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Report From The 2600 Appeal Hearing
Sullivan spoke first. She argued that since the DMCA restricts speech, under the First Amendment the government must narrowly tailor the law to only restrict those specific areas of speech that it is targeting. Furthermore, the government bears the burden of proving that the speech it is restricting is a problem in some way -- usually it does this by holding hearings, getting testimony, etc., in the process of passing a law. She noted that none of this was done for the DMCA, and that the DMCA restricts many areas of speech that cannot constitutionally be restricted.
She also made much of a rather telling fact: there is no piracy attributable to DeCSS whatsoever. Not one traditional copyright infringement has ever been attributed to DeCSS, and the movie studios admitted in the case that they could not produce even one example of an infringement due to DeCSS. (Technically-literate people may realize that mass DVD copying is performed by stamping complete copies of the DVDs, encryption and all, no decryption required, though that wasn't covered in the hearing.) But Sullivan jumped on this point for all it was worth and then some -- the judges seemed fairly skeptical about accepting it, trying to insist that widepsread and massive copyright infringement due to DeCSS must be occurring, somehow, somewhere. It just must be.
She ran into her first really hard question when she stated that computer programs were expressive, and the judge asked her to explain. Her answer was that programs were beautiful in and of themselves, that they could represent scientific research, that they could be poems, and that they could do things -- their functional nature. I felt the response was lacking. Sullivan managed to work in the recent ruckus over a Princet on scientist unable present his work due to DMCA threats, which was cunning of her. If a Slashdot reader can create a pithy and short explanation for how and why a computer program is expressive speech and/or what it expresses, it might be useful.
Sullivan also argued that under free-speech precedent, if less restrictive alternatives were available to the government and it failed to use them, the law must be overturned. The judge mentioned the Audio Home Recording Act -- the law passed in 1992 which both implemented serial-copy protection in digital audio tapes and explicitly legalized home taping. Sullivan pointed to AHRA's serial copy prevention as an example of a law which restricted copying but which was not as restrictive as the DMCA turned out to be. This argument seemed to be pretty powerful with the judge.
The next point to be discussed concerned the injunction issued by Judge Kaplan, and his written opinion in the case. The Appeals judge made the point that the injunction could not be considered to apply to anyone except the specific defendants -- that is, just because 2600 was enjoined from posting or linking to DeCSS, doesn't mean that anyone else necessarily would. On the other hand, the reasoning applied in the opinion could be assumed to apply to other U.S. citizens wanting to post DeCSS. The gist was that Sullivan couldn't argue her case as if anyone would be enjoined from linking to DeCSS, but only regarding the specific defendants that were.
Finally they got to the idea of "disseminat ion," since the DMCA prohibits dissemination of circumvention devices. What does disseminate mean on the internet? The judge and Sullivan agreed that the New York Times is in the business of disseminating information (the NYT being today's quintessential example of "the press"). The judge asked if the New York Times intends to disseminate all of the information on every page it links to in its online edition. Sullivan said yes. The judge asked if the NYT specifically intends to disseminate every bit of info on every single page that it ever links to -- again Sullivan said yes.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Alter was up next. He started with a hypothetical: What if someone developed a program that could shut off the navigation system in commercial airplanes? What if someone developed a program that could shut off smoke detectors in public buildings? Surely, he said, the government could ban the publication of programs which were a threat to people's lives. He proceeded with the standard quotable rhetoric: DeCSS is a "digital crowbar." Hey, if you're a reporter covering the case and you don't understand it, at least you got a phrase that jumped out at you screaming to be quoted.
He then got down to the meat of his argument -- that the government can regulate conduct even if there's a speech component to it. He used the example of Giboney V. Empire Storage and Ice Co., a case where picketers (a constitutionally protected activity) were successfully prevented from picketing due to the functional intent of the picketing, which was apparently to violate certain laws relating to restraint of trade. Alter argued that the DeCSS case was similar -- the intent of distributing DeCSS is to promote violations of copyright law, therefore the speech part of such distribution can be ignored by the courts and the courts can focus on regulating actions without concerning themselves about speech issues.
Alter proceeded to postulate that the government has the ability to create and regulate a market in expression, and correct any market flaws that may exist. Viewed from this vantage point, the existence of the Internet and all of those unrestricted personal computers connected to it is one large market flaw which the government has the power to correct. He used the example of must-carry laws for cable systems -- cable television must carry local broadcast channels, and the official reasoning behind that is that otherwise cable systems would drive broadcast television into bankruptcy and the government is preserving a vibrant market in broadcast television through the must-carry laws.
He stated flatly that the problem with digital works is that they can be copied. He argued that the DMCA is actually pro-First Amendment, as a means to promote the market for digital works. So in the calculus of the government attorney, increasing the speech of a dozen movie studios at the cost of decreasing the speech of 260 million citizens is a win for the First Amendment.
The judge asked about the Audio Home Recording Act and serial copying -- why wouldn't the "no serial copies" approach taken to DAT recordings with SCMS under that law represent a less restrictive means for the government to promote copyright in the digital age? The attorney argued, of course, that the DAT law was inapplicable since it predated the massive growth of the Internet -- and this is where he pulled a fast one on the court. Alter stated that, due to the Internet, one only needs a single copy for "catastrophic" infringement, so even that one copy permitted by the Digital Audio Tape serial copy scheme would be too much. One copy, the judge asked? Yes, he said, just one copy and put it on the Internet and ...disaster. Apparently, in the attorney's world, once that lone copy is made, it pretty much automatically puts itself on the Internet with no further acts by any individual. The point Alter narrowly evaded evaded it is that the act of publishing a copyrighted work to the world is a copyright violation in the traditional sense, and is punishable under traditional laws.
So, the judge said, Congress needs a more restrictive technique to prevent copyright infringement because the Internet is now a factor? The DA claimed that it does.
The judge next moved to one of the most interesting questions of the day -- does fair use require access to a work in its original form? That is, one cannot excerpt a digital clip of a CSS-encrypted DVD, but one could point a video camera at the screen and create a clip, albeit of poor quality. Is that sufficient for fair use? This question has disturbing ramifications, depending on who is asking it and how it is answered. It seems odd, at first glance, to insist that one must be able to make fair use of a work in its full, unfettered, most-advanced, highest-quality form. But after thinking about it for a bit, I realized that anything else utterly destroys fair use. What if I could make clips of 256 kilobits/second mp3s, but the clips were at 16 kilobits/second? Would that be sufficient? Is a 16 kilobit/second mp3 even recognizable as music? What if book publishers could designate the Swahili version of a book as the "fair use" version, and completely shut down any quoting from the English version -- ("After all, you can still quote freely from the Swahili version; it may have a few words missing, and it's in Swahili of course, but you can still quote from it.") The judges seemed to be actually considering that filming a DVD movie from the television set or getting some macrovision-corrupted analog output might be sufficient for fair use purposes, and I hope they think it through and reject that idea entirely.
The attorney moved on to linking. He argued that 2600's actions ought to be examined in their entirety; that 2600 was effectively "shuttling" people over to commit a crime by linking to the DeCSS code. According to him, the entire conduct of the defendants should be considered to divine the purpose behind linking to the DeCSS code. If it were for some legitimate purpose, a link would be okay. But if the purpose were to "shuttle" people to commit a crime, that wouldn't be. The number of links would be important, the context would be important, and the intent of the writer would be important to this analysis. Search engines, according to the attorney, would be okay they are just providing lots of links without the harmful intent that the attorney felt was necessary. So apparently something like this:
"This is a scholarly discussion of DeCSS. We are a major media outlet, and would never encourage lawlessness, so this link to DeCSS is okay."
... is fine, while this:
"Hey all you l337 h4x0rz, come get DeCSS and use it to copy movies and watch them automatically distribute themselves via the Internet!"
... is not. How context works, I'm not sure. Certainly the vast majority of 2600's links that it has ever published are not "shuttling" people to copyright infringement -- the vast majority are for the standard journalistic purposes of disseminating information. But somehow under Alter's analysis, 2600 came up lacking while the NYT did not.
The judge cut deep with a hard question: "Can you prosecute a newspaper who publishes a list of stores where obscenity can be purchased?" The parallels to this case should be obvious. The attorney dodged the question with an outstanding answer: "Yes and no." He tried to go back to his theory of looking at the overall conduct of the newspaper, but it was clear that he didn't want to say "Yes, we can prosecute the newspaper for publishing the list of stores" but did want 2600's actions to be covered, and wasn't sure how to reconcile those two desires ... and neither were the judges. I'm not sure they bought his argument.
Finally, Charles Sims, the lawyer for the MPAA.
He had had time to pay attention to the previous efforts and tailor his argument somewhat. He tried to cover weak areas -- insisting, for instance, that no record of harm is required for Congress to regulate pure speech. He brought up the Congressional record (hearings, testimony, etc.) that pre-dated the DMCA, and said it showed "actual harm" to the movie industry.
Actual harm, the judge asked? "Yes. Actual harm," he replied. "Well, actual threat of harm." That got a laugh from the audience, and scored him no points with the judges. He didn't use the "digital crowbar" metaphor, but insisted that publishing DeCSS was like publishing the combination to a bank vault in a newspaper -- something which is not, as far as I know, a violation of any law, though it might well inconvenience the bank.
The judge asked this lawyer too the hard question about less restrictive means to accomplish the same goal and serial copy management. The MPAA's tactic was similar but slightly different than the U.S. Attorney's; the AHRA is inapplicable, he said, because Congress didn't take the Internet into consideration when drafting it. He also argued something that will make him no friends with the RIAA -- that motion pictures deserved more and better protection than music (so the AHRA serial copying wasn't appropriate for movies). After all, he said, motion pictures have never been subject to the sort of fair uses that music has, the copying and so forth. I suppose he doesn't own a VCR. This argument about motion pictures being more deserving than music seemed strangely surreal -- for the first several decades of motion pictures, they had much, much weaker First Amendment protection than other forms of speech because the courts considered them to be solely entertainment, and only an assortment of free-speech challenges to laws restricting them earned them the privilege to stand on a par with other forms of speech in the protection of the First Amendment. Now, the motion picture people are not only arguing that their form of speech is more privileged than others, but they're arguing that still another form of speech, computer programs, ought to be considered in that inferior, functional category that motion pictures worked so hard to escape from. It's a strange world we live in.
The judge asked whether the DMCA created a "permanent" copyright, or an effective extension of copyright. The lawyer smoothly dodged the questions by saying that movie studios could (not "would," but "could") publish works in unencrypted form when (if) their copyright on the work ever expires, or perhaps someone could use a decryption device then, since it would no longer be illegal under the DMCA to do so. The judge asked where those encryption devices would be, after all, they've been banned by the DMCA. The lawyer had faith that they would appear. So apparently: the fact that the studios haven't gotten encrypted content working in an impenetrable fashion yet means that they aren't screwing you out of your access to works when copyright expires.
In closing, the MPAA lawyer compared CSS to one putting a painting in one's living room or charging admission to a movie theater to see a movie. But the right to exclude people from your living room or a movie isn't created by copyright law, it's created by property law -- your home is your home, and you can exclude people from it to your heart's content. The MPAA's conception of property law was that the movies they release are essentially their home, and they have an absolute right to do anything they want with this property until copyright expires. It is a nice sleight of hand to conflate one's right to one's home, perhaps one of the most powerful rights a citizen has, with one's right to control how a movie is viewed is someone else's home. He seemed to be hoping that the one would rub off on the other.
In closing, Sullivan had a brief rebuttal period. Not worth going into; she tried to call the other two lawyers where she thought they went too far astray and she could zap them.
The judges took the case. They also requested one last brief from both sides, due by May 10th, to cover anything that came up at the hearing and the parties think needs to be explained further. I would suggest that it's likely that the people who draft the brief will read this article; and that insightful comments could be of assistance. I think there are a couple of key areas which people may be able to answer:
1. Why and how is a computer program expressive speech? What does it express? 2600's lawyers are entirely familiar with Touretzky's Gallery, so forget about those. Assume you have some C or perl staring at you, any random block of code in any random print-out. What does it express? Why should that code be protected expression?
2. What examples of fair uses absolutely require access to the work in its most modern, digital, uncorrupted, un-macrovisioned form? The only one that jumped out at me is making a backup copy in case the original is destroyed. But perhaps there are others.
Reader Trinition also points to this brief a ZDNews article on the hearing; the case was well-attended by the press and by people like the members of LXNY, New York's Free-software organization, so there are quite a few personal and press accounts around the Net.
I would argue that source code is part of the jargon of computer scientists and hence should be protected as free speech. Jargon is sometimes used for effective communication. It has been argued before (PGP case?) that computer scientists will sometimes exchange snippets of source code instead of writing out their meaning in order to avoid ambiguity.
Ask any programmer about good coding style. You will find that many different people have different ideas about what "good" code is. For example, I like minimal code, even though it might not be as easy to understand. For example:
void strcpy(char *dest, char *src) {
while(*dest++ = *src++);
}
My comp sci teacher would definitely prefer that I write code like this:
void strcpy(char *dest, char *src {
int length = strlen(src);
for (int i=0; i i++) {
dest[i] = src[i];
}
dest[i] = '\0';
}
Both pieces of code do the same thing (unless I screwed up). The second piece of code is probably (definitely for a beginning programmer) easier to understand. However, I find the first one aesthetically pleasing. It's succinct, and it makes me feel smart when I write it, since it's not so transparent. Furthermore, unless the compiler is really good at optimization, it's going to be faster.
The point is, there are many different ways of solving a programming problem. The programming language used, the algorithm, and the coding style will all differ from programmer to programmer. The resulting code will reflect these aesthetic tastes of the programmer.
Daniel Plaisted
danielSPAM@danielS_P_A_Mplaisted.com
1. Why and how is a computer program expressive speech? What does it express? 2600's lawyers are entirely familiar with Touretzky's Gallery, so forget about those. Assume you have some C or perl staring at you, any random block of code in any random print-out. What does it express? Why should that code be protected expression? When I was in high school I published a sinmple basic program in our schools Literary Magazine. The code was accepted on the basis that it was a work of prose and a work of art (the program generated multicolor morie patterns back in the Apple II days) I could dig out a copy of the magazine if need be.
An important question is: what kinds of abuse could occur if code was not considered to be speech? One would not be able to publish say, proof that some company was infringing your privacy by exhibiting the code that it had written to do so. But that's someone elses code. What about my code?
The original reason that algorithms couldn't be patented was because they could only be executed by a human being. Even now code is patented by a legal loophole: what is actually patented is code+a device capable of executing it, I think. The software itself isn't the device (it may be that technically, you don't infringe until you bring the software into contact with the cpu. IANAL, etc)
Art is expressive, but many other things are too. It is not only art that is protected by the 1st amendment, but any expression of thoughts and ideas. The "most" protected speech is political speech, which is rarely artful. I don't think that normal source code is art in any meaningful way. If that's the argument for 2600, they will and should lose the case. But it shouldn't have to be.
So if DeCSS can really be compared to a powerful weapon which can destroy aircraft and buildings, surely it should also be protected under the Second Amendment - the right to bear arms?
Make one false move, and I'll decrypt you!
> The argument about how a DVD that eventually > falls into the public domain will be accessed > struck me as a particularly powerful one. Why can't someone publish on DVD something like "It's a Wonderful Life" that's already in the public domain. You'd then be able to test that argument now.
Everybody's got their facts all messed up I think. Am I wrong or does the argument boil down to this:
1) You can still make perfect copies of an encrypted DVD. The only requirement is that you be able to decrypt the copy (presumably with a licensed player) to watch it.
2) With a decrypted copy you can compress the movie (say with DivX, Realvideo, etc.) and redistribute it. In the unencrypted, compressed form it is easier to distribute on the internet. This does not change the fact that you can copy it *without* decrypting first.
3) with a decrypted copy you can use short clips for Evil >:-> purposes (read: Fair Use.)
4) with a decrypted DVD, you can use an unlicensed player to view the movie.
. end of story.
It seems to me that CSS is intended to prevent trading compressed copies; Fair Use; and the use of unauthorized players.
So The Essence of The Argument is this: The plaintiff must argue that CSS is only intended to prevent the (far easier) trading of *compressed* versions of DVDs. The defense must argue that CSS also prevents Fair Use and the use of Unauthorized players.
These two arguments must be weighed. Infringement possibilites vs. the right of Linux users to watched their DVDs without having to buy a copy of MS Windows to use an sanctioned player.
An analogy: The electric company(MPAA) decides to switch its power format (go from VHS to DVD) and in doing so, knowingly prevents refrigerators from functioning. *Fortunately*, the electric company starts selling new refrigerators that works with their power (official DVD players). So if you want the pleasure of using a refrigerator (i.e. watching a movie), you must use an official power company refrigerator (Unfortunately, they are all expensive and none of them have the features you want.) Say somebody makes a little box that converts new power into old power (DeCSS). Now you can still use your old refrigerator (A standard MPEG player) instead of having to play the electric company (MPAA) for a new one. Another problem, aside from the forced cost of buying a new fridge, is that you now don't have the choice which refrigerator (read: operating system) you use. You must use one of a few official models.
The main argument of the defense should be that when Big-Business tries to screw the little guy into paying more (think power company analogy), the little guy NEEDS the RIGHT to counter-screw Big-Business by making little black boxes. If you want to talk infringement, you need to take that on a case by case basis. Arrest all of the infringers for their illegal actions, but don't hurt the inventor or distributor who allows legitimate use of non-official DVD players on non-sanctioned operating systems to watch legitimately acquired DVDs.
Should preventing certain illegitimate use also prevent cases of legitimate use? That's the case...
Most computer programs are simply descriptions of algorithms phrased in a way that a microprocessor can understand. Algorithms can be expressed in any language you want, such as english, swahili, or even C++. They're just descriptions of how to do something; explaining how to do something to someone else in a natural language is undoubtedly an "act of expression" in the Constitutional sense, and doing so in a programming language is *no different*. The question of their "beauty" or suitability for "emotional expression" is completely irrelevant.
I've never seen a few pages of code take on such a potent form of political expression.
To argue that a program has artistic rather than purely function merit, one merely has to look at the domminant paradigms in modern computing.
Over the last twenty or thirty years, common programming has become increasingly data-centric in its focus. This tendency is natural as the scope of programs has increased. Initially, the primary use of computers was to compute numerical values: to perform mathematical calculations that were too extensive and tedious for a group of individuals to do in a reasonable time. While computers continue to serve this purpose, users, from both academic and business backgrounds have begun to focus more on the information that the computer is manipulating, rather than the actual manipulations themselves. Database systems and the object-oriented design/programming paradigm are sterling examples of this focus.
In order to view and manipulate this data, a programmer must be capable of expressing a relationship among it and to describe the effect rendered on the environment by these relationships. The programmer is project a perception into an abstract view of a world, very similarly to a paiting by an impressionist aritst or flowery metaphors of an aspiring poet. His method of describing this view is through a program a much more succinct and elegant form than the equivalent prose.
If you have ever worked on a large programming project that had multiple programmers combining together to produce a cohesive unit, you will realize that each individual programmer's coding has a style, a rhyme and meter that someone familiar with that coder can pick out. Also, it is easy to see the emphasis that previous work has had on his coding as you decipher his interpretation of algorithm descriptions and design patterns.
So yes coding has artistic value in very similar ways to traditional works of art, literature, and poetry.
Source code is obfuscatable. I found a tool called 'shroud' with a quick google search, there are probably other similar tools. According to this FAQ watcom provides it for customers that send in bug reports
If source would be purely functional, then obfuscating it before sending it to an untrusted third party would be meaningless
It's an argument from another point of view, it doesn't require any understanding of software at all
You can discuss the maths, draw diagrams, even video it, but none of those will give you the feel of a Mandelbrot Set like actually using the code/program will, going where you want to, exploring for yourself the nature of what "fractal" means.
I bring this up because people seem to be focusing on making the source code into layman art for judges to understand (normally by layering some traditional art such as poetry on top of it) when what the code actually does can also be art, and untouchable by the other mediums traditionally recognised as expressive.
I'll buy this, but I don't see how it is applicable to this case. Bridge building isn't considered a form of speech. When's the last time someone built an unauthorized bridge and called on the First Amendment to defend it?
Here's my problem, if Expressive Speech is more protected than Functional Speech, what exactly is the difference? I've tried looking at it philosophically, and I get "All speech has both Expressive and Functional aspects to it, there is no pure speech". If there is a legal distiction, can someone (preferably a Lawyer, but not necessarily) please elaborate what it is?
Barring that, there are some programs that, in my opinion, just plain qualify as art. For example, in the 15th International Obfuscated C Code Contest, I'd put the programs Glicbawls (bmeyer.c) and TomX.
Glicbawls goes beyond compressing an image, it talks about ongoing research in the field, demonstrating a routine at the heart of the author's research. It has a clean interface which will do the right thing when confronted with a compressed or uncompressed file. It has a visual representation that is small and artistic. It is programming poetry, a statement about beauty.
Tomx is poetry as well, but poetry of a different kind. Rather than showing beauty, it talks of communication; "All language is fundamentally one". This is a truth we learn when learning to program, but we often forget it as we move into the real world from the abstract. TomX brings this truth into the real world for us to hold, touch, play with. It's even maintainable code (unlike most of the IOCCC entries), so it can grow.
Another example of the expressiveness of a program is in the metaphor it uses to interface with the user. Robert J. Sawyer (Author of Calculating God and Flash Fowrward) wrote an excellent article on the design of Wordstar, and how much more joyful it is for him to use, because of the design metaphor, than other designs that perform the same function.
The Museum of Modern Art has an entire department of Architecture and Design devoted to the art of things that many people think of as purely functional. While they do not yet include software, there is no denying that the software process has much in common with Architecture, Engineering and Design, and the same aesthetic and artistic choices get made during the process.
These are just some examples off the top of my head. I'd really like an answer to my first question tho.
----
----
Open mind, insert foot.
For example: Some of the things I discussed involved the use of color and texture, which would probably have been degraded beyond recognition if I were forced to use pictures taken by pointing a camera at my TV.
If I can use parts of a copyrighted work in my own scholarly works, I must be able to use it at full quality. Anything less would not be adequate.
--
A buddhist walks up to a hot dog stand and says ``Make me one with everything.''
In that report I saw no mention of using DeCSS to simply view the movies under Linux where no legal or authorized DVD player existed. The arguments seemed to revolve around copying and distributing content an assumed but not necessarily proven allegation. Using DeCSS to access the media in it's inteneded use, ie. watching the bloody movie, never seems to be mentioned.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
For me, the DeCSS gallery by David Touretzky is more than enough to convince me that code is speech, and that code is expressive. When I teach my students, I use both real code and pseudo-code frequently to illustrate important points.
Stephan
It's been a while, but a couple decades ago the Progressive magazine printed instructions on how to make a nuclear bomb. I don't believe it was found to be at all illegal (there's some reference to the article here).
The Anarchist Cookbook still seems to be easily available -- though maybe that's just because it's a right-wing conspiracy to get dumb anarchists to blow themselves up :)
And, several years ago when I knew someone who was into that sort of thing, books on converting weapons seemed easily available.
To me it seems like DeCSS (and the DMCA) is a radical departure from normal law. (Though I wonder if similar censorship has occurred for manufacturing LSD, etc.?)
Replied to the wrong post. I'll go reply to the right one.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
He listened over and over to a Susan Vega song (Tom's Diner IIRC)
This alone shows that he must have been truly dedicated to his work.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Publish it minus the soundtrack perhaps. IIRC, the music in the movie is still copyrighted and therefore you can't distribute the movie with the soundtrack intact. Someone correct me if I'm confused on this.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Publish it minus the soundtrack perhaps. IIRC, the music in the movie is still copyrighted and therefore you can't distribute the movie with the soundtrack intact. Someone correct me if I'm confused on this.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
What ripping and recompressing to DivX achieve is to get the file size down to 1 or 2 CD's where you can burn it on a CD (and more easily download it), which is widespread technology, unlike DVD copiers.
I find it hard to believe that this is any sort of real threat to the MPAA. How many people are going to be willing to tie up their broadband connection for a whole day just to download a movie to watch on their PC when they can usually go rent the movie for 4 bucks or less whenever they want? I just don't see it causing any real harm, certainly not enough harm to justify the kinds of restrictions the MPAA wants.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Can I draw you attention to Donald Knuth's "Art of Computer Programming"- the definitive work on computer algorithms, which was named by Scientific American as one of the seminal works of the 20th Century (see Knuth's Home Page) putting him in the company of Albert Einstein, Russell and Whitehead, von Neumann, and Dirac.
In it he passionate argues that not only do you need source code to intelligably discuss algorithms, but you need *assembly code* (one short step shy of object code). And all of the algorithms are presented in assembly language.
OTOH, a large portion of corporate boot lickers fail to realize that the goal of copyright law is to increase the number and quality of copyrighted works. It is not intended to create another form of property, line the MPAA's pockets or otherwise give them other perverse forms of control.
The Fair Use exception was specifically drafted because it was considered at the time that "free speech" was more important than making publishers rich or gratifying their sense of power.
The notion of "infringing use" only exists to serve orthogonal public policy objectives.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Computer Code is just a recipe.
Would these judges consider restricting speech when it comes to publishing brownie recipes?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Your slander against 2600 magazine is quite immaterial.
It is not legal to supress the publication of manuals that teach you how to do illegal things.
If it weren't specifically for the DMCA, and the fact that it is the movie industry that is the plaintiff, this case never would have gotten past demure.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Good example of expressive speech:
Any of the online competitions (like "most obfuscated C code") where content of code is more important than what the code actually does. Obfuscated code is expressive in it's illegibility to (normal) human eyes, but ability to perform a function.
Fair use:
Traditionally been limited by length. A illegible photocopy of a manuscript is not "fair use". If the original version has, for example, a minor detail in a background of a scene (a book title on a bookshelf) that you want to refer to in a scholarly work or essay that would be obscured or unseen in an inferior version of the film clip, I think that interferes with fair use.
If computer programs aren't expressive speach, then according to the Copyright office's website, it won't be covered under copyright law. See
Circular 1, which lists Copyrightable works. They don't have a category for compute programs, but make this recommendation:
It goes further by saying that "works that have not been fixed in a tangible form of expression" "are generally not eligible for federal copyright protection".
So, if programs aren't expressive speach, then where does that leave the copyright status of the million of computer programs out there? Is that a Pandora's box that the court wants to open?
Now, I'm not a copyright lawyer, so I'm not sure where or if this is in actual law. If anybody else knows, I'll be interested in hearing.
If someone steals my DVDs it would be nice if I could just write them back to new DVD disks from my backup storage.
Good for you...BAD for the studios. That's BILLIONS OF DOLLARS of lost profits for them. :-P
IMHO, computer code is demonstrably nothing more than a number. (See the various work by Alan Turing. But also think of your computer's memory as a linear stream of bits. That bit pattern can be viewed as one huge integer number.)
Obviously, not all numbers are equal. Most (99.9%) represent nothing of any use. The remainder represent algorithms that are of value.
I don't see the difference between this, and any natural structure. There are many, many more "mathematically-valid" possibilities than there are real ones. An upside-down tree is a valid construct, but it isn't going to happen. At least, not without a lot of assistance.
My argument is that the sculpting of code is much like the sculpting of the landscape, through natural forces. Some sections are eroded, others are extended. Sometimes, "trivial" changes have massive long-term consequences. (Frost-cracking, in nature, can be as devastating as a subtle low-level struct change.)
If you want a more "technical" proof, look no further than Benoit Mandelbrot's "Fractal Geometry of Nature", in which he demonstrates the recursive, self-similar, and non-Euclidian properties of the natural world. Then look at a Jackson Structure Diagram, or an EBNF grammar. You'll quickly spot that the very fact that you CAN draw such diagrams shows that the same recursive, self-similar properties are inherent in code.
The non-Euclidian nature is slightly harder, but can still be demonstrated. Euclidian shapes have N+ dimensions, where N+ is some integer number equal to or greater than zero. Euclidian shapes are also "simply connected". Because code is self-similar, it -cannot- exist in an integer space, because that space would need to be infinitely larger than the space it is enclosed by.
It follows that code has a fractal dimension, except in "trivial" cases. Now, let's throw in the ability to connect any two points, at random. This is most definitely not a "simply connected" space. There's nothing simple about it. A multi-dimensional map of any non-trivial code will show a horribly complex network of one-way paths, remote connections, circular references, etc.
The only logical conclusion is that non-trivial code is fractal and exists in a fractaline space, rather than being an artifact in a simple space.
But does that make it art? ONLY if nature is. If nature is not art, then code cannot be, either. Code and nature are, fundamentally, much more related than code and a bridge. (You don't get to build a Bridge 0.0.1 - patchlevel 101. Bridges are constructs. Get them wrong, the first time, and there won't be a second. You start from scratch, each time, or you don't start at all.)
This is one of the reasons "Software Engineering" has never been successful. Trying to treat a natural entity as if it were an artificial construct is doomed to fail, or at least prove horribly difficult. (Artificial hills exist the world over, though they're usually small and very simple. Ever seen an artificial mountain range?)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I consider myself a builder, a builder of programs. Just as a seamstress expresses herself by deciding which stiches to use and how to vary from her pattern, I too express myself in the choices I make while building my program.
The fact that two coders with the same background will often solve the same problem in two different ways implies that there exists some expression in the process.
Zipwow "the codesmith"
I don't know which is more depressing, that 2/3 didn't care enough to vote, or that 1/2 of those that did are crazy.
There are lots of reasons why fair use might need the pure form of the work rather than a video recording of a TV screen.
What if you wanted to do a scholarly linguistics study of the evolution of language in movies and chose to use the closed captioning information? You could access that digitally, and do all sorts of easy lexical analysis, which would require difficult and unreliable OCR software otherwise.
Maybe you've got a machine with multiple DVD drives and you want to scan the works in parallel looking for select phrases and maybe correlate the occurances of those phrases with lighting, or music used in the film at that point?
The pure digital form makes detailed study of a work much simpler in many ways, and eliminating access to the pure form may prevent scholarly works which would have otherwise been possible. It's not that you can't do such studies, but that the time required to do them becomes prohibitively large.
What this system allows is media-shifting (applicable under the AHRA and the Betamax scenarios) for personal use. Under the AHRA, you can still make custom compilations on digital media to give to your friends.
:) is prevented by the DMCA, but similar actions are allowed by the AHRA. And the MPAA's argument is that new technology development changes the game. Wasn't the same (or a very similar) argument made in the Betamax case?
Indeed. Even now, there are people trying to take analog video recordings that they have acquired and move them to a digital format for preservation. Plus, the (physical) space requirements of a CD/DVD are much less than a VHS tape. In addition, space-shifting MPEG-2 video to MPEG-4 so that you can carry several movies on a single DVD-ROM with you on your extended vacation (which currently would require you to fire up the old video encoding farm, but that's beside the point
--
The Future: Some assembly required; batteries not included.
Not trying to play Devil's advocate, but where do you draw the line with expression?
What about "computer-generated" code? Whose expression is it? What id DeCSS was generated by a program designed to find the best way to do the task? Would that be expression?
What about code that is "written" by simply plugging "pre-written" modules together in a new way? Is this really expression or just the use of existing tools?
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
Similarly, when reading someone else's poetry or a novel, I appreciate and learn new ways to express things in the English language. (Sorry, I'm not very bilingual...) I see someone else's approach to describing a color or feeling or item, etc. As social creatures ('cept when on 24-hour coding binges!), this behavior is inherent to our being.
Another reason to use a full-quality fair-use clip is to accurately discriminate between two different pieces of media. If you could only use a black-and-white copy of a movie for fair-use instances, how could we fairly compare the quality (technical comparison, not content) of "Miracle on 34th Street" and "The Matrix"?
For that matter, if the movie companies go to such great lengths to provide a medium of superior quality, why would they relegate others to show a watered-down version of the product and not be able to "sing the praises" of new technology?
Not sure if this makes any sense, but that's just my thoughts off the top of my head.
A crowbar is a tool. It's the action of how the tool is used that is illegal or not.
A better comparison would be a "digital high-powered automatic weapon", if it's so deadly surely the goverment can ban it! Although somehow I don't see DeCSS as taking lives or holding the MPAA hostage.
I agree that this issue is clearly beyond the grasp of these judges. One solution might be to have judges that focus on computing (like they do for family law and divorce) instead of geographical areas.
In theory the lawyers are supposed to have the skill to pull out the essence of the case in a way that the court can understand, but it seems in this case the lawyers aren't up to the task as evidenced by the report writer's insightful comments on behalf of the 2600 side on key points in this report.
your thoughts.
a w/ OpenlawDVD
http://eon.law.harvard.edu/twiki/bin/view/Openl
Categories include (but not limited to):
ImpossibleFairUses -- Fair uses which are prevented through the use of CSS
DigitalControlConspiracy -- The conspiracy to take digital control.
FalseAdvertising -- Disney tell you can ``Own it today on DVD''. Do you?
I think that there is one unfair point in the government's argumentation: the comparison with the "program that shuts off smoke detectors in public buildings".
It seems like they fail to make the difference between source code and a binary executable program. And then they cannot make any difference between a plan for a bomb and the bomb itself (correct me if I am wrong, I am not a US citizen, but AFAIK posting a plan for a weapon is protected as free speech in the US?). Like the compiler that is between the source and the binary representation there are only some employees and a few salaries between the plan for a bomb and the bomb itself. And in the future, when someone invented a device that reads the plan and builds the bomb automatically, not even that.
In other words, they can either make only the binary illegal and keep the source legal. Or alternatively they must forbid any form of speech that allows the creation of an "illegal device".
I would have insisted much more on the fact that DeCSS can -not- be used for mass duplication
But you would be wrong. Rent DVD, rip DVD, encode to DivX, rename, put "Movie-divx.avi.mp3" on napster. In the worst case, if you have a cable modem, (say, a 320 kb/sec upload speed), and if everyone who downloads from you shares the movie over their cable modem, then after a day ~8 copies of the movie exist, after two days ~64 copies exist...
I think it would have been very good to point out that the encription does not, in any way, prevent pirates from copying software, neither does DeCSS make it any easier.
This is better. Don't point out that DeCSS lets you get a perfect rip a DVD movie... point out that there has been software to perfectly rip DVDs (via automated screen capture type means) for something like a year before DeCSS came out. Point out that the hardcore pirates aren't going to bother decoding the movie at all, but will just make bit-for-bit copies to sell at $5 a pop.
Point out that even if DeCSS is a "digital crowbar" (digital screwdriver might be more accurate), crowbars are not illegal.
Professor Peter Junger of the Case Western Reserve University Law School has already taken this point to court.
see: http://samsara.law.cwru.edu/
The US sixth Circuit court of appeals holds that as computers programs are indeed expressive and protected by the First Amendment.
** Martin
But if I own dvd playing software I can download encrypted dvds and play them just as easily as decrypted ones! So there's nothing "easier" the only thing that changed is the state of the data.
** Martin
Ok. Let's assume for a minute that the programs are not expressive and therefore A) not protected by the 1st amendment, and 2) not able to be copyrighted.
.neat. . .
What effect would this have on the programs that are used by the industry to encrypt and decrypt the movies? Suddenly the programs are no longer under the protection of the DMCA, which means that it's perfectly legal to do things like reverse engineer them! Hey. .
** Martin
2. What examples of fair uses absolutely require access to the work in its most modern, digital, uncorrupted, un-macrovisioned form? The only one that jumped out at me is making a backup copy in case the original is destroyed. But perhaps there are others. In situations where you are critiquing content for it's technique, it is imperative that you have a digital version with which to do that.
For example, if I were attempting to teach a class on special effects in movies and I needed to show how a composition of images in a scene was flawed because the outline edge of the main character was clearly visible, then an digital, clean version of this would be required. Anything else would hide the technique and therefore would be useless.
The judge handed us the unconstitutional arguement we neeed! Look - DMCA DOES effectively extend copyright on movies to a perpetual status. That is blatantly unconstitutional. The constitution specifically allows copyright for a limited time. Wallah! By other court actions, congress can keep on extending copyright as long as it isn't permanent. This one is pemanent as written!
Have you compiled your kernel today??
Speech is expressive insofar as it expresses ideas or information about politics, society, religion, etc. The problem with source code is that the courts have viewed it as more functional than expressive as often as not -- in other words, they have found that its purpose is more to make a computer do something than to express an idea.
In some cases, this view is correct. If I send a solitaire program to a friend with a note that says "try out this game. it's fun !", then the code is merely functional. The friend is likely not even to read it before he compiles and runs it. If, however, I send him the same code with a note that says "check out how the renderer in this game implements the Zbuffer !", then I am sending the code in order to express some ideas about how the technology behind the game works. In this sense, source code is clearly expressive of technological / scientific ideas insofar as it is meant to explain those ideas. Clearly, DeCSS can be seen in this light -- it is the clearest possible explanation of exactly how the DVD encryption mechanism works.
In order for the DeCSS code to deserve protection, however, we must show that the ideas it expresses have direct relevance to political and social ideas. Merely explaining one's view of how the law of gravity works should not be protected nearly so strongly as explaining one's view of how a democracy should be run. In this case, however, the technological ideas behind DeCSS are directly related to how freedom of speech evolves in our new digital world.
The movie industry has proposed the DVD encryption format as the principle mechanism for distributing digital movies for the next decade at least. As consumers, we should have the right to make a free choice about whether or not we agree with how their mechanism works. Otherwise, we are abdicating the great power of the digital age (the power of many-to-many broadcast communication) back into the hands of the few movie studio heads. Without a proper understanding of how the mechanism works, however, we can't even begin to make an informed decision about whether to support the mechanism in the marketplace, much less enter into a discussion about whether to support the mechanism.
The same DMCA law that prevents us from speaking about how the DVD encryption mechanism works has stopped Professor Felten and his team of researchers from speaking about how the SDMI protection mechanism works. They intended only to publish a plain English paper, but were afraid of the consequences of former court decisions that ruled that any a plaing English description of how code works is merely functional, and therefore not protected speech.
As it currently stands, the DMCA does not even allow a consumer to test a product that he has bought to make sure that it works as it claims to. I cannot at this time buy a version of Windows2000 and test to make sure that it encrypts passwords as it claims to, unless I get explicit permission from Microsoft to do so. If I did perform those tests, I certainly could not publish my findings. This situation is like forbidding Consumer Reports from testing whether or not a child-safety lock works and then suing them if they had the audacity to publish a report describing how the lock might fail !
If the relevant section of the DMCA is allowed to stand, we will have taken away from the average citizen his most basic rights to make intelligent decisions about and join in discussions over how speech in the new digital world works. In doing so, we will have ruined the one thing that is the Internet's greatest potential strength -- its potential for taking the power of speech out of the hands of the few wards of the current heads of the media congolmerates and back into the hands of the masses of people in the country. That harm is a prototypical example of the harm done by restricting expressive speech.
I think if I were arguing the DeCSS case, I would insist that the MPAA prove it. They would have to demonstrate that a movie could be decoded and stored on a hard drive and then burned onto another DVD. It could be demonstrated, but then I would argue that a DVD duplicator (or DVD duplication service) would have done the same thing at less expense. Then, my argument would be that anyone looking to steal copyrighted material would not go the DeCss route, and therefore DeCSS does not enable copyright violation.
(I suppose that the flaw here is that the argument is not that DeCSS is the best way to steal copyrighted work, just that it IS a way to steal copyrighted work.)
Other "violations" like frame grabs or clips or even copying the enirety of the movie onto my own hard drive, are all "fair use," and/or covered and explicitly allowed by the Home Audio Recording Act.
Two cents from Jeff
Another idea occurs to me - it seems it is not necessary, in this case, to prove anything about DeCSS one way or the other. This case is about hypertext links on the web.
The argument against free speech is, paraphrasing, you are not free to shout "Fire" in a crowded movie theatre. Granted. But that doesn't prevent someone fron talking about shouting "Fire" in a crowded movie theatre.
The court needn't concern itself with whether DeCSS' existance is, or is not, legal. Either way, talking about DeCSS is permitted.
The entire point of the first amendment of the constitution is to allow the free discussion of ideas. The intent being political ideas which might not be in concert with whatever government might be in power. But free speech is free speech. I can talk about conflict with the government, but not about playing a DVD on my linux box?
Computer programming languages are designed for the rigorous expression of solutions to problems. The nature of the problems so discussed and solved are practically unconstrained. In essence, any domain of human endeavor or interest that is sufficiently well understood (even if only approximately) to be described with the necessary detail may be addressed by a computer program.
I'm wondering whether there's something sneaking in the back door...
What about the END of a copyright period? Does the digital copyright automatically expire and release the material into the public domain? Will a DVD magically become un-encrypted when the 20 years are up?
There's so much question over access to the material DURING the life of a copyright, but what provisions are there for FREE access to the material once the copyrights (and their restrictions) expire? Doesn't the material we've purchased access to (like buying a DVD or a CD) become completely OUR property once the rights expire?
I can just imagine what happens in 20 years or so when the copyrights on the DVDs currently out there expire but the material is still encrypted. Won't the manufacturers of the DVDs be liable for not providing an unencrypted version? Will we need to sue the content owners for an un-encrypted copy of the same material we've already paid for?
Perhaps the DVD folks need to consider the end-of-life for their COPY rights when the ownership of the content reverts to US!
Then again, perhaps this is just a way of creating the "perpetual, non-expiring copy right" to ensure that royalties are due... ...forever.
-soup (GNUrd, Speaker to Machines) "Laugh at yourself- Why should everyone else have all the fun?" -Romanchek's 6th Ru
Almost every computer language I've ever come across has some form of comments. If computer language were purely functional, then comments would not be needed. In fact they don't (usually) affect the functionality of the program.
Another idea along these lines is that programming lanuages are a human construction just like any other language. They make it easier for us humans to express our ideas to computers, but the computer doesn't need them in the same way we do.
The computer is just another tool, useful for shuffling data around, but it does nothing on its own. It is only when it is used to implement the programs designed by human programmers that it ceases to be just an expensive space heater.
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
Ok, well lets look at this from another perspective. Why does a movie have to be art? What about the garbage that floods my tv all the time that I don't watch because it is pointless, bad attempts at humor that lacks in any real form of imagination? I could see some movies as art, but for every good movie there are 50 crappy ones. I think for programming this is about the same. For every good program there are allot of bad ones. To me my work is just as important as thiers. And if you ask M$ about it they would agree that software (at least thiers) is more valuable than the movies.
What if we took all these major legal battles and threw them together and see what came up. I'm sure that M$ could put up just as many arguments as the movie industry that their software deserves more protection than their movies. Since their movies start in a theater that you cannot get a digital copy from. While thier software is reproducable from day one. Not to mention smaller and easier to transport across the internet.
"Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder" What is art to me might not be art for you. And the reverse is the same. Is my programming art? I think so, but others might not. Does it really matter?
If ignorance is bliss, the world is full of blissful people
Suppose I'm a video artist and I want to rip sections of my DVD to study animation and video techniques. I want to take advantage of the quality and fine control I can get over the frames to study and modify portions of the film as a learning exercise. Perhaps I would like to practice digital editing and post-production techniques?
Watch Citizen Kane, specifically the
childhood scene. There are many details
that were put there in order to show Charlie's
relationship with the three other characters
(while Charlie plays in the yard pretending to
be a Union soldier, his mother opens the
window to hear him, and his father later
closes it to shut the draft). Welles put those
details in to show to which of the two Charlie
was closer.
Try to show these details if you have to
display the movie on a screen and capture
the scene with an analog recorder.
A million bedroom DJ's have got these decks and they're the toughest piece of hardware I've ever encountered - in hunderds of years they'll still work.
;-)
Furthermore, those that benefit from intellectual property rights tend to make the strongest analogies between such rights and real property rights. Look at the MPAA's arguments here, and look at the RIAA's typical arguments. This is nonsense. Intellectual property rights were never created because of some seemingly intrinsic right -- quite the contrary. Intellectual property rights were implemented to bring about a certain good, and that good is the production of easily copyable services. However, today these rights have been extended to such ridiculous extent that it grants many unnecessary and unfair priveleges to publishers.
