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MP3.com Nixes Decss.mp3
adric writes: "It seems that MP3.com has removed
decss.mp3 (but its still available), allegedly for having "offensive lyrics". You can read a bit more here. The best part is the gallery of DeCSS showing the world of
clever places this little bit of code has migrated to. T-Shirts, songs, poetry, non-existent languages, PNG comments, embedded in jpgs, gifs, and more. Even if the MPAA's lawyers can make source code illegal, they'll never remove DeCSS from the Net. Can everyone please just drop this now and let us have Linux drivers (and for that matter, let us fast forward through commercials on DVDs!)
...is its firm rip on reality.
The last time that blatantly ignoring laws and having them repealed worked on a large scale in America was probably the Prohibition. For Christ's sake, in Texas people still get arrested for sodomy!
Look, I'm all for DeCSS being legal. Hell, I'd love to see the DMCA go down in flames. I think, much like most people here, I'd wager, that it's just another example of corporations beating down civil liberties in the name of progress. But this ain't the way to bring it down. Small acts of civil disobedience, nonviolent protest, these don't work anymore.
Before you say, "But look at what Gandhi and MLK accomplished with nonviolent protest," let me remind you that the main reason that Gandhi's protest worked was that it was a massive PR black-eye for the British empire. No chance of that here, as the corps are pressing as hard on other governemtns, and through media outlets, painting us as outlaws with a wide brush. The civil rights moment worked because they found a way to make it resonate with Joe Verage (no relation).
We haven't done that yet. And as long as we keep sneering at the laws as being outdated, playing up our role as technological rebels, and allowing the media to play us that way in turn, all we're going to cause for the average person is fear and confusion. Have you ever tried to explain the whole DeCSS thing to a non-techie? How often have you been told, "Well, hell, DVD players are cheap now, why don't you just get them at (insert chain store)"
So what's the solution? Hell, I wish I could tell you. Maybe it's time we got smart enough to try to take them on their own terms. Send money to the EFF, write your senator (and not e-mail, half of them can't spell SMTP), interest name artists in the cause. Get the word out through outlets besides the net, no matter how dumbed down you have to make it. I know that's blasphemy to a lot of people here, but it's the simple truth.
"This is your world. These are your people. You can live for yourself today, or help build tomorrow for everyone."
On the money.
The MPAA hasn't stopped distribution of the DeCSS source, but I think they've successfully chilled development of the tools DeCSS should spawn, players aside:
If DeCSS just sits there unused on 75,000 hard drives, the MPAA has won. The next move should not be further, somewhat pointless distribution of the source, but distribution of players and neat tools using DeCSS. If we don't move forward, we lose.
Seems kind of appropriate, somehow.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
> DeCSS code in an MP3 is "offensive lyrics".
Ah, but it does offend the MPAA.
What matters isn't how offensive you are; it's who you offend.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
DMCA doesn't say anything about licensing algorithms or anything like that; it really comes down to the issue of authorization to circumvent.
Starting next month, DMCA is violated when the person who circumvents CSS (a necessary step for watching CSS-protected movies) does not have authorization from the copyright owner. MPAA claims that when you buy one of their CSS-protected DVDs, you do not have blanket authorization to watch it, but rather, you only have authorization to watch it on approved players. (Although nothing on the DVD packaging explains this, so it is unclear how their customers are supposed to know when they have authorization and when they don't.)
By their line of reasoning, trafficking in players (as of October 1998) that are primarily intended for watching CSS-protected MPAA movies without authorization, is a violation of DMCA.
There are a couple of amazing asumptions here:
- Customers are bound to MPAA's conditions for authorization, even though
those conditions are not stated prior to the sale of a DVD, nor are
they mentioned inside the DVD packaging or on the DVD itself. In other words,
just because a customer has no way of knowing the conditions of authorization,
that doesn't mean the customer isn't bound by those conditions. (The arrogance
of this assumption should be obvious to anyone.)
(Note: there's another, totally different, approach that MPAA could take with
regard to this, see below.)
- It is assumed that the primary purpose of a DVD player is to watch movies
that were made by MPAA members, not copyright owners who are not MPAA members.
(This assumption is also arrogant, but unfortunately, I think it
happens to be true. I would like to see this assumption get
explicitly violated.)
Since the primary purpose of all DVD players is to watch MPAA movies, and since users do not have authorization to watch MPAA movies except on players that are licensed by DVDCCA, then it is assumed that the primary purpose of an unlicensed player is to watch MPAA movies without authorization. Therefore, unlicensed players violate DMCA.BTW, since authorization is never explicitly granted, another approach that MPAA could take is to say that it is never granted. Therefore, everyone who watches an MPAA CSS-protected DVD after October 2000 would be a DMCA violator, and everyone who makes DVD players after October 1998 is a violator. It's just that since they are the copyright owners, they are free to select who to sue and who not to, and they have an agreement with licensed player manufacturers to not sue them. As for customers, they would all be hostages to MPAA's whim.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
OK, we can get really secret here.
A or T=1
C or G=0
Encode the binary version of any of the digital DeCSS representations in a strand of DNA. Put the DNA into bacteria as a plasmid.
Any biochemist's out there?
Operation Currently Prohibited by Disk
The first time I saw this crap spewing from my DVD player I nearly exploded. I read fast, I don't need the FBI warning onscreen for 30 seconds, it's what, 40-60 words? Oh yeah, 40-60 meaningless, completely ignored words. Let me fastforward through it, or go to the menu, I have chosen to forfeit a few hours of my time, which is valuable, don't waste it by locking me out of my own stuff.
