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More On Kaplan's Ruling Making Links Illegal
Meenik sent us a wired news article on Judge Kaplan's ruling that effectively makes linking things like DeCSS illegal. This is a little bit more extreme of a piece then our coverage
here a few days ago but its worth a read.
This is prejudiced against people who use the web! I'll fight till non-users of the web can't relate to illegality either.
-Leo
Q. Does Adrian Bacon read the Linux Advocacy Howto?
A. No. He is too busy reading Slashdot.
Viva Anales!
(paraphrased) "2600 is metaphorically driving people to houses so they can rob people"
Hm. My local metropolitan transporation authority (read: public bus) gave some crazy guy a ride to the bus stop in front of my apartment and he broke into my house, so I'm going to sue the transporation authority so they can't actually bring people anywhere, just tell them where to go.
Damn, sometimes I just think that America litigation is there just to provide laughs. Then I realize that it affects me and I wish that we could just some how abolish entities like the MPAA after providing such a stupid and flawed statement and enforcing it in court.
nerdfarm.org
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
No problem, as long as selling my mailing address is made illegal, putting my phone number on telemarketer call lists is illegal, spam is illegal.
All of these are links, of a different sort - They all point you to products and/or services. Linking to something, even if the "something" is illegal, isn't the point.
Don't pick up the pho*(@)$*@&@!@ NO CARRIER
I think its more of the "threat" of litigation that the Judge is counting on. You're absolutely correct in saying that it is unenforcable. I do not think that Judge Kaplan knows what the internet is comprised of. Its more of a : " I dare you to step across THIS line...okay...I dare you to step across THIS line...okay...THIS line."
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Sig it.
It is nice to see a reporter like Declan, that actually knows something about what he writes.
This case is NOT about the legality of DeCSS, it is about muzzling the press.
First it is 2600 Magazine, next it will be any news organization. All the oppressor has to do is point to this case as a precident.
This ruling MUST be overturned if we are to retain what little freedom we *think* that we have left.
Visit DC2600
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
This ruling seems to say that sticking one's head in the sand is enough to make problems go away. Not being permitted to link to things which are illegal is the same as denying their existance. This is Ostrich-like behavior.
Now that linking is illegal, what are the ramifications for print materials? This seems to say that a writer writing a book about a fictional drug dealer is unable to go speak with real ones. That is the real life equivalent of linking. A sports writer writing about the effects of certain kinds of steroids will be unable to list his sources, because listing a source is the print equivalent of a link.
How many levels of linkage does this ruling apply to? If my Japanese counterpart makes a page of links to illegal things, and then I link to that page, is that illegal? What if someone links to my page? Are they responsible, too?
--Jeff
HELP! HELP! I'm being redressed!
The REAL jabber has the /. user id: 13196
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
Um, huh?
I didn't know we were talking about a 'device'.
And as far as I knew, DeCSS was created so that someone could view a legally purchased DVD on a non-Windows computer. Unless of course you swallowed the other side's story hook line and sinker.
I guess we should know by now that the government, and the judicial system, are there to protect the poor little business from us big bad and nasty consumers that actually want to use the products we purchase. Silly me.
Bite my yammer.
For its part, 2600 simply removed the links to copies of DeCSS. But they left the non-HTML versions of the addresses intact, so visitors can simply copy and paste them into a browser window.
Now I'm two clicks away from DeCSS, damn!
When links are outlawed, only outlaws will have links.
Does this ruling also apply to what people post to chat rooms and the like? Does that mean that /. is in violation of this ruling because someone tells the address of there mirror site?
So far as I can tell the ruling doesn't say anything about what other people or even AC's post. Just that the site is resposible. Tell me I'm wrong.
..which just shows that the human brain is ill-adapted for thinking and was probably designed for cooling the blood-T P
- ZDNet: Decision is "Shocking"
- San Jose Mercury News: DMCA comes back to haunt consumers
And so on. Also, Emmanuel Goldstein posted his comments on the decision on 2600 a couple days ago (I'm not sure if that's showed up onScene: A small living room in suburban Columbus Ohio. A relatively young couple are enjoying dinner on the floor, and watching a DVD version of "The Matrix".
John: This is my favorite part. I love how the phone glues to his head.
Marsha: Eww...
(There is a knock at the door)
John: Now who could that be. (opens the door) Can I help you?
MPAA Cop (He is a tall man with a russian accent): Your papers. Show us your papers.
John: Uh.. what papers.
MPAA Cop: I grow impatient. You are using a DVD and therefore are using our decryption process. Your papers now. I want to see your license agreement.
John: Well, it's rented.
(The cop motions to a man behind him, the man pulls out a gun and holds it to John's head)
John: HEY! WHAT THE (the cop hits him across the face)
MPAA Cop: I tire of your insolence. If you do not show me your papers then I am authorized to shoot you.
(Marsha suddenly emerges beside the door, holding an AK-47, she kicks the gun out of the second man's hand and shoots them both.)
Marsha: I never wanted to shoot them... I never wanted to be a criminal by watching a movie... I just wanted to be... to be... a LUMBERJACK!
*insert stupid song here*
As Usual, IANAL, However I do not expect this to make it past the appeal process. In the past the supreme court upheld free speech in many qestionable circumstances. All that 2600 has done is provide information about where you can find material that can be used to circumvent copy protection. The key point here is that they are not directly conspiring with you to break the law, they are merely pointing you to a tool that can be used for a variety of reasons. If you and they got together in a chat room or through e-mail decided that you were going to make copies of some copyrighted dvd's and upload them to the net, then you would be going beyond the bounds of free-speech. Merely providing information always has been and always will be acceptable. If it had not been, you would not be able to find information on manifacturing explosives at your friendly neighborhood library.
If this changes and I doubt it will. It will do nothing but force people who want/need knowledge pertaining to these subjects underground.
Aaron Bryden
Aaron Bryden
abrydenREMOVETHIS@gmail.com
OK, in the wake of this decision that everyone is obviously upset with, I figured I would throw something else into the fray here. With this recent ruling, we have found out that it is now illegal to even link to a site with illegal information (or at least information which is the property of big corporations who have alot of money and interests to protect). This is a very interesting ruling and sets quite the precedent, which could come into play very soon.
The questioning over links to illegal material is not a new one. The biggest example that I can think of here would be the Napster cases. They are effectively in trouble because they are providing links to illegally copied material. Not only has Napster gotten in trouble for this now, but 2600 has as well. I think we are starting to see a trend here.
Not only is it now illegal to carry the illegal information in the Unites States, but it is illegal to link to said illegal information. An interesting implication of this would be banner ads. What do you do when a child is using the computer and "subjected" to all the porn that they innevitably are (note the dripping of sarcasm). If this porn is provided through a banner add, that page has effectively become illegal. Who is to blame for this if the banner is supplied dynamically, the provider or the page owner?
Also, does anybody know how this works in physical print? What is the punishment for containing information on obtaining illegal information? Can you get in trouble if you write a letter to the editor which contains directions to a cache of kiddie porn? Where is this line drawn?
Well at least this is getting a bit more acknowledgement. Wired has a bit more mainstream readership than Slashdot...
The whole thing just makes me sad and cynical. You ask questions like "What if they link to another site that links to DeCSS?" "Where do you draw the line?" "Can Wired be busted for linking to 2600?" or you point out how stupid Valenti's car-driving metaphor is, but nobody cares except the other complainers.
You can't ask these questions of MPAA or Kaplan and expect an answer. And the other complainers can't do anything about it.
Sigh. Maybe I'm just depressed today or something.
First of all, I'd like to just say I'm grinning wildly at 2600's response. "Oh, we can't have it hyperlinked? That's okay, we'll just make it inline text." Following the letter of the law, gotta love it.
It never ceases to amaze me how we, the 'net users, are constantly subject to laws created by people that rarely use the internet to do more than scan porn sites and read their email. (Yes, I am talking about the judges, politicians, etc.) Perhaps we are the ones who are causing them to fear what they do not know, however they will never understand their impact unless they bother to learn something.
The internet is possibly the truest form of anarchy (yes, you've heard this before, bear with me) and that terrifies the hell out of these old people in control. We have a system in place that there is no true way to regulate. If we don't like the rules for .uk or .au, we'll just take our domain to .it. There is no way for them to have a law that all countries will agree upon. IMO, the United States is becoming more of a dictatorship when it comes to the Internet than most of the other countries.
