. No artist has to stop you from sharing their work with friends. Who cares if downloading the latest Britney SPears' song is illegal, she sucks -- she's low-brow, lowest common demoninator stuff. If she dissapeared off the face of the earth tommorrow, no culture would be worse off. Don't you think that if someone has something important, particularly if it's anti-establishment, to say they will made it available as widely as possible, with no copy protection and encourage people to spread the word.
If you don't like it, don't buy the stuff. If you think the distributors are screwing over the artists, tell them -- most decent artists want to hear from their fans, at least the ones that are doing it for the right reasons.
I have voted with my money, I don't own a DVD player. I have decided that the region coding is too restrictive and their are no DVDs that I want. There certainly aren't any that I need.
I know this is the thin edge of a wedge, but it's really thin at the moment. Groups like 2600 and EFF will still be around when the DCMA or laws like it are being used to prevent the sick from getting new drugs or something actually important, but at the moment it's just about songs and movies. Just stop buying them and shut up!
Re:Enforcement of the DMCA isn't mandatory
by
techsupersite.com
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· Score: 1
This isn't possible today, as any artist has to go thru a MPAA or RIAA member to get to the masses.
--
In 2000 America, is a non-lawyer truly free?
Re:Enforcement of the DMCA isn't mandatory
by
Kris_J
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· Score: 1
Only while the masses put up with this crap. I buy stuff from independant labels whenever I can, and I download a lot of new stuff from MP3.com.
Re:Enforcement of the DMCA isn't mandatory
by
CoyoteStormwolf
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· Score: 1
Sadly, I think most of the masses put up with the crap they do because they have been conditioned to believe that independent artists suck, and that major labels and corporate owned radio stations are the final authority on what is good music.
Re:Enforcement of the DMCA isn't mandatory
by
Kris_J
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· Score: 1
And that's the evil you have to combat in this fight, not the DCMA. (Not saying the DCMA isn't evil, just that the current RIAA and MPAA fight is targetting the wrong thing)
The encryption was a trade secret which is more or less fair game once the cat's out of the bag.
No, the encryption was intellectual property, like any copyrighted source code. The code to Windows 2000 isn't a "trade secret," and even if it was, you still violate the law by stealing that trade secret.
No, the encryption was an algorithm that was reverse-engineered. Nobody saw the source code that implemented that algorithm, therefore copyright law does not come into play. The encryption algorithm, to my understanding, was not patented. Therefore, patent law does not come into play. It was merely a trade secret. It is legal to reverse-engineer anything that isn't patented.
Of course the DMCA overrides this, and makes it illegal to reverse engineer encryption schemes. My only point is that copyrighted source code has nothing to do with this case, and that no trade secrets were stolen - they were reverse engineered.
-- I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
Re:sobering prospects for future tech
by
Kris_J
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· Score: 2
VHS is analog dude, the D in DMCA is for digital, it doesn't apply to VHS.
Re:sobering prospects for future tech
by
K8Fan
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· Score: 2
The most amazing part to me of this whole thing is that the Judge directly advocated doing something else illegal:
Judge Kaplan addressed that important issue this way: "[A]ll or substantially all motion pictures available on DVD are available also on videotape. In consequence, anyone wishing to make lawful use of a particular movie may buy or rent a videotape, play it, and even copy all or part of it with readily available equipment." THAT'S the solution to the "fair use" issue - use old technology that isn't affected by the DMCA?! Not exactly a graceful way of ducking the issues.
I don't know what planet the Judge is from, but the same DMCA that he was ruling on also made illegal the boxes that he was refering to. Virtually every commercial VHS movie has Macrovision CopyGuard on it, and requires either a specific set of VCRs or a box that explicitly strips off that Macrovision signal. If you wish to express your Fair Use rights, you must violate the DMCA.
-- "How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure"
Charles Crumb
I agree that the arrogant ignorant stupidity of governments like the US, UK, and Australian ones create a TREMENDOUS opportunity for innovators like Sealand.
Ultimately, I see poorer nations getting rich by having sensible `net laws and taxes. It's a sure fire way to draw business, because ANY geographical location is a potentially prime `net location.
How many Cardassians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Four. THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!
(rimshot)
Republican!=conservative nor Democrat!=Liberal
by
GMontag
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· Score: 2
Sorry, doodz, you are missing MY point. A true conservative has the highest regard for individual rights and property.
If I own a machine, I should be able to tell that machine what I want it to do, with my own instruction set/program, or a set given to me by someone else.
DeCSS does not copy anybody else's work, it is origonal work. I fail to understand why you imply that it has some sort of copyright infringement attached to it.
If I purchase a block of metal and want to make a replacement part for my Jeep, nobody should be trying to tell me what size or pattern for bolt holes I may use because someone else used them first. I know that I do not have the right to mill the word "Jeep" into the finished item, without permission, because Jeep did not make the thing, I did. At any rate, doing the above is just as much of a copyright violation as DeCSS.
The case at hand would be if Emmanuel were taken to court for putting my blueprints in his magazine with my permission.
Why you are throwing these meaningless political parties into the mix is beyond me. They can call themselves five legged dogs if they wish and it still does not make them five legged dogs.
Don't be blinded by the label, take a look at the product. Anybody that backed this stupid law is as far from being a true conservative as a Kennedy (pick one).
Re:Republican!=conservative nor Democrat!=Liberal
by
techsupersite.com
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· Score: 1
I agree with your points 110%. I consider myself a "true" conservative, and the free market is most benefitted by free innovation and competition.
What the DMCA does is grant the MPAA and RIAA monopoly status, something that is repulsive to someone with my views. Of course I respect the right of a movie studio to copyright their property, but once they sell me a movie, their rights end there, I can sell it, copy it, play it, etc, as long as I do not sell it or give away copies.
Same with a DVD player I buy. Once I fork over my money, the company that sold it to me has no further rights to restrict what I do with it, so long as I don't clone the circuit board and sell copies. But if I were smart enough to reverse-engineer the principle behind the DVD player and make my own, then I should have that right.
God, does ANYONE realize what is happening here? 4-5 megacorps and one monopoly cartel are saying they ALONE can sell or license PLAYERS. Anyone can make and sell casette , CD, or VCR players...
How can a law that gives the MPAA cartel power over digital device makers that they don't currently have over analog device makers be legal?
--
In 2000 America, is a non-lawyer truly free?
Re:And here it is with the proper format.
by
bwt
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· Score: 4
Actually, I do own the content, if I recall what I've read on copyright law correctly. The MPAA has been saying that I don't, but I've paid them money for a copy of a copyrighted work. I OWN that copy, but I cannot create additional copies, except as allowed by fair use legislation.
"This Court holds that transactions making up the distribution chain from Novell through NTC to the end-user are "sales" governed by the U.C.C. [Uniform Commercial Code] Therefore, the first sale doctrine applies. It follows that the purchaser is an "owner" by way of sale and is entitled to the use and enjoyment of the software with the same rights as exist in the purchase of any other good. Said software transactions do not merely constitute the sale of a license to use the software. The shrinkwrap license included with the software is therefore invalid as against such a purchaser insofar as it purports to maintain title to the software in the copyright owner."
And here it is with the proper format.
by
drinkypoo
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· Score: 4
ANALYSIS OF THE DECISION AGAINST 2600
08/21/00
Facing a major lawsuit is a lot like facing a major illness. It's expensive, time consuming, and there are a million other ways you'd like to be spending your time. But if you don't devote all of your attention to fighting it, your continued existence is profoundly endangered.
That's how this thing has been affecting us since it started back in January. It's greatly interfered with the magazine, production of our film, and organization of our conference. But it was necessary - essential, in fact - and most people seem to understand why.
It's a real shame Judge Kaplan wasn't one of those people.
From the first teleconferenced hearing to the pretrial motions all the way through the trial, I was amazed by what appeared to be unfettered hostility towards us and the many points we attempted to make. I don't see how anyone looking through the transcripts would have any difficulty seeing this. But we all held out hope that this wouldn't be present in the decision.
Were we ever wrong.
See, in my mind, this case has always been about common sense. Someone cracked someone else's badly protected encryption scheme. Game over. It's shot to hell. You don't continue to use bad encryption or pretend it didn't happen. Yet in November, that's exactly what we saw happening. And even worse, we saw people being intimidated into taking down web pages that had the offending code on them.
It was insane! It reminded me of the one car crash I've ever been in where a garbage truck ran through a stale red light right in front of me on 8th and Avenue A in the East Village. The driver tried to intimidate the people who came forward as witnesses, telling them, "You didn't see anything. Get out of here!" But if you know the East Village, you know it's not the place to intimidate people and get away with it. It's also where a lot of the "weirdoes" hang out. So to me, it's always had the mindset of the net. And that's why I've always been comfortable in both environments. And, yeah, the garbage guy got in a shitload of trouble.
The kind of honesty you get by having individuals who aren't afraid to express themselves has always been a threat to those who imagine themselves in power. Until recently, the net was the only place where individual opinion actually had a chance. If the media wouldn't tell your story, YOU could become the media and tell the story yourself. The whole world could be your audience.
I won't even get into how the net is being destroyed by advertising and conglomeration. There's no time to go on the offensive when so much time has to be spent defending one's very existence. Every day we get new reports of people being threatened in some way by some huge corporate entity because their opinions and free expression don't sit well. Years ago, this sort of thing would have been laughed at. Today, it's a very different story. Voices are being silenced, criticism is being eliminated. And very unfortunate precedents are being set.
This is all made possible through bad legislation, things like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which has made this lawsuit possible. Unless stopped, there will be many many more like it in the future. And many more bad laws as well. Until we overturn this thing, the danger to all of us is incalculable.
Just for the fun of it, I tried to find out who had voted for the DMCA, so I could make an extra effort not to vote for them. But they did it with a voice vote - there is no record. How reassuring.
So now we have this law that basically says we are not allowed to show people the failings of technology if the people controlling that technology decide they don't want us to. An expansion of this law which could go into effect in October would make it illegal to even TRY to find failings in such technology.
It makes you want to scream. Concepts that most 12-year-olds can grasp and understand the value of are being signed away to entities that are already far too powerful. And the result is what we have been going through extended to however many more want to try and stand up for our vanishing rights.
To get back to the naive notion of common sense that we've been clinging to throughout this ordeal, we thought, no, we KNEW the right thing to do last November was to report the story and to publish the programs. And nobody here is ashamed of the fact that part of the reason for doing this was to show support for people who were being bullied. I've never liked bullies, whether they be kids, teachers, parents, cops, governments, or corporate giants. What they were doing to these people was wrong and we felt that our standing up might make a difference.
Well, it did. But not in the way we expected. Suddenly, WE became the problem even though we had nothing to do with the encryption being cracked or even with the initial release of the story. It was as if someone painted an insult on the side of a building that everyone in the world could see. A newspaper comes along and does a story on this and prints a picture of the building and is then blamed for the insult. Oh, and let's also point out that no matter how hard they try, nobody can wipe the paint off the wall. The way things are today, we're supposed to pretend nothing is wrong and if we dare to report otherwise or present evidence to the contrary, we will take the full brunt of the blame. Sounds like some weird medieval monarchy to me.
The sad fact is that we never had a chance in this court. A mere reading of the decision shows this more clearly than anything I could possibly say. "Not surprisingly, 2600: The Hacker Quarterly has included articles on such topics as how to steal an Internet domain name, access other people's e-mail, intercept cellular phone calls, and break into the computer systems at Costco stores and Federal Express." The fact that he would use the phrase "not surprisingly" speaks volumes as to his opinion on our value to society. It is, at best, utter ignorance and only proves beyond any shadow of a doubt how thoroughly Judge Kaplan bought into the MPAA's warped notions of what our magazine is about. We printed an article on weaknesses at Network Solutions that allowed domain names to be stolen. Guess what? They FIXED it as a result of this article and now, domain names, including our own, are not at risk of being stolen, at least, not as much. (Had Kaplan ruled on THAT issue, it would have been illegal for us to tell anyone this and the security holes would still exist.) The same holds true for many of the other security weaknesses we report on. But, as we tried fruitlessly to explain, we exist to report the story, period. Someone may fix the problem because of the story or someone may exploit it. We cannot and will not determine what happens as a result nor will we allow fear of that to make our editorial decisions for us.
Kaplan also seems to share the MPAA's amazement that we would actually copyright our magazine and our web site. ("Interestingly, defendants' copyright both their magazine and the material on their web site to prevent others from copying their works.") It's clear he believes that we have no respect for or belief in the concept of copyright. He either wasn't paying attention during my testimony or simply refuses to believe that copyright is necessary to prevent someone else from taking credit for and control of your work. I repeatedly said that copying was not our concern. What the MPAA is attempting to do with copyright is not at all in line with its original intent.
I also find it amazing how Jon Johansen's credibility is wiped away on two occasions with a single sentence. ("[T]he Court finds that Mr. Johansen and the others who actually did develop DeCSS did not do so solely for the purpose of making a Linux DVD player if, indeed, developing a Linux-based DVD player was among their purposes." "Substantial questions have been raised both at trial and elsewhere as to the veracity of Mr. Johansen's claim.") Yet not a single ounce of proof that he wasn't being totally honest is ever presented. I mean, we had PLENTY of questions both at trial and everywhere about the MPAA's veracity. But our saying that wouldn't be enough. Why is it that the MPAA is able to so easily put words in a judge's mouth?
The flaws in logic abound. At one point publishing DeCSS is compared to "the publication of a bank vault combination in a national newspaper. Even if no one uses the combination to open the vault, its mere publication has the effect of defeating the bank's security system, forcing the bank to reprogram the lock." First off, this isn't at all similar to what happened. If this analogy were to be correct, someone else would have already published the combination and we would simply have published the SAME information that had already been made public. Second, the security system of the bank was compromised the moment the combination was released or leaked to the public, NOT when this fact was reported in a newspaper. This method of blaming the messenger for the message has been used throughout the world to shut down opposition newspapers and imprison people who don't follow the party line. It's troubling to see it applied here.
Now, on the question of this theoretical bank being forced to reprogram its lock, would anyone hesitate to suggest that that is PRECISELY what they SHOULD do? A bank that didn't do this would probably be prosecuted for negligence. So why doesn't Kaplan apply this logic in his own analogy to the MPAA? Because of this: "Development and implementation of a new DVD copy protection system, however, is far more difficult and costly than reprogramming a combination lock and may carry with it the added problem of rendering the existing installed base of compliant DVD players obsolete." So basically, a security hole can be left in place if it's too expensive to fix and anyone who exposes the continued existence of the hole can be prosecuted? Riiight....
Meanwhile, a few pages later "the Court holds that CSS effectively controls access to plaintiffs' copyrighted works." That made me laugh. Would we be here today if THAT were true?
At one point, DeCSS is compared to an epidemic. But even in that odd analogy, it's recognized that finding the original source of "infection" accomplishes nothing. It's a nifty metaphor but I don't see what it does for the case against us.
Another time, DeCSS is compared to an assassination. No kidding. "Computer code is expressive. To that extent, it is a matter of First Amendment concern. But computer code is not purely expressive any more than the assassination of a political figure is purely a political statement." You get the feeling he's deliberately equating computer code with something bad? Maybe it's me. But let's look at this somewhat logically. A political assassination is a completed act. A computer program isn't completed until someone copies it, compiles it (if it's source), and executes it on the proper platform in the proper setting. A more accurate comparison would be to compare INSTRUCTIONS for an assassination to a computer program. They both require someone or something to act upon the instructions before the task is complete. By outlawing all talk of assassination, including those within works of fiction, we achieve the same level of protection that outlawing dissemination of DeCSS accomplishes.
Naturally, one of the most important issues here is that of "fair use" which is something the DMCA appears to be taking away from us. In other words, you are entitled to excerpt portions of copyrighted works for all kinds of purposes. It's also not illegal to make backup copies. These are very fundamental and important concepts. So how do we get around the restrictions that we're now finding in new digital media? Judge Kaplan addressed that important issue this way: "[A]ll or substantially all motion pictures available on DVD are available also on videotape. In consequence, anyone wishing to make lawful use of a particular movie may buy or rent a videotape, play it, and even copy all or part of it with readily available equipment." THAT'S the solution to the "fair use" issue - use old technology that isn't affected by the DMCA?! Not exactly a graceful way of ducking the issues.
Another thing that bothers me is that it doesn't seem to matter in the least WHY DeCSS was written. The fact is that DeCSS was written to circumvent CSS and, even if that was done specifically to cure world hunger, in the eyes of the court, it was a violation of the DMCA. If this is the case, then it's pretty obvious that the DMCA is one screwed up piece of legislation that has to be thrown out. But the judge goes way beyond this, insulting our integrity and existence at every possible opportunity and making no secret of the disdain he feels for the entire case of the defense. One has to wonder why he found that necessary if it was such a clearcut violation.
Naturally, one of the most disturbing parts of all of this is the ruling on linking. "The only distinction is that the entity extending to the user the option of downloading the program is the transferee site rather than defendants, a distinction without a difference." We can all laugh at such words but they represent something very sinister. We are now expected to believe that telling someone how to get a file with a link is the same as offering it yourself. I want to know if this works both ways - if I point someone to a site or product that costs money, is that also a "distinction without a difference" that will allow me to be compensated? This kind of logic is already giving me nightmares.
Finally, there are the disturbing words on who we are and what we stand for and how this is somehow relevant to the decision. "Defendants are in the business of disseminating information to assist hackers in 'cracking' various types of technological security systems. And while defendants argue that they promptly stopped posting DeCSS when enjoined preliminarily from doing so, thus allegedly demonstrating their willingness to comply with the law, their reaction to the preliminary injunction in fact cuts the other way." Interesting, isn't it? Our "reaction" is enough to condemn us, even though we followed the injunction to the letter. By speaking our mind and encouraging others to do what we alone were forbidden from doing, we are somehow in the wrong. How is this even relevant to the law? Are people who believe in certain things or associate with certain people to be treated differently? In Judge Kaplan's mind, we "are adherents of a movement that believes that information should be available without charge to anyone clever enough to break into the computer systems or data storage media in which it is located." This is, to say the least, insulting and just plain wrong. I challenge him to find a single instance where we have ever supported piracy or accessing private information. These ignorant generalizations sound more like the work of Jack Valenti's ghost writer.
What too many people don't seem to realize is that the rules have changed overnight and it WILL affect them. Imagine not being allowed to lend a book to a friend. Imagine not being able to play music that you bought in another country. Imagine only being able to watch "approved" content on your DVD player. And just wait until HDTV comes around and makes it impossible to record anything unless you pay. These are all natural extensions of the existing restrictions and they are all now perfectly legal. You've lost the right of "fair use" with copyrighted material that you think you own. In actuality, you've just bought a license to do what they tell you.
So, after all is said and done, I have to echo what all of the legal experts have said so far: I'm not at all surprised. This is how we expected the first round to go. It's now time to focus on the Appellate Court and eventually, since whoever loses next will most likely appeal, the Supreme Court.
Everyone is asking what will happen to us and how they can help. Well, we were pretty fortunate that Judge Kaplan didn't choose to hit us with the MPAA's legal bill, like they wanted him to. Their legal fees are believed to be in excess of $4 million so that definitely would have caused a delay in the next issue. It should also make it pretty clear that the MPAA has no qualms about utterly destroying anyone who gets in their way. And it should also make it clear how important we think this is that we would risk such a thing. And ironic that none of us even HAS a DVD player.
We're also extremely fortunate that the Electronic Frontier Foundation was around to fund our defense. If anything has proven the value of the EFF in looking after civil liberties in the modern age, this has. I can't emphasize enough the importance of heading over to http://www.eff.org/support/joineff.html (I'm actually afraid to make a link now) and donating as much as you possibly can to keep this case going. Explain this to as many people as possible and get them to do the same.
If there's anything good to come out of this decision, it's that we'll get to continue working with our legal team who have been absolutely amazing from the start. I've never seen a group of people so dedicated to learning and understanding the facts. It's a real honor to be among them and it's really changed the way I look at the entire legal profession.
As for what you can do to help, apart from the above, that's really up to you as it's always been. If you believe DeCSS is a form of speech, a means of access for alternative operating systems, or a necessary step towards "fair use" of digital media, then spreading it throughout the world is extremely important for the preservation of those freedoms. If you're in the United States, be aware of the risk you are taking. And if you're one of those people who really buys into the MPAA notion that DeCSS is a tool of piracy, please DON'T do the above because you're missing the entire point.
We can no longer post DeCSS on our site nor can we link to it. We still have the right to list those sites that have it in non-linkable form and we also have the right to speak out against the injustice we're being hit with. The MPAA would like those rights taken away as well. We cannot allow them to succeed.
There will be further leafleting campaigns in the weeks ahead. Keep checking this web site for details. And please let us know your opinions - dvd@2600.com. We would give out an address for the MPAA but they've been blocking e-mail for some time and blaming hackers for every problem they have. So give them a call at (818) 995-6600 from 9 am to 5:30 pm Pacific Time. Be civil but make sure you get your point across. After all, where do you think that $4 million ultimately comes from?
emmanuel
-- "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:And here it is with the proper format.
by
jmccay
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· Score: 1
Remember, you own the DVD, but not it's content. That where the problem lies. You can view a dvd any way you want, but right now if you want to view the content, you have to play by their rules. If enough of us act, that can be changed.
Legal ways to view your DVD movies with linux: hold a Linux CD next to the DVD, hold the dvd in front of a linux poster, etc...
-- At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
Re:And here it is with the proper format.
by
RickHunter
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· Score: 1
Actually, I do own the content, if I recall what I've read on copyright law correctly. The MPAA has been saying that I don't, but I've paid them money for a copy of a copyrighted work. I OWN that copy, but I cannot create additional copies, except as allowed by fair use legislation. So I can do whatever I want with my copy, including re-arrange it randomly and sell it to someone else (not keeping any copies for myself, of course). But I cannot duplicate it and start handing out copies at street corners.
At least, that's what the material I've read said. (I think it was in The Software Conspiracy, but I'm not certant) I also cannot remember whether it was the DMCA or UCITA that was trying to change this. I think it was the UCITA...
If someone can provide a link to copyright law that says otherwise...?
-RickHunter
Re:And here it is with the proper format.
by
RickHunter
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· Score: 1
The phrase "holy shit" comes to mind. This does explain why the software industry is pushing the UCITA so hard. Thank you for posting this. I must say, you deserve that +4 rating!
And some backwards places have crazy laws like "You cannot put an ice cream cone in your pocket". Just the other day I heard that some guy, under some stupid no-tolerence law, is spending 35-years-to-life for stealing a bicycle. A friggen $100 BIKE!
Are these people technically breaking the law? YES
Are these laws dumb and should be abolished? YES
Should these laws be challenged and brought to the Supreme Court? YES
And I don't deny that DMCA is a bad law, and I don't deny 2600 their right to appeal to higher courts. But it's not up to the lesser courts to decide which laws are stupid and which are good. Otherwise we wouldn't need laws at all. We'd just say "don't do anything that the judges think is bad."
We've already (hopefully) established that DMCA is brain-dead and should be abolished.
Yes, but that's not the same thing as establishing that a judge shouldn't abide by it.
IANAL, but "trade secret" and "patent" and "copyright" are all different flavors of what could generally be called "intellectual property", and each have their own ramifications. There is a trade-off in using "trade secrets" along the lines of "you don't have to announce it, but if somebody discovers it tough for you". (Is there a lawyer in the house?).
IANAL either, but I don't think you can officially license a trade secret. I think for DVD-CCA to be licensing CSS, that means it's copyrighted or patented.
This mentality of physical property is just what MPAA, et al., want to foist on the consciousness of the American people. They want us to think their enemies are all peg-legged pirates roaming some digital sea "stealing" and pillaging their intellectual property, depriving them of a product won by their hard work. It just doesn't work that way.
[sigh] I hate having to defend MPAA, but it kind of is like this. Imagine DVD-CCA spend money developing CSS, and nobody pays them to license it anymore because it's perfectly legal to use the open source version floating around out there? DVD-CCA takes a big financial hit that they didn't deserve. What if movie studios spend their 100 million dollars to make new hit movies, and everyone just downloads them from Gnutella? I know this is an exaggeration, and it's just the apocolyptic vision that MPAA is trying to conjure, but it has some element of truth to it. If you would have bought a DVD Player, but now you can get the open source one for free, then you have deprived the Player co. of money. When stuff like that happens, it discourages the Player co's and movie studios from producing product.
As long as there are PC's and hackers, there will never be total control of the digital medium by the MPAA/RIAA.
Open digital standards, like MP3 and DivX will always allow us to exercise "fair use" whether illegal or not. Fact is, until Emperor Kaplan grants the MPAA the right to send in the Elian Gonzales hit squad in the dead of night (not as farfetched as you think given the extremist nature of his interpretation of DMCA), nothing can stop this.
Society does have a tendency to fear -- and thus discriminate against -- "hackers" or anyone with a reasonable amount of technical knowledge. Why? People fear what they don't understand -- and even mor, they fear people who do understand what they cannot.
There's some truth in what you say, but I think more to the point (and especially in this case), government and entrenched powers fear those who do not conform. They fear the "other," those who buck the system.
Look at who we're talking about: 2600 & Goldstein? Techno-anarchists who reveal the nifty secrets about the technologies employed by big business? 2600 was, after all, the control tone on the old telephone switches. (Remember the Cap'n Crunch whistle!)
I may be dating myself here, but I remember 2600 back when the phone company was the #1 technology monolith. So at that time, phone phreaking was the thing. Not to make a profit, but to get on that damned network and explore the hell out of it, see what you could do,put together conference calls with other phreakers and call Australia to talk to random people. Man, you felt like you could take that inhuman monolith and harness it for your own whims. Cool. (Remember Tron? Wargames?) These were times when the concept of technical knowledge as power really came home to a certain youth group. Jumping into Telco dumpsters at 2am looking for switching manuals or software documentation!
But the phone company, of course, didn't see it that way, and they certainly didn't talk to the media about such things. It was "theft of service," and "dollar losses" were arbitarily attached in case anyone wasn't sure it was serious. And they aimed to crush anyone who continued to stand in their waw. A decent, freely available account of this period is Sterling's
The Hacker Crackdown.
Now, with that in mind, it is no surprise to hear media reports of the case as involving: "Industry fights against hackers who cracked the security of digital movies in order to make free copies."
It's not the technology, its hackers who are outside the system, hacking around, being a pain, and generally not doing what they're told. This is what scares Sony--not that they know a header file from a hole in the ground.
(BTW. Using Mozilla M17 for the first time today and it's great! What an improvement over the last version I tried. Go Moz!)
I wanted to comment on this small part. Judge Kaplan previously worked at a firm who was representing Warner Bros. And he worked in a capacity that is relevant to the current DVD proceedings, thus indicating a conflict of interest. He also had dealt with Martin Garbus (2600's defense attorney) before and displayed a negative bias towards him.
Gee, I wish all the people he's put to death or sent to prison due to the war on drugs had a chance to "learn from their mistakes"! But apparently it's OK if you're rich and do cocaine; then you're just making mistakes from which to learn...
-- I'm Peggy.
DeCSS Still Alive?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1
The original version of DeCSS doesn't even work on the new DVDs. Why is this case still going?
This is not meant as a troll, but seriously... if the code in question doesn't do what it's supposed to anymore, why is the government still pursuing it?
After all, depriving someone of an article of clothing involves a monetary loss to a third party whereas removing the code from a web site takes, at most, a minute.
How many links are there out there. If there were enough links the man hours required for admins to spend one minute removing a link could add up fast. This decision could cost millions;-)
Well, first of all a judge can basically do whatever he wants. The appeals courts are there exactly to deal with bloopers, judge prejudice and just plain ol' stupidity. A judge doesn't have
to follow case law. He makes case law. [nitpick] Well, really in the US it's the Circuit Courts that make case law, not lower-level judges, but the idea is still valid[/nitpick].
Well, not exactly. Judges only make case law when there are no applicable controlling authorities, which would include statute and existing case law. (There is a third item, but I've forgotten what it is.) Kaplan effectively bypassed the constitutional issue by saying the controlling authority is the DMCA, and that 2600 was in violation of that statute. It's not terribly surprising, in that there isn't really a lot of precedent on code-as-speech (2 rulings from different districts, diametricly opposed), and judges tend to be loath to put themselves in a position to be overruled on constitutional opinions. Despite the interpretation that I've seen posted here, Kaplan most certainly could have invalidated the DMCA. I think he just didn't want to put his reputation at risk by ruling one way or the other on the speech issue.
One of the MPAA's chief defensive arguments is that the CCA stuff was a trade secret, so use of it was illegal.
False.
Tight asses read the constitution correctly!
by
rodent
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· Score: 1
It's fairly clear to me that you don't understand that the tight asses you deride are the same ones that are upholding your 1st amendment rights!!
Even if you disagree with their politics, Thomas and Scalia are constitutional constructionists that read the 1st, 2nd, etc. amendments very tightly, namely that they are and should be absolute. Compare them to Kennedy and Stevens who will read the constitution any damn way they please to make it fit their political views.
The only way to maintain our freedom of speech is to maintain a strict constructionist point of view. Remember, we wouldn't have the damn federal goverment insinuated into every facet of our lives if it wasn't for the liberal reading of the interstate commerce clause.
rodent...
-- rodent...
Tactical nuclear weapons are a viable alternative!
pbryan does get it, please mod up?
by
GMontag
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· Score: 2
Please mod this guy up? It is refreshing to see a post with a clue.
Like (I suspect) many of you, I have the Anti DVD-CCA shirt. One of my coworkers pointed out the absurdity of prohibiting linking; We know already that I am guilty of a crime by owning the shirt, especially if I wear it in public, because I am an illegal source code archive.
If he points to my shirt, is he guilty of making a link to an illegal source code archive?
-- "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
IANAL either, but you seem to have missed that the trial did not make the shirts illegal. The legislature makes things illegal; a trial is held only to determine if the existing laws were broken.
As far as a buyback goes, that would be equivalent to asking them to reimburse the asian DVD pirates (you know, the pirates which actually exist and pirate 10,000 at a time) or their vendors for the DVDs confiscated.
I think he was pointing out the fact that if computer scientists refused to give the marketroids and politicians this kind of power, there is no way they could get it on their own.
Therefore, the scientists who create these things out to think about their actions.
Good advice for any scientist, in any field of study.
I think one or two unscrupulous scientists, however, can always be found which is one reason why I donate money to the EFF.
Unfortunately, this case has nothing whatever to do with science. Basically, a bunch of movie execs and lawyers wanted to figure out a way to take away people's fair use rights. Thanks to weak encryption and the DMCA, as the law stands now according to recent court rulings, fair use no longer exists. You can't buy movies, you can only rent them for long periods of time.
This was always about fair use, because we all know pirates don't obey the law and that they've always had means of duplicating DVDs. Eliminate fair use, however, and you can rip people off through region coding and multiple resale of the same content.
-- All the creatures will die,
And all the things will be broken.
That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
sobering prospects for future tech
by
griffjon
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· Score: 5
Goldstein makes some very good points about what is to come with the DCMA, HDTV, and various future technologies and extreme consumer rights violations.
What confuses me is that the judge's ruling is directly at odds with both other caselaw (namely, the Bernstein/PGP ruling) and supreme court cases such as flag burning.
I located a copy of the Bernstein v Dept of State ruling (http://www.eff.org/pub/Privacy/Crypto_export/Bern stein_case/Legal/960415.decision), which among other things states this:
"For the purposes of First Amendment analysis, this court finds that source code is speech."
-- Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
Re:sobering prospects for future tech
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 2
VHS is analog dude, the D in DMCA is for digital, it doesn't apply to VHS.
Why is it that people feel the need to comment and "correct" others on items which they obviously know nothing about? From the DMCA:
(A) Effective 18 months after the date of the enactment of this chapter, no person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic in any--
(i) VHS format analog video cassette recorder unless such recorder conforms to the automatic gain control copy control technology;
(ii) 8mm format analog video cassette camcorder unless such camcorder conforms to the automatic gain control technology;
(iii) Beta format analog video cassette recorder, unless such recorder conforms to the automatic gain control copy control technology, except that this requirement shall not apply until there are 1,000 Beta format analog video cassette recorders sold in the United States in any one calendar year after the date of the enactment of this chapter;
(iv) 8mm format analog video cassette recorder that is not an analog video cassette camcorder, unless such recorder conforms to the automatic gain control copy control technology, except that this requirement shall not apply until there are 20,000 such recorders sold in the United States in any one calendar year after the date of the enactment of this chapter; or
(v) analog video cassette recorder that records using an NTSC format video input and that is not otherwise covered under clauses (i) through (iv), unless such device conforms to the automatic gain control copy control technology.
"Automatic gain control copy control technology" is Macrovision. Yes, it is illegal to circumvent analog copy protection schemes under the DMCA.
This isn't aimed at just you, Kris_J. You're just one of many. <RANT>I can't believe the amount of disinformation to be found on Slashdot. Will you people please read and understand what it is your talking about before you comment or "correct" others on what you obviously don't know. If you don't understand, there is great potential for causing harm here.</RANT>
Re:sobering prospects for future tech
by
alkali
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· Score: 1
(1) Factually false speech is not outside the First Amendment. If it were, the government could prohibit photos doctored for artistic reasons, films which purport to depict historic events but do so inaccurately, books with typos, etc., etc.
It is constitutional to outlaw passing bad checks is illegal because to pass a bad check is a form of larceny, not because the government has some overriding interest in ensuring the accuracy of written documents. Likewise, libel suits are constitutional because libel causes unwarranted damage to another's reputation. (Falsehoods which don't damage reputations -- e.g., "Bob likes vanilla ice cream" when he really doesn't -- aren't libel.)
(2) The DMCA is arguably content neutral in that there does not seem to be any reason to believe that it would prohibit other code which has the same expressive content as DeCSS but which does not actually perform the function of unlocking CSS (for instance, a program which graphically demonstrated the method of encryption used by CSS).
Re:sobering prospects for future tech
by
K8Fan
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· Score: 2
Many thanks for pointing this out. I knew this from my dealings in the consumer electronics industry and from talking to people at trade shows like CES, but I didn't have the exact language.
Please consider rating the article I'm responding to up. Thanks.
-- "How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure"
Charles Crumb
Re:sobering prospects for future tech
by
schussat
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· Score: 1
What confuses me is that the judge's ruling is directly at odds with both other caselaw (namely, the
Bernstein/PGP ruling) and supreme court cases such as flag burning.
I think it has to do with the judge's obvious hostility to 2600. Lawless pirates just cannot be allowed to win in court, so he can ignore caselaw to keep them down. Of course, I think that's reprehensible, and the language of the judge makes me think that the appeal will be really strong -- hopefully!
-schussat
-- The hour of noon has passed. Let us go and get some Kentucky Fried Chicken.
I for one enjoyed reading it, if only to get his side of it. Yes, most of the comments he made were already brought up on \. in the multiple stories that have been posted, but in this case you're getting it from the source..
Distribute DeCSS the right way... with a VIRUS!
by
stinky+monkey
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· Score: 2
Their goal is to stop the distribution by shutting down the websites right? The other side wants to get it out there and in everyone's hands... Think of how many people would have the DeCSS code if the I LOVE YOU virus had carried along this little text file instead. You simply make it a little smarter by randomly changing the subject name and the.vbs name so it stays out there a bit longer.
Just a thought.. I have no intentions of writing one!
.
-- ~Bout Time for another tea party.®~
I post DeCSS, so SUE me.
by
vinylat33
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· Score: 1
I post DeCSS (and old movie-channel decoderer) here.
If you do not like this, FUCK YOU!
Others are welcome to download the code.
If you want to complain about this, email me at my email address
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
Re:2600 a victim of their own reputation
by
Dwonis
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· Score: 1
It took you this long to realise that North American legal systems are screwed beyond logic? It's been getting worse for decades! --------
"I already have all the latest software."
Re:Killing DeCSS? Please show us where?
by
techsupersite.com
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· Score: 1
This is the arrogance and stupidity of government in general, and judges in particular. They think a piece of paper, or a slam of a gavel makes it so.
Well, number one, it doesn't!
Seems pretty tame, as far as conflicts of interest go, since most of his "subjective" statements in the case seem directed at the defendants, not their lawyers, and since his previous firm doesn't really leave any concrete reason for him to act in their favor. If anything it just says he has experience dealing with movie copyright law, so he knows a bit about it. But this is certainly interesting.
Who was that motion filed to? I assume it was rejected. Anybody got the rejection statement?
other than the fairly obvuous fact that "speech" does not necessarily have to be speech, or even text.
Well, despite the fact that it's obvious, quite a few people, include the govt, don't seem to get it. So the more people we get tell them that it _is_ obvious, maybe eventually they'll actually believe it.:(
Yes, I know that there isn't really a good choice here, but voting this time around is going to be fairly important (except to those that believe that it's too late already) as there may be up to 3 Supreme Court Justices replaced in the next 4 years.
-- Email address spamblocked. To reply, kill the rabbit
Killing DeCSS? Please show us where?
by
GMontag
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· Score: 2
First, DeCSS has nothing at all to do with what you state. If it did then the pirates would be using it instead of commercial burners. If it were an individual user issue, the blank media would have to be less expensive than the origonal. It is not. Besides, DeCSS is just a decyphering program. It is not a way to copy anything.
However, the topic has nothing to do with "killing" DeCSS.
The ONLY thing the court did was try to muzzle a news outlet. End of list.
Please, show us where DeCSS has been killed? Has it stopped existing at the bang of a gavel? Will it reappear as if by magic if the appeal is won? Hell, I will settel for some evidence of an *attempt* to "kill" DeCSS, but there is none. None at all.
All the court did was try to muzzle a news outlet. End of list.
Why must people be under the illusion that a judicial or legeslative body has the power to stop anything whatsoever, besides a human heart?
Certainly a court can take away a person's liberty, life and/or property, but making a court decision does not yet have the Merlinian effect of a global erasure of a decyphering program, idea or discussion.
Re:Killing DeCSS? Please show us where?
by
Eccles
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· Score: 1
First, DeCSS has nothing at all to do with what you state.
I agree that it has perfectly legitimate uses. It is also a tool that can help illegal distribution of copyrighted materials, regardless of the original purpose the creator wanted it for.
If it did then the pirates would be using it instead of commercial burners.
Depends on the pirate. Movies are available on the internet, some of which may have been created with the help of DeCSS or a similar program. I'm not talking about piracy through straight DVD copy. My understanding is that I could fit a copy of a DivX;-) compressed movie on a CD, which would be cheaper than the original, or I could simply download it to my hard disk, watch it, and delete it, which would essentially be free.
However, the topic has nothing to do with "killing" DeCSS.
Pushing it underground, then. If the MPAA wins this, Red Hat et al won't ever include DeCSS or a DVD player built based on it in one of their distros. Nor will future internet appliance builders. This makes it less convenient, which means for a large group of people, it effectively "kills" it. (Since DeCSS isn't a living thing, use of the word "kills" in the original context was metaphorical anyway.)
-- Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Makes me wonder why type of engineer, what type of geek, will create something like CSS, barking on command from a suit, without even giving it thought, without being ashamed.
Most likely someone long isolated from the reality that you and I face every day. Possibly even a suit who, after seeing his engineers quit rather than write what he asked them to do, taught himself basic programming and cobbled this together, since "engineers always throw kludges together to make working code". ("He who teaches himself has a fool for a teacher" may be inaccurate in many situations, but it would have been spot-on in this case.)
Well looks like they are using M$ exchange server. I think they have a default "all mail users" distribution list with a address of all@company.com (in this case all@mpaa.org) try this address it should get to the proper home and maybe a few others.
YouTube & Google Video -> podcast
http://castcluster.blogspot.com/
Re:Text of message, long, sorry about format.
by
ethereal
·
· Score: 4
Thanks for the mirror, too bad/. clipped the end of it there.
All I can say is that I share Mr. Goldstein's shock and dismay, and I'm spreading the word about this travesty of justice to everybody I know. Most non-hackers that I talk to are amazed that such a thing can go on in the land of the free. We need to get out and tell real people about this - tell your brother, your Mom, your boss, and try to explain that justice has not been served. Mr. Goldstein covers this territory more eloquently than I could ever hope, so I'll close with another exhortation to get the word out about this.
...posted from behind a firewall that keeps out those "evil 2600 hackers"...
I still think I'm right. Voting just doesn't make much difference.
In my opinion, the biggest problem the US faces is that big companies are far too powerful - both in controlling consumers and influencing government. Both of the big parties will probably support the RIAA, the big movie studios, and other large companies in their ongoing efforts to control consumers, control the internet, control all media, make money off everything that people do, and patent everything in the world.
The Democrats, I think, are only slightly more likely to work on solving this problem.
And as far as other "real world issues" - well, I just don't see much difference between the two big parties.
And sadly, it is unlikely that Nader and the Greens will get enough votes to make much of a difference.
So I don't think that voting this fall will make any significant difference to the future of the United States, (unless the Greens make a really significant showing). Therefore I stand by my statement - donating money to the EFF will make more of a difference than voting.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
-- Torrey Hoffman (Azog) "HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
I'm glad to see that 2600 et al are not terribly shocked at the bias they recieved. Society does have a tendency to fear -- and thus discriminate against -- "hackers" or anyone with a reasonable amount of technical knowledge. Why? People fear what they don't understand -- and even mor, they fear people who do understand what they cannot.
This is especially the case in the computing world, since the Information Age is rapidly progressing and computers are becoming a greater part of our life on a daily basis. The hope that such a bias would not find its way into a courtroom, where sits an elected judge, is naive at best and very likely dangerous.
The important thing is that the script-kiddies and 15-year-old "cracker/hacker" stereotypes do exist -- the unfortunate part is that, though a minority, they have a loud voice. Why? Because we limit our distaste for them, and our education about what tech folk are really like to forums like Slashdot. Not that Slashdot is not a wonderful forum for such discussions, but it must be taken to the world.
The linked 2600 Mag article made an interesting comment (I paraphrase): "The Internet allows you to become the media, with the whole world as your audience." (again, that's a paraphrase)
What I would like to see, and would in fact be willing to help build and support, is an organization dedicated to educating the public and the mass media of what being tech-savvy is really about -- not destroying systems, but learning about them (even if that means sometimes breaking apart encryption ala DeCSS).
Please feel free to contact me at my e-mail (remove the whitespace) above if you are interested in helping to organize something like this, or reply if something like it exists!
--
-- We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
Please don't take this as flame -- I remember all too well being a 16-18 range hacker, and I agree it isn't easy. Hell, I'm 20 and I still get that kind of flak.
That said, you need to calm down and take a deep breath, my friend. It's exactly that kind of paranoid and angry reaction that gets your age group stereotyped. And the point I was making had everything to do with the age -- people have this sterotype of "malicious coders" as being 15-year-old kids without "proper supervision." I've even seen security ads pitching this point of view.
The fact is, the young script-kiddie (yes, I do mean sub-18) is a reality, but the point you missed is that I say "though a minority." You even quoted that bit.:P
My advice to you is not to get offended so easily, it's that kind of response that will get you in trouble. A 30-year-old who gets upset at stereotypes will be taken much more seriously than a 16-year-old: it sucks, but it's a fact of life. Try and use some of that obvious intelligence for education, not defence.
--
-- We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
Back when the CDA was passed (another execrable piece of legislation), there was a call to submit essays to a project called, "24 Hours of Democracy."
The keynote of my essay was that we, as human beings, failed in our duty to educate our fellow human about what it was we've created. Now it seems our isolationism -- nee elitism -- is coming back to bite us.
I made a promise at the end of my essay; I still stand by it. I invite others to make the pledge as well: Teach!!
Re:My respect for US govt. is gone - I won't miss
by
techsupersite.com
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· Score: 1
Unfortulately, the USA is the best government on earth for "freedom". Or at least it was 20 years ago.
This is a measure of how much further we HAVE to go to create the best possible government.
"I thought that when Garbus asked Valenti about what a student could do if she wanted to play a 3 minutes of "Schindler's List" and Valenti replied that she could get the analog version, I felt it had to be obvious to anyone that CSS did take away fair use rights, but Kaplan actually bought Valenti's argument. I can't believe it. I just can't believe it. How ignorant is it possible to get? Yes, today, analog versions exist, but they won't in a few years."
Case in point - I want to buy a copy of the movie 'Inspector Gadget' for my son - the DVD has been available for 6 months - the VHS version wont be available (in Australia) until December. How would the Mr Valenti and the judge suggest I get my '3 minutes' in this instance?
-- MrCreosote
Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!
"You're right! There isn't enough room to swing a cat in here!"
CSS is immoral. The engineers who designed CSS should have understood the consequences of what they where told to make, and should not have made them. That's their social responsibility.
Those engineers probably, for one reason or another, didn't have a choice. So, instead, they designed a weak encryption system.
Think about it. CSS was designed to have multiple keys in each DVD movie, so that if one were compromised, it could be eliminated from future DVD discs. However, some brilliant engineer decided it was his moral obligation to weaken the system. The result was CSS. --------
"I already have all the latest software."
(find it on the development network; soon to be the 0.3 release of Freenet.
Re: (bi)partisan politics (off-topic)
by
bobv-pillars-net
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· Score: 1
Our perspectives materially differ.
You're talking about legislation that failed to pass. In my book, that's almost universally a good thing.
I'm talking about legislation that did pass. Laws that get into the books are almost never repealed,
even when the congressional majority shifts from one party to another. When they are repealed, it is usually to replace the older, more lenient law with a newer, more oppressive law.
No conspiracy necessary. The system is broke because the system is broke. Personally, I believe that you could impeach every single senator and congressman, together with the president and his veep, and after the new elections, things would not be materially different.
When the last budget bill was being debated and re-debated and re-re-hashed-over, and federal employees were on the verge of being layed off because of lack of (approved) funding, the biggest piece of pie on the cutting block was the defense budget.
The sum-total difference between the Democrat-backed proposal and the Republican-backed proposal amounted to less than ten percent. Closer to five, IIRC.
-- The Web is like Usenet, but
the elephants are untrained.
This might have been mentioned already, but I'm too lazy to read all the comments.
Could everything that the judge said about the members of 2600 be considered slander? If it could I see a lawsuit against the judge and the MPAA forming. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it is worth a shot.
In theroy, yes, especially given the conflict of interest admitted to by Kaplan, but he refused to recuse himself.
In practice: not a snowball's chance in hell. The federal court is a fraternity of "emperors for life" political apointee judges. They are beyond touch, they can only be impeached by the US senate, which has proven it's incompetence there...
--
In 2000 America, is a non-lawyer truly free?
Literal "Literate Programming"
by
sahai
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· Score: 1
In the article, he said:
...They both require someone or something to act upon the instructions before the task is complete. By outlawing all talk of assassination, including those within works of fiction [emphasis mine], we achieve the same level of protection that outlawing dissemination of DeCSS accomplishes.
So, what if someone wrote a short story which featured DeCSS code as an integral part of the story? As long as the original copyright holder (the person who figured out a way to decipher the CSS algorithm) granted rights to reproduce freely it would not be a copyright violation. And the short story could be written to clearly use the code in an artistic way to advance the plot line. (It could be about how a corrupt corporate conglomerate tries to stifle dissent).
Meanwhile, someone else could write a filter which would extract the compilable code from the short story itself. This could be written in a general way so as to apply to lots of "literate programs" and hence have nothing to do with DeCSS per se.
If a dedicated bunch of artistic people went around creating stories incorporating snippets of source code (Doesn't Stephenson's Cryptonomicon do that?), then I can't imagine how any sane legal mind could hold an entire genre of literature to be illegal to distribute.
If users in the privacy of their own homes wish to extract, recombine, and compile the source code, that is like someone making a private collage for their own house. If they want to execute the result and break some other law, then the MPAA can have fun suing the actual offenders instead of the artists. After all, if I use a collage incorporating a sharp point from someone else's sculpture to injure a third party, the offense is mine and mine alone.
CSS doesn't create a DVD monopoly...
by
Booker
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· Score: 2
If DVD gets popular, you can't distribute communication by any other carrier, so in principle, it puts DVD-CCA (?) in the position that they can deny someone to produce a movie that is critical towards e.g. MPAA
I agree with most of your post, but I think this is a bit off. You don't _have_ to use CSS, or region encoding, to create a DVD. Players will read non-encrypted, non-region-encoded DVDs just fine. At least for now....
CSS is immoral. The engineers who designed CSS should have understood the consequences of what they where told to make, and should not have made them.
Hell, maybe they did. In case you weren't aware, CSS is pretty fscking weak. 40 bit keys (and it's not for export reasons; after all, how can someone use it to send a message?), and the algorithm isn't that great either. Xing's fuckup is what gave us the first key, but it was the small keyspace and weaknesses in the algorithm that let people grab the decoder keys for every vendor within a few months.
It's entirely possible that a couple of guys got hired to do this, and decided that, instead of not taking the job (wherupon the DVD consortium would hire somebody else), they would intentionally screw it up.
Of course, maybe they were just stupid, I don't know. Anyway, the sitiuation with CSS could be worse.
That's not to say that Kaplan is in any way correct. Hopefully the appeals court judge has some semblence of sanity. <sigh>
Not that I'm complaining, mind you...
by
S1mon_Jester
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· Score: 1
But why repost the article? The link worked perfectly well.
Re:Not that I'm complaining, mind you...
by
drinkypoo
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· Score: 1
The link was working off and on. It came up with reasonable speed the first time I tried to load it, then didn't come up at all the second time.
-- "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Not that I'm complaining, mind you...
by
ucblockhead
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· Score: 1
It is slashdotted now.
--
The cake is a pie
Re:Not that I'm complaining, mind you...
by
macbert
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· Score: 1
Some of us sit behind corprate firewalls that block the 2600 website and couldn't read the origional article. =================
macbert@hcity.net
Re:Not that I'm complaining, mind you...
by
CodeMunch
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· Score: 1
I've been using babelfish to get the content & formatting:) Convert from German to English is usually a good call. IMG's dont' appear kuz babelfish doesn't change that in the HTML it sends your browser.
That is precisely the reason I downloaded DeCSS in the first place! After experiencing the horrific control Disney placed on the "Sixth Sense" DVD (forcing viewer to sit through eight minutes of previews on every viewing) I used DeCSS to grab the movie, compressed it w/ DivX, and burned it as a VCD. Voila! No more previews!
Am I a criminal? I don't feel like one. Will I download or buy bootlegged movies? Hell no. Do I believe I have the right to use any media I purchase in any way I see fit (short of redistribution)? Absolutely.
-------
-- We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
I find it ironic that Mr. Goldstein points out in this article that his magazine is copyrighted. Here we have a verbatim copy of it, without explicit attribution. Moreover, do you think that the average Slashdot reader is too lazy or imbecile to notice and click on the article link in the story? This comment deserves a -1: Redundant at very least. Hairy_Potter is karma whoring.
I think you're missing the point. One, the site is slashdotted. It's recovering well, but many people are unable to reach the story. Two, I don't think crossposting to slashdot (which is arguably fair use anyway, insofar as/. did not copy it, I did; For the purpose of criticism.)
Oh, and before you go on to accuse me of karma whoring; My karma is already maxed out. So anything I do at this point is because I want to say it, or want to help; Not because I need more karma. I can't GET any more.
-- "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Granted. In fact, I'm sure they'd be happy in practice to see it, would gladly give permission, etc. In principle, though, it is a violation of their copyright to do so without permission. I just found it a very ironic juxtaposition, especially as the comment was highly modded.
Two, I don't think crossposting to slashdot (which is arguably fair use anyway, insofar as/. did not copy it, I did; For the purpose of criticism.)
I meant to say, I don't think 2600 is worried about crossposting to slashdot.
My bad.
-- "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re: You just don't get it
by
RickHunter
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· Score: 1
That's another evil thing about this case, and a couple of others. One of the MPAA's chief defensive arguments is that the CCA stuff was a trade secret, so use of it was illegal. But a trade secret gained through a legal means, like reverse-engineering, hs no legal protection at all. That's (in theory) why we have patents. To encourage companies to be a little more open with their data. So maybe they're trying to get legal protection while not having to show anyone their cards...?
It is fairly clear from his decision that Judge Kaplan saw 2600 as malefactors ["crackers"] who must be punished. Whatever the merits of the case, some judges simply bend law and rule for whom they see as the "good guys". The "bad guys" simply cannot be allowed to win, whatever the law.
This is one reason we have Appeals Courts. Unfortunately, the findings of fact such that Johannsen didn't simply want to play DVDs under Linux are more difficult to overturn, and this will hobble the Appeals level. IANAL.
I cannot believe that Corley was praising lawyers! It surely isn't something you hear every day. I think I just saw Satan at the local ski shop, too.
--
There are four boxes used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
Isn't defeating Macrovision the same as usingDeCSS
by
Darth+Yoshi
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· Score: 1
Emmanuel mentions that Judge Kaplan suggests using a VHS tape if one wishes to exercise their 'fair use' rights. I haven't seen anyone mention that most (many? some?) commercial VHS tapes are protected by Macrovision anti-copy technology. Sure, Macrovision can be trivally defeated, but by Judge Kaplan's logic under the DMCA, isn't defeating Macrovision the same as using DeCSS?
-- // TODO: fix sig
Re:Reputations - Is Kaplan elected or appointed?
by
mwa
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· Score: 1
Some judges are appointed, others are elected.
Does any one know for a fact which group Kaplan is in? I hope it's elected because this could be made a major issue come re-election time.
My respect for US govt. is gone - I won't miss it.
by
shren
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· Score: 1
From the article:
Just for the fun of it, I tried to find out who had voted for the DMCA, so I could make an extra effort not to vote for them. But they did it with a voice vote - there is no record. How reassuring.
I think my last bit of respect for my government was just pissed away. The fact that nobody was willing to take responsibility for thier decision here says legions about what kind of cowardly nitwits populate both Houses of Congress.
What is going on in the United States these days, anyway? Legions of cops pre-empt a lawful protest by arresting everyone on the streets of the city with a certain brand of cellular phone. Absurd laws bought and paid for by corporations destroy the very concept of justice.
Anyone got a recommendation on a country not run by idiots being bribed by despots? Didn't the Netherlands Government apologize for treating one of the DeCSS programmers badly? I want to go there. I can't picture the US Congress apologizing for anything.
-- Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
The Corporate States of America
by
juju2112
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· Score: 2
I can't help but wonder if the internet can even survive its reaming by Corporate America.
In fact, why don't we make our official name 'C.S.' instead? Not the 'United States', but he 'Corporate States'! I mean...that should be the official name! Why not be honest about the whole thing? We all know who makes the decisions in this country, and it ain't 'the people'. Aw, hell, i'm moving to the Czech Republic.
DVD's have a very short, finite lifespan. About 10 years or so
If this is true, then I truely fear for the future - if the DVD's have such a limited lifespan, and there are no ways to archive the data contained on the media (short of large terabyte sized systems), how are we to preserve our history, our information, our past?
Besides that, 10 years isn't that long - the disk is small enough and handy enough that it wouldn't make sense for me to purchase another copy (I could justify moving from tapes to CDs - and I held out for a long time - tapes wear and break, and CDs seemed more handy) - I would pissed if my DVD collection (say I purchased 100 disks, for around $2500 in total) was corrupt after only a measly 10 years - I have analog tapes that sound fine, much older than that (and my dad has reel tapes older still - as well as a ton of 78 rpm records).
The MPAA, RIAA, and any other four letter excuse for an organization can piss up a rope!
The basic under lying principle of this whole case is that DeCSS should be banned because somebody could use it on a non Linux system to view DVD's, or to view DVD's on almost any system.
Isn't this similar to VCR's??? If somebody make a pirated tape can't they watch it on a VCR??? Should VCR's be banned because they can be used to watch illegal copies of media?? More specifically should cable descramblers be banned because even if somebody doesn't pay they can use it??? Should baseball bats be banned because they can be used to harm people???
The point is that everything can be used for bad deeds and just because you can't fix the problem doesn't mean you should go around banning stuff.
It seems that rich companies will keep controlling everything until somebody sets up a datahaven in space or some location where they can't get to it.
The day will come when we will have our revenge and those who have tried to restrict things they don't understand will pay for it.
Thank you for reading my rant
I admit, I don't understand why the Austrlian parliament would do this.
Because they signed an international treaty saying that they would impliment anti-anti-circumvention legislation. America was just quick off the mark with the DMCA. We can all look forward to this kind of legislation in the future.
I say "ridiculous" not in the sense that it is wrong, although I think that it is, but in the sense that it is open to ridicule. Comparing writing computer software to assassination, making broad sweeping statements and snide remarks about the defense's attitudes to copyright, the notion that I gained the right to view DVD movies by buying a piece of hardware rather than the DVDs themselves, and the idea that in order to freely access a movie all I have to do is buy another copy of it in an older format - all this is going to seriously help the defendants when the case goes to appeal.
I feel strongly that the MPAA is fighting a battle to control something that they really have no right to control. It is unfortunate that copyright violations are difficult to trace on the internet, and that DVD movies are impossible to protect from copyright violations while retaining the principles of fair use and first sale.
On the nature of copyright law, I believe that it is not a law that is to do with ownership of property, "intellectual property" is not an appropriate phrase. Copyright law is about denying people the right to do what they wish to do with information that they have in their possession. Society grants limited restrictions on the free actions of the general public in order that the producers of creative content may reasonably profit from their creations. However, this law has been stretched and abused by "Big Media" to the point that it seems that the copyright on Mickey Mouse will never expire, because Disney keeps lobbying congress to manipulate the law in their favour. When the system is abused by powerful corporations, all the individual can do is to fight to take back the rights that the corrupt legislature is trying to take away from them. This is why I believe Napster, DeCSS, and the CyberPatrol hack were so popular, it gives us "little folk" the chance to take back some of what we are being denied, and level the field a little. If Corporate America wasn't cheating, then neither would "we" have to cheat back. I say "we" because I have never used Napster, I buy DVD movies and music CDs, and I pay for most of my computer software even when I could easily not do so. Nontheless, I understand why people feel so disempowered and fight back.
I hope that this situation does not spread to the UK in the way it has started in the USA, but if it does, I may be hearing from your legal department regarding my DeCSS mirror. I do not look forward to that day.
The Bill seeks to clarify the circumstances in which carriers and ISPs will be held liable: they will not be liable for infringements by their customers simply because the infringements occurred using their facilities.
Temporary Reproductions
ISPs have also been concerned about infringement because of the temporary copies that are made in the course of technical processes of transmission and browsing on the Internet. The Bill provides an exception from copyright infringement where temporary reproductions are made in the course of the technical process of electronic transmissions. Incidental copies made in the course of browsing on the Internet will not be a breach of copyright.
Re:Stuck in the Sixties
by
AFCArchvile
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· Score: 1
What do you mean by nihilism? Are you referring to the smashing of produce? That's my favorite part of the show, especially when he does the Jell-O.
-- "Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Re:When neither option looks good, take the third.
by
crm0922
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· Score: 1
It's entirely constitutional. Corporations aren't people, and they have no rights whatsoever other than those granted them in their charters. (Or at least they shouldn't; we've had some courts in this country that were either bloody stupid or bought-and-paid-for.) They are creations of the government, they exist at the sufferance of the government, and their charters can be withdrawn if the government chooses.
No, this is not completely correct. I have the right to be self employed and to employ others. Corporations are owned by people and correspondingly cannot be "stolen" by the government. The only way a corporation could be forced to comply with these laws is to force them to remain incorporated under the rule of the government, not under the rule of the owner, hence the theft of personal freedom.
Corporate rules like equal-opportunity employment, tax laws, rules of commerce for corporations, etc. are not intrusive upon the owner's personal freedom. The charter is meant to protect the government's monetary and to protect it from losing its power to any corporation.
Unfortunately, since many individual states' constitutions protect their corporations' rights, the federal government is given no right to override those protections by the constitution. Most state give corporations rights similar to those of people (right to sue and be sued, etc.) Nader would need to usurp many states' rights that they currently enjoy to activate his "programs" to organize corporations in the way he thinks they should be organized.
Nader suggests a socialist idea here, despite the "election" and "democracy" crap, it would result in massive losses of freedom. I think you agree with me about this. Not all corporations are evil and should be forced into the government's way of operating.
Chris
I joined the EFF today. Please join too
by
greggman
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· Score: 1
After reading that article I immediately joined the EFF. I hope you'll all do the same. Click Here to Join!
Well *actually*, "Well well well" was written by Bob Dylan (with Danny O'Keefe):-)
-- "Only the small secrets need to be protected. The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity." - Marshall McLuhan
In some ways, this decision is a good thing.
by
wowbagger
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· Score: 2
If you've never read Robert A. Heinlein's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, do so. There's a scene in the book that is quite apropos to this ruling:
In the book, our heros are trying to stage a revolution freeing the Moon from earth's tyranny. They are meeting with a group of The Powers That Be on earth to discuss the Moon's future. One of the main characters, Prof, who is the second most politically astute of Our Hereos, says something to a judge that the main character (Mannie) does not understand. Later, Mannie asks Prof what he said. Prof indicates that he asked the Honorable muckitimuck if his wife still worked in the whorehouse. Prof then explains that the whole goal of the meeting from the earth's side was to present a comprimise that would prevent the Moon from revolting, and that by stooping to personal insult, unreasonable behavior, and every other trick in the book to prevent that reasonable comprimise from being offered, the many residents of the Moon were kept fired up about the revolt, and therefor unwilling to accept a comprimise that in the long run would hurt them.
Now, in light of that summary, consider:
The judge's ruling was absolutely prejudicial, and will be overturned in a cocaine heartbeat the next level up.
We are all fired up about this, and some of us will write our congressdrones about this issue
strict constitutionalist=conservative
by
GMontag
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· Score: 2
Like I said in my other posts, what they CLAIM is irrelevant. Not sure why you are attaching that to my post. They can call themselves five legged dogs if they want and it does not make them a five legged dogs.
The people you seem to have in mind can call themselves conservatives all they want and YOU might buy that, but I don't consider them to be conservative in any sense of the word and believe that I brought that up in the several threads above.
I am glad that you brought up the more fitting term "strict constitutionalist", since it is obvious that the term "conservative" has been bastardized enough at to have fooled even someone such as yourself.
Everybody that IS a true conservative is a strict constitutionalist. What they label themself is irrelevant.
It kind of reminds me of some of the folks I was around during military service. Touting the label of "conservative" while, in various discussions, they wanted one government mandate and edict after another, like: forced use of english in all commerce; free airtime on all electronic media for "the administration side of the issue"; free military equipment from corporations; etc., etc. The list was endless.
Now, again I say, people that have these views can call themselves conservatives all they want, but they are really liberals, socialistic liberals in the same spirit as Stalin, Hitler and Kaplan. Judge Kaplan being a Clinton appointee.
If you actually BELIEVE that anybody that calls themself a conservative truly is, no matter what their actions or views, then I suggest that you have the perception problem, not I.
I hope you don't believe any screwball with a sword has supreme executive power just because he says some watery tart in a lake threw it at him!
Credits: 5 legged dog ref. Abraham Lincolin in one of his debates with Douglas; Watery Tart ref. Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Both reengineered for this forum.
Yeah, right, blame the scientists and engineers. Blame the ones who find the information and build the stuff that can be abused.
No, that's not what he said, nor what he implied when he said "...The engineers who designed CSS should have understood the consequences of what they where told to make...". At least it is not what I thought when I read this sentence.
I think he is right in saying that people (ALL people) have a social responsibility, and they should think twice before comitting their talents and abilities towards fulfilling some injust goal. No matter whether they are scientists, engineers, programmers, soldiers or lawyers. If someone 'higher up' tells you to do something which you personally KNOW to be part of a scheme to take away freedom and replace it with corporate control, then you can either obey (and keep your job but lose your integrity) or disobey (and keep your sanity but possibly lose your job). Especially in the current market, it is MUCH easier to get a new job than a new 'soul'.
And of course this also goes for those 'higher ups' who give these orders...
Actually, 2600 was sued, not for "copyright infringement" as we generally think of it, but for violating one section of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
That specific section makes it illegal to circumvent "protections" (like CSS) implemented by the copyright holder that were designed (however crappily) to prevent copyright infringement.
2600, as we know, didn't create the circumventing program (DeCSS) themselves. Buuuut, Judge Kaplan went the law one step further, saying that by first making DeCSS available on their site, and later by telling people where to get DeCSS, 2600 was circumventing CSS, and therefore violating the DMCA.
IMHO, to be constitutional, the DMCA probably can prevent someone from actually circumventing the CSS encryption/protection scheme. But it cannot prevent people talking about how to break the crypto, or telling peeps how to break the crypto, or pointing at sites that tell you how to break the crypto, or possessing or reviewing tools that break... etc... etc... etc...
-- "Because I love Pat Benatar." -- Britney Spears, when asked why she covered Joan Jett's "I Love Rock 'n' Roll"
Re:Seven degrees to DeCSS
by
drinkypoo
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· Score: 2
The hubbub over this issue is that intent obviously doesn't seem to matter much. 2600's intent could not be PROVEN to be to help people steal DVD movies. It is entirely possible (though maybe not probable) that 2600's only intent was to help LinDVD along.
It's always sad to see someone to be considered guilty without being proven to be so. However, this is a sad blow to the potential freedoms to programmers everywhere.
-- "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re: You just don't get it
by
barleyguy
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· Score: 2
IANAL either, but I don't think you can officially license a trade secret. I think for DVD-CCA to be licensing CSS, that means it's copyrighted or patented.
It's definitely not patented, because to be patented, it can't be a trade secret.
And a copyright only protects the exact wording of something, not a method of doing something. So in this case, someone could make a clean room implementation.
Have you ever considered the fact that the MPAA doesn't actually have any legal basis for their licensing, other than a self declared control of the market? And lobbying congress to pass the DMCA, which also has no other legal basis?
-- ---
"So THAT's what an invisible barrier looks like!" - Time Bandits
Are 2600 really helping?
by
Alternity
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· Score: 2
I wondered throughout the trial and still wonder now if the presence and implication of 2600 is really helping the case. I mean, you have a group calling themself "2600 the hackers quarterly", a group who talked on many occasions about security breaches, how to exploit them and things like that. Did they really expect the judge to think they were the good guys?
The people reading/. KNOW that 2600 are trying to defend freedom of speech, thoughts and expression. But do the judge know? According to what I've read from the trial I sure don't think so. Try to see the case as if you were a total outsider knowing nothing about 2600 and not much about computers in general. Would you still think 2600 are right? At the first sight they look like the bad guy... and I am not sure that their involvment is helping that much...
--
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear"
Thanks to both of you who replied. I'd just considered that as a possibility, and was wondering what others thought.
-RickHunter
I bought a Copyleft T-Shirt and I worry
by
JCCyC
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· Score: 1
Will they have trouble to ship them to Brazil? Will I be branded an international copyright-curcumvention device trafficker?
I also bought a 2600 anti-MPAA T-Shirt, but that one should be safer (no code there;-P)
Re:I bought a Copyleft T-Shirt and I worry
by
Brazilian+Geek
·
· Score: 1
No real reason to, it's a problem in the USA - I bought one - as a matter of fact I wear it them to work and I work "for the man" (for a brazilian government organization)...
BTW, I'm brazilian too...
-- All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
We, the People, not 'We, the Consumers'
by
knarf
·
· Score: 1
How about:
We have the choice to not buy this canned crap they try to sell us
We have the choice to get our 'art' in some other way, not controlled by the spinmeisters of MPAA/RIAA and their cronies.
Yes, that means you will have to give uo some thinks you may like. But history shows people are able to live without them, and you can find other means of entertainment to fill those gaps left by the black television screen and the silent DvD (and later possibly also CD) player...
1) 2600 didn't create the tool to bypass the encryption. Someone else did. Regardless, that's not the core issue of this case.
I didn't say they did. But by passing on that tool, they were still breaking the law.
2) The judge has now prevented 2600 from linking to DeCSS. That in itself is pretty questionable.
I agree. He interpreted it as "distribution." That was a bit of a stretch on interpretation of a clause in DMCA that already goes too far.
However, he is still a judge. He should be setting aside his personal biases towards 2600's reputation.
And how do you know he was personally biased? Intent is key to the case, so he has to decide what 2600's motives were in posting it. And he decided that those motives weren't the aid of encryption research, which was really the only thing that would have made it legal.
Yes, and as you pointed out already, there is a clause in the DMCA which specifically allows reverse engineering for interoperability purposes.
Yes, but the reverse engineering wasn't done to assess interoperability. That was one of the defenses used, and the judge didn't buy it. The fact that some people later used it to develop an illegal Linux player doesn't change the original reverse engineering. Plus, the key word is "assess," not "implement."
The encryption was a trade secret which is more or less fair game once the cat's out of the bag.
No, the encryption was intellectual property, like any copyrighted source code. The code to Windows 2000 isn't a "trade secret," and even if it was, you still violate the law by stealing that trade secret.
Best regards
= )
That was civil. Much better than the mindlessly blunt sarcasm used by another poster or two.
Everyone who can should go over to the EFF web site and donate some money for the defense.
Become an EFF member while you're at it.
That single act will probably provide more benefit to the future of the United States than voting this fall.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
-- Torrey Hoffman (Azog) "HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
Re:Help make a difference!
by
Lord+Kano
·
· Score: 2
That single act will probably provide more benefit to the future of the United States than voting this fall.
WHAT???? By the greatest stretch of the imagniation I can see how one could think that joining the EFF could be as important as voting, but definately not more important.
The DMCA, Crypto, Napster et all may be important but for most of us who live in the real world, there are many other issues which are more important.
LK
-- "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Re:Help make a difference!
by
Lord+Kano
·
· Score: 2
You use the term "special interest groups" like it's dirty. What do you think that the EFF is? The EFF is a special interest group. Just because they stand for something that many of us happen to believe in doesn't change that.
Just because I care about keeping the internet from becoming a giant infomercial doesn't mean that I don't care about other issues. Just because we care about technology doesn't mean that there are no other issues which are more important.
why do you think that all of these big corporations have been able to get laws favoring them through congress (eg DMCA)?
Soft money. Lots of donations to the both parties. Increasing the value of the portfolios of big wigs who then in turn give big piles of money to the major parties. Spielberg and Tom Hanks being good friends with the president doesn't hurt either.
LK
-- "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
He should be setting aside his personal biases towards 2600's reputation.
No, actually, he shouldn't. 2600's intent in distributing DeCSS was the main issue. Was DeCSS to be used for playing DVDs or copying them? That was the core issue, and given 2600's reputation, the judge decided that the intent was to copy. Their reputation was important to decide the intent. If Signal 11 were on trial to determine if he posted content in an attempt to bolster his karma, his reputation would hurt him. Same idea applies to 2600. If Microsoft said that they fully supported open source, would you believe them? Reputation is important and a valid bias in court cases - that's what character witnesses are for.
Personally, I think Ketzer hit the nail on the head with his post - sounds to me like Ketzer does indeed get it!
The encryption was a trade secret which is more or less fair game once the cat's out of the bag.
And then there's the fun part - the encryption was actually a content control mechanism. That is protected under the DCMA.
Whether the result was right or wrong is a moral question - it can be argued endlessly. (And I haven't formed a concrete opinion myself.) Personally, though, I think that the outcome of the trial was legally correct, and that 2600 will lose in the long run.
-- You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
...and when they came for the coders, I did not speak up, for I was not a coder.
Re:YOU just doesn't get it.
by
kyhwana
·
· Score: 1
I agree with the principle of "punish the crime, not the tool," but it's not that simple here. DVD-CCA developed CSS and licenses it, just like Microsoft developed Windows and licenses it to people. If you reverse engineer their tool and distribute the source code, you're violating their intellectual property
So you're basically saying thatr WINE is violating
Microsoft's "IP"?
Im sorry, it's people like you that seem to think that you can crush the human spirit along with the very idea of curosity. Even if you dont mean it.
The DVDCCA licenses CSS out to people, because it's a (or was) a trade secret. It's no longer secret, so now people can do whatever the hell they want to/with CSS without a license.
No one broke any NDA's or anything like that, so the cat is out of the bag, and you can't stuff it back in.
It's like saying I can't develop my own kind of tyre because I figured out how to put tyres on cars.
-- My email addy? should be easy enough.
Any history buffs out there?
by
baka_boy
·
· Score: 2
Warning: Please take all comments below with an approriate grain of salt, and try to read the whole thing before you start flaming.
Anyone remember their basic Western Civ classes? Think hard, now...there was this amazing informational technology, commericalized by that guy Gutenberg, that allowed for a dramatic increase in the efficiency of ditributing information. In its day, the printing press was cutting edge, and those in power were just as scared shitless as they are now.
Suddenly, written works were flying from one end of Europe to the other, and the potential for the easy accessiblity of heretical, immoral, and rebellious works frightened the powers that be to no end. So, the benevolent leaders of Europe's governments (the Church) stepped in, and as best they could, restored order to the chaos. Wholesome texts were printed and distributed far and wide, and the mental and spiritual health and hygeine of the entire reading world was improved. In addition, the increased availability of approraite texts helped aid the spread of literacy, and through it, "appropraite" ideas and morals (Christianity).
The new moral code is good consumerism, and so advertising and promotion drive communications technologies. Just as Christianity was aided by the printing of countless Bibles and supporting texts, modern developed nations are deluged with instructions to buy, replace, upgrade, and be "the first on the block" to have the latest and greatst. Therefore, when "insurgent" technologies like DeCSS threaten this hold, they must be branded as heretical and illegal, in order to protect the population from dangerous and rebellious ideas. There's little deliberate malice coming from the government, and what filters down from corporate boardrooms is unavoidable -- they have to maximize shareholder wealth, and their only products being given away for free is frightening to an extreme.
However, I think few people would argue that change is not an accellerating vehicle, and therein lies our greatest source of hope. Just as the spread of literacy was instrumental in bringing about the rise of populist politics and scientific study in the public view, computers and pervasive networks will allow for a greater sharing of ideas than possible before. It's sometimes easy for those of us who have spent the majority of our lives working with these relatively new technologies to forget that they are, from a sociological or historical point of view, barely blips on the radar so far.
Remember, most of the circuit judges, legislators, and senior executives of this world probably didn't touch a computer until they were at least in their 30s. They had finished college, started careers, etc., and were no longer blessed with young minds ready to reshape themselves for a new mode of thought or communication tool. Compared to children, adults have a great deal of trouble learning new languages and computers are the cognitive equivalent of several new foreign tongues, some hard math, and a lot of new metaphors and suumptions, all rolled into one.
So, let's try to be a little patient. I, for one, am not as big a fan of violent upheaval as of natural progression, and I fail to see how the current trend towards restriction of digital tools with the objective of "informational purity" can continue under with the next generation of leaders. They will be comfortable with the technology, its implications, and its use, and will know how rediculous the current body of laws are.
If you want to help accellerate this process, you can do so in any number of ways that won't require getting thrown in jail and effectively silenced. Be a teacher, or support the EFF, or put on a clean shirt and go talk to your local legislator or library administrator about your views on censorship and IP. If we want sanity in our leaders, then we should try to show ourselves worthy of taking that role, rather than simply foaming at the mouth about the injustices of "the man."
that won't work.. you can just take the content and resign it.
-- How we know is more important than what we know.
What about other countries?
by
Murphy+Bitter
·
· Score: 1
Many countries have very different laws as far as copyright (http://www.platopress.co.uk/copyright/). How does this effect any prosecutions?
Doess the MPAA actually own 'everything' to do with CSS? Could a company that has nothing to do with the MPAA make a DVD (with CSS)?
Lastly did anyone see on CNN a story about a company that bought an oil rig (in international waters) to put servers on. Maybe it would be a good investment to some rich people.
Bye,
Murphy
Where does Kaplan get off comparing the dissemination of DeCSS to disease and assassination? It's a slap in the face of every free-thinking computer geek who ever lived!
Let's see now, gun owners are the new niggers and computer geeks are the new kikes! Don't talk about freedom and code in the same breath anymore. Just play nice with the keyboard and don't color outside the lines...You are owned!
Re:2600 a victim of their own reputation
by
Titus_
·
· Score: 1
> As much as I hate to say it, as much as it sucks, I'm afraid 2600 is fast becoming a victim of their own reputation.
This is surely irrelevant to the court case. Courts exist to evaluate the cases based on the evidence and facts available to them. "Reputation" and what everybody "knows" should be of no relevance to the court case. This is why (in the UK at least), juries are not necessarily informed of a defendant's previous convictions as these may prejudice the jury against the defendant. Similarly that 2600 want to "Free Kevin" is of no relevance to the distribution or linking of DeCSS source code.
It is a sad reflection of the American legal system that the "reputation" of 2600 and not their arguments in court have more influence on the outcome of the case.
Although IANAL it would seem that in this case the judge was clearly prejudiced against 2600, and that a higher court would look more favourably on 2600, especially given the previous legal precedent in their favour.
Re:2600 a victim of their own reputation
by
I+R+A+Aggie
·
· Score: 2
The editorial linked to is intelligent and well-written. The defense case made for 2600 well-argued, well-presented, and
logical. But the fact remains that large portions of the 2600 issues that I have read appear to be written as how-to
documents for crackers and would-be cyberterrorists.
Ah, so the good Judge Kaplan has made owning the
Anarchist's Cookbook illegal?
No, it's not the readership of 2600 you
have to worry about. It's the crackers who could be submitting articles to 2600 but
aren't that you need to worry about. By the
time such info hits the pages of 2600, it's old news. Hell, Microsoft may even have admitted there is a problem by that time...;)
James
Time For Civil Resistance Has Come
by
javaDragon
·
· Score: 1
Call it "Civil Disorder", or whatever way you want, the fact is that the current law set and balance of power is apparently favorable to big conglomerates.