The very idea that someone can decide how I will view something I've purchased makes my blood boil. Yes it's a viewing license, no I don't technically "own" the movie, but damn it, I want to be able use this on my terms, in my house, in any way I see fit.
Actually, besides the excellent picture and sound, there is a lot on DVDs that sucks:
Viewer control Can't skip or fastforward through the FBI warning and studio crap, effectively creating an arbitrary "boot time".
No bookmarks on players? Come on, I've got more memory in my cel phone then the computers that landed men on the moon, how about a meager scrap of memory to bookmark timecodes for the last 20-30 disks?
Macrovision Yes it prevents casual taping of disks, but it is mostly just a nuisance for owners with non-standard hookups. Try running your DVD signal through a VCR, and you're hosed. There are plenty of reasons to do this besides piracy. Old TVs, TVs with one input, TVs in two different rooms...
Region encoding Words fail me. Create a huge management and manufacturing overhead to prevent users in different parts of the world from seeing anything other than that which is sanctioned for their particular area. This verges on mind-control.
Built in obsolescence The (NTSC) signal is 480 lines tall. Of course the MPAA did this so you will have to re-buy everything again whenever the industry finally switches over to HiDef TV. Jay Leno shouldn't look better than the movie you just purchased, but if you have a HDTV, he does.
If only VHS didn't look like crap and wasn't tape...
Once again, I beg everyone reading this story
to please mirror the song and send an email
to webmaster@joeysmith.com telling me where
they are...this is a 386 with 32 MB of RAM,
and it is absolutely dying!
(Not to mention saturating the pipe it's hosted on)
Oh yeah, DeCSS will not last on the net if it's outlawed....
Just like warez, illegal MP3's, cracks, illegal stolen passwords to porn sites, Illegal copies of books....etc etc..
Man, get your head out of the sand and look at all the illegal stuff on the net. Just because something is illegal in the US doe snot make it so in the rest of the world.
I'll say! He xor's, like, four arrays, full of random-looking hex numbers, and that always offends the critics.
...but they just don't understand true art; sensitive programmers are always misunderstood, and held to arbitrary 'style guidelines', and expected to conform...
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I disagree. DeCSS will not last long after it is outlawed. The only reason it is so prevailent today is because distributing it is a fad. This, like all fads wil die down. News ways of posting it will no longer hit the news sites, people will stop getting the publicity, and it'll quietly fold until it becomes almost impossible to find someone still mirroring it. Now that won't be this month or even this year, but in a year or two mark my words - you had better have gotten it while you can.
And let's not forget the real problem here. DeCSS by itself is not a threat to the MPAA - it's the threat of players being built with it. As long as DeCSS is blacklisted, no players (OSS or otherwise) will use it, meaning they won. We have to make this 100% legal, or we'll be stuck duel-booting forever.
http://kered.org
That said, I am a bit disappointed to see this kind of subjective judgement used when deciding what to host or not. I'd rather they said "Damn, we don't want to get sued over this." Then we could call them paranoid and get on with our lives. :)
I guess this is what frivolous lawsuits bring about -- we don't need censorship, because companies will censor themselves out of fear of legislation.
--
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
I got thinking last night:
What if someone (Apex?) were to build an unlicensed DVD hardware player using the DeCSS code? Is that breaking the DCMA? Does it apply to hardware devices? What about a PC card that did the decoding in hardware, but was unlicensed?
-- Ever notice that fast-burning fuse looks exactly the same as slow-burning fuse? I didn't... (Edgar Montrose)
Sorry, but this smacks of immaturity. Saying 'Nyaah nyaah nyaah nyaah nyaah you can't stop us!!!' doesn't help the studios, the lawyers, the media at large or the general public to take this seriously. In fact, it probably does the reverse.
DeCSS should be legal and the studio's attempts to control manufacture, use and hardware related to DVDs should be recognised for the abuse of cartel power that it is. But doing this doesn't help.
What we need are eloquent defenders explaining this one and justifying the existence of this sort of software - along with explaining why the MPAA members are abusing their position here. They help, they change people's opinions. Playing whack-a-mole like this and saying that it doesn't matter how illegal they make it because they'll never get rid of it anyway only harms the cause and convinces others that it's only supported by silly kids who want a toy without having to pay for it.
In other words, this plays right into their hands. We shouldn't do it, we shouldn't encourage it. Distribute DeCSS by all means - but do it openly and explain why it's good that this program exists, and why the current situation is wrong. If you can't provide a good enough explanation yourself, link to someone else's. That helps our cause, this harms it.
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
DeCSS code in an MP3 is "offensive lyrics".
The Cocky Sticks' tracks, "I'm a Catholic Girl, of course I swallow!" (featuring samples like "OK, whoever hasn't had their dick in my mouth, form a line over here, uh, I mean at all today", from what appears to be a gangbang video), and "Fuckin' Wheelbarrow" ("I'll pull the skin o' yer ass o'er yer head and turn ya inta a fuckin' wheelbarrow!", which sounds like something I'd pay good money to see a judge do to Hilary Rosen, come to think of it)... don't contain offensive content. We won't even get into Adolf Hitler (oops, thread's over!) being sampled into "House of the Rising Sun".
Personally, I think the Cocky Sticks are great. I love 'em. Got a (paid-for!) CD of 'em. But while I'm not personally offended by their samples, I'm willing to say that many might be. But a bunch of goddamn code expressed as speech?
But it seems to me that Michael Robertson really has become Hilary Rosen's bitch as a result of his my.mp3.com trials.
And that is far more offensive than anything I've heard or seen in the music on MP3.com.
"Wisen up 'cuz on Election Day, we'll see who's banned in the USA"