As long as these old men (and women) and companies/industries are in control, there will never be a law passed for the Internet that actually protects the individual users. The internet is a communication interface. I wish they would learn to treat it like one.
It has been said that there needs to be a revolution every ten years in order to keep the government honest. I think we're long overdue.
--Lise
Now I have to copy the link and paste it into the address window?
How are all the script kiddies gonna crack their anime dvd's?
"These are the days that must happen to you." -Walt Whitman
Did he just make the whole point of hypertext illegal? Granted, he did just do this for DeCSS, but what about when there are other things on the internet that people don't want you to read... Wait until someone links a corporate helpfile to a specific products bug-traq which raises awareness of a flaw and causes closer scrutiny of the product... One could argue that this "bad publicity" negatively affects the manufacturer's sales... We don't want people to find out about the products they are buying... we just want them to buy them online.
I've got the sales website right now:
Here's a black box with somehting in it that costs $25.00. Here is another made by our competitor that costs $50.00. We'd tell you what it is that we're selling, but you might figure out what our competitor's product is, recognize that one of us is giving a better deal and that would hurt one of our's business... We would tell you what our company is, but then you might know who are competitors are, so we can't even tell you that, and then you might show a preference towards one of us. So all we'll tell you is that we've got a product, and it's for sale. Please send cash to:
P.O. Box XXXXX
Anytown, NJ
and we promise we'll send you whatever our product is.
I've got it... rather than use the internet to spread information, lets restrict it in such a way that no useful information can be obtained.
This vaguely reminds me of something I would see on a Monty Python skit.
You say you want a revolution?
-
In May, Microsoft demanded that links to a copy of its Kerberos source code be removed from a discussion forum.
Hey! - That us!Seriously - can anyone explain how this is legal in any way at all?
-
Kaplan's ruling, legal experts say, appears to be an unprecedented expansion of traditional copyright law.
I thought that the whole point in having a seperate legislature and judiciary, was that the people who set the law, and the people who apply the law are different. It looks like the judge is making up his own laws to me, and un-constitutional laws at that.However, the thing that I have most problem with is how the law is being changed, not that it is being changed at all.
Any lawyers out there? What would be the legal position if I sold a phonebook of illegal gun traffickers? Would I be breaking any laws?
cheers,
G
Maybe all this is to remind us as individuals that we have much less control then we ever thought we have had when it comes to interacting with others. :)....
;)
A man was recently sentenced to 4 years in prison for having sex with a horse. (As Leno said, when will people learn that neigh means neigh?). It may have been on his own property with a horse he owned, but still he got sentenced to prison for it. The US is not -completely- free, nor does it people want that much freedom
Here, there are people linking to matterial that, while it is technical and good hearted in it's nature and motives (okay, so not entirely), it is, like it or not, illegal material. Just as links to kitty porn and maps that show where hemp is being grown is. And standing out in the middle of the street naked is illegal to. The nudity thing is covered by other laws, but the DMCA was passes to put certain limits on what can legally be done by internet users, limits primarily desigined to uphold copyrights in the digital scheme of things.
To understand the government's point of view, you must look at several things.
1) The people are the government in the US, where majority rules. (Lobbying doesn't do sh!t, btw, I don't care what you hippies say.)
2) The internet is a form of a public utility, grown in the mysterious space where ownership is shared among the government and the telecommunictaions industry. Because the wires are laid over government land, the government has regulatory final say over everything that goes on over that network. And while first ammendment rights are on loan to a good deal of these utilities, the government reserves the right to impose restrictions of your rights in this area. This is what makes the DMCA possible.
3) Linking to illegal material makes you a criminal, at least in an accessorary way. Sorta like being the guy who hires a hitman to take out your enemy, but a much with less at stake.
"Your rights online" has always stuck me as something ridiculous for a title of this section. We have as many rights on the internet as we would inside of a government building, say the white house. To all governemnt lands are open to the public, and the government is free to restrict access in whatever way it wants to, and this power was granted to the governement from the very begining. People do, of course, have a say in it all. Ever see a city try to annex a suburban area? Not always an easy task, usually something determined by the public. If the public wants more rights and more freedom on the internet.... well, it shouldn't have voted to administration that pushed the DMCA through into office in the first place.
What about this? It's link to a song with the code for descramble.c (the same as on the back of the t-shirts) as the lyrics (only englisised a bit) that I wrote. The originally written DeCSS was GPL'ed. I would encourage everyone to download the song and swap it around on Napster. Maybe we can merge these two cases into one- so /. can post half as many articles regarding the two subjects. "Update on the MPAA vs. Napster proceedings"...
Well. Here we go with linking to DeCSS is like driving a burglar to the scene of the crime. Hence it follows that downloading DeCSS is like burglarizing a house. Hence downloading DeCSS is like permenently taking things that don't belong to you. Do I need to point out that its a bad analogy?
So why don't we say something like: driving a burglar to a hardware store where he can legitimatly purchace the tools he intends to use for his future crime. Lets say they're lock-picks. That likens downloading DeCSS with legally aquiring a set of lock-picks, and this only brings into question as to whether getting lock-picks should be legal. I'd say yes, but that doesn't seem to matter.
Lastly, I think a more accurate analogy would be driving an interested party to a library with full knowlege that he'll read about burglarizing techniques and how a tool he already owns (a computer in DeCSS's case) may be employed in such a process. Oh no! the party is gaining information that could be used towards either a crime or to preventing future crimes. Well this is just too accurately mushy for legal grounds, so we'd better make the case a bit harder huh.
But maybe I should point out that this book doesn't really inform anyone about stealing anything, rather it informs them how they can get access to something they have license to, such that they might (or not) distribute it to persons without such a license. Since this could be done the old fasioned way of copying the enitre data on the disc (if one had the equipment), how is it suddenly such a bigger crime?
-Daniel
Part of the problem with all this is that everyone (especially Jack Valenti) is constantly trying to draw up some fucking analogy for all these legal problems.
... blah blah blah."
"This is just like someone driving you to another person's home to burglarize it."
Or:
"This is just like
The danger lies in these stupid analogies that everyone is trying to use. I mean, I don't know if this the case or not -- but is it possible that what's going on here -- linking to DeCSS, sharing music with Napster -- is it just possible that, well, this sort of stuff isn't really analagous to other non-internet things?
I don't mean this as flamebait or a troll. I'm serious: couldn't this one of those odd moments where everything that we're talking about *can't* be reduced to some cut-and-dried analogy because, well, this kind of stuff is really "like" nothing we've ever seen before?
I've been wondering: if enough geeks become sufficiently upset with anti-internet legislation, can we shut down the web for the day in protest? The only way I can think of doing this (besides DDOS, which is quite anti-social) would be to shut off the root servers. Is there any other way? This would make people appreciate the medium that they are trying to supporess, and also make people realize that they don't own the internet.
So? From where I sit, I can't tell the difference between Kaplan's head and his ass either.
Let's see if I understand the "reasoning" here.
:-)
1) I live just down the street from a major university. This university has numerous libraries; each contains countless books detailing criminal acts. Some of these libraries include war crime archives - we're not just talking about offing your neighbor here!
2) The library conveniently provides a card catalogue to enable me to quickly identify where to find books detailing poisons, explosives, etc., plus law books that will give me case histories (in the law library) that can help me avoid detection and escape conviction.
3) Since the University benefits from my presence (they charge me to park my car in their lot, depend on citizens like me to defend their cut of the state income tax, etc.), they "vicariously" benefit from any criminal act I perform.
4) The University also knows that Congress wants to criminalize all chemistry textbooks (lest they be used to produce explosives - never mind what that will do to the chemistry, medical and pharmist training), so they must be aware that the information in this library can be used to commit crime - YET THEY DO NOTHING!
5) Therefore, by this reasoning, the University has a duty to burn its card catalogue, remove the dedicated terminals that provide access to the online card catalogue (and, in fact, has superceded it - the last time I was in the library they were using old card catalogue 'cards' as scratch paper), pull the plug on the internet interface to that same online card catalogue, and randomize the location of all books in the library.
Thank God the freshmen just arrived. They always seem to be good at randomizing stuff on campus.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
If it becomes illegal to link to copyrighted material... Isn't the MPAA's web site copyrighted? Let's all file a class action lawsuit against all sites containing a link to the MPAA! We'd be doing them a favor!
Gonzo
Well, like I said, it was a stupid ruling. I first typed it with a lot of clarifiers, and it turned into a piece of legalese. Nested if statements don't make the english language very easy to read.