But WE are the real power. There's no way to intimidate the people. They shut down web sites ? Ok, let's develop distributed encrypted networks (FreeNet, Gnutella are the basis of it).
They will disappear, by shutting down the very roots of their meaningless money power. Information must and will remain free.
And if the price for liberty is what they call "prejudice" or "illegality", ok. That's what WE
'll call "Civil Resistance".
Someone may fix the problem because of the story or someone may exploit it. We cannot and will not determine what happens as a result nor will we allow fear of that to make our editorial decisions for us.
The glory of journalism...you are "free" to speak, but that doesn't mean you aren't responsible for what you speak. That's why we have "Top Secret" documents and laws against compromising national security. It's not as if 2600 didn't know that the information was sensitive...and claiming "you were just helping to get it fixed" is kind of lame. In the "Information Age" breaking encryption is like picking locks...it's hard to justify it...and publishing how to pick locks isn't exactly white hat...even it if helps to correct the problem...
I thought part of the argument was against having the encryption to begin with...i.e. fair use....
whatever.
I just suppose if 2600 was broken into and we could modify content at will becuase of a crappy content-protection scheme, the blatant attitude would be different. I just think the article could have been a bit more rational then just a big rant.
Goldstein, Prove your case.
-- I need a TiVo for my car. Pause live traffic now.
Re:Forget about ripping 5 second clips -- Try VRML
by
RickHunter
·
· Score: 1
That is fair use, I hope, but I think that its only fair use as long as you don't use it to distribute the movie. Read: personal use only.
this is a very troublesome issue. the way i interpret it is if the mpaa actually wins in the appellate/supreme court then the first amendment means nothing.
we all lose our right to link to something on the internet...
we cant speak out against things large corporations dont want us to...
plus so many more things i cant list them all.
am i interpreting this correctly?
-- "it could just be the midgets. You've got to be careful with midgets in Spandex."
--Jamie Richardson
Is it possible that the judge handed down the ruling that he did, with the wording that he did, specifically so it would get overturned? If he ruled for 2600, the MPAA would just throw more of their weight towards the appeals court until they finally squashed 2600 flat. However, if, instead, he handed down a decision like this that is obviously biased and illogical, and an appeals court overturned it, would the precident set would apply to a wider region and have more heft in higher appeals courts? Especially since the MPAA might, in this situation, view the case as a won thing and start throwing their weight elsewhere.
I don't know that much about these aspects of the American legal system, so could someone give me some feedback? Is this possible, or at all likely? Or is it more likely that the judge is as biased and illogical as he seems?
-RickHunter
The font was unreadably small...
by
BlueUnderwear
·
· Score: 1
... so I had to read it using Lynx. These reposts are more convenient, though
-- Say no to software patents.
The "Assassination" analogy -- here's a scandal
by
Nicolas+MONNET
·
· Score: 2
If there was any need to prove that Kaplan is either dishonest or stupid, his comparison of "assassination" and DeCSS is enough to prove it. I was absolutely revolted when I read it.
Austrialia 2600 will not comply
by
kjj
·
· Score: 4
Click here for a story about the Austrailian 2600 that won't take the code down. They don't just link to it, it looks like they are actually hosting it.
2600 a victim of their own reputation
by
DG
·
· Score: 5
As much as I hate to say it, as much as it sucks, I'm afraid 2600 is fast becoming a victim of their own reputation.
The editorial linked to is intelligent and well-written. The defense case made for 2600 well-argued, well-presented, and logical. But the fact remains that large portions of the 2600 issues that I have read appear to be written as how-to documents for crackers and would-be cyberterrorists.
Now you and I know that, at best, your typical 2600 Hax0r is more of the network equivelent of the flaming bag of dog shit left on a front porch than a series threat to national security - but the judge doesn't see that. The judge sees a small-time larcenist with his hand caught in a bigger bag, and a long-running distain for law enforcement and legal proceedings. (Free Kevin! indeed)
No wonder that, despite their truly iron-clad defence, that the judge gives them almost no credibility. Imagine a skinhead trying to sue for (legitimate!) racial discrimination, and you get the idea.
It's not right, and it's not fair - but it's not suprising either. 2600 is reaping the harvest they have sown the last few years.
Give the MPAA credit - they knew _exactly_ who to tackle first. When you seek to set precident, attack the weakest defendant, then move on to the strong.
It's wrong that what is supposed to be an objective exercise in logical deduction has turned into a public relations contest, but that's what it is.
"I'm rather jubilant now. What Judge Kaplan did was blow away every one of these brittle and fragile rebuttals. He threw out fair use; he threw out reverse engineering; he threw out linking."
(Jack Valenti, quoted at salon.com)
So the concept of "fair use" is now officially dead. Two-hundred years of constitutional protection down the crapper. This is the scariest thing I believe I've ever read....
Probably much too late in the day for anyone to ever read this, much less moderate, but I just have to write something.
Disclaimer: I am a computer game developer for a very large game company. My comments are my own. Copyright law lets me make a good living doing what I love to do - program, make and play games. But things are just getting stupid.
-
We must stop defining ourselves by our entertainment products.
We must understand that the media corporations lie to us.
We must release ourselves from the bonds of advertising.
We must realize that we do not need these things to be happy.
We must realize that we have given up control of our thoughts for the price of entertainment.
We must realize that we have done this to ourselves.
We must realize that we do not need these things. Not to be happy. Not to be entertained.
We must discover ourselves again.
We must not forget.
-
I am not encouraging wholesale revolution or a boycott of the MPAA/RIAA.
All things in moderation.
But we must realize what we are doing.
We must tell others.
Do not see movies unless you have very good reason to believe it is worthwhile.
Do not buy DVDs if the MPAA does not want us to watch them.
You can live without these things.
You can be happy without these things.
Make your own entertainment.
Make something worth being entertained by.
-
I do not want to be told what kind of program I can or can't write. Reasonable restrictions can be placed on the use of those programs, but not on their very existence.
Code is a mathematical expression of an idea. It is the best (arguably only) way for Computer Scientists to express and test ideas.
I think... I think I understand Galileo. A scientist of a different age and a different idea, but a scientist not allowed to express and test his ideas.
There is hope. History has shown us hope that we can persevere. But if there is any parallel between the Church and Science, and Corporations and Hackers, we will not see the end of this road in our time, if indeed an end can be reached.
2600's intent could not be PROVEN to be to help people steal DVD movies. It is entirely possible (though maybe not probable) that 2600's only intent was to help LinDVD along.
Copying isn't stealing. Whether you think unauthorized copying is good or bad is another issue, but it definitely isn't stealing - it is potentially causing a small decrease in earnings to a third party.
2600's intent was neither to aid copying DVDs or to "help along" a Linux DVD player. 2600 is a magazine. It was just reporting a story. To someone who knows how to read it, source code is a story. This is one of the main points.
Re:If this goes to Supreme Court
by
Dave+Walker
·
· Score: 1
If you for either of the two major party's candidates, you're asking for more government intervention in your life, not less.
Check out Harry Browne, he's ahead of Pat Buchanan in some of the polls, (and that's with a surprising lack of attention from the media!) Harry Browne 2000
"if the ID3 spec was extended to store an unlimited amount of data encoded
as XML, right inside the MP3 file, one of the many cool things you could
store is a digital signature. Note that this does not mean that the files
are encrypted. They simply have a digital signature appended onto the end
of them which can only have been created by a certain private key. Given
the corresponding public key, which you need anyway to validate the
signature, you can now have cryptographically secure voluntary transactions
with the person who signed the file."
is that not fucking cool or what? ideally, i'd like to see this built into the ogg vorbis codec (http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/ -- an open codec to mp3 obsolete, baby) right its inception. goddamn, we could actually yank the rug out from under the mpaa, the riaa, and all the other motherfuckers who are trying to achieve complete control over the means of distribution!
please, i beg of you, spread the memes! as a semi-serious musician, and a semi-serious cypherpunk who thinks that patterns can never be property (but that making music is a service), i think that the tipster protocol (or an fda-approved substitute;) ) is exactly what the world needs with respect to the current "starving artists vs. record companies vs. incredible ease of distribution" digital music debate.
-- -- sayke, v2.3.05/* i am the middle finger of the invisible hand */
What confuses me is that the judge's ruling is directly at odds with both other caselaw (namely, the Bernstein/PGP ruling) and supreme court cases such as flag burning.
Well, first of all a judge can basically do whatever he wants. The appeals courts are there exactly to deal with bloopers, judge prejudice and just plain ol' stupidity. A judge doesn't have to follow case law. He makes case law. [nitpick] Well, really in the US it's the Circuit Courts that make case law, not lower-level judges, but the idea is still valid[/nitpick].
Second, even technically, the Bernstein/PGP ruling took place in California AFAIK. This is a different circuit and it is not binding on Judge Kaplan. Of course he would have been wise to read it carefully and think about it, but I as sure that his wisdom has already been commented on.
And I don't see much in common between flag burning and source code, other than the fairly obvuous fact that "speech" does not necessarily have to be speech, or even text.
Kaa
--
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
While burning the flag may be speech, setting light to someone's house with a burning flag is not. You have to draw a line between actions which are purely symbolic, and actions which have real physical consequences. In US law I believe this line is drawn between description of an action ("Gates must die") and incitement to that action ("go and murder Gates"). Source code uncomfortably straddles this line, since it is both expressive and imperative; it both describes an action (to the hacker) and commands it (to the computer).
I would assume that a natural-language description of source code, which cannot be trivially interpreted as a series of commands but which still expresses the commands which could be executed, would be covered by the First Amendment.
I've been working on a simple (but hopefully cool) modication for my minidisc, which reminded me of the "operation" a guy offers in the UK whereby you can get a digital output installed on a DVD player. This offers (yet another) way of helping maintain one's fair use access to the works of others, and gets up the nose of the MPAA as well.
Does anyone know if there are details online as to how to go about doing this? (detailed details?:-)
Damn this thing is annoying - how do you fight your own favourite movies?
Yet another Unwilling Victim of Corporate-owned Culture
Most midrange DVD players have a Digital Out, so i don't see your problem... if it's the dvd protection (i doubt your mini-disc has that) then just get a macrovision filter, there all over the place on the internet, you should probably explain better because i don't see what you really need...
I would assume the MPAA would be upset by this, but what could they do? I don't remmeber any sort of licensing agreement when I bought my DVD player, only the standard "If you modify this equipment, you void your warranty" sort of statement.
Anyone with a recent DVD player purchase care to look through their packaging, and see if they have anything that prohibits modifying on pain of legal consequences, rather than just voiding your warranty?
Anyway, it is the fair use issue that is significant here, and what's more, I think further attention to the matter should be to show that it is not DeCSS that is wrong, it is CSS that is immoral. CSS is specifically designed to deprive people of their fair use right, a right that is an important part of free speech.
I thought that when Garbus asked Valenti about what a student could do if she wanted to play a 3 minutes of "Schindler's List" and Valenti replied that she could get the analog version, I felt it had to be obvious to anyone that CSS did take away fair use rights, but Kaplan actually bought Valenti's argument. I can't believe it. I just can't believe it. How ignorant is it possible to get? Yes, today, analog versions exist, but they won't in a few years. I mean, I have a hard time awarding voting rights to people who are as ignorant as Kaplan was in this case, and when a judge exhibits such extreme ignorance, then democracy is at stake.
In the appeals, it should be very easy to demonstrate that Kaplan put words in the defendants mouths that they had never expressed, and that he was completely ignorant about matters of fundamental importance.
CSS is immoral. The engineers who designed CSS should have understood the consequences of what they where told to make, and should not have made them. That's their social responsibility. It is obvious that CSS takes away fair use rights. It is less obvious, yet important to realize, that it is a threat to free speech if a single body controls distribution of human communication. If DVD gets popular, you can't distribute communication by any other carrier, so in principle, it puts DVD-CCA (?) in the position that they can deny someone to produce a movie that is critical towards e.g. MPAA. Now, it is probably a long way before this is going to happen, but it is a serious threat to free speech if you make it possible. Therefore, I think it is important in the following to hammer on the point that it is not DeCSS that is immoral, it is CSS, and that breaking CSS was a moral act.
Talking about social responsibility, 2600 has one too, and sometimes, they should consider what the consquences of reporting a story is, that's the only bad feeling I get when I read the article, they seem to run away from the social responsibility of reporting a story. I think they would have been much better off if they said that "yes, we are responsible for reporting this story. The consequence of reporting this story is that a security hole will be fixed faster/it is being pointed out that MPAA is taking away our fair use rights", etc.
-- Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
If this goes to Supreme Court
by
Yhcrana
·
· Score: 1
Here is a reason I am planning to register to vote this particular election. I haven't ever registered to vote because in my state (oregon) every major issue that has ever passed was put down by a group of people opposed to it. I am going to register to vote simply so I can get Gore into office. Here is the reason why.
If Bush gets into office we all know that there are a few Supreme Court Justices that will probably step down in the next 4 years and that means that the next president will appoint the new ones. Do we really want right wing Supreme Court Justices who are so tight assed they can't pass a greased BB on that bench? Well as I see it if Bush gets into office we will have that exact problem. We will have Justices up there on the bench that will be right wing appointed by Bush who will more than likely be jaded towards the internet, not understand how to use it, and who have probably constantly asked their secretaries to print their fucking E-mail so they can read it.
If this goes to supreme court it will probably find itself about in the middle of this re-appointment time and we will ALL be screwed because of it. 2600 will be screwed, DMCA will be law, the MPAA will be a god (not to mention the RIAA). All this stems from one problem... we geeks don't vote!!! I know that I will be registering to vote this next election for the sole purpose of keeping Bush out of office.
Yhcrana
--
The voices in my head don't like you
Re:When neither option looks good, take the third.
by
crm0922
·
· Score: 1
Break that barrier, and protest vote, Nader.
Yeah, and support the mandatory dissemination of banks and corporations that the government feels are a threat. I don't like corporate America any more than you do, but you can't take away their freedom any more than Dubbya can limit it. Nader's platform talks about breaking up banks and companies for no reason other than holding too much market share.
Workplace Democracy:
Establish the right of workers at every enterprise over 10 employees
to elect supervisors and managers and to determine how to organize work.
Worker Control of
Worker Assets-Pension Funds and ESOP Shares: Pension funds representing
over $5 trillion in deferred wages account for nearly one-third of financial
assets in the US. 11 million workers participate in employee stock-option
plans (ESOPs). Reform ERISA, labor laws, and ESOP tax provisions to enable
workers to democratically control their assets.
Democratic Conversion
of Big Business: Mandatory break-up and conversion to democratic worker,
consumer, and/or public ownership on a human scale of the largest 500 US
industrial and commercial corporations that account for about 10% of employees,
50% of profits, 70% of sales, and 90% of manufacturing assets.
Democratic Conversion
of Small and Medium Business: Financial and technical incentives and
assistance for voluntary conversion of the 22.5 million small and medium
non-farm businesses in the US to worker or consumer cooperatives or democratic
public enterprises. Mandate that workers and the community have the first
option to buy on preferential terms in cases of plant closures, the sale
or merger of significant assets, or the revocation of corporate charters.
Democratic Banking:
Mandatory conversion of the 200 largest banks with 80% of all bank assets
into democratic publicly-owned community banks. Financial and technical
incentives and assistance for voluntary conversion of other privately-owned
banks into publicly-owned community banks or consumer-owned credit unions.
They are going to try to force companies to have elections for management!! Banks being forced into the public domain!!?? If that's not purely unconstitutional, I don't know what is.
Corporate abuse of individual freedoms and rights to free speech has gone on long enough. It sickens me to see our American court system squashing the very rights it is admired for worldwide in an effort to line the pockets of a few greedy corporations with extra dollars that they don't even need.
2600 deserves to be scolded for conveying a thinly veiled "f**k the Man" editorial voice, but as has been mentioned before, not at the cost of setting precedent. Others should not have to suffer the disadvantage of precedent in a hypothetical defense against the MPAA when that precedent was set because of a brash and rebellious editorial voice. Shame on our court system for this lack of foresight. 2600's defense was iron-clad, yes, but apparently even an iron-clad defense based on the facts and 1st Amendment doctrine is vulnerable to large-scale credibility and public-relations warfare.
It sucks. It isn't fair. My best suggestion (others have said it, but it bears repeating): Donate to EFF. It's the least you can do, and it's the least that I've done.
-JD
-- Be aware that a halo has to fall only a few inches to be a noose.
Slashdot is linking to the DeCSS source
by
mrogers
·
· Score: 1
The DeCSS source code is available in steganographic form here and here, with instructions here. Or you can grab the tarball here. Slashdot is now guilty of linking to the source code and can be shut down. Well actually, it's not quite that simple. The ruling contains this protection for webmasters:
Accordingly, there may be no injunction against, nor liability for, linking to a site containing circumvention technology, the offering of which is unlawful under the DMCA, absent clear and convincing evidence that those responsible for the link (a) know at the relevant time that the offending material is on the linked-to site, (b) know that it is circumvention technology that may not lawfully be offered, and (c) create or maintain the link for the purpose of disseminating that technology.
The problem for Slashdot is, who are "those responsible for the link"? Does it mean me for submitting the link? Or CmdrTaco for allowing it to be submitted?
Does Slashdot have a responsibility to prevent me from submitting links to the source code? To enforce that interpretation you'd have to shut down every news site and message board in the US.
Well maybe I'm responsible for the link. But I'm in the UK, outside the jurisdiction of Judge Kaplan, the Supreme Court and the DMCA. They can't stop me submitting comments to American sites.
How's this ban on linking supposed to work again?
Ahh! And here is yet another cruxt to the matter!
by
cr0sh
·
· Score: 2
You wrote:
It's much like writing a SNES emulator for PC, and using it to play SNES games that you own. Intuitively, this seems quite fair. You own the game, why can't you play it? But now you don't need to buy a SNES console, and the people developing the game in the first place were only licensed the information needed to develop because Nintendo wanted them to develop games in order to help sell SNES consoles. There is a legitimate financial framework involved, and by bypassing that you potentially deprive that company of revenue.
Except one can't buy an SNES from Nintendo anymore. Sure, they can be bought on the used market, but what happens when all used "copies" are gone. BTW, know where I can buy a ColecoVision to play all my carts I have collected in the past? Or a PDP-8 to read this damn paper tape?
Let's say I bought a whole mess of DVDs (currently, I don't own any, or a DVD player of any sort - and won't, until this thing is sorted out - however, I do have my copy of DeCSS - plus my shirt!), and then the MPAA members decide to actually "fix" the DVD scheme, rendering current DVDs "obsolete" overnight (actually, this is kinda what 2600 is asking for - just like the bank changing their lock combo)...
Things might be ok for the time being - however, what about in 20 years? My player is probably dead at that point - and I probably can't get another. But I still own the DVDs, which may be perfectly playable. However, in order to play them (legally), I need a licensed player.
Or think about this, what happens in 100 years to the DVDs and players? 500 years?
But back to your statement. I have some SNES cartridges. If I am able to copy them to another medium (say onto a hard drive), and I haven't the ability to play them (because I can't obtain an SNES), then I have the right (under fair use) to use an emulator to enjoy them. However, under the DMCA, doing so would be illegal.
Re:Not a Simple Issue.. Not Applicable
by
Stick+Boy
·
· Score: 1
The glory of journalism...you are "free" to speak, but that doesn't mean you aren't responsible for what you speak. That's why we have "Top Secret" documents and laws against compromising national security. It's not as if 2600 didn't know that the information was sensitive...and claiming "you were just helping to get it fixed" is kind of lame.
This is not a correct comparison. Government is the *ONLY* entity priveleged in this way. NDA's, trade secrets, and such are not the same thing. If you discover something on your own you have the right to say whatever you want about it. There is only *ONE* exception and that is information that the government has deemed "Nationally Important". That's it. (We're not talking about yelling "Fire" in a movie theatre so don't go there...)
StickBoy
-- ---
"The problem is not that the world is full of fools, it's that lightning isn't being distributed correctly." -- Mar
Case law like this will kill American technological advancement, which has been THE driving force for the advancement of improvements in the last, oh, 2 centuries.
The way I read the descision is this: Unless you are a $mega-billion corp, you cannot innovate. You cannot take what others before have built and improve it.
Friends, it's law like that that can eventually allow M$ and Apple to kill Linux. Face it, if the DMCA is interpreted in such an extremist way as Judge Kaplan did, then no one has the right to reverse engineer so much as a light bulb, dirt, or the fork.
I've long been opposed to the federal judiciary as it is, a fraternity of no-accontability, life-serving bureaucrats whom the best of which are few, and the worst of which are corrupt black robed Napoleons who excercise their virtually unlimited authority with no fear of retribution.
--
In 2000 America, is a non-lawyer truly free?
But what about the bigger picture
by
5150
·
· Score: 1
Has anyone sat back and considered the broader ramifications of this ruling?
As with Yahoo in France recently the courts have made a site owner responsible for the content of any site it has links to (anyone who can't see the stupidity in this please explode now)
If this isn't turned around soon, search engines will either have to screen every site linked by their database, or cease to be a search engine (this is of course without considering how search engines would keep track of updates of 'approved' sites)
Now correct me if I'm wrong but some MPAA members own search engines, so in effect they have just put part of themselves out of business! (I think we should email the MPAA and report their member owned search engines for linking to DeCSS - like the good droid consumers they want us to be)
Why dont the search engines get up in arms about this and take action? It would make the legal tussle a little bit less one sided.
This is a much better way of rallying people to the cause as it touches probably every internet user known to man (as opposed to explaining a technical argument involving the words 'hacker' and 'piracy' which 'normal' pople tend to steer clear of).
-- ....but all they found there was a man who repeatedly said that nothing was true, but was later found to be lying.
Clinton's comphrensive health care reform bill that failed because of Republican opposition. Also various tax cut proposals that Republicans have supported that Democrats have not apporved. I can go on into specifics but that would take too long and possibly would go unread. I would like documented evidence of the specific bills or actions that you believe to be part of a conspiracy. Personally I don't believe it. Bipartisian support is usually a rare commidity in the world of politics.
It's available until someone in the Australian gov. notices that the movie they were looking forward to getting on DVD doesn't have a zone 4 (Australia and New Zealand) version. Whoops! "Quick! Shut them down! I want my X-Men DVD! WHAAA!"
But cheer up! They might try shutting down zone 3 (Asia) and get blown up by a Chinese cruise missile. Remind me to listen for the rockets when I'm near MPAA HQ.
Hey... Does anyone else think it odd that Japan is in the same zone (zone 2) as Europe? Yust a thought.
my respect for Judge Kaplan falls
by
Tim_the_minstrel
·
· Score: 1
I thought judge Kaplan handled the Bridgeman v. Corel case very well. But now he hands down this judgement which grants to the DVDCCA, outside the safeguards of the patent act, patent-like protection for DVD players incorporating the CSS. This is clearly unconstitutional, yet he doesn't seem to have noticed it--unless it is one of the "concerns of the amici" that his skips over with a few words.
--
I prefer anarchy, but only under a strong & wise anarch
[OT] Who are you calling are wierdo?
by
NYC
·
· Score: 1
"It reminded me of... in front of me on 8th and Avenue A in the East Village. [snip] But if you know the East Village, you know it's not the place to intimidate people and get away with it. It's also where a lot of the weirdoes hang out."
Hey, wait a second, who are you calling a wierdo? I hang out on Avenue A and 8th all the time! Just because I have long hair in a pony tail, mutter words like grep and awk, and I have big black eyes from all night coding sessions doesn't mean I am a wierdo.:)
BTW, if you are on the corner of Avenue A and 8th walk 20 feet to Accidental CDs. That place has all the wierdos. (aka a very cool place).
Cheers --weenie NT4 user: bite me!
-- --weenie NT4 user: bite me! "Computers are nothing but a perfect illusion of order"
-- Iggy Pop
Based on this insane decision by the judge, one can only guess how this would affect Napster, which undoubtedly fits the judge's descriptions better than DeCSS. Whereas one is merely an access issue, the other involves actual files being shared, and let's face it, most people use Napster specifically because they have copyrighted songs on them.
Ways to seek (polite) revenge
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2
They posted that phone number on 2600, presumably because their e-mail server gets slashdotted too often and they've taken it down. Next up?
Let's slashdot their phones. Eventually, they'll have to rely on faxen, and then we can drown them in fax paper. Maybe we can send them their code back...?
"Dear MPAA:
I give up, I've been harboring your DeCSS code for months now, on my website. I took all the links apart with my power drill, unplugged my internet, and I'm faxing you back your code. This is the original. Please believe me when I say I haven't made any copies.
Love,
Jim
(no relation to the penis fish guy)
attch: DeCSS.doc
"
This guy does sometimes impress me, and regardless of your personal feelings towards 2600, Emmanuel has done more than (I venture to assume) anyone else here to fight the good fight.
What still astounds me is the sheer ignorance and incompetance demonstrated by Kaplan. I wasn't expecting him to become an expert in the internet and related technologies over the course of this trial, but I was really hoping he would at least demonstrate basic reasoning skill and comprehension.
Appearently he was a little too "in the pockets" so to speak of his former employers (MPAA) to reason with the facts he was presented, and simply allowed his hostility towards 2600 to dictate his thinking.
My scary prediction of the future is that after HDTV gets off the ground and analog recording is replaced with tightly controlled digital recording, fair use will still probably be allowed, but technically impossible by the restriction placed on media and recording devices. Of course, the MPAA will blame "hackers" for taking away "joe average"'s ability to record stuff, claiming they had to to prevent the non-issue of piracy and probably point to this case as an example.
So when the public finally realizes what is happening with all this DMCA stuff, don't expect them to be outraged at the MPAA. I'm pretty sure the MPAA already has a PR game plan to blame us when the time comes.
Finkployd
Look on the bright side...
by
-Harlequin-
·
· Score: 2
The way Kaplin and the DMCA is going, the Principality of Sealand is going to make a killing.
Invest some money in Sealand and you've got a bet each way - if the Supreme Court lacks Kaplin's bigotry, then you - as a normal citizen - keep your rights. If Kaplin leads the Charge of Ignorance to eventual Victory over Light and Goodness, then you - as the now-wealthy invester - gain the rights of the elite, and can defend those rights with Cold Hard Cash (MPAA style).
If you can't beat 'em (and are completely lacking all moral substance), sell out and join 'em.
No, I'm not being serious:)
If you're a normal citizen and thus don't have sufficent money to earn your wealth for you, well... give what little you've got to the EFF, and pray.
Now Witness The Destructive Power Of This Fully Armed And Operational DMCA...
Slashdot Mirror
I just liked this line:--)
---
BWahhahhahahahhahahahhhaaaa!
[looking guilty, ethereal gets back to work...]
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Sorry, but Republican/conservative = Corporate lover - FACT. Democrat/liberal = Government Lover = FACT.
/. and complain and be armchair problem solvers. Get out in your local neighborhoods, beat the pavement ring doorbells and inform & talk to people. Organize like thinkers and organize voters.
/. and complain and be armchair problem solvers. Get out in your local neighborhoods, beat the pavement ring doorbells and inform & talk to people. Organize like thinkers and organize voters.
Neither of these parties give a damn about the average joe - you and me! If they did they would pass such hooey as DMCA and UCita etc..
The US is NO LONGER "Government of the people, by the people, and for the people." Face it folks it's now "government of the government, by the corporations and for the corporations."
Since it seems that the DMCA passed with a overwhelming majority in the house and senate,
They best way to get the message to this stinkin' government is VOTE THEM ALL OUT. replace every one of them and if the next batch does the same thing vote them out. If that doesn't work start grass roots movements to start voting local everyday folks into offices. start with local stuff then move those people to higher state positions. Then move to the national positions. The everyday person just has to give a damn! But right now to many of the everyday people are lemmings and sheep. They let the media tell them how they should think, feel and act.
Folks, it's time to take our government back!
Don't just sit in front of your monitor and talk here at
Corporations can buy politicians but let them try to buy a very large organized movement that votes out those politicians they bought!
Folks, Don't listen to your union reps, don't let them tell you how to vote! Think for yourself, do research ask questions. This more than anything SCARES politicians and scares those in authority. Blately ask your state representatives and senators "did you vote for DCMA?" "Did you or will you vote for Ucita?". Ask them the tought hard questions. Call them, write to them. Folks with the Big election comming up in November we stil have time to make a stink. Email.write, call your friends and relatives and get them to organize.
Read the US constitution, your bill or rights etc.. Know what your rights are! DCMA and Ucita take them away! and if these fly easily others will follow. yes Even you 2nd amendment folks, you don't think they will stop at gun control do you? they want total gun confiscation just like in Australia. Look at recent polls showing major groups of teens want more gun control. They are getting to our kids folks! Does this scare you yet?
Take your government back! Before it's to late.
Sorry, but Republican/conservative = Corporate lover - FACT. Democrat/liberal = Government Lover = FACT.
Neither of these parties give a damn about the average joe - you and me! If they did they would pass such hooey as DMCA and UCita etc..
The US is NO LONGER "Government of the people, by the people, and for the people." Face it folks it's now "government of the government, by the corporations and for the corporations."
Since it seems that the DMCA passed with a overwhelming majority in the house and senate,
They best way to get the message to this stinkin' government is VOTE THEM ALL OUT. replace every one of them and if the next batch does the same thing vote them out. If that doesn't work start grass roots movements to start voting local everyday folks into offices. start with local stuff then move those people to higher state positions. Then move to the national positions. The everyday person just has to give a damn! But right now to many of the everyday people are lemmings and sheep. They let the media tell them how they should think, feel and act.
Folks, it's time to take our government back!
Don't just sit in front of your monitor and talk here at
Corporations can buy politicians but let them try to buy a very large organized movement that votes out those politicians they bought!
Folks, Don't listen to your union reps, don't let them tell you how to vote! Think for yourself, do research ask questions. This more than anything SCARES politicians and scares those in authority. Blately ask your state representatives and senators "did you vote for DCMA?" "Did you or will you vote for Ucita?". Ask them the tought hard questions. Call them, write to them. Folks with the Big election comming up in November we stil have time to make a stink. Email.write, call your friends and relatives and get them to organize.
Read the US constitution, your bill or rights etc.. Know what your rights are! DCMA and Ucita take them away! and if these fly easily others will follow. yes Even you 2nd amendment folks, you don't think they will stop at gun control do you? they want total gun confiscation just like in Australia. Look at recent polls showing major groups of teens want more gun control. They are getting to our kids folks! Does this scare you yet?
Take your government back! Before it's to late.
The Truth is a Virus!!!
being civil never hurts and it makes your arguments much more effective when presented to a wider audiance.
By being downright childish and petty all you do is weaken the argument that you are putting forward as your attitude becomes associated with your reasoning.
Hey, maybe even Xing's engineers were thinking ahead... If you can argue that the inadequate keyspace on CSS could have been intentional, you can argue that not adequately protecting the key at the player could have been an insightful engineering decision instead of a "fuckup"...
--Fesh
"Citizens have rights. Consumers only have wallets." - gilroy
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
Virtually *every* kind of corporation with any kind of business that isn't people itself reacts in this manner - it's more cost-effective. Really.
Even at a fast-food restaurant (name removed because I don't have the guts to say it :) ) that I worked at encouraged being polite and nice to customers and deciding in their favor because it was more profitable to have repeat customers than it was to get the most out of that one sale. That's the most humanity I've ever seen in overall corportate policy.
(Granted, individual Members of a corporation can easily have more humanity than that (I was nice to the customer 'cause I figured they liked it :) ) but the corporation is not the individual members thereof, it's the corporation.)
I worry that if corporations continue to go the way they do, demonstrating every last virtue of Capitalism, then we're going to run into the same "too much of a good thing" that Communist economies ran into and falldowngoboom. :) ).
(IANA 'Commie', btw, so don't use that accusation
-Jo Hunter
If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed.
Wrong. U.S. law does not apply to the citizens of the Netherlands.
Ah, now that is a good point, and one that is central to most of the legal and moral issues that come up with the Internet.
But:
1. Technically it doesn't apply to people in the Netherlands. If you're a citizen of the Netherlands visiting the US, then US laws still apply to you.
2. Emmanuel and his buddies at 2600 aren't in the Netherlands.
3. Many countries, I don't know about the Netherlands specifically, have agreements with the US about copyright and other laws, and via these agreements they will either punish violators of US or international copyrights, or they will take criminals who have fled the US and send them back.
Copyright Amendment (Digital Agenda) Bill 1999
I admit, I don't understand why the Austrlian parliament would do this.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Actually, yes. It's called "Name Recognition", and it's why George Bush Jr. is prob'ly going to win by a landslide.
Sad, isn't it? Wouldn't it be nice if we could have a governmental system based on citizen legislation and ditch the permanent ruling class? Gosh, if only.
-Jo Hunter
If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed.
Your analogy is a good one. It is legal to publish information about picking locks. There are many books on the subject.
The rest of your comments are uninformed. Read the story; read the depositions; read the transcripts, then tell me they did not prove their case.
Troy
Check out MPAA's FAQ. Then, read up, you'll understand that they are lying to you. The truth doesn't count there, it's the $ and the $ only.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
"For the purposes of First Amendment analysis, this court finds that source code is speech."
Go read Part III of Kaplan's opinion. Kaplan agrees that computer code serves an expressive function as well as other functions -- that is, code is speech, and it's other things too.
(Simplifying greatly here:)
The Supreme Court has said that some laws which prohibit/punish things that are both speech and non-speech are constitutionally OK. Burning a draft card during the Vietnam War was certainly a form of speech. But in O'Brien, the Court held that the law against destroying draft cards is OK because it serves the significant purpose of making the draft system work, and the law is not aimed at punishing speech (it's "content neutral").
The anti-flag burning laws, on the other hand, are not OK because they are not content-neutral. It's OK, for example, to burn the Canadian flag, but not the American flag.
Kaplan holds that the DMCA is more like the no-destroying-draft-cards law than the anti-flag burning law, and therefore it's constitutionally OK. You might disagree with this part of Kaplan's analysis, but you can't say that "code is speech therefore we win." (If you disagree, explain why laws against passing bad checks could ever be constitutional.)
I'd say wait until the appeals....
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Can the Internet survive without the US? - You bet it can! This is once again a largely US issue that
has had mostly positive impact on the world at large. All DVD playback systems sold in Australia
*must* be cracked and this will soon be the law here in Europe.
No matter what happens in the USA (or is it CSA?) Eric has done a marvelous job in assuring the
freedom of the 'real world'. It is worth fighting as if the US wins this battle the US loses the war.
Good riddance is what 95% of the world can say for the Facist States!
Uh, the Consitution does not guarantee fair use. In fact, the Consitution would allow Congress to give the MPAA a monopoly on content for a billion years, if they wanted to. "Fair use" was created by Congress, and is not a guarenteed right. Copyright, on the other hand, is an enumerated power, and Congress can do whatever they like with that. Fair use is something nice - they could remove that if they wanted to.
Now that's scary.
(Congress is given the right to create copyright in the oft-quoted Article I, Section 8 of the United States Consitution. The relevant enumerated power reads "[Congress is granted the power t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries[.]" and can be read here.)
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Journalists are certainly responsible for what they say. That's what "Libel" and "Treason" are all about. But outside of that they enjoy very wide freedom. Even to publish lock-picking books.
deCSS has NO national security issues. NONE.
I don't think 2600 brought up encryption is being anti-fair-use, an nor is it IMHO.
There's another, simpler explanation for Kaplan's ruling. The law firm he worked for (while he was working there and after he became a judge) worked for Toshiba and Time Warner on antitrust matters related to DVDs. I'm sure he didn't want to embarass his old colleagues by ruling against the legal scheme they created (with CSS licensing and the DMCA), whether or not he was part of creating it.
It is really up to us.
As much as we complain about bad legislation, we (in the US) are fortunate that market forces still dominate.
I think that the best shot we have at redemption from DMCA and other bad laws is to boycott "content" and pay for "art."
WE have the technology to bypass movie studios and record labels.
WE as geeks tend to have non-technology interests and talents, such as music and film making.
If WE distribute art (as opposed to banal "content") with express forfeiture of certain copyrights (like
prohibition of fair use) WE can ALL have our rights!
If we fuse napster and paypal functionality in an OPEN way, I think we will be will on our way to overthrowing "content
tyrants" and restoring both art and freedom in our society.
Sorry if this sounds over-the-top, but I am upset by all of this.
-Peter
I don't use it often but it looked fine for me.
Respond to s
It is really unfortunate when issues as weighty as these get treated with the standard Internet is evil crap, just because the judge doesn't quite grasp the technology behind it. His analogies illustrate this fairly well, he keeps trying to relate these issues to things that he understands a little better but the relationships don't quite fit. Mr. Goldstein (I feel funny addressing someone from 2600 as Mr.) caught this rather quickly. I'm guessing that Judge Kaplan gets most of his news from his TV or the WSJ. He reads as though he has been fed a steady diet of FUD about how evil hackers can roam free in the web, cause untold havoc, and steal food from the mouths of giant corporations.
We should hold out hope though. This is going to have to get to the Supreme Court before it will catch an enlightened judge but it might have a chance there.
Icebox
Do you expect us to believe you didnt get paid to post that??? F**K! OFF!
Its sad when the right to free speech can be taken away from you if the other party has the money to do so. It sounds like the court is saying that the first amendment does noy apply to individuals when being attacked by corporations.
The one thing that I don't like about the new digital media, is that it allows corporations to control content and charge a fortune for the privilage. Imagine buying a computer and being charged to use it or allowing a friend to use it - scary.
One other thing that I would be interested in, is whether the judge had any conflicting interests, such a being paid, have defended such entities or having being given a few tastes of luxury in exchange for his services.
The direction that things are going in the USA, at the start of the 21st century, makes me feel that the corporate police state will become reality in 10 years. Maybe AD Comics got it right with Judge Dred? Remember even the politicians are being bought. I believe all judges and politicians should be be forced to publish a list of their affliations on the web, WITHOUT copyright.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
IANAL, but since you purchased the shirt before it was illegal, isn't there some sort of ex post facto to judicial case law?
And shouldn't the MPAA be forced to offer a buy back program for the shirts? After all, depriving someone of an article of clothing involves a monetary loss to a third party whereas removing the code from a web site takes, at most, a minute.
----
----
Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
That's what I always do. www.anonymizer.com is the most common one, but it's pretty slow at times. Try this link: https://proxy.magusnet.com:8090/-_-http://www.2600 .com/news/2000/0821.html
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
White hat? no... Grey Hat might be a better term... but still useful. After all, if group A, who has no malice, and no intent to harm any property, data, etc. breaks in and says, 'hey, look, this security bites' then group B, who DOES have malice, could easily do so as well. Thus, we need group A to make sure the security is strong enough to protect us from group B. That is Goldstein's point.
BTW, isn't the best way for a security firm to get business breaking into the place they want to protect in the future, to show the owners how much they need that protection?[true, it is best that they arrange this ahead of time with the business in question, but that is a matter of legality and pride, not logic]
-={(Astynax)}=-
-={(Astynax)}=-
"Darkness beyond Twilight"
I am just curious. I don't think most parents are that politically motivated to change their baby's name to something political like that.