Also, if you still feel that you must stick to analogies to real property, consider this. Giving someone the source code to a program is not giving them an actual object; it is quite simply giving them information. Is it illegal to tell someone how to pick a lock? Surely lock-picking causes far more property rights violations than DeCSS. Is it illegal to tell someone how to steal a car? Car theft most definitely stings people every day. So why should it be illegal to tell someone how to crack the encryption on a DVD?
If eventually it is ruled that distributing DeCSS in any form is illegal, then a ridiculous precedent will have been set. If such an important right as free exchange of information can be throttled in order to grant more priveleges to a very priveleged set of people, where no harm has been observed or measured, consider what this means in those situations where there is an easily observable and measurable harm. It would mean that the dissemination of any information that could conceivably contribute to any illegal activity would be at risk.
So please, no more talk of source code as beautiful and expressive. You're simply overcomplicating the matter and thus weakening the case. The distribution of source code is quite simply the exchange of information. Is it reasonable to prohibit me from reading the source code to another individual? Why must it be different if I ftp it to another individual?
Logan
This is something that a lot of people are having problems grasping. Expression is not just art. It is also Ideas. In the same way that mathematics and physics communicate concepts that describe the world, a program communicates an algorithm for solving a problem.
Those 25 lines of Microsoft word ( which I happen to be unfamiliar with) could very well be the heart of a splay tree, or perhaps it is Kruskal's algorithm, or maybe it's just a big comment spouting off about the efficacy of using shaving cream as a marital aid.
But in the end, it doesn't matter if it is "Art". The consitution protects free speach, which applies first to ideas( splay tree, Kruskal, shaving cream), and secondly to art ( because it expresses an idea).
I forget who did it (there was an article in SciAm a few months ago about it), but the artcile was talking about how elegant (scientifically) a solution was to decreasing the amount of material required to build a bridge structurally, and at the same time making it aesthetically pleasing. In fact, the reduction of materials in this case actually made the bridge stronger. Someone seeing old bridge designs, and then new bridge designs might think "Wow, what a beautiful solution to the problem, and it works too!"
I would liken this to some of the evolutionary development that takes place while coding. How many times have you written something that is ugly and gets the job done, but is really inneficient, then later come across another piece of code, or someones reworking of your own code, and thought in awe "I can't believe how much better that is, look at how it steamlines all the processing, etc.". At the same time as the code is being functional (and doing the same thing that yours did) it is expressive in showing an alternative way of doing it that is a more beautful solution (at least to another programmer).
Also, there is definitely something expressive and instructional about having more than one implementation. For example, by comparing the different bridge designs, and analyzing them, someone else might be able to come up with a better design for bridges, or for that matter, for anything structural. (Think of how many developments from NASA have made it into everyday life.)
DeCSS is a computer program that reverses the Content Scrambling System. The program is also a precise expression of the DeCSS algorithm. In fact, an exact expression of an algorithm is none other than an executable computer program. If you express an algorithm exactly, you can execute it automatically. If you have executable code, then that code (together with the machine description) is the specification of its algorithm.
Computer science is impossible without specification of algorithms, which makes imo. a computer program a valuable form of free speech. However, the four-letter acronyms want to make us believe that a computer program is more than a computer program. They want us to believe that it is a "digital crowbar", a "promotion to violate copyright law". These are just insinuations, and a bad ones too, because crowbars, vault codes and promotions are not illegal.
Regarding access to the original form: there is no reason why fair use needs the unfettered modern original. In fact, normal use also doesn't need most modern, digital, uncorrupted, un-macrovisioned form. Going one step further, who needs movies in any form? We could all forget about them, go sit in the grass and enjoy the sun. After all, movies are `just' entertainment.
However, this argument cuts both ways: the work is `just' entertainment, and i.m.o. entertainment does not warrant any of the draconian (free speech) measures that DMCA proposes. The four-letter acronyms want us to believe that they have a right to own a living (more accurately: to get insanely rich) with movies, but that is not their basic right. If they can not get insanely rich by selling expensive shiny frisbees then they should consider another business model.
Han-Wen Nienhuys -- LilyPond
This only just occured to me, and I've been awake for an awful long time now, but I would seem that if you're invoking fair use for journalistic reasons in a situation where the media counts as 'evidence' of some kind, then the quality of the transfer is paramount.
To illustrate, let's pretend that the Rodney King beating was filmed with the video equivalent of MiniDisc. If the device does not allow a full-quality digital backup to be made of the recording, then vital information (the identity of the officers, say) would be lost in the blur of a degraded signal.
Or worse, the lack of quality could be interpreted as tampering, or be used to conceal it.
Documents important enought to be guaranteed distribution under fair use must, almost by defninition, be deserving of full quality rendition.
Jeremy Lee | Orinoco
My free speech (making and selling tickets to movies) -VS- Your free speech (writing and distributing software)
Gawd, what a line up:
RIAA AFM AFTRA AFMA ASCAP BMI ASMP AAP BSA DGA
IDSA NATO NCTA NCAA NFL NHL NMPA PGA PPA SBCA
SAG SIAA WGA and Reed Elsevier, Inc.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
That's easy. In 10 years, "Hilter II" starts distributing a media file that shows all the world's important Jewish leaders in a meeting discussing ways to assisinate world leaders who don't support them. The media file is a self-decrypting, self-playing executable. It only plays on devices that encrypt the data all the way to the screen hardware to prevent sampling. The encryption method is protected by the DMCA. If I suspect that the media clip is basically invented by pasting prior sound and video clips of those leaders together, I have no legal way of analyzing the video clip. Sampling it using a sound recorder or video camera erases the level of detail that I need in order to properly analyze the media for defects that would reveal that it is a fabrication. This may not be much of a concern in the U.S. since we are immune to such manipulations of public opinion and changing media to suite the desires of the press(ya right!), but this is a common occurence in much of the world. Here is a good example of how Stalin used this very technique to maintain his reign of terror: http://www.parascope.com/ds/articles/stalin.htm How about something more innocuous. I want to show two video clips that show a good and bad use of the common blue-screen technique is movies. If I sample using a video camera, I have lost the detail that I want to show and analyze. These are both very legimate and REQUIRED for true fair use to mean ANYTHING.
That's one of the things this case is trying to fix. They want to make a statement that fair use takes priority over restrictive access control.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
IIRC, the original author of DeCSS did not originally intend the code as a means of expression; instead, he whipped up DeCSS in order to watch movies.
The intent of creating a work has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on its expressive content. This is the fatal flaw of your argument.
An example begs. You could write a beautifully enchanting poem with the sole purpose of getting some girl to sleep with you. But your motivation doesn't affect the poem. If the same poem were written to inspire people to donate to charity, it would still be the same poem, and it would still be just a poem. The qualities and characteristics of the poem don't depend on why it was written. It's just a poem - it just expresses something. The author may or may not have intended the poem to have particular expressions, but the author cannot prevent the poem from having expression. Even the null poem has expression. I'm not sure what it is (or isn't), but that's stop it from existing.
Expression just exists in works, it isn't only in works which are created in a certain set of ways. Works are expressive. If you create a work you cannot help but allow it to express something.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
On Question 1
I do not think code, in its everyday use form, is expressive, at least in the manner that Sullivan is attempting to argue. Code is basically English (for us) words put into a specific and rigid form, much like a sonnet in Iambic Pent or a Haiku; yet the purpose of code is different. It is designed to convey in a high-level manner a method or procedure to a computing device. That is no more expressive than me giving you directions to my house. Surely you can arugue that code can be beautiful, much like a well written play on words such as a sonnet. You can say that code can be rhythmic, or have an interesting patterned form. But when it comes right down to it, the ability of that code to be compiled and executed is its purpose.
I think Sullivan is walking a thin line here, and providing the judges an easy way out. Why doesn't she just attack the issue head on? The concept of code as expression is interesting, but I just don't see how it is relevant, given my belief that we shouldn't be arguing special case crap like that. We need to score an OVERWHELMING victory by making the government realize that code is the same as a written delineation of a task...as simply as I could freely write a copywritten manual as to how to open up a bank vault by listening to the tumblers, I should be able to write a manual as to how to do the same to the encryption scheme on a DVD.
Never before have restrictions been placed on free speech except on cases of public safety or national security, unless the speech would violate a binding and accepted contract or is false (slander/libel). I can't yell fire in a theater and I can't say that the Ford Explorer has rollover problems without evidence, but I certainly can write about how I've determined how a Master lock works and how to circumvent it. It seems to me that the MPAA (as is the RIAA) is attempting to use censorship as an easy route to avoiding more costly and subjective copyright infringement and intellectual property damage lawsuits. At least in the country I live in, it is still their burden of proof--DMCA or no. It is this that Sullivan must argue.
The Government's use of "digital crowbar" is interesting...I didn't know crowbars were illegal. I didn't know that telling people how to USE a crowbar illegally was illegal. I thought that USING a crowbar in an illegal manner was illegal, and again our system of justice requires proof, evidence, that I committed an illegal act. Certainly, the MPAA would argue that they should be allowed to market a movie where Nicholas Cage uses a crowbar to illegally gain entry to a vehicle and illegally steal it. Until we, as a country, can get over this inability to see code as a mechanism, every bit as real as a hammer or Master lock, we are doomed to repeat this argument. If devices are examined at a logical level (where code lives) then there is NO difference between a physical entity and virtual one. That is where we must make our decisions of law.
So in closing, is all code "expressive"? No. Can code be labelled "expressive", sure. Does any of this matter to the case at hand? NO.
On Question 2
Fair use is a sticky topic, and definitely one that needs to be talked about. Personally, I think that fair use is beginning to border on consumer protection. For instance, could the MPAA advocate selling a DVD that would only work for 30 minutes and have to wait 5 minutes to work again? Certainly. I think we are getting into a gray area where what I pay for isn't necessarily what I get anymore. When I buy a DVD, I am buying the viewing rights to that flick. Under old copyright law, I was to be allowed to do WHATEVER I wanted to that movie, as long as I didn't redistribute the viewing privileges. Now, I pay for viewing privileges but am restricted from even watching the movie in its highest quality form. So what did I buy? Consumers need to be informed about DVD...and we need to boycott their purchase. That is "old market".
Once again we are arguing the same arguement: is DVD different than any other product? No, and it should not be. I should have fair use of the work as it is sold to me (that is, in full digital glory) not some half-assed video from TV. If the MPAA would like to argue that somehow the work is worth "more" at different quality levels, let them...but I don't think they would dare. The work is the work--whether in analog or digital, the format we are presented with is a subset of that. When I pay for a DVD, I am paying for rights to view the work, not the rights to play a DVD specifically. Under old copyright law it was specifically delineated that I was able to transfer that work to other media, so the right does not end at the media. The DMCA is directly at odds with this, and in a very un-"consumer protection" way. While we are looking at this, why don't we start paying more attention to possible instances of collusion between the MPAA and the DVD manufacturers. Are they ripping off the consumers?
The fair use arguments are another poor vantage point from which to argue our rights, and I really don't like this take. Essentially we have retreated from fighting for EVERYONE'S fair use, to only a few. That is crap. If I, as a citizen and consumer, have fair use, then so will everyone else (education). It is much harder to regain ground once you have conceded it, and make no mistake, we are conceded ground by fighting this battle like this.
Again, we must re-examine what the MPAA is asking: they are asking to be able to sell you the rights to a product but continue to restrict your use of it, without any evidence that you are using it improperly---I don't see "fair use" in that. Do they have the right to put copy encryption on it? Yes. Should they be able to outlaw the reverse engineering of it? No.
They cannot fairly have their cake and eat it too.
Scott
"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."
First, consider a hypothetical. Say somone that messes around with cars
figures out how to make a completely transparent (plexiglass?) carburetor.
They make one and put it on their car. The car runs _exactly_ the
same as it did before. Unless you look at it, you will detect _no_
difference and it will break down just as often, etc, etc. But if you
look under the hood, you'll see this very cool looking thing that this
person put there because he thought it would be a cool thing to do.
That is clearly (in my mind) "expressive" rather than just functional.
He would not make a pink one--why? because of the function? no, because
he would feel that it would be taken as an expression of femininity.
Okay, now let's consider some very old code of mine that I was looking
through the other day. I had a function in it called "start_me_up".
This was a reference to the Stones song. It would have worked just
the same if I had called it "start". No difference in functionality.
No one that ever used the program ("drove the car") would know it was
there. But when you look at the source code you get a little insight into
my personality. It expresses something about what kind of music I like,
and my sense of humor. Furthermore, when I looked at it I thought
"I would probably hesistate to use that function name today because it
might make someone think of the Windows 95 ad campaign". Not because
it would run different. Because of what it would express to someone.
Further examples--when I was working in a language that had problems wth
scope issues, I would use different names for my loop counters (frequently
people use "i" and "j" as loop counter names). If I just wanted functionality,
I would have called them i2, i3, etc. But, just to be funny, i would
use variable names like "eye", "aye", "jay", etc--my intent was that
people would see the variable, and wonder why it was called that
for a split second before they realized that it was pronounced exactly
the same way as "i" or "j".
It amused me when I saw it later. That was the whole point of writing it
the way I did.
Even now that I'm in a more corporate environment, I see plenty
of examples of expressive code. One programmer on my team implemented
some functionality with an array named "f--k_you"--didn't change the
functionality, but it expressed his emotion at how much trouble
implementing that feature had given him. It also nearly got him
fired because the manager thought the expression was directed at
him or other members of the team. Not because of the functionality--
because of what it expressed.
If it has to be clearer than that, we really have no hope in this thing anyway.
--
Liberty uber alles.
DMCA doesn't only ban "crowbars" it also bans descriptions of "crowbars" and (recursive) instructions on where to get "crowbars" and instructions to make your own "crowbars". We allow people to tell others how to make explosives, fully automatic weapons, and poisons. Why should speech that allows one to merely infringe copyright have more controls than speech which allows people to more effectively maim and kill people?
Prohibition and the "War" on drugs are both good examples of what happens when you try.
Hemanshu Nigam
Director
Worldwide Internet Enforcement
c/o MPAA23@pacbell.net
DVDs, or more accurately, the contents of the DVD, will eventually pass into the public domain, but since copyright law has been amended repeatedly to extended the copyright duration we are unlikely to ever see any current content be released. A summary here shows copyright expiry times depending on the content creation date. The current expiry time for corporately owned content is 95 years minimum. This table is probably specific to US law, but that will be a close, probably exact, match to the Berne Convention which is in force throughout most of the western world.
This sig is a figment of your imagination.
I'll suggest a physical-world analogy:
What examples of fair uses absolutely require access to the work in its most modern, digital, uncorrupted, un-macrovisioned form?
A typical, and accepted, fair use is for a review or analysis of an artistic work. For example:
Anyway, that's the way I see it. At least, the way I see it this morning. :) If anyone on the 2600-side wants to make use of these (or similar) analogies, please feel free! (on the other hand, if it's crap, then ignore it. :) )
david.
The distinction between a "functional tool" and "art" is irrelivent. A large number of highly saught after antiques were infact created with the defined use to be a "functional tool". Shaker farm tools for example, while completly "functional" when designed and used. However they are now bought and sold for high dollar amounts to art collectors, museums, and the like.
--
James Michael Keller
"Linux is not our destination, it is simply the open road to tommorow"
My kids (3 and 6) have a fair number of videos. Some of these, especially from Disney, put about 5 minutes of trailers before the feature film, figuring (accurately) that the kids will sit through the trailers instead of fast forwarding. The frustrating thing - for those parents who wish to exercise some control over what their young children see - is that the trailers are often for videos which I wouldn't be willing to get for my kids until they're older.
There's a simple solution for VHS tapes - either splice out the beginning of the tape, or just punch a hole with a paper punch at the end of the trailers, and rewind will stop there. There's no such solution for DVD. It's possible that someone might come out with a DVD player that allows you to program behavior like this, but remember that anyone who produces a DVD player is bound by a contract with the people who put out DVDs, and they can require or prohibit any consumer feature they wish.
Perhaps a reductio ad absurdum argument would be better here. If a description of an algorithm in a compile-able computer language is not speech, then is a pseudocode description speech? If not, is the description in stilted English in a patent application speech? In each case the goal is the same - to unambiguously describe a mathematical idea.
The biggest thing to hit in the follow-up brief would be to point out the logical inconsistencies in the DA/MPAA's arguments which Michael so clearly pointed out. The argument about how a DVD that eventually falls into the public domain will be accessed struck me as a particularly powerful one.
... again.
Indeed. There was an article some time ago linked to by slashdot, which described ongoing difficulties with preserving existing data and knowledge as storage media changes. It is a problem libraries, data wharehouses, companies, and even individuals have (how do you play those old 12" records when no more turntables are manufactured, or they have become so specialized and expensive as to be unobtainable by all but the most wealthy?). These problems have arisen without encryption, without any malicious efforts to make the data inaccessible. Quite the contrary, information is being lost over time already. How much worse will this become with the added barriars of encryption, against which even research is being suppressed, quite probably until it is too late.
Another issue touched upon in the article is the dubious notion that studios will make content available in an "unencrypted" form once their copyrights expire. Two facts point out the absurdity of this notion: (1) The movie studios have been aggressively extending copyrights in order to keep copyrighted material (including such icons of western culture as "Mickey Mouse") out of the public domain (cf. Sonny Bono Copyright Act) and (2) The studios have a history of destroying films once their copyrights have expired, rather than release the material into the public domain as their social contract, per the constitution, requires. Taken together these two facts, along with the DMCA, clearly shows the ugly situation we have gotten ourselves into, where historians, librarians, and other preservers of information are legally banned from doing their work until the material they wish to preserve has become inaccessible due to encryption which cannot legally be circumvented, and for which research is actively suppressed through legal thuggary, or has been destroyed altogether. The result? It is very likely that almost no cultural heritage from our time will be handed down to our grandchildren, except perhaps as a proprietary, commercial work for which the copyright has been extended to an even more outrageous duration
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The old copyright law required the publisher to send two copies of the work to the Library of Congress. This ensured that the work was available to researchers and the public in later years, even if the work was out of print, and the author and publisher no longer existed.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Well cripes,
gotta love those crooks\d\d\d\d\d\dpoliticians we voted\d\d\d\d\dpaid for.
again, I ask.....
Why the hell do I obey their laws for? I have yet to see a law that makes any sense for the public and is not designed to make one person/company filthy rich at the expense of the public. (Ok, maybe the murder is bad law is a good idea)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If the DCMA is a law, then a serial killer takes his files of his crimes and locations of his victims encrypts this data, under the DCMA it is illegal to break the encryption to view the contents or to have the tools to break them. I say this because in the USA no law can be made that applies to some but not the other. Laws passed MUST be abided by all citizens. The govt and police cannot violate that law. (Note, I know better, the govt and police violate every law they can, but this is time for courtspeak)
if the DCMA is upheld in it's current form it protects criminals, organized crime, and the subversive while having no useful purpose outside of criminal activity. A crowbar is useful construction or demolition tool, it just happens to be able to be used in a harmful manner. Same for DeCSS, it was created as a legitimate useful tool.
The DCMA is harmful no matter how it is used. I would like to see ONE example of how the DCMA protects the citizens of the United States.
Is this helpful? or am I just full of rancid gas.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Speech would seem to me to align with the idea of data, which is protected.
The code side of the equation is the tricky part, IMO (BTW, IANAL :)). I could see executing code as an action. I'm pretty sure "Do whatever you want" is not a constitutionally protected right. There is of course the slippery slope of culpability where someone executing a program written by another person.
Couldn't one argue that since algorithms exist independently of implementations (and they used to be unpatentable until recently) that implementing an algorithm (or publishing/linking to said implementation) does not convey responsibility (which is attached to the algorithm). Just a random thought.
Left shift 1 for e-mail...
For many things, the MPAA is right: you don't need all the bits to get fair use. If you just want to make reference to the overall image in some way, for instance, you could just make a cheap VCR recording.
But some uses do need all the bits.
Someone already mentioned creating histograms as one way of analyzing what is going on, onscreen. My thesis might be that in "Bladerunner", the average number of black pixels is higher than any other the other 5 most popular films that year.
Another case you would need the bits for, is steganography. What if I assert that the front page picture in the NYT is actually being used as a secret method to contact agents in another country, or even aliens? You certainly cannot prove anything about that picture one way or another without the exact bits.
Another possible example would be to analyze media for subliminal content. I claim that there are secret pro-smoking images in "Traffic", perhaps flashed up for only one frame. They might not be caught if I digitized from a TV screen.
And who knows what uses might be thought of in the future? For instance, with computer analysis you might be able to tell which scenes of "Titanic" were filmed in what order, by analyzing the amount of weathering on the sets. If this is possible at all, it is clear that you need as much information as possible.
Incidentally (or perhaps not), the issue of "all the bits" relates to code expressiveness. It is true that for the great majority of uses, all you need is the compiled version of code -- the "boiled down bits". But code is not just about running machines; it is about communicating stuff -- primarily algorithms -- to other humans. For that, you need all the bits.
The issue of fair use is not about the most common or expected use of an item. It is about all the other uses: the improbable, unexpected, low incidence ones. The ones that might not even be possible or thought of now, but which might happen in the future.
I think there is a very dangerous trend being set here. It seems that the big corporations are continually going after the tool and not the person that uses it. You can claim that software to disable a smoke detector is life threating, that is a true statment, but what no one seems to understand is that's not the software or the link to the software that kills people. It's someone taking the software and using that kills people, but you don't see anyone going after the people grabbing the software. Look at gun makers for example, you don't see the government attacking them? Don't gun's kill people just like this software can? Sure, gun's can kill people, but we don't go after the gun makers, we go after the person that pulled the trigger.
Now I guess the only thing left to do it point this out to the powers that be and see if they can see they the wrong people are being attacked here. And lets not forget that stealing dcss isn't going to kill anyone, altho it might hurt someone's bank account that already has to many billions of dollars in it..
All this talk about "protected" speech and whatnot gets me wondering. How in HELL did they decide that the First Amendment only protects certain areas of speech? It seems pretty clear to me that it covers everything. It covers my local newspaper, my local TV station, that crazy guy who drives around my neighborhood in a car covered with bible quotes, goatse.cx, and more. I accept that there may be reasons to restrict speech. This is why we have a constitutional amendment process. If free speech needs to be restricted, it should be restricted through that amendment process, nothing less. If banning alcohol required it, regulations on speech had damned well better require it. Can someone explain how an effective end-run was made around this minor piece of fundamental US law?
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
A suggestion for question number one, source code (thus a computer program) can be construed as free speech because it is an extension of the programmers' desires for how things ought to function. I think this might be limited on a technicality only to code which a programmer writes himself which means binary code compiled by a compiler doesn't work but source code for something does. Not only are you expressing personal desires in the source code, you're also commenting it and making up variable names. By blocking the ability to publish said source code you're being denied the right to espress the ideas contained in comments and variable names. Key point, source code is expression because it is a personal literary work while at the same time containing computer instructions, the ability to censor this expression is dangerous because it would give companies arbitrary control over what an individual can and cannot write.
As for problem number two I can only suggest that the MPAA considering a DVD their "home" is complete bumkiss. They own the bytes but I own the physical bits. If I make a representation for my use (it is perfectly legal to draw a picture of a copyrighted work as long as you don't try passing it off as your own) that should fall within the boundries of the law. There are lots of reasons to have unfettered access to the video and audio content of a movie. Say I want to start a homebrew project making mosaics out of frames from movies. With the DMCA and such I'm restricted as to what art forms I can create if they involve using footage from a movie. Same goes for any other art relating to use of movie frames or sound clips. I don't think the court is going to let the MPAA dictate what my next art project is going to look or sound like.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
To make a Fair Use copy of a DVD film, I am told I can easily buy/rent a VHS version of the film and exercise my rights without problem.
There are a few fundamental flaws to this proposition:
1) The content I want to use must be available on VHS format. This is not always possible since many DVD's contain extra scenes/footage not included elsewhere.
2) I must buy/rent the necessary player for the VHS version, if it does exist.
3) I must buy/rent the necessary conversion device(s) to get the VHS content onto my PC - assuming my presentation is being conducted from my notebook computer (which would be true for me).
4) I must buy/rent the VHS formatted version, if it exists.
These four points create an excessive burden and cost to me. The Fair Use provisions of Copyright law allow me to use the item I purchase - a DVD in a permissible manner. It does NOT require me to purchase or rent additional items in order to exercise my rights with a lower quality version of my original purchase.
To rule otherwise is a gross perversion of both the intent and letter of the Fair Use provision.
I AM, therefore I THINK!
That's the funny part - from the description above, they are arguing that DeCSS is not the tool that should be used for that legal purpose. I think they're arguing that there is no legitimate purpose for such a tool until we actually reach the point where a DVD would lapse into public domain, at which point they'll back off of enforcement of the DMCA against a DeCSS-like tool that's used for public domain works.
I didn't say it was a logical or internally consistent viewpoint, but I think that's the argument they're making. Hopefully the justices will see through it. It may be that Michael's summary hasn't really stated their position correctly, because I find it hard to believe that someone could maintain some of their viewpoints without imminent cranial explosion.
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
That may be the smartest comment I've read on this story. Mod up, please!
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
IANAL, so I may not have used the term "prior restraint" appropriately. The issue is not with 2600 publishing the exact same thing again, but with other publishers who may have cryptographic research and tools that they wish to publish. By prohibiting 2600 from publishing such information or even linking to it, the courts have effectively stopped any other publisher who isn't prepared for a long court fight, as well as any news sites which might link to such information. Effectively, publishers and media sites will be restrained from providing or linking to information, prior to the determination of the legality of such information, due to the expense of the necessary legal defense which would be necessary.
AFAIK, 2600 is not being accused of continuing to publish/link to DeCSS after they were ordered to stop by the courts, so I don't see how "contempt of court" would come into this. They seem to be following the legal process through its normal (slow as molasses) channels.
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
I thought this was interesting:
I don't understand how this squares with other court cases which have argued that this is a prior restraint on free speech. After the DeCSS case, anyone interested in publishing cryptographic research about a particular protection scheme (like Prof. Felten, for example) will be thinking twice about that publication. This doesn't seem right to me, I hope Ms. Sullivan hit that point hard.
The biggest thing to hit in the follow-up brief would be to point out the logical inconsistencies in the DA/MPAA's arguments which Michael so clearly pointed out. The argument about how a DVD that eventually falls into the public domain will be accessed struck me as a particularly powerful one.
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
- 1.) Code uses linguistic devices.
- The nouns of Perl are variables.
A variable is just a handy place to keep something, a place with a name, so you know where to find your special something when you come back looking for it later.[italics and bold added]
Nouns can be singular or plural:
We call a singular variable a scalar, and a plural variable an array
- The verbs of Perl are the operators and sub-routines.
- 2.) Code is most commonly used to express real-world concepts in a structured manner.
Then what is the difference between computer languages and natural languages?The syntax of a computer language is expressive in the same manner as the syntax of a natural language. In Section 1.2 of Programming Perl, Larry Wall describes the base structures of the Perl language using linguistic examples.
Verbs are also sometimes called subroutines (when user-defined) or operators (when built-in). They are often imperative: As is typical of your typical imperative computer language, many of the verbs in Perl are commands: they tell the Perl interpreter to do something. Verbs can also be interrogative: Some verbs are for asking questions, and are useful in conditional statements.
I want to get this post up soon, but I'm sure I could find a code example for every language structure expressed in English 101.
(Code also has the ability to express metaphor in a powerful way. Music visualization plugins like G-Force translate sound into visuals, etc.)
Nearly all business programming consists of expressing real-world Things and their Capabilities in an ordered manner. For example, a short piece of Java code: public interface ShoppingCart { public void addProduct( Product p ); // add a product to the Shopping Cart
public boolean checkOut(); // return true if successful checkout
}
This is an expression of a real-world Thing ( a grocery cart ) and what can be done with that Thing( add products to the cart, check out ).
The only difference is that computer languages have rules, natural languages have parameters. Every statement in a computer language is ordered, while statements in natural languages may or may not be ordered. The ordered nature of computer languages does not mean that all programs are a set of instructions. In object oriented programming attention is given to the relationships between the Objects (Design Patterns).
Code can express a wide range of properties of real world things, processes, and relationships. This expression of real world properties is not merely an enumeration (like a phone book), but a metaphor used to make certain tasks understandable to those who read the code. Let me repeat... the only difference between computer and natural languages is that computer languages are structured. Last time I checked, I don't think that being structured makes speech less expressive or ineligible for First Amendment protections.
P.S.: I realize that instructions in the form of programs can be performed by a computer; but this is analagous to saying that bomb instructions in the form of a book can be performed by an individual. The law protects the Anarchist Cookbook, and it should protect any form of code as well. A complementary legal tactic could be to dredge up case history where instructions to perform illegal actions were protected as speech.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (the ACCC) is investigating this very point. The article here has some interesting quotes about the issue, particularly by the local Warner Home Video MD Mr Marc Gareton. Of particular interest:
"There are a lot of reasons why movies can't be released in cinemas all round the world on the same date - mainly the cost of film prints and marketing."
"If it's available on DVD, I'd be surprised if people would go to the movie."
This guy has a seriously skewed view of the world, but then, that appears to be true of all these MPAA/RIAA types. I've always been annoyed at having to wait 6+ months to get movies, games, etc. released down under when I can order them over the net when they're released in the US.
I always thought the localisations required (dubbing, subtitling, censorship requirements, etc.) would have been the major cause for delays, but no, apparently it's just the costs of marketing and printing film. At the prices we pay down here, I think they can afford to cut a few extra copies and do a simultaneous release.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're NOT after you.
I'm not sure where the idea came from that aesthetic quality is the measure of constitutionally protected speech. Whether or not code is or can be beautiful is not at issue. All that matters is that, in addition to providing instructions for a machine, it can (and does) function as a means of communication . If source code were not intended to communicate it would not contain comments or use actual words (e.g., if, until, include, etc.).
I would think those who claim source code does not constitute protected speech have the difficult case to make. Unfortunately, most people (including judges) don't understand the difference between code and software. In essence, they argue that software doesn't constitute speech (and I don't really have an opinion on that one way or another) without really knowing what source code is.
Would people argue that sheet music is not speech? After all, it's just a set of instructions most people don't understand.
Film students studying aspects of film which involve intricate physical details--e.g. photography. lighting, or set design--would not be served at all by fair use of excerpting for scholarly purposes if they had access to even a slightly corrupted image of the original set. This fair use would require that the students have access to still images or entire shots of the highest quality available.
Nowhere has the stylistic aspect of code been more clear to me than in a class I took on algorithmic analysis. In a pen-and-paper test I had to design and prove an algorithm whose purpose I've long since forgotten. I happened to accomplish this task in a manner my teacher found very unusual. My solution expressed a way of looking at the problem in a manner that neither the teacher nor any of the other students in the class had thought of. And in order for the instructor to discuss my approach--or to contrast it with his approach or that of other students, it was necessary to use code.
Code can be just as functional and as expressive as, for example, a lawyer's brief or a judge's decision. Lawyers would be arrogant to think otherwise.
Another situation I just thought of where uncorrupted data is required: reviews. Imagine this hypothetic review:
Naturally, such a review is only possible unless the clip that it mentions, is of the highest possible quality.---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Nice example, hope you get modded up. Constraints (a 5k limit, desire for obfuscation in a C contest, the pre-ordained meter of poetry, the 2D limit of a canvas, etc) are what makes an artist to make value choices of his own that go behind mere engineering and statement of fact. Seriously into art territory, there.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I don't think this would be a good specific example to bring before judges, but hopefully it will trigger someone else's memory of something like it that they have done, which would more .. uh .. presentable.
Basically, the specifics were very childish. I'm almost too embarrassed to mention it, but I guess freedom's at stake, so...
In an accounting program that I've been working with since the 80s, there's the concept of "joint checks". The word "joint" in the English language happens to be overloaded and means something else that is completely unrelated to the concept of joint checking accounts. Because of this, in a little section of code, I^H a certain bored programmer chose to use variable names that referenced pot smokers, and one variable name that is a reference to .. um .. a public figure. The code, in addition to performing
a purely functional action, contains double-entedres that expresses
an opinion of that public figure's mental capacity. That's expression. (It's
also probably slander, so I won't go into the details.)
But the basic principle is this: source code can "say" something that is orthogonal to the actual function of the code. For example, you could take the DeCSS code, and change the variable names so that, for example, you have an assignment statement that says this:
or And I don't see how anyone could argue that the code is merely functional and not expression as well.---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
For some horrible/great examples of expressive code, check out the entries in any obfuscated C contest. What does it express? It expresses how damned perverted a human mind can be!
(I'll try to think of some others over the course of the day.)
A fair use example that requires exact duplicate? Very easy: discussions of compression technology. "Look at the (lack of) visible compression artifacts in this MPEG2-encoded high-motion scene in Robocop, and compare it to how horrible the same scene encoded with MPEG4 looks." You can't do such a comparison without the MPEG2 data.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I really must differ. Every piece of code written is expressive. Some well, some not so well. Writing code is a bit different from writing free verse, but.. The reason is that you must satisfy not only the purpose and intent of the creator, but also the strictures of the compiler and the desires of the intended audience.
Merely saying that the code compiles is only satisfying the strictures of the compiler. It says nothing about the desires of either the creator or the audience.
The audience will have a desire for the shape and interaction modes of the final form (executing in a computer, usually). This is a combination of an esthetic experience (consider the term "eye candy"), and a utilitarian experience (I'm not sure about games... they might be pure esthetic).
The creator will have desires relating to the clarity of the code, it's esthetic balence, the flow of purpose through the structure of the code. This is different for different programmers, which is one of the reasons that multiple computer languages exist. Think of them as partially similar to the differing poetic forms. Some tightly structured. Some rather looser. Perhaps APL could be compared to Haiku? I suppose that Eiffel could be compared to rhymed iambic pentameter of form abba bccb (though that feels like a looser metaphor). C is rather like prose (though the use of pointers is an impediment in this analogy). etc.
Now the point of this is that the differing poetic forms have a differing feel when you read them, and so do the differing chunks of code. Ada does not feel like Eiffel, though they are quite similar. Eiffel feels sparse, Apollonian. Ada feels dense, encompassing. Smalltalk feels self-contained, introspective. Python feels convoluted. Fortran feels plain, and straightforward, but rather prim (well, I don't have experience with Fortran 95, this is Fortran IV that I'm talking about).
This is somewhat similar to the way that heroic couplets are not blank verse are not sonnets. And here, remember, I am talking about the creator's point of view. The end user probably won't be aware of this aspect at all. Even where there is a scripting language it's likely to not be the core language of the application.
The user is aware of the liveliness or dullness of the response. Of the crispness of the presentation. The the elegance of the expression. And of the clarity of the communitcation. (This is especially noticable with error messages, but exists throughout the user interface.)
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
--
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
What makes piece of text, say describing how a bear throws sticks into a river from a little bridge and runs to the other side to see if his stick was the first to arrive, expressive? It is expressive because there are millions of ways to describe his action, from very detailed ones describing even the length of the stick, to a short one as the one I wrote here, to one describing his inner feeelings about the action. A pice of computer code is in the same way expressive, since there are millions of codes that describe the same thing, and the choice of how to write the code is just a question of personal likes and estheatics. I will exemplify with the code to calculate the faculty of a number, written twice in the same programming language (Scheme):
(define (faculty x)
(if (= x 0)
1
(* x (faculty (- x 1)))))
and
(define (faculty x)
(define (faculty current x)
(if (= x 0)
current
(faculty (* current x) (- x 1))))
(faculty 1 x))
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
Consider also the case of code in the classroom. Last fall in an algorithms class, my professor wrote, over the course of two and a half months, probably about a dozen and a half algorithms on the blackboard in C. Anyone in the class could have gone to the lab and copied those algorithms into an actual source file and compiled them, but that wasn't the point. The point was that the professor could point to the code and say, "This is Dijkstra's algorithm. Here's what it does and how it works..." Suppose the professor had bundled these algorithms up into a file that students could download (he might have, I don't remember). The purpose of this downloadable file is to express the algorithms to the students, not to provide them for use in programs (although that would be possible). The Princeton SDMI papers are a fine example of this sort of disemination. The papers are obviously written for the legitimate purposes of academic research and study, but the RIAA has sought their censorship because those papers expose chinks in their SDMI armor. In the same way, the DeCSS program, and particularly its siblings written in Perl, exist, and are diseminated for legitimate purposes. The DeCSS program proper is incredibly cumbersome to actually use. It's primary "function" is to express in no uncertain terms the method by which a DVD disc can be decrypted. The Perl programs that reimplement DeCSS serve an altogether different purpose... two actually. One is that they are designed specifically to be the smallest possible implementations of DeCSS. Two, they are written in protest of the DMCA, accomplished by making their disemination (on T-shirts, mugs, e-mail signatures, and such) as trivial as possible by making the code small. The Perl programs could be used to actually decrypt DVDs as well, just like the DeCSS program proper, but they too are incredibly difficult to use. If at all possible, I suggest that the court should ask the MPAA lawyers to demonstrate, themselves, how DeCSS can be used to make a playable, unencrypted copy of a CSS encrypted movie.
As a result of the DeCSS program, it is now possible for DVD owners and renters to make fair use of their content. I own four DVDs. Without the DeCSS program, libcss would never have been written, and without libcss, no open source DVD player for Linux would exist. In a very clear chain of reasoning, the DeCSS program has served the purpose of expressing the decryption algorithm, allowing programmers to write libcss. The existence of libcss has allowed other programmers to write DVD player software for Linux. The existence of DVD player software for Linux has made it possible for me to watch DVDs, and therefore, practical for me to own them. Note that using this chain of reasoning, it is also plain to see that the MPAA has actually made money (from me, and people in the same situation as me) that they would not have otherwise, on account of the existence of DeCSS.
I like to play children's songs in minor keys.
"We're all sons of bitches now." --J. Robert Oppenheimer
I have a great many thoughts on this subject, but I'll try to be brief. What is computer code? Firstly, it is a construct by a person (yes, some AI research has self-programming stuff, but it all starts with that researcher). Anything created by a person is expressive. This is NOT a new argument. Look into the age-old "Function vs. Form" argument. A farmer makes a plow so he can work his fields. This is a tool, but is it expressive? Well, the plow is a basic farm implement, but is it expressive? Of course it is - to design or build something even as utilitarian as a plow, the farmer must make a long series of choices (just like in coding); how big a wedge? how long should the handles be? tractor, horse, ox, or human pulled? what type of harness system? how deep should the wedge cut? should it push the turf back or roll it? All of these decisions or choices are the farmer expressing his personal ideas for solving certain various problems or goals he has in mind.
:-)
Coding is the same thing, there are many methods or algorythims with which to solve an issue or accomplish a goal. Some solutions are universally deemed "inefficient", or "ugly" by people who know how to code while others might might be valued as "clean", "snappy", or even "pretty".
Any design or creation is expressive. We've all seen bridges and buildings that express ideas. Most people can easily detect the space themes in the design of a lot of 60s arcitecture. Some of the arcitecture of the 70s can be particularly distaseful.
I think that the problem here is that few people in the judicial system have any computer coding knowledge and because of this, need to have this issue explained to them via metaphor rather than an angry mob of picketers chanting, "Coding is expression! Coding is free speech!"
B.
Then again, I could be wrong.
The first stage was the trial court with Judge Kaplan where questions of fact and the trial court's interpretation of the law were set down in the first ruling.
This was the first appeal from that trial court. The Court of Appeals reconsiders the legal arguments while using the factual record established in the trial court. Thus you see references to the MPAA not being able to demonstrate a single instance of copyright violation due to DeCSS -- a stipulation that the MPAA made during the trial.
From here there are several different paths. If the Court of Appeals upholds Kaplan's runling, there's no where else to go but up. An "en banc" hearing before the full Court of Appeals could be requested. (This hearing was in front of only three of the 10 or so Court of Appeals justices in the 2nd District.) This is more likely if the ruling is a split decision 2 to 1 with a stron dissent. The only other place to appeal to is the Unites States Supreme Court which could decide to hear or not to hear the case. We're probably not going to see a SC hearing before late 2002.
This court could rule and issue an opinion remanding the case to the trial court to consider some question that wasn't addressed or for the trial court to consider the law in a different way. So it's possible for the case to bounce around the different layers of the court system a few times. Eventually, it will bubble up a last time to the Court of Appeals and become a candidate for the Supreme Court.
It looks like this case is destined for the SC because of the deep constitutional issues involved. Copyright, first amendment, a first impression DCMA case, there's lots of reasons why the SC would be interested.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
2. What examples of fair uses absolutely require access to the work in its most modern, digital, uncorrupted, un-macrovisioned form? The only one that jumped out at me is making a backup copy in case the original is destroyed. But perhaps there are others.
Obvious. A class teaching techniques in moviemaking, effectmaking and so forth would need the grapical _details_ of a scene in the most perfect form. If its not in the most perfect form, the class would be moot.
Also, should a teacher be _required_ to own something as unlikely to own as a videocamera? I don't own one. I don't know anybody that owns one. You require everybody to buy something they wouldn't normally have.
Also, at the moment most people have VHS machines, lots hav DVD. But, how many do you know that has an LP player? I don't. All my friends have CD players - and I don't know anybody with an LP one.
In 10 years, who will have VHS casettes? Only very few people. In other words, you will need _special equipment_ to be able to make use of fair use.
--
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
I doubt you'll find any law that says it's illegal to take apart a clock and figure out how it works. Or a padlock. Or a nuclear bomb if you happen to have one. But the DMCA magically blesses DVDs (ok not explicitly - but who's kidding who?) and says you are not allowed to figure out how they work.
But I guess these protections are necessary. After all, remember when people figure out how CDs worked and the entire music industry was destroyed? Scary.
Anything subject to fair use laws is likely to be multi-faceted. If I'm studying a first-edition Faulkner, I may solely be interested in the text of the work -- but I'm just as likely to be interested in the typography, illustrations, binding, paper quality, etc.
Same thing with a movie. I may just be interested in the screenplay -- but it's more likely that I'll want to study (or present for study) the cinematography, art design, costuming, sound effects, small facial expressions of the actors, and other details that could easily get lost or blurred in a lesser copy.
The point here is that while such programs may be able to put people's lives in danger, they aren't illegal, nor is it illegal to write, or try to write one. Virii exist which can bring (windows) systems to their knees, but they are still written, traded freely, and it's LEGAL. What is illegal is the USE of such programs for malicious intent. If I want to write virii and try to hack my own computers all day long, no one may complain, but as soon as I try to hack another computer (without permission), or loose my virii upon an unsuspecting soul, then I have comiited a crime. Similarly, writing, musing over, learning from deCSS or other decrypters should be legal, and only using them to make and distribute (illegally) copies should be illegal. DeCSS is a digital crowbar, only arrest the guy if he's using it to break in to a car.
-Tannin Kal
rock on dude
-- Spankmeister General
A random snippet of code I've got more of a problem with however. How do lines 20000 through 20025 of say Microsoft Word 2000 express something?
That's the problem with any "artistic" work, though - you have to consider it on the whole, not in bits and pieces.
For instance, what does this express: do lines 20000 through 20025 of say? The average layman, looking at that fragment, would be unable to see any clear expression or meaning behind it. Put in the proper context of the full sentence, the full comment you posted, it becomes clear that you are expressing doubt and confusion about a particular matter.
Similarly, ten consecutive lines of code plucked at random from a particular program might not be expressive in and of themselves, but taken in the greater context, they just might be.
--
If one is committing a crime with DeCSS, then the penalty should be a bit stiffer.
Why?
What is it about DeCSS that makes it a worse crime than without? Is copyright infringement somehow "worse" using DeCSS over some other program that decrypts DVDs?
If you commit copyright infringement, whatever the tool used, you should suffer the penalties for copyright infringement. Let's not pretend that one set of tools used in a crime are any better or worse than another set.
--
Copyright law is intended to protect forms of expressive speech.