Anyway, as far as the judge was concerned, DeCSS was designed to copy discs. This does suggest that he slept through half the preceedings, but this was pretty much what he ruled. Therefore, in the eyes of the law, DeCSS is a device that circumvents copy protection. Maybe he didn't rule it was a device, but thats a nitpick.
My point was simply that the ruling doesn't make all links to DeCSS illegal. It does make linking for the purpose of distributing DeCSS illegal. Search engines are not trying to distribute it. They're neutral. 2600 were. They weren't just trying to helpfully explain what they weren't allowed to distribute. They were trying to distribute it. It doesn't matter what you or I believe DeCSS was created for. As far as the law is concerned its there to steal from, murder, and destroy the movie industry.
The point is that 2600 were linking to the material as a specifically as a means to distribute information on how to make a device to circumvent copy protection.
Please explain what DeCSS even remotly has to do with copy protection.
Finkployd
The last protest about this case that I remember was sometime back in January/Febuary by my local 2600 crew (in Washington DC). Now that an actual RULING has come down, in exactly the manner we feared, are there any more protests/leaf-letting activities planned? I think a great idea would be to pass out printed copies of the source code, pointing out that it could one day be illegal unless they take action.
You are more than the sum of what you consume.
You are more than the sum of what you consume.
Desire is not an occupation.
Oh well. The reason we have an appeals process is so that when acts of blatant idiocy like this occur, they can be overturned.
I rather doubt that any of this lower-court idiocy would survive higher court scrutiny. The first ammendment implications should be obvious to anyone with half a brain. It's pretty much expected that the small fry officials can be bought and sold, fortunately the higher courts still seem to have some integrity left.
Of course, it's becoming obvious that the IP and Copyright regulations are in need of a massive overhaul. Perhaps a summit is in order....
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Who's to stop the mega-corps now? "You have a site that tells people how to [fill in the blank with your favorite anarchic passtime], which will encourage [piracy][copyright infringement][free thought][other bad action]. Take it down or we'll see you in court."
Holy crap, guys, what WON'T they be able to do now?
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
If they're successful in stopping linking to DeCSS source (which will be virtually impossible), will they go on to keep search engines from searching for or displaying search results containing links to the DeCSS source code? Could the search engines even comply very easily?
A quick search for 'DeCSS source code' on Google shows that the DeCSS source code can be downloaded from literally dozens of places, many of which are outside the US.
It seems like every time they try to remove content from the web like this, it just pops back up somewhere else, and often more of it than before.
If they can't get the search engines not to return hits on searches, will MPAA or DVD-CCA try to shut down every web site that is found in the search engines, even those outside the US?
I have a better analogy than Jack Valenti's pithy masterpiece. Making linking illegal is like criminalizing possession and distribution of marijuana. I'm not taking a stand here on whether criminalizing marijuana was incredibly stupid (it was); I'm just making a comparison. Think about it.
Before Nixon criminalized marijuana:
Pot is distributed (and imported) by stoner college kids.
After Nixon criminalized marijuana:
Pot is distributed through the good offices of those organizations that specialize in dealing with the high risks associated with apprehension and imprisonment, namely, organized crime.
Before DCMA/Judge Kaplan:
Arguably naughty software is obtained by following a link to a server where the software is stored.
After DCMA/Judge Kaplan/other brilliant jurists who follow the reasoning in the 2600 decision:
Arguably naughty software gets distributed through the good offices of those organizations that specialize in dealing with the high risks associated with apprehension and imprisonment, namely, organized crime.
Coincidence? We'll see.
DeCSS sure does a hell of a job viewing my dvds, I mean that 4 gig file sitting on my drive is great. Had someone written a legal linux player you wouldn't be in this mess now. But god forbid the zealots should pay for anything. I think RMS said it best:
"The only good thing about the unauthorized copy is that you avoid giving money to the owner. This is good, because the owner does not deserve a reward for making software proprietary."
http://tlug.linux.or.jp/rms.html
Theres the interview to back it up. RMS advocates breaking the law.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
...following the links from the story, I saw some interesting thoughts in the lawsuit between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints vs. some other people, which can be found here. Halfway through all the legalese, I came up with these sparkling gems of wisdom:
Do those who browse the websites infringe plaintiff's copyright?
Blah, blah, blah, copyright stuff, and then:
See MAI Systems Corp. v. Peak Computer, Inc., 991 F.2d 511, 518 (9th Cir. 1993) (holding that when material is transferred to a computer's RAM, copying has occurred; in the absence of ownership of the copyright or express permission by license, such an act constitutes copyright infringement)
Whoah. So if open Slashdot, and someone posted some DeCSS code, automagically I'm a copyright infringer? But then...
Marobie-FL., Inc. v. National Ass'n Fire Equip. Distrib., 983 F.Supp. 1167, 1179 (N.D.Ill. 1997) (noting that liability for copyright infringement is with the persons who cause the display or distribution of the infringing material onto their computer)
Oooooh. This must mean that if I open up, let's say, the Louvre's webpage, and I open up a page with the Mona Lisa, and since I do not own the Mona Lisa and as far as I know I dont have express permission by license, then I'm a copyright infringer?
Finally, it is in the public's interest to protect the copyright laws and the interests of copyright holders.
And you wonder why people don't like big corporations and their lawyers...
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Learning to fly, Pink Floyd.
We must fight this and any infringment on our freedoms or we lose them!
Fight Spammers!
I don't like being the devil's advocate, but a few weeks ago I did come up with a thought that could be used to argue that there can indeed be legal action against a person linking to deCSS or something similar:
Not the link itself would be the problem, but the implicated participance in the crime (that of distributing the stuff).
Compare it with the drugs dealer next door [if applicable]. Pointing at the house saying "there is a drugs dealer there" is perfectly legal. Cheering at the beauty of cocaine and putting a sign in your yard saying "Want some cocaine? I can cut you in on a good deal" and then directing people to your neighbours house.. that's a different story.
You are perfectly allowed to do that, free speech is unharmed. But it could implicate that you have some involvement.
Perhaps a bit thin, but I cannot find any flaws in this reasoning other than the grey area to find out what exactly would qualify as involvement.
I can now imagine why a link called "Fsck the MPAA, get deCSS" would be judged as involvement in the act of distributing and thus has a basis for legal action.
I was reading Richard Feynman's The Meaning of it All and he had a great bit of wisdom at the end of his second chapter. Granted, it was in reference to the Russians, but its applicable nwo, and I quote:
Man has been stopped before by stopping his ideas. Man has been jammed for long periods of time. We will not tolerate this. I hope for freedom for future generations - freedom to doubt, to develop, to continue the adventure of finding out new ways of doing things, of solving problems.
Why do we grapple with problems? We are only in the beginning. We have plenty of time to solve the problems. The only way that we will make a mistake is that ithe impetuous youth of humanity we will decide we know the answer. This is it. No one else can think of anything else. And we will jam. We will confine man to the limited imagination of today's human beings. "
Read him. Understand this, and wake up. This is too scary when the censorship gets close enough that I can feel it. Feynman understood it in the 60's.
Witty quotes suck.
How long 'til we have 20,000 lawsuits preventing the linking to a whole host of 'objectionable' material (as define by those who have the desire to file a lawsuit, which could be just about anyone, I guess.)
All those wonderful non-techinical people who are supplying the power behind these lawsuits are finally going to really bump up against the realities of the internet, mainly that you can't make information go away, not matter how many people you sue. It has progressed to the point that they are dealing with the very fabric of the web, which is irreducible. You can not take hyper-links out of the web. You can't sue or buy them away.
I think this is VERY significant becuase it is no longer about just the content of one entity on the web, it's about the way the web works. Try to make one 'topic' illegal to link to, then watch the flood. The legal system -should- quickly realize how incredible unenforcible and rediculous this is.
This actually kinda makes me feel good... I'm glad this was part of the ruling, 'cause it's a mile-stone... and once we get over this hurdle, and it is realized that you just can't stop hyper-linking, it will be one more legal battle the web will have taken care of.
CSS has little to nothing to do with copy protection, even if you're not just talking about Cascading Style Sheets.
If you have a DVD-R drive (About $3000 from Philips) and the appopriate software, you can copy a DVD. This copy will play just fine.