Also wasn't Goldstein a creation of Ingsoc? So basically Goldstein is a propaganda tool.
Respond to s
You can do it here.
---
> 2600 is reaping the harvest they have sown the last few years.
I would've thought the MPAA was reaping the harvest they've sown as well. Half-a-century of churning out scandalously tasteless productions glorifying crime and criminals, promoting antisocial conduct, and cinematically flushing morals and ethics down the toilet. Wouldn't surprise me if Hollyweird's not already pounding on Corley's door for the movie rights to this nightmare....
Yes, of course. I totally agree.
To my defense I can say that I really tried to be as polite and civil as possible. But it isn't easy if english is not your native language, and all english you know is learned from american action movies:) Not that it matters though. If I can't express myself, that's 100% my own fault.
I'll do my best in the future to try be more polite in situations like this. And so should you - calling me an idiot goes contrary to your own post.
Because they're just as influenced by the corperate dollar as are the US politicans.
Alas gallinaceas de urbe bovis volo
If they could write CSS they could probably get any of numerous computer jobs.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Back when this whole thing started, Judge Kaplan ordered 2600 to remove the DeCSS code from the web site. Emmanuel Goldstein made a hard decision to comply with the order. The alternative would have been to practice civil disobedience, to refuse and get himself thrown in jail. Although it may have made people think of King or Ganhdi, it was more likely that the MPAA and Valenti would have successfully spun it in their favor. The media was certainly leaning that way, anyway, so 2600 had to appear to be fighting the good fight, keeping it nice and legal.
The same injunction scared off most of the other defendants, into settling separately and keeping themselves out of court. This ruling will now prohibit linking, despite the fact it may not hold up in a higher court. With the ruling, the MPAA has the clout it needs to go after other sites, which will probably bow out and let 2600 do all the fighting.
Judge Kaplan's decision gave the impression that the MPAA won, which gives them the freedom to say all sorts of things , such as that the DMCA has been proven to be constitutional, that DeCSS is only a tool for piracy, and that the 2600 group are just hackers, like the hackers that brought us the Melissa and Love Bug viruses. In the minds of many non-technical citizens (which is still the voting majority), as well as lawmakers, this is now the truth.
This is not a judge wimping out, or a sly tactical move. This move ignores the big issues (copyright, reverse engineering, Free Speech), and delivers a victory to the MPAA and corporate interests. It gains the MPAA a large slice of public opinion, and makes the opposition feel a little more desperate. Maybe Kaplan isn't hoping for the higher-ups to make the decision for him, but instead for some pissed-off teenager to start doing rash things, like breaking into the MPAA site, or posting movies to his web page with a message like "F**K MPAA! I USED DeCSS TO CRACK THE MATRIX! POWER TO 2600!", so that the MPAA will actually have evidence that DeCSS was used for pirating.
I hope 2600 wins the next round, and eventually in the Supreme Court, but I'm sure he's aware that his own fans may be his biggest liability. I hope they can restrain themselves.
"and it's hard to see the writing through the flames." - Flaming Lips
And where were you when the courts ruled in favor of Connectix regarding their PSX emulator? Just read the quote from the story: "both copyright and trademark law favor broad consumer choice." DeCSS is just another consumer choice for decrypting DVDs, and thus should be protected.
Except the difference between Consoles and DVD Players is that the SNES and PSX architecture isn't "an anti-piracy measure" and therefore isn't protected from circumvention under DMCA. CSS is an "anti-piracy measure" and therefore is protected from circumvention. I don't claim that it's reasonable, only that it's the law.
They are going to try to force companies to have elections for management!! Banks being forced into the public domain!!?? If that's not purely unconstitutional, I don't know what is.
It's entirely constitutional. Corporations aren't people, and they have no rights whatsoever other than those granted them in their charters. (Or at least they shouldn't; we've had some courts in this country that were either bloody stupid or bought-and-paid-for.) They are creations of the government, they exist at the sufferance of the government, and their charters can be withdrawn if the government chooses.
Furthermore, as they have no rights, there's no constitutional reason for the government not to manage their affairs as closely as it desires. A corporation has no RIGHT to do business. It's a PRIVILEGE granted to it by the government; as such, it can have any conditions attached the government desires.
Advisable, now that's another story. But there's nothing unconstitutional about it.
--
There is no sin except stupidity -- Oscar Wilde
The problem with libertarians is that i'm afraid they would make an even bigger mess trying to fix things. Simply because we've gotten used to living so far from the libertarian ideal.
To do things like eliminate welfare altogether, eliminate income taxes, drastically reduce defense spending, etc, could have dire consequences. Not to mention that something would seriously have to be done about the power of corporations. I'm not sure that can be done effectively without causing huge problems with our economy. Has any libertarian candidate discussed how they plan to make the changes without destroying everything in the process? That would be interesting reading I think.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
-Jo Hunter
If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed.
If only I had moderator access this time around...
-Jo Hunter
If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed.
Except one can't buy an SNES from Nintendo anymore. Sure, they can be bought on the used market, but what happens when all used "copies" are gone.
Several things. First of all, the copyright probably goes out of date, so it's legal to do whatever you want with them. If it has been renewed or hasn't lapsed yet, then the person who wants to make an emulator should contact the company and ask for permission. If they really have no plans to continue selling the console, they should be reasonable and allow the emulator. But maybe they aren't, maybe they're unreasonable. If so, then it's up to copyright law to sort it out.
I would be very wary of assuming you have the right to do anything. The right to play SNES games on emulators isn't specifically listed in the Constitution, so if I were you I would be a bit more specific as to why that qualifies as "fair use." But in this case you're correct, because as a fellow poster pointed out, courts ruled in favor of the PSX emu.
Come to think of it, that minidisc player probably used spdif internally already(optical input is anyway..). D/A's understand spdif too.. So just intercepting that signal and hooking it up to your sblive would do.. Might want to buffer it but it really should be strong enough to drive at least two receivers..
Well, I don't think they had much choice once they were hit with the injunction and other steps leading up to their trial. Certainly, 2600 doesn't have the best reputation. I don't really like the idea that they seem to have, where people can go around and try to breach security and/or look around in the private stuff of other people or organizations. After all, I would not be happy if someone got into my apartment and started rummaging around, even if they never took anything.
However, I think we all have rights when it comes down to being our own stuff. I dare say that I should have the right to accidentally electrocute myself or to fry my hardware after ignoring warnings. I should be able to learn about anything that I own, discovering how those things work. I don't think that any of the knowledge I've gained on my own is the property of someone else. I should be able to redistribute that knowledge if I wish. If I receive that knowledge with permission to redistribute, then I should be able to do so.
IMO, there are many underlying issues that go beyond `what are my rights as a consumer?' to `what are my rights as a human being?' It seems that many content distributors (MPAA, RIAA) would like nothing better than to have everyone turn into mindless money-spending drones. They already see us like that anyway.
While I do not like some of what 2600 stands for, we need groups like them to exist. We need to be reminded what it is like to be the outsiders. They make an effort to be independent of corporate influence (their weekly radio show also runs on a non-commercial radio station, WBAI, which is funded only by contributions from individuals, not companies). In this age where virtually nothing is truly `made from scratch' by members of the public, people like that are a necessity.
This case (and the other similar ones running today) has shown me that we need to re-examine the role of copyrights, licenses, patents, trademarks, and anything else I forgot. So much of the last 200 years of laws on this subject have been greatly influenced by the publishers and distributors, rather than the original creators and the end consumers. We need to look at our rights as people and as a society, rather than those of the corporations. I want the content created today to be accessible to future generations, not locked behind encryption and licensing.
--
Ski-U-Mah!
I believe step that will finally turn this issue around will be when someone prints the DeCSS code in a full page ad in Time magazine. That way when the MPAA goes after Time magazine, Time-Warner will be a party to both the defense and the prosecution. Or maybe they'll just sue whoever placed the ad, despite that Time agreed to print it.
I like to play children's songs in minor keys.
"We're all sons of bitches now." --J. Robert Oppenheimer
That was the title to a Gallagher special.
It'll either take 20 more years, the Alzheimer's epidemic, the Arthritis epidemic, or 60,000 7.62mm rounds.
You decide.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
They each have their own agendas and want to do their own things. They rarely cooperate. What kind of dope do you smoke when you think otherwise?
Respond to s
Hearing that even the DeCSS t-shirt is 'illegal' really stunned me. But it brought this to mind: what if you inserted one deliberate 'error' in the code? Like omitting an obvious semicolon, for example. Any competent programmer could find and fix it, but the code would be rendered uncompilable and unrunnable. Are you now in violation? How about a voice recording where you read the code? This whole issue just leads to more and more absurdity.
"If I have seen further than other men, it is by stepping on their glasses." - Michael Swaine
don't equate getting involved with politics with just voting! why do you think that all of these big corporations have been able to get laws favoring them through congress (eg DMCA)? they've got special interest groups, we've got the EFF.
Minor nitpick: Judges are appointed by elected officials. Once they have been apppointed, they cannot be removed for any reason except if they resign or are found to be unethical.
Ahh, democracy...
We have laws that protect top-secret things. But guess what, if the document leaks to the press the press can report it. There have been cases in the past (a space shuttle lauch in the 80's) where there was a leak and the press all agreed not to publish anything unless someone else did. Someone else did, then everyone else did. Guess what, that's not illegal.
The press can publish anything they want if they can get their hands on it, the secrets acts are all based around trying to prevent the press from getting ahold of things. And when the press does get ahold of secrets, the responsibility part of "freedom of the press" is that they have to decide whether or not to publish it, but the decision that is made is not whether or not they CAN publish it. Welcome to the United States. Go read the Constitution.
Oh, yeah, and normal white-hat practice when you find a security hole is to notify the vendor, give them a "reasonable" amount of time to respond, and if they don't, then you publish. You publish to force action when you can't get it any other way. I look at DeCSS this way: They knew people were working on cracking DVD so they could write players. They didn't do anything to improve their security. They didn't build their security strong enough to keep anyone out. So how do they protect their stuff: litigation.
This is just another great offshoot of our new economy/old economy fight. The old economy companies really see litigation as their sole means of competition. They can't compete technologically (because of their entrenched fear of change) and they're scared of losing control of their markets. Boo-hoo. This isn't 1970 anymore, they're going to have to start looking at better ways to do business than hiring a bunch of lawyers and buying off some congressmen. What happens when the programmers all move to . They publish what they want, and the only recourse is to censor the entire Internet (welcome to China). Even better, you just publish it all anonymously on Gnutella or Freenet.
chris.
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
Wasn't he that guy with the braids in Hackers?
Damnit. I'm really getting tired with this '15-year-old cracker/hacker' nonsense. I'm 16, and I consider myself a 'hacker', in the OSS sense of the word. I use Debian GNU/Linux + BSD at home (Solaris/SPARC at work), hack on Free Software projects in Perl, Java, C etc in my spare time, and work as a UNIX admin/web guy at a media company. I DO NOT crack into computer systems (although I might be able to, I've never tried, nor do I have any desire to try); I'm not a w3r4z d00d, or anything puerile like that. I'm not trying to boast or anything - but I think more people should be aware that not all - in fact, very few - teenagers are 'l33t hax0rs'.
I know that people like that do exist, and that's the stereotype that you were commenting on. But don't include the age group - there are many people like myself in the under-18 age group that feel sleighted at being associated with script kiddies - just like you would feel. If you want to refer to that group of peope, call them script kiddes, or crackers, or anything you like. But I don't think age has much to do with it.
Because of this: "Development and implementation of a new DVD copy protection system, however, is far more difficult and costly than reprogramming a combination lock and may carry with it the added problem of rendering the existing installed base of compliant DVD players obsolete." So basically, a security hole can be left in place if it's too expensive to fix and anyone who exposes the continued existence of the hole can be prosecuted? Riiight....
This totally reminded me of the scene from Fight Club where Ed Norton is talking about company policy towards recalls and business policy:
JACK (V.O.)
Take the number of vehicles in the field, (A), and multiply it by the probable rate of failure, (B), then multiply the result by the average out-of-court settlement, (C). A times B times C equals X...
CUT TO:
INT. AIRPLANE CABIN - MOVING DOWN RUNWAY
Jack is speaking to the BUSINESSWOMAN next to him.
JACK
If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
BUSISNESS WOMAN
Are there a lot of these kinds of accidents?
JACK
Oh, you wouldn't believe.
BUSINESS WOMAN
... Which... car company do you work
for?
JACK
A major one.
I think that this holds true. I love the irony and satire of the whole situation (DeCSS and 2600). Kinda makes you sick.
Even the samurai
have teddy bears,
and even the teddy bears
Even the samurai
have teddy bears,
and even the teddy bears
get drunk
I never said that. Marketdroids are the scum of the earth (kind of), so engineers and scientists has to be very careful when they feed them. Was that any better? After all, engineers and scientists are the only people who are smart enough to see the consequences of what they're doing! :-)
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
We can all laugh at such words but they represent something very sinister. We are now expected to believe that telling someone how to get a file with a link is the same as offering it yourself. I want to know if this works both ways - if I point someone to a site or product that costs money, is that also a "distinction without a difference" that will allow me to be compensated? This kind of logic is already giving me nightmares.
It gives me other nightmares. It gives the tax man a reason to tax me for funds I have never been promised, nor have ever recieved. Or a Domestic Court deciding that a father must pay child support on same. But thank G_d that 2600 is not in either of those courts.
This smacks me as the judge saying that I have no right to remove the Torx nuts on (insert item) that I bought and paid for, because it needs a "special" security (?) Torx driver (tiny hole in the middle, purchasable anyplace). If I have the gumption to tell others about this, I am violating a "security provision" and then convicted.
For some reason, the same lie repeated over (not in this post) and over again, became "truth" in the press and in that worthless courtroom. DeCSS allows READING, nothing more.
To further PERSICUTE a simple magazine and web site for showing people how to read is absoutly outragious, but not unexpected.
Hopefully, when a court run by a TRUE conservative (USA style) gets hold of this, the mess will be over. Can you ever imagine a true conservative saying that a bunch of "lefties" in Hollywood should tell you what you can do with your own computer equipment? Can you really see a true conservative telling anybody that they can not give their own instructions to their own DVD player to decode and play their own DVD in the privacy of their own home? It is like imagining a conservative telling garage mechanics "you must not use your drill press for drilling 1/4" holes without a license from Ford".
Visit DC2600
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
And another thing...
The decision that Judge Kaplan handed down strikes a disturbing blow against source code as a protected form of free expression. Dave Touretzky has constructed a gallery of CSS descramblers which demonstrates the difficulty of establishing when a piece of code is more expression than it is mechanism. Kaplan's decision even suggests that his finding might have been different if the CSS descrambler in question (DeCSS) was not trivially translatable to an executable device.
But where do we draw the line. When a judge deems that pseudo-code, or a precisely worded prose description of a circumvention algorithm is too easy to turn into an executable circumvention device, are we going to see those forms of expression restricted as well?
This is scary stuff...
I beleive "fair use" applies here. It's commonly accepted that it's within an author's rights to prevent redistribution. But the author can't make arbitrary restrictions (except maybe under DMCA).
It might. That determination would be up to the judge in the event that you actually got taken to court for watching a DVD on your unlicensed player.
For instance, what if a DVD EULA said that people of color can't watch the movie?
I don't know. I'm not sure where anti-discrimination laws come into play and how they stack up against copyright laws. I would say that such a EULA would be almost impossible to define, because "people of color" isn't a legally recognized term. But I tend to believe that anti-discrimination laws are stupid, and if such a EULA didn't explicitly violate Fair Use, then I would tend to say they have the right to use such a EULA. I would think they were stupid racists for excersizing that right, but I would grant it to them nonetheless. After all, there's already laws saying people under 17 can't watch certain movies; that seems pretty blatantly discriminatory to me.
I would like a link to the other thread, alright?
Well I repeated most of my argument, but here's the link anyway.
Why you think that all these people wanted to keep DeCSS for illegal purposes I am not understanding.
Because DeCSS is inherently illegal. The "illegal" in the case of DeCSS is that it "circumvents anti-piracy measures" by decoding CSS, not that it makes copies. You don't need DeCSS to make copies, you make all the pirate copies of a DVD that you want by copying it bit-for-bit and viewing the illegal copies in a licensed player. That's not what I was talking about. I was addressing the fact that most people feel that if they purchase a DVD movie, they have the right to view it on any player they want, because they own that movie. This isn't true; they're only allowed to view it under certain conditions, one of which happens to be that it's on a licensed player.
Another thing that bothers me about this encryption is the ignorance around it. Technically, someone with the cash and the resources could build a burner that copies everything bit-by-bit and encryption would be incapable of stopping it.
This is true, and I've pointed this out on previous threads. But what DeCSS lets you do is not only display the DVD, but grab the mpeg data, which allows you to convert it into a smaller mpeg, like say a 650 mB mpeg. Very few people have DVD-burners, and the expense of that makes using it for piracy self-defeating. But lots of people have CD-burners, and VCD quality isn't that bad.
But my counter-argument to that is the same one I make against "secure" digital music. No matter what kinda of protection you put on media, it has to be outputted in plain, pure media at some level, and you can always copy it on that level. In the case of DVDs, someone with a legit player could just set their resolution to 800x600 16-bit and screen capture the DVD while it plays. Sure, it's more expensive and complicated than just DeCSSing it, but it's not all that hard.
If the people who hacked CSS did so because they wanted a linux player (and not the illegal purposes you speak of), and there was already one for linux, I doubt they would bother.
First of all, creating a linux player is one of the illegal purposes of which I spoke. Secondly, the legit Linux players were (and still are) under development, not finished.
I think it is unfair of the MPAA to have a legal windows compatible player, but make it illegal to make one for linux.
I completely agree. Very unfair. But not illegal.
Lastly though, I'm impressed that you left your email address (albeit at hotmail) and not one of the obnoxious spam-proofer codes that most posters here use.
So you're basically saying thatr WINE is violating Microsoft's "IP"?
I'm not sure, I leave that determination to the courts. It certainly seems borderline though. If it really works like it's supposed to, then it pretty much rips off the entire Windows OS and plugs it into Linux, minus a chunk of efficiency. That seems like the sort of business blow that we would all scream bloody murder at Microsoft for doing, but if the friendly Linux OpenSourcers do it, it's supposedly all good.
I'm sorry, it's people like you that seem to think that you can crush the human spirit along with the very idea of curosity.
That's a pretty low blow as well as a pretty empty statement. There's a difference between curiosity (reverse engineering CSS for research purposes, which is legal via the DMCA) and publishing a tool specifically designed to illegally circumvent current encryption. And would you be a bit more specific and explain where I was "crushing the human spirit?" The DVDCCA licenses CSS out to people, because it's a (or was) a trade secret. It's no longer secret, so now people can do whatever the hell they want to/with CSS without a license.
Except they can't, you're wrong, the DMCA says it's illegal to "circumvent anti-piracy measures" (CSS) or to distribute a tool for doing so.
It's like saying I can't develop my own kind of tyre because I figured out how to put tyres on cars.
No, actually it's nothing like that. It's more like saying that if you discovered a way to steal tires, (note the i) it's illegal to develop and sell a tool for doing so. But that's actually not illegal, due to the principle I pointed out in the beginning of my post "punish the crime, not the tool." DMCA is an exception to this principle, and though I disagree with the DMCA, it's currently the law and it's the job of the judge to enfore that law.
I thought that reverse engineering was legal? Well i'm not exactly a lawyer, that's just the impression I had.
Yes and no. DMCA makes reverse engineering legal only in the specific case of research, which the judge decided was not the case with DeCSS.
Besides that, an encryption algorithm basically comes down to a mathematical formula. Why does the government allow the DVD-CCA to license a mathematical formula? I mean, can i get 2 + 2 = 4 licensed?
Well first of all, 2+2=4 isn't a formula, it's an equation. The example would be something more like x+2. This formula, when applied to the data "2" would result in an encoded result of "4". You can't get it licensed because it's so simple that it's already in use by the general public. Just like I couldn't get a trademark or copyright on the name "convenient store" because it's a simple descriptive term that I didn't invent and is already in public use. On the other hand, if I come up with a specific name on my own, I may be able to copyright it. Same with CSS. It's very specific and complicated (well, compared to x+2) and they developed it.
Ideas should just not be considered property -- and it shouldn't be illegal to disseminate them.
But they are, and it is. And I think it would destroy the software, research, and media markets if intellectual property and copyright were eliminated as a whole.
How exactly do you get to be a "legitimate" cryptography researcher with a ruling like this? 2600 hasn't committed any other crimes at all. As far as intent, their intent was to publish the information because they found it interesting.
Well for starters, you publish the workings of the encryption itself, not full source code for software that will decode it. A minor difference, I know, but it requires that someone specifically know how to write code to develop software, and that they apply that knowledge to the codec. Also, I believe that the reason that 2600 found it interesting is because they recognize that their readers would find it interesting, which is because it's a means for "circumventing anti-piracy measures" which is illegal, as is the distribution of tools for doing so.
The assertion that the purpose of developing DeCSS wan't for eventually making a Linux player is just silly.
I disagree, and no one has given evidence to suggest that it was.
Well, this law is wrong. IMO, legal is not always equal to moral. How can we have fair use if all content is behind encryption?
I agree, but it isn't the job of the courts to uphold morality. If it was, I would first shit my pants, then move to another country, because the idea of being legally subject to other people's ideas of morality scares the crap out of me. To some extent I already am, like anti-drug and anti-prostitution laws, but those are laws, and at least I know about them and I only have to worry about a judge punishing me because drugs and prositution are against the law, not because he finds them to be immoral.
Ah, then that will probably be included in the request for appeal. For those who don't know, you can't just appeal anytime you lose. Appeals have to be approved and granted by the court you are appealing to, and they are only granted if you can show that something in your first trial went very wrong. They aren't just do-overs in higher courts.
Well doing it is bad, but writeing how to do it is just fine.
But "doing it" consisted of writing something that could be used as a tool to request nonexistent funds from the bank, as well as distributing that tool to your friends. It was your friends who actually requested the funds, so it's their fault, right? The bad check was just the tool.
fair point
Read about robots.txt.
There is a simple, agreed-upon, and (nearly?) universally implemented way to make your wishes known regarding linking to your webpages by search engines.
Of course, the court may be ignorant of that, as well.
The Web is like Usenet, but
the elephants are untrained.
I'm voting for Dubya because I'm worried about the moral and ethical decline of this country. We've let the nihilists run things for far too long. It's time to let someone who's made his mistakes and learned from them have a chance. We've suffered two terms now of someone who refuses to admit his mistakes, and lies instead.
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
Although it appears that you're not trying to support the judges attitude, it appears to me that you're failing. Basically, you're saying, "it's too bad, it's not fair, but it's their fault that they are getting screwed by the system.", right? Explain to me how what you're saying is different than "well, she wouldn't have had such a hard time proving that she didn't sleep with Bob if she hadn't slept with Tom, Dick and Harry".
You go on to re-iterate that it's not fair. What I'm missing here is your point. I read "they are reaping what they have sown" to mean "they brought this on themselves", or, in other words, "it's their fault". Then later I read that it's wrong that this is happening. In other words, "it's the system that's wrong". I put these together to mean "reputations shouldn't matter, but they do, so they shouldn't have gotten a bad one, poor fools".
The article already points out that the judge was apparently biased against 2600 because of their previous publications, and that this is wrong. So what you are adding is that, because their description of what's wrong with various security models reads to you like instructions for crackers they have brougt it on themselves? It just keeps sounding to me like you sympathize with the judge even though you know you shouldn't.
Not a flame, just wondering if you can clarify your point, or tell what you think they should have done differently. Would it have gone better for them, in your opinion, if their past articles had been less of a how-to and more cold and clinical? I'm just not getting it.
thanks,
mike
--
Liberty uber alles.
someone correct me if i'm wrong ... could one install a dvd player without agreeing to the licence ... then proceed to reverse engineer the player and publish the source code.
We *all* need post DeCSS on our severs. Everyone. That means you! The only way we can combat harassment and restriction of legitimate free speech is if there are more of us than their money and time can reasonably assail. I do not think I am the only one who feels strongly about this (but I am one of few who is doing anything). Once you have posted DeCSS, link it as a reply to this message. You can find it on my web server in the clouds. If mine is shut down try gnutella. Resistance is indispensable.
If you really want to confuse people post the other DeCSS too.
| Ceci n'est pas une pipe.
And furthermore, it's not illegal to know the combination to a vault which you OWN.
----
----
Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
Has anyone else noticed some creepy similarities between this court case and the court cases described in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand?
I hope this trend is soon reversed. I'd hate to see it come across the border with the strength it's building in the States.
You can never put too much water in a nuclear reactor.
Just for note on the MPAA 'about' page, these companies are listed as members of the MPAA, amongst others:
Walt Disney Company
Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.
Paramount Pictures Corporation
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.
Universal Studios, Inc.
Warner Bros.
I don't have a list of the subsideries. What you do with this info is up to you.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Yes, I've done all that and more. Of course, I haven't pumped millions into any election funds, or promised to build a corporate presence in anyone's district, so chances are my voice isn't being heard over the sound the corporate voice.
The signal to noise ratio is already past critical mass. The noise (braindead or single issue people who vote strait party tickets) has completly drowned out the signal (people who actually research candidates and vote based on their records and past actions).
So, I still vote/voice concerns/etc, but how many times DO you kick at a mountain before you realise it's not going anywhere?
Finkployd
People, please repeat after me:
CSS is not copy protection.
CSS is not copy protection.
CSS is not copy protection.
I can't believe how well the MPAA has pulled the wool over so many peoples eyes. CSS does not prevent copying. CSS does not make copying difficult. The ONLY thing CSS does is prevent Linux users from watching their DVD's that they just shelled out $20-$30 for.
While I'm on the subject, Macrovision is also not copy protection. Macrovision forces people to shell out $70 for a deMacrovision device so they can watch DVD's through their VCR if they have a TV with RF only inputs.
What I would do is buy a DVD and return it if the content won't play in Linux. Keep returning the DVD's untill they give you one that is not broken. A CSS'd or Macrovisioned'd DVD is a broken DVD!
Mmmmmm.... Well this is my sig.
Don't vote for George W. "The ought to be limits to freedom" Bush, either, if you're worried about censorship...
I'm Peggy.
What 2600 did was to stand as an acid-test to the First Amendment rights and the "fair-use" clause of the current copyright law. By fighting to keep the MPAA from getting what they want, they strove to set a legal precedent.
--
If you had bothered to read a few posts you would have known that 2600.com was suffering from the mighty slashdot effect plus not everyone could even use that link because they are behind firewalls that won't let them through.
Pontiac
If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. --Red Adair
As I have pointed out in another post the way bad case law is caused to exist is for the rich and powerful to pick first opponents that stand no chance in court. Then once an absurd, lopsided, decision is on the books everyone accepts that absurdity as the 'law' from that point forward. The legal system makes no note of the fact that you beat up somebody with ALS in a wheel chair in your judicial fist fight - all that gets recorded is the big 'W' in your column.
The law, 100's of millions of lines of code, not one line of which has ever been tested to see if it works.
I don't think this is comparable to lockpicking. Lockpicking requires different actions/technique on each lock.
I think what he was saying is something like "If someone discovered that you could instantly open any Master lock by tapping the combination dial with your knuckle twice, then Master would be at fault for negligence. It shouldn't be illegal for the guy who discovered this fault to publish the information in hopes of exposing weak security."
Also, when the DeCSS code was written, I don't think that there were any DVD players being developed for Linux. These closed source versions are also likely to only be available for Linux86, not any of the hundreds of other varieties (including LinuxPPC, etc). Also, (as far as I know) there are no DVD players available/being developed for the BSDs.
This is why this case is such a big issue. The MPAA is blocking you from watching movies without a technological reason if you have an "unsupported" platform. In effect, they are taking away the rights for us to watch the movies how we choose to watch them!
Doh!
Considering .au isn't under NY, much less US juristiction, they have a right. That's unless the .au's decide to follow suit and the likes.. of taking action against their 2600.
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
Perhaps they feel the obligation to fight because nobody else is?
Actually, they are fighting because that is the target that MPAA (intelligently) choose to hit first. Either way, they didn't ask for this, but I'm glad they are standing up for themselves and (in turn) us as well.
Finkployd
The 2600 article was well written and convincing. I admit I haven't followed the DeCSS issue, but if the 2600 article is correct then it seems like this case is a major threat to free speech.
Before sending a check to the EFF and posting DeCSS on my web site, I just have one question. Is there a well written piece telling the other side of the story? Even though I don't have any reason to doubt the 2600 story, its always best to hear both sides before making a decision.
Thanks.
It'll help if you've ever read an issue of 2600. I've got about a dozen of them, as the local bookstore carries it from time to time.
2600 is not exactly Scientific American. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of editing, and many of the articles are written in an informal, spoken-word kind of voice. It's not as bad as 3133t3 sp33k, but there's a lot of slang, bad grammar, and the like.
There's also a lot of "fight the Man!" rhetoric and quasi-revolutionary language, and the occasional thinly-veiled disclaimer. "This is totally illegal, and you should never do this, but if you wanted to here's how to do it...."
The impression created by reading a typical 2600 issue is eavesdropping on a conversation at a prison for tech-savvy criminals. It's not a fair impression, and it's more for show and image than substance ("We Bad! We 3133t3!") But 2600 manages to convey the message that it and its readership don't have much respect for law or law enforcement.
So when 2600 gets boned by a group of _real_ criminals (posing as Fine Upstanding Captialists) it's hard to imagine any judge reading a stack of 2600s and coming away with any sympathy for them. Page after page of "how to crack this system" and "how to phreak this phone" doesn't install much confidence in the argument that DeCSS wasn't intended as a copying/pirating tool. Page after page after tedious page of "Our legal system sucks. Judges are all corrupt. Free Kevin!!" rhetoric doesn't do much in the way of image building either.
What _really_ sucks is how much influence all this seems to have had on the judge - because once you get past all that noise and look at this case at the pure merits, it's obvious that the MPAA doesn't have a leg to stand on. If the legal system really was 100% pure logic and objective reason, the case would be done by now, and the MPAA would have been sent packing.
But that's not what happened. Obviously, 2600's somewhat grey-hat presentation style made a bigger impression on the judge than the actual facts of the case. And given that 2600 has worked very hard to create that "Hax0r 3133t3" image (that is now biting them very hard) they are reaping what they have sown.
I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that if 2600 was a little more like Scientific American, and a little less like the Hax0r Pravda, that their troubles would be a lot less.
And yet, the fact that a change of editorial voice could sway a judicial proceeding is truly a Very Bad Thing. That 2600 ran afoul of the law is just Karma; that the judicial system was unable to look past the bullshit and see the real case is... disturbing.
So I'm torn myself. On the one hand, I see 2600 getting a little Karmic balancing for all the "on the edge" stuff they've done. On the other hand, to see them lose a meritorious and _important_ case because of their image (and the associated implication that if you want to have your rights protected by the courts, you had better toe the editorial line) strikes me as wrong too.
And in all of this, I see the litigational genius of the MPAA's legal team. They've picked the perfect target, one that is going to have to work very, very hard to create any sort of judicial sympathy.
Does that help at all?
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
(If you disagree, explain why laws against passing bad checks could ever be constitutional.)
This one is simple, actually. The reason passing bad checks is illegal is because it falls under libel. In other words, free speech does not give you the right to lie. By passing a bad check, you are indicating that you have the money to pay it, and are willing to do so. If you do not have the money to pay, or are not willing to do so, you are lying. Libel law predates the constition, and being untruthful has never been guaranteed legal.
If you want a better example, how about license plates? In this case, the government is requiring you to tag yourself with a number, in order to utilize your constitutional right to travel. A direct violation of the right to NOT express things you choose not to.
However, the DMCA is NOT content neutral. It is illegal to publish source code to DeCSS, but it is not illegal to publish the source code of how to burn the Canadian flag. It is in fact the content of the source code that is being punished.
--- "So THAT's what an invisible barrier looks like!" - Time Bandits
House Legislative Action
sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
Talking about social responsibility . . .
I think 2600 considers this type of thing implicit in all their articles. However, maybe they shouldn't be so surprised when the whole world doesn't see it that way, and maybe they should be a little more explicit there.
It is also correct that destroying the "security through obscurity" philosiphy of many corperations is a good thing. How long does it take a security hole to be fixed after its seen in 2600? The day it hits the stands?
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Not a typewriter
Generally sound, but your argument about technically inept judges falls flat on its face. Supreme Court Justices usually have been older, at the very least in their 50s, and that generation is not exactly the most wired generation. It's equally likely that Gore would appoint justices in the same age bracket. HOWEVER, you are right that a Gore court would be far more liberally minded than a Bush court, and that liberal position will obviously factor into every case they hear.
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Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
Yep. Open Source and the packaging scheme for DVD media are by definition incompatible.
Fume and sputter and rant and rave. You won't change reality.
And people like DVD content. Prices are starting to fall for the disks and the players. This year is going to be the 'Christmas of DVD' and you'd better get used to it.
Get outta the way, geeks.
The DMCA specifically outlaws any device whose purpose is to bypass encryption or other copyright devices (like macrovision). Hence this sort of mod would be illegal.
Q.
I don't think EC goes far enough in discrediting this analogy. He states its flawed in that DeCSS is more like instructions on how to commit an assassination.
I would go further, DeCSS is more like instructions on how to fire a rifle. Firing a rifle is not in itself an illegal act (at least depending on where you do it), and in fact is a constitutionally protected right.
DeCSS is not instructions on how to pirate or otherwise violate the copyright on a DVD. It is merely instructions on copying the decoded DVD data to another media, what the copier then does is up to his/her own conscience. Since there are valid reasons to perform such a procedure (such as playback on Linux - which arguably is also a protected right, since personal use of the disk presumably is included when you buy it), no implication of performing an illegal act is made simply by publishing (or linking to) the DeCSS code.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
The MPAA just spent four million on a single legal case to uphold their monopoly on information. How much airtime do you think four million can buy, especially if you are the one's who own the major networks?
How difficult do you think it would be for these networks to get Joe average american worked up enough to demand action? How hard would the desision be for the government on a cause the average american supports and for those who contribute so much to each of the political parties?
Sealand is of dubious standing as a sovern nation, and has a combined sea/land/air based armed forces of a rifle and a speedboat. It would not be hard to justify the forceful removal of servers by armed invasion. Not too hard to justify if you can convince people they help terrorists and child pornographers.
Unless sealand someday becomes a major NAP, then lets not forget that a few simple court orders to shut down their traffic at the NAPs or their leased-lines where they enter other nations could have the same effect.
If sealand becomes inconvienent to the large corporations or governments of this globe it can and will be silenced.
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
"I'm rather jubilant now. What Judge Kaplan did was blow away every one of these brittle and fragile rebuttals. He threw out fair use; he threw out reverse engineering; he threw out linking." I swear when I read that, that last word looked like thinking. Which sounds about right really...
I don't like fish. Reverse the fish to e-mail.
First of all, Judge Kaplan should've disqualified himself since he has professional ties to the MPAA.
But apart from that - it's shit like this that really emphasizes the need for a jury. The only ways Kaplan could spout off with such a poor ruling are either: a) prejudice against 2600, b) ties to the MPAA, c) plain stupidity, or a combination of the above.
A jury would've eliminated a and b. And as for stupidity -- well that's where you hope for a jury of your peers (in this case, hackers).
Ahh well... I think I better give up my romantic notion of a just justice system.
SEAL
ANALYSIS OF THE DECISION AGAINST 2600 is the title of the article, and I was expecting an analysis. I don't think he really brought anymore information to the table besides complaining that he felt discriminated against. I haven't read all the transcripts, but I did read a few and I felt as though the issue isn't as black and white as everyone assumes. Judge Kaplan made a lot of good points in his decision, but, it did seem to contain an obvious bias against the 2600. I guess I expected Goldstien to review the decision and tell us why Kaplan was wrong. BTW, you're right about publishing "HOWTO: Pick a lock" and the fact that you can do it legally, however, that doesn't mean that you might not be responsible for what you choose to write. It's like the debate about whether bartenders should limit patron's drinking and whether bars are responsible...they aren't, but yet, are they? It's not an easy answer.
I need a TiVo for my car. Pause live traffic now.
That sounds like wishful thinking.
IANAL either, but since the shirt was already "illegal" by law (DMCA), then it may only matter that it was bought after the law (DMCA) was made. The current court case is merely part of the execution of that law.
At any rate if the law states that displaying the source code is a violation of copyright, then the ex post facto thingy would apply to continued display, and not displays done before imposition of the law.
end of line
.. and if any of you are overpaid computer geeks taking net.freedom for granted, I encourage you to do the same..
And yeah, they might not have premiums, but my liberty is worth more than a tote bag..
Your Working Boy,
Ok. I did some more research. It'll probably get all lost in this thread.
However, imaclinux has reported that it's possible to watch DVDs on LinuxPPC.
They link to this location.
I only have ydl, so I'm not able to give it a spin.
As another note, could I get in trouble for posting this? I guess it's too late if your reading it.
"Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely."
This is a very well-written article. The only problem I could really see is that Mr. Goldstein seems to be focusing a bit too much on "DeCSS provde to the MPAA that their protection was inadequate." This is probably just my bias, but that sounds to me like a "script kiddie" thing. "Its perfectly legal... we were just proving their protection wasn't strong enough." To me, the bigger issue is that DeCSS allows me to use my property (in this case, view a DVD I've bought from a video store) however I choose. If I want to take the movie and randomly rearrange the frames, that's my right, because its my property.
And CSS is a lock imposed on my property to prevent me from using it except as the person I bought it from intended. If I want to rip some five-second clips from it to use in a review, I can do that too, under fair use. Except CSS doesn't allow me to, and its now illegal to even tell someone about something that'll let them break it. To me, the fact that the MPAA's protection wasn't strong enough isn't the issue. Its that they had protection at all.
-RickHunter
I've observed that some geeks tend to lose perspective with the outside world after spending too long in computerland. As I was reading this tirade, I was struck with the fact that Emmanuel is suffering drastically from this problem. Then I found that it wasn't limited to just him; almost all the posts on Slashdot went to the effect of "the judge is clearly biased, poor Emmanuel got shafted. Just another case of the Man trying to keep us down." PLEASE people, try to withdraw from your life on the net for a minute and think like normal people. Here, I'll work off his statements.
See, in my mind, this case has always been about common sense. Someone cracked someone else's badly protected encryption scheme. Game over. It's shot to hell. You don't continue to use bad encryption or pretend it didn't happen.