Computer programs can be copyrighted (even in executable binary form).
Therefore it would seem reasonable to assume that the law treats computer programs are a form of expressive speech.
(OK, I know this is a simplified argument, but I would have thought there must be some mileage to be made in this argument).
First, I should point out that I have a reasonable grounding in law, and have been a professional programmer for about six years. I have never practiced law (and as such am not qualified to give legal advice without risk of prosecution =), but I can offer opinion, and lots of it. Oh, and I'm not American, though I do have a great deal of interest in this case and have been examining the legal aspects extremely closely. It seems that as far as technology-related legislature goes, wherever the US leads, the UK follows with a smile and very little consideration.
When I examine code, it is far more than an outline of functionality. The manner in which the code is written tells me a great deal about the level of expertise of the coder, their mindset as they were writing the code, and their artistic flair. As with any language, it is possible to express solutions in a wildly different range of manners. Code can be sloppy, full of errors, and confusing, and can evoke many of the same feelings as examining the scrawl of a young child. Code can be neat, elegant, and thought-provoking, encouraging the reader to examine their own coding style, inspiring the same sense of awe that a well-written doctoral thesis can.
It's true to say that the majority of people will not share my feelings about the expressive nature of computer code. Very few of these people will be coders themselves. There are many langauges that are spoken by only a handful of people scattered across the world. To me, lack of comprehension of these languages means that I cannot enjoy the diversity of expression that they allow others, but this does not mean that their expressive nature is reduced. It is my failing, not that of the language.
Further, an anecdotal example. Several years ago I moved to Paris, unable to speak a single word of the language. The people that I worked with spoke only rudimentary English, and the majority of communication in the first several weeks consisted of a shared understanding of code and code-related humour. (Interestingly, computer humour seems to translate far better than most humour which is dependent of local social context.)
Unfortunately, despite having a reasonable education in law (especially that abstract and often abused area dubbed "intellectual property"), my specific knowledge of American law is not yet advanced enough to be able to comment on the specifics of this case. As the US consitution applies to this case, and directly the manner in which computer code can be regarded as speech, some observations of precedent can be applied:
From Ynigue z v. Arizonans for Official English, the court said that "Language is by definition speech, and the regulation of any language is the regulation of speech" and that "...the choice to use a given language may often simply be based on a pragmatic desire to convey information to someone so that they may understand it." Computer code (in all of its various forms) is considered language by its practioners.
In Ward v. Rock Against Racism, the Court said "music, as a form of expression and communication, is protected under the First Amendment." It can be argued that, although music has far more wide-ranging expressive appeal, the ability to communicate information of great complexity is not one of its attributes. Computer code allows both of these apsects.
In United States v. The Progressive, the functional aspects of technical information in the Progressive magazine article about hydrogen weapons were considered speech. It is not the intent behind that publication, nor applications for which such information could be used (all of which would be considered illegal should they be exercised) that influenced the decision, but the fact that scientific knowledge is speech irrespective of its potential applications.
Perhaps the most relevant is Bernstein v. US Department of State, in which Judge Patel stated that computer code is expressive speech, protected by the first amendment. In this case, the Department of state was denied the ability to prevent Bernstein posting an encryption program on the internet.
Finally, I particularly loved this quote that I turned up during some preliminary research. It seems to me that the MPAA have an irrational fear that a simple computer program will allow the rampant destruction of te very industry that they exist to protect. A fact that the existence of deCSS has proven to be false: "Men feared witches and burned women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears." - Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, dissenting Gitlow v. People of State of New York, 268 U.S. 652 (1925)
Let's play "read the article!": "2600's lawyers are entirely familiar with Touretzky's Gallery, so forget about those."
people wasted a mod-5 on this? oops.
this is slightly off. The copyrighted _works_, the movies, are definitely speech. It's DeCSS, the _program_, that is in question. Also recall that the previous judge drew an analogy with political assassination, which, while expression, is too dangerous to allow. He decided that yes, decss was expression, but the possible future harm to corporate profits was too big a price to pay for that expression.
Why and how is a computer program expressive speech? What does it express?
I don't see this as a hard question. Computer code that I write expresses my ideas, my understandings, my envisioning of how things (should) work. When I design a system, oftentimes it's easier to think in computer code than in "normal" words.
For a simple example, consider the Tower of Hanoi puzzle solution, expressed in Lisp. It's not really about telling computer to move things around. It's about the ideas of recursion and problem-solving, very elegantly expressed. This piece of code is about an idea, not about telling a computer how to do things.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
So 2600 can't link to DeCSS because they're l33t hax0rs. However, the New York Times can link to DeCSS because their legitimate reporters.
.... 5 - doubts the word of government. Shoot on sight.) and apply them to everybody.
What if 2600 linked to the New York Times article?
To hell with linking to NYT. There is a huge underlying assumption here: that people disapproved by mainstream (e.g. 2600) have less rights than people approved by mainstream (e.g. NYT). This, obviously, doesn't look like a sustainable position, at least if you state it openly. However, veiling it in language of 'intent' seems to be OK.
If someone is going to claim that 133t hax0rs cannot legally do anything NYT can do, I would like to ask that person to submit a system of ratings (e.g. 1 - highly patriotic. Jumps when told to jump, even from tall buildings;
"Hey, citizen class 4! You are not allowed to look there!"
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Public perception of hackers needs to be addressed as well as unfiying the rights of people and seeing past public opinion.
You don't get the point. The solution to the problem is not to make hax0rs acceptable. The solution is to make sure that all people, regardless of whether the majority thinks they are wackos or upstanding citizens, have the same rights.
It's a legal issue: separating people into having-legal-meaning classes. For example if you were convicted of felony, you cannot buy a gun -- you rights are different from those of "normal" people.
The arguments at the trial came very close to claiming that suspicious malcontents (hax0rs or not) have less rights that Joe Sixpacks. And that is what caused my hackles to rise.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
For examples of this, go to the International Obfuscated C Code Contest. Programs there use the formal code itself as expression -- programs are ranked according to a quality of ``obfuscation'' not unlike how very dense poetry or prose is valued. ``I have seen them riding seaward on the waves, combing the white hair of the waves blown back when the wind blows the water white and black'' is valued for its complexity of meaning, its sound, and its manipulation of the english language. The code in the IOCCC is valued for similar eloquence.
-------
"Whatever happened to fair use?"
-- Duff-Man
Let me get this straight. They're claiming that the press could be allowed to link to DeCSS while 2600 can't. HELLO, 2600 is the press - their primary business is publishing a magazine.
Are we getting to the point where the government and big business get to decide what is or isn't a "legitimate" press organization? Say goodbye to freedom of the press, folks.
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
The speech-as-expression issue was AFAIK best handled in one of the Amicus briefs in the Bernstein crypto export case. Can't figure out which one just now, but IIRC the documentation on this point was extensive.
Personally, I'm somewhat boggled at the idea that anyone wouldn't consider code to be expressive. Think for a moment about how we express ideas in logic. We often say things like "if 'A' and 'B' are both true..." which is just a kind of logical shorthand. If you study logic formally, you will certainly see this kind of thing taken even further, with the use of logical symbols and so forth.
No one could argue that these things aren't expressive. Symbolic logic is expression at it's most basic and streamlined. It expresses the validity (or lack thereof) of certain propositions, which is indisputably communication.
And what is programming but symbolic logic which has been extended to involve the way certain machines work? As much as programming is functional (i.e. getting the machine to do what you want it to), it is also communicative (i.e., getting other humans to understand what you want the machine to do).
It seems to me that what we see in the MPAA version of things is a real bias towards a viewpoint of the world based in the humanities. The idea here is that "speech" (speech worthy of protection, anyway), is something that expresses "ideas", and "ideas" are something that are culturally or emotionally "meaningful" to people. Mere "how-to" sorts of instructions are less worthy in this scenario.
Of course, it doesn't take much to see where this idea falls apart. Our entire technological world is based on such "how-to" ideas. And even more! What if banks tried to ban aritmetic as an intrusion on their intellectual property? To anyone who has a solid grounding in math, science, or engineering, the idea that logic is a lesser form of expression is absurd.
Unfortunately, movie and record producers, as well as lawyers, judges and politicians tend to come from a humanities background. While they (especially lawyers) may pay lip service to logic, their actual method is in the interpretation of old laws and cases, and in emotional appeals to juries and the public, not in the creation of functioning logical systems.
---Joe Merlino gnupg public key ID: 1E91EBAF
Except in some extremely simplified cases, when asking two programmers to create a program from the same requirements, the two programs will not be identical. The programs may even follow the same logic, but at least the variable names used, exact functions used, etc will vary.
Can anyone think of an area of expression where more than one person would create the exact same results (without seeing the results of another work?) On the other hand, things that are not expressive are duplicatable (follow a logical process). This seems to be a good argument that programming should be considered in the same vein as art or literature, and is expressive.
DeCSS is not like publishing a safe combination. Safecrackers aren't interested in making several hundred copies of the safe, they just want illegitimate access to the content of the safe. DeCSS doesn't allow pirates to mass duplicate DVD's, it just allow legitimate access to the content of the DVD.
The problem is that the "safe combination" analogy is great. It's colorful. It paints the picture in clear black and white. Everyone can relate to it. I expect that if the decision goes against 2600, there will be a snippet in the decision that will reference it. 2600 should knock that analogy down with a tank, if it can. Even if all the other arguments go their way, the judge will be sitting there deciding how to decide and come back to "Despite everything, I don't want 2600 publishing safe combination". It they don't kill the analogy, the judge might decide the case based on the ignorance of a faulty analogy.
It'd be like using Windows to run the ISS.
-sk
Also, the artist would come over to your house and force you to watch previews of his other work each time you tried to look at the one you already bought. He might even throw in some unrelated commercials. And if you tried to ask him to leave, he would say "That operation is not permitted at this time."
Mike
It will be very difficult to argue that source code is free speech, just because that is not it's primart purpose. I understand that art has been taken from many things, but it will be hard to understand for most. I think that arguing that source is speech will be a waste of time. However, what that source does is another story. (I know you know this but) code is a structure for describing how a computer should BEHAVE. and it is as simple as that. You run a program, and then you expect your computer to behave a certain way after typing in the command. The way the computer behaves while running this code is by the wishes of the author of the code. when the program runs it carries out the expression (speech) of the author following through with the whole free speech thing. Now this might not seem like a big differance to you, but most people do not understand this. Source code by itself can never be speech, because it is specifically designed to do 1 thing, make a computer understand what you want it to do. However a computer can carry out the instructions that comply with you wishes, making it a channel for your speech.
A player that saves clips of some movies for use in "bookmarking" scenes - you can go through a list of booksmarks in a jukebox DVD player, view a page of clips, and select what you want to watch.
Being able to digitally transmit a DVD from a player in your living room to a monitor in your bedroom.
Writing out some scenes from movies to a mini DVD format (or even perhaps some sort of digital tape) to keep kids occupied in the back of your car.
Being able to watch all of the special features passivley in a single viewing session instead of going through the menu structure to see each piece.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Dunno if this has been suggested yet or is all that helpful, but another elegant way to beat CSS is to just do a bitwise copy of the encrypted DVD data and "mount" the resulting disk image via a hacked driver that simulates a DVD drive. This is kind of the reverse of capturing a video or audio stream by writing a hacked driver. The most important aspect of it is that DeCSS is absolutely unneccesary for pirating the bits, and that CSS is not a copy protection tool.
I hacked someting like this for MacOS to simulate content on a CD. Doing this for Linux would be a breeze in comparison. Heck, now that I think of it, couldn't you just mount a file as a loopback device? Yikes-- better not tell the MPAA that "dd" is now a DVD piracy tool....
-Roy
However, my analog crowbar is three rack-mounted analog computers patched together, so it is awkward to apply to anyone's head.
I suspect you meant "smarter than a non-tool-using stupid burglar". Placing "burglar" and a component of a building-securing device in competition is an expected activity...for a burglar. Not that any burglar is smarter than a doorknob, but many burglars do bypass door locks in some way.
How about the "Obfuscated C Contest" entries? Some are expressive in creative ways. Some are expressive in the representation of their code, some are more expressive in their results, some in both.
It would also fulfill the question of "When do you need access to a Full copy of the original Digital media".
Answer: When you wish to view that Digital media on a Digital platform that the original authors of the media do not directly support.
If I want to view a DVD on my laptop (running Linux), then I would need access to a full Digital copy(among other things).
At the Linux World Expo in NY one company was showing Ipaq handhelds with an IBM microdrive, running a movie. It could just as easily have been a copy of a DVD that was placed on there, and that I decided to watch durring my comute home (or during a flight).
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
> 2. What examples of fair uses absolutely require > access to the work in its most modern, digital, > uncorrupted,
> un-macrovisioned form? The only one
> that jumped out at me is making a backup copy in
> case the original is
> destroyed. But perhaps there are others
video beamers don't work with macrovision enabled.
Excerpting a work for the purpose of critique is considered fair use, and that criticism is itself a commercial venture for some. If I wanted to start a web site dedicated to reviewing DVDs, under current law the best I could do for those excerpts would be to film a TV when playing the DVD, and using those poor-quality excerpts. That might be good enough for the review, but it wouldn't be good enough to compete with a site that did a deal with the movie company to obtain a higher-quality excerpt. If I couldn't extract the higher-quality video myself, my competition would have an advantage. And if I'm at the mercy of the movie company to obtain a higher-quality excerpt, that could give the movie company influence over my review - a bad review, and they aren't likely to give me access to a high-quality excerpt I can post on my site. If copyright law is supposed to help the market and whatnot, then how would I be helped by being unable to obtain excerpts of competitive quality without having to submit to restrictions that could be imposed by the owner of the work being critiqued?
Naked.
It is impossible to seperate functional and expressive in all forms of communication.
Instructions on how to perform a task, be it setting up a stereo, or computer code in any form, are as expressive as the author intended it to be. A program that generates art (like a screen saver) expresses and conveys something to the audience in a manner that the programmer/artist intended. There is the continuum of emotion on one end, and functionality on the other, and all communication falls somewhere between the two extremes -- and never quite reaches either extreme.
Computer code is a merely another language. If I tell a joke in a foreign language, who gets the joke depends upon how well they understand that language. What the language is (Swahili, C, Python, Urdu) does not change the logical outcome. Someone who does not understand the language may not get the joke, but even without understanding the language, they can tell that something was conveyed; that something was expressed.
Thus it is speech, and thus it is protected.
Example first, rambling later:
Mathematics: Can you imagine what would have happened to mathematics if all these laws were applied to theorems? I mean, a theorem is a honest-to-God work of art, it took a long time for the scientist to figure it out, it can be copied digitally (i.e. you can make a copy indistinguishable from the original) and because others can make derivative works from it and access it in the original form, new theorems are created, and humanity's knowledge advances. What if you couldn't access a theorem or its proof in its original form, but just to take a picture of it from a grainy TV screen or something? What if that 2.1234 becomes 2.1235? Some could argue that if you alter a movie a little bit by taping it, people would still get the idea, well, you would still get the idea from the photographed theorem, but you wouldn't be able to appreciate it as much, since you wouldn't be able to follow the proof, or maybe even read what the heck the theorem is all about
Well this is hard, one could try to say that if you are studying something, you need the whole thing, whether it's a musical score (you need all the notes) a painting (that's why scholars travel to museums, pictures are not enough) etc.
In general, to seriously criticize or analyze a work, you need to see/hear the work as the artist intended you to and any reproduction of this work is an approximation that prevents you from actually studying the work.
Now, the problem is that in the old days art objects were unique, there was no way that you could copy an autograph score, a picture, a statue and create an indistinguishable one.
Nowadays, instead, you can create as many copies of a digital work as you want: in a way this is bad, since copying is possible, but in another way this is good, since the number of people that can have access to the original, unadulterated work of art, is practically unlimited.
Imagine if you could do a 1:1 copy of the 'Mona Lisa', nobody would have to travel all the way to the Louvre to study it, you would just buy one of these master copies stick it in your living room and enjoy it to your heart's content. If you wanted to quote it in a study of yours, you could quote part of the original.
Fast forward to now, imagine that an artist comes up with a digital piece of art (this is not that far fetched, even a movie is art) if you have access to the original digital material, you can do all sorts of things that you can't do with an analog copy.
If I am studying a movie and I have the digital signal, I can run it through some programs to figure out, say, the histograms of the light distribution in a particular scene, I can calculate the color bias of a frame as a whole, all things I couldn't do if I taped it from a TV.
Now, people could argue that the DVD is not the original product of the artist, the movie reel is, but since it comes from the same studio, it is an approved product, and constitutes art in and of itself. In any case, a private citizen wouldn't be able to have access to the movie reel at all.
You see where I am going, nowadays, with the digital availability of content, we could usher a new era in which access to art in its original form is not anymore a privilege of the few, but something that anybody can enjoy. The DMCA seems to want to limit this newfound freedom by constraining people to use this art only in approved ways.
Personally I believe that everything is art, anything that is the product of human intelligence and creativity is art, whether it's a movie, a painting, an ad campaign, a piece of code, a house, a three year old's drawing, an interior decorator's colour plan, and I can't see why some people's art must be protected more than others' (besides, of course, to protect some pre-existing acquired interests).
I am not advocating a free-for-all world, unfortunately many people, if given the choice, will freeload instead of buying things, but there must be a better way to protect the artist's interests while at the same time preserving the art consumer's interests as well.
-- the cake is a lie
2. we can say programs aloud.
3. programs express instructions to perform some task, similar to any how-to book or cookbook.
4. a community (computer scientists) uses programs to communicate and disseminate ideas.
I'm glad I was smart enough to think of these reasons :). This should be a no-brainer.
Modern art contains examples of works that take either one of these three properties to the extreme or balance them together in a specific form. Each artists accomplishment can be considered as a specific choice of the balance which is particular to that artist only.
Programmers use ASCII symbols to write their programs. They choose different languages (rules for arranging ASCII symbols) and their programs definetely have content. And each programmer has their own preference of certain algorithms, constructs and formatting. And, of course, each programmer has his/her own preference of what to program.
Not everything that possesses the three properties I mentioned above is an artwork. For example not every mechanical machine is a mobile. However, some machines or their parts, purely utilitarian at the time of their creation, may become an artwork (or part thereof) later, when an artist takes a look at it in new and completely unexpected way. Thus the forth component to an art work is the willingness of people to accept it as such.
People create programs as purely a way to express themselves, to show off their particular understanding of a language (see Obfuscated C contest). Also, sometimes programs deserve to be admired long after their creation (see Programming Pearls, Second Edition (ACM Press) Trade Paperback, 256 Pages, Edition Number 2, Addison-Wesley, October 1999 , ISBN: 0201657880, Author: Bentley, Jon L. / Chan, Patrick )
This demonstrates that a fair percentage of people are eagerly considering programs as an artwork, which fulfills the forth and last property of an artwork in my argument.
Vladimir Dergachev
Vladimir Dergachev
The MPAA's lawyer states that the DMCA does not constitute a permenant copyright, since the encryption *may* be broken at another time?
1) This assumes that the publisher of such material doesn't use sufficient protection, and worse...
2) It assumes that the publisher is not using the same method of protection (CSS in this case) over any period of time. Consider 2 movies, one produced in say the 1940's, and one produced in 2000. So if I purchase Casablanca and The Matrix on DVD, is it OK for me to distribute DeCSS when the copyright expires on Casablanca, or do I have to wait another 50-odd years since The Matrix DVD uses the same protection method. What If they're still using CSS 50 years from now? Or 100 years?
If you make an exact copy of a DVD with CSS encryption, the person that gets that copy can't copy it without DeCSS, if you make a DVD after using DeCSS, then the person that gets that can make as many copies as they want, without using DeCSS.
The product they produce with DeCSS is much easier to distribute.
Do you even know what DeCSS is? DeCSS can't be used to copy a DVD. Period. And an CSS protected DVD is just as easy to view as a non-CSS proteccted DVD. Open DVD tray, place DVD on tray, close tray. Any commercial DVD player will play the DVD as if it was the original. The only thing that DeCSS does is to allow one to play a DVD on a non-MPAA-blessed DVD player. It has nothing to do with copying DVDs. Period.
that's: prase, not prase.
Slashdot is exceptionally slow today, and I interupted the preview.
What do you mean that all speech isn't expression? Or are you making the common mistake of assuming that freedom of expression/speech is limited to artistic expression? If I say to you "my pancil is yellow", that is expression. Specificly, factial expression. Artisitc expression, factual expression, expression of opinions, are all expression, and all fall under freedom of expression.
Could someone please explain how whether something is artistic or not has anything to do with DeCSS? Expression does not have to be artistic to be protected. Factual expressions are given the same protections as artistic expressions the last time I checked.
That is how code is expresive. In same way looking at a Harley Wrapped in Cellophane can illicit thought and imagination in an Art lover, a well modeled solution to a code problem can illicit thought and imagination in a Coder.
Code does not have to be artistic or elicit emotion to be expressive. Telling someone "the sky is blue" is also expressive. Not artistic, not an opinion, but expressive none the less. To constitute expression, something only needs to convey a message. Whether the message is artistic or not is immaterial. Expressing the fact that the sky is blue is factual expression, and it is protected by the same set of laws that protect artistic expression.
Exactly! We should argue the way the law IS! Creative expression and artistic expression are just two types of "expressive speech". One can also express facts, equations, etc. And these are given equal protection as the creative forms of expression. Expressive speech != artistic speech.
The only exceptions are libel, slander, etc. (as you have pointed out), and it doesn't matter whether the slander is creative or not, that type of speech is not protected.
So the argument over whether code is artistic or creative is irrelevent. It's still protected speech.
We write SOURCE code for HUMANS, not computers so this source must be expressing something extra to a person which the raw binary file does not encode, otherwise what is the point?
1) What is expressive about sourcecode?
Sourcecode expresses a direct, unambiguous idea about how a certain task is to be performed. There is an aesthetic to clean or clever code that, like appreciation of a piece of art, is difficult to convey. Consider Duff's Device as an example of a particularly clever way of expressing the idea of copying data from one place to another. The first time I saw Duff's Device, I literally gasped in amazement at its boldness. I was sure that it violated some syntax rule, that it couldn't possibly work. But like a man who disbelieved airplanes could fly until he studied the physics of how they worked, further study convinced me that it could indeed fly.
C and Perl and Pascal and the rest are languages with rules and syntax like most languages have, and like other languages excel at expressing some kinds of ideas better than others (C is good for details, Perl for overviews, French for love, and Russian for despair) The fact that humans aren't the only ones that can understand them doesn't change their expressive power.
2) What 'fair uses' require full quality copyability?
Media shifting is one candidate here - Since I own video Y, should I not be able to view it at full quality by whatever means I have available? When my library of DVDs numbers in the hundreds, should I not be able to accumulate all of them on one massive digital 'video library' system? It'd be legal by any standard if I were to create such a system using some kind of robotic DVD changer, but somehow it's different when I want to spend less money and just buy a really big hard drive to copy them all to. Yes, their copyright on the content is still valid, and yes I could be prosecuted for infringement if I were to start duplicating that hard drive and handing it out - that's clear. But if I do neither of those things, I should still be able to view the DVDs that I've legally purchased even from another media. It's the content that's copyrighted, not the viewing mechanism.
Another consideration in the full-quality vs. reduced quality argument is.. where do you draw the line? pointing a videocamera at the screen has been suggested as acceptable. One then posits that a version of DeCSS modified to insert the same amount of degradation would be just as acceptable. So then there must clearly be some minimal amount of degradation that the copyright holders feel is necessary for duplication to be acceptable - it's their onus to define it. Is it any less legal to make copies of video or audio tapes for personal use if I can somehow contrive to make them at equal quality to the original?
The article What is Software Design makes a good case that the program source code is the best, most natural expression of the design of a system. It's not just for the computer.
---glv
Code is a realization of a significant portion of my life. It is not uncommon for people to dream about code and perform elegant solutions to new problems.
Programming languages can express a range of thoughts very difficult to explain in speakable languages. By stating that code is not expressive, it is saying that programming is an insignificant activity in the eyes of our laws.
If programming is merely stating algorithms with no expressiveness given by the author, why can several people program the same algorithm in ways that convey different amounts of understanding the reader.
Real world examples of expressive code that should be easy to explain to an observer could include perl poetry and demos ( the lil graphics/sound things - focus on ones that only contain algorithmic generation of output).
Why code a form of expression?
Well, it's quite obvious. Expression is not necessarily art. It in nothing about aesthetics. Code is all about expression of ideas.
Suppose I developed some algorithm, and I want to communicate this algorithm to other people. In that case I could try to describe this algorithm in english, but it wouldn't be the most appropriate way - english in not precise enough to describe an algorithm. Just like mathematician express his idea using mathematical formulas, a programmer needs to express his ideas using computer code - no other way is appropriate.
Since computer code conveys ideas - it is expressive speech.
Sela
2. What examples of fair uses absolutely require access to the work in its most modern, digital, uncorrupted, un-macrovisioned form? The only one that jumped out at me is making a backup copy in case the original is destroyed. But perhaps there are others.
Let's say a scientist is examining artifacts in audio or video data -- something like the ringing around pure tones in MP3s. He finds an artifact of interest in a data file. That artifact may not be detectable -- and certainly will not be worth studying -- at a lower resolution or in an analog representation. The scientist must be able to use and publish portions of the original work at full fidelity.
Similarly, reviewers of music or video may require full fidelity. "Listen to this clip -- you can hear all the fretwork in Framton's latest song!"
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
So much for source code in general. As for the expressiveness of deCSS in particular, if the deCSS code is inspected, even a layman will be able to see that the code is indented in blocks, so that its operation is made clearer to the reader. This indentation has no functional significance whatsoever: its purpose is entirely expressive. Furthermore both the CSS algorithm and deCSS itself are a proper subject of study by anyone wishing to learn more about encryption: the flaws of CSS provide an excellent case study of the pitfalls in designing an encryption algorithm.
It has been suggested that the First Amendment purposes could be served if distribution of deCSS was restricted to those engaged in "good faith" encryption research. Computer science does not work like this. It is an area where unknown amateurs can and do make significant advances. See for example this BBC story about an encryption algorithm developed by a 16 year old girl. To restrict information about encryption to a self-selected elite of computer scientists would not further the purposes of the First Amendment, it would frustrate them. This theory suggests that anyone providing deCSS source code to anyone else must first establish their good faith, or else become vicariously liable for their future conduct. Such a heavy burden on publication would surely count as prior restraint.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
I would have insisted much more on the fact that DeCSS can -not- be used for mass duplication, and that, actually, even for creating single copies is not particularly useful. I think it would have been very good to point out that the encription does not, in any way, prevent pirates from copying software, neither does DeCSS make it any easier. And then, of course, I would bring in a testimony (a technical authority) to confirm this.
Encryptions only doesn't prevent you from copying as long as you have a way of duplicating DVDs.
We all know there's a high level of DVD ripping and copying going on - hence the existence of programs like FlaskMPEG and DVD2AVI. What ripping and recompressing to DivX achieve is to get the file size down to 1 or 2 CD's where you can burn it on a CD (and more easily download it), which is widespread technology, unlike DVD copiers.
Compare these ideas:
Scrambled Breakfast
Ingredients: 6 eggs, 1/4 pound beef breakfast sausage, 1 tbsp butter.
Requires: Frying pan, stove, bowl.
Serves: 2
1. Scramble the eggs in the bowl.
2. Brown the sausage in the pan.
3. Add butter and eggs.
4. Stir occasionally until firm.
Now compare to this:
Simple Bubble Sorted List
Ingredients: List (array) of integers
Requires: Memory.
Serves: A sorted list for one.
1. Examine list in memory:
2. Go through the elements one at a time.
3. If an element is bigger than the next one, switch them.
4. Repeat 2-3 until you don't switch any elements.
5. Result sorted list.
Now, one could rewrite the above recipe for a sorted list:
void bubble(int a[], int n) {
}void swap(int *p, int *q) {
}Now, one who speaks the language would understand both forms of the bubble sort recipe. It just so happens that computers also speak C. Lots of humans speak C as well.
Now, nobody in their right mind would argue that cooking recipes (like the scrambled breakfast) are not expressive. Of course they are. Nobody would argue that the recipe for a bubble sort is not expressive. It expresses an idea (algorithm), and also instructions to perform an action. Screenplays (read this, MPAA) also express an idea... they also give instructions on how to present the idea, via performing actions.
I argue that a recipe is not much different than a screenplay. Both are forms of expression, along with books, poems, and such.
Now look at the C code for the bubble sort. One who understands C can see that it is describing a bubble sort. It describes the same thing as the "recipe"! It's just written in something not-quite English, and not everyone understands it. Now, if I rewrite the recipe for bubble sort in, say... German... then what? It's not English, and not everyone understands it. Is it still expression? If a C program is not expression, then neither is a recipe written in German. Or any other language for that matter. Nobody would say that, however. The recipe in German is obviously just as expressive as it is in English.
I conclude that the recipe written in C is just as expressive as the one written in English. Since I also concluded that the recipe in English is as expressive as a screenplay or book or similar, it follows that the recipe written in C is as expressive as a screenplay or book or similar.
Just because a computer can understand it doesn't mean it's not expression!!! High level programming languages (relatively speaking... C is higher than ones and zeros :) were created for the benefit of humans, not for the benefit of computers. High level programming languages are "spoken" by humans. Every C programmer understands the C code above. When I wrote it, and they read it, an idea is expressed.
And now you know what programs express.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
A program is expressive because it is more akin to a description of how to do something, rather than doing it. There's a reason why programs are invariably copyrighted (even if a small fraction of them are also patentable). They are a literary work communicating from human to human, more akin to a patent appication than the patented device itself.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
The arguments I have seen so far are 100% bullshit, you can only convince a fellow geek with that. Is building a car engine an expression? Is a CPU an expression? Afterall a CPU is designed with a programming language like Verilog/VHDL? All those are engineering, especially to outsiders, they see no expression to that. I am a programmer, and I understand what you people mean by expression from the geeks point of view, but slow down, that is not going to sell to anyone else. With anything that is an expression, you use it to express yourself! People can express themselves with writing, music, painting,
h tm l
dancing! The closest I personally have come to expressing my self with code is via
writing "demos (computer generated artworks, ie: real time fractals, etc,), and povray.
The closest we have is the links below, and it will only begin to sell more when a lot of people begin to use these. Take java libaries for example, it is a documentation, show the court javadocs, that entire documentation was generated from java source code!!!!
Go to http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/docs/api/index.html
This is an expression!
Go to:
http://www.oldskool.org/demos/explained/
This is an expression!
Now, there is also WEB,
http://www.literateprogramming.com/
http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/cweb.
"The philosophy behind WEB is that an experienced system programmer, who wants to provide the best possible documentation of his or her software products, needs two things simultaneously: a language like TeX for formatting, and a language like C for programming. Neither type of language can provide the best documentation by itself; but when both are appropriately combined, we obtain a system that is much more useful than either language separately." -Donald Knuth
[08/09/1999] Lee Wittenberg adapts the string class described by Stroustrup to demonstrate the use of CWEB for C++ programming.
Example of code and documentation in one.
http://www.literateprogramming.com/string.w
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
In addition, they are going to be doing away with film anyway and will soon be projecting via digital projectors.
MrCreosote Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump! "You're right! There isn't enough room to swing a cat in here!"
Clearly, if it had existed in 1980 (for example), there would have been no reason to treat it as legally different from any other prose and it would have received 1st Amendment protection. Sinc e it is now "software", is it no longer protected?
If the answer is "yes, it's no longer protected", then does that mean any set of characters that can be interpreted by a computer is not protected?
There are two basic questions. How is a program expressive? And, what fair uses require the original movie?
I'm going to turn the first one around and look at how a movie and a program are similar. A movie fundamentally is a program. The program is extremely simple and in a 35MM print extremely expensive in storage space. An image is taken from the storage space, projected on a screen. The computer, in this case the projector, knows to display the next image a short time after the first. It's an implicit instruction. A very simple program for a computer can do the exact same thing.
A compressed movie, such as that found on a DVD is even more like software. In the compressed movie, a much more intelligent processor than the simple movie projector is required. The compressed video contains instructions that have to be processed in a particular manner in order for the final result - something that makes in impression on a human - to be produced.
And this is the segue to the most important point. A program and a movie have this in common: ultimately, they both produce something that a human can sense. It's this purpose that makes them both expressions of speech and deserving of protection under our constitution.
The second question is even easier to answer. When is the full resolution and clarity of the original required under fair use? It is required anytime that a lesser copy would destroy the point at issue in the discussion on the work. So, if your reviewer is looking at the lighting in a particular scene, then macrovision destroys the point. Or if the academic is looking at the texture of the clothing the actors are wearing, then a grainy, low resolution copy destroys the information they're looking for. Or, if Ebert is trying to show you the feel of the picture, then any degradation from the director's original image is a destruction of that feel.
Thanks for posting this great summary of the case.
Rudy Moore
the_orn@yahoo.com
1. 2.
I would think you could argue that code is an artform just like music is an artform. A song is nothing more than a message or a story, and I am pretty sure that any song could have been 'told' by just about anyone, so the art is in how the song is sung. The same goes for code. Any coder could ( with enough time ) write a program that does the same thing as another. The art is in how the code is written. Art=how, not what
I would like to make a prediction. I predict that this case will not come out in 2600's favor. Why? Because the "old-school" copyright philosophy is so heavily entrenched in our legislatures and judiciary that other (copyleft) views are midunderstood, misrepresented, or (in this case) not mentioned at all. At root there seems to be a philosophical difference between the MPAA, et al., and the open source community, namely the benefit of strong copyright protection. There are those (Phil Greenspun?) who have provided good evidence that a business model based on openness can lead to success, with no need for "proprietizing" the product. This is not your typical liberal v. conservative issue, because the open-sourcers are extremely pro-free market. Their emphasis rests heavier upon the "free" part.
Nevertheless, this is a relatively new point of view to take and one that does not have much support in the legal community. In fact, the wind seems to be blowing in the direction of stronger copyright enforcement, not weaker. So long as the prevailing view in legal circles is "weak copyright leads to a weaker economy" this battle will not be won in the courts, IMHO.
- Rev.Here are the reasons that code is expression:
1. It is the medium through which discussion of programming techniques can be explored.
2. Code is math+logic, and expression of mathematical techniques and logical progressions is a long-defended practice.
3. Beauty doesn't really enter into it. When computer programmers communicate ideas from humor to philosophy to religeon to politics through source code, it is clearly an expressive medium.
In short: programming languages, terse though they may be, are the medium of modern technical exchange and thought.
In example: EMACS is a program which has existed since the mid '80s. The code contains religeous expression (the Towers of Hanoi, a classic application of mathematical techniques to religeous expression), political protest (Spook mode for confounding the NSA), humor (Yow mode). All of this, and EMACS is primarily designed to edit programs and text!
Which misses the states' point about DeCSS -- it's uniquely dangerous precisely because it *isn't* a copying utility -- it's a decryption utility. Because of that, it makes it possible to "rip" protected content and convert it to all manner of different (more easily traded and recopied) formats.
Which completely misses michael's point: if you use DeCSS to convert a DVD file to a different format no distribution has taken place, and no copyright has been violated. The copyright violation occurs when the (converted or unconverted) file is put on the internet. The fact that the converted file is more easily distributed is irrelevant. Or did you want to outlaw all of the things which make distribution of copyrighted files easier?
To within half a percent, pi seconds is a nanocentury. -- Tom Duff
In some countries, eg The UK, if you claim a tax exemption on a painting, you have to make it available for public showing.
I think there's a serious point that should be raised here. DeCSS is NOT the motion picture. It's a DECODING algorithm. So the issue becomes what does MPAA have to do with encoding/decoding of their media? Since it is possible to copy - in its entirety - a movie w/o knowing how to decode it, and then use it in a machine which does know how to decode it, there is no real form of complaint here.
If they procecute people for the ABILITY to copy a form of media to another, then I might as well go home and burn my tape recording deck, unplug my CD-RW, and turn myself in to the police, because any and all of these things fall under the same jurisdiction. At issue is not only the ability of code to be distributed (and why they're procecuting this, but not servers who distribute 1337 scr1p7s - which arguably cause more fiscal damage - might be worth questioning) but MORE IMPORTANTLY - what jurisdiction these sorts of things fall under.
This is not an issue of DCMA, but one of either - copyright law, or whatever laws govern reverse engineering and theft of poorly protected secrets.
I'm done
hmmmm?
Hello all,
Code can, by itself, convey a meaning, which in times of object oriented
programming doesn't need to be functional but is descriptive. For example,
if you program a game a couple of lines like:
<code>
Player antagonist;
Player protagonist;
protagonist.Name("Chuck the Sherriff");
antagonist.Name("Eddie Rodriguez");
protagonist.meets(antagonist);
antagonist.readyWeapon("colt");
protagonist.duckCover("wall");
antagonist.shoot(protagonist);
if (antagonist.hitsTarget(protagonist)) {
protagonist.takeDamage(antagonist.Shot());
} else {
protagonist.readyWeapon("shotgun");
}
</code>
Would not be uncommen and even be quite possible. It is even understandable
by non-programmers.
Now lets have a look at this:
And finally Chuck the Sherriff met his nemesis, Eddie Rodriguez. With
an arrogant smirk however, Eddie draws his Colt and aims at Chuck.
Chuck recognized this at once, and jumped straight behind a wall.
The shot echoed through the emtpy streets. Then there was silence?
Has chuck been hit? Was he laying injured behind the wall where he
ducked for cover? No! With his shotgun in his hand, he jumped back up
and now threatened Eddie.
I admit I'm not much of a writer but you should
get the point. Quite similar isn't it?
One could argue now: this code is constructed! But normally code has not
such an expressive content!
Of course. But having the *possibility* of having descriptive content
should make it form of speech.
Because you can use elements of a language the same way: being descriptive
and being pure nonsense.
For example: with letters I could do this:
grjwgrpwjgjpwjnnasjijgwrgrjgogjngnrwjnrwgwrgw
I bet this is as understandable just like:
<code>
string itos(const int n) {
static char buf[64];
char *e = buf + 64;
char *b = e;
int u = n;
int q;
if (n < 0)
u = -u;
do {
q = u / 10;
*--b = '0' + (u - q * 10);
u = q;
} while (u);
if (n < 0)
*--b = '-';
return string(b, e - b);
}
</code>
Or with words I could do this:
The red car talked to the elderly cabin for getting married at a watery grave
common to all mountaineering rabbit breeders in Utah.
Wowie...very descriptive.
So I think code and language can be equivalent.
Or yet another analogy:
Take a game of chess. For a non-clubplayer, it's just a board with some
silly figures on top. But for a player, chess is art, science, and
more exciting than the latest Stephen King novel.
Does code need to be understood by everyone in order to be descriptive
and be a form of art? Like a game of chess, I think not.
There is beauty in the line "while ((*d++ = *c++));", you just need
to be familiar with C idioms to enjoy it.
Okay, enough blah blah,
- Chris
Christian Loth
Project 'Gidayu' at http://gidayu.mud.de
Christian Loth
Project 'Gidayu' at http://gidayu.mud.de
How is computer code expressive? In the same way
that a written play, a piece of sheet music, or a piece of dance notation is expressive. Each is a set of instructions for the performance of an act -- the presentation of a play, the running of a program, the dancing of a ballet -- but we also respect them in their own rights as expressive works.
For example, music composition students often study the sheet music for important symphonies of past centuries' master composers. There is information and expression that can only be comprehended by another musician from reading the sheet music. By merely listening to the music, they would be unable to discern the many levels of complexity that give the performance its rich character. Only by referring to the music -- the instructions -- are they able to fully understand and appreciate the composers' expression and technique.
Is the music as performed expressive? Of course. But the instructions are also expressive.
Consider also the plays of Shakespeare -- pieces of art that are required reading for almost every high school and college student in America. We all recognize that attending a Shakespeare performance is a rich and exciting experience. But no one would say, therefore, that reading the plays is not equally, if not more, rich.
Why is computer code like a piece of sheet music, rather than like (say) a painting? A painter makes a painting only to be viewed in one particular way. Everyone who looks at a painting looks at it the same way.
A composer, however, makes sheet music for two audiences at the same time. One is, obviously, the "end user" audience, the people attending a symphony or opera. The other audience is his or her peers, other composers, other musicians, any one else who could learn from, enjoy, enhance or perform the piece.
Like music, computer code must go through a process of transformation -- performance -- before it is expressive to its "symphony" audience. But even as is, unperformed, untransformed, a piece of code has expression for those who know how to read it. To a layman, the dots and lines of a piece of sheet music are just so much gibber-gabber, but to a musician they are a fascinating artifact, expressive beyond any words.
Similarly, for a computer programmer, the code in a computer program can provide amazing vistas of new knowledge, expertise, humor, and virtuosity that would never be known just by running the program -- like listening to the symphony.
Now, oftentimes code is considered different from other expression because it is -functional-. Code, when used to instruct a computer, can actual make something happen -- maybe even something illegal. But, in reality, code is no different from a play or a piece of music in that regard. Plays and music, as well as choreography, make real things happen.
Consider a play with the following stage direction: "JACK moves upstage, pacing frantically. Then, grabbing the knife off the table, he dives into the audience and stabs 2 random audience members in the head and neck."
Obviously, the PERFORMANCE of this act would be illegal, even if it -is- expressive (Expressive of what, I dunno. Something horrible, I presume.) But can the text of the play itself be suppressed? One would normally suggest that the playwright is not responsible for the actual murder, even though he wrote the instructions. The actor playing JACK is responsible for obeying the law, no matter what the play says to do. Wouldn't, really, the user who transforms and executes a program be ultimately responsible for the actions of that program -- not the coder who composed it?
In summary: code is like a play, or like sheet music, or like choreography notation. All of these things enjoy the protection of First Amendment expression in our legal system. Code should have an equal level of protection.
And, really: how can an industry that expects First Amendment protection for both the instructions (scripts) and performance (films) of its products see things any differently?
Evan Prodromou | evan@prodromou.name | http://evan.prodromou.name/
I live in Chicago where it is illegal to possess Spray Paint. In fact, the "tagger" hired by IBM for the "Peace, Love and Linux" campaign is being charged with "Possession of Spray Paint" in addition to the vandalism charges. I wonder if the possession law can pass the Constitutional Muster.
Cheers,
Slak
No, but I bet some places it is illegal to posess lockpicks.
:-)
Now lockpicks have a valid use (if you are a locksmith) but more general ownership is a problem => they are heavily regulated.
Executables based on DeCSS aren't currently used for distribution of decrypted video streams but once we have enough bandwidth video napster will happen, and the MPAA are dead scared of that. This is a preemtive strike.
Actually there is an interesing issue here:
blank bits of metal I can shape into lockpicks are legal
tools for shaping them into lockpicks are legal (hacksaw? pliers?)
instructions for doing it are legal (cf anarchists cookbook)
resulting lockpick is illegal to possess
blank bits of metal == free disk blocks
tools == compiler
instructions == DeCSS source
lockpick == _executable_ form of DeCSS
So you can easily imagine that it might be illegal to own, distribute and sell binaries containing DeCSS code, and that you could do what you like with the source code under freedom of speech protection. In which case the MPAA should lose this case but win a hypothetical later one against someone with a binary which produces unencrypted streams to stdout.
So at that point the question will be, does the law upholding free speech rights protect binary object code? I guess this is part of the point of the arguments blurring the distinction by representing the code in as many different ways as possible - if you can show that there is a continuum all the way from stilted english to an executable pattern of bits then you pretty much have to either extend free speech rights to the binary or ban the source. Oh hang on, what are they talking about in court at the moment
--
excuse of the day: dual-homed topology exhaustion!