CSS is uses to prevent you from playing a region X disc in a region Y player, and to prevent you from playing any DVD in a non-licensed player. Only licensed players are allowed to use CSS. The people who invented CSS never dreamt that it would not be reverse-engineered; Any good assembly programmer could pull that off, and probably lots of other people besides. They are however forced to pretend that they thought CSS was good for something.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I had a couple of thoughts on this. First: the MPAA sucks.
Second: Is this the first step before they try to ban posting a URL? Because honestly, is there even a point to banning a link when people can cut and paste? What would happen if a browser automatically converted an "http://" string into a link? Would that be a legal link, or make the plaintext URL posted into an illegal activity? And finally, isn't it easy to see the relation between this and a journalist getting arrested because they listed the address of a crackhouse. (Clearly promoting the sale of illicit drugs)
Third: Having not yet used gnutella, but knowing its operation in theory, I wonder if you could tag documents, release them over gnutella, and have a type of linking system where you could easily "browse" by hooking into the gnutella framework. Publish a webpage, and it is anonymous and uncensorable? I can't even imagine how the MPAA sleeps nights. Has anyone done this yet?
Download DeCSS.
This link goes to a CGI which redirects to a random link pulled from 2600's plain text list of links. This means that my site does not contain any DeCSS code, nor does it contain links to DeCSS code. If 2600's page is now legit, then my script links to a legal page. Yet, if you click on the above link, you get code. Hmmm...
Source code here (warning - I wrote it in about 3 minutes).
(Mozilla M18-2000081415)
DNA just wants to be free...
I thought that was because the development was started on Windows (something about no access to DVD on alternatives at the time)?
And the rest of your post kind of sounds like it is the perfect way to impress the MPAA. If we have enough people say (paraphrasing your post) "Yeah, I'm gonna rent and copy to CDR" then there will be no reason whatsoever to try and defend the creator of the software.
Would you believe that there are some people that use MP3 for things in a legal way? Yeah, I know, it can't be done. I purchase a CD, rip and MP3 encode it and store the CD in a cabinet. I have done nothing illegal (and this is exactly what I do with every CD I own, and I haven't downloaded any MP3s from bands that don't put them out themselves), yet the record companies would still say that I am using an illegal method of copying. I paid for the music, I didn't sell it afterwards (all of my CDs remain in that cabinet), I'm just listening to it off of a hard drive. And if hard drives were bigger, I would do the same thing with DeCSS and DVDs.
Which brings me to an interesting point. Could the MP3 scare be what caused the MPAA to go out of their collective heads over DeCSS? They didn't want to see something get as ingrained as MP3 currently is before they tried to fight it. The whole thing seems to be crazy. If people want to steal something, they are going to steal it. But you can't make a method of doing something illegal just because it might be used illegally. If that were the case we would all be laying on our backs with our arms and legs cut off, drooling out the side of our mouths. Why, well, because we might use our hands to commit a crime, and we might use our legs to run away from the scene. Gimme a break!
Bite my yammer.
If/when the 2nd Circuit reviews Kaplan's denial of recusal, I suggest that we submit a brief/petition urging the Appeals court to find that recusal was warrented. If recusal was wrongly denied, all of Kaplan's opinions, decisions, and orders will be vacated. The standard for recusal under 28 USC 455 is:
Note that the standard requires only that "the trial judge's impartiality could reasonably be questioned", not that they must be proven. It is a "significan doubt" question.
As a matter of precedent, see the discussion of Republic of Panama v. American Tobacco Company, Inc. No. 99-30685 (5th Cir. 7/20/2000) in a post I made on openlaw. In that case a judge whose trial association submitted a brief on a "tobacco matter" in an unrelated case should have recused himself even though he did not take part in writing the brief.
Given these standards, do any of the reaonable people out there have "significant doubt" as to the judge's lack of impartiality?
Here's to hoping!
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
I would say it's more like driving someone across the border into Mexico (or Canada, or wherever) so they can purchase tools with which to burglarize the home.
But what you left out is that the home that they want to pick the lock on ("burglarize") is their own. When Valenti accidently locks himself out of his house, he thinks he should have to get authorization from the lock manufacturer before he's allowed to pick his own lock.
It's worse then that. He thinks that he needs to get authorization from the architect who designed his house. In Valentiville, the architect is free to say, "No", in which case, Jack is forbidden by law from ever entering his house again.
I did a quick search on Google (only because it is my favourite search engine) and found links to webpages that (no surprise) contained links to the DeCSS code. I managed to download that code, then deleted it (because I have no particular use for it). I am sure that the same search on any of the other search engines on the web would produce similar results, so I am not singling Google out here.
Does this mean that Google now has to remove keywords or links selectively because the information they are focuses on might violate some ignorant US legal ruling?
If so then this ruling cannot stand or the entire web will come crashing down around Kaplan's ears.
Looks like Roy Rogers was right when he said "This country has the best politicians money can buy". It also ooks like the only reason that Justice is blind is because it has its head up its ass.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
I wonder if that is really true... I'm sure the people who decided to use CSS never imagined it, but I can't help but suspect that the guy they hired to write it was some bearded, hippie, *nix guru who decided to write an encryption scheme that was just good enough for him to complete the contract and move on to the next job, all the while chuckling under his breath at the thought of how quickly it would come crumbling down.
It reminds me of P.J. O'Rourke's theory about how the Presidential "football" probably can't launch any missiles... Picture this: You are a scientist geek working away in your white lab coat, when a military guy who is just like the kind of person who beat the crap out of you in High School storms in and says "hey four-eyes, build a gadget so the President can blow up the world!" Would you do it? Or would you just fill a box with impressive-looking circuits and a big, red button?
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Well ladies and laddies,
:)
My DeCSS T-shirt arrived at my door-step this afternoon. This afternoon is AFTER the Kaplan ruling. The parcel came complete with a printout of the complete DeCSS source on paper (nice touch). It arrived, courtesy of the U.S. Postal Services Priority Mail option. Another nice touch. Thank you Copyleft.
The parcel clearly stated on the label, that it originated at Copyleft - a known named defendant in the DeCSS case.
So my question is this: Is the Federal Government in violation of the DMCA/Kaplan Ruling, by not only permitting the banned code's distribution, but also by contributing to it?
Perhaps, just to be on the safe side, they should open all correspondence, just to make sure that no DeCSS source code, or references to it are contained therein?
BTW: The shirt is sharp. High quality cotton, very legible, crisp printing. Get yours TODAY - before they're sold out, intercepted, burned or otherwise unavailable. Get a few - get one for Mom, Dad, your friends.. Spread the disease. They can't jail us all.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
It's not one judge - it was congress that passed the law that the judge is enforcing. Congress already stepped all over your rights - the judge is just making sure that what is deemed to be law is followed and enforced.
And on top of that, the architect has the right to install secret locks in your house that lock you out permanently at his command. And yes, it would be illegal for you to circumvent those locks.
That's how absolute the DMCA is.
Congres desided that you yanks shouldn't have freedum of speach anymore. Read The DMCA.
This case is going to the apeals court.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
Judge J. Mendlink (no joke, folks. SML) waived the arguments, stating, that if PCM, doesn't want others to use their information, that they should not put it on internet for free. He also considered it doubtful, that the newspapers in question actually incurred damage.
Funnily enough, normally internet-savvy journalist Francisco van Jole, who has been on the internet about since the start of last September (which was the '93 one, as we all know. SML.), predicted the imminent death of content on the internet.
Anyone with time and language skill is invited to translate the actual article or articles, via kranten.com or directly from for instance de Volkskrant or de NRC, the best two national newspapers as far as I can tell, with preference to the latter. Both are actually published by PCM. Though only de Volkskrant probably has van Jole's actual words.
De Volkskrant also ran another story on "Ever more Merkins in Dutch ICT". Interesting, but I've got no time to tell ya about it.
Stefan (using my initials SML for editorial comments above).
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
The truth shall make you fret. (Ankh-Morpork tImes motto)
It seems to me that all this is heading towards a world where everything is illegal and the powerholders can choose to attack whoever they like because everyone is guilty. If linking to illegal material is illegal then nearly every web site is illegal so the MAN will be able to single any webmaster they want out for persecution.
These kinds of laws really bother me because they put too much discretion in the hands of the police/prosecuter If laws are more careful then much fewer people are guilty and only the deserving are prosected.
If you assume that using DeCSS as a tool to help copy a DVD is a crime, then this analogy is still wrong. What he is doing is equivalent to giving somebody directions on how to get to a store where they sell lock picks. Now, if somebody uses the picks to break into a house, is the guy who gave directions on where to get the picks liable? Is the guy who sold the picks liable? So why on God's green (and blue) earth is Eric Corley being held responsible for a similar act?!?