That's not at all what it's about. This isn't a crypto war. It's like someone robbed a bank, and told all his friends how to get past security, then got caught and tried to convince everyone that he's the good guy for revealing that the bank had bad security. The point is that it was illegal to crack the encryption, and illegal to distribute the tool for doing so. If anyone doubts that it was really illegal, check out the DMCA. And it was the judge's job to uphold the law. So when he saw some kids arguing "Sure, we broke the law, but it was really their fault because their crypto sucked ass." of course he treated them with contempt. Their few defenses were bullshit. Development of a Linux player? Well besides the fact that developing an Open Source Linux player would be drastically violating DVD-CCA's intellectual property, (they spend money developing CSS, and they get that money back through licensing) the code was developed in Windows. But wait, he has another defense:
So now we have this law that basically says we are not allowed to show people the failings of technology if the people controlling that technology decide they don't want us to.
No, not true. DMCA "Does permit the cracking of copyright protection devices, however, to conduct encryption research, assess product interoperability, and test computer security systems." They didn't just "show people the failings of the technology," they took a program to exploit those failings and distributed it. It's one thing to tell Xing "Hey, we found a crack in your security and reverse engineered your program." and quite another to build a tool to use that crack and distribute it to the public. 2600 wasn't aiding crypto research, they were distributing a tool that not only had no legal use, but its very existence was a violation of copyright laws and the DMCA. They were fighting a war with an opponent that wasn't even aware they were being attacked. It's not the corp's responsibility to have good crypto anymore than its your responsibility to wear Kevlar. If you crack their crypto, just like if you shoot somebody, you're breaking the law. The crypto is only there to assure them some protection from lawbreakers. So what's their next point?
Oh, and let's also point out that no matter how hard they try, nobody can wipe the paint off the wall.
The fact that they can't stop all the criminals doesn't mean you shouldn't stop any. It's pretty much impossible to completely prevent all murders, but that's no reason to legalize murder.
He goes on to complain about how he was treated unfairly due to 2600's reputation. They earned the reputation. They're subversives, plain and simple. They teach people how to break the law. He says that if 2600 wasn't able to post their tutorials on things like stealing domain names and intercepting cell phone calls, that those security holes would still be there. Maybe so, but I don't believe for a second that 2600 published that info in the hopes of aiding the industry. If they really wanted the holes closed, they would discreetly explain the problems to the companies responsible, not publish them to a huge public audience of hackers.
Another thing that bothers me is that it doesn't seem to matter in the least WHY DeCSS was written. The fact is that DeCSS was written to circumvent CSS and, even if that was done specifically to cure world hunger, in the eyes of the court, it was a violation of the DMCA.
Actually it does matter. As I've already quoted, the DMCA makes it perfectly acceptable to crack encryption for research purposes. But the judge looked at the situation and determined that that was not why DeCSS was written.
And ironic that none of us even HAS a DVD player.
I find that pretty ironic, but probably not the same way he does. I think that for people who cry out so much about their "right" to view a DVD on whatever they want, they haven't actually purchased even one legitimate player. No wonder they want the illegal Linux player.
Now I don't agree with the MPAA, (though I end up defending them a lot around here, since the average Slashdotter doesn't even stop to think for a minute before crying out that MPAA is some giant conspiracy headed by evil warlords seeking to oppress all of us poor netizens.) I think CSS is pretty stupid and I think that the DMCA goes too far. Hatch even admits that DMCA goes too far. Hopefully it will be fixed soon. But in the meantime, it's the law, and the judge isn't biased and stupid by upholding the law. That's his job.
I cant take it any more, the U.S. "Judical" system has degraded into a complete and utter farce. People need to wake up! Try this one on, I think it is high time that the powers that be i.e. greedy corporations get what it is they have been crying about "Hacked"! Come on we all know besides the dreaded dos "Hack Attack" on those high profile websites there hasnt been an organized effort to really put things in perspective for these greedy bastards. I know I sound like an outraged militant nutcase, but you know I bet that guy who said "Give me liberty or give death" sounded the same way. Come on people lets give the MPAA and the like something to cry about. Woo Hoo!
I vote, even though it is a futile act. Like they say you don't vote for what gets done to you just who gets to do it.
Yeah, right, blame the scientists and engineers. Blame the ones who find the information and build the stuff that can be abused.
Politicians and marketdroids are innocent.
actually, i was trying to say exactly the opposite! special interest groups don't have to be a dirty thing. my point was that the EFF is in fact a special interest group and those of us who care about the issues that it pursues should support it. To repeat/clarify myself: big organizations have special interests groups, why should individuals feel that they are limited to participating in politics only through their vote? We should form/utilize special interest groups for OUR issues too.
i think you're actually agreeing with me, but the wording and tone of my original post was probably misleading.
Here is the actual text of the judge's decision:
acrobat format
Just for the fun of it, I tried to find out who had voted for the DMCA, so I could make an extra effort not to vote for them. But they did it with a voice vote - there is no record. How reassuring.
The DMCA was passed by voice vote in the House and by Unanimous Consent in the Senate. As I understand from watching CSPAN, both of these mean that no one objected strongly enough to passage to insist on a record of the vote (only a single objection is necessary to force a recorded vote). So the answer to the question of who voted for the DMCA: they all did.
This is only to be expected. The movie industry spent its lobbying money lavishly to buy the politicians. As we have just seen, since the politicians appoint and confirm the judges, this means they are also slowly buying the judiciary. We might win in the courts this time, but unless something changes, we will lose in the future.
we all lose our right to link to something on the internet...
we cant speak out against things large corporations dont want us to...
plus so many more things i cant list them all.
am i interpreting this correctly?
This case says nothing about linking in general. The judge was very specific in pointing out why he ruled against linking the way he did. It is illegal to knowingly link to illegal material (in this case made illegal by the DMCA) for the purpose of spreading known illegal material. You could link to a site and say "HEy, this place has the deCSS code on it, let them know you think it's wrong" and not be breaking the law. You could link to a page and not know it has illegal material (and they have to prove you had exact knowledge of the illegal material) and not break the law. All you lose is the ability to deny everything because it's not on your server, even though you are the one helping spread it.
As for code being speech, I think it's somewhere in between. It is speech, but it is speech that can be directly used as a tool. The only decent comparison I can think of is if you could make a car you could fold into a briefcase. While it's folded, it's not a car (when it's not compiled, it's not usable), but with an easy and quick modification (unfolding the briefcase or compiling the source) it becomes something entirely different. It is somewhere between speech and a tool, and it should be held somewhere in between.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
Hopefully, when a court run by a TRUE conservative (USA style) gets hold of this, the mess will be over. Can you ever imagine a true conservative saying that a bunch of "lefties" in Hollywood should tell you what you can do with your own computer equipment?
No, they'll say that "the good capitalist owners of the Intellectual Property on the DVD have the right to protect their property, and as good, True Conservatives(tm), we will preserve property rights and fend off the godless free software communists!"
Couching this issue in a "conservative" vs. "liberal" cockfight is disingenuous and misses the point completely. Both conservatives and liberals have an appalling voting record when it comes to digital media, be it efforts to censor the internet (CDA), to entrench existing monopolies (DMCA), to prevent encryption (remember the defense fund for the Author of PGP?), or to gain control of the internet and silence its many non-conformist voices.
It was Orrin Hatch who cosponsored the DMCA, for crying out loud.
And Bill Clinton who signed it (and the CDA) into law.
It really doesn't matter whether you elect the Republican or Democratic branch of the Corporate Party of America, the policies on all but a few social issues deemed unimportant to the almighty bottom line (e.g. pro-choice vs. pro-life) have been decided at a higher level of authority and are nearly identical in both branches of the Corporate Party.
Personally, I'm voting for Ralph Nadar in the hopes he gets a high enough percentage to impact the policies of those who do win (Ross Perot succeeded in this, giving us the balanced budget we enjoy today). In addition, I am preparing a way to get the hell out of this country quickly. With nearly all of our civil rights in tatters and most peaceful means of effecting change neutralized by Corporate America, change, when it inevitably does come, will probably be extremely violent. I don't want to be anywhere near this country (the USA, or "CSA" as another aptly named it) when that happens. In the meantime I'll vote and raise a voice of protest, but if and when the shit really does hit the fan I'm outta here. I refuse to sacrifice my well being because the rest of America is to lazy and stupid to stand up for their own rights.
FreeUser - who (after following the conventions and the treatment of the attendant protestors) now believes the system to be broken beyond all possible repair.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
>It would not be hard to justify the forceful removal of servers by armed invasion.
>lets not forget that a few simple court orders to shut down their traffic
I know your point, but I think you oversimplify - armed invasion requires the UK's blessing regardless of whether Sealand is independant or not, and aquiring court orders in every one of all the different back-up countries they'll have servers in is no mean feat either - it just takes one slightly-patriotic judge to think "Our nation will not simply kneel to every whim of the USA".
Use of force would have repercussions such that would be a last resort unless the police could handle it. As it probably needs military action, they'd have to have _really_ offended some big cheeses!
(Mind you, the USA deliberately bombed (without warning) a factory of innocents in another country a couple of years ago, citing "intelligence" that turned out to be simple hyperbole, then walked away under media silence without repercussion, so it's pretty clear that These Things Can Happen).
Anyway, I didn't actually mean Sealands vs the MPAA, I meant that oppressive USA legislation will create an environment in which Sealands flourishes, not that foes of Corporate America will use Sealands in their fight or whatever.
I never realized that the judge said that the use of videotape would uphold our fair use rights. Unfortunately the judge apparently does not realize that most videotapes released today are protected with macrovision. They cannot be copied with modern VCRs without some sort of macrovision remover. The DMCA makes macrovision removers illegal.
Q.
I think the real point is that we only have 2 candidates for president that have any real chance of winning, and they are both crappy choices. It hardly matters which one you vote for. Even the third party candidates suck this time around. Reform Party can't even figure out who it's candidate is. Any way you cut it, you're just deciding which way you'd rather get screwed. The real decisions are being made behind the scenes, and apparently with little to no accountability for anyone. As someone pointed out, the DMCA was passed with a voice vote. Can you believe that?! A law that important and we can't even know who voted for or against it. Just Congress doing a great CYA job.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I agree, sometimes it is. Doesn't change the fact that you should do the right thing, though.
I hear that a lot of the peace activists (and let's face it, there were certainly a lot of people doing that just because it was what was cool) would argue that they weren't opposed to the war because they were afraid to die--they would be willing to die for what was right. But when a couple of them were killed by whoever it was at Kent State, everyone went home...
What you're doing is seeing the larger problem of living morally encapsulated into the tiny little question "will I refuse to buy the DVD of the X-Men in protest of what the MPAA is doing?" [NOTE--I do NOT know if that DVD applies. I don't know where all the arms of the MPAA octupus are attached. please pardon my ignorance].
The fact that the majority of people really woudn't want to be bothered with not buying the DVD of a movie they really like is the biggest threat to our freedom. We act like it's "the corporations" or "the government". The truth is, it's us. If we were willing to go through the pain of product boycotting, we would control everything. It could easily be organized (the internet exists), but how do you get people to care?
--
Liberty uber alles.
I kept wondering when Kaplan was gonna say something along the lines of, "if he weighs as much as a duck...":P
Karma: Excellent, but still won't get you laid.
Too many of the analogies mentioned in the article are just too ludicrous to get past a higher court, and so this seems to be a way of passing the buck. My guess is that Kaplan knew that no matter how he ruled, he would not have the final say, and thus made things even more likely to move up.
I'ld better stop now. I'm having too much trouble passing my thoughts to my fingers.
Bill - aka taniwha
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Bill - aka taniwha
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Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
As much as I hate to say it, as much as it sucks, I'm afraid 2600 is fast becoming a victim of their own reputation.
Women who dress too sexy shouldn't have any recourse when they're raped.
Just in cast you didn't notice
Respond to s
This is an interesting approach that hasn't really been considered, at least in the 1000s of /. comments. Processing power is getting way cheap, so over time this would get better and better!
Do you have a link to the brute-force attack tool? Is this part of LiViD?
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
If you cant link to someone who has DeCSS on there site, are you breaking the laq by: Linking to someone who linked to someone who linked to someone who linked to 2600.com ? Does that mean that the court could just go get 2600's referrer logs and prosecute everyone? How far back is far enough? Why arent the ISP backbone's in court too... They ARE distrobuting, or helping in the distributing of such information... No? Hell, slashdot linked to 2600, as did many other sites.. Where does this end?
--- Tulsa T. Nawi, On Display @ Shattered.com
If you want to donate serious money and have stock or options, consider donating them instead. The EFF gets
the full value of the equities, you get to tax-deduct the full value of the equities, and you don't have to pay capital gains tax - for some tax brackets and option grants, this makes the donation practically free.
I agree, this is the scariest thing I've heard (the the link, BTW). I have really hard time understanding that anybody would say such a thing, it is a fundamental free speech-right. Obviously, this is something that the defense should use against him in the appeals. It makes so extremely clear that Jack Valenti is a cynic, he is totally corrupt and has a sense of morality that is despicable. Whew....
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
I can't wait until they release it on DVD!
One viagra in the morning before work; I just know I'm gonna be screwed
This fight needed to be fought. Sure, meekly complying with the bully would have kept 2600 et al out of court, but where would we be in terms of getting fair use back? The MPAA might be fighting a battle that, in all practicality, is as good as lost, but that doesn't mean they deserve the legal clout the DMCA gives them. What would happen if more laws (similar to the one alluded to on 2600 now, regarding reverse engineering - anybody got more info on that?) further restricting your rights to use/peruse/disseminate information get passed?
I don't like slippery slopes - and the good folks at 2600 are fighting tooth and nail to keep us from taking the first step down this one. They deserve our help, everyone - support the EFF!
Karma: Excellent, but still won't get you laid.
I thought so... Thanks, AC#2. (If I read your post correctly, you're saying you agree with me?) AC#1: Unless you're a copyright lawyer, I don't see how you're any more qualified than I am, and I've read quite a few works on copyright. Can you provide a link to back up your claim? Or any information at all to back it up? Just so I can see the relevant sections of law and interpret them for myself.
-RickHunter
Quite annoying, actually.
If you staple $100 bills all over your clothing, walk through the most crime-ridden part of down, and then duck into a back alley - and then get robbed - it doesn't mean you're not a robbery victim, and it doesn't mean that you shouldn't be given legal recourse.
But neither does it mean you're very _smart_, either. It's not good that you got robbed, it's not right that you got robbed, but it's not suprising you got robbed. And in retrospect, the decision to walk around with $100 bills stapled to your clothing doesn't look very bright.
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
This ruling seems to support the idea that since you can get information in a different medium (a video tape instead of DVD) that a copy of a DVD is unneeded. Thus the software to copy a DVD can only be used for supposedly evil purposes. If this is indeed true, would it be so unlikely for the RIAA to use the same judgement with cd rippers? You don't need a copy on your computer since you can buy a regualar cassete tape?
This is of course completely illogical. It seems to show the judge's incredible bias that Kaplan would ignore the fact that there is a difference in bot quality and content.
Uberwonko
Point 1. The Presidential election isn't the only one this november. Have you ever heard of a little thing called the SENATE?
Yep. My choices aren't much better in the congressional elections. I can choose between republican, democrat, green, libertarian, or natural law candidates. The green and natural law candidates are so obscure that I can't find any info on their positions. The libertarian kinda scares me, but I've downloaded her book in the hope of gaining some insight into exactly what her vision is and how she plans to go about it without completely destroying the country. The republican and democrat candidates are the usual. Nothing special. Nothing different. Nothing at all about their views on tech or IP issues.
Point 2. There is a world of difference between the two major party's candidates for president. Didn't you know that one of them invented the internet?
I think you're making my point here. Neither of them really have a clue about tech issues except insofar as they effect the corporations that contribute to their campaigns. Maybe if we could elect their cabinet it would help, but we can't. Both have taken tons of money from the corps that want legislation like the DMCA to be in place and that pretty much makes them both completely worthless to vote for.
but you have to vote for whomever is closest sometimes.
Exactly. And since no candidate comes within sight of my views on things, I can't think of any reason to vote for any of them based on the issues we're talking about here. There are other issues that I can base my vote on, but that's not going to improve the IP situation at all.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
I'd like to take the text of EG's article and send it to all my relatives as an email to help spread the word. I can't depend on them to click on a link, and it's more compelling if the text is right there in front of them. I figure 2600 would probably not mind, but since it's a copyrighted work...
Of course, I guess I'll just email and ask for permission. But that thought did give me pause.
--Fesh
"Citizens have rights. Consumers only have wallets." - gilroy
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
they bounced me...
Your message
To: emily_cutner@mpaa.org
Subject: decss
Sent: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 12:29:03 -0700
did not reach the following recipient(s):
emily_cutner@mpaa.org on Mon, 21 Aug 2000 12:35:47 -0700
The recipient name is not recognized
The MTS-ID of the original message is: c=US;a=
;p=MPAA;l=MPAAEXCHANGE0008211935Q0DV34PV
MSEXCH:IMS:MPAA:MPAA-HQ:MPAAEXCHANGE 0 (000C05A6) Unknown Recipient
YouTube & Google Video -> podcast http://castcluster.blogspot.com/
1) The Judges and prosecutors, but more so the Judges don't seem to have a good grasp of the technological issues surrounding these trials. It would be tantamount to having a programmer sit as a trial judge on a contractual law case. It seems that potentially, all electronic rights will go on being violated until either Judges educate themselves with the technology of particular cases or they assign a technological "advisor" (for the lack of a better word) to cases such as these to properly de-brief the Judge and if necessary, the jury. Someone with as little bias as possible.
2) The failure to see that Hackers DO provide a benefit to companies/corporations seems to be a loss of insight on the part of the court (at least this court in particular). Without the ability to point out security flaws (and that's exactly what 2600 did), much more damage could have been done to the MPAA's precious CSS.
3) The old addage "If guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns" comes to mind. This information was publicly available. I used to be able to pick up the 2600 at my local bookstore. Now, it's difficult to find a copy. Now, the ultimate concern for MPAA and RIAA and others should be that information such as DeCSS will go underground and disappear into the ether. There will be bigger problems around the bend for such institutions if this occurs.
"The answers are always inside the problem, not outside"- Marshall McLuhan
Anyone else reminded of the Emperor's New Clothes fairy tale?
<sarcasm>
Everyone ignore the fact that the DVD encryption was cracked. It's uncrackable. And those clothes Emperor MPAA is wearing look spectacular, don't they?
</sarcasm>
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
What I'm missing here is your point. I read "they are reaping what they have sown" to mean "they brought this on themselves", or, in other words, "it's their fault". Then later I read that it's wrong that this is happening. In other words, "it's the system that's wrong". I put these together to mean "reputations shouldn't matter, but they do, so they shouldn't have gotten a bad one, poor fools".
More to the point, we are reaping what they have sown. "We" being everyone whose life is influenced by computers, ultimately. Reputations shouldn't matter, but they do, so how the hell did so many people with good reputations (like the free software camp, with squeaky-clean leaders like Linus and Larry) wind up with their interests represented by 2600?
To the extent that 2600 was unfairly a victim of their own reputation, they deserve everyone's sympathy and support. But if we could untie our fortunes from theirs, it'd be a good thing.
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton
Right. It's slashdotted already. Does anyone have a copy?
>Did you vote?
I think it a little uncharitable to be smarmy on the dubious premise that you have supernatural insight as to his voting habits.
Besides which, while both parties are owned by the MPAA and the RIAA, the only thing that voting affects is the nameplate on the desk of the guy whose job it is to rubber-stamp the MPAA's legislation. Votes have nothing to do with the leaders of the USA, votes are only pick which lackeys do the same dirty work.
Actually, I don't quite believe that - I think that all those strange people who vote for one of the big two (and thus ensure corporate rule) should wake up and vote for the smaller parties. If the two-horse race can eventually become an 11-horse trifector, buying the Whitehouse won't be so easy anymore.
In this country (not the USA), the voting process was reformed before the second-to-last election. Previously we had a two horse race. 6 Years later, the politicians brains of those two parties are still locked in us-vs-them two-horse thinking, but they lack the numbers for a straightforward majority and need to co-operate with one or more other parties to get their way, and each election, they grow weaker and the alternatives grow much, much stronger (and are much less hindered by deep us-vs-them dogma)
Like stupid children, both old parties unthinkingly oppose the other in pitiful kneejerk reaction because oppose the other is what they've always done. There is a lot of inertia in politicians, and a lot more "my way or no-one's way" than "the people's way", but the poison is in the system and it is a thrill to watch the first hints of democracy emerging from what used to masquerade under the name.
My (quasi-realistic-in-the-near-term) ideal of Democracy is when there are a multitude of parties representing a multitude of ideals and demographics, and not one of those parties has anything even close to a majority.
My (poor) understanding of the USA suggests a fundamental electoral overhaul might be necessary first.
But damn is it a thrill to watch politicians who put kindergartons to shame wake up to the repercussions. Politicians don't like genuinely working democracy very much. They much prefer the version where votes give them the power to to ignore the voices of the other representitives of socitey and steamroll over any opposition.
Some of what you're saying is true, but some of it is way off base. Let me try to cut through some of the mindless babbling.
1) 2600 didn't create the tool to bypass the encryption. Someone else did. Regardless, that's not the core issue of this case.
2) The judge has now prevented 2600 from linking to DeCSS. That in itself is pretty questionable.
3) The judge should be interpreting the law. So is his ruling correct? Perhaps so -- the DMCA may not be palatable to us, but it is there. However, he is still a judge. He should be setting aside his personal biases towards 2600's reputation.
4) The basis for appeal will probably be on First Amendment grounds, regarding the distribution of source code. As others have already pointed out, other cases have already succeeded in this area. That's 2600's goal, and if it works, it is likely that the DMCA or portions of it will be ruled unconstitutional.
Their few defenses were bullshit. Development of a Linux player?
Yes, and as you pointed out already, there is a clause in the DMCA which specifically allows reverse engineering for interoperability purposes.
Well besides the fact that developing an Open Source Linux player would be drastically violating DVD-CCA's intellectual property, (they spend money developing CSS, and they get that money back through licensing)
The encryption was a trade secret which is more or less fair game once the cat's out of the bag.
Best regards,
SEAL
Oh, and I'd HARDLY call a BRAZILIAN govt organization "The Man". More like "The Poor Bastard".
Our company's stupid filtering software won't let me look at an article on 2600, no matter how relevent it is. I don't suppose someone (from a non BESS-blacklisted site) could mirror it for poor saps like me?
Does this guy check Slashdot all day long just to post this stuff?
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Hypothetical question: If I sell/distribute a Linux DVD player program that incorporates DeCSS or similar code, would the DVD-CCA have grounds to sue? If they attempted to stop me from selling my software, could that form part of a basis for an anti-trust or class action lawsuit of DVD (media and/or players) owners against the DVD-CCA and its members? I'm obviously not a lawyer, but I know some do read shashdot so I'm hoping they can shed some light.
FYI when I dealt with a filtering proxy anonymizer.com was blocked under every possible filtering type possible like hate speech and the like porn and such.
Respond to s
At the bottom of the 2600 article, it reads: We would give out an address for the MPAA but they've been blocking e-mail for some time and blaming hackers for every problem they have. So give them a call at (818) 995-6600 from 9 am to 5:30 pm Pacific Time. Be civil but make sure you get your point across. After all, where do you think that $4 million ultimately comes from?
So, I called. The call went something like...
MPAA-Drone #1: Hello, Motion Picture Association of America.
Me: Hello, I'd like to speak to somebody about the DeCSS case.
MD1: The what?
Me: The DeCSS case.
MD1: Ok, um... [fumbles around] Let me transfer you.
MPAA-Drone #2: So-and-so's office, how can I help you?
Me: I'd like to know if the MPAA has an official position on the recent DeCSS ruling.
MD2: You want what? In what capacity would you like to know?
Me: I am a consumer of many of the MPAA's fine products, and would like to discuss the DeCSS case.
MD2: [thinks long and hard] OK, let me transfer you...
Emily Cutner: Hello, MPAA PR dept. How can I help you?
Me: Hello, I would like to discuss the DeCSS case with a representative of the MPAA.
EC: Well, we would greatly prefer it if you would send us your opinions via Email. You see, we have only a few legal analysts on staff [ed: yeah right!] and they are busy pursuing other matters. With Email, your digital voice can be heard, and we will gladly respond. Also, please check out our web page, where we have a FAQ [etc. etc.]
Me: Well, who should I send my Email to?
EC: I am the PR Manager for Anti-piracy. My email address is emily_cutner@mpaa.org.
Me: You mean that anyone who wants to express their opinion about the DeCSS case shoudl feel free to email you personally?
EC: That's right.
Me: Well, thanks so very much.
Can your IM do this?
No problem. We can get cheap nukes from the Russia, too. Now how can we help you with these?
...for those of us behind overzealous (I could say more, but I'm trying to be positive) corporate firewalls.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Of course not! Everyone knows the Indians are the bad guys. We offered them some pretty beads for Manhattan. How dare they refuse us
A DMCA-copycat is moving through the political system in Australia. I can't find the article I read about it, so I don't know how far it is, but 2600.au will probably be in trouble soon enough.
My firewall at work won't let me go to 2600. or any site with 2600 in its domain. So I'm glad they did post the entire article.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Could most likely fit the whole thing on a solderless breadboard. Necessary IC's require really few extra components anyway. Hardest part would be to make the connections to the digital signal inside the minidisc(maybe solder some wires to the d/a-chip).
Not really detailed information but this is the general idea. As long as you hook up the chips correctly (follow the application notes on data-sheets) it's pretty much like playing with legos(digital electronics is that easy). If everything doesn't work right an oscilloscope is going to be helpfull..
Ok.. Now linking is illegal if the subject matter being linked to is illegal or if the subject being linked doesn't want to be linked to.
:)
Here's what you do.
Grab a large number of domains. Set up numerous webservers with all the domains. Set up LOTS of webpages. LOTS of them. Get lots of geocities accounts and accounts on every free webserver you can. Set up numerous pages on all these sites and make sure you have a lot of links to them that will be discovered and followed. Don't forget copyright notices on each page that linking to these sites is expressely prohibited and copying of the material on any of these pages is expressely prohibited.
Then wait a few months so the search engines will find all of them.
Now go on google and find your pages being linked, along with *gasp* a COPY OF YOUR PAGE HOSTED ON GOOGLE!!!! (cached pages in case you don't get it)
Find this extremely revolting and have a laywer draw up a form letter for you to send ceise and desist orders for EACH page in violation. Dont' forget the other search engines as well, as they're also illegally linking to you.
Wait a few days, or however many days you gave the engines to remove those links. Check all of them again. If any of them are still there, then they have willfully defied your order and you are now justified in suing for excessive damages.
And precedent has already been set to allow this. It no longer seems so horribly silly anymore.
But the judge in that case might actually have some degree of common sense and realize that the search engines can't be held responsible for every link on their site. This will have the effect of creating a precedent where linking IS permitted, even against the wishes of those who do not want it.
Of course, someone else will have to do this. I don't have the time.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Both of the big parties will probably support the RIAA, the big movie studios, and other large companies...
Because studio executives donate big steaming piles of soft money to both parties. If the EFF would establish a PAC, they'd be able to grab some ears?
The Democrats, I think, are only slightly more likely to work on solving this problem.
You need to ease up on the crack pipe. Neither party will do anything about DMCA. That's what the courts are for. Because of the number of supreme court justices that will be appointed by the next president, this election is EXTREMELY important. Do you want judges to be independant minded or do you want justices to pass a few litmus tests before they're appointed?
Therefore I stand by my statement - donating money to the EFF will make more of a difference than voting.
You could make and then stand by the statement that your feet smell like peaches. That doesn't make it any more or less true.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
hmmmmmmmmmmmmm
let me share this with you my friend: communism failed for a reason!
"..simply raid their residences"...jesus!!!???
for a virtual link to a virtual space to some digital code??? easy there stalin. take a breather. The US of A is not a place to start calling for residential raids and restrictions of human, let alone civil, rights.
You have missed the implications of this decision. Look at thr possibilities. Perhaps this analogy will help you:
--- If putting a piece of scotch tape over a small hole in a cassette tape allows you to record on that cassette when you run out of blanks became punishable in a court of law, would that be OK?? If you engineered this method of recording on a cassette YOU OWN but was originally only intended to be used to play (in your case old communist propaganda) the commercial music, would you feel as if you have committed a crime?? ---
i didnt think so.
wake up sir, and if you are an American citizen, do us all a favor and MOVE! GO BACK TO NORTH KOREA or wherever you rolled out of.
-Vanguard
"I think, therefore I get paid."
Despite being a democrat-- a liberal democrat no less, I feel morally obligated to point out that Kaplan was a Clinton appointee.
This is not to say that the choices of "Shrub" would be any better. In fact, his court would most likely be more hostile to free speach doctrine, while at the same time, more friendly to the demands of corporate entities, possibly including the MPAA.
I don't know if Nader has a position. I don't want to even think about Buchanan's nominees...
I find section 1201(a)(2)(A) to be pointless with regaurd to CSS.
If I use a compliant DVD player and play a DVD, then capture the out put in digital form. I could easily distrubute the digital recording. CSS would not stop me and I would have incurred only degradation related to one conversion to analog.
If the Judge Kaplan believes that DivX does not perceptably change the movie, I would suspect he would feel the same about this method. The DMCA would not come into play in this senario, but effective pirating would be accomplished, because of this I do not believe CSS is effective at all.
You do not have to crack CSS to pirate.
This whole case is annoying.
Troy
Leave it to Charles Dickens, a couple of hundred years back, to be amazingly prescient -
"If the law supposes THAT, sir, then the law is an ass!" -- Great Expectations
Ditto for Judge Kaplan, although I simply can't seem to dig up any surprise that, once again, american courts decide in favor of the biggest wallet. The Romans said it best - "Qui Bono?"
"...they may harpoon us, but they ain't gonna pick us up on no radar screen!"
Nader.
I would like to challenge slashdoters to do design a legal system to do the following:
Favor evil as much as possible.
Create the appearance of fairness.
Allow some people to behave as tyrants.
Frustrate good.
Punish the innocent as much as possible.
Do everything possible to let the guilty off.
Be constructed in such a way that 'the public' accepts it as legitimate.
Spend some time thinking about this. At the end of that time see if there is ANYTHING you would change in the current system that would better meet the above criteria. I have been thinking about it for a long time, I haven't been able to come up with anything, how about you?
"Prior restraint" means restraint prior to a decision on the status of the particular speech (or action) in question, and is never permitted. (An example of prior restraint would be cops demanding that a bookstore remove objectionable magazines on the grounds of obscenity before any judicial ruling had been made on those specific magazines.) But once a judicial decision has been made, even if it's still under appeal, it can no longer be "prior restraint."
OK then. Which of the parties do you think I should vote for?
/rant >
Which one do you think is going to appoint supreme court justices that attempt to stick to a literal reading of the constitution instead of bending it? And support free speech at the expense of corporate control?
I'm so happy that you can tell me, because I'm damned if I can tell from the ads on TV! I honestly don't know!
< rant >
By the way, why do candidates put up signs with just their freakin NAME on them? Am I supposed to vote for them because I like their NAME? Why the h3ll don't they put something like their policies on the stupid signs if they are going to print ten thousand of them and stick them on lawns all over the city?
<
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
I think the real point is that we only have 2 candidates for president that have any real chance of winning, and they are both crappy choices.
Point 1. The Presidential election isn't the only one this november. Have you ever heard of a little thing called the SENATE?
Point 2. There is a world of difference between the two major party's candidates for president. Didn't you know that one of them invented the internet?
Unless you're running, there will never be a politicial that agrees with you on 100% of the issues 100% of the time, but you have to vote for whomever is closest sometimes.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Given the candidates that are out there, what difference would it make to our rights which one we vote for? Thanks to tons of corporate money and a virtual monopoly on media coverage, we only have 2 viable candidates in this election. Neither one of them will do a damn thing to restore or protect our rights.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I've never seen a DVD player with a video digital out. The only kind of output that DVD players is for sound. What is trying to be accomplished here is digital output of sound *AND* video signals. This of course is exactly what CSS is designed to protect.
________________
They're - They are
Their - Belonging to them
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
Wait, now, where, exactly, do you tap? Does it matter which knuckle??? Tell, tell!!!
--
Liberty uber alles.
If more of us would get off our duffs, and research the candidates, and then vote, maybe we could avoid this kind os censorship in the future.
The difference to me is that a nice encryption *algorithm* is simply a process, even it if has example implementations, but DeCSS by its nature requires additional data, namely the keys for decrypting the DVDs. AFAIK, the algorithm wasn't a well-kept secret, but the keys were (well, maybe not so well-kept.
I liken it to having a key to my truck that would let me put stuff in the bed. Maybe GM wanted to keep the key to the bed so that I could only use the bed when I was doing certain things, like hauling around DVD players.
Everyone knows that if I were to get the key, I could haul around dirt, chickens, or whatever. Now someone breaks into GM's super-secret key-shack and posts a key-code that can be used by consumers to make their own truck-bed keys.
I, among millions of others, get the key code, and take it to my friendly locksmith (or GM repo-man) to get the key made. Now I have free use of my truck bed, and I am happy. However, GM views this as a terrible thing, and they decide to sue for an injunction to remove the key code from the Web. They win, and get the code removed from at least the most prominent sites. Several smug quotes from their lawyers are printed in articles, "We are glad that the court has rectified the illegal use of truck beds, etc."
On appeal, a judge with stock in GM hears the case, and agrees with GM since it is obvious that people with the code are carting around all sort of stuff that GM doesn't want carted.
Finally, the US Supreme Court takes the case and tells GM that they are silly, and that consumers actually do have some rights, and that GM has to provide bed-keys to all people who bought their trucks.
Disclaimer: I like my truck a lot, and it is from GM, so I have no complaint with them, but I would if they tried to tell me how I could use it.
end of line
Given the circumstances surrounding the trial, an appeal will almost certainly be heard. Kaplan was clearly biased, and was hostile towards the defense.
He probably should have rescued himself before the trial started, because this left a huge case of conflict of interest. His personal opinions of Mr. Garbus destroyed any chance at a fair trial.
SO yes, the MPAA won this round... But there will be multiple appeals. Probably all the way to the supreme court. Given the court's recent history in copyright/tradesecret cases, it wouldnt surprise me if 2600 wins at this point. It may have to go all the way to the Supreme court before they win, though.
tagline
... hi bingo
I located a copy of the Bernstein v Dept of State ruling (http://www.eff.org/pub/Privacy/Crypto_export/Bern stein_case/Legal/960415.decision), which among other things states this:
"For the purposes of First Amendment analysis, this court finds that source code is speech."
The UTTERLY FRIGHTENING thing is that Kaplan held that DeCSS WAS speech! He said it was also functional, and that banning it was a content-neutral regulation that was narrowly tailored to advancing an important governement interest. That is he applied the intermediate scrutiny test, citing US v O'Brian that the governement can ban burning draft cards.
He ignored without comment the fact that Congress explicitly stated that the DMCA did not "diminish any rights of free speech or the press for activities using consumer electronics, telecommunications, or computing products. " [1201(c)(4)].
He then put elipses (!!!) over "but in no event shall impose a prior restraint on free speech or the press protected under the 1st amendment to the Constitution; " when he quoted 1203(b)(1)'s empowerment of judicial injunctions. [p83]
Once again. Kaplan admits DeCSS is 'protected under the 1st amendment' !!!! In his own words:
"As computer code--whether source or object--is a means of expressing ideas, the First Amendment must be considered before its dissemination may be prohibited or regulated. In that sense, computer code is covered or, as sometimes is said, 'protected' by the First Amendment." [p51]
"It cannot seriously be argued that any form of computer code may be regulated without reference to First Amendment doctrine." [p50]
Out of thin air.
Which finding of fact which has actual significance to Kaplan's opinion do you contend to be false? Delete Kaplan's suggestions that the 2600 bunch are somehow unsavory, and the opinion's still there.
I can't presume to tell you who to vote for. I know who I'm voting for. I find it laughable that you can see no difference between the two major candidates.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I think killing DeCSS may cost the MPAA folks money. Maybe others have made this observation, but anyway, here goes...
DeCSS offers two nice features for movie copiers. First, with high-speed DVD readers, a movie can be ripped much faster than real-time. (6x, 10x, etc.) Second, the quality of the rip is as good as the original, since it is the original. But feeding a video stream straight into a video capture card will work to copy a DVD, and there's no reason to believe this won't be available tech for a long time to come. Movies for internet download will probably be converted to some format like DivX;-), where the quality difference from a straight rip probably isn't an issue. For someone willing to copy a movie, neither advantage is such a big deal that it will stop them from doing so. So there's no reason to expect that sources of downloadable movies will be slowed by eliminating DeCSS.
No, for the MPAA to keep people buying DVDs, it must encourage people to stay away from those sites. DeCSSing stuff for private use, while illegal under the DMCA, isn't what they care about; they want those fat checks rolling in. Now, as an average consumer, I probably won't seek out pirate sites normally. But if I find that a DVD imposes some annoyance on me that I want to get rid of, I may buy the DVD and then seek out a download site, and download and create a VCD without the forced commercials (or whatever). But once I've done that once, I've found a gateway. I know where to get those files, and I have a grievance (in my mind, at least) with the DVD vendor. In that situation, I'm more likely to go ahead and download other files, simply because I know where they are and how to get them.
If DeCSS and the like were available to me, I probably wouldn't seek out the distribution sites. Paying money for a DVD seems a fair system to most of us, and if it is overpriced, I simply don't buy it, or else I rent it. Allow me to convert it when the need arises, and then I won't seek out those download sites, and I won't get into a situation where I can easily download movies I never purchased.
Meanwhile, if I am the type to seek out such sites, the lack of DeCSS just means the files I download are trivially lower in quality. Big whoop.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
And some backwards places have crazy laws like "You cannot put an ice cream cone in your pocket". Just the other day I heard that some guy, under some stupid no-tolerence law, is spending 35-years-to-life for stealing a bicycle. A friggen $100 BIKE!
Are these people technically breaking the law? YES
Are these laws dumb and should be abolished? YES
Should these laws be challenged and brought to the Supreme Court? YES
People owned slaves once. Don't make it right.
Well, I read the transcripts and thought he was getting it. But then he found the opposite way, which really surprised me. Sure seems like he was soaking it all up, just to say, "well, I don't believe you, tough". He totally disregarded (or discredited without cause) a lot of testimony.
We've already (hopefully) established that DMCA is brain-dead and should be abolished. Reverse engineering, even to *implement* competing products is well established as legal. The player was only illegal insofar as it was contradictory to DMCA, which we've established is wrong in the first place. The judge could have questioned the constitutionality of DMCA...but he didn't. In fact he didn't even make any allowance that this was a grey area, and instead, went the extreme in the other direction, even banning linking to DeCSS code. And I thought that another court just upheld the constitutionality of that.
IANAL, but "trade secret" and "patent" and "copyright" are all different flavors of what could generally be called "intellectual property", and each have their own ramifications. There is a trade-off in using "trade secrets" along the lines of "you don't have to announce it, but if somebody discovers it tough for you". (Is there a lawyer in the house?).
