Other Fair-Uses For DeCSS?

Kagami asks: "In any discussion of the DMCA, CSS, and DeCSS, I've only seen two reasons mentioned for why someone would need to work around CSS: 1) to play DVD video on hardware with no licensed support (usually under Linux) and occasionally, 2) to use clips from a movie as part of a presentation. I kept expecting someone else to mention that that's only the tip of what the DMCA's encryption-breaking ban makes illegal. Surely I'm not the only one that's had other reasons to modify the content of a DVD I own?" Can you think of other purposes to which DeCSS might be put to use that might be considered "fair"?

"In my case, I've made decrypted copies of DVDs on my harddrive three times so far, for the following reasons:

• The movie 'The Truman Show' simply refuses to play on this sytem, or at least the disc I had did, regardless of player software used. It would always stop immediately after the copyright message. Presumably there was some problem with one of the index files, menu files, etc. Using DeCSS, I was able to play the VOB files themselves with no problems... but under the DMCA, watching 'The Truman Show' on this computer (running Windows, mind you) is illegal.
• I purchased a music-video single DVD (Utada Hikaru, 'Wait and See ~risuku~') and found it significantly more convenient to play it off my harddrive than to reach for the disc everytime I want to play one single video... but under the DMCA, making it more convenient to play discs I own is illegal.
• Another music-video DVD I have (Hamasaki Ayumi's music video collection DVD) features a menu system from which one can select any one of the videos to view, but fails to include a 'play-all', jukebox style function. I decrypted the music video portion of the disc into two huge files on my HD that will play non-stop from beginning to end... but under the DMCA, watching my music videos without stopping to select each one individually has become an illegal act.

Now tell me ALL OF THAT makes sense...

So, anyone else here have similar stories? I'm sort of surprised I haven't seen a list already... or did I just miss it?"

Comments

Some truth about DeCSS

[Anonymous Coward]

Not fully related to this story, but ontopic. Slashdot refused to publish this true story, so go find out yourself: http://www.geocities.com/decs str uth/decsstruth.txt

A case study in poor encryption approaches?

[nellardo]

A class on encryption would reasonably have both demonstrations of decryption and assignments in performing decryption. As the first widely used consumer encryption format, not cracking DVD in a class on encryption would be a serious lack. DeCSS itself would be used in an assignment to crack DVD as a benchmark to compare students' work to. I.e., to get a good grade, you have to do it faster than DeCSS, clearer, maybe accounting for reasonable future extensions to CSS and so forth. Makes a great first assignment, especially in a low-level course.

In an encryption course, CSS is an excellent case study in the weakness of low-bit keys and the fallibility of security through "obscurity". It's also a good example of the tradeoffs inherent in encryption:

• security vs convenience. Greater security requires less convenience and vice versa.
• cost vs robustness. Greater robustness costs more to produce. CSS is a solution designed to be as low cost as possible while still satisfying the MPAA.
• obscurity vs cryptographic strength. A simple algorithm may be "secure" while obscure, but will fail compared to a more complex one with mathematically provable cryptographic strength.

In fact, I'd be really surprised if cryptography courses aren't covering it already.