*sigh*
---
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
If he did overturn it, his head would be where his ass now is, and vice-versa. The ruling it remains the same, only the orifice has changed.
in a strongly worded statement earlier this summer, MPAA president Jack Valenti made it clear where he stood: "(2600 publisher Eric Corley) is transporting individuals electronically to locations in order to facilitate the illegal copying of DVDs. His behavior is analogous to driving someone to a home so that they may burglarize the home." </quoteArticle>
Does this mean that driving people to houses sould be illigal, just in case they were to burgle the house?
vw_bob
Regardless of how you feel about the legality of DeCSS itself, prohibiting linking to sites containing DeCSS is pretty much the same thing as prohibiting a movie about an elaborately planned murder. We allow movie makers to portray this every day, often in enough detail so that we now know how to do illegal things, or where to find illegal things.
I also find it funny that media outlets are scared... the majority of television and radio outlets, the source of the news for many people in the U.S. (where this case matters), are owned by the same people that own the motion picture studios... it's sort of funny. Check out Who Owns What at the Columbia Journalism Review site to see exactly how much media is controlled by a few large entities.
Sujal
politics, food, music, life: FatMixx
A moronic decision of this calibre leads me to believe that hizzoner is probably on the take.MPAA is probably setting up his retirement acct.What "honorable"reason could there be to set such precedent and invite the contempt of his judicial peers?$Good old fashioned money$
Many make the serious mistake of believing that judge is a special position.Most of the time it turns out to be a shitty lawyer who couldnt cut it in a law firm or some disillusioned law grad whose daddy has a little influence.
In my own city all city officials,cops and judges were given the MMPI(Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory)a widely standardized test for weeding out the freaks and psychos.While it's
not a pass/fail sort of test it does reveal social,psychological and character deviance as well as strength.Only half the city officials were
worthy of their positions,5% of cops and 0.0%of judges.Not that its here or there but nothing was ever done about these test results they were merely "put on file".
I guess in the end my point is:Don't expect justice from anywhere but your own hands.Don't misplace your respect on these fools.Y'know if you took all the lawyers from everywhere in the world,placed them in a line and marched them into the ocean,it would be a good start.
IANALAIYCMOIBYA(I am not a lawyer and if you call me one I'll beat your ass)
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
> more important than our use of computers for the free exchange of information?
Yes, he is.
The most depressing thing about the state of IP law and those who practise it is that they utterly fail to grok the fact that it's precisely the use of computers for the free exchange of information that's led to the generation of so much capital over the past 20 years.
With real freedom to innovate, you get real freedom and real innovation. With Freedom To Innovate(tm), you get DIVX(tm) and SDMI(tm).
But I wonder if the average American really understands what's going on. What we need is a TELEVISED DEBATE on N-B-freakin-C between the MPAA and the folks over at 2600.... which might happen as soon as I can motivate these pigs to fly outta my a$$.
Kevlar Boxers...Because cajones aren't bulletproof
... so I guess it's still okay... :)
http://www. cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/08/23/decss.part2.idg/ index.html
Scroll down to the links at the bottom... it links to http://www.zpok.demon.co.uk/decss/.
The situation has become totally ridiculous. There's an old quote about how "private property" was invented the day an ape stuck a fence around a field, called it "his", and all the other apes believed him.
While we do live on a "small planet", with limited land resources, intellectual "property" is no such "thing". You can't try to apply the laws of the material world to the mental world. They two are different domains. They have different properties. They cannot be treated the same way.
Unlike a material object, an idea has no physical location. It transcends space and time. Ideas are a wonderful opportunity for people to give to the world in a manner that does not detract from themselves. If I give you my dinner, I may go hungry, but if I share my idea, we _both_ benefit (if it's a good one).
We are at a point where the powers that be would have us take "memory eraser" pills when we have finished watching a concert, so that we are not "stealing" memories of their IP --- (I submit this silly analogy as a homage to all the other silly analogies being spouted by highly paid, so called, "intelligent" individuals).
Unfortunately DVD is making it's way into the consumer mainstream.... seductively playing on the new entertainment tech appeal to the masses. But thanks to the discussions on /. I for one will at least be avoiding the stuff. Heck, I don't read enough fiction. Maybe I'll just read more books instead.
Re. the statement about companies protecting their "revenue stream": your services are no longer needed. Thanks, it's been great doing business with you, the music distributors (you know who you are), but I am not able to obtain music quite easily without your help. So long, and thanks for all the fish!
Thank you!
While I can't host it on Napster, may I place it on my personal homepage (not my website above - I am trying to keep my "politics" away from that)? I know the code it GPL'd, but your work is copyrighted - you have given permission to distribute - maybe a link back to your page. Wow... I guess I could do both, since you are giving permission implicitly by offering it on the net...
Once again, thank you! More chaffe - yay!
I support the EFF - do you?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
This ruling is issued by a Federal District Court (Southern District of New York). It has very little value as legal precedent (many of these cases don't even get published anymore, although this one probably will, especially when it gets appealed). It really only applies as binding "law" to the litigants before the court (MPAA and 2600, plus other named defendants), and possibly by extension to anyone else subject to jurisdiction in the S.D.N.Y. doing the same things (assuming the Court pays attention to its own rulings later on down the line). If somebody else in another jurisdiction upsets the MPAA, they have to bring another lawsuit in that jurisdiction; they can point to this case as "res judicata" (things decided already) but the judge is pretty free to ignore it, especially if the facts differ. Stuff like this happens all the time; different state & federal courts disagree, leading to "splits" in authority between different Circuits (the next level up from District court); often, the Supreme Court decides to weigh in, to make things uniform nationwide again.
My 2 cents: if this upsets you, try "civil disobedience" - post your own links to DeCSS and other "banned" stuff everywhere you can (that is, your own websites - no advocacy for crackers/defacers intended). Keep the suits and lawyers so busy, they lose sight of the bottom line and start losing $$$. Use massive, peaceful protest to help change the current system. Examples: Ghandi, MLK, and now Emmanuel Goldstein?
#include "disclaim.h"
"All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak
#include "disclaim.h"
"All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak
DeCSS can be obtained, for example, here, but there is a list of mirrors here.
I don't mind if what I have written is illegal. I have freedom of speech.
but I am not able to obtain music quite easily without your help
but I am now able to obtain music quite easily without your help
Arghhh, f*****g typo, my fingers have their own sence of humour....
The article mentioned Microsoft's case against Slashdot. What ever became of that case?
It has been said that there needs to be a revolution every ten years in order to keep the government honest. I think we're long overdue.
Actually it was said by that dead, white, male, slaveowner, Thomas Jefferson. You know: The guy who planted those paper timebombs that ended up freeing the slaves and giving women the vote.
The time he suggested was twenty years, and the quote was to the effect of ~heaven forbid that [the US] ever go twenty years without a revolution~
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
<form name="decss" method="post" action="http://decssmirror.org/decss.html">
<input type="submit" value="Go to decss mirror">
</form>
Rich
Did he just make the whole point of hypertext illegal?
I think he made footnotes (to "illegal information") illegal.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Exactly. It represents, to me, a reversal of prior judicial opinion on free speech. When someone links to DeCSS, they could be saying, "Hey, here's DeCSS. This is a shoddy way to encrypt digital content, especially when you accidentally leave a public key in!" They're NOT telling you to go and use it for what are, currently, nefarious purposes. The act of linking is not inciting an immediate illegal act.
Of course this position only makes sense if you hold that the code itself is a form of tool, and object, and not a protected piece of speech. Inthis case, it'd be like if some guy asked you where to buy a gun, you say, "WalMart, next to the car batteries" (non-Americans: I'm not kidding) and he buys a gun and kills someone. It'd be a very fucked up world indeed if a court found you liable as an accessory to murder. the same Analogy would hold true for a car dealership selling someone an otherwise good car, and then they go out and get sloshed and kill someone on their wobbly drive home. It's not their fault what another invidiual does with the tool.
----
----
Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
So I've been reading about all this linking crap, and I am pissed off. I call the MPAA (818-995-6600) on my way home from work today.
Me: I'd like to speak to someone about the DeCSS litigation.
MPAA: May I take your name and number and have them call you back?
Me. No. I would like to talk to someone now.
(I was then transferred to someone who kept me on spearkerphone)
MPAA: Go ahead.