IMHO, the rhetoric is still all wrong. E.g., it is impossible to *steal* a trade secret. I can *discover* a trade secret, but I can't deprive the originator of it. This mentality of physical property is just what MPAA, et al., want to foist on the consciousness of the American people. They want us to think their enemies are all peg-legged pirates roaming some digital sea "stealing" and pillaging their intellectual property, depriving them of a product won by their hard work. It just doesn't work that way.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
When I was reading your comments, I immediately thought of the quote you use for your signature. You obviously answer your own questions. I also thought of a favorite quote from Einstein. He compared the limits of the universe and stupidity
The decision from Kaplan was an interesting read. I could see how he was struggling to find an intelligent response. I see no malice in his views. I hope the next court does a better job of looking intelligent
I'll remind you all again that its time to get involved in your government. Write to your representatives in Congress and tell that that you don't like the DMCA, that it takes away your rights to such traditions as fair use, and grossly favors the large media corporations over the average citizen. Tell them that you want to see the DMCA repealed and a laws past to protect your rights, not the intrests of the media corporations. Then, get out and vote in November!
What's nice about the distributed nature of the net is that code like decss can never be truly removed. Does anyone remember how in elementary school, someone would grab somebody elses paper, and then pass it along to other people, causing the initial person distress? Yet there was nothing you could do. DeCSS code works the same way. As far as I'm concerned 2600 should have just removed it and said, "remember, it's still everywhere else". They would have saved time and money.
Viva Anales!
The UTTERLY FRIGHTENING thing is that Kaplan held that DeCSS WAS speech!
If DeCSS is speech that used to be constitutionally protected, but now a prior restraint is permitted, then we have enabled a wide range of censorship, not only by corporate entities such as MPAA/RIAA but anyone else with money and power.
This case scares me more every day.
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
Why you are throwing these meaningless political labels into the mix is beyond me.
Does it matter who claims to be a true conservative, and who doesn't? Every one of the so-called conservative Republicans who voted for the DMCA, and the CSA, considers themselves a true conservative. The term is meaningless.
I think the term you're looking for is a strict constitutionalist. Those people speak and act as you describe. No one who claims the label conservative believes what your hypothetical true conservatives believe.
Edith Keeler Must Die
Makes me wonder why type of engineer, what type of geek, will create something like CSS, barking on command from a suit, without even giving it thought, without being ashamed. I would quit my job if I was ordered to do something like that (or to lie about a hole in software, or to insert an unethical backdoor, etc.). I think this goes for a lot of the geek/techie/engineer/whatever community. The more proficient you are, the sharper you are, the higher esteem you are held in, the MORE ethical you are - you realize while it may be display of skill, cracking is lame; you realize that instead of flaming newbies, you should actually help them along, etc. I think it's called something, hmm...ah, yes, maturity. Sort of an unwritten code.
So I wonder what type of engineers these were, and how they rationalized what they were doing (perhaps they weren't told). Or perhaps the fact that a couple of teenagers cracked CSS in a matter of days, sheds enough light, with respect to the above paragraph.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
After reading this article, and everything else i have read pertaining to this case, this trial so far has been biased to say the least. I've read a couple quotes that clearly show the judge in this case already has his own picture of the ideals of a hacker and applies them to this case without really looking at what is going on. With the DMCA and judges like this one, the world of IP and corporate technology may be far different in a couple years than we know it today. Its scary to think of all the implications this legislation carries if someone doesnt stand up to it and try bringing it to a higher court.
http://www .google.com/search?q=DeCSS+source+download+&btnG=G oogle+Search
Is slashdot breaking the law by allowing this link to be published ?
Did I break the law by composing the query ?
Did google break the law by giving results to it ?
If I run the query, and it return's no results, then no-one has broken the law. But if later it does return the location of the forbidden program, does the previously published query suddenly become illegal ? And become legal again if the query stops returning resulsts ?
Does Mr. Kaplan smoke crack ?
Yes, today, analog versions exist, but they won't in a few years.
It's already happening! I'm pretty sure "Detroit Rock City" came out on DVD almost a full month before VHS.. a few other movies have come out this way also.. not only that there are MANY features and extras on a DVD you just cant get with VHS. So that dudes argument about going to get the analog version is total crap..
good comment... (psuedo moderation)
YouTube & Google Video -> podcast http://castcluster.blogspot.com/
We're also extremely fortunate that the Electronic Frontier Foundation was around to fund our defense. If anything has proven the value of the EFF in looking after civil liberties in the modern age, this has. I can't emphasize enough the importance of heading over to http://www.eff.org/support/joineff.html and donating as much as you possibly can to keep this case going. Explain this to as many people as possible and get them to do the same.
The thing I don't understand is that companies like Indrema are already making linux DVD players. There are even some opensource projects floating around. How can they get by with this. Were they able to license the code? And from whom?
"Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely."
But first, OB response to da groundhog: 1984 was not written by Orson Wells, it was written by George Orwell. And now for the link: my MPAA phone call... by eries. (please mod him up?)
The link is so far down that many might miss it (no excuse, just the facts) and it has this e-mail address for MPAA PR emily_cutner@mpaa.org
Visit DC2600
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
ANALYSIS OF THE DECISION AGAINST 2600
08/21/00
Facing a major lawsuit is a lot like facing a major illness. It's expensive, time consuming, and there are a million other ways you'd like to be spending your time. But if you don't devote all of your attention to fighting it, your continued existence is profoundly endangered.
That's how this thing has been affecting us since it started back in January. It's greatly interfered with the magazine, production of our film, and organization of our conference. But it was necessary - essential, in fact - and most people seem to understand why.
It's a real shame Judge Kaplan wasn't one of those people.
From the first teleconferenced hearing to the pretrial motions all the way through the trial, I was amazed by what appeared to be unfettered hostility towards us and the many points we attempted to make. I don't see how anyone looking through the transcripts would have any difficulty seeing this. But we all held out hope that this wouldn't be present in the decision.
Were we ever wrong.
See, in my mind, this case has always been about common sense. Someone cracked someone else's badly protected encryption scheme. Game over. It's shot to hell. You don't continue to use bad encryption or pretend it didn't happen. Yet in November, that's exactly what we saw happening. And even worse, we saw people being intimidated into taking down web pages that had the offending code on them.
It was insane! It reminded me of the one car crash I've ever been in where a garbage truck ran through a stale red light right in front of me on 8th and Avenue A in the East Village. The driver tried to intimidate the people who came forward as witnesses, telling them, "You didn't see anything. Get out of here!" But if you know the East Village, you know it's not the place to intimidate people and get away with it. It's also where a lot of the "weirdoes" hang out. So to me, it's always had the mindset of the net. And that's why I've always been comfortable in both environments. And, yeah, the garbage guy got in a shitload of trouble.
The kind of honesty you get by having individuals who aren't afraid to express themselves has always been a threat to those who imagine themselves in power. Until recently, the net was the only place where individual opinion actually had a chance. If the media wouldn't tell your story, YOU could become the media and tell the story yourself. The whole world could be your audience.
I won't even get into how the net is being destroyed by advertising and conglomeration. There's no time to go on the offensive when so much time has to be spent defending one's very existence. Every day we get new reports of people being threatened in some way by some huge corporate entity because their opinions and free expression don't sit well. Years ago, this sort of thing would have been laughed at. Today, it's a very different story. Voices are being silenced, criticism is being eliminated. And very unfortunate precedents are being set.
This is all made possible through bad legislation, things like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which has made this lawsuit possible. Unless stopped, there will be many many more like it in the future. And many more bad laws as well. Until we overturn this thing, the danger to all of us is incalculable.
Just for the fun of it, I tried to find out who had voted for the DMCA, so I could make an extra effort not to vote for them. But they did it with a voice vote - there is no record. How reassuring.
So now we have this law that basically says we are not allowed to show people the failings of technology if the people controlling that technology decide they don't want us to. An expansion of this law which could go into effect in October would make it illegal to even TRY to find failings in such technology.
It makes you want to scream. Concepts that most 12-year-olds can grasp and understand the value of are being signed away to entities that are already far too powerful. And the result is what we have been going through extended to however many more want to try and stand up for our vanishing rights.
To get back to the naive notion of common sense that we've been clinging to throughout this ordeal, we thought, no, we KNEW the right thing to do last November was to report the story and to publish the programs. And nobody here is ashamed of the fact that part of the reason for doing this was to show support for people who were being bullied. I've never liked bullies, whether they be kids, teachers, parents, cops, governments, or corporate giants. What they were doing to these people was wrong and we felt that our standing up might make a difference.
Well, it did. But not in the way we expected. Suddenly, WE became the problem even though we had nothing to do with the encryption being cracked or even with the initial release of the story. It was as if someone painted an insult on the side of a building that everyone in the world could see. A newspaper comes along and does a story on this and prints a picture of the building and is then blamed for the insult. Oh, and let's also point out that no matter how hard they try, nobody can wipe the paint off the wall. The way things are today, we're supposed to pretend nothing is wrong and if we dare to report otherwise or present evidence to the contrary, we will take the full brunt of the blame. Sounds like some weird medieval monarchy to me.
The sad fact is that we never had a chance in this court. A mere reading of the decision shows this more clearly than anything I could possibly say. "Not surprisingly, 2600: The Hacker Quarterly has included articles on such topics as how to steal an Internet domain name, access other people's e-mail, intercept cellular phone calls, and break into the computer systems at Costco stores and Federal Express." The fact that he would use the phrase "not surprisingly" speaks volumes as to his opinion on our value to society. It is, at best, utter ignorance and only proves beyond any shadow of a doubt how thoroughly Judge Kaplan bought into the MPAA's warped notions of what our magazine is about. We printed an article on weaknesses at Network Solutions that allowed domain names to be stolen. Guess what? They FIXED it as a result of this article and now, domain names, including our own, are not at risk of being stolen, at least, not as much. (Had Kaplan ruled on THAT issue, it would have been illegal for us to tell anyone this and the security holes would still exist.) The same holds true for many of the other security weaknesses we report on. But, as we tried fruitlessly to explain, we exist to report the story, period. Someone may fix the problem because of the story or someone may exploit it. We cannot and will not determine what happens as a result nor will we allow fear of that to make our editorial decisions for us.
Kaplan also seems to share the MPAA's amazement that we would actually copyright our magazine and our web site. ("Interestingly, defendants' copyright both their magazine and the material on their web site to prevent others from copying their works.") It's clear he believes that we have no respect for or belief in the concept of copyright. He either wasn't paying attention during my testimony or simply refuses to believe that copyright is necessary to prevent someone else from taking credit for and control of your work. I repeatedly said that copying was not our concern. What the MPAA is attempting to do with copyright is not at all in line with its original intent.
I also find it amazing how Jon Johansen's credibility is wiped away on two occasions with a single sentence. ("[T]he Court finds that Mr. Johansen and the others who actually did develop DeCSS did not do so solely for the purpose of making a Linux DVD player if, indeed, developing a Linux-based DVD player was among their purposes." "Substantial questions have been raised both at trial and elsewhere as to the veracity of Mr. Johansen's claim.") Yet not a single ounce of proof that he wasn't being totally honest is ever presented. I mean, we had PLENTY of questions both at trial and everywhere about the MPAA's veracity. But our saying that wouldn't be enough. Why is it that the MPAA is able to so easily put words in a judge's mouth?
The flaws in logic abound. At one point publishing DeCSS is compared to "the publication of a bank vault combination in a national newspaper. Even if no one uses the combination to open the vault, its mere publication has the effect of defeating the bank's security system, forcing the bank to reprogram the lock." First off, this isn't at all similar to what happened. If this analogy were to be correct, someone else would have already published the combination and we would simply have published the SAME information that had already been made public. Second, the security system of the bank was compromised the moment the combination was released or leaked to the public, NOT when this fact was reported in a newspaper. This method of blaming the messenger for the message has been used throughout the world to shut down opposition newspapers and imprison people who don't follow the party line. It's troubling to see it applied here.
Now, on the question of this theoretical bank being forced to reprogram its lock, would anyone hesitate to suggest that that is PRECISELY what they SHOULD do? A bank that didn't do this would probably be prosecuted for negligence. So why doesn't Kaplan apply this logic in his own analogy to the MPAA? Because of this: "Development and implementation of a new DVD copy protection system, however, is far more difficult and costly than reprogramming a combination lock and may carry with it the added problem of rendering the existing installed base of compliant DVD players obsolete." So basically, a security hole can be left in place if it's too expensive to fix and anyone who exposes the continued existence of the hole can be prosecuted? Riiight....
Meanwhile, a few pages later "the Court holds that CSS effectively controls access to plaintiffs' copyrighted works." That made me laugh. Would we be here today if THAT were true?
At one point, DeCSS is compared to an epidemic. But even in that odd analogy, it's recognized that finding the original source of "infection" accomplishes nothing. It's a nifty metaphor but I don't see what it does for the case against us.
Another time, DeCSS is compared to an assassination. No kidding. "Computer code is expressive. To that extent, it is a matter of First Amendment concern. But computer code is not purely expressive any more than the assassination of a political figure is purely a political statement." You get the feeling he's deliberately equating computer code with something bad? Maybe it's me. But let's look at this somewhat logically. A political assassination is a completed act. A computer program isn't completed until someone copies it, compiles it (if it's source), and executes it on the proper platform in the proper setting. A more accurate comparison would be to compare INSTRUCTIONS for an assassination to a computer program. They both require someone or something to act upon the instructions before the task is complete. By outlawing all talk of assassination, including those within works of fiction, we achieve the same level of protection that outlawing dissemination of DeCSS accomplishes.
Naturally, one of the most important issues here is that of "fair use" which is something the DMCA appears to be taking away from us. In other words, you are entitled to excerpt portions of copyrighted works for all kinds of purposes. It's also not illegal to make backup copies. These are very fundamental and important concepts. So how do we get around the restrictions that we're now finding in new digital media? Judge Kaplan addressed that important issue this way: "[A]ll or substantially all motion pictures available on DVD are available also on videotape. In consequence, anyone wishing to make lawful use of a particular movie may buy or rent a videotape, play it, and even copy all or part of it with readily available equipment." THAT'S the solution to the "fair use" issue - use old technology that isn't affected by the DMCA?! Not exactly a graceful way of ducking the issues.
Another thing that bothers me is that it doesn't seem to matter in the least WHY DeCSS was written. The fact is that DeCSS was written to circumvent CSS and, even if that was done specifically to cure world hunger, in the eyes of the court, it was a violation of the DMCA. If this is the case, then it's pretty obvious that the DMCA is one screwed up piece of legislation that has to be thrown out. But the judge goes way beyond this, insulting our integrity and existence at every possible opportunity and making no secret of the disdain he feels for the entire case of the defense. One has to wonder why he found that necessary if it was such a clearcut violation.
Naturally, one of the most disturbing parts of all of this is the ruling on linking. "The only distinction is that the entity extending to the user the option of downloading the program is the transferee site rather than defendants, a distinction without a difference." We can all laugh at such words but they represent something very sinister. We are now expected to believe that telling someone how to get a file with a link is the same as offering it yourself. I want to know if this works both ways - if I point someone to a site or product that costs money, is that also a "distinction without a difference" that will allow me to be compensated? This kind of logic is already giving me nightmares.
Finally, there are the disturbing words on who we are and what we stand for and how this is somehow relevant to the decision. "Defendants are in the business of disseminating information to assist hackers in 'cracking' various types of technological security systems. And while defendants argue that they promptly stopped posting DeCSS when enjoined preliminarily from doing so, thus allegedly demonstrating their willingness to comply with the law, their reaction to the preliminary injunction in fact cuts the other way." Interesting, isn't it? Our "reaction" is enough to condemn us, even though we followed the injunction to the letter. By speaking our mind and encouraging others to do what we alone were forbidden from doing, we are somehow in the wrong. How is this even relevant to the law? Are people who believe in certain things or associate with certain people to be treated differently? In Judge Kaplan's mind, we "are adherents of a movement that believes that information should be available without charge to anyone clever enough to break into the computer systems or data storage media in which it is located." This is, to say the least, insulting and just plain wrong. I challenge him to find a single instance where we have ever supported piracy or accessing private information. These ignorant generalizations sound more like the work of Jack Valenti's ghost writer.
What too many people don't seem to realize is that the rules have changed overnight and it WILL affect them. Imagine not being allowed to lend a book to a friend. Imagine not being able to play music that you bought in another country. Imagine only being able to watch "approved" content on your DVD player. And just wait until HDTV comes around and makes it impossible to record anything unless you pay. These are all natural extensions of the existing restrictions and they are all now perfectly legal. You've lost the right of "fair use" with copyrighted material that you think you own. In actuality, you've just bought a license to do what they tell you.
So, after all is said and done, I have to echo what all of the legal experts have said so far: I'm not at all surprised. This is how we expected the first round to go. It's now time to focus on the Appellate Court and eventually, since whoever loses next will most likely appeal, the Supreme Court.
Everyone is asking what will happen to us and how they can help. Well, we were pretty fortunate that Judge Kaplan didn't choose to hit us with the MPAA's legal bill, like they wanted him to. Their legal fees are believed to be in excess of $4 million so that definitely would have caused a delay in the next issue. It should also make it pretty clear that the MPAA has no qualms about utterly destroying anyone who gets in their way. And it should also make it clear how important we think this is that we would risk such a thing. And ironic that none of us even HAS a DVD player.
We're also extremely fortunate that the Electronic Frontier Foundation was around to fund our defense. If anything has proven the value of the EFF in looking after civil liberties in the modern age, this has. I can't emphasize enough the importance of heading over to http://www.eff.org/support/joineff.html (I'm actually afraid to make a link now) and donating as much as you possibly can to keep this case going. Explain this to as many people as possible and get them to do the same.
If there's anything good to come out of this decision, it's that we'll get to continue working with our legal team who have been absolutely amazing from the start. I've never seen a group of people so dedicated to learning and understanding the facts. It's a real honor to be among them and it's really changed the way I look at the entire legal profession.
As for what you can do to help, apart from the above, that's really up to you as it's always been. If you believe DeCSS is a form of speech, a means of access for alternative operating systems, or a necessary step towards "fair use" of digital media, then spreading it throughout the world is extremely important for the preservation of those freedoms. If you're in the United States, be aware of the risk you are taking. And if you're one of those people who really buys into the MPAA notion that DeCSS is a tool of piracy, please DON'T do the above because you're missing the entire point.
We can no longer post DeCSS on our site nor can we link to it. We still have the right to list those sites that have it in non-linkable form and we also have the right to speak out against the injustice we're being hit with. The MPAA would like those rights taken away as well. We cannot allow them to succeed.
There will be further leafleting campaigns in the weeks ahead. Keep checking this web site for details. And please let us know your opinions - dvd@2600.com. We would give out an address for the MPAA but they've been blocking e-mail for some time and blaming hackers for every problem they have. So give them a call at (818) 995-6600 from 9 am to 5:30 pm Pacific Time. Be civil but make sure you get your point across. After all, where do you think that $4 million ultimately comes from?
emmanuel
Viva Anales!
karma fishing!
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
Not only inmoral, but IMHO, if CSS was designed INTENTIONALLY to circumvent "fair use" then it is illegal as well.
In 2000 America, is a non-lawyer truly free?
It could happen that the MPAA could impose restrictions in their license to require CSS/DVD player makers to not allow non-CSS DVD's to be played. If there ever WAS an "indie" studio that took off and decided not to play the MPAA game, they could do this to effectively kill of competition. Another reason why ALL monopolist cartels, be they industrial (RIAA, MPAA), or otherwise (AFL/CIO, NEA) should be outlawed, as they are not in the best interest of the consumer.
In 2000 America, is a non-lawyer truly free?
If you don't like it, don't buy the stuff. If you think the distributors are screwing over the artists, tell them -- most decent artists want to hear from their fans, at least the ones that are doing it for the right reasons.
I have voted with my money, I don't own a DVD player. I have decided that the region coding is too restrictive and their are no DVDs that I want. There certainly aren't any that I need.
I know this is the thin edge of a wedge, but it's really thin at the moment. Groups like 2600 and EFF will still be around when the DCMA or laws like it are being used to prevent the sick from getting new drugs or something actually important, but at the moment it's just about songs and movies. Just stop buying them and shut up!
Of course the DMCA overrides this, and makes it illegal to reverse engineer encryption schemes. My only point is that copyrighted source code has nothing to do with this case, and that no trade secrets were stolen - they were reverse engineered.
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
VHS is analog dude, the D in DMCA is for digital, it doesn't apply to VHS.
The most amazing part to me of this whole thing is that the Judge directly advocated doing something else illegal:
Judge Kaplan addressed that important issue this way: "[A]ll or substantially all motion pictures available on DVD are available also on videotape. In consequence, anyone wishing to make lawful use of a particular movie may buy or rent a videotape, play it, and even copy all or part of it with readily available equipment." THAT'S the solution to the "fair use" issue - use old technology that isn't affected by the DMCA?! Not exactly a graceful way of ducking the issues.I don't know what planet the Judge is from, but the same DMCA that he was ruling on also made illegal the boxes that he was refering to. Virtually every commercial VHS movie has Macrovision CopyGuard on it, and requires either a specific set of VCRs or a box that explicitly strips off that Macrovision signal. If you wish to express your Fair Use rights, you must violate the DMCA.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
I agree that the arrogant ignorant stupidity of governments like the US, UK, and Australian ones create a TREMENDOUS opportunity for innovators like Sealand. Ultimately, I see poorer nations getting rich by having sensible `net laws and taxes. It's a sure fire way to draw business, because ANY geographical location is a potentially prime `net location.
In 2000 America, is a non-lawyer truly free?
How many Cardassians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Four. THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!
(rimshot)
Sorry, doodz, you are missing MY point. A true conservative has the highest regard for individual rights and property.
If I own a machine, I should be able to tell that machine what I want it to do, with my own instruction set/program, or a set given to me by someone else.
DeCSS does not copy anybody else's work, it is origonal work. I fail to understand why you imply that it has some sort of copyright infringement attached to it.
If I purchase a block of metal and want to make a replacement part for my Jeep, nobody should be trying to tell me what size or pattern for bolt holes I may use because someone else used them first. I know that I do not have the right to mill the word "Jeep" into the finished item, without permission, because Jeep did not make the thing, I did. At any rate, doing the above is just as much of a copyright violation as DeCSS.
The case at hand would be if Emmanuel were taken to court for putting my blueprints in his magazine with my permission.
Why you are throwing these meaningless political parties into the mix is beyond me. They can call themselves five legged dogs if they wish and it still does not make them five legged dogs.
Don't be blinded by the label, take a look at the product. Anybody that backed this stupid law is as far from being a true conservative as a Kennedy (pick one).
Visit DC2600
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Actually, I do own the content, if I recall what I've read on copyright law correctly. The MPAA has been saying that I don't, but I've paid them money for a copy of a copyrighted work. I OWN that copy, but I cannot create additional copies, except as allowed by fair use legislation.
Novell v. Network Trade Center, 25 F. Supp. 2d 1218 (C.D. Utah 1997)
"This Court holds that transactions making up the distribution chain from Novell through NTC to the end-user are "sales" governed by the U.C.C. [Uniform Commercial Code] Therefore, the first sale doctrine applies. It follows that the purchaser is an "owner" by way of sale and is entitled to the use and enjoyment of the software with the same rights as exist in the purchase of any other good. Said software transactions do not merely constitute the sale of a license to use the software. The shrinkwrap license included with the software is therefore invalid as against such a purchaser insofar as it purports to maintain title to the software in the copyright owner."
ANALYSIS OF THE DECISION AGAINST 2600
08/21/00
Facing a major lawsuit is a lot like facing a major illness. It's expensive, time consuming, and there are a million other ways you'd like to be spending your time. But if you don't devote all of your attention to fighting it, your continued existence is profoundly endangered.
That's how this thing has been affecting us since it started back in January. It's greatly interfered with the magazine, production of our film, and organization of our conference. But it was necessary - essential, in fact - and most people seem to understand why.
It's a real shame Judge Kaplan wasn't one of those people.
From the first teleconferenced hearing to the pretrial motions all the way through the trial, I was amazed by what appeared to be unfettered hostility towards us and the many points we attempted to make. I don't see how anyone looking through the transcripts would have any difficulty seeing this. But we all held out hope that this wouldn't be present in the decision.
Were we ever wrong.
See, in my mind, this case has always been about common sense. Someone cracked someone else's badly protected encryption scheme. Game over. It's shot to hell. You don't continue to use bad encryption or pretend it didn't happen. Yet in November, that's exactly what we saw happening. And even worse, we saw people being intimidated into taking down web pages that had the offending code on them.
It was insane! It reminded me of the one car crash I've ever been in where a garbage truck ran through a stale red light right in front of me on 8th and Avenue A in the East Village. The driver tried to intimidate the people who came forward as witnesses, telling them, "You didn't see anything. Get out of here!" But if you know the East Village, you know it's not the place to intimidate people and get away with it. It's also where a lot of the "weirdoes" hang out. So to me, it's always had the mindset of the net. And that's why I've always been comfortable in both environments. And, yeah, the garbage guy got in a shitload of trouble.
The kind of honesty you get by having individuals who aren't afraid to express themselves has always been a threat to those who imagine themselves in power. Until recently, the net was the only place where individual opinion actually had a chance. If the media wouldn't tell your story, YOU could become the media and tell the story yourself. The whole world could be your audience.
I won't even get into how the net is being destroyed by advertising and conglomeration. There's no time to go on the offensive when so much time has to be spent defending one's very existence. Every day we get new reports of people being threatened in some way by some huge corporate entity because their opinions and free expression don't sit well. Years ago, this sort of thing would have been laughed at. Today, it's a very different story. Voices are being silenced, criticism is being eliminated. And very unfortunate precedents are being set.
This is all made possible through bad legislation, things like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which has made this lawsuit possible. Unless stopped, there will be many many more like it in the future. And many more bad laws as well. Until we overturn this thing, the danger to all of us is incalculable.
Just for the fun of it, I tried to find out who had voted for the DMCA, so I could make an extra effort not to vote for them. But they did it with a voice vote - there is no record. How reassuring.
So now we have this law that basically says we are not allowed to show people the failings of technology if the people controlling that technology decide they don't want us to. An expansion of this law which could go into effect in October would make it illegal to even TRY to find failings in such technology.
It makes you want to scream. Concepts that most 12-year-olds can grasp and understand the value of are being signed away to entities that are already far too powerful. And the result is what we have been going through extended to however many more want to try and stand up for our vanishing rights.
To get back to the naive notion of common sense that we've been clinging to throughout this ordeal, we thought, no, we KNEW the right thing to do last November was to report the story and to publish the programs. And nobody here is ashamed of the fact that part of the reason for doing this was to show support for people who were being bullied. I've never liked bullies, whether they be kids, teachers, parents, cops, governments, or corporate giants. What they were doing to these people was wrong and we felt that our standing up might make a difference.
Well, it did. But not in the way we expected. Suddenly, WE became the problem even though we had nothing to do with the encryption being cracked or even with the initial release of the story. It was as if someone painted an insult on the side of a building that everyone in the world could see. A newspaper comes along and does a story on this and prints a picture of the building and is then blamed for the insult. Oh, and let's also point out that no matter how hard they try, nobody can wipe the paint off the wall. The way things are today, we're supposed to pretend nothing is wrong and if we dare to report otherwise or present evidence to the contrary, we will take the full brunt of the blame. Sounds like some weird medieval monarchy to me.
The sad fact is that we never had a chance in this court. A mere reading of the decision shows this more clearly than anything I could possibly say. "Not surprisingly, 2600: The Hacker Quarterly has included articles on such topics as how to steal an Internet domain name, access other people's e-mail, intercept cellular phone calls, and break into the computer systems at Costco stores and Federal Express." The fact that he would use the phrase "not surprisingly" speaks volumes as to his opinion on our value to society. It is, at best, utter ignorance and only proves beyond any shadow of a doubt how thoroughly Judge Kaplan bought into the MPAA's warped notions of what our magazine is about. We printed an article on weaknesses at Network Solutions that allowed domain names to be stolen. Guess what? They FIXED it as a result of this article and now, domain names, including our own, are not at risk of being stolen, at least, not as much. (Had Kaplan ruled on THAT issue, it would have been illegal for us to tell anyone this and the security holes would still exist.) The same holds true for many of the other security weaknesses we report on. But, as we tried fruitlessly to explain, we exist to report the story, period. Someone may fix the problem because of the story or someone may exploit it. We cannot and will not determine what happens as a result nor will we allow fear of that to make our editorial decisions for us.
Kaplan also seems to share the MPAA's amazement that we would actually copyright our magazine and our web site. ("Interestingly, defendants' copyright both their magazine and the material on their web site to prevent others from copying their works.") It's clear he believes that we have no respect for or belief in the concept of copyright. He either wasn't paying attention during my testimony or simply refuses to believe that copyright is necessary to prevent someone else from taking credit for and control of your work. I repeatedly said that copying was not our concern. What the MPAA is attempting to do with copyright is not at all in line with its original intent.
I also find it amazing how Jon Johansen's credibility is wiped away on two occasions with a single sentence. ("[T]he Court finds that Mr. Johansen and the others who actually did develop DeCSS did not do so solely for the purpose of making a Linux DVD player if, indeed, developing a Linux-based DVD player was among their purposes." "Substantial questions have been raised both at trial and elsewhere as to the veracity of Mr. Johansen's claim.") Yet not a single ounce of proof that he wasn't being totally honest is ever presented. I mean, we had PLENTY of questions both at trial and everywhere about the MPAA's veracity. But our saying that wouldn't be enough. Why is it that the MPAA is able to so easily put words in a judge's mouth?
The flaws in logic abound. At one point publishing DeCSS is compared to "the publication of a bank vault combination in a national newspaper. Even if no one uses the combination to open the vault, its mere publication has the effect of defeating the bank's security system, forcing the bank to reprogram the lock." First off, this isn't at all similar to what happened. If this analogy were to be correct, someone else would have already published the combination and we would simply have published the SAME information that had already been made public. Second, the security system of the bank was compromised the moment the combination was released or leaked to the public, NOT when this fact was reported in a newspaper. This method of blaming the messenger for the message has been used throughout the world to shut down opposition newspapers and imprison people who don't follow the party line. It's troubling to see it applied here.
Now, on the question of this theoretical bank being forced to reprogram its lock, would anyone hesitate to suggest that that is PRECISELY what they SHOULD do? A bank that didn't do this would probably be prosecuted for negligence. So why doesn't Kaplan apply this logic in his own analogy to the MPAA? Because of this: "Development and implementation of a new DVD copy protection system, however, is far more difficult and costly than reprogramming a combination lock and may carry with it the added problem of rendering the existing installed base of compliant DVD players obsolete." So basically, a security hole can be left in place if it's too expensive to fix and anyone who exposes the continued existence of the hole can be prosecuted? Riiight....
Meanwhile, a few pages later "the Court holds that CSS effectively controls access to plaintiffs' copyrighted works." That made me laugh. Would we be here today if THAT were true?
At one point, DeCSS is compared to an epidemic. But even in that odd analogy, it's recognized that finding the original source of "infection" accomplishes nothing. It's a nifty metaphor but I don't see what it does for the case against us.
Another time, DeCSS is compared to an assassination. No kidding. "Computer code is expressive. To that extent, it is a matter of First Amendment concern. But computer code is not purely expressive any more than the assassination of a political figure is purely a political statement." You get the feeling he's deliberately equating computer code with something bad? Maybe it's me. But let's look at this somewhat logically. A political assassination is a completed act. A computer program isn't completed until someone copies it, compiles it (if it's source), and executes it on the proper platform in the proper setting. A more accurate comparison would be to compare INSTRUCTIONS for an assassination to a computer program. They both require someone or something to act upon the instructions before the task is complete. By outlawing all talk of assassination, including those within works of fiction, we achieve the same level of protection that outlawing dissemination of DeCSS accomplishes.
Naturally, one of the most important issues here is that of "fair use" which is something the DMCA appears to be taking away from us. In other words, you are entitled to excerpt portions of copyrighted works for all kinds of purposes. It's also not illegal to make backup copies. These are very fundamental and important concepts. So how do we get around the restrictions that we're now finding in new digital media? Judge Kaplan addressed that important issue this way: "[A]ll or substantially all motion pictures available on DVD are available also on videotape. In consequence, anyone wishing to make lawful use of a particular movie may buy or rent a videotape, play it, and even copy all or part of it with readily available equipment." THAT'S the solution to the "fair use" issue - use old technology that isn't affected by the DMCA?! Not exactly a graceful way of ducking the issues.
Another thing that bothers me is that it doesn't seem to matter in the least WHY DeCSS was written. The fact is that DeCSS was written to circumvent CSS and, even if that was done specifically to cure world hunger, in the eyes of the court, it was a violation of the DMCA. If this is the case, then it's pretty obvious that the DMCA is one screwed up piece of legislation that has to be thrown out. But the judge goes way beyond this, insulting our integrity and existence at every possible opportunity and making no secret of the disdain he feels for the entire case of the defense. One has to wonder why he found that necessary if it was such a clearcut violation.
Naturally, one of the most disturbing parts of all of this is the ruling on linking. "The only distinction is that the entity extending to the user the option of downloading the program is the transferee site rather than defendants, a distinction without a difference." We can all laugh at such words but they represent something very sinister. We are now expected to believe that telling someone how to get a file with a link is the same as offering it yourself. I want to know if this works both ways - if I point someone to a site or product that costs money, is that also a "distinction without a difference" that will allow me to be compensated? This kind of logic is already giving me nightmares.
Finally, there are the disturbing words on who we are and what we stand for and how this is somehow relevant to the decision. "Defendants are in the business of disseminating information to assist hackers in 'cracking' various types of technological security systems. And while defendants argue that they promptly stopped posting DeCSS when enjoined preliminarily from doing so, thus allegedly demonstrating their willingness to comply with the law, their reaction to the preliminary injunction in fact cuts the other way." Interesting, isn't it? Our "reaction" is enough to condemn us, even though we followed the injunction to the letter. By speaking our mind and encouraging others to do what we alone were forbidden from doing, we are somehow in the wrong. How is this even relevant to the law? Are people who believe in certain things or associate with certain people to be treated differently? In Judge Kaplan's mind, we "are adherents of a movement that believes that information should be available without charge to anyone clever enough to break into the computer systems or data storage media in which it is located." This is, to say the least, insulting and just plain wrong. I challenge him to find a single instance where we have ever supported piracy or accessing private information. These ignorant generalizations sound more like the work of Jack Valenti's ghost writer.
What too many people don't seem to realize is that the rules have changed overnight and it WILL affect them. Imagine not being allowed to lend a book to a friend. Imagine not being able to play music that you bought in another country. Imagine only being able to watch "approved" content on your DVD player. And just wait until HDTV comes around and makes it impossible to record anything unless you pay. These are all natural extensions of the existing restrictions and they are all now perfectly legal. You've lost the right of "fair use" with copyrighted material that you think you own. In actuality, you've just bought a license to do what they tell you.
So, after all is said and done, I have to echo what all of the legal experts have said so far: I'm not at all surprised. This is how we expected the first round to go. It's now time to focus on the Appellate Court and eventually, since whoever loses next will most likely appeal, the Supreme Court.
Everyone is asking what will happen to us and how they can help. Well, we were pretty fortunate that Judge Kaplan didn't choose to hit us with the MPAA's legal bill, like they wanted him to. Their legal fees are believed to be in excess of $4 million so that definitely would have caused a delay in the next issue. It should also make it pretty clear that the MPAA has no qualms about utterly destroying anyone who gets in their way. And it should also make it clear how important we think this is that we would risk such a thing. And ironic that none of us even HAS a DVD player.
We're also extremely fortunate that the Electronic Frontier Foundation was around to fund our defense. If anything has proven the value of the EFF in looking after civil liberties in the modern age, this has. I can't emphasize enough the importance of heading over to http://www.eff.org/support/joineff.html (I'm actually afraid to make a link now) and donating as much as you possibly can to keep this case going. Explain this to as many people as possible and get them to do the same.
If there's anything good to come out of this decision, it's that we'll get to continue working with our legal team who have been absolutely amazing from the start. I've never seen a group of people so dedicated to learning and understanding the facts. It's a real honor to be among them and it's really changed the way I look at the entire legal profession.
As for what you can do to help, apart from the above, that's really up to you as it's always been. If you believe DeCSS is a form of speech, a means of access for alternative operating systems, or a necessary step towards "fair use" of digital media, then spreading it throughout the world is extremely important for the preservation of those freedoms. If you're in the United States, be aware of the risk you are taking. And if you're one of those people who really buys into the MPAA notion that DeCSS is a tool of piracy, please DON'T do the above because you're missing the entire point.
We can no longer post DeCSS on our site nor can we link to it. We still have the right to list those sites that have it in non-linkable form and we also have the right to speak out against the injustice we're being hit with. The MPAA would like those rights taken away as well. We cannot allow them to succeed.
There will be further leafleting campaigns in the weeks ahead. Keep checking this web site for details. And please let us know your opinions - dvd@2600.com. We would give out an address for the MPAA but they've been blocking e-mail for some time and blaming hackers for every problem they have. So give them a call at (818) 995-6600 from 9 am to 5:30 pm Pacific Time. Be civil but make sure you get your point across. After all, where do you think that $4 million ultimately comes from?
emmanuel
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
And some backwards places have crazy laws like "You cannot put an ice cream cone in your pocket". Just the other day I heard that some guy, under some stupid no-tolerence law, is spending 35-years-to-life for stealing a bicycle. A friggen $100 BIKE!
Are these people technically breaking the law? YES
Are these laws dumb and should be abolished? YES
Should these laws be challenged and brought to the Supreme Court? YES
And I don't deny that DMCA is a bad law, and I don't deny 2600 their right to appeal to higher courts. But it's not up to the lesser courts to decide which laws are stupid and which are good. Otherwise we wouldn't need laws at all. We'd just say "don't do anything that the judges think is bad."
We've already (hopefully) established that DMCA is brain-dead and should be abolished.
Yes, but that's not the same thing as establishing that a judge shouldn't abide by it.
IANAL, but "trade secret" and "patent" and "copyright" are all different flavors of what could generally be called "intellectual property", and each have their own ramifications. There is a trade-off in using "trade secrets" along the lines of "you don't have to announce it, but if somebody discovers it tough for you". (Is there a lawyer in the house?).
IANAL either, but I don't think you can officially license a trade secret. I think for DVD-CCA to be licensing CSS, that means it's copyrighted or patented.
This mentality of physical property is just what MPAA, et al., want to foist on the consciousness of the American people. They want us to think their enemies are all peg-legged pirates roaming some digital sea "stealing" and pillaging their intellectual property, depriving them of a product won by their hard work. It just doesn't work that way.
[sigh] I hate having to defend MPAA, but it kind of is like this. Imagine DVD-CCA spend money developing CSS, and nobody pays them to license it anymore because it's perfectly legal to use the open source version floating around out there? DVD-CCA takes a big financial hit that they didn't deserve. What if movie studios spend their 100 million dollars to make new hit movies, and everyone just downloads them from Gnutella? I know this is an exaggeration, and it's just the apocolyptic vision that MPAA is trying to conjure, but it has some element of truth to it. If you would have bought a DVD Player, but now you can get the open source one for free, then you have deprived the Player co. of money. When stuff like that happens, it discourages the Player co's and movie studios from producing product.