I was reading reviews on progressive scan DVD players and the article was very in depth, explaining why certain dvd players would mess up with certain movies by looking at the way the mpeg stream was encoded. you can only do that if you have access to the unencrypted data on the dvd. You can say "well then you just have to construct your own mpeg stream for testing" but with a constructed mpeg stream you cant tell how the DVD player will do in real life, with streams that are actually in use in movies.. here's the url: Dvd Benchmark
Disney got the concept of code representing the expression of the coder way back in 1982 in the movie Tron. In the movie, programs (literally) looked like the coder that had created them. Anyone who has worked in a development shop for any period of time can recognize the coder responsible for a snippet by the style-- the personality-- the coder has infused into the code. "Oh, that looks like something John did." Not to stretch too far, but this is the same way you'd identify an unknown painting as "probably" being a Picasso-- based on the style of expression. Where you have something created by a human that expresses that human's style and personality, is that not art? Sure, it's functional. A bridge is very useful, but many are also very beautiful. A freeway overpass is pretty mundane-- but that's the bridge designer's equivalent of "Hello, world!".
"There is a diminishing return on caution."
I think this is a very good example. I am 99.99% sure that I read that one of the developers of the mp3 codec at the Faurnhofer (sp?) institute tuned his compression coefficients by ear. He listened over and over to a Susan Vega song (Tom's Diner IIRC) trying to identify audible artifacts while monitoring the effective compression. Had the source material been in a different format, he would have certainly achieved different, possibly sub-optimal, results
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1) The problem of fair use.
:)
This is easy. Right now, technology does not exist to fully take advantage of fair use of high-resolution video as fair use. But it will. Thinking back to my film studies, I can not overstate how valuable it would have been for me to be able to embed brief, high resolution video clips in my papers. These papers were composed on a computer, of course. The only 4 elements missing for this obviously fair use to become practical are:
a) Better broadband at my school. This is constantly evolving and is just a matter of time. Less than ten years. Tops.
b) Network submission of homework assignments. The literature department is behind in this at my school, but many other departments are doing this, and when the Lit people see the advantage, they will too.
c) Repealing of the DMCA.
d) Software support for embedding video in documents. This is well within current technological limits, but will probably only happen after all other considerations above have been met because a market will not exist until then.
2) The problem of code as speech
This one is harder, and is probably a question we need to answer as a country. Obviously, the people who write code consider it to be expression. Well, who defines art but the artist?
An anecdote comes to mind. At a startup I was working for a few summers ago, one of my coworkers wrote a script to aid him that was actually quite funny to read. It was later of use to a broader group within the company, and people discovered the humor when they first tried to modify it to suit their needs. It's an odd sight, seeing four or five grown men hunched over a monitor, reading code... and laughing their asses off.
Is that speech? Expression? Obviously. It is a human product that evokes a human response.
So what about DeCSS? Can it be considered just bad art, and protected as such? A joke no one gets? I would imagine so. It seems logical to me that once you've protected one object in a medium as art, all objects in that medium must be protected as well, because legislation can't discriminate within a medium, and if it could, it'd be worthless. Take DeCSS, it may not be expression as originally written, but a lot of people have made it into expression, once the need arose.
-Lux
Could an artistic work, such as a film or recording, be of such great value to the public that the responsibility of archiving such a work cannot be trusted to the sole copyright owner? The idea being that the work in question is of such immense community value that it is in some sense property of the community as a whole?
oh....my!
This is not to dis 2600; I still have all my back issues. But pretending that the primary use of this magazine is to help secure systems is just talking stupid. It may be useful for that, but that's nothing new; e.g., "to catch a thief, set a thief".
The thing I loved (and really, still love) about 2600 is its cheerful immorality. Or rather, its different sort of morality, wherein clever exploration is the highest value, and things like property rights are strictly secondary. This doesn't mean that is a magazine for criminals in the ordinary sense; were someone to describe how to break into a bank's systems, the exciting part wouldn't be the opportunity to steal, it would be the clever hacking required to get in. I think of it a journal for geeky pranksters, not a magazine for the mob.
Alas, I no longer share 2600's philosophy entirely, but I do appreciate it. But the value of it would be pretty hard to convey to an authority figure; 2600's anti-authoritarian tone is not exactly calculated to warm the alleged heart of an appeals-court judge.
First, lets look at the origin of computer languages. Set the way-back machine to the early 20th century. In particular, I'm thinking of Bertrand Russel, and others. The Analytic Philosophy tradition.
One goal of the analytic philosophy tradition was to turn philosophical techniques to the analysis of language: if one can determine the precise meaning of a statement, one can determine empirically the validity of such a statement. It was a turning of Aristotlean logic sideways, really: they created formal languages that one could translate english propositions into, then analyse using mathematical principles. The ultimate expression of philosophy as empirical science. The propositional calculus and later predicate calculus both derived from this work.
They were trying to use formal languages to regiment natural languages. That is, they were created formal languages as a stand-in for english.
Of course, the propositional calculus is known to many of us as Boolean Logic (despite the fact that it was Russel who really put it all together in complete form. Boole just kinda started the whole thing). Both these calculuses and the very notion of formal languages itself is fundamental to computer science. you learned this in your Foundations of CS class, of course. Hence the title.
Thus, the argument could go, the fact that computer languages are useful in instructing computers how to achieve a task is incidental to thier very existence! This is not the primary purpose of this class of language! these formal languages (the propositional calculus, C, whathaveyou) exist primarily as a means for providing a clear and concise medium for communication.
Therefore, the censorship of expressions in such a language based on one aspect of thier utility is unconstitutional.
I got sick of my video collection, which is all VHS because each video is so big. I have started to convert some of them to VCDs. This means I can have the convenience of the smaller size, and I don't have to worry about when my video recorder finally breaks down. (also, who knows how much longer VHS recorders will be available)
I can only do this because their is no content scrambling system on VHS.
What happens in 10 years when I have built up a collection of hundreds of DVD movies and I want to copy them to another new format for similar reasons? (eg, my new portable movie player that I can take on planes with me and carries 100+ movies at once)
I'll tell you what happens. I use DeCSS to remove the stupid scrambling system and I copy it to the other medium in question. If someone would like to explain how thats not fair use, I'm listening.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
Programs as speech/art: The International Obfuscated C Code Contest
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Interestingly and ironically, there was a series of "howto" articles a couple of weeks ago in the NY Times Magazine and one of them was about how to rob a bank. The article is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/08/magazine/08ROBBE RY.html. The reader response is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/29/magazine/29LETTE RS.html (need free registration)
I have never read 2600 and could not find it at my local Borders. What is this "Fun at Costco"? It sounds, well, fun. The 2600 web site appears to be slashdotted. oh well
many transient copies are made of it: in system RAM, in video RAM, and possibly on hard-disk swap or other files.
Obviously, these copies must be of the highest possible quality, or the experience is degraded.
Or is listening to and viewing copyrighted works not part of "Fair Use"? IIRC, there
may already be a provision in the DMCA for just these transient copies.
And then, of course, I would bring in a testimony (a technical authority) to confirm this.
IANAL, but I believe that since the case is already at the appeals stage, they aren't allowed to introduce new witnesses or new evidence not already presented at the first trial. If this was brought forward at the original trial (and I believe it was) then Sullivan followed the avenue that was open to her, stressing the fact to the appeals court.
However, I tend to agree with the MPAA that the DMCA doesn't require 'actual' harm. Of course, I disagree with the MPAA on the Constitutionality of the DCMA. Copyright holders have a right to be protected from actual harm the same way virtually all other potential victims are 'protected' from potential crimes, by the deterrance of the actual crime through prosecuting the criminals that commit them, not through the prosecution of people who possess legitimate multipurpose tools that have the potential to be used in a crime.
Using the Justice Dept. lawyer's own soundbite against him, while DeCSS may very well be a 'digital crowbar', it is not a crime to own/design/distribute a real crowbar, but the DMCA makes it a crime to own/design/distribute a 'digital' one. Real crowbars are a legitimate tool with many legitimate uses besides breaking and entering. If he wants consistency, then the Justice Dept. lawyer should be lobbying Congress to outlaw real crowbars (and VCRs, tape recorders, CD-RW drives, DVD-RAM drives, floppy disk drives, hard drives, zip disks, etc., etc.).
Work for Change & GET PAID!
Programming is a form of art. Not only is elegance and beauty possible in programming computers, these are at the core of a good programmer's value system. Computers present to mankind the first opportunity to do what religions all over the world have failed to present: the ability to receive unambiguous answers to incantations and prayers -- computers are the man-made gods who listen. I am, of course, talking metaphorically about instructing computers to create what we want to exist.
Like other information should be available to those who want to learn and understand, program source code is the only means for programmers to learn the art from their predecessors. It would be unthinkable for playwrights not to allow other playwrights to read their plays, only be present at theater performances where they would be barred even from taking notes. Likewise, any good author is well read, as every child who learns to write will read hundreds of times more than it writes. Programmers, however, are expected to invent the alphabet and learn to write long novels all on their own. Programming cannot grow and learn unless the next generation of programmers have access to the knowledge and information gathered by other programmers before them.
~KHow about this one: Obtain a program which produces CSS-like output. Encode some kiddy porn with it. Distribute same.
In order to bust anyone for it, the Feds will have to prove that the file contains prohibited material, requiring a copy of CSS for themselves!
It is easy to provide examples of code used as expressive speach. Just look at the bookshelf of an computer science professor or student. The most clear cut example is to take any instance where code is used to describe an algorithm -- you have code being used to express a mathmatical idea. In this case, code is not just a language that a machine understands, it is a technical language that a person understands. And in this case, the code explanation is usually more clear and precise for the reader than an english explanation would be.
You could not take videotapes of screens. Rather you must have 100% digital copies of the original media. If you don't have the 100% copies, the files themselves may be slightly modified & render your copy useless.
Is digital the issue vs. being 100% correct? For example, supposing an educational course was being given in music appreciation, and it was important to listen & analyze a piece of music, listening to each individual instrument and critiquing each section. Which strings were off, which horns played too early, etc. Without a 100% accurate copy you cannot fully appreciate or analyze the music as it was intended to be listened to.
What about distribution of images & programs over the internet in general? If an image is not copied 100% correctly, it appears corrupted & is useless
Would any of these qualify or generate additional/better arguments?
I declare this thread over.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I think that the difficulty in characterising code as expression is that a programming language is a jargon language. I know that in following this case I've read a lot of US legal jargon (citations, Latin phrases and so on) which mean about as much to me as C++ would to an average lawyer. It's meaningful. It expresses something. It's hard for someone not fluent in the field to see what, though.
One example that might help is that programmers who write open source code often use it as part of their resume, much the same way as a photographer uses their portfolio or a filmmaker uses their show reel. Of course, this is not to say that a program must be in source form to be expressive; a song is expressive even if the composer doesn't publish sheet music, after all.
Another avenue to explore is that a lot of art is functional. I have a book open on my desk at the moment to a page featuring a chair designed by John Hutton. The chair is now in some art gallery somewhere. It's strange to think of a chair as a form of expression, but there you go. More close to home, we don't doubt that advertising art is art (Absolut Vodka, anyone?), but we also don't doubt that it's primarily functional (in this case, to get you to buy expensive alcoholic beverages).
Here endeth the rambling.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
Instead, I think that computer programs deserve much more general first amendment protection under the protection of the "freedom of the press" clause. Computer programs are much more likely to be enablers or instruments of free expression, not expressions themselves.
The internet itself is a software based, highly participatory medium that people frequently use for expressing unpopular or controversial views. As such, the software that runs the internet (Slashdot) looks a lot more like a printing press than a pamphlet produced by that press (this slashdot post).
Now, it doesn't make sense to assume that every program is an enabler of free speech, since a program can do whatever the developer wrote it to, but a program which is an enabler of expression, including a system which allows for fair use of copyrighted material, most certainly is deserving of protection under the freedom of the press clause of the first amendment.
As for accepting a degraded version of the original for fair use purposes. Although the highest quality version may not be required for every fair use, it doesn't make any sense for the copyright holder to determine what level of quality will be necessary for the specific use that the work is copied for.
The criticism of a musical recording may require a very high fidelity sample of the original work to point out flaws or otherwise effectively comment, while a dialog review of a movie scene may not need more than a grainy reproduction to make it's points. For other fair uses, including safe backup for personal use, only a full quality reproduction can possibly be considered adequate.
Finally, many works in mediums with dense information coding (like e-books) there is no lesser fidelity to degrade to. If you can't obtain the relevant portion of the original information, you simply can't use it.
In the end, although full quality reproduction of the original work may not be required for each and every fair use, there will always be cases where the highest possible fidelity is required and the copyright holder is not the correct person to have the decision making power over what quality level is appropriate.
Regards, Ross
I would also stress this point heavily. DeCSS, in and of itself, does nothing to encourage or facilitate copying of material. A duplicate of a DVD can be made without using DeCSS. As someone else pointed out, what DeCSS really does is takes away control of who can create DVD players.
a program to turn off navigation systems or smoke detectors would be essentially useful to someone without appropriate acccess to a plane, or a building. neither is decss useful without access to a dvd, or a page w/ style sheets...
But, if its you are in control of a commercial plane, and turn off the navigation system, its probably grossly malfunctioning (and turning it off would lead to better consequences than leaving it on), you're performing maintainance, or you're doing a training exercise.
turning it off for other reasons would probably make you subject to civil, criminal, and/or work related punishments.
using decss should be similar....
if you're using it to help you watch movies, or test your system or something, sounds good. if you're using it to pirate movies over the internet, then you are violating copyright law, and subject to civil, criminal, and/or work related punishments(if you're using your work access to pirate movies, your work probably doesn't like it very much)
Need a Catering Connection
Here's a very small (that's the art part) of code I saw many years ago. I thought it was art then. I still do.
... the tiniest expression of a thought, perhaps, its essence. Code provides a medium for this sort of art that does not exist elsewhere. And it is not just minimalism... Check out Knuth's sources to TeX ... that would have to be the other extreme.
#define SWAP(a, b) ((a)^=(b)^=(a)^=(b))
Why is this art you say ? It is very like Haiku, expressing its subject in its most minimal form. While you must understand the symbols of the medium to "get it" this is also true of Noh, opera, and many other art forms. In this instance, the art is in the minimalism
-- Rich
Free your mind and your Ass will follow -- George Clinton
The idea that "intent" is the criteria for deciding what is legal or illegal has even scarier implications. Carrying their arguments to other civil liberties, almost any of our freedoms can be viewed such that some uses could be illegal.
Since we want to make sure that we don't inadvertenly do something illegal:
*Driving a car under any circumstances should be outlawed because driving can certainly be illegal, if it's to escape from a crime or to transport stolen goods.
* We should not practice any religion because some traditions advocate the use of "medicinal herbs" which are illegal.
* Absolutely no one should own a gun ('nuff said).
* There should be no newspapers, because those evil hacker publications are illegally promoting internet piracy.
Just a thought...
C, the language DeCSS is written in, is a derivative of Algol. Algol (algorithmically oriented language) was originally developed to express algorithms in precise form. It was only later that peoiple thought - hey, you could write a compiler for this and use it for programming.
If coding is not expressive, why include comments to clarify meaning? Why have meaningful variable names? Why not just publish object code?
1. There is nothing that ensure that even an analog recording will be possible into the future, as a way of delivering fair use. For example watermarking technology could be used to mark content and the studios could strong arm the manufacturers to stop making such cameras. Such cameras are, after all, a circumvention device - a mechanism exists to prevent copying and the cameras bypass this (by ignoring the watermark).
You might say this is hypothetical, but no more hypothetical than any piracy that DeCSS is supposed to allow.
So the 'take a video of the screen' argument does not answer the question.
2. Regional encoding. I buy a DVD while working in the Europe and take it home. I cannot play it. The studios argue that you can buy a second DVD player that works in Europe. First, this is an argument only a wealthy person would make. Second, due to differences in voltages and TV formats (eg NTSC vs PAL) this is actually quite difficult, and invariably results in a far worse picture.
3. I do music analysis, and a lot of researchers do this. This requires access to high quality digitized music. Music is headed for DVDs - don't think you are going to be able to buy CDs for long! Without a way to bypass the encryption, I cannot do this, and I will have to try and tap the analog signal at some point. This means worse quality signal and more dificulties analyzing the music. Again, the technology is moving to a system where all components will incorporate the protections mechanisms and it will only be possible to record using a microphone in front of the speakers. Future use of watermarking technology and recorders that recognize the watermarking may even make it impossible to take a recording. See (1) above.
I had a really good friend that made the following comment:
"A really good mathamatician can appreciate good art, but a really good artist can't appreciate good mathamatics"
I find this statement sad, but true. In some ways what needs to happen is an effort to let people know about good quality code.
Donald Knuth does indeed write good software, although some of the better code that I've de-compiled has been written by Steven Wozniak, and is one of the reasons why I am a software developer today. How many people do you know that have been able to "hand-assemble" a software development environment? And I'm talking about looking the opcodes up in a table yourself and trying to remember what order the operands go with the opcodes.
Damn, I wish I had a couple of moderation points right now. This should be modded up, if for no other reason to draw attention to the argument against the expressive nature of software.
Ocne a copyright expires on a DVD (in, what, 70+ years form now?), they then expect the circumvention devices to surface.
No, it's not 70 years from now. Many DVD's were made for old movies, for example Charlie Chaplin. Often the studios add something new so that they can get a new copyright, but this only protects the new elements. You can use DeCSS to obtain elements of the digital work that are in the public domain as of right NOW.
1. Why and how is a computer program expressive speech? What does it express? 2600's lawyers are entirely familiar with Touretzky's Gallery, so forget about those. Assume you have some C or perl staring at you, any random block of code in any random print-out. What does it express? Why should that code be protected expression?
A computer program expresses a method. It expresses functional ideas, much as a recipe, scientific experimient instructions, or musical score does. The actual expression depends on the program, so the question is sort of like asking what a musical score expresses - a general answer is very generic, but any specific instance of such communication will be much more rich. Here, DeCSS expresses the functional ideas that demonstrate that CSS is insecure in a specific tangible way. The First Amendment protects such content even against a Congress bent on stiffling that particular idea from dissemination.
Softwares expression generally is equivalent to standard english sentences with the understood 2nd person subject ("You"), followed by the verb given by the instruction, and a direct object that tells what the operation occurs on. A decryption program, for example, generally expresses a mathematical forumla, and are often an implementation of functional ideas learned from reading mathematical literature. Computer books are filled with programs and form a major sections at most bookstores precisely because they are expressive. Programs are copyrighted because they are expressive. Computer programs are not part of any "conduct" until and unless they are executed. Instead, a program merely communicates functional ideas that might be exectued or might be read by the legions of programmers actually do read and understand programming languages.
2. What examples of fair uses absolutely require access to the work in its most modern, digital, uncorrupted, un-macrovisioned form? The only one that jumped out at me is making a backup copy in case the original is destroyed. But perhaps there are others.
The question is misplaced. Fair use admits no bright line rules (See Leibovitz v Paramount, opinion by judge Newman) A rule that said "No fair uses exist for high quality digital works" is therefore impossible to assert. Instead, fair use is an affirmative defense to copying as chosen and performed by the alleged infringeer. If the four factors weigh in favor of fair use, then fair use exists. To abstractly argue this can never be the case for digital movies requires proving a negative, which is impossible and counter to copyright jurisprudence.
We'll answer the question anyway by providing just one example, that happens to be relevent to DeCSS: "Interoperability" is one class of fair use that clearly has a well-established existance in copyright jurisprudence. Using DeCSS to allow interoperability of DVD's with alternative operating systems and/or MPEG-2 players is done for personal, noncommercial use, and increases rather than decreases the potential market for the copyrighted works in their high-quality digital form. Linux users will now buy DVD's, if allowed.
A common useage of code is to describe "how to" do certain things. Look at all the reference implementations there are floating around, such as sample device drivers. Their purpose is definitely NOT to do anything in and of themselves, rather it is to show others how to write their own device driver (or their own texture mapper, or CRC generator ...). This is most surely "expressive speach". Indeed, such sample code is frequently accompanied by warnings that it may not work and is for reference only.
I think of the following items when I think of expressive code:
1) In *Understanding Comics*, Scott McCloud came up with the best explanation of artwork I've heard, which is, in essence: artwork is anything outside of what is absolutely necessary to get the job done. So, what parts of code are done because they're necessary, and what parts of code are done because they're expressive?
2) There is such a thing as mathmatical/coding beauty; the beauty of an algorithm that does what it should with simplicity, with elegance, using mathematics/code to come up with something elegant. What defines mathematical/coding beauty vs. mathematical/coding ugliness?
3) Is a bannister made by a poor woodworker any different from a bannister made by Norm Abremson (The Yankee Workshop on PBS)? If so, is the difference functional, or artistic? And doesn't the poor artist have as much right as the good artist?
Whatever you do... don't read this.
How is it different when you copy a DVD than when your friend is creating a copy? If *you* create a copy and give it to your friend, CSS and all, why is it that they can't make another digital CSS copy?
The DeCSS'd copy is only easier to distribute if you compress it into a different format, like DivX.
Oh, I see, DeCSS let's you convert Content (tm) into a form that you find more useful. Huh? I don't understand. Surely the All Benevolent (\w+) Associations would be sure to provide you with Content (tm) in the Best Possible Format. Personally, I think it's quite arrogant of Hackers (tm) to think that they can improve on BPF files.
Now, what are the so-called Legitimate uses of DeCSS again?
Can your IM do this?
As for expression, you could do happy + sad + other things.. not so much in the code itself, but (www.)messagemates(.com) manage to present a kind of story with their programs. Just a thought..
-DrkShadow
Backup is an important argument. A friend of mine had all his CD stolen. It would be nice if he had perfect backup of them. Same goes for DVDs. If someone steals my DVDs it would be nice if I could just write them back to new DVD disks from my backup storage.
What I find more distrubing is that the MPAA considers its profits as important to protect as "people's lives".
She also made much of a rather telling fact: there is no piracy attributable to DeCSS whatsoever. Not one traditional copyright infringement has ever been attributed
to DeCSS, and the movie studios admitted in the case that they could not produce even one example of an infringement due to DeCSS. (Technically-literate people may realize that mass DVD copying is performed by stamping complete copies of the DVDs, encryption and all, no decryption required, though that wasn't covered
in the hearing.) But Sullivan jumped on this point for all it was worth and then some -- the judges seemed fairly skeptical about accepting it, trying to insist that widepsread and massive copyright infringement due to DeCSS must be occurring, somehow, somewhere. It just must be.
I would have insisted much more on the fact that DeCSS can -not- be used for mass duplication, and that, actually, even for creating single copies is not particularly useful. I think it would have been very good to point out that the encription does not, in any way, prevent pirates from copying software, neither does DeCSS make it any easier. And then, of course, I would bring in a testimony (a technical authority) to confirm this.
I believe that, if we break the scepticism and -ignorance- of the judges, we can have the case largely won.
Remember, this case is buit upon ignorance!! The way to de-construct it is to decrease the ignorane.. through education. I believe that a lot of (self)education was what happened to judge Jackson.
Sigged!
1. Why and how is a computer program expressive speech? What does it express? 2600's lawyers are entirely familiar with Touretzky's Gallery, so forget about those. Assume you have some C or perl staring at you, any random block of code in any random print-out. What does it express? Why should that code be protected expression?
Ok, let me take a stab at this one.
Really, I don't think the code itself is necessarily a form of expression. The expression is in the meaning of the code itself. I model communications system using a computer "language" called HSPICE that some of you EE's out there may be familiar with. Well, using HSPICE, there are many ways to go about arriving at the same goal. The outcome is always the same, either correct or incorrect. However, how I get from point A to point B is my decision and may be completely different from one of my coworker's solutions even though the outcome is the same. This is what makes each program unique and therefore an extension and expression of myself. So whether the language being used is HSPICE, FORTRAN or C, it really doesn't matter. The same concept will apply.
The code should be protected because the protection is in the methods involved to reach the solution that are implicit in the code, not the actual code itself. Any individual can write code to solve a problem. It's the actual content that makes the program efficient, user friendly, etc. Programmer A and Programmer B may both be able to solve the same problem, but Programmer A might have a faster, easier to use interface, better program in general even though the goal is the same. It is the intellectual property contained within the code that should be protected.
Could this be applied to voice recognition software? That your speech is being used to control the actions of a computer?
Or is that just data?
What if you're dictating an actual programming language (something english-like, such as applescript) to your computer through voice rec software?
I think I'm straying off topic, so I'll shut up now....
Jason
Academic research of many sorts requires such access:
- research into compression algorithms
- computer vision research, eg face recognition
- medical research (looking at tiny skin features, tracking eye motion, muscle tremmors)
- social science research that needs to view tiny objects in the background, such as advertisements and product labels
- tracking actors through their careers via face recognition
- meteorological studies looking at cloud features, night skies
- history of science and technology, optics & camera technology
- ecology, looking at foliage, insects, birds
There are all potential fair uses. Some of them are beyond our current technical capabilities. But not for long.Now, presumably, such academic articles are "expressive", and given that program code is a vital part of such articles, it must be "expressive" as well.
Then again, perhaps it is only the article which is "expressive" and the code merely "adds value". Lawyers live in a strange world... (obviously, IANAL).
The whole question of whether anything is "expressive" seems strange to me. "Everything communicates" - everything man-made, that is. Whenever there's choice involved in something, there's "expression" of the "opinion" of which choice is better; and since there's no human activity which can only be done in exactly one way (I can't think of anything off hand), it seems that "everything is expressive".
Of course, if you are willing to limit the law to apply to certain types of "expression", that's something else. "Expressing" technical elegance and "expressing" political opinion are pretty far apart...
This was a mistake. The answer should be 'no'. The argument is as follows: It may be the case that the NYT "specifically intends to disseminate every bit of info on every single page that it ever links to" at the exact moment the link is authored, but as the web is dynamic, this stance cannot be taken for any time beyond that. For example, say the NYT links to site A for what they feel is a legitimate purpose. Within minutes (or days, or years), site A is altered (or cracked) to display child pornography. Can a case be legitimately made against NYT for "intending to disseminate" child pornography? Why should they be responsible for the behavior of another web site?
With open source programming one is saying "Here is how I'd build a machine that builds a bridge. First we're going to define types of wood..." It's a conversation- open source means "What do you think?" is the last line of each program. Not much different than an Ayn Rand 'each person talks for 40 pages at a time' conversation.
The International Obfuscated C code contest has lots of examples of code written solely for expressive intents.
It is computer code, which has no purpose other than to stimulate the human mind, in the same way as other expressive works.
The "contest" to write DeCSS in as few lines of code as possible, and in as many forms or languages is the same idea, and is not unlike
painters who use different styles.
Here is my take on this. Fundamentally, you can prove this idea using a few examples:
Code expresses an idea in terms of machine understandable instructions.
Many ideas today cannot be expressed accurately in ordinary language with the technical accuracy computer code provides. A good example would be simulations. How does one use the English language to describe a dynamic system whose components are continually changing? You might try to say, A changes to B, then B changes to A, then to C... and do so for infinity.. this would be an impossible task since you would need to stick around for the rest of time describing the system as it changes. Computer code on the other hand, can be written that not only describes the system, but also predicts how it will change.
The computer program effectively and accurately describes the system. Another example would be expressing a scientific opinion on some matter. For example, if a scientist wishes to express why a particular outcome in some massive experiment is bad, that scientist must also prove why this is so. Often in modern society, the technical whys are glossed over by the media as they are too complicated, but the why of something is definately part of what the scientist wishes to expose-- wishes to say. So that scientist creates computer code to prove his point, to articulate to a machine the mechanism of his proof so that he can produce and reproduce the necessary results his argument needs-- should some government agency be allowed to cut short his research, his proof, on the grounds that his computer code is not speech?
Computer code is inherently part of the makeup of the new digital age-- it is both its fabric and its means of communication. The framers of the constitution could never have predicted the advent of the internet. I postulate however, that had they been here, they would have immeadiately recognized the importance of a medium that gives a voice to everyone in an age of billion dollar media companies controlling most of what is heard or seen on television. If I stand on a street corner with a large sign on which I have written large bold and colorful words describing my opinion on some matter-- nobody will argue that I am engaging in my right to freedom of expression and speech. If a policeman rips away my sign on the grounds that I can still yell what I have to say because the sign is merely a device that disseminates my idea-- nobody will argue that he is not infringing against my right to free speech. In the digital age, computer code is also my sign. In chat programs I insert special codes to highlight important things to me. On the web, I use codes to add emphasis and expression to my speech. Underlying all of this though are fundamental computer codes that act as my mouth as I attempt to voice what I wish to say over electronic mediums. If a policeman puts a gag over your mouth on the grounds it is only a device and that your brain is what contains your speech surely nobody will argue he is not limiting my freedom of speech. Electronic communication is speech. And that speech, gentlemen, once it is electronic, is in computer code.
We are in the midst of a complicated revolution in communication.
Surely everyone has seen the countless publicity from all manner of companies actively engaged in trying to secure a presence in the new markets this revolution has offered. This digital realm, where information is traded and communication is shared, is made up of computer code. My mouth is my biological device for communication and computer code is my electronic one. In eras of fundamental change it is normal for confusion to surround that change. But make no mistake, the intent of the framers of the constitution is clear: freedom of speech is paramount. The judiciary and our legislators need to tread very carefully as they rule-upon/create laws to govern this new digital realm-- one day it may be the way all humans speak. I pray that my freedom to speak to today is preserved for tomorrow.
Devices
One may not, on the grounds that current opinion holds that a device is not speech, hold that all devices are not speech. Neither can they maintain that in such a case as a device now is not speech, that it never will be.
While many devices rarely change their form or working (unlike speech).. computer code does. This is especially true in GNU/Linux where freedom is paramount. Computer code in Linux can be seen, reviewed/changed, and used by anyone with a computer. This is much the same as text in a book, except that the book is stored on paper in a library and is only accessible to those in the city it is in with a library card. In this case the Linux computer code is a community's collective expression of an opinion that computer programs are best when they are free. The act of making the computer code and giving it away itself is speech: we are expressing our opinion on how the new digital age should be.
Just some thoughts, I have many others.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
I think the issue revolves (or perhaps should revolve) around the the intended purpose of the code in question, as expressed by its function and its design goals. As the first commenter in this series said, the purpose of e.g. the kernel is not to be beautiful. The purpose of the kernel is not to be art. The purpose of the kernel is to provide the user with a means of managing memory, etc.
;/
;)
That's not to say that code-as-art does not exist. PERL poetry, obfuscated C, and so forth all have a form of expression/art as part of their purpose -- the other part of their purpose is to perform whatever function(s) the program can do.
There are those who mention the beauty inherent in a mathematical proof, or the elegance of a well-designed and -coded program, and I freely agree with that statement. There is indeed much of beauty in some of the works of the mind. However, the intent of the mathematician or programmer was not (necessarily) to express beauty or some emotion through their work, the intent was to create a useful tool or advance science.
In effect, arguing that code == expression is over-simplifying. I would argue instead that code is really a medium that can be used for multiple purposes, including art, functionality, and algorithmic denotation.
This is a gray area. Architecture has multiple purposes: creating functional buildings, and creating beautiful/aesthetic buildings. The economic factors involved in architecture generally preclude making aesthetics the sole purpose of building -- making a pretty-but-non-functional-building doesn't usually recoup the cost of building.
"High art", however, is different. Its primary purpose is to express an affective meme -- instill an emotion in the viewer. Entertainment media are somewhere between the two -- their sole purpose is, again, expressing an affective meme, but some would argue that the meme they wish to express is not of as high a "value" as, say, a Rodin sculpture... though the cost of an episode of "Friends" would, I think, make an effective argument against that.
Code is IMO more like architecture, due to the economics. Code-as-art has little functional purpose -- but then, neither does a painting have functional purpose. And the cost of a high-functionality coding project is/can be quite high.
The gray area with code is that the cost of entry is not very high -- you just have to buy computer hardware, and put some time in to learn to code. But I think that it is evident that the original purpose of the DeCSS code was NOT to be art, but was to decrypt the CSS encryption on DVDs. In other words, not expression, but function.
On the other hand, DeCSS code in the shape of a dolphin on a ThinkGeek t-shirt...
But seriously, I'm not sure that the 2600/DeCSS case using the code==expression argument isn't a mistake. I don't think the DeCSS code was intended to be expressive in nature. However, we should be thinking very hard about the larger issue -- censorship of a particular medium. A medium that has multiple purposes, one of which is artistic expression. Television/movies have this in common with code -- some movies are documentaries whose purpose is to educate, while other movies' purpose is that of artistic expression. And as a result, freedom of expression within a movie/TV format is guaranteed (minus caveats regarding national security and public decency, and even public decency can be/is avoided by voluntary labeling).
What do you think?
Okay, let me break it down:
;)
art == expression
No arguments there, I hope.
Now for my points:
!(code != expression)
Code CAN be expression -- but doesn't have to be.
!(expression == art)
Not all expression is art. Some is, but not all.
DeCSS == DVD decryptor
DeCSS was designed to be a DVD decryptor.
DVD decryptor != expression
IIRC, the original author of DeCSS did not originally intend the code as a means of expression; instead, he whipped up DeCSS in order to watch movies. Of course, if I don't remember correctly, then my entire house of cards collapses...
DeCSS may have been co-opted as a symbol for the freedom fighters, but its original purpose was not to be such a symbol. I think my point is that DeCSS should not be so co-opted, and the decision should not come from a court of appeals. Instead, the freedom/intellectual property/copyright/patent issues should be decided upon by a court of constitutional law -- the Supreme Court. And the issue should be decided in the abstract, using examples from real life, rather than being decided by the merits of a single case.
My own read on this would be:
Source Code is expresive becuase it shows specific style which is usually unique to the author. Much the same as each person has a somewhat unique style of handwriting, each programmer has a unique style of coding.
For instance:
int main (int argc, char** argv) {} and
int main (int argc, char* argv[]) {}
are similar and legal definitions for entry in C/C++ applications. However, different programmers will usually stick to one style, becuase it either makes more sense to them (for me, it is easier to think of char * argv[] as a two dimensional char array than char**, even though I KNOW they are functionally similar.
Other differences arise all over the place. Some people prefer passing ref values with pointers, some through references (C++ specific).
Code is free speech because it is the the result of a human's interpretation of an idea or theory. If I asked you to describe a sunset, everyone would give a distinct written answer. If I asked you to write me a webserver, everyone would return with a distinct solution.
To assume otherwise, that all code is essentially boilerplate, is to demean the truly intelligent people who distinguish themselves from their peers by finding clearer, more concise ways to solve problems. It is to box all programmers into one mold by claiming problems and answers exist in one to one mappings.
I do however think the following point should be raised: If you support that computer code is free speech (thus copyrightable under law) then you also argue for things like Amazon's one click patent. You argue that a novel solution to an idea can be patented, that I can write a strange type of tree structure and patent the idea and algorithms to work on it.
Making DeCSS illegal is along the lines of making it illegal to know how to pick locks, or how to make bombs. But it's SO much easier for the government to slap restrictions on your thought than to catch the specific offenders.
I live in Canada though, and we are a little more apathetic to this kind of thing. No draconian DMCA here (Although our own CanCon laws are pretty dumb).
five fingers make a fist amalgamate and resist
We should have access to the unencripted data to transfer it to another media. DVD technology will not last forever. Sooner or later well need to copy our DVD archives to some new medium. Any out there have a Laser Disc collection they wish they could copy to DVD?
He then got down to the meat of his argument -- that the government can regulate conduct even if there's a speech component to it. He used the example of Giboney V. Empire Storage and Ice Co., a case where picketers (a constitutionally protected activity) were successfully prevented from picketing due to the functional intent of the picketing, which was apparently to violate certain laws relating to restraint of trade. Alter argued that the DeCSS case was similar -- the intent of distributing DeCSS is to promote violations of copyright law,
No, the intent of DeCSS is to fill a market void at a favorable cost. It should be noted again that DeCSS does not, of itself, impact the profitibility of the copyright holder; a DVD sold and played through DeCSS is still a DVD sold, while granting the effect of DeCSS is to undercut the profitibility of the MPAA CSS licensing scheme. It further should be noted that, unlike in Giboney, the functional intent and effect of DeCSS is to the benefit of the consumer.
I wonder if there could be case law on this from the pre-emancipation era (1800's). If the law supports slavery as legal, is a song agtitating against slavery protected speech? Is it still protected if it's being sung by a slave? What if the song includes directions to the Underground Railroad?
Aren't computers today treated by the law essentially the same as slaves were treated in the pre-emancipation era; property of the owner, capable of performing actions on behalf of their owner, when given the proper instructions?
None of the above should be construed with any disrespect toward anyone. If we can't study our mistakes and learn from them we really are doomed.
Why and how is a computer program expressive speech? What does it express? 2600's lawyers are entirely familiar with Touretzky's Gallery, so forget about those. Assume you have some C or perl staring at you, any random block of code in any random print-out. What does it express? Why should that code be protected expression?
A computer program is expressive speech in that it expresses the design choices a software engineer makes for describing a method to accomplish a task at hand, with consideration of all related factors.
If I write a computer program to accomplish a task (data compression) I express my thoughts as to what is important about that task (is it more important to be memory efficient or fast? Should I trade speed for the ability to handle arbitrarily large files? Should I insist on portability or make use of special features of a given processor?)
Clearly such considerations as platform availability (is there another computer program available which will run on my desired platform and accomplish the same task?) and cost (does the cost of the license fees for using program A outweigh the cost of additional memory required to use program B?) are factors which should not be discounted.
This relates directly to this case, as the software designers in question chose their particular expression for this task based partially on the lack of availability of CSS software for the Linux (and other) platforms, and partially out of a desire to avoid (or allow others to avoid) the licensing fees associated with another implementation of software accomplishing the same task.
Another programmer will express their own choices depending on what is important to them, even though the resulting code may function nearly identically in some circumstances. Each program is the expression of the choices the designer made in creating the program. And in software engineering as in any engineering field, an individual is often jugded by their ability to make good design choices.
As with all speech, if we fail to protect such expression, we remove the incentive for the creative to create new works.
As related to software, we could stipulate that only one method of data compression (e.g. Huffman encoding) shall be used, and that creating alternative methods of accomplishing this same task should be prohibited. This would leave us without incentive for other forms of compression (e.g. Shanon-Fanon) to be created.
This seems like a terrible price to pay for the protection of one corporations' license fees.
What examples of fair uses absolutely require access to the work in its most modern, digital, uncorrupted, un-macrovisioned form? The only one that jumped out at me is making a backup copy in case the original is destroyed. But perhaps there are others. That is, one cannot excerpt a digital clip of a CSS-encrypted DVD, but one could point a video camera at the screen and create a clip, albeit of poor quality. Is that sufficient for fair use?
I'd argue it is, provided there is no legal requirement obligating the clip to be of poor(er) quality.
Consider the owner of a copyrighted work (Matrix: DVD). If the owner were to create a derivative work (Matrix: VHS) which is, by definition, not identical to the first, does he now have a seperate work such that both works are deserving of copyright protection, or does he now have one work (Matrix: DVD) which can be declared forever untouchable by fair use, and a second work (Matrix: VHS) for which fair use applies?
And who decides how much of the original work must be included in the derivative, and how much is forever untouchable?
- The copyright holder?
(Could the copyright holder offer "Matrix: The Trailer" as the fair use derivative?)
- The Government?
(Perhaps only the 7 most significant bits of each byte are available for fair use. Of course this would mean that licensed players would be prohibited from displaying these bits as well. If bit0 is outlawed, only outlaws will have bit0.)
Traditionally, this decision has been left to the 'fair user', who is allowed to duplicate the original to whatever level of quality is sufficient to meet their own needs. How has this changed? Selling a handwritten copy of a protected work is still punishable infringement, and if I need to duplicate the original to an arbitrary level of exactness for a purpose allowed under fair use, fair use still applies.
But getting back to the original example, if "one could point a video camera at the screen and create a clip" it should not matter (for reasons of fair use) if I use an arbitrarily advanced and extraordinarily expensive screen and camera rig. It should not matter if my arbitrarily advanced rig is able to reproduce a digitally exact duplicate of the original bits, nor if such an arbitrarily advanced setup is not extraordinarily expensive when created through the use of DeCSS. If it's fair use, then it's fair use. If it isn't then we'd better start working on legislation to limit the quality of video cameras worldwide.
A new kind of meat designed to appeal to vegetarians.
The reason code can be expressive is that you can do the same thing many different ways. Even something trivial like evaluating a mathematical function could be done by itteratively, recursively, or maybe with an unrolled loop. The itterations could be done with a counter variable that was incremented by one each time, or with a floating variable that is increased a little each time, or with a pointer or itterator. Maybe the best way to evaluate the function is to use a Taylor series or maybe it's to use a look up series. The fact that a programmer has so many options allows his/her choice of one of them to be expressive.
Now if I'm a beginning programmer and only know one way to do something, then I think it's reasonable to argue that doing something to only way I know how is expressive. Somehow I don't beleive that was the case here.
The other very relevant fact to this argument is the publication of code that doesn't compile. I'm thinking of things like meta-code in an algorithms book. There is no compiler that will generate a working program from that code. To a computer it only means error messages. Yet to a student or experienced programmer, that code expressess an idea. It conveys an approach to a problem. After understanding that bit of code, then they can go and write another program that a computer can understand and turn into an executable program. It seems to me the origianl code in the algorithms book was pretty expressive.
The link itself is an act of expression. Linking to DeCSS is not intended to promote copyright infringment, but to promote the fight for free speech. What they're linking to is less important than their reason for doing it. If you stop them from linking based solely on the target, you're stomping on freedom of expression and potentially the press.
What if someone developed a program that could shut off the navigation system in commercial airplanes? What if someone developed a program that could shut off smoke detectors in public buildings? Surely, he said, the government could ban the publication of programs which were a threat to people's lives.
If I figure out how to do either of these things, there is no law whatsoever that would prevent me from telling another person how to do it, from talking with them about it, or even saying I'm going to do it. I break the law when I commit the act, not when I think about it. The government currently does not ban the dissemination of information that could be a threat to people's lives. There have been books describing how to make bombs since years before the internet was mainstream. While they aren't popular in bookstores, you cannot be convicted of a crime for writing or selling them... Nor can you be charged for telling someone how to get them.
Everyone needs to keep in mind that this particular case is not about whether you should have the right to property, but whether you should have the right to speak. You can argue all you want about fair use and backups and piracy, and that's exactly what the RIAA and MPAA want... to make this case a property issue. Property rights are easy to defend. Focus instead on the thing that they absolutely cannot be justified in doing: controlling and restricting the free flow of ideas. Forget about DeCSS itself, and recognize that this is a case restricting communication, which is indefensible.
So what is art? When people post the (some say hideous) ascii art of www.goatse.cx image in the comments and its moderated down to -1 is that not censorship? Should all ascii art posted in discussions on slashdot be protected free speech and immune from a negative moderation and recieve autmoatic +5 Moderation :) hehe just a thought!
"That is, one cannot excerpt a digital clip of a CSS-encrypted DVD, but one could point a video camera at the screen and create a clip, albeit of poor quality. Is that sufficient for fair use?"
I point a digital video camera at a highres screen, the quality, good or bad is a digital reproduction of the original and has in effect bypassed the protection. The camera has become a device to defeat the protection. Hence all cameras would have to outlawed also, since they may or may not be used for the purpose of theft, and even one copy of the original supposedly is the death of the product (and how does entertainment media warrant such protection for commercial interest).
I do know that the DCMA road taken to it's logical conclusion is a direct violation of the spirit, if not the letter of the U.S. constitution.
Why did we ever evolve beyond that? One of the main reasons is because all those ancient programs written in just ones and zeros were absolutely unmaintainable. It was very difficult for another programmer to come in, look at your program and figure out what it was doing. One of the biggest reasons high level languages were invented was to allow programmers to communicate more efficiently with other programmers.
It's well known that the closer you get to the machine hardware, the more efficient your program can be. High level languages add inefficiency to the program. So why don't we all prorgram just using ones and zeros? Because the trade-off of being able to have another programmer easily understand what you're doing is worth the inefficiency. Same thing goes for flow charts, UML, pseudocode and all the other things we've come up with over the years. Saying a computer program isn't speech because you can't understand it is like saying German isn't speech because you can't understand it. It's that simple.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
>1. Why and how is a computer program expressive speech? What does it express?