Me: I would like to talk to someone about the DeCSS litigation.
MPAA: Go ahead.
Me: Is it legal for me to play DVD's on my linux laptop using DeCSS.
MPAA: I will accept that.
Me: I'm not looking for your acceptance, I'm asking you a yes or no question.
MPAA: I'm not giving away legal advice, I will accept that statement.
Me: So it is legal for me to play DVD's on my Linux laptop using DeCSS?
MPAA: Ok.
Me: So why did 2600.com have to take down the links?
MPAA: (proudly) Because we won!
Me: But what is the difference?
MPAA: YOu're playing a DVD versus distributing and/or harboring distributing (or some legal phrase)
Me. But it's okay to play my DVD's on my Win98 laptop?
MPAA: Yes.
Me: What's the difference?
MPAA: You have both operating systems?
Me: Yeah, I can dual boot to Linux-Mandrake 6.1 or Win98.
MPAA: So you can legally watch DVD's under Windows?
Me: Yes
MPAA: What, does it hurt you to switch to Windows?
Me: No, I PREFER Linux.
MPAA: (loudly and agitatedly) You have nothing better to do than to complain? YOu can watch them legally and you're calling me complaining? Who do you represent?
Me: (looking around, and seeing only myself) Me, a consumer.
MPAA: (sound of arguing)
Me: (sound of arguing)
MPAA: You're a whiny complainer!
Me: (ticked off that a company has offended its consumer) go read slashdot, buddy.
MPAA: You don't have what it takes to write slashdot with "I'm a whiny complainer!"
Me: Yes I do. Go read it in 30 minutes.
You can ban the MPAA if you don't like their treatment of the DeCSS issue. You can ban them if you don't like their treatment of scour TV. You can ban them if you don't like the color shoes they wear.
Companies that treat their consumers like that, however, effectively ban themselves.
Signed,
A Whiny Complainer who prefers to use Linux instead of Windows.
What if someone posted only a portion of the DeCSS code on their site, and someone else posted another portion on their site, and a third person posted a program that would "combine" the two portions together? Could that be construed as "linking" under the ruling? I think people need to really think about how to defeat the intent of the ruling without violating the letter. The problem is not with the law it is with the solutions around the law.
One final solution is to force the repeal of the ruling by making it unenforcable; civil disobedience is an option.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Instead of illegally linking to something like http://24.114.168.235/public/css.htm why not just link to Google's search for this page at m /search?q=http%3A%2F%2F24.114.168.235%2F public%2Fcss.htm&hl=en&safe=o ff&btnG=Google+Search</a> or is linking to Google illegal too?
You know, a search engine that just provides one link when given a search on a link would be cool, but at least Google here gives you a whole bunch of related links. 38 links for the above, in fact.
Below is a letter I've sent to all of my congressman. Please feel free to use as your own if you feel the same way I do:
Dear Congressperson,
I write to you this letter through actual tears of distress at the disheartening developments and outcomes of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). Never in my life have I see a single piece of legislation give so much power to corporations at the expense of consumer rights and individual liberties. Of all the amendments in our Bill Of Rights, one of them has for most stood out as paramount, and for good reason it is the First Amendment. Our founding fathers did not make it the 3rd, 6th or the 10th. In the most recent case, Judge Kaplan in the DeCSS vs. MPAA trial, ruled that not only was source code (which can be written on a T-shirt) not speech, but that even linking or directing to people to such code is also illegal!
I'm not sure what I am asking you do, only that if don't already understand the chilling implications of these trends, please do so at once. Since it was Congress who passed this draconian piece of legislation, it is Congress who must overturn it. I want to start seeing legislation that is pro-consumer first, and pro-corporation second. One that protects the liberties and freedoms of individuals against over-zealous corporate interests.
To anyone who knows anything about the use and programming of computers, source code is definitely speech. Computer networks are the fastest-growing medium of public and private expression; our rights and liberties, as we engage in commerce and in other forms of discourse via that medium are protected by instructions to computers. Source code is the means by which these instructions are expressed in ways that people can examine and understand.
On the Internet, there can be no genuine freedom of speech unless source code is a protected form of speech. This principle is attacked, however, by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in his ruling that, "society must be able to regulate the use and dissemination of code." The judge then enjoined Eric Corley, publisher of 2600 magazine, from assisting his readers from even linking to the code that unlocks DVD content. My head is spinning from the implications of all this. No longer is the act of a crime a crime, but discussing it or pointing to people who do is also now criminal. The current anti-piracy/pro-intellectual property laws are dangerously moving in that direction. No longer are the people doing the pirating liable, but any technology like Napster or Gnutella which makes it possible is also illegal. This same logic could just as easily be applied to the internet itself. It's equivalent to making cars illegal because they allow people to conduct bank robberies or kidnappings. Unless I am corrected, technology has never been the culprit, only the user of such technology is criminal. In a murder trial we don't hold the knife trial, only the user of it. But now with the help of statutes in the DMCA, people like the MPAA and RIAA are trying to outlaw any and all technology that can be used to facilitate piracy. If they get their way, we might as well say goodbye to the PC, the fax machine, the telephone, the internet, Napster, Gnutella, and just about any other new technology that doesn't give them complete control over all its content. This a chilling prospect indeed. Imagine everything we say, do and watch through media is tightly controlled, filtered and censored through power of consolidated corporate interests.
Dangerously, companies are already discussing plans to re-vamp the whole array of consumer computer products and internet protocols to do exactly this. Imagine buying your new computer with a label on it saying, "Do not open or tamper with under Penalty of Law". I don't know about you, but the thought of corporations forbidding individuals from producing and distributing media or building their own computers or running their own software should be completely repugnant to anyone with principles of a free society. To legally support the position that the common man is fit only for mindless consumption is a despicable point of view, and to forbid otherwise is a shocking development that speaks volumes about the perspective and motivation of modern corporations. But if the corporations do manage to create an entirely new information infrastructure, then the individual user will no longer be able to distribute their music or creative work online as they have up to now, as doing so would mean they'd be using a format easily copyable and cheaply distributed - which by definition would become outlawed if corporations get their way.
Now that duplication costs have fallen to zero thanks to the computer revolution, what you have here is nothing less than a corporate power grab attempting to create artificial scarcity where there is none, in a desperate attempt to maintain their previous monopoly of media distribution and revune streams.
Just imagine if the blacksmiths of days past were allowed to pass equivalent legislation prohibiting any technology which might circumvent their ability to make money; any transportation device not using horses now becomes illegal. It may have seemed a small sacrifice at the time to protect people's livelihood, but where would we be today without our modern transportation systems?
In the regards to the DeCSS case, the Supreme Court has already laid the foundation for reversal of this ruling, in Justice Stevens' majority opinion striking down the Communications Decency Act of 1996. That opinion described the discourse of the Internet as a "dynamic, multifaceted category of communication ... as diverse as
human thought," and included the vital statement that other cases involving other forms
of mass communication provide "no basis for qualifying the level of First Amendment
scrutiny that should be applied to this medium."
Given the Supreme Court's unambiguous statement, it is shocking to consider the precedent that Judge Kaplan proposes to create. If it is unlawful to publish the means of breaking DVD encryption, then isn't it also unlawful to publish a detailed critique of any other encryption algorithm that explains its vulnerabilities?
For that matter, wouldn't this ruling hamper any form of consumer activism that independently examines the ingredients, the design or the behavior of any product whose vendors demand "trade secret" status? Sounds awfully convenient to me.
Those who approve of Kaplan's ruling assert that it merely enforces the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998; this assertion surely invites the Supreme Court's scrutiny of that law, since any U.S. copyright law must ultimately trace its authority back to language of the Constitution.
Article I, Section 8 merely authorizes Congress "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." Copyright law is not property law, despite the attempts of the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America to paint themselves as aggrieved property owners merely trying to protect what's theirs.
What's constitutional is what "promotes the progress" of creative expression. Increasingly, source code is the lingua franca of "science and the useful arts," and source code must therefore enjoy full protection against any law that abridges its freedom. This should also be extended to provide protection of technology creators to not be held liable for how some criminals decide to use it.
If you read this far, you have my deepest gratitude.