As long as there are PC's and hackers, there will never be total control of the digital medium by the MPAA/RIAA. Open digital standards, like MP3 and DivX will always allow us to exercise "fair use" whether illegal or not. Fact is, until Emperor Kaplan grants the MPAA the right to send in the Elian Gonzales hit squad in the dead of night (not as farfetched as you think given the extremist nature of his interpretation of DMCA), nothing can stop this.
In 2000 America, is a non-lawyer truly free?
There's some truth in what you say, but I think more to the point (and especially in this case), government and entrenched powers fear those who do not conform. They fear the "other," those who buck the system.
Look at who we're talking about: 2600 & Goldstein? Techno-anarchists who reveal the nifty secrets about the technologies employed by big business? 2600 was, after all, the control tone on the old telephone switches. (Remember the Cap'n Crunch whistle!)
I may be dating myself here, but I remember 2600 back when the phone company was the #1 technology monolith. So at that time, phone phreaking was the thing. Not to make a profit, but to get on that damned network and explore the hell out of it, see what you could do,put together conference calls with other phreakers and call Australia to talk to random people. Man, you felt like you could take that inhuman monolith and harness it for your own whims. Cool. (Remember Tron? Wargames?) These were times when the concept of technical knowledge as power really came home to a certain youth group. Jumping into Telco dumpsters at 2am looking for switching manuals or software documentation!
But the phone company, of course, didn't see it that way, and they certainly didn't talk to the media about such things. It was "theft of service," and "dollar losses" were arbitarily attached in case anyone wasn't sure it was serious. And they aimed to crush anyone who continued to stand in their waw. A decent, freely available account of this period is Sterling's The Hacker Crackdown.
Now, with that in mind, it is no surprise to hear media reports of the case as involving: "Industry fights against hackers who cracked the security of digital movies in order to make free copies."
It's not the technology, its hackers who are outside the system, hacking around, being a pain, and generally not doing what they're told. This is what scares Sony--not that they know a header file from a hole in the ground.
(BTW. Using Mozilla M17 for the first time today and it's great! What an improvement over the last version I tried. Go Moz!)
---
In a hundred-mile march,
I wanted to comment on this small part. Judge Kaplan previously worked at a firm who was representing Warner Bros. And he worked in a capacity that is relevant to the current DVD proceedings, thus indicating a conflict of interest. He also had dealt with Martin Garbus (2600's defense attorney) before and displayed a negative bias towards him.
You can read about it here .
- SEAL
Gee, I wish all the people he's put to death or sent to prison due to the war on drugs had a chance to "learn from their mistakes"! But apparently it's OK if you're rich and do cocaine; then you're just making mistakes from which to learn...
I'm Peggy.
The original version of DeCSS doesn't even work on the new DVDs. Why is this case still going?
http://www.digital-di gest.com/dvd/downloads/ripping_soft.html
This is not meant as a troll, but seriously... if the code in question doesn't do what it's supposed to anymore, why is the government still pursuing it?
After all, depriving someone of an article of clothing involves a monetary loss to a third party whereas removing the code from a web site takes, at most, a minute. ;-)
How many links are there out there. If there were enough links the man hours required for admins to spend one minute removing a link could add up fast. This decision could cost millions
Well, first of all a judge can basically do whatever he wants. The appeals courts are there exactly to deal with bloopers, judge prejudice and just plain ol' stupidity. A judge doesn't have to follow case law. He makes case law. [nitpick] Well, really in the US it's the Circuit Courts that make case law, not lower-level judges, but the idea is still valid[/nitpick].
Well, not exactly. Judges only make case law when there are no applicable controlling authorities, which would include statute and existing case law. (There is a third item, but I've forgotten what it is.) Kaplan effectively bypassed the constitutional issue by saying the controlling authority is the DMCA, and that 2600 was in violation of that statute. It's not terribly surprising, in that there isn't really a lot of precedent on code-as-speech (2 rulings from different districts, diametricly opposed), and judges tend to be loath to put themselves in a position to be overruled on constitutional opinions. Despite the interpretation that I've seen posted here, Kaplan most certainly could have invalidated the DMCA. I think he just didn't want to put his reputation at risk by ruling one way or the other on the speech issue.
isn't dmca applicable to digital content only? Macrovision is an analog copy protection method..
False.
Even if you disagree with their politics, Thomas and Scalia are constitutional constructionists that read the 1st, 2nd, etc. amendments very tightly, namely that they are and should be absolute. Compare them to Kennedy and Stevens who will read the constitution any damn way they please to make it fit their political views.
The only way to maintain our freedom of speech is to maintain a strict constructionist point of view. Remember, we wouldn't have the damn federal goverment insinuated into every facet of our lives if it wasn't for the liberal reading of the interstate commerce clause.
rodent...
rodent...
Tactical nuclear weapons are a viable alternative!
Please mod this guy up? It is refreshing to see a post with a clue.
Visit DC2600
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Like (I suspect) many of you, I have the Anti DVD-CCA shirt. One of my coworkers pointed out the absurdity of prohibiting linking; We know already that I am guilty of a crime by owning the shirt, especially if I wear it in public, because I am an illegal source code archive.
If he points to my shirt, is he guilty of making a link to an illegal source code archive?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
(Free Kevin! indeed)
Soon we may be seeing Free (as in Kevin) sofware.
These opinions are my own and not necessarily
These opinions are my own and not necessarily
the opinions of God or any other supreme being.
Therefore, the scientists who create these things out to think about their actions.
Good advice for any scientist, in any field of study.
I think one or two unscrupulous scientists, however, can always be found which is one reason why I donate money to the EFF.
Unfortunately, this case has nothing whatever to do with science. Basically, a bunch of movie execs and lawyers wanted to figure out a way to take away people's fair use rights. Thanks to weak encryption and the DMCA, as the law stands now according to recent court rulings, fair use no longer exists. You can't buy movies, you can only rent them for long periods of time.
This was always about fair use, because we all know pirates don't obey the law and that they've always had means of duplicating DVDs. Eliminate fair use, however, and you can rip people off through region coding and multiple resale of the same content.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Goldstein makes some very good points about what is to come with the DCMA, HDTV, and various future technologies and extreme consumer rights violations.
n stein_case/Legal/960415.decision), which among other things states this:
What confuses me is that the judge's ruling is directly at odds with both other caselaw (namely, the Bernstein/PGP ruling) and supreme court cases such as flag burning.
I located a copy of the Bernstein v Dept of State ruling (http://www.eff.org/pub/Privacy/Crypto_export/Ber
"For the purposes of First Amendment analysis, this court finds that source code is speech."
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
I for one enjoyed reading it, if only to get his side of it. Yes, most of the comments he made were already brought up on \. in the multiple stories that have been posted, but in this case you're getting it from the source..
Their goal is to stop the distribution by shutting down the websites right? The other side wants to get it out there and in everyone's hands... Think of how many people would have the DeCSS code if the I LOVE YOU virus had carried along this little text file instead. You simply make it a little smarter by randomly changing the subject name and the .vbs name so it stays out there a bit longer.
Just a thought.. I have no intentions of writing one!
.
~Bout Time for another tea party.®~
I post DeCSS (and old movie-channel decoderer) here.
If you do not like this, FUCK YOU!
Others are welcome to download the code.
If you want to complain about this, email me at my email address
vinylat33
unsigned int CSStab0[11]={5,0,1,2,3,4,0,1,2,3,4}; unsigned char CSStab1[256]= { 0x33,0x73,0x3b,0x26,0x63,0x23,0x6b,0x76,0x3e,0x7e, 0x36,0x2b,0x6e,0x2e,0x66,0x7b,
0xd3,0x93,0xdb,0x06,0x43,0x03,0x4b,0x96,0xde,0x9e, 0xd6,0x0b,0x4e,0x0e,0x46,0x9b,
0x57,0x17,0x5f,0x82,0xc7,0x87,0xcf,0x12,0x5a,0x1a, 0x52,0x8f,0xca,0x8a,0xc2,0x1f,
0xd9,0x99,0xd1,0x00,0x49,0x09,0x41,0x90,0xd8,0x98, 0xd0,0x01,0x48,0x08,0x40,0x91,
0x3d,0x7d,0x35,0x24,0x6d,0x2d,0x65,0x74,0x3c,0x7c, 0x34,0x25,0x6c,0x2c,0x64,0x75,
0xdd,0x9d,0xd5,0x04,0x4d,0x0d,0x45,0x94,0xdc,0x9c, 0xd4,0x05,0x4c,0x0c,0x44,0x95,
0x59,0x19,0x51,0x80,0xc9,0x89,0xc1,0x10,0x58,0x18, 0x50,0x81,0xc8,0x88,0xc0,0x11,
0xd7,0x97,0xdf,0x02,0x47,0x07,0x4f,0x92,0xda,0x9a, 0xd2,0x0f,0x4a,0x0a,0x42,0x9f,
0x53,0x13,0x5b,0x86,0xc3,0x83,0xcb,0x16,0x5e,0x1e, 0x56,0x8b,0xce,0x8e,0xc6,0x1b,
0xb3,0xf3,0xbb,0xa6,0xe3,0xa3,0xeb,0xf6,0xbe,0xfe, 0xb6,0xab,0xee,0xae,0xe6,0xfb,
0x37,0x77,0x3f,0x22,0x67,0x27,0x6f,0x72,0x3a,0x7a, 0x32,0x2f,0x6a,0x2a,0x62,0x7f,
0xb9,0xf9,0xb1,0xa0,0xe9,0xa9,0xe1,0xf0,0xb8,0xf8, 0xb0,0xa1,0xe8,0xa8,0xe0,0xf1,
0x5d,0x1d,0x55,0x84,0xcd,0x8d,0xc5,0x14,0x5c,0x1c, 0x54,0x85,0xcc,0x8c,0xc4,0x15,
0xbd,0xfd,0xb5,0xa4,0xed,0xad,0xe5,0xf4,0xbc,0xfc, 0xb4,0xa5,0xec,0xac,0xe4,0xf5,
0x39,0x79,0x31,0x20,0x69,0x29,0x61,0x70,0x38,0x78, 0x30,0x21,0x68,0x28,0x60,0x71,
0xb7,0xf7,0xbf,0xa2,0xe7,0xa7,0xef,0xf2,0xba,0xfa, 0xb2,0xaf,0xea,0xaa,0xe2,0xff
};
unsigned char CSStab2[256]=
{
0x00,0x01,0x02,0x03,0x04,0x05,0x06,0x07,0x09,0x08, 0x0b,0x0a,0x0d,0x0c,0x0f,0x0e,
0x12,0x13,0x10,0x11,0x16,0x17,0x14,0x15,0x1b,0x1a, 0x19,0x18,0x1f,0x1e,0x1d,0x1c,
0x24,0x25,0x26,0x27,0x20,0x21,0x22,0x23,0x2d,0x2c, 0x2f,0x2e,0x29,0x28,0x2b,0x2a,
0x36,0x37,0x34,0x35,0x32,0x33,0x30,0x31,0x3f,0x3e, 0x3d,0x3c,0x3b,0x3a,0x39,0x38,
0x49,0x48,0x4b,0x4a,0x4d,0x4c,0x4f,0x4e,0x40,0x41, 0x42,0x43,0x44,0x45,0x46,0x47,
0x5b,0x5a,0x59,0x58,0x5f,0x5e,0x5d,0x5c,0x52,0x53, 0x50,0x51,0x56,0x57,0x54,0x55,
0x6d,0x6c,0x6f,0x6e,0x69,0x68,0x6b,0x6a,0x64,0x65, 0x66,0x67,0x60,0x61,0x62,0x63,
0x7f,0x7e,0x7d,0x7c,0x7b,0x7a,0x79,0x78,0x76,0x77, 0x74,0x75,0x72,0x73,0x70,0x71,
0x92,0x93,0x90,0x91,0x96,0x97,0x94,0x95,0x9b,0x9a, 0x99,0x98,0x9f,0x9e,0x9d,0x9c,
0x80,0x81,0x82,0x83,0x84,0x85,0x86,0x87,0x89,0x88, 0x8b,0x8a,0x8d,0x8c,0x8f,0x8e,
0xb6,0xb7,0xb4,0xb5,0xb2,0xb3,0xb0,0xb1,0xbf,0xbe, 0xbd,0xbc,0xbb,0xba,0xb9,0xb8,
0xa4,0xa5,0xa6,0xa7,0xa0,0xa1,0xa2,0xa3,0xad,0xac, 0xaf,0xae,0xa9,0xa8,0xab,0xaa,
0xdb,0xda,0xd9,0xd8,0xdf,0xde,0xdd,0xdc,0xd2,0xd3, 0xd0,0xd1,0xd6,0xd7,0xd4,0xd5,
0xc9,0xc8,0xcb,0xca,0xcd,0xcc,0xcf,0xce,0xc0,0xc1, 0xc2,0xc3,0xc4,0xc5,0xc6,0xc7,
0xff,0xfe,0xfd,0xfc,0xfb,0xfa,0xf9,0xf8,0xf6,0xf7, 0xf4,0xf5,0xf2,0xf3,0xf0,0xf1,
0xed,0xec,0xef,0xee,0xe9,0xe8,0xeb,0xea,0xe4,0xe5, 0xe6,0xe7,0xe0,0xe1,0xe2,0xe3
};
unsigned char CSStab3[512]=
{
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,
0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff
};
unsigned char CSStab4[256]=
{
0x00,0x80,0x40,0xc0,0x20,0xa0,0x60,0xe0,0x10,0x90, 0x50,0xd0,0x30,0xb0,0x70,0xf0,
0x08,0x88,0x48,0xc8,0x28,0xa8,0x68,0xe8,0x18,0x98, 0x58,0xd8,0x38,0xb8,0x78,0xf8,
0x04,0x84,0x44,0xc4,0x24,0xa4,0x64,0xe4,0x14,0x94, 0x54,0xd4,0x34,0xb4,0x74,0xf4,
0x0c,0x8c,0x4c,0xcc,0x2c,0xac,0x6c,0xec,0x1c,0x9c, 0x5c,0xdc,0x3c,0xbc,0x7c,0xfc,
0x02,0x82,0x42,0xc2,0x22,0xa2,0x62,0xe2,0x12,0x92, 0x52,0xd2,0x32,0xb2,0x72,0xf2,
0x0a,0x8a,0x4a,0xca,0x2a,0xaa,0x6a,0xea,0x1a,0x9a, 0x5a,0xda,0x3a,0xba,0x7a,0xfa,
0x06,0x86,0x46,0xc6,0x26,0xa6,0x66,0xe6,0x16,0x96, 0x56,0xd6,0x36,0xb6,0x76,0xf6,
0x0e,0x8e,0x4e,0xce,0x2e,0xae,0x6e,0xee,0x1e,0x9e, 0x5e,0xde,0x3e,0xbe,0x7e,0xfe,
0x01,0x81,0x41,0xc1,0x21,0xa1,0x61,0xe1,0x11,0x91, 0x51,0xd1,0x31,0xb1,0x71,0xf1,
0x09,0x89,0x49,0xc9,0x29,0xa9,0x69,0xe9,0x19,0x99, 0x59,0xd9,0x39,0xb9,0x79,0xf9,
0x05,0x85,0x45,0xc5,0x25,0xa5,0x65,0xe5,0x15,0x95, 0x55,0xd5,0x35,0xb5,0x75,0xf5,
0x0d,0x8d,0x4d,0xcd,0x2d,0xad,0x6d,0xed,0x1d,0x9d, 0x5d,0xdd,0x3d,0xbd,0x7d,0xfd,
0x03,0x83,0x43,0xc3,0x23,0xa3,0x63,0xe3,0x13,0x93, 0x53,0xd3,0x33,0xb3,0x73,0xf3,
0x0b,0x8b,0x4b,0xcb,0x2b,0xab,0x6b,0xeb,0x1b,0x9b, 0x5b,0xdb,0x3b,0xbb,0x7b,0xfb,
0x07,0x87,0x47,0xc7,0x27,0xa7,0x67,0xe7,0x17,0x97, 0x57,0xd7,0x37,0xb7,0x77,0xf7,
0x0f,0x8f,0x4f,0xcf,0x2f,0xaf,0x6f,0xef,0x1f,0x9f, 0x5f,0xdf,0x3f,0xbf,0x7f,0xff
};
unsigned char CSStab5[256]=
{
0xff,0x7f,0xbf,0x3f,0xdf,0x5f,0x9f,0x1f,0xef,0x6f, 0xaf,0x2f,0xcf,0x4f,0x8f,0x0f,
0xf7,0x77,0xb7,0x37,0xd7,0x57,0x97,0x17,0xe7,0x67, 0xa7,0x27,0xc7,0x47,0x87,0x07,
0xfb,0x7b,0xbb,0x3b,0xdb,0x5b,0x9b,0x1b,0xeb,0x6b, 0xab,0x2b,0xcb,0x4b,0x8b,0x0b,
0xf3,0x73,0xb3,0x33,0xd3,0x53,0x93,0x13,0xe3,0x63, 0xa3,0x23,0xc3,0x43,0x83,0x03,
0xfd,0x7d,0xbd,0x3d,0xdd,0x5d,0x9d,0x1d,0xed,0x6d, 0xad,0x2d,0xcd,0x4d,0x8d,0x0d,
0xf5,0x75,0xb5,0x35,0xd5,0x55,0x95,0x15,0xe5,0x65, 0xa5,0x25,0xc5,0x45,0x85,0x05,
0xf9,0x79,0xb9,0x39,0xd9,0x59,0x99,0x19,0xe9,0x69, 0xa9,0x29,0xc9,0x49,0x89,0x09,
0xf1,0x71,0xb1,0x31,0xd1,0x51,0x91,0x11,0xe1,0x61, 0xa1,0x21,0xc1,0x41,0x81,0x01,
0xfe,0x7e,0xbe,0x3e,0xde,0x5e,0x9e,0x1e,0xee,0x6e, 0xae,0x2e,0xce,0x4e,0x8e,0x0e,
0xf6,0x76,0xb6,0x36,0xd6,0x56,0x96,0x16,0xe6,0x66, 0xa6,0x26,0xc6,0x46,0x86,0x06,
0xfa,0x7a,0xba,0x3a,0xda,0x5a,0x9a,0x1a,0xea,0x6a, 0xaa,0x2a,0xca,0x4a,0x8a,0x0a,
0xf2,0x72,0xb2,0x32,0xd2,0x52,0x92,0x12,0xe2,0x62, 0xa2,0x22,0xc2,0x42,0x82,0x02,
0xfc,0x7c,0xbc,0x3c,0xdc,0x5c,0x9c,0x1c,0xec,0x6c, 0xac,0x2c,0xcc,0x4c,0x8c,0x0c,
0xf4,0x74,0xb4,0x34,0xd4,0x54,0x94,0x14,0xe4,0x64, 0xa4,0x24,0xc4,0x44,0x84,0x04,
0xf8,0x78,0xb8,0x38,0xd8,0x58,0x98,0x18,0xe8,0x68, 0xa8,0x28,0xc8,0x48,0x88,0x08,
0xf0,0x70,0xb0,0x30,0xd0,0x50,0x90,0x10,0xe0,0x60, 0xa0,0x20,0xc0,0x40,0x80,0x00
};
void CSSdescramble(unsigned char *sec,unsigned char *key)
{
unsigned int t1,t2,t3,t4,t5,t6;
unsigned char *end=sec+0x800;
t1=key[0]^sec[0x54]|0x100;
t2=key[1]^sec[0x55];
t3=(*((unsigned int *)(key+2)))^(*((unsigned int *)(sec+0x56)));
t4=t3
t3=t3*2+8-t4;
sec+=0x80;
t5=0;
while(sec!=end)
{
t4=CSStab2[t2]^CSStab3[t1];
t2=t1>>1;
t1=((t1&1)>3)^t3)>>1)^t3)>>8)^t3)>>5)
t3=(t3>=8;
}
}
void CSStitlekey1(unsigned char *key,unsigned char *im)
{
unsigned int t1,t2,t3,t4,t5,t6;
unsigned char k[5];
int i;
t1=im[0]|0x100;
t2=im[1];
t3=*((unsigned int *)(im+2));
t4=t3
t3=t3*2+8-t4;
t5=0;
for(i=0;i>1;
t1=((t1&1)>3)^t3)>>1)^t3)>>8)^t3)>>5)
t3=(t3>=8;
}
for(i=9;i>=0;i--)
key[CSStab0[i+1]]=k[CSStab0[i+1]]^CSStab1[key[CSSt ab0[i+1]]]^key[CSStab0[i]];
}
void CSStitlekey2(unsigned char *key,unsigned char *im)
{
unsigned int t1,t2,t3,t4,t5,t6;
unsigned char k[5];
int i;
t1=im[0]|0x100;
t2=im[1];
t3=*((unsigned int *)(im+2));
t4=t3
t3=t3*2+8-t4;
t5=0;
for(i=0;i>1;
t1=((t1&1)>3)^t3)>>1)^t3)>>8)^t3)>>5)
t3=(t3>=8;
}
for(i=9;i>=0;i--)
key[CSStab0[i+1]]=k[CSStab0[i+1]]^CSStab1[key[CSSt ab0[i+1]]]^key[CSStab0[i]];
}
void CSSdecrypttitlekey(unsigned char *tkey,unsigned char *dkey)
{
int i;
unsigned char im1[6];
unsigned char im2[6]={0x51,0x67,0x67,0xc5,0xe0,0x00};
for(i=0;i
Chris Hagar
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
It took you this long to realise that North American legal systems are screwed beyond logic? It's been getting worse for decades!
--------
"I already have all the latest software."
This is the arrogance and stupidity of government in general, and judges in particular. They think a piece of paper, or a slam of a gavel makes it so. Well, number one, it doesn't!
In 2000 America, is a non-lawyer truly free?
Seems pretty tame, as far as conflicts of interest go, since most of his "subjective" statements in the case seem directed at the defendants, not their lawyers, and since his previous firm doesn't really leave any concrete reason for him to act in their favor. If anything it just says he has experience dealing with movie copyright law, so he knows a bit about it. But this is certainly interesting.
Who was that motion filed to? I assume it was rejected. Anybody got the rejection statement?
other than the fairly obvuous fact that "speech" does not necessarily have to be speech, or even text.
:(
Well, despite the fact that it's obvious, quite a few people, include the govt, don't seem to get it. So the more people we get tell them that it _is_ obvious, maybe eventually they'll actually believe it.
Yes, I know that there isn't really a good choice here, but voting this time around is going to be fairly important (except to those that believe that it's too late already) as there may be up to 3 Supreme Court Justices replaced in the next 4 years.
Email address spamblocked. To reply, kill the rabbit
First, DeCSS has nothing at all to do with what you state. If it did then the pirates would be using it instead of commercial burners. If it were an individual user issue, the blank media would have to be less expensive than the origonal. It is not. Besides, DeCSS is just a decyphering program. It is not a way to copy anything.
However, the topic has nothing to do with "killing" DeCSS.
The ONLY thing the court did was try to muzzle a news outlet. End of list.
Please, show us where DeCSS has been killed? Has it stopped existing at the bang of a gavel? Will it reappear as if by magic if the appeal is won? Hell, I will settel for some evidence of an *attempt* to "kill" DeCSS, but there is none. None at all.
All the court did was try to muzzle a news outlet. End of list.
Why must people be under the illusion that a judicial or legeslative body has the power to stop anything whatsoever, besides a human heart? Certainly a court can take away a person's liberty, life and/or property, but making a court decision does not yet have the Merlinian effect of a global erasure of a decyphering program, idea or discussion.
Visit DC2600
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Probably just a typo, but to rescue is to save from a bad fate, and to recuse is to withdraw or disqualify.
[
Makes me wonder why type of engineer, what type of geek, will create something like CSS, barking on command from a suit, without even giving it thought, without being ashamed.
Most likely someone long isolated from the reality that you and I face every day. Possibly even a suit who, after seeing his engineers quit rather than write what he asked them to do, taught himself basic programming and cobbled this together, since "engineers always throw kludges together to make working code". ("He who teaches himself has a fool for a teacher" may be inaccurate in many situations, but it would have been spot-on in this case.)
Well looks like they are using M$ exchange server. I think they have a default "all mail users" distribution list with a address of all@company.com (in this case all@mpaa.org) try this address it should get to the proper home and maybe a few others.
Thanks for the mirror, too bad /. clipped the end of it there.
All I can say is that I share Mr. Goldstein's shock and dismay, and I'm spreading the word about this travesty of justice to everybody I know. Most non-hackers that I talk to are amazed that such a thing can go on in the land of the free. We need to get out and tell real people about this - tell your brother, your Mom, your boss, and try to explain that justice has not been served. Mr. Goldstein covers this territory more eloquently than I could ever hope, so I'll close with another exhortation to get the word out about this.
...posted from behind a firewall that keeps out those "evil 2600 hackers"...
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
I still think I'm right. Voting just doesn't make much difference.
In my opinion, the biggest problem the US faces is that big companies are far too powerful - both in controlling consumers and influencing government. Both of the big parties will probably support the RIAA, the big movie studios, and other large companies in their ongoing efforts to control consumers, control the internet, control all media, make money off everything that people do, and patent everything in the world.
The Democrats, I think, are only slightly more likely to work on solving this problem.
And as far as other "real world issues" - well, I just don't see much difference between the two big parties.
And sadly, it is unlikely that Nader and the Greens will get enough votes to make much of a difference.
So I don't think that voting this fall will make any significant difference to the future of the United States, (unless the Greens make a really significant showing). Therefore I stand by my statement - donating money to the EFF will make more of a difference than voting.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
This is especially the case in the computing world, since the Information Age is rapidly progressing and computers are becoming a greater part of our life on a daily basis. The hope that such a bias would not find its way into a courtroom, where sits an elected judge, is naive at best and very likely dangerous.
The important thing is that the script-kiddies and 15-year-old "cracker/hacker" stereotypes do exist -- the unfortunate part is that, though a minority, they have a loud voice. Why? Because we limit our distaste for them, and our education about what tech folk are really like to forums like Slashdot. Not that Slashdot is not a wonderful forum for such discussions, but it must be taken to the world.
The linked 2600 Mag article made an interesting comment (I paraphrase): "The Internet allows you to become the media, with the whole world as your audience." (again, that's a paraphrase)
What I would like to see, and would in fact be willing to help build and support, is an organization dedicated to educating the public and the mass media of what being tech-savvy is really about -- not destroying systems, but learning about them (even if that means sometimes breaking apart encryption ala DeCSS).
Please feel free to contact me at my e-mail (remove the whitespace) above if you are interested in helping to organize something like this, or reply if something like it exists!
--
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
A hero.
Unfortulately, the USA is the best government on earth for "freedom". Or at least it was 20 years ago. This is a measure of how much further we HAVE to go to create the best possible government.
In 2000 America, is a non-lawyer truly free?
You said
"I thought that when Garbus asked Valenti about what a student could do if she wanted to play a 3 minutes of "Schindler's List" and Valenti replied that she could get the analog version, I felt it had to be obvious to anyone that CSS did take away fair use rights, but Kaplan actually bought Valenti's argument. I can't believe it. I just can't believe it. How ignorant is it possible to get? Yes, today, analog versions exist, but they won't in a few years."
Case in point - I want to buy a copy of the movie 'Inspector Gadget' for my son - the DVD has been available for 6 months - the VHS version wont be available (in Australia) until December. How would the Mr Valenti and the judge suggest I get my '3 minutes' in this instance?
MrCreosote Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump! "You're right! There isn't enough room to swing a cat in here!"
CSS is immoral. The engineers who designed CSS should have understood the consequences of what they where told to make, and should not have made them. That's their social responsibility.
Those engineers probably, for one reason or another, didn't have a choice. So, instead, they designed a weak encryption system.
Think about it. CSS was designed to have multiple keys in each DVD movie, so that if one were compromised, it could be eliminated from future DVD discs. However, some brilliant engineer decided it was his moral obligation to weaken the system. The result was CSS.
--------
"I already have all the latest software."
Has anyone else seen "The Big Lebowski" "We ahh nihilists! We don't believe in nothing!"
(find it on the development network; soon to be the 0.3 release of Freenet.
Our perspectives materially differ.
You're talking about legislation that failed to pass. In my book, that's almost universally a good thing.
I'm talking about legislation that did pass. Laws that get into the books are almost never repealed, even when the congressional majority shifts from one party to another. When they are repealed, it is usually to replace the older, more lenient law with a newer, more oppressive law.
No conspiracy necessary. The system is broke because the system is broke. Personally, I believe that you could impeach every single senator and congressman, together with the president and his veep, and after the new elections, things would not be materially different.
When the last budget bill was being debated and re-debated and re-re-hashed-over, and federal employees were on the verge of being layed off because of lack of (approved) funding, the biggest piece of pie on the cutting block was the defense budget.
The sum-total difference between the Democrat-backed proposal and the Republican-backed proposal amounted to less than ten percent. Closer to five, IIRC.
The Web is like Usenet, but
the elephants are untrained.
This might have been mentioned already, but I'm too lazy to read all the comments.
Could everything that the judge said about the members of 2600 be considered slander? If it could I see a lawsuit against the judge and the MPAA forming. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it is worth a shot.
---
So, what if someone wrote a short story which featured DeCSS code as an integral part of the story? As long as the original copyright holder (the person who figured out a way to decipher the CSS algorithm) granted rights to reproduce freely it would not be a copyright violation. And the short story could be written to clearly use the code in an artistic way to advance the plot line. (It could be about how a corrupt corporate conglomerate tries to stifle dissent).
Meanwhile, someone else could write a filter which would extract the compilable code from the short story itself. This could be written in a general way so as to apply to lots of "literate programs" and hence have nothing to do with DeCSS per se.
If a dedicated bunch of artistic people went around creating stories incorporating snippets of source code (Doesn't Stephenson's Cryptonomicon do that?), then I can't imagine how any sane legal mind could hold an entire genre of literature to be illegal to distribute.
If users in the privacy of their own homes wish to extract, recombine, and compile the source code, that is like someone making a private collage for their own house. If they want to execute the result and break some other law, then the MPAA can have fun suing the actual offenders instead of the artists. After all, if I use a collage incorporating a sharp point from someone else's sculpture to injure a third party, the offense is mine and mine alone.
I agree with most of your post, but I think this is a bit off. You don't _have_ to use CSS, or region encoding, to create a DVD. Players will read non-encrypted, non-region-encoded DVDs just fine. At least for now....
---
CSS is immoral. The engineers who designed CSS should have understood the consequences of what they where told to make, and should not have made them.
Hell, maybe they did. In case you weren't aware, CSS is pretty fscking weak. 40 bit keys (and it's not for export reasons; after all, how can someone use it to send a message?), and the algorithm isn't that great either. Xing's fuckup is what gave us the first key, but it was the small keyspace and weaknesses in the algorithm that let people grab the decoder keys for every vendor within a few months.
It's entirely possible that a couple of guys got hired to do this, and decided that, instead of not taking the job (wherupon the DVD consortium would hire somebody else), they would intentionally screw it up.
Of course, maybe they were just stupid, I don't know. Anyway, the sitiuation with CSS could be worse.
That's not to say that Kaplan is in any way correct. Hopefully the appeals court judge has some semblence of sanity. <sigh>
But why repost the article? The link worked perfectly well.
Am I a criminal? I don't feel like one. Will I download or buy bootlegged movies? Hell no. Do I believe I have the right to use any media I purchase in any way I see fit (short of redistribution)? Absolutely.
-------
We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
I find it ironic that Mr. Goldstein points out in this article that his magazine is copyrighted. Here we have a verbatim copy of it, without explicit attribution. Moreover, do you think that the average Slashdot reader is too lazy or imbecile to notice and click on the article link in the story? This comment deserves a -1: Redundant at very least. Hairy_Potter is karma whoring.
That's another evil thing about this case, and a couple of others. One of the MPAA's chief defensive arguments is that the CCA stuff was a trade secret, so use of it was illegal. But a trade secret gained through a legal means, like reverse-engineering, hs no legal protection at all. That's (in theory) why we have patents. To encourage companies to be a little more open with their data. So maybe they're trying to get legal protection while not having to show anyone their cards...?
-RickHunter
It is fairly clear from his decision that Judge Kaplan saw 2600 as malefactors ["crackers"] who must be punished. Whatever the merits of the case, some judges simply bend law and rule for whom they see as the "good guys". The "bad guys" simply cannot be allowed to win, whatever the law.
This is one reason we have Appeals Courts. Unfortunately, the findings of fact such that Johannsen didn't simply want to play DVDs under Linux are more difficult to overturn, and this will hobble the Appeals level. IANAL.
I cannot believe that Corley was praising lawyers! It surely isn't something you hear every day. I think I just saw Satan at the local ski shop, too.
There are four boxes used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
Emmanuel mentions that Judge Kaplan suggests using a VHS tape if one wishes to exercise their 'fair use' rights. I haven't seen anyone mention that most (many? some?) commercial VHS tapes are protected by Macrovision anti-copy technology. Sure, Macrovision can be trivally defeated, but by Judge Kaplan's logic under the DMCA, isn't defeating Macrovision the same as using DeCSS?
// TODO: fix sig
Does any one know for a fact which group Kaplan is in? I hope it's elected because this could be made a major issue come re-election time.
From the article:
Just for the fun of it, I tried to find out who had voted for the DMCA, so I could make an extra effort not to vote for them. But they did it with a voice vote - there is no record. How reassuring.
I think my last bit of respect for my government was just pissed away. The fact that nobody was willing to take responsibility for thier decision here says legions about what kind of cowardly nitwits populate both Houses of Congress.
What is going on in the United States these days, anyway? Legions of cops pre-empt a lawful protest by arresting everyone on the streets of the city with a certain brand of cellular phone. Absurd laws bought and paid for by corporations destroy the very concept of justice.
Anyone got a recommendation on a country not run by idiots being bribed by despots? Didn't the Netherlands Government apologize for treating one of the DeCSS programmers badly? I want to go there. I can't picture the US Congress apologizing for anything.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
I can't help but wonder if the internet can even survive its reaming by Corporate America.
In fact, why don't we make our official name 'C.S.' instead? Not the 'United States', but he 'Corporate States'! I mean...that should be the official name! Why not be honest about the whole thing? We all know who makes the decisions in this country, and it ain't 'the people'. Aw, hell, i'm moving to the Czech Republic.
Get DeCSS!
-- Blackthorne
DVD's have a very short, finite lifespan. About 10 years or so
If this is true, then I truely fear for the future - if the DVD's have such a limited lifespan, and there are no ways to archive the data contained on the media (short of large terabyte sized systems), how are we to preserve our history, our information, our past?
Besides that, 10 years isn't that long - the disk is small enough and handy enough that it wouldn't make sense for me to purchase another copy (I could justify moving from tapes to CDs - and I held out for a long time - tapes wear and break, and CDs seemed more handy) - I would pissed if my DVD collection (say I purchased 100 disks, for around $2500 in total) was corrupt after only a measly 10 years - I have analog tapes that sound fine, much older than that (and my dad has reel tapes older still - as well as a ton of 78 rpm records).
The MPAA, RIAA, and any other four letter excuse for an organization can piss up a rope!
I support the EFF - do you?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
The basic under lying principle of this whole case is that DeCSS should be banned because somebody could use it on a non Linux system to view DVD's, or to view DVD's on almost any system. Isn't this similar to VCR's??? If somebody make a pirated tape can't they watch it on a VCR??? Should VCR's be banned because they can be used to watch illegal copies of media?? More specifically should cable descramblers be banned because even if somebody doesn't pay they can use it??? Should baseball bats be banned because they can be used to harm people??? The point is that everything can be used for bad deeds and just because you can't fix the problem doesn't mean you should go around banning stuff. It seems that rich companies will keep controlling everything until somebody sets up a datahaven in space or some location where they can't get to it. The day will come when we will have our revenge and those who have tried to restrict things they don't understand will pay for it. Thank you for reading my rant
Good vs. Evil, my friend. It's quite consistent, really.
--------
"I already have all the latest software."
Because they signed an international treaty saying that they would impliment anti-anti-circumvention legislation. America was just quick off the mark with the DMCA. We can all look forward to this kind of legislation in the future.
Judge Caplan's ridiculous DeCSS ruling
I say "ridiculous" not in the sense that it is wrong, although I think that it is, but in the sense that it is open to ridicule. Comparing writing computer software to assassination, making broad sweeping statements and snide remarks about the defense's attitudes to copyright, the notion that I gained the right to view DVD movies by buying a piece of hardware rather than the DVDs themselves, and the idea that in order to freely access a movie all I have to do is buy another copy of it in an older format - all this is going to seriously help the defendants when the case goes to appeal.
I feel strongly that the MPAA is fighting a battle to control something that they really have no right to control. It is unfortunate that copyright violations are difficult to trace on the internet, and that DVD movies are impossible to protect from copyright violations while retaining the principles of fair use and first sale.
On the nature of copyright law, I believe that it is not a law that is to do with ownership of property, "intellectual property" is not an appropriate phrase. Copyright law is about denying people the right to do what they wish to do with information that they have in their possession. Society grants limited restrictions on the free actions of the general public in order that the producers of creative content may reasonably profit from their creations. However, this law has been stretched and abused by "Big Media" to the point that it seems that the copyright on Mickey Mouse will never expire, because Disney keeps lobbying congress to manipulate the law in their favour. When the system is abused by powerful corporations, all the individual can do is to fight to take back the rights that the corrupt legislature is trying to take away from them. This is why I believe Napster, DeCSS, and the CyberPatrol hack were so popular, it gives us "little folk" the chance to take back some of what we are being denied, and level the field a little. If Corporate America wasn't cheating, then neither would "we" have to cheat back. I say "we" because I have never used Napster, I buy DVD movies and music CDs, and I pay for most of my computer software even when I could easily not do so. Nontheless, I understand why people feel so disempowered and fight back.
I hope that this situation does not spread to the UK in the way it has started in the USA, but if it does, I may be hearing from your legal department regarding my DeCSS mirror. I do not look forward to that day.
Phil.
http://www.snark.freeserve.co.uk
Carrier and ISP liability
...
The Bill seeks to clarify the circumstances in which carriers and ISPs will be held liable: they will not be liable for infringements by their customers simply because the infringements occurred using their facilities.
Temporary Reproductions
ISPs have also been concerned about infringement because of the temporary copies that are made in the course of technical processes of transmission and browsing on the Internet. The Bill provides an exception from copyright infringement where temporary reproductions are made in the course of the technical process of electronic transmissions. Incidental copies made in the course of browsing on the Internet will not be a breach of copyright.