...perhaps there are others.
>Assume you have some C or perl staring at you, any random block of code in any random print-out.
>What does it express? Why should that code be protected expression?
I've been reading Doug Hofsteader's "Godel, Escher, Bach" recently, and he describes all communications as consisting of at least two components: an outer "trigger" message (which identifies the communication as a communication, as opposed to random noise), and the inner, or actual semantic message. A computer program consists of both of these. The "outer" message in code form establishes that this is a computer program, that it works in certain contexts (i.e. a C program won't likely run on my old TI calculator that doesn't have a C compiler), and so on. The "inner" message of the program is the semantic meaning - in the case of DeCSS, that it is "meant" to be used to decrypt DVD streams; that is its intent. Nevertheless, that meaning is *implicit* - it is never stated explicitly within the code itself, other than via the social context the code is distributed within. In a real sense, the computer program itself is not what is being banned; it is the implicit message of DVD decryption. After all, the MPAA would readily ban *all* possible incarnations of the semantic knowledge of how to decrypt their DVDs, not just a given C or Perl program.
What I'm driving at is that, in a sense, this case has little to do with the code itself. In fact, the code can be readily transformed into nothing more or less than a set of functional equations - pure mathematics. It can further be thought of as being devoid of its supposed semantic meaning, or even invested with a different semantic meaning, say as an example of code techniques, or an an entry to an Obfuscated Code contest (and in this case, that's somewhat apropos). The code could even be thought of AS A FORM OF POLITICAL PROTEST - after all, isn't that exactly what a DeCSS T-shirt is?? The T-shirt certainly isn't meant to be used to help decrypt a DVD by hand, is it? So what is *its* semantic meaning? And if it *is* a form of political protest, then how can its expression be constitutionally limited??
>2. What examples of fair uses absolutely require access to the work in its most modern, digital,
>uncorrupted, un-macrovisioned form?
First, the argument about requiring access in "the most modern... form" is irrelevant. Given the direction of the MPAA and others, it is clear that soon, all new works *would* or *could* be made available only in ways that would prevent practically all fair use; therefore, it doesn't matter whether there are older forms of current works or not.
Second, to me, the most striking and necessary applications of fair use are for satire and parody. Some of the best pieces of literature, music, and fiction in the Western world have been direct parodies of other works. Parody and satire have repeatedly been used to bring about social and political change. And if in the future new works are made available only in formats that *prevent* the application of fair use (by preventing copying of even small pieces of a copyrighted work, like designs, themes, graphic patterns, and so on), then we will have lost a significant tool for understanding our own culture. That is simply not a good price to pay in exchange for corporate IP rights. DMCA is simply bad law, and a bad deal.
Just wondering here... is a DVD really the same quality that the studio shoots the film in (or after it is edited)? Isn't MPEG-2 a form of compresssion?
If the answer to those questions is yes, then fair use must apply to DVDs because they are not of the highest quality.
Just food for thought...
---
The fun at Costco was published in '98 I think. It basically told what the generic logins to their AS400 systems were, how to access the terminals, etc..
AFAIK, it was fixed by Costco shortly after that article came out, but I'm sure there are other companies like them that you can play with...
---GEEK CODE---
Ver: 3.12
GCS/S d- s++: a-- C++++ UBCL+++ P+ L++
W+++ PS+ Y+ R+ b+++ h+(++) r++ y+
If campaign contributions are expressions of free speech, then why not code ? Time shifting of broadcast material is a good example of 'fair use'. I would not consider a degraded copy of a movie acceptable if I am paying for a full subscription to a movie channel. It is too easy for a DVD to become scratched in which case the movie studios tell me to buy a new one. Why wouldn't I be justified to make a backup copy ?
If a Slashdot reader can create a pithy and short explanation for how and why a computer program is expressive speech and/or what it expresses, it might be useful.
I wrote such a comment in a thread on Kuro5hin. The article was entitled Programming is not Art. Here was my response to that article in the same thread. If you can classify programming as artistic(as I believe it to be), then it certainly falls under the free expression category. Programming expresses ideas and thoughts in a dynamic sense, not statically like mathematics or paintings. That's what I find so great about it.
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"Goose... Geese... Moose... MOOSE!?!?!"
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
If a Slashdot reader can create a pithy and short explanation for how and why a computer program is expressive speech and/or what it expresses, it might be useful.
I wrote such a comment in a thread on Kuro5hin. The article was entitled Programming is not Art. Here was my response to that article in the same thread. If you can classify programming as artistic(as I believe it to be), then it certainly falls under the free expression category. Programming expresses ideas and thoughts in a dynamic sense, not statically like mathematics or paintings. That's what I find so great about it.
-----
"Goose... Geese... Moose... MOOSE!?!?!"
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
A traditionally coded application, from Office through to Quake, the Linux kernel to Windows XP, doesn't really express anything. Its a means to an end. Theres no real intended statement, its a tool. Just as the words in my documentation aren't a novel, and my nicely presented flowcharts aren't art. They serve a definite purpose, and that isn't one of expression.
Political speech and protests are means to an end too, yet they are protected expression. Their primary purpose is to accomplish what they're protesting against. Just because something is functional, doesn't mean it isn't expressive. In the context of a university operating systems course, the linux kernel is very expressive and theoretically could entirely replace the course' textbook. Ability to replace a hefty textbook with 20MB of compressed source indicates something very expressive, don't you think?
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"Goose... Geese... Moose... MOOSE!?!?!"
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
I took a class on ACL2 last year, and it's actually much more than the quote above indicates. It is a fully executable subset of Common LISP, which has been augmented to be a sound logic in which general theorems can be stated and proven. In other words, you can write a program in it, and then prove theorems about that program. It can also be used to model hardware systems, and then prove theorems about them.
I think ACL2 is a perfect example of the ambiguity of the distinction between code and speech. Mathematical theorems and their proofs would generally be considered to be expression, regardless of what formal language is used to write the proof. But if you choose ACL2 as your proof language, then a theorem could itself be, or contain, executable LISP programs. How is one to distinguish, then, between a "circumvention device" and a proof or theorem about it, if they're both expressed in the same language?
I will have to remember that the next time a friend who is remodeling their house says "You have a crowbar I can borrow to pull the plaster down?" (not that I personally actually own a crowbar, nor has anyone ever asked to borrow one, but - I have used them enough times that this seems REALLY SILLY)
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Well that depends on the tools now doesn't it. Even so, This is really kind of wishy-washy reasoning. Personally, I am of the belief that any such thing should have to be proven "beyond a reasonable doubt" (in fact, I think alot of things should have the bar set that high)
I don't think a person should be punished as a professional theif, or as if this was a repeat offence, unless it can be proven that this is the case. Proven as in "See this crime over here, he commited it" not "well see, he could have commited another one"
then again, theirs alot of junk in the legal system that I don't like very much (like the idea that a person can be held in jail for weeks and months before the isue of whether they should be there (ie a trial begins) is even addressed! - not everyone can afford to pay the bail bondsman)
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I am of the opinion that when the law makes an action illegal that is not, in and of itself, a vdirect violation of the rights of another, then the law, itself, is wrong - and is itself a crime against th every people that it claims to protect.
There is nothing morally wrong about owneing or carrying a lockpick. Owning a lockpick, or carrying one does not directly violate anyones rights.
ONLY the use of a lockpick to gain unauthorized access to anothers property violates anyones rights. ANY law which "sets the bar" lower than that standard (or being caught in the act of attempting that act) is an unjust law.
As for pleabargains... it depends. Mostly I do dislike them. What I really dislike though is what a game it all seems. Noone stands up for whats right, its always "what serves me best".
I have thought long about the laws that I have broken (and the ones I break still). I don't break a law unless I feel that the law is wrong.
I like to think, that should I ever be called to answer for my crimes that I would do the right thing, to stand up for whats right. No plea bargains will be accepted. I would admit all evidence in court, and tell the Jury my side - that the law is wrong - then hope for them to do the right thing (it is btw wholly apropriate for the jury to find a person not guilty if they are convinced the law is unjust)
As Thoreau himself said
Such issues are not light. I put lots of thought to them.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
However, unless I missed a meeting, the instructions still given to juries are that they should vote gui8lty ONLY if there is NO "reasonable doubt".
Posession of tools proves nothing, other than ability. Last I checked, ability to commit a crime is not usually a punishable offence. (the case of "burglary tools excepted of course).
Certainly i don't think it should. Or else perhaps I should be convicted of being able to ride my motorcycle without ahelmet, ot being able to rape that woman that just walked by my office (afterall, I do have the "necissary equipment" to commit the crime)
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Why should the penalty be stiffer?
Frankly, I think the "burglary tools" concept is silly at best. Commiting a burglary with tools is no more or less "wrong" than committing it without tools. In essence, its the same crime, it does the same real harm, why should it not be punished the same?
If anything, the use of such tools shows that a burglar is smarter than the average doorknob.
Why should there be an extra penalty for being a smarter criminal? That offends my senasabilities. There should be an extra penalty for NOT having the proper tools for the job with you.
Any sort of system of punishment should be based on actual harm done and (depending on the crime) malicousness of intent (murder with intent and a car accident that kills someone have similar harms, but are really very different crimes). Not on HOW the person commited the crime.
I see fundamentally no difference between breaking into someones house and killing them with your bare hands, and shooting them in the head with a gun. Either way its murder. Same crime, same punishment. Why should the penalty be more because "he used a tool to commit the crime". Or reverse it...why should the penalty be LESS because a person didn't use a tool?
Its the same crime afterall. Same harm.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Worse, the MPAA fervently fights the DeCSS, while there's little actual harm, and little potential harm (how much does illegal copies of video tapes hurt the motion picture industry?). From the article:
Actual harm, the judge asked? "Yes. Actual harm," he replied. "Well, actual threat of harm." That got a laugh from the audience,...
Yet, the MPAA does nearly nothing about theft of DSS satellite signals -- which could be shown to decrease actual royalty revenues. Not potential, but actual.
I'm not a fan of conspiracy theories, but it seems to me the MPAA's fervor is misplaced, if you take their arguments at face value, and therefore: they must have some other underlying vendetta against Open Source.
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
That is exactly what i was going to say. the IOCCC website can be found at www.ioccc.org or here
"I don't need a compass to tell me which way the wind shines." - Mr. Furious, Mystery Men
1. Why and how is a computer program expressive speech? What does it express? 2600's lawyers are entirely familiar with Touretzky's Gallery, so forget about those. Assume you have some C or perl staring at you, any random block of code in any random print-out. What does it express? Why should that code be protected expression? A computer program is expressive speech because it's a reflection of the programmer's taste. For example, if you had 5 programmers attempt to create programs to perform the same functionality, you're going to get 5 different programs which do that same thing. Computer programs in their simplest form are nothing but instructions. Computer programs can be interpreted by computers and people. They are a list of what-to-do. Going torward's the US Attorney's statement concerning digital works being like a painting in a living room.... then isn't DeCSS just like a piece of paper giving you driving instructions to the house, and telling you what room the painting is in? As far as I know, that's not illegal. Software represents opinions. Opinions on how the autho thinks things should work, and how he enjoys to do them. My C++ teacher once said, "you can tell a lot about a person from the way they write programs." 2. What examples of fair uses absolutely require access to the work in its most modern, digital, uncorrupted, un-macrovisioned form? The only one that jumped out at me is making a backup copy in case the original is destroyed. But perhaps there are others. Let's not forget that displaying copyrighted work for means of criticism is fair use. You need access to the uncorrupted format in order to show people what you are criticising. If I'm a movie critic, I don't need the publisher's permission to show a clip of a movie I'm criticising, because it's fair use.
The standard textbook analogy notes that algorithms are recipes of sorts, designed to be followed by novice cooks. A recipe book written for great chefs might include the phrase "Poach the fish in a suitable wine until almost done," but an algorithm for the same process might begin, "Choose a white wine that says 'dry' on the label; take a corkscrew and open the bottle; pour an inch of wine in the bottom of a pan; turn the burner under the pan on high; ..."--a tedious breakdown of the process into dead-simple steps, requiring no wise decisions or delicate judgments or intuitions on the part of the recipe-reader. (p. 51)
How can we look at algorithms as any different from recipes? Recipes are valued for their beauty, effectiveness, complexity, and so on. We don't say that recipes are not expressive because they merely state a fact that if you add such and such ingredients and bake at such and such a temperature, you will get a cake. How would chefs feel if their prize winning chilli recipe was deemed not creative or not worthy of being called his expression?
What somebody should do is publish a cookbook that has all of its recipes written in code. You can even add in comments talking about it
/* this is a little thing that I whip up every time my inlaws are in town--*/
This seems to be one of the best defenses of code becuase it makes one form of expression identical to it in nature. How can they then be different?
btw, good thing we can still use fair use excepts from books, otherwise I couldn't have quoted you the passage from the book!
The language defines a framework and model in which you can express knowledge, ideas and commands.
The format represent the basic structure with which you can share information with other entities.
The media is something that we can either store information on, or pass information through.
Speech is Code.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
There are a billion fair uses in the compression academic literature of a playboy centerfold photograph from the '70's. Her name is Lena. A copyright on the image is owned by the magazine.
--
Free Mac Mini
--
Free Mac Mini
The product they produce with DeCSS is much easier to distribute.
--
Free Mac Mini
Well that's what I was getting at. The DivX part
--
Free Mac Mini
When I program I spend a lot of time trying to write in such a way that other programmers can understand me. Or even if I don't think other programmers will ever read what I write I write so that I will be able to understand the program later on.
... z" The tshirt is funny because it's not true. Good programmer choose their variable names so that people can easily understand what they are.
People sometimes put some kind of a line between writing comments and writing code. To me there isn't that big of a line.
Sometimes, if I take a program I have writen and take out all the comments then it's not usefull anymore. I might as well have compiled it once and deleted the source code.
Take a C program and look at the whitespace. None of that is there for the compiler; it's there to help humans understand and read what is going on.
Today I saw a tshirt that said, "Real programmers only need 26 variables: a, b, b,
Sometimes source code is the easiest way to understand something. I've never read his books but they say that Donald Knuth created his own programming language to talk about the algorythms in one of his books. I'm not sure if he even wrote a compiler for it. If he didn't then none of the source code in his book was even usefull in any way except as a communications device.
Source Code is seldom beautifull in the same way as a Van Goghe painting which makes you cry. But it is primarilly comunicative. It's not necarilly even usefull except when compiled.
Easy. I just watched the weekly movie special on MTV, feautiring 30-seconds-or-so clips from the top ten movies here in Germany. I guess, the studios wouldn't like watered down versions of the clip.
Hell, you wouldn't be able to see all the fancy special effects that are supposed to make up for the crappy plot!
And obviously the studios cannot demand from every TV station in the world to register with them for the official, "blessed" copy.
Free Manning, jail Obama.
I'm not a lawyer, and am unaware of the legal definition of expression, but whenever the "code is/is not speech" argument comes up, I keep thinking of one question: Would speech in Esperanto be protected? The answer is obviously yes, which begs the follow-up question: Why is C different than Esperanto? (I choose Experanto since both are created languages.) Should it matter if the language is usually used to communicate with a device, rather than other people? And published code (like DeCSS) is certainly intended to communicate to other people anyway. The authors could have expressed themselves in a lengthy explanation in english (or another national language), but by using C they were able to express their ideas concisely, clearly, and in a form which breaks traditional language barriers. (All of which are arguably among the main goals of poetry.) It doesn't seem like we should have to prove that code can be expressive anymore than we should have to prove that Ginsburg's The Howl, or a NYT article, or any other piece of speech is expressive. A language, almost by definition, is a medium for expression. As to poetic or beautiful composition, you would have to ask a speaker of the language. If you showed me a poem in a language I don't speak I would be unable to determine a poetic component; in the same way, the judges should not expect to be able to recognize the poetry in a piece of code themselves. If they asked almost anyone fluent in C, the speaker could go on for hours about beautiful pieces of code they had seen. We could also point out things that are commonly considered poetic: much like english poetry has a focus on rhyme and meter, we could point to line length, conservation of memory, execution time, etc. (If someone wants to argue that execution time only comes into play when actually running the code, I'd counter that rhyme only exists as the poem is being read aloud; just as, in reading a poem, you note what would rhyme, in reading code you note what would be fast.) In short, though it might seem different to a non-speaker, C is a language like any other, and there is no reason for making special rules about whether or not it is speech.
Expression is the material embodiment of thought. It's that simple. (* Well maybe not that simple, material may be the wrong word. Expression is the persistent embodiment of thought, something that may be shared by others, maybe that's a little closer).
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
Or what if they linked to a results page of a search engine listing sites with DeCSS? Is this now legal?
Take Photoshop for example, it is patently a device for creating constitutionaly protected forms of expression. Restrictions on the sale or dissemination of such devices, other than within the limits of IP law, is as unconstitutional as restrictions on the output of such a device.
Viewing an actual printing press in the same manner the MPAA views DeCSS would obviously be wrong. Sure a press can be (and many are) used for massive copyright violations but the rights of people to publish take precedence over the possible illegal uses of such technology. The fact that in this age of the internet presses of all sorts have become widely affordable makes no difference at all unless the courts take the elitist position that the wealthy have more of a right to publish material than most.
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
Why is it so difficult for the 2600 lawyers to demonstrate that DeCSS does not stop copyright infringement? The demonstration is very simple. All they have to do is bring a coupld DVD movies to the courtroom and make several copies of them in the courtroom (without using DeCSS) for the judges to take home for their viewing pleasure.
DeCSS is all about micro-managing distribution and creating artificial prices. It has nothing to do with copyright protection.
The real answer is that it's much easier to prove possession of burglary tools than it is to prove burglary or attempted burglary. (BTW, don't mistake my stating the principle as support of it. You're quite right that punishment should be based upon actual harm done.)
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
Academic study of any small detail of the film. Music history depends a lot on studies of the papers and inks used in making original manuscripts. No photocopy, how ever good, will suffice for this sort of academic research.
Classical studies tabulate the frequencies and distributions of individual letters, words, phrases, and constructs in old texts, and gain useful insight into questions of authorship, for example which roles Shakespeare himself played in his plays, and how repeating those lines had a subtle effect to his language in following plays...
I would expect future studies of film history want to make similar studies on various technical details of different films. For example, studying westerns, one researcher might need to get a slowed-down close-up view of every time a gun was drawn in various films... Or similar close-ups on various film tricks (digital and others) to show and appreciate the craftmanship of the makers.
In Murphy We Turst
And aren't DVDs essentialy computer software?
--
andy j.
Stupid Cheap Guitars
*shakes head*
--Fesh
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
Notice the bold bit. Why is it, do you think, that they phrased it that way? It's what we've been saying all along, posession should never be the sole argument for applying criminal penalties to a person. The FLAA's would rather just toss you in jail for having things like DeCSS because it's just the teeniest bit harder to prove intent.
Wow. The DMCA is overly broad because the FLAA's are lazy. Who'd have thought?
--Fesh
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
A presentation for a digital effects course at a major university (say the USC School of Cinema-Television) analyzing the benefits of different methods and how they are used in the movie industry.
I actually took that course and an instructor used her own clips... but a student could easily need to have the reference of full-detail frames to show the anti-aliasing or other pixel-level analysis.
UserAdvocate: The voice of the user
I agree with you but the fact is that the case is in appeals now and needs a solution now. What you said does need to be done, but will take much longer. Public perception of hackers needs to be addressed as well as unfiying the rights of people and seeing past public opinion.
I see a huge flaw in the lawyer's response. Ocne a copyright expires on a DVD (in, what, 70+ years form now?), they then expect the circumvention devices to surface. However, since other DVDs would still be out there with their copyright in effect and the circumvention tool could just as eaisly be used for those, the tool would still be illegal under the same premise as it is today: it could still be used for illegal purposes.
Thus, the movie industry would only have to release a new DVD encrypted with the same technology every few years to extend the ban on these circumevntion tools. Is it a problem? no. By the time the first copyrights expire, the technology will long since have been replaced.
What if 2600 linked to the New York Times article? The article itself isn't illegal, so they're not directly linking to anything illegal. The linkt o the illegal material would now be indirect. But since 2600 is still a bunch of leet hax0rs, their intent is the same -- so should that indirect link be illegal?
I think that this is also covered by fair use.
When I buy the content, I have the right to view it - in its purest, unadulterated form, on any device capable of reading the medium I bought it on.
If I choose to have a Linux box reading my DVD and exporting a digital quality signal to a projector, I should have the right to do that - after all, I am just watching the content I have fair use rights to in an attempt to enjoy it.
But now I have no choice over the medium I use - I have to use a DVD player that is licensed by the MPAA - and if they choose not to give a license to my faviourite distributor of hardware/software (in my case the Open Source Movement), then I have no choice but to go to someone who has been "vetted" by the MPAA.
This is bad.
Choice has an economic value - if you limit the choices people have, you impose limits on their enjoyment because you impose upon them a limited set of options. Capitalist economics provides a huge amount of choice to people because when something people want doesn't exist, someone goes and creates it because that creation will generate value - people will be willing to pay for it if it is a good alternative to what is currently available on the market.
The DMCA as it currently stands is an economic aberration as it allows a company that traditionally only makes content, to extend it's economic and legal reach vertically into the distribution devices downstream of it's market area.
I believe that were these companies to try to do this by acquiring the companies that make the hardware, they would be blocked (or at least investigated) via Anti-Trust legislation, but this provides them with a nice way of controlling the distribution channel all the way to the box in the customers house without having too much attention drawn to the power they are obtaining.
This is anti-competitive, and anti-consumer. If I buy the content, then I have a right to watch it - the link back to the maker of the film is not, in my opinion, strong enough, for them to be allowed to force me to buy an Orwellian television set that will tell me what I can and can't watch/clip/copy/manipulate - and then impose upon me the added restriction of not being allowed to figure out how the device that controls what I can watch works, because reverse engineering is illegal.
Salocin.com
Please read question number one again. Especially where it says 2600's lawyers are entirely familiar with Touretzky's Gallery, so forget about those.
That means your link to his gallery shouldn't get modded up to 5, like it is now. It'd be one thing if you actually had a useful comment to accompany your link, but you don't. This is just a karma-whore post, and the moderators went for it.
Hey mods, please mod this guy back down to where he should be. I'd do it myself but I gave up the priviledge to post this comment.
-Grant
---
My stupid web site
Problem: Judges might not understand why it's important to have undegraded material to use in compression experiments. "Why do you need fully-quality material to compress it?", they might ask.
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
Why should I be required to own a camera to make fair use of the DVD that I paid for, and still have in my posession?
Why should I have to go to lots of trouble setting up a camera simply to exercise my fair use rights?
Why? Because someone else, somewhere, might theoretically pirate DVD's?
Continuing the crowbar analogy, if we make crowbars illegal, there are other alternatives for the legitimate uses of crowbars -- no matter how cumbersome or inconvenient they may be. The people who use crowbars for legitimate purposes should be required to bear the burden of using inferior alternatives, because some people somewhere could potentially use crowbars for illegal purposes.
The opposition who invoked the Digital Crowbar analogy was exactly right! DeCSS is a digital crowbar. It is a tool. Lots of other tools have potential illegal uses as well. Where do we draw the line on banning tools because of their potential for illegal uses? Should we outlaw photocopiers, VCR's? DVD players?
Changing gears again...
Should anyone have the right to build their own DVD player? Should it be illegal for me to build a device in my garage that can play DVD's? What if I want to build a DVD jukebox that copies my DVD's to a big hard disk and then presents me a "jukebox" interface to select and play DVD's in my family room? Should it also be forbidden to build a CD player? An old fashioned phonograph using a straight pin and tin can? Should it be be illegal to use two tin cans and a string? Maybe all engineering at all levels should just be illegal?
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
I agree with you completely.
/. for quite a while now. I don't see a good resolution to this issue anytime soon. Perhaps if we where to develop an OS that reported illegal activity to law enforcement agencies the government would be more receptive to shifting accountability from programs to users. Personally, I would just rather break the DMCA everyday.
Earilier, someone used the analogy of a bomb to express the same point. The bombers are always held accountable regardless of whether they learned directly out of a book on how to make bombs.
However, the difference between the bomb and the program is of accountability. When a bomb goes off, law enforcement agencies tend to notice. They can find evidence within the wreckage and begin to track down the criminal who will then be held accountable. While the criminal may have learned to make the bomb from the book, the law (rightfully IMHO) places greater weight upon their actions than the books information.
This scenario does not occur on the web. A DVD cannot call 911 when someone tries to run DeCSS on it. It is currently impossible to hold individual users accountable for actions performed entirely on their home PC. This is why the law is suggesting to take the accountability one level higher and stop the actual program from entering the users hands, where all practical sense of accountability is lost.
Everyone accepts that they are responsible for their actions in the world. While we may or may not accept that same responsibility for our actions on our computers it does not matter since laws are currently unenforceable on computers and the majority of the internet.
I have been following the IP debates on
Just when I thought code could get complex I take a look at law...
The most obvious example I can think of is the Mandelbrot set. Many people, even those who have never touched a computer, consider the images produced from it to be art. The images are beautiful by themselves, but in order to grasp the full meaning of the artwork (that is the purpose of art, isn't it?), it is necessary to understand the algorithm that produced it. The deepest understanding is only available by looking at the exact code that produced a particular image. Pseudocode is good, but real code is better.
Many traditional artists would argue that a real oil-on-canvas Van Gogh contains more expressive content than a simple print. Only the real painting contains the brush strokes, texture, and gobs of paint. Even a high quality print loses detail that is important to the full appreciation of the artwork. The same is true for the code that produced an image from the Mandelbrot set. Only by examining the code can you see what shortcuts may have been taken with the algorithm, how many iterations were used per pixel, and what kind of color map was used. None of this may be relevant to a layperson who knows nothing of the technical aspects of fractal art, but the same can be said of Van Gogh's gobs of paint -- many (most) people don't care.
A second example: Consider a program that contains a complex algorithm that solves several differential equations, manipulates the results in some fashion, and then displays the final results on the screen. It would be possible to write the algorithm in such a way that the final output is a poem, or even a single sentence ("I am an algorithm," maybe). In this case, the code itself can be considered to be a work of art. The output is meaningless without having the ability to see the code. The code may also be meaningless without seeing the output (recursive art?).
I am disturbed that the courts seem to be redefining speech as art so that functional speech is not considered to be worthy of protection, but since that is the trend, maybe some artistic code is needed to save it as a protected form of communication.
I know Mrs Sullivan is the dean of Stanford Law School. No doubt she knows the law very well. But I think the first case was handled prety well.
So why the change of lawyers? Is this one cheaper or something?
Ok, I'm a Day late and a dollar short, but here's how I would do it. Code as Expression. 1) As most have said, code is another language which in it's uncompiled state is used to exchange ideas with others who understand the language and in many cases can cross the barriers of spoken language making it much more powerfull communications tool. I know quite a few programmers who can not communicate via spoken or plain written english, but can communicate extreamly well via C and VB code. 2) Binary & Compiled code is proving their origional expression is valid or invaild on atleast one or more instances. It is the same thing as showing the use of a mathamatical formula, diagraming Symbolic Logic, or building a model or the real thing of something proving it works or fails. The need for Best quality fair use: 1) Backups. every media format can and often does fail. 2) Transfer from one High quality format to another for personal use. An example of this quite simple: When I buy a movie I buy a license to play back that movie in my own home for my personal use. Now I have a DVD Rom Drive in my computer and a High quality DVD Decoder Board with S-Video out. I use my computer to playback DVD on my main TV. I also own multiple computers and TVs without DVD capabilities. I purchase a DVD and use it playback on my main TV. In order to play it back in a visually pleasing manner on my other TVs I need to transfer it in it's full quality to other media formats (IE hard drive). Since there are Multiple computers without DVD drives but high quality Video cards (read Nvidia or ATI) with TV out, in order to enjoy the full quality of the DVD format I need to transfer the origional in it's full digital format to my other computers without Macrovision, or the loss of quality incured by transfering to something such as VHS video tape. Also to keep DVD features such as menus, Multiple Angles, slide shows and the like. All of which are features which has an impact on if I purchase a video on DVD or VHS.
(2) Suppose I wanted to perform a critical analysis of the CGI/real actor interactions, interfaces, etc. in terms of the realism (or some other detail oriented analysis)
I didn't see this mentioned yet (though I might have missed in the hundreds of posts) :-)
The poet Sharon Hopkins has written several poems in perl. Perhaps she'd like to speak on the subject "computer code as art" at the trial?
From "Programming Perl 2nd Ed", Wall et al. (Chapter 8, page 552)
"...the reigning Perl Poet, Sharon Hopkins. She has written quite a few Perl poems, as well as a paper on Perl poetry that she presented at the Usenix Winter 1992 Technical Conference, entitled "Camels and Needles: Computer Poetry Meets the Perl Programming Language". (The paper is available as misc/poetry.ps on CPAN.) Besides being the most prolific Perl poet, Sharon is also the most widely published, having had the following poem published in both the Economist and the Guardian:
#!/usr/bin/perl
APPEAL:
listen (please, please);
open yourself, wide;
join (you, me),
connect (us,together),
tell me.
do something if distressed;
@dawn, dance;
@evening, sing;
read (books,$poems,stories) until peaceful;
study if able;
write me if-you-please;
sort your feelings, reset goals, seek (friends, family, anyone);
do*not*die (like this)
if sin abounds;
keys (hidden), open (locks, doors), tell secrets;
do not, I-beg-you, close them, yet.
accept (yourself, changes),
bind (grief, despair);
require truth, goodness if-you-will, each moment;
select (always), length(of-days)
# listen (a perl poem)
# Sharon Hopkins
# rev. June 19, 1995
Come play free flash games on Kongregate!
> Why and how is a computer program expressive speech?
... . Very little of the above is part of the common vernacular nor even comprehendable by the average American, yet all are speech and expression.
There have been many discussions in the past two years about code as expression. Briefly summarized in a simile: code is to what programmers use to communicate as chemical formulas are to what chemists use to communicate, as mathematical notation is to what mathematicians use to communicate, as legal jargon and statute notation are to what lawyers and judges use to communicate,
Code can be the most succinct way to show you an algorithm, in the same way that a string of chemical symbols may be the most succinct way to express a complicated benzene ring structure, in the same way that statute notation may be the most succinct way to communicate where to find the law detailing a specific tax issue.
Code is very personal, in part because it is language. Back (way back) in high school, if I left my name off of an essay, my English teacher could identify it as mine. In the same way, I could look at the code written by co-workers and identify who wrote it by the style and content. Any code, of good or bad quality, is expression by the person who wrote it.
Lastly, we've been writing code using programming _languages_ long before code was challenged as language, expression, and speech.
> What examples of fair uses absolutely require access to the work in its most modern, digital, uncorrupted, un-macrovisioned form?
Handicap accessibility may be one. Physically handicapped people may need to transform the information in some way so that they can access it. Hypothetically, let's create a person with no eyes, but has a machine to transfer images to his optic nerves. And there is loss in the information transfer. In it's highest quality form, he might view something worthwhile, but if he starts with a scratched record, what reaches his brain might be unrecognizable.
-gps
surpose that I don't absolutely require access to the work in its original form, does that mean I have no right to fair use of the original form?
It doesn't matter if there is other form of the copyright material for fair use. What does matter is, legally is there fair use for dvd movie? If there is, who need a reason to use and enjoy better pictures?
Wow, you better get to the supreme court, they need you bad. Here legal scolars for years have been making exceptions for silly things like libel, slander, threats, harrassment and conspiracy, divying up speech any way they choose, and if they'd only "read the constitution many many times" like you, they'd know better.
*cough* *cough* but in serious non flame, the legal issue here is in fact expressive speech, not just the ability to write or say it. And if we want to have a useful legal discussion about how things will be treated in the real world, I thought it would be useful to understand the terms that matter in the courts, not our personal opinions on How The Legal World Should Be.
kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
however, while I am not a lawyer, I'm fairly certain that said plans are not "expressive speech" as used in constitutional law.
All information is not expressive speech. I believe the term was coined in response to non verbal protests such as the black arm bands in "Tinker..." or flag burning. I may be wrong. But we need a solid legal definition of "expressive speech" before everyone goes running around trying to say what is and isn't.
For myself, I don't buy the all code is expressive speech line in the slightest. The lawyer quoted seemed to be trying to prove it by showing that code could be USED as expressive speech, therefore code IS expressive speech. BS. There is very little that a creative person cannot do or create in a way that makes it expressive speech. Those examples do not make everything in the world expressive speech when done without that special intent.
For instance, in the midwest farmers growing feed crops such as alfalfa will use a special machine to turn the harvest into a bunch of big bales that look vaugly like 6 foot tall cinnomon rolls. (then the neighboring kids play on them all fall and as adults discover that just sniffing a bag of pet alfalfa makes them relaxed and happy, but thats a different subject.) A farmer with something to say could do his baling in such a way that passengers on an airplane flying above would see little dots spelling out "I love my guns" or "go Royals!" or any other expression he wished to make. And his alfalfa baling would then be a form of expressive speech. But no one in their right mind would say that this possibility makes all baling a form of expressive speech.
Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
The most obvious example of fair use I can think of is quoting. You have a right to quote excerpts from a work up to some limit (10% of the work IIRC) for research purposes.
This is basically designed for textual sources, but there's no reason why it shouldn't apply to music and video. If in 10 years time you're writing a dissertation on the visual effects used in the Star Wars films, you MUST have access to the originals so that you can analyse it frame by frame and pixel by pixel. A grainy, noise-added copy just isn't good enough to base your work on. For a textual analogy, a literature student has to work off the original source-book, not off a Reader's Digest condensed version!
Grab.
You could spend a few mins at this site
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/
and maybe get a colour print out of some of them?
I completely agree. It was completely irrelevant to the whole arguement and makes no sense in relation to the context that the case is about.
What bothers me is the attorney probably wouldn't have stated it, unless he thought that it would have some sort of impact. Or maybe the judges are ignorant of the implications of the DMCA.
No, not cut-n-paste!!! Inheritance!
You quitting proves that the karma kap worked. The most annoying of the whores shut up. --CmdrTaco
I'll take a stab at this one.
Computer programs can be protected speech because they are the literal representation of an abstract creative idea. The actual letters and numbers that make up computer code is simply the concrete version of some programmer's insight and creativity.
The algorithms and logic in DeCSS are the embodiement of a human being's intent, which includes political and social thought.
Look at it using one of the MPAA's metaphors: courts have conclusively decided that it is possible to infringe on the copyright of a script even if all of the letters and punctiation are different (that is, the infringer paraphrased the original).
It's not about the code as a series of letters and numbers, it's about the expression of creativity that some human had. The code is just the physical manifestation of that creativity. Outlawing particular types of code is paramount to outlawing particular types of thought or speech.
-b
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
Oh come on, how many Computer Science students read slashdot? This is easy: The Curry-Howard isomorphism showed that the Lambda-calculus, the prototype programming language , is isomorphic to mathematical proofs. Mathematical proofs are absolutely protected as free expressive speech. Of course its more complicated than that. Its really a certain type of the lambda-calculus and a certain type of mathematical proof, but still, it establishes that a computer program is simply a mathematical proof in a different syntax. You can then use other Chruch-Turing equivalences to spread this to other automata and programming languages. Though you lose the absoluteness of an isomorphism and you are left with some lesser type of equivalence. So you would have to argue that program and proof both express equivalent things as opposed to being exactly the same thing written in two different languages.
You can also use the natural number arguement. You argue that all data are really just numbers. Natural numbers to be exact. Kronecker and many other famous mathematicians have claimed that we are born with the natural numbers (0,1,2,3...). Any which way you take it, any sane person would agree that the natural numbers are mathematics. Therefore, your program is just a number, and so is all that crap on those DVDs.
However, no matter how nicely you say it, no matter how many mathematical proofs/arguements you present showing that program and proof are the same thing... could the courts admit that not only the DMCA, but most previous copyright law contradicts the freedom of expression/speech given to mathematical expression? The government has countless contradicting laws. Laws that even conflict with the bill of rights.
The worst case would end up with the government removing the freedom of expression of mathematical proof. I might just have to go Unibomber/postal/high-school if something like that happened.
The best argument *against* "programs as expressive speech" I've read in recent days goes something like this:
Protected speech does not include speech that has as its "object" distinctly illegal content which is then acted upon.
For example, if I say, "Kill all the people living south of Main Street" and then I (or someone else) goes and does this (as a result of my speech), I cannot claim that my speech is protected under the first amendment. ("Hey, I was just saying stuff!")
I'm not sure if I've stated this clearly -- if anyone can improve upon this it would be most welcome.
But something like this -- my example above -- does bring up the essential conflict between *speech* and *action* and how they are related. It's one thing to say something, one thing to do something, but when the saying leads to the doing -- or when evidence can be found that doing has been done as a direct result of the saying -- then I suppose there is a legal problem.
Now, I'm aware that "causality" -- A *causes* B -- is a very, very difficult thing.
When we speak of "causes", we're really speaking of habit. There's no way to establish that A *always* causes B. But we can observe all the instances of A causing B and -- over the course of time -- we can say that, in most cases -- or at least in all observed cases thus far -- A causes B and will most likely continue to cause B ad infinitum.
But causality and habit move away from speech and into action. The two, I think, are seperate entities.
It would be interesting for the folks at the trial to bring in a literary critic -- or cultural critic -- and really examine the issues of what constitutes speech, what constitutes "code", and where "expressiveness" exists in the two entities.
As a writer writing fiction, I've often likened writing code to writing a short story. You have a problem -- complete the story, complete the code -- and you're forced to call upon your creative problem solving abilities to find the solution. And (and I know this rankles some, but I think it's true) some ways are better than others to solve a problem -- a short story or an application. We tend to qualify the solutions as "elegant" if they solve the problem in particularly interesting and clever ways. "Inelegant" might refer to a brute-force method of problem solving -- the problem is solved, but it wasn't pretty.
This applies to just about any creative endeavor (and I include coding as a "creative endeavor").
I've made the point -- to managers, teachers, students -- that oftentimes good programmers are wonderfully creative thinkers. They have to be in order to derive "elegant" algorithms or "clever" code. You can make a living brute-forcing your way through an application, but I'd bet money you won't derive nearly as much personal pleasure in brute-forcing as you would looking for elegant solutions to complex problems.
And here, I think, is where a case can be made for "expressive" content. If coding lacked "expressiveness" then we wouldn't need coding in the first place. We'd already have -- a priori -- a structure in place to solve every problem. All we would need to do is call upon the pre-existing structure to solve the problem. BLAMMO, it's done. (In fact, you could argue, that if this were the case, we wouldn't have problems in the first place. Everything would already be solved, written, and created. We'd live in a world -- much like Jorge Borges' Library of Babel where every text is already written using every possible combination of letters on any number of pages. True texts would exist alongside false texts, but there would be no way of knowing what is true and what is false. Think about it. Read the story -- "The Library of Babal" by Borges. It will severely whack your mind. I guarantee it.)
But because we don't have the luxury of pre-existing structures for every problem, coders must therefore sit down and frame the problem and begin to derive the solution. So here, I think, is where "expressiveness" comes in. Anything not already written needs to be "expressed" -- or framed -- in some way. There are multiple ways of framing problems and multiple ways of solving for single solutions. Some ways are better than others.
How then can you deny "expressiveness" in code? If, as I say, code lacked expressiveness, then there would be no code, no coders, no problems, and no need for solutions!
- Throwing a brick into someone's window and breatking it is illegal. Is it just me or in this case, they are not only trying to make bricks illegal, but saying where to BUY or even FIND INFORMAITON about bricks illegal. Drugs are illegal but information about them and their effects are FREELY distributed by THE GOVERNMENT. So even if DeCSS is made illegal, they can't make information about it illegal.
- You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. Let's face it, just because you link to DeCSS doesn't mean the person will download it. And just because they download it doesn't mean they will use it. And just because they use it doesn't mean that they will use it for illegal purposes.
Thanks for listening, hope these arguements help, and good luck! Tune in next time for "A, B, C, DeCSS" or "They are the weakest linkage (argumenet wiseComment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I don't know this for sure, because I have never had a chance to read them myself, but who here has read The Art of Computer Programming?
According to Barnes & Noble's summary, some of it is about "information structures-the representation of information inside a computer, the structural relationships between data elements and how to deal with them efficiently." Representing things is expressive, you convey information not only through what you represent, but how you represent it. Compare a poem to a story as two means of representation. Completely different forms can express completely different meanings. The Supreme Court has ruled that anything that is expressive is free speech, from draft card burning to singing to writing. A program is a means of representing and computer information. The way you do that representing is expressive. Especially if computer programming is an art.
On a slightly different note (at least a different angle of the same problem), what about the cases Bernstein V. USDOJ and Peter D. Junger v. William Daley, United States Secretary of Commerce, et al.? Both are Circuit Court of Appeals cases, ninth and sixth, respectively. Both cases say code is free speech. Junger v. Daley is especially good, here is Slashdot's coverage of the case. Read it, it will give you a nice warm feeling inside in light of all the bad news.
A couple years ago I had a job interview to be the webmaster at the Detroit Public Library. Part of the interview process was a skills test of the candidates' coding (scripting) skills. The task was simple enough: Parse through a flat-file database and remove all lines that contained a particular string of characters. Before I started, since the test had a time limit, I checked the size of the other scripts in the directory I was to save mine to (to get a rough idea of how much code I'd be writing - I hadn't been given the test question yet). Well, that proved particularly useless as the scripts were of such a variance of sizes that none could be used as an accurate reference (gotta love perl, no?). The other scripts ranged in size from 3k to 16k(!? I still can't figure out how someone could take THAT much code to do that..I just hope THEY didn't get the job). Well, my code was 3 functional lines (counting the shebang. 6 lines including comments) long. What we see here is that one concept can be expressed in a myriad of different ways. The very fact that this concept can be expressed at all, no less in so many different ways says that this isn't just 30 people banging out code to do this because that's the code that does it and there's no two ways about it. It's common knowledge among geeks that each person codes with their own "style". The rest of the world may not understand that, but compare it to artwork. If you tell 100 people to paint an apple for you, you're going to get 100 different paintings - each of which is unique, each of which is art, and each of which would quite easily be defended in the same manner as free speech should the farmer that grew the apple come along to try and charge them a fee for painting it. The same goes for code. That said, allow me to express my distaste for the manner in which the defense lawyers have handled EVERY step of this case. If you want to prove DeCSS doesn't exist solely to pirate, why not point out some other uses, hmm?? Why not point out that the MPAA hasn't (until recently) allowed (via licensing of CSS or whatever means) any successful development of DVD playing software on a non-windows non-mac platform? Why not point out that linux has however many million (I haven't checked since it was 14) users, and that those of them that have purchased DVD players have the right to be able to use them. FAIR USE REQUIRES THE ABILITY TO USE SOMETHING.
}
else { DIE; }
#!/usr/bin/perl APPEAL: listen (please, please); open yourself, wide; join (you, me), connect (us,together), tell me. do something if distressed; @dawn, dance; @evening, sing; read (books,$poems,stories) until peaceful; study if able; write me if-you-please; sort your feelings, reset goals, seek (friends, family, anyone); do*not*die (like this) if sin abounds; keys (hidden), open (locks, doors), tell secrets; do not, I-beg-you, close them, yet. accept (yourself, changes), bind (grief, despair); require truth, goodness if-you-will, each moment; select (always), length(of-days) # listen (a perl poem) # Sharon Hopkins # rev. June 19, 1995
What do you do when you see an endangered animal eating an endangered plant?
Laws are also used as a deterrent. If a criminal knows the crowbar will net him an extra 5, and will increase the likelyhood of being caught. His chance of comitting the crime is lessened, while nothing is really sacrificed ;). A crime is a crime, yes. If you don't agree with concepts such as 'criminal tools' then you really must hate plea bargains ;)
Lines of C code, lines of perl, c++, java, pseudo code, only a programmer can appreciate something beautiful in them just as only a cubist iniciated can actually appreciate a cubist painting. ;-) " ;-), damned !! even the name of the program must be choosen carefully.