Most Respectfully,
Your name here.
www.enthea.org
Below is a letter I've sent to all of my congressman. Please feel free to use as your own if you feel the same way I do:
Dear Congressperson,
I write to you this letter through actual tears of distress at the disheartening developments and outcomes of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). Never in my life have I see a single piece of legislation give so much power to corporations at the expense of consumer rights and individual liberties. Of all the amendments in our Bill Of Rights, one of them has for most stood out as paramount, and for good reason it is the First Amendment. Our founding fathers did not make it the 3rd, 6th or the 10th. In the most recent case, Judge Kaplan in the DeCSS vs. MPAA trial, ruled that not only was source code (which can be written on a T-shirt) not speech, but that even linking or directing to people to such code is also illegal!
I'm not sure what I am asking you do, only that if don't already understand the chilling implications of these trends, please do so at once. Since it was Congress who passed this draconian piece of legislation, it is Congress who must overturn it. I want to start seeing legislation that is pro-consumer first, and pro-corporation second. One that protects the liberties and freedoms of individuals against over-zealous corporate interests.
To anyone who knows anything about the use and programming of computers, source code is definitely speech. Computer networks are the fastest-growing medium of public and private expression; our rights and liberties, as we engage in commerce and in other forms of discourse via that medium are protected by instructions to computers. Source code is the means by which these instructions are expressed in ways that people can examine and understand.
On the Internet, there can be no genuine freedom of speech unless source code is a protected form of speech. This principle is attacked, however, by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in his ruling that, "society must be able to regulate the use and dissemination of code." The judge then enjoined Eric Corley, publisher of 2600 magazine, from assisting his readers from even linking to the code that unlocks DVD content. My head is spinning from the implications of all this. No longer is the act of a crime a crime, but discussing it or pointing to people who do is also now criminal. The current anti-piracy/pro-intellectual property laws are dangerously moving in that direction. No longer are the people doing the pirating liable, but any technology like Napster or Gnutella which makes it possible is also illegal. This same logic could just as easily be applied to the internet itself. It's equivalent to making cars illegal because they allow people to conduct bank robberies or kidnappings. Unless I am corrected, technology has never been the culprit, only the user of such technology is criminal. In a murder trial we don't hold the knife trial, only the user of it. But now with the help of statutes in the DMCA, people like the MPAA and RIAA are trying to outlaw any and all technology that can be used to facilitate piracy. If they get their way, we might as well say goodbye to the PC, the fax machine, the telephone, the internet, Napster, Gnutella, and just about any other new technology that doesn't give them complete control over all its content. This a chilling prospect indeed. Imagine everything we say, do and watch through media is tightly controlled, filtered and censored through power of consolidated corporate interests.
Dangerously, companies are already discussing plans to re-vamp the whole array of consumer computer products and internet protocols to do exactly this. Imagine buying your new computer with a label on it saying, "Do not open or tamper with under Penalty of Law". I don't know about you, but the thought of corporations forbidding individuals from producing and distributing media or building their own computers or running their own software should be completely repugnant to anyone with principles of a free society. To legally support the position that the common man is fit only for mindless consumption is a despicable point of view, and to forbid otherwise is a shocking development that speaks volumes about the perspective and motivation of modern corporations. But if the corporations do manage to create an entirely new information infrastructure, then the individual user will no longer be able to distribute their music or creative work online as they have up to now, as doing so would mean they'd be using a format easily copyable and cheaply distributed - which by definition would become outlawed if corporations get their way.
Now that duplication costs have fallen to zero thanks to the computer revolution, what you have here is nothing less than a corporate power grab attempting to create artificial scarcity where there is none, in a desperate attempt to maintain their previous monopoly of media distribution and revune streams.
Just imagine if the blacksmiths of days past were allowed to pass equivalent legislation prohibiting any technology which might circumvent their ability to make money; any transportation device not using horses now becomes illegal. It may have seemed a small sacrifice at the time to protect people's livelihood, but where would we be today without our modern transportation systems?
In the regards to the DeCSS case, the Supreme Court has already laid the foundation for reversal of this ruling, in Justice Stevens' majority opinion striking down the Communications Decency Act of 1996. That opinion described the discourse of the Internet as a "dynamic, multifaceted category of communication ... as diverse as
human thought," and included the vital statement that other cases involving other forms
of mass communication provide "no basis for qualifying the level of First Amendment
scrutiny that should be applied to this medium."
Given the Supreme Court's unambiguous statement, it is shocking to consider the precedent that Judge Kaplan proposes to create. If it is unlawful to publish the means of breaking DVD encryption, then isn't it also unlawful to publish a detailed critique of any other encryption algorithm that explains its vulnerabilities?
For that matter, wouldn't this ruling hamper any form of consumer activism that independently examines the ingredients, the design or the behavior of any product whose vendors demand "trade secret" status? Sounds awfully convenient to me.
Those who approve of Kaplan's ruling assert that it merely enforces the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998; this assertion surely invites the Supreme Court's scrutiny of that law, since any U.S. copyright law must ultimately trace its authority back to language of the Constitution.
Article I, Section 8 merely authorizes Congress "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." Copyright law is not property law, despite the attempts of the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America to paint themselves as aggrieved property owners merely trying to protect what's theirs.
What's constitutional is what "promotes the progress" of creative expression. Increasingly, source code is the lingua franca of "science and the useful arts," and source code must therefore enjoy full protection against any law that abridges its freedom. This should also be extended to provide protection of technology creators to not be held liable for how some criminals decide to use it.
If you read this far, you have my deepest gratitude.
Most Respectfully,
Your name here.
www.enthea.org
Absolutely correct, but let me expound on this a bit... Judges are NOT supposed to make law, this was never intended by the founders, hence the reason why they are all given lifetime tenure. However, the fault of this can largely be laid at the feet of the executive and legislative branches, which thru inaction made it IMPERITIVE in the early 1950's that the Supreme Court make law (IE, Brown vs. the Board of Education). Since then, everyone has abused this, by using courts to make law that would never win at the ballot box. IMHO the Brown decision is the only good example of law handed down from the bench that I can think of. Kaplan's ruling sets the dangerous precedent of placing the burden on any individual, company, etc that discloses the location of information at equal liability to those who publish/distribute material that may be illegal. If you take it to an extreme (which is plausable considering Kaplan used the MOST narrow and extreme interpretation of DMCA that is possible in his ruling), these things could now be lead to/be shut down by lawsuits: Search Engines Yellow Pages Pointing at something The whole WWW Library card catalog The list could contain most anything. If this ruling is allowed to become legal precedent, it will lead to nothing less than the END of the information age, and an American dark age.
In 2000 America, is a non-lawyer truly free?
They are linking to DeCSS, but not with the express intention of giving people DeCSS. It's entirely automated.
I think this is the point: Kaplan says that you can be held responsable for content you link to, if you link to it solely because of that content. Google would link to sites with DeCSS regardless of whether or not they have DeCSS; hence, no liability.
Also got the 2600 MPAA shirt,
:) Am I automagically a defendednt in this case? What the fuck is going on?
The really cool thing is that *everyone* asks me about the shirts when I wear them. People at work, in the grocer, in the cafes, on the street - they all get the 2 minutes or less overview - and so far, all have groked the total corporate bullshit.
Kick Ass!
But I'm a bit confused about Copyleft's role in the case. How can one add defendants to a case after it has already started? Is the RIAA taking copyleft to court seperately? Or can they add random defendants to the already tried and concluded case retroactively for some indefinate time period? This was the actual case wasn't it? This wasn't just some preliminary thing? I've always assumed that if I were a defendent in some court action, I would have to be notified beforehand so that I could have a chance to defend myself. As a shirt purchaser, have I broken the law?(not that I mind breaking the law
I'm *so* confused.
- bridgette
Why not take the DeCSS source and break it into multiple parts? Let's say halves. The first half we'll term DeCSS-A, and the second half, DeCSS-B. Even better, we could reverse-interleave the bytes, so that every odd byte is in DeCSS-A, and every even byte is in DeCSS-B. We'll also write a tiny little program to combine the two halves should they be brought together.
Then all we have to do is get everyone to only host half of the source. Each person would pick one randomly. I can't imagine that software that doesn't compile could be ruled illegal... "You can't link to that!" "Oh, you mean this random string of data that does nothing useful?"
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
And it's working. Chances are, the Republicans will sweep in November and control the white house AND both houses of Congress.
The Republicans have always sided with big business, who we are supposed to trust.
And Democrats are doing their best to be more like Republicans every day. :-(
A friend of mine summed up the two parties quite well. The democrats what to legislate what you do, and the Republicans want to legislate what you think.