What do you mean by nihilism? Are you referring to the smashing of produce? That's my favorite part of the show, especially when he does the Jell-O.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
It's entirely constitutional. Corporations aren't people, and they have no rights whatsoever other than those granted them in their charters. (Or at least they shouldn't; we've had some courts in this country that were either bloody stupid or bought-and-paid-for.) They are creations of the government, they exist at the sufferance of the government, and their charters can be withdrawn if the government chooses.
No, this is not completely correct. I have the right to be self employed and to employ others. Corporations are owned by people and correspondingly cannot be "stolen" by the government. The only way a corporation could be forced to comply with these laws is to force them to remain incorporated under the rule of the government, not under the rule of the owner, hence the theft of personal freedom.
Corporate rules like equal-opportunity employment, tax laws, rules of commerce for corporations, etc. are not intrusive upon the owner's personal freedom. The charter is meant to protect the government's monetary and to protect it from losing its power to any corporation.
Unfortunately, since many individual states' constitutions protect their corporations' rights, the federal government is given no right to override those protections by the constitution. Most state give corporations rights similar to those of people (right to sue and be sued, etc.) Nader would need to usurp many states' rights that they currently enjoy to activate his "programs" to organize corporations in the way he thinks they should be organized.
Nader suggests a socialist idea here, despite the "election" and "democracy" crap, it would result in massive losses of freedom. I think you agree with me about this. Not all corporations are evil and should be forced into the government's way of operating.
Chris
After reading that article I immediately joined the EFF. I hope you'll all do the same. Click Here to Join!
-gregg
Well *actually*, "Well well well" was written by Bob Dylan (with Danny O'Keefe) :-)
"Only the small secrets need to be protected. The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity." - Marshall McLuhan
In the book, our heros are trying to stage a revolution freeing the Moon from earth's tyranny. They are meeting with a group of The Powers That Be on earth to discuss the Moon's future. One of the main characters, Prof, who is the second most politically astute of Our Hereos, says something to a judge that the main character (Mannie) does not understand. Later, Mannie asks Prof what he said. Prof indicates that he asked the Honorable muckitimuck if his wife still worked in the whorehouse. Prof then explains that the whole goal of the meeting from the earth's side was to present a comprimise that would prevent the Moon from revolting, and that by stooping to personal insult, unreasonable behavior, and every other trick in the book to prevent that reasonable comprimise from being offered, the many residents of the Moon were kept fired up about the revolt, and therefor unwilling to accept a comprimise that in the long run would hurt them.
Now, in light of that summary, consider:
In many ways, this ruling was a good thing.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Like I said in my other posts, what they CLAIM is irrelevant. Not sure why you are attaching that to my post. They can call themselves five legged dogs if they want and it does not make them a five legged dogs.
The people you seem to have in mind can call themselves conservatives all they want and YOU might buy that, but I don't consider them to be conservative in any sense of the word and believe that I brought that up in the several threads above.
I am glad that you brought up the more fitting term "strict constitutionalist", since it is obvious that the term "conservative" has been bastardized enough at to have fooled even someone such as yourself.
Everybody that IS a true conservative is a strict constitutionalist. What they label themself is irrelevant.
It kind of reminds me of some of the folks I was around during military service. Touting the label of "conservative" while, in various discussions, they wanted one government mandate and edict after another, like: forced use of english in all commerce; free airtime on all electronic media for "the administration side of the issue"; free military equipment from corporations; etc., etc. The list was endless.
Now, again I say, people that have these views can call themselves conservatives all they want, but they are really liberals, socialistic liberals in the same spirit as Stalin, Hitler and Kaplan. Judge Kaplan being a Clinton appointee.
If you actually BELIEVE that anybody that calls themself a conservative truly is, no matter what their actions or views, then I suggest that you have the perception problem, not I.
I hope you don't believe any screwball with a sword has supreme executive power just because he says some watery tart in a lake threw it at him!
Credits: 5 legged dog ref. Abraham Lincolin in one of his debates with Douglas; Watery Tart ref. Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Both reengineered for this forum.
Visit DC2600
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
All's well that ends well.
No, that's not what he said, nor what he implied when he said "...The engineers who designed CSS should have understood the consequences of what they where told to make...". At least it is not what I thought when I read this sentence.
I think he is right in saying that people (ALL people) have a social responsibility, and they should think twice before comitting their talents and abilities towards fulfilling some injust goal. No matter whether they are scientists, engineers, programmers, soldiers or lawyers. If someone 'higher up' tells you to do something which you personally KNOW to be part of a scheme to take away freedom and replace it with corporate control, then you can either obey (and keep your job but lose your integrity) or disobey (and keep your sanity but possibly lose your job). Especially in the current market, it is MUCH easier to get a new job than a new 'soul'.
And of course this also goes for those 'higher ups' who give these orders...
--frank[at]unternet.org
If I understand correctly, 2600 is being sued for copyright infringement? How?
The hubbub over this issue is that intent obviously doesn't seem to matter much. 2600's intent could not be PROVEN to be to help people steal DVD movies. It is entirely possible (though maybe not probable) that 2600's only intent was to help LinDVD along.
It's always sad to see someone to be considered guilty without being proven to be so. However, this is a sad blow to the potential freedoms to programmers everywhere.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
IANAL either, but I don't think you can officially license a trade secret. I think for DVD-CCA to be licensing CSS, that means it's copyrighted or patented.
It's definitely not patented, because to be patented, it can't be a trade secret.
And a copyright only protects the exact wording of something, not a method of doing something. So in this case, someone could make a clean room implementation.
Have you ever considered the fact that the MPAA doesn't actually have any legal basis for their licensing, other than a self declared control of the market? And lobbying congress to pass the DMCA, which also has no other legal basis?
--- "So THAT's what an invisible barrier looks like!" - Time Bandits
I wondered throughout the trial and still wonder now if the presence and implication of 2600 is really helping the case. I mean, you have a group calling themself "2600 the hackers quarterly", a group who talked on many occasions about security breaches, how to exploit them and things like that. Did they really expect the judge to think they were the good guys?
/. KNOW that 2600 are trying to defend freedom of speech, thoughts and expression. But do the judge know? According to what I've read from the trial I sure don't think so. Try to see the case as if you were a total outsider knowing nothing about 2600 and not much about computers in general. Would you still think 2600 are right? At the first sight they look like the bad guy... and I am not sure that their involvment is helping that much...
The people reading
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear"
Thanks to both of you who replied. I'd just considered that as a possibility, and was wondering what others thought.
-RickHunter
I also bought a 2600 anti-MPAA T-Shirt, but that one should be safer (no code there ;-P)
We have the choice to not buy this canned crap they try to sell us
We have the choice to get our 'art' in some other way, not controlled by the spinmeisters of MPAA/RIAA and their cronies.
Yes, that means you will have to give uo some thinks you may like. But history shows people are able to live without them, and you can find other means of entertainment to fill those gaps left by the black television screen and the silent DvD (and later possibly also CD) player...
--frank[at]unternet.org
1) 2600 didn't create the tool to bypass the encryption. Someone else did. Regardless, that's not the core issue of this case.
I didn't say they did. But by passing on that tool, they were still breaking the law.
2) The judge has now prevented 2600 from linking to DeCSS. That in itself is pretty questionable.
I agree. He interpreted it as "distribution." That was a bit of a stretch on interpretation of a clause in DMCA that already goes too far.
However, he is still a judge. He should be setting aside his personal biases towards 2600's reputation.
And how do you know he was personally biased? Intent is key to the case, so he has to decide what 2600's motives were in posting it. And he decided that those motives weren't the aid of encryption research, which was really the only thing that would have made it legal.
Yes, and as you pointed out already, there is a clause in the DMCA which specifically allows reverse engineering for interoperability purposes.
Yes, but the reverse engineering wasn't done to assess interoperability. That was one of the defenses used, and the judge didn't buy it. The fact that some people later used it to develop an illegal Linux player doesn't change the original reverse engineering. Plus, the key word is "assess," not "implement."
The encryption was a trade secret which is more or less fair game once the cat's out of the bag.
No, the encryption was intellectual property, like any copyrighted source code. The code to Windows 2000 isn't a "trade secret," and even if it was, you still violate the law by stealing that trade secret.
Best regards
= )
That was civil. Much better than the mindlessly blunt sarcasm used by another poster or two.
Everyone who can should go over to the EFF web site and donate some money for the defense.
Become an EFF member while you're at it.
That single act will probably provide more benefit to the future of the United States than voting this fall.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
No, actually, he shouldn't. 2600's intent in distributing DeCSS was the main issue. Was DeCSS to be used for playing DVDs or copying them? That was the core issue, and given 2600's reputation, the judge decided that the intent was to copy. Their reputation was important to decide the intent. If Signal 11 were on trial to determine if he posted content in an attempt to bolster his karma, his reputation would hurt him. Same idea applies to 2600. If Microsoft said that they fully supported open source, would you believe them? Reputation is important and a valid bias in court cases - that's what character witnesses are for.
Personally, I think Ketzer hit the nail on the head with his post - sounds to me like Ketzer does indeed get it!
The encryption was a trade secret which is more or less fair game once the cat's out of the bag.
And then there's the fun part - the encryption was actually a content control mechanism. That is protected under the DCMA.
Whether the result was right or wrong is a moral question - it can be argued endlessly. (And I haven't formed a concrete opinion myself.) Personally, though, I think that the outcome of the trial was legally correct, and that 2600 will lose in the long run.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Did you vote? Did you mail/fax/email your congressman about the issue? Then you have no reason to complain about how the country is run.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Also try different nation codes and whatever the .ny.us thingie is for Middle Island, NY.
This usually gets around the blocking software.
Visit DC2600
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Donating money to EFF is an obvious way, but anything else?
Thanks
A bank vault protects material goods from theft. Once stolen, the bank and its customers are deprived of using the goods.
Movies on DVD are information which can be copied at no cost and the owner is not deprived of its use.
...and when they came for the coders, I did not speak up, for I was not a coder.
I agree with the principle of "punish the crime, not the tool," but it's not that simple here. DVD-CCA developed CSS and licenses it, just like Microsoft developed Windows and licenses it to people. If you reverse engineer their tool and distribute the source code, you're violating their intellectual property
So you're basically saying thatr WINE is violating
Microsoft's "IP"?
Im sorry, it's people like you that seem to think that you can crush the human spirit along with the very idea of curosity. Even if you dont mean it.
The DVDCCA licenses CSS out to people, because it's a (or was) a trade secret. It's no longer secret, so now people can do whatever the hell they want to/with CSS without a license.
No one broke any NDA's or anything like that, so the cat is out of the bag, and you can't stuff it back in.
It's like saying I can't develop my own kind of tyre because I figured out how to put tyres on cars.
My email addy? should be easy enough.
Anyone remember their basic Western Civ classes? Think hard, now...there was this amazing informational technology, commericalized by that guy Gutenberg, that allowed for a dramatic increase in the efficiency of ditributing information. In its day, the printing press was cutting edge, and those in power were just as scared shitless as they are now.
Suddenly, written works were flying from one end of Europe to the other, and the potential for the easy accessiblity of heretical, immoral, and rebellious works frightened the powers that be to no end. So, the benevolent leaders of Europe's governments (the Church) stepped in, and as best they could, restored order to the chaos. Wholesome texts were printed and distributed far and wide, and the mental and spiritual health and hygeine of the entire reading world was improved. In addition, the increased availability of approraite texts helped aid the spread of literacy, and through it, "appropraite" ideas and morals (Christianity).
The new moral code is good consumerism, and so advertising and promotion drive communications technologies. Just as Christianity was aided by the printing of countless Bibles and supporting texts, modern developed nations are deluged with instructions to buy, replace, upgrade, and be "the first on the block" to have the latest and greatst. Therefore, when "insurgent" technologies like DeCSS threaten this hold, they must be branded as heretical and illegal, in order to protect the population from dangerous and rebellious ideas. There's little deliberate malice coming from the government, and what filters down from corporate boardrooms is unavoidable -- they have to maximize shareholder wealth, and their only products being given away for free is frightening to an extreme.
However, I think few people would argue that change is not an accellerating vehicle, and therein lies our greatest source of hope. Just as the spread of literacy was instrumental in bringing about the rise of populist politics and scientific study in the public view, computers and pervasive networks will allow for a greater sharing of ideas than possible before. It's sometimes easy for those of us who have spent the majority of our lives working with these relatively new technologies to forget that they are, from a sociological or historical point of view, barely blips on the radar so far.
Remember, most of the circuit judges, legislators, and senior executives of this world probably didn't touch a computer until they were at least in their 30s. They had finished college, started careers, etc., and were no longer blessed with young minds ready to reshape themselves for a new mode of thought or communication tool. Compared to children, adults have a great deal of trouble learning new languages and computers are the cognitive equivalent of several new foreign tongues, some hard math, and a lot of new metaphors and suumptions, all rolled into one.
So, let's try to be a little patient. I, for one, am not as big a fan of violent upheaval as of natural progression, and I fail to see how the current trend towards restriction of digital tools with the objective of "informational purity" can continue under with the next generation of leaders. They will be comfortable with the technology, its implications, and its use, and will know how rediculous the current body of laws are.
If you want to help accellerate this process, you can do so in any number of ways that won't require getting thrown in jail and effectively silenced. Be a teacher, or support the EFF, or put on a clean shirt and go talk to your local legislator or library administrator about your views on censorship and IP. If we want sanity in our leaders, then we should try to show ourselves worthy of taking that role, rather than simply foaming at the mouth about the injustices of "the man."
that won't work.. you can just take the content and resign it.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Many countries have very different laws as far as copyright (http://www.platopress.co.uk/copyright/). How does this effect any prosecutions? Doess the MPAA actually own 'everything' to do with CSS? Could a company that has nothing to do with the MPAA make a DVD (with CSS)? Lastly did anyone see on CNN a story about a company that bought an oil rig (in international waters) to put servers on. Maybe it would be a good investment to some rich people. Bye, Murphy
I have read the ruling and I am outraged.
Where does Kaplan get off comparing the dissemination of DeCSS to disease and assassination? It's a slap in the face of every free-thinking computer geek who ever lived!
Let's see now, gun owners are the new niggers and computer geeks are the new kikes! Don't talk about freedom and code in the same breath anymore. Just play nice with the keyboard and don't color outside the lines...You are owned!
This is surely irrelevant to the court case. Courts exist to evaluate the cases based on the evidence and facts available to them. "Reputation" and what everybody "knows" should be of no relevance to the court case. This is why (in the UK at least), juries are not necessarily informed of a defendant's previous convictions as these may prejudice the jury against the defendant. Similarly that 2600 want to "Free Kevin" is of no relevance to the distribution or linking of DeCSS source code.
It is a sad reflection of the American legal system that the "reputation" of 2600 and not their arguments in court have more influence on the outcome of the case.
Although IANAL it would seem that in this case the judge was clearly prejudiced against 2600, and that a higher court would look more favourably on 2600, especially given the previous legal precedent in their favour.
Ah, so the good Judge Kaplan has made owning the Anarchist's Cookbook illegal?
No, it's not the readership of 2600 you have to worry about. It's the crackers who could be submitting articles to 2600 but aren't that you need to worry about. By the time such info hits the pages of 2600, it's old news. Hell, Microsoft may even have admitted there is a problem by that time... ;)
James
Call it "Civil Disorder", or whatever way you want, the fact is that the current law set and balance of power is apparently favorable to big conglomerates.
But WE are the real power. There's no way to intimidate the people. They shut down web sites ? Ok, let's develop distributed encrypted networks (FreeNet, Gnutella are the basis of it).
They will disappear, by shutting down the very roots of their meaningless money power. Information must and will remain free.
And if the price for liberty is what they call "prejudice" or "illegality", ok. That's what WE
'll call "Civil Resistance".
Ijou.
-- javaDragon is an instance of JavaDragon.
Someone may fix the problem because of the story or someone may exploit it. We cannot and will not determine what happens as a result nor will we allow fear of that to make our editorial decisions for us.
The glory of journalism...you are "free" to speak, but that doesn't mean you aren't responsible for what you speak. That's why we have "Top Secret" documents and laws against compromising national security. It's not as if 2600 didn't know that the information was sensitive...and claiming "you were just helping to get it fixed" is kind of lame. In the "Information Age" breaking encryption is like picking locks...it's hard to justify it...and publishing how to pick locks isn't exactly white hat...even it if helps to correct the problem...
I thought part of the argument was against having the encryption to begin with...i.e. fair use.... whatever.
I just suppose if 2600 was broken into and we could modify content at will becuase of a crappy content-protection scheme, the blatant attitude would be different. I just think the article could have been a bit more rational then just a big rant.
Goldstein, Prove your case.
I need a TiVo for my car. Pause live traffic now.
That is fair use, I hope, but I think that its only fair use as long as you don't use it to distribute the movie. Read: personal use only.
-RickHunter
this is a very troublesome issue. the way i interpret it is if the mpaa actually wins in the appellate/supreme court then the first amendment means nothing.
we all lose our right to link to something on the internet...
we cant speak out against things large corporations dont want us to...
plus so many more things i cant list them all.
am i interpreting this correctly?
"it could just be the midgets. You've got to be careful with midgets in Spandex." --Jamie Richardson
Is it possible that the judge handed down the ruling that he did, with the wording that he did, specifically so it would get overturned? If he ruled for 2600, the MPAA would just throw more of their weight towards the appeals court until they finally squashed 2600 flat. However, if, instead, he handed down a decision like this that is obviously biased and illogical, and an appeals court overturned it, would the precident set would apply to a wider region and have more heft in higher appeals courts? Especially since the MPAA might, in this situation, view the case as a won thing and start throwing their weight elsewhere.
I don't know that much about these aspects of the American legal system, so could someone give me some feedback? Is this possible, or at all likely? Or is it more likely that the judge is as biased and illogical as he seems?
-RickHunter
... so I had to read it using Lynx. These reposts are more convenient, though
Say no to software patents.
If there was any need to prove that Kaplan is either dishonest or stupid, his comparison of "assassination" and DeCSS is enough to prove it. I was absolutely revolted when I read it.
Click here for a story about the Austrailian 2600 that won't take the code down. They don't just link to it, it looks like they are actually hosting it.
As much as I hate to say it, as much as it sucks, I'm afraid 2600 is fast becoming a victim of their own reputation.
The editorial linked to is intelligent and well-written. The defense case made for 2600 well-argued, well-presented, and logical. But the fact remains that large portions of the 2600 issues that I have read appear to be written as how-to documents for crackers and would-be cyberterrorists.
Now you and I know that, at best, your typical 2600 Hax0r is more of the network equivelent of the flaming bag of dog shit left on a front porch than a series threat to national security - but the judge doesn't see that. The judge sees a small-time larcenist with his hand caught in a bigger bag, and a long-running distain for law enforcement and legal proceedings. (Free Kevin! indeed)
No wonder that, despite their truly iron-clad defence, that the judge gives them almost no credibility. Imagine a skinhead trying to sue for (legitimate!) racial discrimination, and you get the idea.
It's not right, and it's not fair - but it's not suprising either. 2600 is reaping the harvest they have sown the last few years.
Give the MPAA credit - they knew _exactly_ who to tackle first. When you seek to set precident, attack the weakest defendant, then move on to the strong.
It's wrong that what is supposed to be an objective exercise in logical deduction has turned into a public relations contest, but that's what it is.
Good luck 2600 and the EFF. You need it.
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
"I'm rather jubilant now. What Judge Kaplan did was blow away every one of these brittle and fragile rebuttals. He threw out fair use; he threw out reverse engineering; he threw out linking."
(Jack Valenti, quoted at salon.com)
So the concept of "fair use" is now officially dead. Two-hundred years of constitutional protection down the crapper. This is the scariest thing I believe I've ever read....
OK, shut up everyone
Probably much too late in the day for anyone to ever read this, much less moderate, but I just have to write something.
Disclaimer: I am a computer game developer for a very large game company. My comments are my own. Copyright law lets me make a good living doing what I love to do - program, make and play games. But things are just getting stupid.
-
We must stop defining ourselves by our entertainment products.
We must understand that the media corporations lie to us.
We must release ourselves from the bonds of advertising.
We must realize that we do not need these things to be happy.
We must realize that we have given up control of our thoughts for the price of entertainment.
We must realize that we have done this to ourselves.
We must realize that we do not need these things. Not to be happy. Not to be entertained.
We must discover ourselves again.
We must not forget.
-
I am not encouraging wholesale revolution or a boycott of the MPAA/RIAA.
All things in moderation.
But we must realize what we are doing.
We must tell others.
Do not see movies unless you have very good reason to believe it is worthwhile.
Do not buy DVDs if the MPAA does not want us to watch them.
You can live without these things.
You can be happy without these things.
Make your own entertainment.
Make something worth being entertained by.
-
I do not want to be told what kind of program I can or can't write. Reasonable restrictions can be placed on the use of those programs, but not on their very existence.
Code is a mathematical expression of an idea. It is the best (arguably only) way for Computer Scientists to express and test ideas.
I think... I think I understand Galileo. A scientist of a different age and a different idea, but a scientist not allowed to express and test his ideas.
There is hope. History has shown us hope that we can persevere. But if there is any parallel between the Church and Science, and Corporations and Hackers, we will not see the end of this road in our time, if indeed an end can be reached.
There are simply too many fools.
sig fault
2600's intent could not be PROVEN to be to help people steal DVD movies. It is entirely possible (though maybe not probable) that 2600's only intent was to help LinDVD along.
I am Emmanuel Goldstein.
I am Emmanuel Goldstein.
I am Emmanuel Goldstein.
I am Emmanuel Goldstein, and regardless of recent legal precedent, I see four lights.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
--
If you for either of the two major party's candidates, you're asking for more government intervention in your life, not less. Check out Harry Browne, he's ahead of Pat Buchanan in some of the polls, (and that's with a surprising lack of attention from the media!)
Harry Browne 2000
Does anyone know of any boycotts of MPAA.
"if the ID3 spec was extended to store an unlimited amount of data encoded as XML, right inside the MP3 file, one of the many cool things you could store is a digital signature. Note that this does not mean that the files are encrypted. They simply have a digital signature appended onto the end of them which can only have been created by a certain private key. Given the corresponding public key, which you need anyway to validate the signature, you can now have cryptographically secure voluntary transactions with the person who signed the file."
is that not fucking cool or what? ideally, i'd like to see this built into the ogg vorbis codec (http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/ -- an open codec to mp3 obsolete, baby) right its inception. goddamn, we could actually yank the rug out from under the mpaa, the riaa, and all the other motherfuckers who are trying to achieve complete control over the means of distribution!
please, i beg of you, spread the memes! as a semi-serious musician, and a semi-serious cypherpunk who thinks that patterns can never be property (but that making music is a service), i think that the tipster protocol (or an fda-approved substitute ;) ) is exactly what the world needs with respect to the current "starving artists vs. record companies vs. incredible ease of distribution" digital music debate.
-- sayke, v2.3.05
What confuses me is that the judge's ruling is directly at odds with both other caselaw (namely, the Bernstein/PGP ruling) and supreme court cases such as flag burning.
Well, first of all a judge can basically do whatever he wants. The appeals courts are there exactly to deal with bloopers, judge prejudice and just plain ol' stupidity. A judge doesn't have to follow case law. He makes case law. [nitpick] Well, really in the US it's the Circuit Courts that make case law, not lower-level judges, but the idea is still valid[/nitpick].
Second, even technically, the Bernstein/PGP ruling took place in California AFAIK. This is a different circuit and it is not binding on Judge Kaplan. Of course he would have been wise to read it carefully and think about it, but I as sure that his wisdom has already been commented on.
And I don't see much in common between flag burning and source code, other than the fairly obvuous fact that "speech" does not necessarily have to be speech, or even text.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
I've been working on a simple (but hopefully cool) modication for my minidisc, which reminded me of the "operation" a guy offers in the UK whereby you can get a digital output installed on a DVD player. This offers (yet another) way of helping maintain one's fair use access to the works of others, and gets up the nose of the MPAA as well.
:-)
Does anyone know if there are details online as to how to go about doing this? (detailed details?
Damn this thing is annoying - how do you fight your own favourite movies?
Yet another Unwilling Victim of Corporate-owned Culture
Call this trolling or flamebaiting, I don't care. Goldstein's screed is anything but `lucid'. Did Hemos read it before posting this article?
I share the sentiments of the rant, by and large, but he makes no coherent argument. It's just a bunch of kiddie hyperbole--like all the rest of 2600.
Anyway, it is the fair use issue that is significant here, and what's more, I think further attention to the matter should be to show that it is not DeCSS that is wrong, it is CSS that is immoral. CSS is specifically designed to deprive people of their fair use right, a right that is an important part of free speech.
I thought that when Garbus asked Valenti about what a student could do if she wanted to play a 3 minutes of "Schindler's List" and Valenti replied that she could get the analog version, I felt it had to be obvious to anyone that CSS did take away fair use rights, but Kaplan actually bought Valenti's argument. I can't believe it. I just can't believe it. How ignorant is it possible to get? Yes, today, analog versions exist, but they won't in a few years. I mean, I have a hard time awarding voting rights to people who are as ignorant as Kaplan was in this case, and when a judge exhibits such extreme ignorance, then democracy is at stake.
In the appeals, it should be very easy to demonstrate that Kaplan put words in the defendants mouths that they had never expressed, and that he was completely ignorant about matters of fundamental importance.
CSS is immoral. The engineers who designed CSS should have understood the consequences of what they where told to make, and should not have made them. That's their social responsibility. It is obvious that CSS takes away fair use rights. It is less obvious, yet important to realize, that it is a threat to free speech if a single body controls distribution of human communication. If DVD gets popular, you can't distribute communication by any other carrier, so in principle, it puts DVD-CCA (?) in the position that they can deny someone to produce a movie that is critical towards e.g. MPAA. Now, it is probably a long way before this is going to happen, but it is a serious threat to free speech if you make it possible. Therefore, I think it is important in the following to hammer on the point that it is not DeCSS that is immoral, it is CSS, and that breaking CSS was a moral act.
Talking about social responsibility, 2600 has one too, and sometimes, they should consider what the consquences of reporting a story is, that's the only bad feeling I get when I read the article, they seem to run away from the social responsibility of reporting a story. I think they would have been much better off if they said that "yes, we are responsible for reporting this story. The consequence of reporting this story is that a security hole will be fixed faster/it is being pointed out that MPAA is taking away our fair use rights", etc.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
If Bush gets into office we all know that there are a few Supreme Court Justices that will probably step down in the next 4 years and that means that the next president will appoint the new ones. Do we really want right wing Supreme Court Justices who are so tight assed they can't pass a greased BB on that bench? Well as I see it if Bush gets into office we will have that exact problem. We will have Justices up there on the bench that will be right wing appointed by Bush who will more than likely be jaded towards the internet, not understand how to use it, and who have probably constantly asked their secretaries to print their fucking E-mail so they can read it.
If this goes to supreme court it will probably find itself about in the middle of this re-appointment time and we will ALL be screwed because of it. 2600 will be screwed, DMCA will be law, the MPAA will be a god (not to mention the RIAA). All this stems from one problem... we geeks don't vote!!! I know that I will be registering to vote this next election for the sole purpose of keeping Bush out of office.
Yhcrana
The voices in my head don't like you
Yeah, and support the mandatory dissemination of banks and corporations that the government feels are a threat. I don't like corporate America any more than you do, but you can't take away their freedom any more than Dubbya can limit it. Nader's platform talks about breaking up banks and companies for no reason other than holding too much market share.
Green Party Platform
A quote from the above platform:
Establish the right of workers at every enterprise over 10 employees
to elect supervisors and managers and to determine how to organize work.
Worker Assets-Pension Funds and ESOP Shares: Pension funds representing
over $5 trillion in deferred wages account for nearly one-third of financial
assets in the US. 11 million workers participate in employee stock-option
plans (ESOPs). Reform ERISA, labor laws, and ESOP tax provisions to enable
workers to democratically control their assets.
of Big Business: Mandatory break-up and conversion to democratic worker,
consumer, and/or public ownership on a human scale of the largest 500 US
industrial and commercial corporations that account for about 10% of employees,
50% of profits, 70% of sales, and 90% of manufacturing assets.
of Small and Medium Business: Financial and technical incentives and
assistance for voluntary conversion of the 22.5 million small and medium
non-farm businesses in the US to worker or consumer cooperatives or democratic
public enterprises. Mandate that workers and the community have the first
option to buy on preferential terms in cases of plant closures, the sale
or merger of significant assets, or the revocation of corporate charters.
Mandatory conversion of the 200 largest banks with 80% of all bank assets
into democratic publicly-owned community banks. Financial and technical
incentives and assistance for voluntary conversion of other privately-owned
banks into publicly-owned community banks or consumer-owned credit unions.
They are going to try to force companies to have elections for management!! Banks being forced into the public domain!!?? If that's not purely unconstitutional, I don't know what is.
Chris
Corporate abuse of individual freedoms and rights to free speech has gone on long enough. It sickens me to see our American court system squashing the very rights it is admired for worldwide in an effort to line the pockets of a few greedy corporations with extra dollars that they don't even need. 2600 deserves to be scolded for conveying a thinly veiled "f**k the Man" editorial voice, but as has been mentioned before, not at the cost of setting precedent. Others should not have to suffer the disadvantage of precedent in a hypothetical defense against the MPAA when that precedent was set because of a brash and rebellious editorial voice. Shame on our court system for this lack of foresight. 2600's defense was iron-clad, yes, but apparently even an iron-clad defense based on the facts and 1st Amendment doctrine is vulnerable to large-scale credibility and public-relations warfare. It sucks. It isn't fair. My best suggestion (others have said it, but it bears repeating): Donate to EFF. It's the least you can do, and it's the least that I've done. -JD
Be aware that a halo has to fall only a few inches to be a noose.
Accordingly, there may be no injunction against, nor liability for, linking to a site containing circumvention technology, the offering of which is unlawful under the DMCA, absent clear and convincing evidence that those responsible for the link (a) know at the relevant time that the offending material is on the linked-to site, (b) know that it is circumvention technology that may not lawfully be offered, and (c) create or maintain the link for the purpose of disseminating that technology.
The problem for Slashdot is, who are "those responsible for the link"? Does it mean me for submitting the link? Or CmdrTaco for allowing it to be submitted?
Does Slashdot have a responsibility to prevent me from submitting links to the source code? To enforce that interpretation you'd have to shut down every news site and message board in the US.
Well maybe I'm responsible for the link. But I'm in the UK, outside the jurisdiction of Judge Kaplan, the Supreme Court and the DMCA. They can't stop me submitting comments to American sites.
How's this ban on linking supposed to work again?
You wrote:
It's much like writing a SNES emulator for PC, and using it to play SNES games that you own. Intuitively, this seems quite fair. You own the game, why can't you play it? But now you don't need to buy a SNES console, and the people developing the game in the first place were only licensed the information needed to develop because Nintendo wanted them to develop games in order to help sell SNES consoles. There is a legitimate financial framework involved, and by bypassing that you potentially deprive that company of revenue.
Except one can't buy an SNES from Nintendo anymore. Sure, they can be bought on the used market, but what happens when all used "copies" are gone. BTW, know where I can buy a ColecoVision to play all my carts I have collected in the past? Or a PDP-8 to read this damn paper tape?
Let's say I bought a whole mess of DVDs (currently, I don't own any, or a DVD player of any sort - and won't, until this thing is sorted out - however, I do have my copy of DeCSS - plus my shirt!), and then the MPAA members decide to actually "fix" the DVD scheme, rendering current DVDs "obsolete" overnight (actually, this is kinda what 2600 is asking for - just like the bank changing their lock combo)...
Things might be ok for the time being - however, what about in 20 years? My player is probably dead at that point - and I probably can't get another. But I still own the DVDs, which may be perfectly playable. However, in order to play them (legally), I need a licensed player.
Or think about this, what happens in 100 years to the DVDs and players? 500 years?
But back to your statement. I have some SNES cartridges. If I am able to copy them to another medium (say onto a hard drive), and I haven't the ability to play them (because I can't obtain an SNES), then I have the right (under fair use) to use an emulator to enjoy them. However, under the DMCA, doing so would be illegal.
CSS is not about copy protection.
CSS is about content control.
I support the EFF - do you?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
The glory of journalism...you are "free" to speak, but that doesn't mean you aren't responsible for what you speak. That's why we have "Top Secret" documents and laws against compromising national security. It's not as if 2600 didn't know that the information was sensitive...and claiming "you were just helping to get it fixed" is kind of lame.
This is not a correct comparison. Government is the *ONLY* entity priveleged in this way. NDA's, trade secrets, and such are not the same thing. If you discover something on your own you have the right to say whatever you want about it. There is only *ONE* exception and that is information that the government has deemed "Nationally Important". That's it. (We're not talking about yelling "Fire" in a movie theatre so don't go there...)
StickBoy
--- "The problem is not that the world is full of fools, it's that lightning isn't being distributed correctly." -- Mar
Case law like this will kill American technological advancement, which has been THE driving force for the advancement of improvements in the last, oh, 2 centuries. The way I read the descision is this: Unless you are a $mega-billion corp, you cannot innovate. You cannot take what others before have built and improve it. Friends, it's law like that that can eventually allow M$ and Apple to kill Linux. Face it, if the DMCA is interpreted in such an extremist way as Judge Kaplan did, then no one has the right to reverse engineer so much as a light bulb, dirt, or the fork. I've long been opposed to the federal judiciary as it is, a fraternity of no-accontability, life-serving bureaucrats whom the best of which are few, and the worst of which are corrupt black robed Napoleons who excercise their virtually unlimited authority with no fear of retribution.
In 2000 America, is a non-lawyer truly free?
Has anyone sat back and considered the broader ramifications of this ruling?
As with Yahoo in France recently the courts have made a site owner responsible for the content of any site it has links to (anyone who can't see the stupidity in this please explode now)
If this isn't turned around soon, search engines will either have to screen every site linked by their database, or cease to be a search engine (this is of course without considering how search engines would keep track of updates of 'approved' sites)
Now correct me if I'm wrong but some MPAA members own search engines, so in effect they have just put part of themselves out of business! (I think we should email the MPAA and report their member owned search engines for linking to DeCSS - like the good droid consumers they want us to be)
Why dont the search engines get up in arms about this and take action? It would make the legal tussle a little bit less one sided.
This is a much better way of rallying people to the cause as it touches probably every internet user known to man (as opposed to explaining a technical argument involving the words 'hacker' and 'piracy' which 'normal' pople tend to steer clear of).
....but all they found there was a man who repeatedly said that nothing was true, but was later found to be lying.
Clinton's comphrensive health care reform bill that failed because of Republican opposition.
Also various tax cut proposals that Republicans have supported that Democrats have not apporved.
I can go on into specifics but that would take too long and possibly would go unread.
I would like documented evidence of the specific bills or actions that you believe to be part of a conspiracy.
Personally I don't believe it. Bipartisian support is usually a rare commidity in the world of politics.
Respond to s
It's available until someone in the Australian gov. notices that the movie they were looking forward to getting on DVD doesn't have a zone 4 (Australia and New Zealand) version. Whoops! "Quick! Shut them down! I want my X-Men DVD! WHAAA!"
But cheer up! They might try shutting down zone 3 (Asia) and get blown up by a Chinese cruise missile. Remind me to listen for the rockets when I'm near MPAA HQ.
Hey... Does anyone else think it odd that Japan is in the same zone (zone 2) as Europe? Yust a thought.
I thought judge Kaplan handled the Bridgeman v. Corel case very well. But now he hands down this judgement which grants to the DVDCCA, outside the safeguards of the patent act, patent-like protection for DVD players incorporating the CSS. This is clearly unconstitutional, yet he doesn't seem to have noticed it--unless it is one of the "concerns of the amici" that his skips over with a few words.
I prefer anarchy, but only under a strong & wise anarch
Hey, wait a second, who are you calling a wierdo? I hang out on Avenue A and 8th all the time! Just because I have long hair in a pony tail, mutter words like grep and awk, and I have big black eyes from all night coding sessions doesn't mean I am a wierdo. :)
BTW, if you are on the corner of Avenue A and 8th walk 20 feet to Accidental CDs. That place has all the wierdos. (aka a very cool place).
Cheers
--weenie NT4 user: bite me!
--weenie NT4 user: bite me!
"Computers are nothing but a perfect illusion of order" -- Iggy Pop
It just sounded fishy to me so I just had to ask.
Respond to s
Well, Well, Well was written by John Lennon.
Oh, well...
Based on this insane decision by the judge, one can only guess how this would affect Napster, which undoubtedly fits the judge's descriptions better than DeCSS. Whereas one is merely an access issue, the other involves actual files being shared, and let's face it, most people use Napster specifically because they have copyrighted songs on them.
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
They posted that phone number on 2600, presumably because their e-mail server gets slashdotted too often and they've taken it down. Next up? Let's slashdot their phones. Eventually, they'll have to rely on faxen, and then we can drown them in fax paper. Maybe we can send them their code back...? "Dear MPAA: I give up, I've been harboring your DeCSS code for months now, on my website. I took all the links apart with my power drill, unplugged my internet, and I'm faxing you back your code. This is the original. Please believe me when I say I haven't made any copies. Love, Jim (no relation to the penis fish guy) attch: DeCSS.doc "
This guy does sometimes impress me, and regardless of your personal feelings towards 2600, Emmanuel has done more than (I venture to assume) anyone else here to fight the good fight.
What still astounds me is the sheer ignorance and incompetance demonstrated by Kaplan. I wasn't expecting him to become an expert in the internet and related technologies over the course of this trial, but I was really hoping he would at least demonstrate basic reasoning skill and comprehension.
Appearently he was a little too "in the pockets" so to speak of his former employers (MPAA) to reason with the facts he was presented, and simply allowed his hostility towards 2600 to dictate his thinking.
My scary prediction of the future is that after HDTV gets off the ground and analog recording is replaced with tightly controlled digital recording, fair use will still probably be allowed, but technically impossible by the restriction placed on media and recording devices. Of course, the MPAA will blame "hackers" for taking away "joe average"'s ability to record stuff, claiming they had to to prevent the non-issue of piracy and probably point to this case as an example.
So when the public finally realizes what is happening with all this DMCA stuff, don't expect them to be outraged at the MPAA. I'm pretty sure the MPAA already has a PR game plan to blame us when the time comes.
Finkployd
The way Kaplin and the DMCA is going, the Principality of Sealand is going to make a killing.
:)
Invest some money in Sealand and you've got a bet each way - if the Supreme Court lacks Kaplin's bigotry, then you - as a normal citizen - keep your rights. If Kaplin leads the Charge of Ignorance to eventual Victory over Light and Goodness, then you - as the now-wealthy invester - gain the rights of the elite, and can defend those rights with Cold Hard Cash (MPAA style).
If you can't beat 'em (and are completely lacking all moral substance), sell out and join 'em.
No, I'm not being serious
If you're a normal citizen and thus don't have sufficent money to earn your wealth for you, well... give what little you've got to the EFF, and pray.
Now Witness The Destructive Power Of This Fully Armed And Operational DMCA...