When a programmer looks at certain code he knows that is beautiful or ugly, the way it is indented, the names of the variables, the way the conditions are issued, how the memory is managed, the shortcuts done thanks to a depper knowledge of the language, it shows the love and the dedication the programmer puts on it, it shows how a person thinks, how humorous or bitter he or she is (just look at the comments with "
The programmer leaves a part of his life in each one of his/hers creations and even just for that a program must be considered into the ranks of the beautiful.
couldn't agree more
Don't blame me - I voted for Howard Dean. http://dean2004.blogspot.com
some examples of code as art include :
Obfuscated C Contest
Obfuscated Perl contest
5K contest
all of these contests are essentially defining code (in C, Perl, or HTML) as art - and art is speech.
Don't blame me - I voted for Howard Dean. http://dean2004.blogspot.com
Look at the Air and Space Museum. We hang the Spirit of St. Louis and Apollo there. There's a Thunderbird in the Smithsonian, if I remember right. Industrial museums abound (Chicago has a quite nice one).
In short, we see fit to exemplify fine examples of function in their own place, just as we exemplify form at art institutes. The beauty is in the function of the program; when it does its work is when it is at its most beautiful.
In the future, when our time is committed to a museum, there will be code in it. Just as we can look at Babbage's machine (where is it, anyway?), others will wish to see what we call our greatest accomplishments, and may judge them to be art. Why ignore them now?
For an example:
What if I wanted to compare the difference between grayscale converted scenes in movies? Maybe I'm a film student and I want to investigate how colors translate to 'black & white', because someday I want to make a single film that expresses a different message when viewed in color and when viewed in B&W. Is it possible to 'encode' meaning in a color version and a B&W version so the same movie, when viewed under different circumstances, will have vastly different interpretations?
To find out, I want the raw data of some other original works, so I can take samples, apply some conversions, and compare the results. I don't want to give these samples away, I probably don't even want to even keep them after I've got my notes, and a taped copy isn't going to work for me, because my hypothetical film will be digital from start to finish, and an analog step in getting the color conversions right makes everything break.
In this case, I need access to the raw data of other works of art. If these works are on DVD, and I'm restricted to using analog film to compare colors and color conversions, the above mentioned movie is much less likely to be made.
-- PondScum, SamThe
YOU ARE THIRSTY!!!
YOU NEED A NEW CREDIT CARD
Or more sophisticated data manipulation?
Examination of the exact bits displayed is the only method that would give an idea of added information.
sed 's/commun/terror/g' mccarthy > bush; sed 's/terror/saddam/g' bush > bush_wacked
"What examples of fair uses absolutely require access to the work in its most modern, digital, uncorrupted, un-macrovisioned form? The only one that jumped out at me is making a backup copy in case the original is destroyed. But perhaps there are others"
Several friends of mine write reviews for DVD websites. Its quite common to write a head-to-head review of two or more different releases of the same film; for example a reviewer of the new Criterion release of "Spartacus" would be remiss in their duty if they didn't answer the question of if it was worth purchasing for owners of the previously released version. In this case a picture can paint a thousand words about exactly how the image quality on the two discs compares, which in turn means you need exact images taken from the two discs - readers don't want to know what a photo of one television looks like in comparison to another.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
The problem with arguing that code is elegant and expressive is irrelevant.
The court is tasked with a First Amendment arguement that protects the basic
use of all speech, whether it is Insightful or Inciteful.
The task for 2600 et al,is to show that code stands on the same grounds as
"basic" speech, not as something more or less special than other forms
of speech.
How and Why a computer program is speech.
Computer programs are instructions and information used to perform
a given task.
A simple task can be stated in simple terms:
"Go to the sink and bring back a glass of water". But to accomplish
that task within a computer (virtually) or thru an automated process
(bringing the virtual representation back out to the physical world),
requires breaking the task down into smaller, and more exact steps.
Just as different people can explain those steps in different ways, so
to can programs that perform the same tasks be written in different ways.
Computer programs can be written in many languages.
This, accepted as fact, shows again the ability to present common
tasks and concepts in different ways. Comparing a single program
written in C, Perl, Lisp, and COBOL; will not only show significant
differences in the manner that the code is written, but can actually
show elements that are recognized as linguistically different and
distinct between each program. Further reinforcing the idea that
code is a form of speech. This is without even venturing into the
areas of psuedo-code (using standard speech to express computer
terms, or the development of many higher level languages (that
attempt to use code more closely related to standard spoken
and written language as the basis of computer instruction).
Computer programs are abstract representations.
Just as we use language to explain the relationships of
person-to-person or person-to-object; so too does a programmer
use language to explain the interaction of person-to-computer,
computer-to-computer, and computer-to-object.
We give definition to the outside world thru shared terminology,
just as we give definition to the virtual space of computing
thru shared code.
Computer programs represent thoughts and ideas
As it is based on abstractions, computer code can be interpretive
in meaning, and dependent on context and usage for both the
effect and effectiveness of the task, or presentation of ideas, that
it is written to accomplish. We recognize the distinctive nature
of poetry, prose, documentary, technical and legal writings;
one could argue that similar distinctions can exist in the writing
of code. That there are distintive coding styles taught in
schools, and contests both for efficient and expressive methods
of writing the code for the same programs, furthers evidence of
the same.
If one accepts that computer programs can represent thoughts, then
one must also accept that:
Just as spoken and written words are used to express thoughts,
so then must computer code be recognized as a form of speech.
Thoughts themselves are not recognized as dangerous in a free
society, and as such should not be legislated against.
It is the abusive and illegal actions taken upon those thoughts
that are constrained by law, and the courts have long recognized
the distinction between the two.
No government that expects to represent a free society can be
relied upon to control thought. For it is the thoughts and
speech of the members of an enlightened society that establishes
the very foundations of democratic government.
On the question:
"does fair use require access to a work in its original form?"
Yes, if there is any requirement of accuracy in the fair use of
the work.
When I read a piece in the NYT where a reporter is
quoting a speech made by the President, I do so with the understanding
that the reporter was actually hearing the President speak, and not
that the reporter was getting the quotes second-hand from someone
who claimed to be at the event where the speech was made.
Let's say I witness a crime (a bank robbery) and I just happen to
have a (high-quality) digital video camera that I use to film the
incident. Right after the robbers make a fast getaway, a crew from
the local news shows up, and being Jonny-on-the-spot, get me to sign an
exclusive waiver giving them full broadcast rights for the footage
I just took. Then the police arrive... They also want access to the
footage for evidentiary purposes, but the news team has no means to
make a copy for the police to take back to HQ. But they do have the
means to replay my footage by hooking my camera up to a TV monitor,
so they suggest pointing their analog camera equipment at the screen
to make a copy of the footage for the police. Sounds like a
"fair use" of the footage right?
Not if you take into account the requirement that a proper forensic
anaylsis of the footage needs as accurate a copy of the video I had
taken as possible.
Can't the police just take the camera and saved video away as evidence?
Perhaps, but that opens up a different can of worms over possible violations
of the civil rights of me and the news company I just signed the exclusive
agreement (copyright) with.
Okay, there's my explanations... Now who do I send them to?
I better stop using digital crowbars to unlock my users password (forgotten) WORD documents...
what next? real crowbars?
My goodness, I didn't know using a crowbar to pop MY rusted shut gate could get me into legal waters...
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
A local radio station, 96.5 in Houston www.khmx.com , plays 80s music every Friday. Last Friday the DJ brought in his own stuff because he was tired of hearing all the same 80s music over and over again. The problem...all his stuff was on Vinyl and they couldn't find the station's turn table. They eventually got an intern to search around for the turn table. After 3 hours searching they found it in a closet under x-mas decorations!
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
This is the part I found interesting:
He started with a hypothetical: What if someone developed a program that could shut off the navigation system in commercial airplanes? What if someone developed a program that could shut off smoke detectors in public buildings? Surely, he said, the government could ban the publication of programs which were a threat to people's lives.
The US attorney is obviously argueing that writing and diseminating such programs is illegal. I don't think it is, in fact such programs must exist because it is necesary to turn both of these devices off at times. It is not the writing of such a piece of software that is illeagal nor the disemination, it is the breaking into a computer system to use it, and the use of it for a malicous purpose. This is, in fact, exactly similar to how DeCSS should be viewed. It should not be illegal to write, disseminate, or have the software, simply to use it in illegal ways. It's already a crime to rip a DVD and post it on the net, it's not a crime to rip a DVD and put it on your hard drive for easier viewing. DeCSS is a tool with both legal and illegal uses, but the crime is in the specific uses, not the tool.I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
You're a researcher who wants to evaluate the efficacy of different compression algorithms-- compression vs. quality loss, etc
Hypothetical, perhaps a bit contrived, but you get the general idea.
This hypothetical situation has actually happened to me in a multimedia networking class. In the course of studying current video and audio formats, we spent a couple weeks on MPEG2. We needed practical examples to analyze what real-world encoders do on a range of real data. Those examples? A second of Blade Runner here, a second there, from several parts of the movie with interesting things happening on screen. DeCSS was used to obtain the data.
I believe this is unquestionably fair use: the material is being used in an educational setting, the quantity taken is very small relative to the size of the whole (two or three seconds out of a movie lasting 117 minutes), and there's no possible way it could harm the potential market for DVDs of Blade Runner. Moreover, this particular example requires the original digital data from the disk: you can't do analysis of MPEG compression (including things like coding efficiency and macroblock distribution) from a VHS tape!
An obvious counter to this is "you didn't have to use Blade Runner". No, but in order to analyze the performance of real-world encoders on real-world media, we need the output of those encoders (namely, the digital data from a DVD) by definition.
I don't think it should be a federal crime to show students how media compression techniques actually perform outside the classroom.
I must be missing something. It seems to me that the government admitted their case has little basis:
"Not one traditional copyright infringement has ever been attributed to DeCSS, and the movie studios admitted in the case that they could not produce even one example of an infringement due to DeCSS."
That seems to say that they don't know of any infringement cases. Let's call me hazy.
"Alter argued that the DeCSS case was similar -- the intent of distributing DeCSS is to promote violations of copyright law..."
Also,
"He stated flatly that the problem with digital works is that they can be copied."
I think the studios have it good. Nope, we can't show that it has ever happened. It could though, eventually, sometime, maybe, in a galaxy far, far away.
It almost makes me ill.
On the first question, I would say that well-written software which implements an algorithm can be far superior to a written explanation in terms of sharing the idea. A program which actually computes something can make the result computed more understandable to another programmer than a written description.
But my response for the second question: suppose I wanted to do a review of the special effects in a movie such as `The Matrix', and illustrate how effects have improved since the ones in some earlier movie. Such a comparison may well require a highly-detailed still image from both films, which wouldn't be possible without being able to produce such a still from the high-quality digital copy.
Can someone give a brief outline of the process that this case will go through. I'm guessing that oral arguments are for determining whether there is a case to argue. So what happens next. How does there being apparently three parties involved affect matters. If people don't get the results they desire what will the appeals route be (if 2600 win its would seem almost inevitable that the MPAA will appeal, maybe the gov too)
Special Relativity: The person in the other queue thinks yours is moving faster.
Fight Spammers!
1. natural language is considered to be expressive under the first amendment. 2. as programming languages achieve higher and higher levels of abstraction, they become more and more like natural language. evidence: first, take object code. Almost everyone that looked at object code in the raw would agree that it's not natural language and therefore not expressive. Now, take an assembly language, which is reduced to object code. assembly languages employ lexical shortcuts to make them more human readable; however, most people would still agree that assembly language is too concrete to be considered expressive. Now, take a high level langrage like Java. Java is reducible to an assembly language (Java bytecode). However, unlike lower level languages, it has requirements for both syntax of key words and also they order they come in the "sentence" (one line of code, a control statement, etc.). In this sense, Java is much more like a natural language than the lower level languages that we have looked at, yet it is still reducable into them. Now, look many years into the future. Given a technology which is sufficiently advanced, it is conceivable to write a program that would do the following things: a) allow a programmer to describe algorithms using natural language, and b) parse that natural language and create algorithmic structures that can be reduced correctly to lower level code. So where now is the distinction between natural language and source code? It has fallen away. My argument: the only reason that this case is even being argued is because of our level of technology. When we get to the level of technology when we can talk to our computer in algorithms and the computer will execute them, the source code speech argument will be moot, because it is idiotic to contend that a description of an algorithm in natural language written down on paper is speech but that same language fed to a computer to make a program is not. this now concludes my pithy argument. flame at will. -inq
This is really funny. I made a nice HTML formatted post, but the slashdot lameness filter prevented me to include any code example, so you can enjoy the post without the code.
I beleive it make the point of the article, but in an ironic way...
Go to <http://www.catseye.mb.ca/esoteric/index.html&g t;. You'll find various extraodinary humourous and clever computer langage and progams.
Befunge, for instance. This is hello world in befunge:
CODE REMOVED DUE TO DMCA^W LAMENESS FILTER.
See <http://www.catseye.mb.ca/esoteric/befunge/src/ hello.bf>
There are hilarious INTERCAL <http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/intercal> progams too (I spent one night programming the first INTERCAL quine, and it have been probably one of the funniest moment of my life). Every one involved in programming should at least read the manual once in its life. In particular the page related to the precedence of operators. Take a look at the niceties of the language, like the absence of GO TO (replaced by a COME FROM). Check compiler flags, in particular the NOKIDDING one..
The canonical INTERCAL program looks like:
CODE REMOVED DUE TO DMCA^W LAMENESS FILTER.
See <http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/intercal/intercal.t xt.gz>. Go to section 5.3 (search for 'perfectly clear'). PS manual is at <http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/intercal/intercal.p s.gz>
The IOCCC is another place to see artistic programs <http://www.ioccc.org/years.html>
The ultra-classic 1984 winner
CODE REMOVED DUE TO DMCA^W LAMENESS FILTER.
See <http://www.ioccc.org/1984/mullender.c>
And this one. It is a C program that looks like a train. Is it funny ? No. Now look at it:
CODE REMOVED DUE TO DMCA^W LAMENESS FILTER.
See <http://www.ioccc.org/1986/marshall.c>
The ability of beeing able to see the source code made all the difference. Well, should have, but slashdot prevented me to post it. At least I can still link...
Cheers,
--fred
1 reply beneath your current threshold.
free speech is the ability to be able to express yourself without being censored (unless your speach is actually harmful).
Free speach is really just an example of the intent of the constitution: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. The Lockean idea was that everyone has unlimited freedom up until your freedom interfere's with mine, and the role of government is to mediate these disputes.
Personally I hope that decss is not art, is not speach, and is not protected by copywrite, because that means that any digital string and especially an encrypted string has no expressive element and is not copywritable... "I'm sorry judge, Star War's on DVD is a program now according to this ruling, and does not therefore have a copywrite, the string of zero's and ones on this disk are just a recipee for how to build a movie... and no, judge, the appeals court specifically ruled that it doesnt matter if there's is an expressive element, programs are not protected speach."
---
If code isn't expressive, then how can copyright law be applicable to code?
If code is copyrightable, then it must be expressive.
Either DeCSS is free speech, or there is no such thing as software piracy.
The judge cut deep with a hard question: "Can you prosecute a newspaper who publishes a list of stores where obscenity can be purchased?" The parallels to this case should be obvious. The attorney dodged the question with an outstanding answer: "Yes and no." He tried to go back to his theory of looking at the overall conduct of the newspaper, but it was clear that he didn't want to say "Yes, we can prosecute the newspaper for publishing the list of stores" but did want 2600's actions to be covered, and wasn't sure how to reconcile those two desires ... and neither were the judges. I'm not sure they bought his argument.
Now I learned the Bill of Rights in the fourth grade. This is just purely a disgrace to the first amendment. They have no right and it's extremly sad that some asshole thinks he does. This guy should have his license taken away. And the statement about Movies over Music is just shit. They are millions more musicians than filmmakers and to say that film is on a higher level than music is just shit. I'm pist that I couldn't witness the show in person, I would have been thrown out for telling these two they really are Idiots!
AK
I contend that programs aren't expressive.
Hence they can't libelous or slanderous.
Here is the source code for a program I wrote. It's a shame that it's a bunch of meaningless non-expressive symbols.
------- BEGIN CODE -----------
#!/usr/bin/perl
$notlibel = endofrant;
The MPAA are child pornographers. They rape innoncent children, including their own offspring. They secretly hoard chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
endofrant
;
if ($notlibel) {
print "We thing the MPAA are great";
}
--------- END CODE -----------
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
OK, we all know that code is expressive and here's my angle on this point.
Every non-trivial piece of code is expressive as it encompasses the authors experience, current mental state, and understanding of the issue, analytical approach, and many other things. It could be argued that code in any form be it on screen or paper can be considered an artwork. Even though I don't understand modern arts I believe that those who study them know what is authors expression and what is too much time on their hands. The same goes for code. Most people can't understand it, but those who are studying computer sciences immediately see the real value of the code.
Value of the code is twofold. As you can see the Golden Gate Bridge as work of art, you can also see it either as magnificent engineering achievement either form of getting from point A to point B. Nobody will argue these points. The problem with code is that it is not as easy to admire as other established expressive forms. The code has functional meaning of solving the problem author was confronted with (getting from state A to state B), you can also look at it as pure mathematical (analytical) definition of problem solution and you can look at it as author understanding of the problem and vision of the solution. Through any code you can see how deeply the author is dedicated to his work. You can see how did he envision the solution. You can see what steps has he taken or not taken. You can see his proficiency in controlling this state machine called computer. I personally believe even that you can see when his/hers best mate broke up and how did he recover from that. You can see authors goals he has in life. You can understand how the author sees the world around himself. You can see enough data through looking in the code that Freud would probably went gaga. This is the only bane of the programming. For any non-trivial task two programmers or even same programmer at different times produce different code examples. You can emotionally attach to some form of code. You can hate the code. You can hate the way it was done, because you would do it differently. You hate most of your old code because it tells you how you acted and thought years before.
To sum it all up. Something you can develop emotional state against is close to the real thing, but the reasons for this emotional states define whether something is art or not. I believe the code is expressive and thus I believe the code can even be considered art. Code expresses more about author than many of us are even aware of. It is not the fact that everything you code can be described in plain human language that makes it different, it is the fact that everything expressed in plain human language can be expressed with code. I think this is definition of expressive.
Computer is the paper. Programming languages are crayons and pencils. Minds control the picture. Psychologists debate around pictures and what mental states the authors were when they wrote them. Trust me, I've seen examples of paranoid code, overcautious code, reckless code, depressed code, useless code, optimistic code. Take a look at the open source movement. These people met each other through communicating with code. I'll probably never meet Linus T., but I know how he thinks and acts. I know because every piece of code he wrote is piece of his thoughts breaking out of his head. You know someone when you know how he thinks. For us the code is the tool. For others, different things can be used.
Don't tell me that code is not expressive.
To boldly invent more hot water.
Moreover, I was also under the impression that if a device has any non-infringing utility (e.g., a VCR can legally time-shift programs, in addition to copying movies), then the courts consider it legal. I believe that was established primarily in the Betamax ruling. Hence, if the DeCSS has a legal purpose, which is to enable legal viewing (under First Sale) of legally bought movies, it should not be held accountable to other, less desirable usings of itself. What we have here is the VCR being held to one standard (perhaps because it was backed by a large corporation), while DeCSS is held to a much lower standard (perhaps because the defendents are 'hackers'). It's as if the courts have the dual view that practically no one was going to use the VCR for copying movies (perish the thought!), while, if DeCSS were to be legal, everyone and their lawless mother would be copying DVDs all over the place and then e-mailing them to each other!
Well, all I can say to that is: I don't know. My hatred of the MPAA/RIAA grows daily, and apparently our government has already thrown its hat in with the corporations that donate to it, rather than the people who elect it. I think a new type of civil disobedience needs to arise. The only problem is that Martin Luther King et. al. would have been hard-pressed to continue their civil disobedience if they were getting slapped with $500,000 fines rather than just short jail terms. Note that I'm not saying that public use rights and civil rights are in the same league of importance, merely that the civil disobedience model would be interesting in this situation.
"What we elect to call imagination is mere combination of things not heretofore combined." - Frank Norris
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Good point. If it is copyrighted, then the gov't has recognized that it is expressive speech. Obvious next step then is for someone to copyright DeCSS (or a derivative thereof), thus obtaining gov't recognition that it is indeed expressive speech.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Forgive me if this rambles a bit, as this is coming somewhat stream of thought....
Computer code is, at its very core, a description of how something ought to work. Some of it is very well thought out, and some of it is error-laden; most of it falls somewhere in between. These intentions of how it is to work are translated into usable form by the compiler that converts the code to executable form and the results made available to the outside world by the computer on which it runs.
The process, in its abstract form, is little different from any other descriptive process, whether it's how to run a business or how to run a government. The code is analagous to the idea that is formed and written down (coding or concept), made available in a usable form (compiling, business plan, legislation, or constitution), and put into use (code execution, opening the business, or installing a government).
The inherent beauty of something may be seen in different ways. Many people can see a chromed motorcycle or muscle car as beautiful, while others see the elegance in an equation or piece of computer code as the height of beauty. Science is often described as beautiful or elegant, but many people don't see it, and that's usually because their perception does not cover that particular use of the concept.
Computer code falls under the genre of science and mathematics, and so is, in a way, a pursuit of truth. Numerous precedents have allowed this same pursuit to continue, regardless of what gets out. IIRC, encryption code was deemed free speech not long ago despite the government's best efforts. This is a similar code structure, and should fall at least partially under that umbrella.
The main difference in this case, of course, is that it allows material encrypted by the copyright holder to be decrypted. The vast majority of these people are doing so to allow them to watch their DVD movies on operating systems which do not allow DVD playback, because of a refusal by the various copyright holders to produce such software. This is analagous to the civil disobedience so common in the United Stated in the '50s, '60s, and '70s, and practiced around the world for decades. People are peacefully protesting by breaking a law in a way which draws attention to their plight but which does not hurt anyone along the way. I am one of those who has joined in this; while I am a Windows user, I have downloaded the DeCSS source code from numerous locations, as well as getting the paper describing the breaking of SDMI. I believe that this information should be freely available. It is science; the users, for the most part, do own the very same DVDs that they decode; and it gets the attention that the situation deserves.
The full extent of the unconstitutionality of the DMCA is up for debate. I haven't read the entire Act, so I can't comment much on that. I do believe that it is overkill, though, and designed mostly to maintain (what I see as) an unacceptably high level of control over the copyrighted material. I do believe in copyright; I don't believe in oppressive ways of controlling it.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
I remember during the hysteria in the hours following the Oklahoma City bombing, it was reported that a "middle-eastern person" had been detained at a nearby airport because he was in possession of "bomb making tools", some of which were a hammer and pliers. Now, how many bomb makers do you suppose use a hammer to make bombs?
--The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese
It expresses:
1. Information. Like a dictionary or the manual
for a machine, code provides information detail.
Those are protected works...
2. Humor, drama, suspense! Code authors, by their
use of comments, variable names, entry point
labels (all of which are immaterial to the
function of the software) express their creative
style to build a literary work for their readers.
For example:
#
# If we got here, we may be in serious trouble...
#
if {$weAreNotDeadYet} {
#
# Boy, that was close!
#
liveDamnYou $stupidGeek
} else {
#
# It's no good I tell you
#
hesDeadJim $stupidgeek
}
That code clearly expresses humor above and beyond
the simple function of testing a variable in an
error handler. Likewise, ANY literary construct
can be establish as an overlay plane on the
functional structure of the software. Even bland
seemingly non-expressive code would then be
equally protected; an uninteresting news report
is just as protected as a heart wrenching story.
It just may not win any awards.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
In some places, it is illegal to posses a handgun. What's the difference? Merely magnitude of the potential crime, I guess... although a can of spraypaint can make a handy flamethrower or bomb.
-bluebomber
The Daily Build
Not that I disagree with you, code can be art. But it is speech. All computer code is just mathematical notations. Mathematical notations receive protection as speech (look at scholarly research journals). These are used to communicate ideas between individuals.
I forget just who it was, but when one of the greats of computer science came up with the realization that code is *not* for the computer, but rather for other programmers, he hit it right on the head! If we wrote code only for the computers, we might as well just throw all high-level languages (this would include assembly language!) out the door and write machine code. (That's a paraphrase of whatever the aforementioned author penned...)
-bluebomber
The Daily Build
Of course code can be an expression or art. This whole situation proves it.
/EXPRESSION/. The code has lost it's meaning as a decryptor.. it's an expression of the injustices of the DMCA.
Was 2600 interested in copying DVDs when they posted the links? No. If they were why did they post a bunch of them? Why did other web pages post all those links? Were they trying to copy DVDs? No... Remember, no one can find one case of a DVD being copied via that peice of code.
All those links to the code were an
Art is about expressing new ideas by showing you something you may not of thought of. That's why we have artists bottling up feces or having exhibts that have nothing in them but empty walls. They're trying to questions what 'art' is.. Trying to make you think. 2600 (and everyone else) is using DeCSS to EXPRESS their belief that the DMCA is flawed. Without it their expression wouldn't be nearly as effective. (We wouldn't have this story on Slashdot, for example). Just as a painter could express his opinions on 'what art is' by just talking, but gets the message across much better via his art. Talk about art with art. DeCSS is the technological expression of views towards the DMCA. I don't understand bottled feces.. and maybe the MPAA doesn't understand DeCSS - but that fact remains: It expresses the view of the technological community (aka Geeks).
Here's one: A movie reviewer takes a look at a movie just out on DVD. During his time watching the DVD, he realizes that there is a horrible technical glitch, or some endemic glitch in the video transfer. In order to demonstrate the problem, he would need to use DVD quality video. If he cannot take a clip from the DVD, but instead has to film in on a VHS camcorder, the quality will go down even more, and thus distort his (legitimate) beef with the movie.
--Rhadamanthine
Relying on ms security updates is careless, and sure don't help when the problem is with the ACME DSL gizmo or whatever.
Do you reeeeeealy believe defence against malicious crackers comes from anyware else than from the barrel of a smoking gun? 2600 is actually doing the non-hacker community a favor, although in private they'd hate me for saying it. And what on earth is malicious about DeCSS anyway? Are people really going to pirate a multi gigabyte AVI file over the net?
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Is pretty much in the eye of the beholder. In point, where the judge might not understand my code at all. A compentent programmer looking at my code, may see the beauty of it all. How the data flows, morphs ect...
Yes, it does sound funny. But if its true even as a interpertation by one person, then the statement is true. Just need to put one person on that stand that thinks its beautiful.
But I believe after being in court myself on a high tech court case. That this is what I call a distractant. Used to divert attention and resources that need to be applied to items in question that are more relevent to the actual law of this subject.
both of those examples are not good. He uses a tool to get something accomplished, but just because its used, does not mean its "expressive". Think harder.
witty sig goes here
Pithy, yet ultimately meaningless, phrase expressed with gusto!
Pithy, yet ultimately meaningless, phrase expressed with gusto!
What is music? A bunch of symbols which correspond to certain sounds at a certain frequencies. When combined in a certain order you get a product (output) which may or may not be pleasing to the ear.
People with superior skills in writing music have written Handel's Messiah. Those with less skill have written "Jingle Bells". Both of these are examples of people expressing something contained in their soul, karma, a deep-seated "something". Some people hate Handel's Messiah. Some people like listening to it. And other become completely engrossed in listening to how the complex harmonies come together
It's the same with people who write code. Think about it.....
1. If their arguement that code!=speach is accepted as true, Doesn't that include their source code? In other words, if we don't have speach protection, neither do they.
2. Couldn't thier DVD players (software/hardware) be considered as circumvention devices, because if there are pirated DVDs (which they seem to insist there are) that are played on? Hell, If I could, I would do it (copy DVD a bit-by-bit from a friend, play under a windows software DVD player.) just so that it could be used as an arguemt for 2600.
3. If money is speach (as the supreme court has ruled in cases past) wouldn't being forced to pay for the software DVD players be akin to what you say under duress, as you HAVE to get a software DVD player with any DVD-ROM drive for a computer unless you get it used or are a large OEM (correct me if I am wrong)
4. Why the are people so stupid?
Code is like a recipe for a computer. While it may be ilegal for me to make a bomb, the recipe for making the bomb is protected speach. While it may be illegal (in certain circumstances) for me to make a copy of a movie, the instructions detailing how to make that copy are protected speach.
The short version is no-one on the list new if CSS had been used on the frames of public domain movies.
But yes, public domain DVD's already exist
Yes, which is why the onus is on the industry to prove that this fair use can be satisfied through some means without the general distribution of decryption tools. AFAICT, if they can't, then DMCA is unconstitutional. They think they can.
DeCSS remains a tool which can be used for good or ill, it requires user actions beyond the simple usage of the tool
The same is true of fully-automatic rifles or lumps of uranium-235. When things can be used "for good or ill" and when there is reason to suppose that they will typically be used for ill, then those things will typically be heavily regulated.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Unless I have been living under a rock for a while and "New York Times" is actually slang for a means of stealing telecom services, I think that his analysis is pretty hard to fault here. 2600 magazine has a long history ("Fun at Costco") of giving people instructions on how to knowingly break the law, and it's pointless to pretend otherwise.
Furthermore, two of michael's points seem to contradict each other. We have
Technically-literate people may realize that mass DVD copying is performed by stamping complete copies of the DVDs, encryption and all, no decryption required,
and
Apparently, in the attorney's world, once that lone copy is made, it pretty much automatically puts itself on the Internet with no further acts by any individual
Which misses the states' point about DeCSS -- it's uniquely dangerous precisely because it *isn't* a copying utility -- it's a decryption utility. Because of that, it makes it possible to "rip" protected content and convert it to all manner of different (more easily traded and recopied) formats.
I make no comment on the rights and wrongs of the case, btw.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
she stated that computer programs were expressive, and the judge asked her to explain....I felt the response was lacking.
This was discussed extensively in the Amicus Curiae briefs, for example, at
- Programmers' & Academics' Amici Brief in "MPAA v. 2600"
Case
- EFF/2600 Appeal Brief in MPAA v. 2600 Case
- ACM's Amicus Brief in "MPAA v. 2600" Case
He didn't use the "digital crowbar" metaphor, but insisted that publishing DeCSS was like publishing the combination to a bank vault in a newspaperThe EFF/2600 Appeal Brief in MPAA v. 2600 Case says
Now, if I said "F*ck the F*cking F*ckers!" over and over again to an angry beat, no court in the nation would question my "Song"'s expressive value, even if all that is being expressed is inchoate rage.
Lots of people have been giving examples, which I admire and agree with, pointing the beauty or mathematical foundations of code. But why do we have to even defend the expressive value of code???
I'm serious! Why do we have to defend the expressive value of code? It can be written down/stored and read by a large group of other (independent) humans who can gather meaning from it. What more is there???
Conversely, if the courts want to be strict about expressiveness, the copyrights to 'N Sync should be nullified!
A computer program is written using a computer language. This language has syntax. You cannot enter random streams of characters or even lexical tokens, as the compiler will reject them with a syntax error. To the compiler then, and the computer, the program you write expresses something - it has meaning. Meaningless phrases are rejected as .... meaningless.
Isn't that just like speech?
You can just buy one DVD player for each country code if you need original quality in this case. After all, if it is "reasonable" to have to buy a VHS copy whenever you want to make a clip from a DVD you own, what's wrong with buying multiple DVD players to watch DVDs from different parts of the world (aside from the sheer stupidity, which doesn't seem to matter to some of the people involved in this case)? If there is a legal (though costly) alternative, the point won't carry much weight in court (judging by the "just buy another copy" mentality that has been expressed previously).
The problem here is that for most of us, this point is so intuitively obvious that it becomes difficult to express to others. Code, like any form of speech, is composed of elements that by themselves are of little value (a single letter or character, a pixel, tile, or small quantity of colored material, etc.). The expression comes from combining these elements into some functional form.
For example, an algorithm expressed in plain English is speech (I hope everyone can agree on that) - it is a description of one person or group's idea of how something can be done. That same algorithm, when implemented in code, doesn't suddenly lose its status as speech - it still has the same qualities, only in a different form.
To those who don't understand it, code is just nonsense. To others, code can be seen as an expression of a concept in terms of fundamental structures, just like a mosaic or a philosophical argument. Computer programming is just a medium that, like television, audio, or printed media, can be used to express ideas, entertain, educate, solve problems, or just waste time.
Looking specifically at DeCSS, it can be difficult to see the speech issues involved, just like if you try to judge the speech content of television based on watching one of those silly "reality" shows. If you step back and look at the potential for expression though, it becomes obvious that programming is a medium for speech and expression, and that speech takes the form of code.
This really seems like a stretch. I can't help but think that there is a better way to go about arguing the case than from the Second Ammendment. At some level this should be a public policy issue, not necessarily simply a legal one. I guess in the context of the court room you would have to use this type of argument from legal prcedent, but shouldn't the real decision be made upon what is the best overall policy? IMHO the best argument against the DMCA is made on a pragmatic economic base. It is actually better for capitalist economies (i.e. drives competition) if you deregulate such things. I'm not sure I am convinced by this, finally, but it is at least better than some kind of fuzzy argument about the beauty of code.
Even if that argument doesn't hold, one can easily defend the merits of code as an art form. Obfuscation contests exist, which judge programs primarily upon the basis of the style in which they are written; code has been validated as art. One could even claim that the awards given by software expos that celebrate programs for their functionality make the performance of a program as much of an art form as the way in which it was written. Either way, it becomes difficult to deny that programming is personal expression. --My vote goes to the cannibal party!--
I may be way off base here, but I believe Open Source itself can be evidence of the expressiveness of code. Why would programmers share their works but to prove the beauty of what they can create? Functionality creates its own beauty, right? So functional code can be beautiful. Sharing that code allows others to appreciate its elegance.
Since when is this a valid legal argument? IANAL, but I always thought "probably" didn't cut it as far as evidence goes.
Surely, [AG Atler] said, the government could ban the publication of programs which were a threat to people's lives.
As others have pointed out, DeCSS is not life-threatening; at most it's proft-threatening. I think a good "slippery slope" argument; extend it to its extreme.
This is a bad analogy. (Adopting the opposition's opinion for argument's sake only.) The purpose of DeCSS is to violate copyright law, allowing its speech component to be ignored. Alter is arguing that the NYT isn't permitted to cover the picketers, because the picketers were committing a crime.
[Alter] stated flatly that the problem with digital works is that they can be copied.
Actually, doesn't this beg the question of why the MPAA is going to digital at all?
The point Alter narrowly evaded evaded it (sic) is that the act of publishing a copyrighted work to the world is a copyright violation in the traditional sense, and is punishable under traditional laws.
This is something that needs to be driven home to the judges, because it serves as yet another example of the "less restrictive means" Congress is obliged to use.
I hope these are some useful points Ms. Sullivan could raise.
A big part of sitting in film school is watching movies. We prefer to watch them in the purest form we can because color, framing and grain of the film matter a great deal for the expression of the work. Most films we watched on FILM CELLULOID in classes or theaters. We weren't expected to bring them home and watch the celluloid.
We WERE expected, though, to watch the film on our own for private analysis to extract techniques (especially for learning Stop Motion Animation) and to really figure out what's going on. We had a film library with videos and Laser Disks (about 5 years ago, remember) that had to be checked out and watched in the library in these little porno-like booths. At the time, that's fine, but waiting in line to watch a film plain old stinks.
I also worked for the School's IT dept and at the time, Yahoo rated us the #1 Wired Liberal arts school in the country for our kick ass network and great intranet and internet access. We had this great technology (students could do their editing from their rooms calling up X windows from the avid machines in multi user mode, among other things).
I didn't realize it THEN, but i realize it now, that a digitized library of films from DVD clips in their pure form would be a great solution to the film library problem. the students can watch the film in the second best form (celluloid still rocks) which is FAR better than VHS copies or LaserDisks watched in little booths. Multiple students could watch HIGH QUALITY motion pictures for educational purposes if the DVDs could LEGALLY be decoded.
-----
Becaese, AS I SAID IN THE ORIGINAL POST, the argument about the interalation btw fair use, DMCA and copy quality is not limited to DVD.
-- look, cheese ahoy!
DeCSS is also useful to evade country codes, which is also a fair use issue and also requires a same as original quality.
Even when quality can be inferior, it cannot be noticeably inferior without denting significantly into fair use right. The degradation introduced by xeroxing a book or using a VCR or tape is acceptable, because these techniques were at the background of the present legal situation. mandating degradation beyond that ( like shooting the signal with a camera ) should be seen as watering down fair use.
-- look, cheese ahoy!
Keep in mind that there is NO FAIR USE PROVISION in the DMCA. What does this mean? In terms of the law itself, it does not matter whether or not you are violating the copyright by using a tool. It only matters that you are circumventing the technology that the copyright owner is using to protect their copyright. There is no fair-use provision in the DMCA at all. The only provision that has been made at all is an exception for people reverse-engineering lists of banned sites in software that restricts what sites you can go to on the Internet.
Now, the fact that there is no fair-use exception means that when the copyright expires, it will still be illegal to distribute tools that circumvent the copyright-protection mechanisms if the tool also bipasses the copyright protection of other works. If you accept that such tools will be legal in the future, then you must accept that all such tools are legal now, since we can create DVDs and explicitly waive copyright protection.
The best analogy I can come up with that clears up this whole thing is as follows:
Imagine that you write a book, and you print it with a font that is so small that it can not be read without magnification of some kind. Now, someone comes along and invents a magnifying glass, so that they can read your book that they have purchased. If you are worried about illegal copies of your book, then you probably would do better to try to ban photocopiers than magnifying glasses. This is a simple example that I think a layman could understand.
And as far as code being art goes, why not read them some Perl poetry from the Oriely Perl book?
Randy
http://www.rhce2b.com
Randy.Flood@RHCE2B.COM
would it not be relatively easy to create a program / filter to convert c code (or your favorite language) to text (or something else) that was clearly covered under first amendment laws and then a second filter that could convert it back? Would this not also demonstrate that the code was equivalently covered by the first amendment?
I would like to ask the judge this:
0 00100001010101010101000010000101010101010100001000 01010101010101000010000101010100101000010000101010 10101010000100001010101010101000010000101010101010 10010101000010000101010101010100001000010101010101 01000010000101010101010100001000010101010101010000 10000101010101010100001000010101010111010100101010 0101010010101001010100101010
0 01010101010010101000100101010101001010100010010101 01010010101000100101010101001010100010010101010100 10101000100101010101001010100010010101010100101010 00100101010101001010100010010101010100101010001001 01010101001010100010010101010100101010001001010101 01001010100010010101010100101010001001010101010010 1010001001010101010010101001
0 10101010100101010001001010101010010101000100101010 10100101010001001010101010010101000100101010101001 01010001001010101010010101000100101010101001010100 01001010101010010101000100101010101001010100010010 10101010010101000100101010101001010100010010101010 10010101000100101010101001010100010010101010100101 010001001010101010010101001
One of the following is a binary representation of No Logo by Naomi Klein; the other is DeCSS:
0101000010000101010101010100001000010101010101010
and
1010100101010010101001101010010101010100101010001
Please tell me which one is a work of art, an act of expression or an instance of speech. Please identify which should be protected as Free Speech.
Just for shits and giggles, show him this:
0101001010100101010011010100101010101001010100010
What we have above is his doctoral thesis, his last ruling or a love letter to his wife. It may not be obvious to him, but there are some people (not including myself) who would be able to identify each of these instances.
It is beyond comprehension why this case is even being considered - it is obvious that the sole motivation to the DMCA is to protect profit in exchange for liberty and freedom. When discussions of this type are so clearly oppressive one has to consider what the *REAL COST* is. There are *VERY* few things that should be considered as reason to limit liberty - and MPAA profit isnt even approaching this group.
. So apparently something like this:
... is fine, while this:
"This is a scholarly discussion of DeCSS. We are a major media outlet, and would never encourage lawlessness, so this link to DeCSS is okay."
"Hey all you l337 h4x0rz, come get DeCSS and use it to copy movies and watch them automatically distribute themselves via the Internet!"
This is a very scary idea. Essentially you are creating a case where certain *people* are allowed 'free speach while others are not. This is a terribly slippery slope to a point where a person may not be officially sanctioned to speak freely. This is much different from the 'shouting fire in a movie theater' ban on 'free speach' that is accepted (maybe wrongly) as being a fair restriction to free speach - and drawing the legality based on the speaker, his motivation, his status, and probably (and very sadly) his bankbook.
For any American reading this: this is what happens when you abandon you allow your government to openly take bribes and sell your democracy to lobbyists and Corporations. It these people hadnt been given so much power you wouldnt see laws like these that begin to put profit and corporate interest ahead of citizens.
This is a hard thing to explain to people who don't code, since they don't see, and don't understand, what goes on inside a program. But it's clear enough to anyone who can compare two programs that approach the same task in different ways.
The best analogy I can come up with (and it's not very good) is with a piece of active sculpture. Perhaps one of those ball and bucket ones you see in airports, or any type of moving sculpture. They do things, they have a function. But they also have an underlying beauty. Some of them are good, some of them are not, but nobody would argue that they aren't an expression and a statement by the artist. Code is like that. There are an infinite number of ways of saying something with code, but how you say is the difference between something that is elegant and a joy to read, and something that is ugly and unreadable.
People get fooled by the term "Computer Science". They think programming is something that is repeatable. That programers can be plugged in and out. But the best programmers are clearly artists. And the best programmers often never took any of those computer "science" courses.
To quote:
Code isn't expressive simply by looking at it. It's meaning is only comprehended by understanding it. At this point you can see how the writer approached the problem, how s/he handles special cases - all this and more is expressed through the code.
You could say that the problem with code WRT. the 1st Amendment is it's dualism - on one hand, it can be made beautiful, on the other hand, a great piece of code could do something like generate batches credit card (Luhn) numbers.*
You could compare code to musical notation. In some cases, (Bach, Chopin) the notation itself is readable and if you're a good musician you can imagine the piece in your head, just as a programmer can imagine the effect of a piece of code.
But staring at the code is nothing like seeing it in operation, just as staring at the piece is nothing like hearing it. And whereas musical notation expresses music, it could be said that at the lowest level source code is an expression of formal logic or number theory.
*And yes, I know there are legitimate uses for credit card number generators..
For some good points on how code can be interpreted as a form of expression, I suggest someone submits some excerpts from Donald Knuth's books to the judges (specifically "Literate Programming", and the introduction to "The Art of Programming"). It may not be too explicit, but he's an authorative figure so it would work as antecedent that the concept of mixing code, aesthetics and expression is not "far out". Of course, more contemporary and explicit examples would be obligatory (Perl haikus or something like that?).
Personally, I find it strange that it's so hard to see code as expression. Long rant on a particular way to see them as expression follows:
From the literal point of view, if mathematics can be seen as expression, then code by extension has to be expression. But I'm not sure if the law sees mathematics as non-functional expression.
From a "paradigmatical" point of view, languages have a lot of expression on the mode of thought of those who create them, and those who use them.
Object-oriented languages are Platonic paradigms: everything descends from "Object" in java (just an example), which is the primal Form, from which all other Forms descent, and instances are only beautiful in that they participate in such Forms. Instances, on the realm of appearance, are irrelevant except as a function of the beauty of design.
An assembler programmer is a materialist. Everything is matter/energy and can be reduced to their fundamental manifestation (1 and 0); but for practical reasons we deal with them in the fundamental particle level. The designs are just collections of these particles, which are collections of 1s and 0s, and there is no reality to them.
A non-structured program would be more similar to the pre-Socratics greeks, with different elements making up substance, the difference being only in quantity. A program is made of loops, assignments, comparisons and jumps (lots of jumps), and there is no theory about how they're supposed to be together.
Procedual programming would be more similar to Medieval Alchemy, where there were some recipes to create new substances from the basic elements, and it was by combining these different substances that even more complex substances were obtained.
I don't know enough about functional programming (or philosophy) to figure out what the analogy would be like, but I would really like to know if anyone has an idea.