So what am I saying here. Don't bitch, vote in November. Find out which of the two-sided liars will do the least damage to our freedoms and vote for that person. Don't listen to the rhetoric and for all of our sake, never ever let the Democrats or Republicans control everything. The best government is one that is deadlocked and can't get anything done. They do less damage that way.
Only 25% of young people eligible to vote actually do so. Please tell politicians how you feel, and what will influence your vote and then go ahead and make an informed decision and do it.
See the DMCA, specifically 17 USC 1201 for more details.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, the above is not legal advice.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Some software out there automatically turns URLs in text form into links. What is the legal situation with that in the mix?
Okay so what if they then say a URL is illegal? Then, for example, if instead of saying get "http://www.decss.com/DeCSS.zip", I say "Go to the server named www in the domain decss.com, connect to the http port and request a ZIP file called DeCSS with the standard extension for such a file and save the resulting output to a file", would that be illegal?
Where does it end?
Maybe we can just make it a felony to mention that CSS could be cracked, or to say anything that could make someone even think along those lines. If it is felt that we need thought police to protect copyright, the Corporatists are just going to say "So be it". Can't let something like basic human rights get in the way of profits. The bought out judges and politicians know who really pays their salaries and keeps them employed, since the majority of the voters don't care about the issues, they'll just vote for the guy that screams the loudest and most often (i.e. the one with the most money, since that is what buys the ability to "scream loudly and often").
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
I see a few posts about how slashdot is pro-DeCSS, or that we're not giving this whole thing a fair shake.
.5% of the world population actually reads slashdot - they'll be none the wiser. And in 10 years time - no one will even miss the useful product you made...because no one will know about it.
Let me be blunt. We're not, and the reasons are simple. This is not the last we'll see of 1st amendment violations on the net, this isn't the last of journalistic muzzling. This is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Orgs like the MPAA, or the RIAA are suing people like 2600 or Napster because they're still not commonplace (at least Napster wasn't when this shit started). Let me put it this way:
Hi, i'm Mr. Jones from Company X. I see you sitting there doing something that REALLY pisses me off, and threatens to leave me with so little money in the pocket of my Versache suit that i might have to whittle my car collection down to just 8 BMW's. So - it's become clear to me that i have to fuck you over to make sure that my pockets stay nice and lined for the cold winter that YOU are about to have. So, in all honesty, you have come up with a good product. one that is completely legal. that irks me. but i've got somethin' going for me. No one knows about it yet. So if i, Mr. Jones from Company X, fuck you over....the only people who are going to bitch about it are the extremists on slashdot. And since
That's the way the world gets fucked by orgs like the MPAA - Preventative Maintenance.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
(*) For those that like to pick apart analogies, this is not like the currently existing "breaking and entering". In the physical world you can't get charged with that if you own the house in question. Even if the people that built/sold the house and locks want you to never get in your house again. You have less rights in the virtual world than you do in the "real" (physical) world.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Remember: Citizens have rights. Consumers have only wallets.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Ok I admit this is a somewhat silly exercise, but I wanted to see if I could access DeCSS source rom Judge Kaplan's site so here goes. don't want to do anything illegal here so I'm just going to use inline text.
t m / 377/
start at http://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/judges/USDJ/kaplan.h
click the link titled "help"
scroll down to the browser types section and click on the link titled "http://www.home.netscape.com/computing/download"
Go to the Search form at the bottom and type in "decss"
First link I got was this http://www.fortunecity.de/wolkenkratzer/diamanten
which happens to have links to DeCSS
Seems to me like the judge should have done a little more research before he ruled considering that DeCSS was accessible in 4 clicks from his own page
I am the first to agree that those with oft heard voices (the press and those with access to mass media) are often overly self important, a trait that I do not like in the least.
However, as self-important as the press may be, the government has no right to treat them this way. Telling people about *something*, anything (in this case, DeCSS) should not result in legal bills and censorship of ANYBODY.
The government already thinks that they can take away our self-defense, free travel and free thought. Free press does not need to go down freedoms have. This Klintonista judge deserves a good fight.
Visit DC2600
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Kaplan says in the ruling that 2600 was only banned from linking because they were intentionally linking to DeCSS. If you linked to a page without knowing that you were linking (or intending to link) to DeCSS, you would not be liable, according to Kaplan.
Much Longer than that! The U.S. is a common law country and like in other common law countries (e.g., Great Brittan) our legal system is filled with two types of "law." These are common law and statutory law. Statutory law is given by the legelature and common law is given my the judicial system. If you've been following this case at all the DMCA is statutory while Summers vs. Tice is common law. Most of our legal system, including contract and tort law, is derived from English Common Law. The Constitution not only allows but requires this.
As for your bullet points...
Nobdy would ever have any clue as to whether they were breaking a law unless judges were able to interpret laws. If you don't like a judge's interpretation you can appeal it. This is why, in a criminal trial, we have a judge to interpret the law and a jury to interpret the facts. The Constitution says "No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed."(I.9.) A law is not an ex post facto law just because the judge decides whether or not you violated it after you violated it.
Well some judges are elected but you're right that for the most part higher up state and federal judges are not. I think most if not all judges would argue that their decisions are anything but arbitrary. You can appeal a judges decision so that these important legal decisions are not made by a "single" judge. If you don't like how judges are apointed then elect someone president who will put in judges that you like or write your congress(wo)man and say that you want an ammendment to the constitution passed which allows us to elect all judges. However I don't see the current system as being that bad. If you don't like that the court can make interpretive rulings like Mirranda or that a state can't succeed to escape a federal excise tax then you are entitled to your opinions.
That is exactly why you can appeal. Once the surpreme court rules on something it applies everywhere in the U.S.
I know that this is offtopic as hell, but just humor me, moderators.
Ostriches don't actually stick their heads in the sand when they are scared. Where this falsity comes from is that the original researchers that went to Africa saw the Ostriches with their heads in the sand and came to the conclusion that the birds were afraid of the humans and were trying to hide. In reality, the birds had most likely seen a man before and so had nothing to base it's fear on. Additionally (and this is the important bit), it is now known that when Ostriches stick their heads in the ground, they are digging for worms and grubs that lie just under the hotter surface.
Sorry for that little disturbance.. on with your lives.
Rami
--
rJames.org - illustration
or european movies.. and there's a lot of good ones, although you may have to read subtitles (oh.. booohooohooo.. what a terrible disaster)
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
True, of course, but the more I think about it, the harder it becomes for me to see the distinction. Where do you draw the line between encoding and encrypting ? Flipping all the bits is just encoding, right ? but CSS is encryption, even after its broken ? where's the line ? Is XORing the contents with "The MPAA Sucks" repeated a million times encoding or encryption ? Surely once I've told you, its just encoding, right ? But if you discover it youself its encryption ?
It makes no sense, unless you start to introduce mathematical concepts of entropy into the law. This convinces me further that the DMCA is not only immoral, its really *stupid*.
so now napster distributes not only information on the growing and production of pot (Nederwiet by Doe Maar) but also on the viewing of DVDs. Wonder when they'll take that route.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
I'd gladly turn you in to the MPAA today for a cheeseburger tomorrow. ;)
Eric
You're too late. THere has already been litigation for *both* buslines connecting bad neighborhoods to good ones, *and* for having the bus from the bad neighborhood stop on the other side of the street (someone got run over going into the mall to work).
The busline lost the second, and I think the first (but don't hold me to htat one)
hawk, esq.
When something becomes illegal in your own country what do most people do? Do it anyways or do it in another country. Host the code in Canada. We've already got a few places with the code for DeCSS uploaded to them.
"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality." -Jules de Gautier
Mattel tried to censor me and my website with frivilous and abusive litigation. I am now fighting back with a $48.5 million dollar lawsuit. If they paid that much money, then they may think about abusing others.
Why $48.5 million? Actually it's $48,595,103.77. Most of that number comes from the survey done on the site last year. Mattel threatened Mattl.com, went after www.barbiebenson.com, the cphack guys. And this little guy is fighting back!
Fight Spammers!
http://www.goingware.com/decss
We now return you to your program.
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
and on Napster:
"The lawsuits against Napster may be aimed at piracy, but they could also stomp out small record labels and unsigned artists who want their music to float freely through the world of Napster. But the big labels want to shut down the entire service. If the current laws are not strong enough, they want new laws that will stop people from making some kinds of open technology. They imagine a world where technology will control and limit people instead of liberating them."
Go NYT!
PS. I just submitted this as a story, and it's been reclassified as "YRO" in the submissions queueue, so it might hit the front page soon.