In the end, though, Plato still wins. It's still about building abstract models and pretending they're real, even more real than what they model, even if the model doesn't follow that concept recursively in its design.
I bet there are lots of different ways to give unnecessary significance to code, just like for pictures, writing, film or speech. That's the whole point of art/expression.
The fact that letters are used in formularies and photos in IDs doesn't stop writing and photograph from being considered expression. Why should code be put to a harder test?
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
Moderate up the parent of this message.
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
Here's an example of fair use that would require high-quality from the original:
If I want to research whether there was a second sniper at Kennedy's murder, or whether there was a UFO (or not) over New York last night, or I want to prove that I was at the Superbowl, somewhere along the thousands of spectators, I need the greatest possible detail to zoom in or out at pleasure, and accesible in digital format, to do whatever manipulations increase the quality of the tiny screen area I'm interested in.
I also think that the compromise in general is not a good idea for either part. It separates the difference between fair use and copyright infringement from the idea of content, and it goes over to quality.
What is copyright infringement and what is fair use, then? Is it "fair use" to go to a movie theater and film the whole movie with a handycam, because the quality is poor?
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
I'm not entirely convinced about this argument, but then IANAL. In particular it seems a bit of a stretch from "original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression" to "expressive". OTOH, the categories of copyrightable work are clearly all expressive so maybe "expressive work" is a good definition for "copyrightable work".
In Minnesota law (this may vary by state) I could get no search results in the statutes for "lock pick". It may be completely legal to own these devices here. I did find a parallel technology, though. Apparently possession of a code-grabbing device (like the tape recorder Matthew Broderick used in Wargames to get out of the infirmary room) is prohibited, but only if there is intent to use it for an unlawful purpose. The penalty for that is up to 3 yrs in prison or up to $5k.
As to what can the government ban? Whatever it wants apparently. After all, they've banned certain weeds and decorative plant by-products for years-- and everybody loves it!
I do not have a signature
Suppose you're a Senator who really hates pr0n. In particular, you hate the fact that the MPAA gives R ratings to movies with full frontal nudity like Basic Instinct. And you want to claim that the famous Sharon Stone shot is sick and wrong, and the MPAA is poisoning the minds of America's youth.
So you prepare an angry video (strictly for your fellow Senators, of course) blasting the MPAA and including the famous shot. Without access to the original video, without CSS and without Macrovision, it will surely be blurred to such an extent that the message of youthful innocence lost by frankness about genitals will be lost!
So really, it's all for the sake of America's children. Tell that to the judge!
sulli
RTFJ.
Look, this is a very simple case. All these analogies and arguements fall flat once simple definitions are made.
Definition 1. CSS
CSS is an key-based encryption technology. Movie studios "own" the keys and "lisence" them to DVD player manufacturers of their choice. It is not possible to view a DVD encrypted with CSS without one of these keys built into your DVD player or without a software program to decrypt the video with a key.
Definition 2. DE-CSS
DeCSS is a software program which can decrypt a CSS encoded video. A valid key must be provided to DeCSS for it to work.
That's it. Those are the definitions. Much simpler than any that are being used in court I bet. Now, viewed like this, with no connotations attached to either definition, what is wrong with DeCSS?
I have a program on my PC which does the exact same thing DeCSS does. It's called a software DVD player(Zoran SoftDVD if you must know) and it works with my DVD-ROM drive to let me and my family watch DVDs. That's all DeCSS does, but it allows people who didn't purchase a "lisence" for a key to decrypt DVDs. DeCSS allows USE of the material on a DVD. It allows legal as well as illegal use. If weapons manufacturers aren't held responsible for crimes committed with their weapons, why would the people who wrote/provide DeCSS be responsible for piracy?
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
As other posters in this thread have pointed out, using DeCSS to rip a DVD and then allowing others to access that digital copy without encryption is the "threat" of DeCSS.
Stamping large numbers of copies has to be done with big, expensive equipment. It has to be done with supplies of blanks. It will have a central distribution point that the private investigators working for the *AAs can track down. The RIAA isn't scared of "commercial" pirates. Neither is the MPAA. The person they are scared of is Joe Sixpack. Joe won't make lots of copies, and Joe won't sell those copies for money, but Joe won't buy those movies from Best Buy either. And there are a lot of Joe Sixpacks in this world.
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
If law were as expressive as code, our society might be a saner place.
Why is code expressive? I found this question was vexing, until I considered the meaning of "expression".
So what does "expression" mean? To express is to create a work that can be interpreted.
What is a "work" ? A "work" is a pattern embodied in a medium that can be perceived.
What is a "medium" ? Humankind has a long history of developing and using new mediums, including: cave walls, paper, microfilm, and more recently: electronic media.
What is "interpreted" ? To interpret is to deduce meaning by applying commonly accepted concepts and principles to a particular pattern.
Examples of interpreting:
It is abundantly obvious that these examples, namely books and laws, are expressive things. And while a great many other things are expressive, we are focusing on computer code.
Computer code is a work, created by human hand.
Computer code exists as a pattern in a medium.
Computer code can be interpreted by a suitably skilled person, thus conveying deep and complex information.
To the casual observer, computer code looks as expressive as any legal statute - like utter nonsense. This is neither the fault of the observer, nor is it the fault of the code nor the statute. In other circumstance (such as after attending law school), any person would be able to properly read and interpret a legal statute.
Consider this: "Nee hau mah?" Is it expressive? Yes, if you are skilled in Mandarin: then you would know that it means "How are you?" If you are unskilled in Mandarin, does that make it less expressive? I think not.
Merely because some are unskilled in legal matters does not render a statute expressionless.
Merely because some are unskilled in programming does not render code expressionless.
Code is expression of a very pure form, allowing people to create works of great clarity and precision.
Maybe they should work the angle that code is expressive because anything that can be expressed in code can just as easily be expressed in English or Mathematics. All it is is a sequential set of instructions and there have even been translators written to convert various programming languages from code to English and back. So by banning code you are banning sequential lists of instructions in English since they are one in the same.
Erms, what about actually watching the movie? To display it, you need the image data in unencrypted form. Even if your video card can help you dealing with the Macrovision crap, sooner or later you need to decrypt the data to play it.
Another point: the DeCSS code allows people to watch movies they bought, without buying a player from a company which licensed the required keys. If feel there's nothing wrong about buying a movie and being allowed to watch it, no matter what player from what company the consumer prefers to use.
Damn. :)
A traditionally coded application, from Office through to Quake, the Linux kernel to Windows XP, doesn't really express anything. Its a means to an end.
Being a means to an end and expressing something are not mutually exclusive. The source code for any computer program is the ONLY complete and accurate description of what that program is and what it does. Not what it "should" do, or what the documenter was told it would do, but what it does.
A computer program, such as a compiled DeCSS, is a device. The source code for that program serves two functions. First, it instructs the compiler (or interpreter) on how to create the device. Does an episode of "Emeril Live!" contain speech? After all, Emeril is telling people how to do something - to cook a particular dish. He embellishes quite a bit, but then, most source code I see has quite a bit of commentary in it. Is only the commentary portion speech, so that "BAM!" is protected, but "Add a pinch of the garlic we just ground to the pesto base" can be censored willy-nilly? Code, as instructive, is speech.
Even if the merely prescriptive were not expressive, and thus not protected speech, code would not qualify as unprotected because, as I mentioned above, it is the code which describes the compiled system. I'm not legally allowed to carry a MAC-10. A MAC 10 is a machine pistol capable of fully automatic fire at a rate of over 20 rounds per second and holding a standard 50 round magazine. Is that sentence not protected speech because what it describes is illegal for me to have? Or is it protected speech (as the phrase "digital crowbar" would appear to be) merely because it's a really BAD description of a MAC-10 and isn't accurate?
In short, source code is expressive because it explains how to do something and because it describes something other than itself. The only thing that sets it apart is that many people don't understand it. However, last time I checked it was still protected to walk around speaking Lithuanian in the US.
The problem I have with this argument is where to draw the line. If you say that C or Assembly program is speech, then what about machine code (yet another language form)/binaries? What about engineering plans or architectural blue prints? What about the commmand you type when you use grep to search for something? It uses regex, which is also language... These are all valid expressions in their own languages but I have great difficulty referring to them as "speech".
I understand the argument that since programming languages are designed for humans not machines, it must be speech. i.e. a machine doesn't need your program to be written in C - it only understands 0s and 1s. We write in C/Perl/Lisp/(your favorite language) because that code can be efficiently translated into the language that a machine can understand and execute and at the same time be readable to us (well, in case of Perl, that may not necessarily be the case).
HOWEVER, the primary purpose of a program written in a programming languages is so that eventually it would be translated to machine code and executed on some processor and perform some task. (at least that's what happens 99% of the time). If you buy this argument, then ANY TYPE of automated instructions to machines (something as simple as moving a mouse, perhaps) have to be considered speech as well, and I'm not sure that there are a lot of judges willing to stretch the First Ammendment that far (to call almost everything that we produce in life as speech)
At any rate, I do believe that DMCA is evil and must be overturned, but I just don't think that using this argument that any computer code is speech is going to get us very far...
Or what about people with Lou Gherig's disease? The smartest man on the planet can only communicate by moving a stylus with his mouth. Some version of code is the only way he can communicate (imputs to a speech generator as code? maybe).
As far as fair use (the second point) is concerned, If MPAA says that they only liscense me to the shiny piece of plastic that a DVD comes on, then they should have to replace it for free for my lifetime. If the media degrades, or chips or gets a scratch from normal use, and I can't make a backup, then I want a new disc. Yeah, I'll see that one about the same time as the universe dies an entropy death
Still, with a plan, you only get the best you can imagine. I'd always hoped for something better than that. -CP
1. Why and how is a computer program expressive speech? What does it express? 2600's lawyers are entirely familiar with Touretzky's Gallery, so forget about those. Assume you have some C or perl staring at you, any random block of code in any random print-out. What does it express? Why should that code be protected expression? A. It[code] is an expression of an idea someone had for a method of accomplishing a task. A set of instructions for getting that task done. It applies to both humans and machines, since a human cannot understand it[idea behind the code] without reading the code to understand the idea being conveyed. 2. What examples of fair uses absolutely require access to the work in its most modern, digital, uncorrupted, un-macrovisioned form? The only one that jumped out at me is making a backup copy in case the original is destroyed. But perhaps there are others. A. Would not the entire OpenSource Initiative and OpenSource community be an example of what fair use is? A coder takes code from another coder, that coder then reads that code, compiles the code, comes to terms with what is being accomplished, then tweaks that code to perform some kind of public service, i.e. beautification of the code making it easier for others to read, fixing bugs, etc. Every revision of the code creates a copy. Possibly in CVS, on a backup tape which contains a copy of that CVS repository to protect it from possible disasters, etc.
--SuperBug
Although you and I think it illustrates the absurdity, the US Attorney was actually using it as an argument to surpress free speech. He was citing is as a logical similarity to blatantly terrorist acts. I think Oscar26 nailed it. He was talking down to the judge.
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You can make no logical conclusion about DeCSS from this argument. Lives aren't in danger. Safety isn't compromised. This was probably in arguments and he was free to say anything--and apparently he did.
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1. Why and how is a computer program expressive speech? What does it express? 2600's lawyers are entirely familiar with Touretzky's Gallery, so forget about those. Assume you have some C or perl staring at you, any random block of code in any random print-out. What does it express? Why should that code be protected expression?
Let's look at this simply.
Programming code is written in a language.
It expresses a unique solution, understanding, and knowledge of a problem.
Other people gain insight and understanding from it.
This seems eerily close to any other possible type of publication in existence, all considered legal forms of expression (otherwise, could they copyright books, newspapers, etc?). My question, how is it not expression? Could we explain in english how exactly to write the program, and would it be legal then? If programming code isn't expression, then neither is anything anyone has ever written in any language...
1. Why and how is a computer program expressive speech? What does it express? 2600's lawyers are entirely familiar with Touretzky's Gallery, so forget about those. Assume you have some C or perl staring at you, any random block of code in any random print-out. What does it express? Why should that code be protected expression?
A traditionally coded application, from Office through to Quake, the Linux kernel to Windows XP, doesn't really express anything. Its a means to an end. Theres no real intended statement, its a tool. Just as the words in my documentation aren't a novel, and my nicely presented flowcharts aren't art. They serve a definite purpose, and that isn't one of expression.
However, thats not to say code can't be an expression. If I write 'perl -e print 'Lawyers suck!'; some would argue that its just a bit of code, its just something that gets interpretted, its not art. Yet I might argue it is art. Art, and expression, is subjective. I could stand in front of the Mona Lisa and say 'Its just an oil based compound we call 'paint''. While technically correct, that doesn't stop it being art.
Just the same is true of DeCSS. On one hand its just a bit of C. On the other it demonstrates some deep rooted belief in freedom. Its subjective.
Of course, the difficulty arises persuading a court of law what art and expression is all about. Sometimes I'm very glad ianal.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
A bit theatrical, I admit, but here goes:
Obtain a copy of a well-known work of print fiction, a film novelization (something obvious, like "Star Wars", or similar) in a foreign language (it should be one that the major players in the courtroom, including the 2600 defense team, cannot read; e.g., Swahili, Polish, Japanese). This work should be scanned into an ordinary textfile. Obtain a copy of the same work as a DVD.
Obtain the services of a person who reads and speaks the langauge of the print work.
"Your Honors , this is an encrypted work, in that, as far as I know, no-one in this courtroom can read and understand it; It was deliberately chosen for this property." [display and pass around book]. "It is exactly similar to a DVD in the following respects: it is a work of art; it is published in a format that is not, without deliberately applied translation, usable to its current intended audience, in a word and for purposes of this demonstration, encrypted; It has been sold (not licensed) to its current possesser; It is protected by copyright. In short, it is functionally equivalant to this DVD." [display and pass around DVD] "The DVD in your hand contains the work. It is owned by me, not licensed to me. It cannot be viewed without deliberately applied translation (it could be read, as-is, from the disc, but doing this would result in no meaningful pictures or sounds being displayed upon the viewing device)." [If possible, demonstrate this by playing the DVD without decrypting it]. "It is also protected, even absent the DMCA, by copyright."
"The attorneys for the MPAA and the US AG would have you believe that decryption facilitates, or may even be a requirement for, piracy. This can easily be disproved. This file contains a complete and accurate rendition of this text." [demonstrate contents of file] "I will now procedd to demonstrate piracy." [have assistant begin making copies of the work on to floppies/zip-disks/whatever, and hand them to judges] "Your honors, pease note that, while none of these copies are in anyway decrypted, they are still saleable. I don't have to decode them to make them or sell them. In exactly that way pirates will make as many copies of the DVD as they like without being able to decrypt them. These exact copies will be just as saleable and more importantly, _just_as_useful_ as the original."
"Up to now, we have completely demonstrated the piracy and copyright infringement cycle of piracy from start to finish (excepting the actual exchange of cash for bootleg copy) without once even _mentioning_ DeCSS. The questions arise, therefore, What _is_ DeCSS (in other words, what does it do) and how does the DMCA affect it? The sections of the DMCA that are relevant to this program and this case do not once mention the copying of a work, merely its decryption. DeCSS and similar programs (including the ones licensed by the MPAA) merely allow the intelligible reading of the work. That is the sum total of their function." [introduce translator] "For the purposes of this copy of the work, this is DeCSS." [translator should translate a small piece of the work aloud] "Now, Your Honors, assume for a moment that this particular language was the only language in which fiction was published. This is exactly the situation with DVD's. All DVD's use the same encryption; And we have previously demonstrated that decryption is totally unneccessary for piracy. In fact, such decryption might very well decrease the utility (and thus the value) of the DVD, but this is an issue a bit off to the side at the moment. To return to the point at hand: assume that the language of this book is the only language that fiction is published in. Assume further that- a) it is a language that the publishing houses created specifically for this purpose, b) that publishing houses have made the posession of a license a condition of the learning or use (even as far as reading to onesself is concerned) of this language. In short, it is illegal to have this text translated to you by any other than a licensed translator, it is illegal for you to learn the language yourself to translate for yourself or anyone else without a license, and the license is revocable at the whim and pleasure of the publishing company. This means that, although you may buy the book, you may not learn to read it yourself, nor may anyone publish a translation dictionary of the language. This is DeCSS. This is the DMCA."
Yeah, it could use some work as a script, but the idea is there. Maybe the defense and judges will find it helpful. I hope so. This is getting out of hand...
It's Gerald Jay Sussman, not Hal Abelson. They have morphed in my mind since they posed for that composite photo on the back of the SICP book :)
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
I have another suggestion: Hal Abelson gave a speech at Ars Digita in which he went the other way- that literary expression, when it's good, uses algorithmic/programming elements. This breaks down the barrier between speech and code in an interesting way, that is, not by arguing that code is speech, but in fact that speech is code.
Here is an excerpt from the abstract for this talk:
"I contend that at this moment in history we are at the beginning of an intellectual revolution based on the assimilation of computational ideas into our culture. We have been programming universal computers for about 50 years. The practice of computation arose from military, scientific, business, and accounting applications. Just as the early Egyptian surveyors probably thought of themselves as experts in the development and application of surveying instruments, we have developed a priestly cult of computer scientists. But, as I have pointed out: Computer Science is not a science, and its ultimate significance has little to do with computers. The computer revolution is a revolution in the way we think and in the way we express what we think."
You can stream the talk (realvideo format) here, or you can download it here.
Bryguy
ps- another thought- the difference between source code and machine code is that source code is specifically designed to be comprehensible to humans, hence it is expressive of an idea rather than pure instruction.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Even worse than this, it becomes an extension of and American law through large corporations in other countries.
Now the artist (actually the company that owns his butt) comes to my country, my house, and tells me how I can or cannot use this in the privacy of my own home. That scares me.
It's no longer an issue of receiving a C&D letter from some company in another country (followed by my giving the letter a raspberry) but now the company has a local branch which happens to own a chunk of my ISP who backs up the C&D with my internet access cut. Or even worse, applications and followups using local laws.
That whole issue of fair use has clearly gone out of system, and that sucks. Fair use obviously now means that I can pay money to place the DVD in some sanctioned piece of technology to only view the movie. I cannot play frisbee with it, I cannot use it as a coaster, I probably cannot even write a review on my webpage that the movie sucked... Because nowhere in the new concept of fair use can I turn a paid-for-item into a dog toy...
Argle...
I donate all spillover Karma to the charity of my choice... Ada was still a babe despite what people may say...
All this talk about fair use and quality of originals is interesting, but slashdotters have to remember that fair use -- in the legal sense -- is a *defense*, not a "right." Not only that, it's a pretty sketchy one that gives a court a lot of discretion. You don't have fair use "right" to copy/make derivative works/etc. for, say, research, even though sec. 107 of the copyright act explicitly mentions the purpose. You only have a defense (call it a justification, call it an excuse, it's still a defense). Thus, Michael can't say that "not being able to make perfect copies defeats my fair use." He has to say, "I needed a perfect copy for my particular fair use." HUGE difference!
A program can express 'how' or 'what'.
If it expresses 'how', then it can be as 'beautiful' as anyone may find the products of evolution 'beautiful' in the way they attack survival problems.
If it expresses 'what', then it can be as 'beautiful' as anyone may find the products of artists and writers 'beautiful' in the way they interpret our shared reality.
QED
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Donald E. Knuth professor emeritus of computer science at Stanford University and author of the series of books The Art of Computer Programming , once said in an interview with Dr. Dobb's Journal: magazine:
MOD THE CHILD UP!
Why and how is a computer program expressive speech? A computer program is expressive speech because it was created by a person. Just as a chair, Coat-Rack or Chest are created by people. They both serve purpose (-- have a functional nature) and have an aesthetic quality. The structure of the code itself may be beautiful, as programmers who look at code are apt to point out. But it is its output that is the art. To further the above analogy, the grain of the wood in an elegant table is beautiful, as carpenters who look at wood are apt to point out. But it is its form and frame that are its beauty. It is dangerous to judge a persons creation not to be art, especially if they insist that it is and others agree. And Code is no different, it doesn't have to seem like art, it is seriously consider art by many people and that is all that is needed to protect it as art.
The question of software as a protected form of expression is a complex one, and in many cases the issues are idiosyncractic. Two people can stand in a museum and argue "That's not art"; "Yes it is." Similarly, people differ in their perceptions of software and its scope and purpose.
Let me report two bits of first-person anecdotal evidence.
I became a passionate software developer when I realized that writing software 'felt' like composing music. I had the same sense of artistic satisfaction, of creativity, of building something tangible from raw ideas. The aesthetic of programming became a dominant part of my thinking. Like many serious programmers, I labored over the artistic aspects of the development process: elegance of design, consistency, ingenuity of organizing and naming components, crafting clear and interesting comments -- bilding systems that were beautiful. Many hours and days were spent on tasks that can only be described as "art for art's sake": implementing details that had no practical requirement but yielded a more pleasing result, either in the behavior of the resulting system or, more significantly, in the expression of an elegant design in the source code itself. For me, it didn't matter whether an audience of hundreds or thousands could see my code. The expressive nature and issues were highly personal, and affected me in precisely the same way I feel when improvising or composing music. The expression is not for an audience, but for myself, and for the sake of an artistic result in itself.
"Fair use" is another doctrine that always strikes me as personal. Who is to dictate the boundaries of an appropriate personal use of a recorded performance, a piece of literature, a graphic image? In the eyes of an intellectual property attorney, for example, the purpose of viewing a DVD movie might simply be to hear the dialogue and see the pictures, so therefore some image degradation wouldn't matter. But as another poster has commented, noticing the fine details of shadow and light in a puddle on the ground might be just as important to one viewer as hearing the punchline is to another. Some viewers are passionate about noticing anachronisms and errors in films -- the little bits of telephone wire sticking up above the trees in a 16th Century period piece, or the out-of-era kitchen appliance in a WWII drama. These details require the best possible fidelity. Who can say that these are inappropriate interests, and beyond the scope of "fair use"?
In both of my points, I find that we are struggling with the age-old question of "what is art?" For me, the most satisfactory answer to this question, and to another tough philsophical question "what is science?", is this: "What the practitioners do." Art is what artists do, and science is what scientists do. When in doubt about where to draw the lines, look at respected members of each community, and consider their own priorities and methods as they invest their time and energies in their chosen disciplines.
In the case of software, I assert that software is (can be) a protected form of expression for this reason: Because great software writers view what they do as art, not as a purely functional and purposeful activity. If there are software artists, then there is software art. Similarly, if software can be pure science, a form of pure scientific research, then there is software science. If software can be art, or pure science, then it must be protected. We place creative limits on artists and scientists at our peril.
JMHO -- Trevor
-- We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of other people. La Rochefoucauld
If DVD is copyprotection, then what keeps me from copying the entire DVD bit by bit in encrypted form and publishing it on the internet ?
Apparentely, since it is copyprotected by CSS, nobody can use it - we are just transmitting useless data for fun.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
sub gcp { join("\0",@_)=~/([^\0]*)(?:[^\0]*\0\1){$#_}/s;$1 }
then you are educated. If, as I have, you keep it in its own file and occasionally refer back to it for that sense of power and beauty-of-form it strikes in you, then you already know that programming languages are expressive. I executed the code to distill it for performance. I keep it alive in my mind by the occasionally re-read because it is beatiful.
Perhaps it is a programmer's thing. I don't expect everyone to understand but that's ok because I do. What isn't ok is people trying to tell me I am wrong about how I feel about a bunch of characters strung together.
Here's another bunch of characters strung together:
I would be very interested if someone could point out exactly why one bunch is "better" than the other.-CZ
I won't reproduce it here, but I will link to it. It can be found here, in the appendix of the Jargon File.
If ever a treatise was written about Code as Art, this is it.
One way I explain coding to some of my less technical friends is that I write recipes for computers. A pinch of array here, a cup of file access there, and presto: A digital address book! Just as there are many different recipies to bake a cake, there are many different ways to write a computer program. And that's where both engineering and art come into play.
I consider the anarchist's cookbook to be much more harmful than DeCSS. Is it being banned?
http://james.nontrivial.org
How about the The International Obfuscated C Code Contest? That stuff is art to me.
May I suggest samples from the Obfuscated C Contest (then again, they may be beautiful in their own right) or some of the worst code submissions ever seen in a computer science course which probably compile but have no right to compile whatsoever....
-- Soruk
If DVD's are the MPAA's "house" and they can refuse to let anyone in at will, I would love to see them try to exclude people based on race. Sorry, no service to Linux Users(not a race) or African Americans. This is a load of BULL! they are a company selling a product. What the consumer does with that product is thereafter NONE of their business. I purchased those ones and zeros, dammit. I can rearrange them however I see fit.
They'll pry my "Digital Duct-Tape" from my virtual hands when I'm dead!
(After all, it's really hard to remove.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Programs, like paintings or poems are expressions of an art. Just as there are 20 different ways to paint a person's head, each one is unique and a piece of art. Such it is with programs. There are often many ways to accomplish the same task, and usually several ways are developed by different people. The same thing is true in language. How many ways can one descibe an apple? Probably several thousand. As it is with programs. They are used to describe a task - how to accomplish that task. Each way is different and should be considered personal expression. Are websites protected under copyright law due to thier nature (as publications)? Websites are created in a quasi-computer language. And beyond that... you can use a language (like PHP) to produce customized HTML (the 'language' of websites). Is this not still a website? Is it still considered a publication? It was created with a program to create something else to be interpretted. So why whould that be any different from any other piece of code being considered expressive or individual? I don't see why it wouldn't.
Yes, Michael did an astute job of pointing out those inconsistencies. In fact, I was curious to how both opponents could make such flaws, while Sullivan's points seemed to be cogent and lucid, then I realized much of that may be in the interpretation. Michael has done a good job, then, of summarizing the flaws in the DA and MPAA arguments. Please moderate the previous reply up, so reviewers get a chance to consider Michael's strengths here...
information is immaterial
# errornumber 1:
print " \
Uh oh! READINIT\[$errornumber\] Error in your
Check equal signs, whitespace, and values carefully: \
'$lookatthis' \
"
And here is the second one:
# errornumber 1:
print " \
[$errornumber\] Error.\
'$lookatthis' \
"
It's all about what "elegance" means. Different programmers have different standards, but elegance is generally a pursuit of ease of content delivery. The first example is verbose. It is nearly human, the way it says "Uh-oh" and gives ya lots of information in a chatty way about what happened, even pointing you toward the solution. The second example is something appealing to a computer, and it scares the heck out of non-programmers. The art of writing programs expressively is the poetry of programming. This is more than simply writing useful code. We have all worked with dozens of software packages, and yet have only a small handful that were designed so unobtrusively, they are a delight to use. For example, a small screen capture program I use, SnagIt, is one of the best programs I've ever used, because it does its job without getting in my way. Yet it is extremely powerful, allowing me all kinds of options _if I want to use them_. Likewise, ThumbsPlus is a program with millions of tiny settings, so unique-ifiable that I s'pose I could use it to determine ephemeris settings for the moon rise in 2025 if I needed it, yet it is an image catalogue. These are pieces of software so fun to use that there is no CHORE involved in using them--I'm always curious to see what new thing the author put into the program, and that's a whole level of poetry. I liken the experience of delight using Teleport Pro (an offline browser-spider) to the delight of watching a sunset. Call me weird, but it excites the same impulses of rapture and fancy in me...
Aye, programming is nothing BUT poetry to me.
information is immaterial
You grumpin' again? Copyright law winds blow by the measure of hope in those who try to infringe it. Yer grumpin is distracting my hope.
information is immaterial
Thanks. I'll use 'inheritance' in the future. See, it's already in the subject line. :-)
information is immaterial
If I spoke in order to write
I would write about speaking
If I stole in order to write
I would write about stealing
But I program in order to write
And thus my thoughts must be organized
Presentable and actually do something
Though a spontaneous poet I'm not yet
If I program and program all day
And like Lewis Carroll write all night
Soon a new Alice in Wonderland tumbles forth
(That mathematically-correct fairy tale)
And the art of poetry will be enhanced
Not by math but by logic, and then
The art of programming will be noble
And the court won't wonder whether
Programming can be expressive, Hooray!
I am a writer. On the side, to make a living, I am a programmer. The reason for my choice to be a programmer is not whimsical, but deeply rooted in my needs as a writer. As a writer, I need to be able to do for-pay work which does not exhaust my soul, leaving me no depth or clarity when I sit down to write. My whole life nurtures the art of writing, and I must be careful in what I choose to do with my non-writing life, if I want my writing to reflect anything notable.
In other words, I discovered that to write well, I write what I am. Of course, what I am can be metaphorized.
For example, I may choose to fund the art of writing as a salesman. Then, when I sit down to write, I write about conquest and competition and slyly leading my clients to the purchase point. While these abilities are demanded of a salesman, and many salesmen would then read my writing even if it were metaphorized, this is not what I am seeking to write. I seek to write lucidly, with well-organized thoughts, on various ethical issues.
As such, I find that my "day job" as a programmer is perfect! The task of organizing thoughts into a clean, presentable manner, is absolutely demanded of me during the day. When I sit down at night to write, the same techniques apply. All I have to do is research my topics (also demanded of a programmer) and then write, both synthesising (programmers call it cut-n-paste), and creating entirely new objects.
Note Larry Wall for a man who infuses poetry with programming... With these thoughts, could I be anything other than just another Perl hacker?
Give me some time, and this essay would be shorter and have more content. :-)
information is immaterial
Why and how is a computer program expressive speech?
A computer program expresses a logical, algorithmic solution to a problem.
Background:
A computer is primarily a device of automation, used to simplify repetitive or calculation intensive tasks. It has, over time, evolved into a more general purpose tool, with applications in entertainment.
The purpose of software is to control the hardware of a computer, to execute a particular task. As such, software is the solution to the problem of "mechanical" automation of the task. Some software is supporting in nature, providing for the interpretation of more complex commands: operating systems and language runtime platforms are good examples.
Computer programs would be written in "plain English", except that, given current theories of software, we have not yet overcome the complexity of allowing a computer to act based on a language as varied as a spoken language: in English in particular there are numerous exceptions to the grammar rules, and the vocabulary exceeds 140000 words.
Conversely, a computer program could be written in mathematical notition. There is even software that acts as a runtime platform to interpret mathematical notation and simplify or solve equations. Were all computer to rely exclusively on this notation however, computers would be limited (by their language) to be mere mathematical solving machines.
In order to allow for the development of more complex tasks, languages matching the complexity of the task were required. Creating a language is itself a complex task, and so computer languages have evolved to match the complexity of contemporary demands, while not themselves being too complex to implement using older generation languages.
A computer language is thus a language in all respects, having a grammar and vocabulary. The significant difference from spoken languages is that the rules and vocabulary of a computer language are typically smaller and more rigid, allowing an automaton (arguably simpler than a human being) to act on them.
Beyond the application of computer languages to computers, they have evolved to be an effecient mechamism of communication between scientists involved in algorithmic solutions. "Pseudo-code" is a notation taught at most Universities, which is familiar to "a computer language" and would be mistaken for "a computer language" by a lay-man, yet no computer or software exists to interpret it.
This pseudo-code is used to communicate to another person the essence of an algorithmic solution, and is occasionally used beyond the walls of computer science. In mathematics, for example, the Sigma (sum of) notation is often explained as (for example in the case of E(1,10)X^2) "Start with zero, and for each value of X from 1 to 10, add the square of X." Depending on the expert in question, this could be considered "pseudo-code", or alternatively rewritten as:
Y = 0
for each X from 1 to 10
Y = Y + square of X
This is true "pseudo-code", and could conceivable be implemented as a (computer-understandable) language.
Were there no computer available to interpret a "computer program", yet it still communicated meaningful information to another person, would it be considered "speech"?
Can it then follow that pseudo-code should be considered "speech", or should there be a difference because it may be possible to implement software to "understand" pseudo-code?
Will English (or any other spoken language) be restricted if software is developed to allow a computer to be fully instructed in that language?
If not (since it is a spoken language) will a language such as Latin (or Elven or Klingon) be restricted if computers are make able to understand it (since these are not considered spoken languages, but are occasionally used for written communication).
If, given the above questions/thoughts pseudo-code is to be allowed, how can a distinction be drawn between pseudo-code and "real code", given that many scientists adapt pseudo-code to look more like any particular computer language with which they are familiar?
If I leave precise, written instructions (in English) for duplicating a tape (music or movie), knowing that the receiver of the instructions most likely does not know how to do so, am I responsible for copyright infringement? Is the written instruction responsible? Is the language (English) responsible? Or is the recipient responsible if (and only if) (s)he uses the instructions to duplicate the tape illegally?
To conclude: A computer program is a description of a solution to an algorithmic problem, described in a language with a restricted grammar and vocabulary. Many other sciences have their own languages (notations, names, symbols) for communicating effectively between experts in the field. A computer program has the capability of being able to be interpretted and acted upon by a computer, allowing the solution to be realised. Scientific, engineering and financial notations have various instruments which can act upon the notations; some even have limited algorithmic capability. In each case the solution is realised by communicating with a device, in a language which is acceptable, and used, for more general communication.
i-name =twylite [http://public.xdi.org/=twylite], see idcommons.net
I think the logic is that there is always some doubt, unless the accused confesses to the crime. Hence the "reasonable doubt" principle. If caught with burglary tools, the intent to commit the crime is more obvious, and intent is always a factor that makes for easier conviction and more serious penalties.
i-name =twylite [http://public.xdi.org/=twylite], see idcommons.net
It's nice to read a refreshingly new angle on this otherwise recockulous issue!
"I've seen plays that were more exciting than this.
Honest to god... Plays!" Homer Simpson
Let's take Sullivan's example of code possibly being considered a poem. Have a look at the source for Crystal Space(http://crystal.linuxgames.com). This is a modern-day Milton. Jorrit has taken a "bee in his bonnet" and turned it into the most beautiful, expressive, and obvious code I've seen available in an Open Source project. This code should be studied by anyone wanting to write code, cross-platform or not. Just as Paradise Lost is studied by everyone expected to know the "classics."
As for the argument that it's not speech to anyone but hackers: Paradise Lost was not written in English. Let's jump back to before it was translated into our lanquage. Was it still a poem? Yes. Is C a lanquage? Yes. Is Paradise Lost functional? It was meant to be. It was Milton's guide to life... albeit symbolic.
Just because something is written in a language you don't understand, that doesn't give you the right to label it as anything but speech.
"I've seen plays that were more exciting than this.
Honest to god... Plays!" Homer Simpson
The language of mathematical proofs is so well-defined that you can instruct a machine to process the instructions, eg carry out the proof. This makes a proof a program, so the boundary between absolute, universal truth and copyright-circumventing code is very blurry. In one respect, deCSS is the proof of the theorem that, for any CSS-encrypted byte sequence there is an unencrypted byte sequence. But sin(x)**2 + cos(x)**2 = 1 is also a program; can the DMCA outlaw that?
Now obviously there is a big difference between a program that, to extend the DA's example, blew up the whole world versus a program that calculates digits of PI. But as a developer, the fact that code can be outlawed at all makes me very scared and unhappy, and I would the like the boundary of evil code and good code to be well defined. And I would really like for the MPAA and RIAA to have nothing at all to do with the establishment of that boundary.
Go read Godel, Escher, Bach, it has lots of good stuff on formal systems.
Ever listened to a Mozart Sonata? Ever played Quake? The sonata was written in very peculiar, highly artificial, notation that requires a lot of training to understand and even more training to write. Yet, could anyone say that music written in musical notation is not expressive? Quake is also written in a very peculiar, highly artificial, notation that also requires a great deal of training to understand and even more training to write.
To play Quake the creative intent of the writer is expressed by use of a tool called a computer. To listen to Mozart we can use another tool called a player piano. Before we can play Quake the prewritten instructions are compiled into instructions designed to be interpreted by the computer. Before we can listen to Mozart we must compile the musical notation into instructions designed to be interpreted by a player piano.
Both the computer and the player piano are completely automatic devices that are needed to express the creative intent of the authors of works written in highly artificial notations.
Where is there any difference between a computer program and a Mozart Sonata? The key difference is that most programs would lose much of their expressive power if "played" at the speed of a human piano player. This difference is in the speed of execution needed to bring out the expression embodied in the program. Never the less, just as one trained in musical notation can appreciate the beauty of Mozart's music without having to hear a performance of it, someone trained in programming can appreciate the beauty of a program just by reading it. In fact, it can be much more beautiful to the reader than to someone who just uses the program on a computer.
As a programmer who has read a great number of computer programs I can testify that I have had chills go up and down my spine, laughed, giggled, and experienced flashes of enlightenment from reading programs. The experience is much like reading a mathematical proof expressed as haiku. It took several years of study and practice of the art of programming before I could appreciate programs at that level.
That someone cannot see the parallels between programs and music is proof that they lack sufficient training in music or programming.
StoneWolf
An example where a perfect digital copy is absolutely necessary - any digital text.
With images and sound, the dropoff in quality is a gradual degredation, and it is hard to draw firm lines as to exactly when and where the image is no longer the same image anymore - or when the sound is no longer the same sound. Because it is a gradual drop-off there will always be some variation from person to person as to when that point is.
However, with a text it is a simple matter. You either have the text, complete and whole, or you don't have it. If I buy a cdrom with the complete works of william shakespeare on it, I need to be able to copy out the text of hamlet exactly. If the text gets mangled or corrupted in the copying process, it ceases to be the same text and therefore the copying process involved is insufficient for my rights of fair use. Hamlet's solliloquy is a given set of text, and as soon as you lose or change a few letters or words, it is no longer Hamlet's solliloquy - simple as that.
Now, if we take this one step further, and say that by its very nature any digital medium is a "textual" representation of audible / visible media, then the extension of the above becomes clear. In an analogue medium, there is no clear-cut way of transcribing an image or a sound exactly, and so a degredation of quality is intrinsic to the copying process. But a digital medium, by reducing any analogue media to a common set of binary values, it "textualizes" that medium - creating a set that is exactly reproduceable.
Now any cd or dvd player or computer acts as a very rapid "textual interpreter" reading and analyzing what is essentially a long body of written information and interpreting it into a form of sound and / or video. Now when we are sold a cd or a dvd, what we are purchasing is exactly that - a body of "text". We are not licensing the right to interpret that "text" as music necessarily, but we are purchasing that "text" as a finished product. So anything that prevents one from copying this "text" in its entirety is preventing fair use, because the resulting copy is no longer the same thing as the purchased product.
We might accept that there is no getting around a loss in quality when one makes a copy of a symphony from an LP to an audio cassette, but I think it would be absurd to accept that dropping a few notes here and there from a musical score of that same symphony would in any way qualify it for being "good enough" for fair use.
So in a nutshell, that's my perspective. Digital media have to either be exactly reproduceable or they simply are no longer the same thing.
There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin
Lets see, so using that line or reasoning, as soon as a CSS dvd copyright expired, DeCSS will then become legal? ridiculous.
room101 -- how much can you stand before they break you?
(they always break you eventually)
Right, just as we all know Hitler was pro jewish.
They stuck me in an institution, said it was the only solution, to...protect me from the enemy, myself
Potentially a good argument in favor of DeCSS is that the source has been transformed into a prime number that can be gunzipped into the program source.
Can the court prohibit linking to a prime number?
Coding is inherently expressive since two different chunks of code can do the exact same thing. Take for example the 7 line perl program recently posted. I would suggest a visual spection of the code would reveal expressiveness.
--
Jon - TheSpork
All these express something. The fact that the program/piano/furniture provides functionality seems irrelevant to me.
AC comments get piped to
Boy, the answer to the question "Is code expressive ?" is the International Obfuscated C Contest (http://www.ioccc.org). Here you can see expressive code in all its' beauty.
:-)=) But just choosing which of the above four ways to go is a form of expression.
:-)
Besides that, you can express even simple operations in various ways. So, for example, increasing an integer i can be written in these ways (C, of course):
i++;
++i;
i = i + 1;
i = 1 + i;
being the most obvious methods. There are infinite more ways, they just cost more clock cycles
Same goes for anything not as trivial as an increment. It simply starts by choosing the programming language. Whether you prefer Modula-2, Pascal or C is up to you, there's AFAIK nothing you can do with one of them that can't be done with anotherone of these three, it's just that another language might provide ways for doing things more elegant. (You can write AI in C, yet most scientists prefer to write them in Lisp because it's more elegant, easier to do; yet you can do it in both languages)
And let's not forget that we all talk about programming languages !
Let us say, for the purposes of this topic, that replication is an exact copy, and reproduction is an inexact copy. So, the content in question is digial and because it is digital we can make exact copies. Now, the gripe of the industry is that by making exact copies, the population of that particular content is increased and the market is weakened by the increase in supply, and they loose money. Ok, they loose money, I'm heartbroken, but here is the rub, it is less possible to reproduce a digital work, a fair use right, than it is to replicate a digital work. An example: I can go to the library and photocopy pages from a book, no one is fooled by the photocopy into thinking I tore the pages from the book itself. I can take an audio CD and copy it to cassette and, once again, it is not the same as the original. But how can I retain the funtionality of a work created in a digital media and so dedicated to that digital environment that "un-digitizing" it removes its funtionality? The T-shirt of the DeCSS is worthless for achieving its purpose (decrypting DVDs), as is the printout of the code for my Kernal, the binary text of Moby Dick, and any other example of works specifically tailored for the digital environment, which human beings must have technological assistance to experience. How can I be assured of my fair use rights on an enhanced audio CD, an electronic book, a special edition DVD with English, Spanish, and Ancient Greek dialog, the making of, interviews, alternate endings, reverse camera angles and all the other bells and whistles of digital movies, if the replication of such content is denied by Law. Furthermore, the conversion of digital to analog and back calls to question what exactly is preserved by copyright, the analog signature of the Matrix is not the same as the digital signature, and I presume that Warner expects that they hold the copyright on the string of binary bits which is the Matrix because they arranged them in their order, but what if I change even 10% of them... can I still see the movie and do they still own it? Where is the cutoff between the original digital work and the modification of that digital work into a distinct piece? (Sure, the Industry has dealt with something similar with cover songs and movie remakes, but is this still an appropriate paradigm?)
Here's a joke expressed in algebraic terms:
Salary Theorem
The less you know, the more you make.
Proof: Postulate 1: Knowledge is Power.
Postulate 2: Time is Money. As every engineer knows: Power = Work / Time
And since Knowledge = Power and Time = Money
It is therefore true that Knowledge = Work / Money .
Solving for Money, we get:
Money = Work / Knowledge
Thus, as Knowledge approaches zero, Money approaches infinity, regardless of the amount of Work done.
Here's a mathematical theorem expressed in algebraic terms:
F=ma
Here's a philosophical look at life expressed in code:
begin()
while(age < 60)
{
work();
play();
sleep();
}
end();
Here's a mathematical calculation expressed in code:
area = PI*(radius*radius);
My computer science department had a lecture by Guy Steele on Monday about designing programming languages. The definitions he presented at the start of the lecture provide a good argument for why code is expressive. All computer languages fit the same definition as any human language. They have a vocabulary of primitives and rules for how to combine primitives. At its most basic level, computer code is speech, like anything expressed in any human language.
The judges might question why computer code should be considered as expression, and as such why it ought to be protected under free speech. To those of us who program, it's pretty obvious that computer code is expression. But the judges don't understand computer programming, and as such they can't understand the expression therein.
I would ask: to the judges all understand French? Chinese? Swahili? Pick a language that they don't all understand. Ought they then to allow legal restriction of the epxression of certain ideas in that language? Even questioning it seems to be saying, after all, it's just a whole lot of yammering and noise; if we don't understand it, it can't be expression that needs free speech protection.
-Rob
A hypothetical situation where fair user might require the original content in its full glory. You're a researcher who wants to evaluate the efficacy of different compression algorithms-- compression vs. quality loss, etc. Probably you do most of your research on some sample case. Your funding agency, however, wants to see how the compression works on a "real world" example. If your funding agency is not the owner of the copyright of material they want you to test it on, you need to have pieces of that material in its full, undegraded glory in order to perform your tests.
Hypothetical, perhaps a bit contrived, but you get the general idea. No infringing is going on-- no distribution whatsoever is going on. If I want to try this just for fun in the privacy of my own home (condudcting one's own scientific experiments is a tradition in this country that goes back to Ben Franklin), there's nothing to stop me. But if I'm prevented from making personal, fair-use, full-quality copies of the material, I can't do an experiment such as I describe.
-Rob
Why just the judges understand how code can be art? Hell, I don't understand how wrapping a motercycle with cellophane (or whatever that was) is art, but lots of other people seem to think so. Just because it doesn't sound like art to me doesn't make me think that the activity ought not be protected under freedom of expression.
Anybody who is a programmer and enjoys doing it has seen code which he thinks is beautiful, or at least elegant. Two different ways of doing the same exact thing, both functional, but one might be ugly, while the other will elicit noises of appreciation from good programmers. Ask any programmer, and I'm sure they will all be able to think of cases where this has happened to them. Just because the judges don't know enough programming to understand this isn't cause to restrict freedom of speech.
Saying that fair use copying creates a clear and present danger is disinginuous. IF something which might be used for infringing purposes must be restricted just to prevent that possible case, then cars certainly should immediately be outlawed in this country. Bank robbery getaways, hit-and-run killings, speeding on the freeway, all of these things are illegal and enabled by cars. Outlaw those puppies.
-Rob
The painting analogy is flawed. The MPAA lawyer would like you to believe that copying restrictions on DVDs are similar to you not being forced to let people into your living room just because you've hung a painting there. (Assuming I've interpreted the article correcty.)
A much better analogy would be that after you buy a painting, the artist may come in to your home and tell you where you can and can not hang that painting, how long you can have it up, and excatly when you can have it displayed. You would be forced by law to do exactly as the artist demands. This is what the MPAA Is doing with copy restrictions (and DMCA anti-circumvention) on DVDs. You have something which you've bought, but which they are now telling you how you can and cannot use it in the privacy of your own home. (E.g., "You cannot play this on a computer running Linux.")
-Rob
I'm just trying to see how a DVD decryption utility could be viewed as a potential threat to human lives in the same fashion that a homemade nuclear bomb or even an automatic rifle could. Not doing it, so far, but give the MPAA time. Lost revenues could kill people, I guess. If film directors and executives' starving children were brought into it we could have the pity argument. But not without the sarcasm.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
These people no doubt view themselves has having a place in history. Film, music, and literature are their legacy, and they all probably expect to be read about in history books in 100 years. It needs to be demonstrated to them how they won't, and how in 100 years we will be living in frightening, Orwellian culture where we cannot remember our past, or prove that it even happened (not to mention that we won't even know it's Orwellian).
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
It's fascinating sometimes how a system of law meant origionaly to protect common man from his own stupidity, has been outpaced by the common man in terms of ability to legslate issues. The men and women deciding this case have no clue as to the nature of this matter in terms of the true technical scope. They dive in and out of the subject, attempting to pull forth understandible nuggets and concepts for the rest to swallow, but ultimately both sides undermine their case by not being able to grasp the entirety as opposed to the sound bite. Putting a wrapper on someone's ability to conceieve a notion, execute it, and propagate it in terms of the internet is impossible, period.
What happened to the original author of DeCCS? Is he still in jail, or can he again watch his DVDs at home while running his favourite OS? After all, that's what DeCCS was for in the first place...
bash$
Let's say I were to argue that the Queen of England is running an opium cartel. In order to make an effective argument, I would need to construct a set of statements, or criteria, which supported this. The argument would go something like this:
...etc...
1) Read document "A" and note that it states the Queen has couriers who travel by ship to India 25 times a month.
2) Read ship invoice "B" that shows that 2 tons of opium are on these ships with each voyage.
3) Note that the invoice is signed by the Queen's couriers.
n) therefore the Queen is an opium lord.
Regardless of how untrue it may be, if you take an unbiased view and follow these steps, you will come to the conclusion at the end. You may not agree with this, but this would be my view on this.
In fact, this argument would probably spur additional discussion, where people would provide their own input, and the argument would be accepted/rejected/modified.
Code, when submitted openly, goes through a similar process ("no, this won't work here","this will fail under these conditions", "this is a nice way to perform that task", etc.).
-D
Read the article here, which is surprisingly accurate and non-biased.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Viewing a piece of code is much like viewing art. To the untrained eye art my just be another trivial photo, painting, ect... however the trained, see things about the artist that most wouldn't pick up on. Code is the same. A programmer can see into the mind of another through the code. They can tell things about personality through the way its organized, vars are defined, if they chose elegance vs. raw functionality (as we all know certain elegant expressions aren't always the fastest way to process things). These are just a few of the little things that can be viewed. If code isn't comparable to art why then do we have the obfuscated c and perl contests? Why did we all find the 7 line version of the DeCss a beautiful thing? If code wasn't a form of expression why would we be so passionate about it? Last but not least, if porn is a form of expression / art, then surly they can't exclude code from the category.
fact(x)=x*fact(x-1)
int factorial(unsigned int x){
if ( (x==0) || (x==1) )
return(1);
else
return(x * factorial(x-1) );
}
I believe the code snippet is far more informative. Also, try explaining the distinction between tail recursion and other recursion without using some code (it someone has a scheme code example it would be nice, I can't think of one).
Anyhow, that is my two cents.
Dr. David Touretzky from Carnegie Mellon has compiled the DeCSS code into a variety of artistic expressions, including Haiku format, and a link to musicians using the DeCSS code as artistic elements in their music (including one who transposed the DeCSS code into DTMF tones and recorded it.)
This HAS to qualify in some manner as "expressive speech".
Help find a cure for Gidget.
Computer programs are just math algorithms. All computers can do is arithmetic. By making the computer do a lot of arithmetic in certain ways, the computer can do some amazing things. However, putting a picture on a computer screen is just putting numbers into matrices. Making sound come out of the computer is just sending numbers to a DA converter which inverts the Shannon sampling theorem.
If I write a math algorithm (math proof) on a piece of paper, is that considered expression? Yes since I am expressing the mathematical idea. If I use a computer to write up a math proof for publication, is that considered expression? I hope so.
If you have an expression of thought and you change the syntax slightly, does that make the expression with changed syntax not speech for some reason? For example:
A big dog ran down the street.
A large canine tore along the avenue.
Would anyone consider one of those sentences to be expression and the other not?
When you write a mathematical algorithm for the sake of the mathematics, you have a fair amount of freedom in terms of what symbols you will use to represent things, and how the symbols are arranged. With computer programs you have less freedom, but you still have a large number of choices in how things will be expressed. However, the program is just an expression of the same idea as the mathematical algorithm, possibly with some syntactical changes. So, as in the dog example above, if you express the same idea using equivalent language, both should be protected speech.
So what is it about programming that's different? You use the same thought processes when you write up a math algorithm whether or not it's done on paper, on a computer in mathematical syntax, or on a computer using some programming syntax. The only reason programs are written in specific ways is that the translators that take the mathematical ideas and rewrite them in terms the machine can understand aren't good enough to deal with regular speech. Computers will probably be able to understand regular speech someday, and these issues about syntactical changes making code not speech will disappear. At that point, either we have no free speech, or everything becomes free speech. Even today, the translators (compilers) don't change the ideas when they translate the code. This is evidenced by all the EULA's with prohibitions against decompiling or disassembling. If the companies didn't think that the ideas were still embedded in the code translated to machine language, they wouldn't worry about people trying to reverse the process.
Generally, a math algorithm is written with great generality. That is, the algorithm is written in such a way that the numbers involved are changed into unknowns (variables in computerspeak) as much as possible. As an example, consider Y = mx + b. It wouldn't be very useful if this were presented in math textbooks as Y = 2x+3. What would happen if we wanted to work with other lines? Do we have to come up with a new formula or new theorems every time we want to change some of the numbers? No. We just write algorithms and formulas with letters or symbols in place of numbers, and we use the letters to represent numbers we could put into the algorithm.
Here comes the one difference between writing a math algorithm in a specific syntax that can be translated into a language the machine can work with and using any other method of expressing the idea behind that math algorithm:
When you type numbers into the algorithm to use it in a specific case, the machine will do the arithmetic for you if you have it written in that specific syntax that it can understand. Otherwise, you have to do your own arithmetic, and keep track of your own variables by hand. That's it.
So, there is no extra thought being provided by the machine, it just does the arithmetic you tell it to do, and the arithmetic it does is determined by the algorithm you entered into it, and the specific values of variables you also entered into it. Granted it can do this arithmetic quickly, but that's all it does. So, if writing down mathematics is considered protected speech, writing code is also protected speech, since it's just writing mathematics using a specific syntax.
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
You can copy the encrypted files around all you want, you only need DeCSS to view them. The people who would pirate them in large quantities (somewhere in asia) will buy a dvd press, then they can read off the data, and put it on a master in its encrypted form, stamp out several thousand copies, and anyone can use it as they would a standard dvd. There are other methods out there for pulling the movie off of the disc into a viewable form besides DeCSS, I think one of them is a hack in powerdvd or something like that. There are several other ways that you could do it as well, looping the output from a decoder card into a capture card would probably work well. DeCSS enables you to watch what you have purchased(assuming you're the law abiding type). It doesn't create any sort of gaping hole in their perfect protection scheme. Without DeCSS we wouldn't be able to watch DVD's under any non-windows OS.
To me, code is expressive simply because it expresses an idea, in the same way that an essay is considered expression. Maybe that's too simple for legal definition, though?
I have been a student of programming and even made a few bucks in writing computer code. I do not, however, consider myself to be a "programmer." That said, we have a number of programmers where I work and I asked them their thoughts regarding computer code as a form of human expression. All of these people are somewhat uninformed of the DMCA trial situation and so that makes them very good sources of unbiased opinions on the matter.
That said, I asked them the following questions:
Do you feel that computer code is a form of human expression?
They were all dumbfounded to consider computer code as human speech.
Would you consider the act of coding or the code itself as a reflection of your own creative or problem solving skills?
The consensus was "Absolutely!"
Would you consider your code or anyone else's code to be a form of "art" or human expression then?
Under that light, they agreed that it is an "art" in many respects.
Would you consider your code to be an emulation of your own individual or personal thought processes, problem solving skill or, in short, any reflection of your own personality traits?
The answer was a very strong "yes"
The final question: Would you consider computer code to be a form of human expression?
They were hesitant, again to answer that. They had to say "yes" but in the most basic of ways. A couple of them went so far as to say "yes but it is limited to the rules of its existance within the computer environment."
At that point, I asked them a question in Mandarin Chinese. They looked at me strangely (I'm a white guy and they didn't expect this) and then I asked the question again, in English, and they understood what I was asking. ("Do you speak Chinese?") So I stated, so even human languages have their own rules of expression don't they? They have to be limited to a common set of rules and words that understood within the context of the speaker and the listener...the transmitter and the reciever...the writer and the reader. So when posed with the question of whether computer code is a form of human expression, the answer became a much more simple and positive "yes."
Any physics, math, computer science or philosophy student knows what I'm talking about. Hours in college are spent--some exhilarating, some tortuous--deciphering complex glyphs into natural language statements and vice-versa:
(some symbols fudged)
(Ax)(Ey)((xa ^ ya) > x = y)
reads:
for all x, there exists a y such that y is a dog, and x is dog, then x equals y.
means
There is one, and only one dog.
In my Logic class, we took letters to the university paper's editor and converted them into happy, discrete, precise lines of "code." Those students without a solid stomach grew queasy at the inchoate symbolic soup. Yet this same "code" which "mathematically" formalizes a student's argument that drug's kill also provides the basics for circuit design, set-theory, philosophy of language/mathematics and (among other things) computer programming.
This raises an interesting point. If a predicate logic is simultaneously powerful enough to both symbolically capture a political polemic and an algorithm to remove noise from a signal might not this be a candidate for a language proper? After all, we do have a grammar and lexicon. What more do we need? Perhaps nothing more than two people: one to encode information via the symbolic logic, and another to decode it. Maybe the encoder is also the decoder.
Indeed, the man who invented the first system of formal logic, Gottlob Frege, intended to map the human thought process onto paper. Language was too bound up with confusion and ambiguities. Only a new form of thought notation could provide one with the clarity of expression needed when thinking about the foundations of mathematics. Frege set out, for the first time in human history, a formal, symbolic logic in his essay Begriffschrift. The title, in this case, says it all: translated into English it means "concept writing" or "idea writing."
Thus, from its very inception, formal logical systems were meant to capture symbolically the transient thoughts of the human mind. This is the same lofty realm to which prose, poetry, painting, drama, videography and all the arts aspire. Surely, if programs--formalized symbolic "recipes"--are as expressive in nature as any other human outlet, they must surely be as protectable as any other form of speech.
Just a couple of thoughts I had that might be helpful examples in the DeCSS case:
1) As far as an example of the use of source code, etc. as art, I am reminded of The Story of Mel. While to Mel, his programming style may not have necessarilly been intentionally artistic, it can easilly be seen as such now, just as Stonehenge or the Mandlebrot Set are forms of art.
2) Programming itself provides an excellent example of when unfettered access is necessary. An imperfect duplicate of a program is nearly always completely useless.
I hope this helps someone out. Good luck to everyone involved in the trial!
I was going to put a sig here, but I had already submitted the message.
A random snippet of code I've got more of a problem with however. How do lines 20000 through 20025 of say Microsoft Word 2000 express something?
I don't see how you can provide protection for one while squelching the other though. Would every bit of code have to go through legal proceedings to determine if its expressive or functional? Should one of the most powerful rights, free speech, be thrown out with the bathwater because a corporation is worried about profits?
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
Many people consider architecture to be an art-form (myself included). Art is a protected free speech item.
;-)
Architecture can be both beautiful and functional as well as hideous and non-functional (see that funky music building in Seattle). A single building can be a beautiful expression of the architects vision for a city, region, or style. This can be on a large scale or small. It doesn't matter.
When I look at my code, I find some of each. I find beautifully architected routines with great functionality and are aesthetically pleasing (proper indentation!) as well as quick hacks that do the job and no more (like a concrete tilt-up building). This is an expression of how I think and feel. I express my anal retentiveness quite well in my code. I express my desire for both form and functionality in my code. I enjoy my programming. If anyone argues that programming is not an art form deserving of protection, they do not understand what goes into a program, especially a considerably difficult one. The best program completely fools the user into not even knowing that there is something going on behind the scenes. It is graceful and elegant. It is powerful and subtle. I love programming. Whenever we come up with a "special" solution to a problem, we always show it off to our friends saying "Look! I did it in one line of code!" or something along those lines. That is art.
Oh, did I mention I almost went into architecture?
My name fits again.
If the studios were empowered to prevent original-quality copying even for fair use, then they would be able to select which reviewers could re-broadcast original-quality clips and which could not. The implications are disturbing.
I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve. BB
I agree, and that's the law that should be made. If one is committing a crime with DeCSS, then the penalty should be a bit stiffer. That would be an illegal use of something that was allowed for freedom. But to ban crowbars outright is certainly something that the MPAA will have a hard time living up to.
Do we ban normal crowbars? And if DeCSS is a digital crowbar, is there any cause to ban it too?
1. An example of fair use requiring full unfettered access: Suppose you own a set of DVDs, and the means to play them at home. Now also suppose you own a laptop computer with a reasonably large hard disk, but without a DVD drive. Now, you're going away for a few days, and you want to take a movie with you. You could decrypt the movie and put it onto the laptop's hard disk. I think that would be fair use.
;-)
2. Something that no-one has ever mentioned. If a mere decryption device is a "means of circumvention", and is therefore illegal, surely that makes every single DVD player out there illegal, because every one contains a decryption device. So why aren't the DVD player manufacturers being sued? Answer: because they've paid their protection money to the DVDCCA. That sounds like a protection racket to me. Isn't that illegal under US law?
3. Source code can never be described as a "circumvention device", because it cannot be used to circumvent anything. Ask the plaintiffs to demonstrate exactly how they propose that the DeCSS source code (or more exactly css_auth) is used to "circumvent" their so-called "effective technological measure". Yes, they can bring their best hackers along. Assuming they succeed, point out that they have just built their own circumvention device from some basic raw materials. Now explain why this is similar to (say) manufaturing illegal drugs out of raw materials - but that doesn't make it illegal to sell the raw materials.
4. (Whimsical observations dept.) There should be laws against laws whose titles are incorrect. The DMCA was passed in 1998, wasn't it? Exactly which millenium does it refer to? The 1xxx one? - in which case the law no longer applies. Or the 2xxx one? - these so-called offences were committed before law became applicable. There should also be a law against wilful misuse of the English language in statutes. I'm referring specifically to the use of the word "effective" in the DMCA to describe just about any half baked attempt.
Just my 2 bits. OK, they're both 0
Every bloody emperor has his hand up history's skirt [Peter Hammill/VdGG]
1. Why and how is a computer program expressive speech? What does it express?
A computer program, represented by source code, is free speech because I lerned about as much about all that computer stuff from reading source code as I learned from lectures and books. A piece of source code expresses the authors understanding (or misunderstanding) of a problem domain and ideas how to solve the problem. The PHP Base Library (PHPLib) for instance is a comprehensive guide to session management and user authentication for web applications. Sure, there's also a manual, but a lot of detail is buried in the actual source code and nowhere else. And reading the source code gives me confidence the authors know what they do. Source code examples posted to Usenet, on the other hand, often show common errors or misunderstandings, and thus trigger discussions on style, security, robustness, etc.
A compiled, binary program can be expressive speech as well. For instance I am interested in typesetting -- since I used LaTeX for the first time, and though I never looked at the source code. I understand formal languages much better after playing with Lex and Yacc and AWK, which represent generic concepts for interpretation of certain classes of formal languages. Even without myself looking at the source code, those programs told me something, something their authors had written down carefully in a programming language. If that's not expression, there's no expression at all in any language.
The question should read: Why may computer-illiterate people consider computer programs being different from expressive speech, and how could they be educated?
Oh, and a final reminder: Freedom of speech has been invented to protect you from powerful entities who don't like whot you say.
http://erichsieht.wordpress.com/category/english/
Any computer language is a highly specialized way of representing sequences of logic. The fact that these sequences can be read by a computer is irrelevant - functionally they are no different than a mathematical proof or a syllogism. They are a method of representing thought, and are hence expression. Even though you need mathematical expressions like E=MC(2) to make a nuclear bomb, and even though nearly everyone agrees that the ability of individuals to make nuclear bombs must be restricted, noone is arguing that we must therefore ban the expression E=MC(2) because it is just a functional bit of mathematical code and not "real" expression.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
Honestly my feelings on this is simple, if it was predefined in some sort of clause (like "by purchasing a DVD you the buyer would not under penalty of law, attempt to use it on other formats aside from the intended devices meaning your home DVD player under penalty of law") then the industry should not bitch about it.
Whats happening is a shame and is going to be a definite blow to the entire Internet should the judge rule against 2600. Think about what this case is about. Linking (for those who don't know) explain to me how linking to an article is against the law in the land where under 1st amendment right your entitled to free speech?
Laws are laws and there is no way in hell any judge should turn their backs on whats written unless they care to revamp the entire system. Regardless of who is putting money under the tables for anyone.
Hardcore Crypto
360 degrees of Karma
That is, its primary purpose is to communicate to other humans one possible way to implement said system.
The fact that the code is often also effective in implementing the system is secondary. In fact, that secondary effectiveness may be required for the primary purpose, communication, to be fully effective -- how does it help you to implement my system if the method I've shown you doesn't work? So, in this case, the "functional" nature of the code is entirely subordinate to the "expressive" nature.
Imagine if literary critics could only quote from lower-fidelity works, say, text that has been artificially corrupted with "noise": "Hap7y fam7lies are all alik2, but ea4h un3appy fami6y is unh8ppy in its own way."
Imagine if literary critics could only quote from lower-fidelity works, say, text that has been artificially corrupted with "noise": "Hap7y fam7lies are all alik2, but ea4h unh3ppy f2mily is un3appy in its own way."
For goodness sake, can't you guys stop that nonsense about code being art? That does not help at all.
Code is speech in the sense that it is representing thoughts and ideas about how to solve a problem. To ban a piece of code is to ban an idea.
As somebdoy earlier pointed out, please present the judges with a clear explanation or pseudocode of how to decrypt the DVD protection in plain English, Spanish and German. Then explain to them that code is just the representation of those words in an intermediate way that facilitates the translation into instructions a computer can understand. Make clear that to ban DeCSS is to ban those text in normal language. Then maybe it will down in them why it is a first ammendament issue.
Forget the code is art crap. It is not relevant at all!!!
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The same is true for non-automatic rifles, automobiles, kitchen knives, etc. I could think of a million other readily available houshold items that can be used for good or ill. Hell, your toothbrush can be used as a weapon if you know how to do it.
Is toothbrush ownership to be regulated?
You could probably strangle someone with dental floss, should all dental hygiene products be regulated?
Or is that arguement just a little bit ridiculous?
A piece of source code is a living breathing work. It has subtleties, nuances and exclamations just like any book. As you can tell one author from another by their style of writing, so can you distinguish coders. My for loops will look different than your for loops. I may use an array while you may use one of a hundred different data structures. Coders have a language of their own to express things. That's all. Writers use English, Spanish, Russian or Swahili or Klingon to express themselves, coders may use C, C++, PERL, JAVA, FORTAN to do it. It's still expression, it's still a reflection of the coder's experience, talent, and abilities. Most people don't read source code for leisure. But there is a distinct segment that do. (Namely us... for the most part) And the way i express my solution to a problem should be my right. And thus should be protected by the government.
Just thought I'd be helpful. Since all law stuff is based on precedent: Here's a link and some stuff about the case that started this stuff. The case is called "Bernstein v. Dept. of State" and covers the story of a teacher trying to publish information about "export restricted" crypto technology. I personally worry that we're becoming to lax about property rights in general, but as soon the gov't tries to tell me what code I can and cannot write, I get pissed.
http://www.eff.org/pub/Legal/Cases/Bernstein_v_DoS /
the_question = (to_be || !to_be);A GE OUS_FORTUNE | ARROWS_OF_OUTRAGEOUS_FORTUNE)) > (take_arms(sea_of_troubles) && end_them(by_opposing)));
whether(noble_in_the_mind(suffer(SLINGS_OF_OUTR
I suppose my point is that, nobody would deny that something written in English, or French, or Spanish would be expressive. The issue at hand is whether C can be considered a legitimate langauge. Unfortuanately, some of the attributes we typically associate with human language don't apply. There is no displacement... that is, there is no way to express in C things that happened in the past or anywhere outside the computer.
Another thing it lacks is two-sidedness. A computer won't respond to anything you say, unless you order it to give a certain preconditioned response. However, it is invaluable as a form of sub-linguistic expression. There are certain things that language can not describe well at all. For these things we typically have maps, diagrams, pictures, etc. There are mathematical algorithms and many other things that can not be easily expressed in language but can be easily expressed in code.
An example:
The first two fibbonacci numbers are both one. Any fibbonacci number after that is the sum of the two fibbonacci numbers preceding it.
int fibbonacci(n) {
if (n == 1 || n == 2)
return 1;
else
return fibbonacci(n-1) + fibbonacci(n - 2);
}
So, whereas nobody would question that a map, chart, diagram, is a viable alternative to language in expressing languages shortcomings, we have code that does the same thing.
1) Writing a computer program is as much art and expression as designing a dress or building a motorcycle. Yes, it they are functional. The most beautiful parts are not evident to a lay person. The inner workings (the stitch or the bore of the engine) are not evident to those who are not in the industry. But it is commonly accepted that they are expression, and that connoisseurs of these arts can appreciate and evaluate mastery in the art. The creation of a custom motorcycle, even if it looks to the casual observer like any other bike, is, to me, and most other bikers, a beautiful work of art, the creator's vision echoed in every hand tooled part, every crafted connection, and the humm of the engine. I get the same feeling when i page through well built code, where the author put's in an elegant and efficient shortcut that i would never have dreamed of before, cleverly manages to reuse a variable to keep the memory usage down, or writes a class that will manage some big awkward data structure and creates a simpler interface to manipulate it.
2) I am not as familiar with fair use, but if I wanted to create a desktop theme from a movie or dvd that I own (and the creators of the movie have not produced a theme) and I am not going to post it, does it not count as fair use? Or, what if I just want to use, say, a clip from a blake's 7 episode that sounds really cool as a startup sound for my computer (and, say I owned said episode on dvd, which i do not, i own them all on vhs)? is that fair use? (IANAL, and I am not sure what is strictly 'legal')
-CrackElf
"Blake is an idealist, Jenna. He cannot afford to think." - Kerr Avon, Star One, Blakes 7
It seems that code somehow falls between a construction/thing that is useful or an expression which I would consider speech. Some code certainly falls into the "tool" category - like the example of the bridge above. Bridges are not protected as free speech, because their purpose is not to express something, even if they are constructed in an artful way. Their main purpose is to function as a bridge, and that is how they are looked at by the law - an idea. Bridge design seems more like a patent issue than a speech issue.
That being said, I don't particularly like the idea that useful, but none-the-less expressive creations are not protected like speech.
Finally, some code that I would consider free speech: wordcircuts
recently, authors and poets have been delving into code to create "hyper-texts." I'm sure everyone would consider such works expressions of free speech. However, I think that is because their purpose is to be artful, not to do something that would be useful to anyone beyond adding to culture.
"His name was Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged. He was a man with a purpose."
I don't know exactly how it goes, but I believe that if you are found to be committing a crime and you are in possession of "burlary tools" at the time the penalties can be stiffer. These tools include lock picks, crowbars, and any other stuff that would aid in committing any crime, not necessarily the one that you were found to be committing. The restictions vary between states.
If someone has a clearer understanding of this then please chime in...
I know we are all RUNNING to copy all those DVD's we PURCHASED, but before we do that.. Why not just download a .asf or DivX copy of the latest movies out? Why does the MPAA worry about us *nix users watching DVD's we buy at the store and not about the 13 year old running a 'leet movie sight using recordings done with the family camcorder? Im shocked over this entire case. This is WHY the human race makes me sick.
Real men don't use GUIs.
What examples of fair uses absolutely require access to the work in its most modern, digital, uncorrupted, un-macrovisioned form? The only one that jumped out at me is making a backup copy in case the original is destroyed. But perhaps there are others.
I don't mean to troll ... but I find the argument that fair use requires the uncorrupted original
somewhat weak. When you listen to music off your CD player, you aren't examining each of the bits individually, and even some mild amplifier noise doesn't significantly corrupt the signal. As well, when you watch a DVD on your television, the conversion from MPEG to NTSC loses a lot of information. So, in practice, there is quite a bit of corruption of the original information in the forms we normally take it, and it's not a far leap to claim that fair use can encompass this corruption.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
In the software realm, another reason to have a pristine copy is when one legally wishes to install on several machines (such as over a network - or over time). Thing is, does the DMCA intend to develop hardware that can tell the difference between a program and music/movies. It's all ones and zeros to the cd writer or the modem. Or do they intend to create a "multi user license" for the digital distribution of music and movies as well? I don't know about this one, but I do know that an acoustic watermark is no more damaging to sound quality than turning a file into an MP3 in the first place. As far as "code as art" goes, I think the way a programmer codes a program is an expression of himself. Program code can be as identifiable as painting styles (just look at HTML for example). There are a thousand ways to get from point A to point Z in a program, it's up to the programmer to decide what "clean" (or not so clean) code is. When a carpenter's work is so good that it can be identified as his, it's usually considered artistic. Frank Lloyd Wright built houses. Houses are utilitarian things, but I don't think anyone would tell you that his houses are NOT art. I think if you asked the team that designed the body of a Dodge Viper if the shape they chose was in any artistic, that they would say YES. The way the fender curves is the expression of the people who designed it. I think if you ask any serious coder that they would tell you their code is an expression of themselves.
The problem is that coding isn't expressive in the same way as, say, poetry. You can't easily express emotion in Java. I'd say the closest "real world" analog to coding is a cookbook: Add two integers and a float, and multiply vigorously. It's a series of instructions to an audience (chef, computer) with the intent of re-creating a particular outcome (soufle, screensaver).
It's hard for the outsider to see that pure code can be expressive because they don't have the ability to interpret pure code to any meaningful degree. A master chef or a master programmer can look at the set of instructions and understand exactly what the author is trying to reproduce without actually following the instructions, but Joe User is forced to actually bake that cake or run that code to get the full effect.
Anyway, moving right along, what is "expressiveness," anyway? I'm pretty sure that something is labelled "expressive" if it can incite a reaction from the intended audience. If you laugh at a comedy or cry at a tragedy, the author has done their job of expressing themselves through their words. Then it could be said that code is doubly-expressive. It gets a very specific reaction from the silicon-based audience (display X shade of blue for Y seconds), and then the computer's reaction incites another reaction in the computer's operator ("Woah, nice color effect!").
All in all, I'd say that code itself isn't as expressive as code + computer, but that doesn't mean that an experienced person can't understand and be moved by computer-speak by itself. A cookbook in German isn't very effective unless you have something (er... someone) that can understand and interpret the language. That doesn't mean that it isn't expressive to those that can understand German, nor does the fact that non-German-speakers can't understand it mean it's not speech.
"2. What examples of fair uses absolutely require access to the work in its most modern, digital, uncorrupted, un-macrovisioned form? The only one that jumped out at me is making a backup copy in case the original is destroyed. But perhaps there are others."
Well... all I can think of is for conducting a study that would inherently destroy the original. If you want to study specific intricate details of, say, the Mona Lisa, it would be best to do these studies on a copy (as exact a copy as possible) than to do it on the real thing. Different kinds of studies will require different degrees of exactness, but the most desirable copy is one that is exact in every detail.
It is actually the definition of simplicity to show that a program is, or at least could be, "art" in a way that can be demonstrated to a judge.
First: can we make a working definition of art? For starters, the absolute "function" of a free-standing piece of statuary is basicly to hold down a patch of earth... It is the form and not the function of some things, like statuary, that makes it "art".
So can a thing with an overridingly significant function still participate as art even as it performs its duty with respect to function? Culturally this is well established. Walk through any city. The function of office buildings is to house blocks of offices, but communities pay a premimum to have their buildings sculpted to various tastes. "A pillar" needs only to be structurally sound but we have names for the types and "ages" of pillar decoration and people spend their entire lives studying and commenting on pillar building and decoraton throgh the ages.
A "valid" piece of art should generall aspire to some ideals. Some of these ideals are tagged onto the pieces as "movements" such as, for paintings, "minimalism" and "realisim" and "cubism" and so forth. Other ideals center around content, "does it make a statement?"; "does it educate?"; "does it inspire?". In some senses art speaks most when it selects between diverse and opposing ideals to provoke thought in the preceiver.
So is computer code itself participant in, and may its creator select between, ideals durring its creation? Most assuredly. The infinitely ideal body of code performs its function in zero time and zero space. No such ideal code exists, but for any given task there are a nearly infinite number of possible coded solutions. The selection between time and space is the *classic* defining choice made by a programmer. Beyond that club-over-the-head there are myriad ideals of "look and feel", does the program even participate with a user? Does it just drop silently into the well and bubble back up an hour later with an answer or does it take a user by the hand and lead them throug a maze of options. Are the menus "prety" and/or "intuitive", "exhaustive" or "novice-level-options-only". To get from problem statement to solution is not a straight nor unswerving task. The programmer exercises both his science and his art to hack a path through a forest of possiblities. His expression of that journy is both the executable program and the source code and libraries created and/or chosen to make it.
Are those ideals, when and as approached, apreciable to a preceptive audience? Absolutely. When I create a particularly clever bit of code I will often share it with peers and coworkers with personal pride and in so doing I submit it and my reasoning behind it to cretique by those peers. When code is sent out onto the net is is routinely criticized by those who take the time to look, using words we associate with art; like "ugly", "elegant" and/or "sublime"; for its construction or execution. And code is constantly studied by programmers looking to gain insight into theoretical programming issues like "building a better sort" or "seeking transitive colsure over the set of all graphs of some distributed process" or some such.
So is code-as-art accessable to everyone? Clearly not, but that isn't even a partial requirement of art. The theory behind any given art only needs to be "reasonably accessable" to those who chose to persue it. I, personally, couldn't draw a distinction between a "modern" and a "post modern" painting to save my life, but if I chose to persue it I would have to expend effort *and* I would have to have "the eye" to some degree. Code is the same way, to participate in code as art you have to acquire the knowledge of language and structure and you have to, in the end, find or possess the artistic sense of it. There are more than enough bad artists in more traditional forms of art to more than explain away the existence of bad programmers who don't, or can't, appreciate the concept of artistic code.
A "cheap and easy" version of the whole question is addressed by the question "has anybody ever exhibited functionally sound source code, solely as art, regardless of the value of the function of that code?" The answer is, of course, yes. The "Oobfuscated C Contest" anually soliticits and exhibits functional code purely for its asthetic value.
Finally, a piece of art must be defined by the exercise of choice by the artest. If, to perform its function, a thing must be created without options, then it is hard to consider it art. An example is a 2 milimeter steel ball-berring. The berring is constrained to shape and hardness and essentailly *all* its traits. The measure of the berrings "quality", its only really variable trait, is real, but a truely high-quality berring isn't art. The production of the berring may, however, be. The temprature of the steel at casting time, selection of tools and methods to achieve a high degree of roundness and so forth are valid factors. Before it could be decided you'd have to ask the people who know... the metalurgests. If they say there is a measure of "art" in their "craft" we have to either study craft exhaustively; or we can just ask a bunch of them and if enough of them say there is "art" there we take their word for it.
Giving credit to a thing as "art" when we ourselves don't see anything but "stuff" is, in a very real respect, the fundimental nature of most art. The question "will this art survive the test of time" is always nicely open for those who call a give form of art "trash".
--
Rob White,
Cv - Cv = 0 Therefore there is an absolute frame of reference.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
A quick after-thought...
To the question of DeCCS and the danger of whole-works piracy and the presence of same happening today...
Once "decrypted" an entire DVD movie is too large to store effectively, transmit in resonable time, or keep around for a long period of time. An hour of high quality mpg is something like a 1.5 gigabites. Windows 98 et al has a file size limit of just over 2 gig. The average PC platform machine has two IDE controllers with up to two drives each. If one of those four is a DVD player used as a source reader that leaves three. At current tech levels a home user might be able to put 80 gig on each drive slot for 240 gig total. There are no DVD capacity media writers in general market price avialibality.
So, a person could spend about $4,000 to create a dedicated hardware library of about 60 movies.
The econmy of scale simply says that this isn't going to happen. Stealing a whole song is practical, particular at a degraded quality, stealing and transmitting a whole movie simply isnt. At the most a home user (the common copyright theif in these suppositions) migh DeCCS a movie and cut a clip out of it for some purpose, but that supposes he also has some sort of producer software that can clip an mp2.
So is taking a choice three minute clip out of a twop hour movie would be about 2.5% of the overall movie...?
It is far cheaper and easier to bounce a playback of a DVD through a normal external recorder to make a clip, which just gets us back to VCRs.
There is virtually no practical use of DeCCS with respect to a whole movie, and clipping is "doubtful", and 2.5% access would be well within fair use provisions by any standard anyway.
The only "use" of CCS in the first place seems to be to make sure that a DVD sold in europe can not be played in the US. It isn't "copy protection" it is "market/price control" plain and simple.
--
Rob White,
Cv - Cv = 0 Therefore there is an absolute frame of reference.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
here you have made a fundamental mistake. While commonly referred to as "completely not protected", yelling 'fire' in a theater is protected, when the theater is crouded the protection is "trumped" by other rights of the people in the theater.
Consider: your have a right to keep an bare arms, you even, therefore have a right to discharge those arms. I, on the other hand have a right not to be gunned down outside my local Circle-K. That right trumps yours such that if you gun me down you will suffer penalties.
You have a right to smoke, I have a right not to, you have no right to *make* *me* smoke, we have equal right to a public accomidation, therefore to exercise your right to smoke you and not I must go outside while the smoking happens.
For the whole fire-in-a-theater thing, the trier of fact (offical-generic term for judge or jury as approprate) has to decide if the number of people in the theater devided by its capacity qualified it as "crowded" before they can decide whether you were fully protected in your speach. The "right" being preserved on behalf of the individuals of the "crowd" is the right not to be trampled to death by a panicing mob. Thats right, you can pretty-much yell fire to your hearts content if the movie/play is suffiecntly unpopular.
Tricky thing the law, that is why it is so easy to prevert if you know what you are talking about, or if you are sufficently ignorant...
--
Rob White,
Cv - Cv = 0 Therefore there is an absolute frame of reference.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
If you wanted to write a book about living with a disease, such as Glaucoma, you would probably do so because either you or someone close to you suffered from the disease. In your book, you'd detail your personal opinions of how to deal with the disease, and you'd probably include information about treating the disease with controlled substances like marijuana. If you were aware of the best ways to obtain marijuana to help people cope with their disease, you'd provide them in your book. Wait a minute, though. You've just given information that people who DON'T have Glaucoma could use to obtain and abuse a controlled substance. Does this mean that your book should be banned because it gives people a tool that could be used for something illegal? Of course not. People may question your motives, but this is the 21st century, and I don't think they'll be burning your book.
How does this apply to writing code? Well, the author was obviously presented with a problem that needed to be solved. It was probably as simple as, how do I play CSS-encrypted DVD's (that I purchased legally) on my computer that runs an alternative operating system? My operating system doesn't have the software needed to decode the DVD, so I guess I'll have to write my own. At this point, you have to realize that there were many different ways to write a DeCSS routine, and the author developed an algorithm to accomplish the task which included personal style -- it was tailored the the way the author thought and understood the problem, just like writing the self help book on Glaucoma would be. The author figured that others must be plagued with the same problem, and therefore made the program available, free of charge, to others who were in a similar situation. This is no different than publishing a book. It's certainly much less dangerous than publishing a how-to guide on building nuclear weaponry. If I wrote the program, I probably wouldn't approach it in the same manner, but as a programmer, I could read the DeCSS code and appreciate the elegance with which the author solved the problem, just as I could appreciate an author's proposed solutions in a self-help book.
As a side issue, we should take a look at literary works (as well as movies) that have NOT been censored by our government. Many of them include ideas that are dangerous (such as building a bomb), or build racial or religious tensions (I bet you can list hundreds of works that fall into this category). Some of the works have actually caused full-scale riots. Perhaps it was irresponsible of authors and publishers to submit such works to the public, knowing what the reaction would be. But it wasn't illegal. It was their constitutional right. They had an opinion that they felt needed to be heard, and they said it so that anyone who chose to listen could hear it. Don't tell me that my computer programming isn't an opinion or an idea. It most certainly is. Here's how I would do it. If you like it, feel free to use it.
So, as someone else mentioned earlier, would you prevent people from using a crowbar to open packing crates just because it could also be used to pry open a car trunk (boot) or window or door so that you could steal something? A crowbar is a tool (digital or otherwise). It's use is a personal thing. Personally, I think you should arrest the people using them illegally rather than the people manufacturing and selling them.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
I think personally that the MPAA is pulling at strings at this point. Who doesn't know some one who has the program. If you want it you can get it. The MPAA doesn't realize that 2600 had very little to do with getting the code out their, and into the open. I had heard of the program from a friend not 2600. The MPAA doesn't have a clue and they never will. Neither does the government. Shutting down 2600 will cause more of a stir than it will good.
You can make it illegal, but you can't make it unpopular.
hmmm, let me think.
$Disney = Money + Mouse;
It's perl. Is it a protest statement, or is it a device? Can a judge tell me?
I agree, the dramatic readings and DeCSS as poetry are too long. We need a computer program that you can read as a sound bite, that executes, and still gets the point across. Here's my lame attempt. One up me!
First: There seems to be an assumption that the intent of DeCSS is to copy DVDs to illegally redistribute them. That would be like saying that if one buys a gun they plan on killing somebody with it.
Second: Lets say hypothetically that nothing is done and DeCSS is disseminated through the internet without restriction. What percentage of people could actually figure out how to use it? How many people would take the time to figure out how to use it? Can the DMCA attorney figure out how to use it?
Thank you for linking to DeCSS in your article. We have now baned your website's IP from access. Sincerely, Timid ISP
"Anonymous Coward" is for whistleblowers, not unpopular opinions.
Firstly, expression is essentially the transmission and reception of thoughts, ideas, and
feelings by action, notably written and somatically, and therefore code itself is not pure
expression, as neurons firing in your brain are not; however, code is a series of
instructions that allow a device to automate the expression of an individual by creating
output whose forms clearly are expression. Whether or not to concern oneself with the
regulation of those instructions must be context dependent, and must preside over the
EXPRESSION, not the critical components necessary for achieving it (within the realm of the
public interest). It therefore seems that any legislation crafted with the intent of
specifically preventing the accomplishment of expression must sufficiently argue the
expression's harm weighed against the positive uses of expression in order to protect the
reasonable right of the freedoms of expression the Constitution affords.
To vastly simplify, code is the automation of action, and therefore code isn't expression.
It is the use of code whose actions must be regulated. However, to restrict the dissemination of information to everyone because someone may violate a law or cause harm seems unreasonable when NO EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE OF ACTUAL HARM has been presented.
As to another legitimate use? Statistical analysis of format-specific content.
Steganography. Once you own a digital copy, you would have the right to alter for both
practical and artistic uses. Artisitic includes parody and, art necessarily demands the
ability to recycle previous expression. Any society dedicated to freedom of expression
cannot forbid the reuse of artistic expression within reason.
I'd be interested in a rebutal at my email address.
IB
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Or, sometimes, code will have an intrinsic artistic value outside of any functionality. Take a look at the International Obfuscated C Code Contest. Some of those entries are really remarkable.
EndingMan
"THE OLD MASTER WALKED FROM A WHITE STONEY G0025. THE OLD MASTER GOT LOST." -GEB.
You could not take videotapes of screens. Rather you must have 100% digital copies of the original media. If you don't have the 100% copies, the files themselves may be slightly modified & render your copy useless
And on the subject of the copyright act.. if you would point a video camera at the television, isnt this considered as altering the content (borders around the screen, possible reflections, camera movement) and therefore illegal as well ? In any case, it is in the best intrest of the media firms to have their material allways appear in the best possible form. Hence the name copy, and not the word downgrade in the law. Sentry23
*Quoted from above*
2. What examples of fair uses absolutely require access to the work in its most modern, digital, uncorrupted, un-macrovisioned form? The only one that jumped out at me is making a backup copy in case the original is destroyed. But perhaps there are others.
-Any use in which the digital technology, or application of that technology is studied or compared would absolutely require access to the work in its most modern, digital, and uncorrupted form. For instance, any comparison of the compression or capabilities of different audio formats (mp3, wmp, wav) would concievably require the unadulterated source. When you're analyzing artifacts introduced by the digital encoding scheme (don't tell me you other audiophiles don't care....) reproducing the work in it's most authentic format is essential.
-However, I'd really question the concept that a qualitative degredation of the work in question is somehow required for fair use. It would seem that US Code, Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 107 limits fair usage only according to four principles:
(begin quote)
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether the use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole, and;
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market value of the copyrighted work.
(end quote)
(The above work copied in whole from the reference provided at http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html usage is intended only for scholarly discussion.... *smirks*)
-None of which seem to include the *quality* of the used media in any case.
Nietzsche on Diku:
sn; at god ba g
:Backstab >KILLS< god.
The MPAA contends that DeCSS has the ablity to inflect "actual harm". Yet, this program is freely avaliable all over. I can download it no sweat. Yet, in the face of easy access to this terrible tool of copyright infingement, the moive industry is still raking in billions. Due to this court case, DeCSS propagated itself farther than it ever could of without a lawsuit. Yet, the moive industry is no worse for wear.
If DeCSS is so bad, why then, when it is as wide spread as it ever has been, is the moive industry not in line at a soup kitchen?
DeCSS is out, it's effect can be studied. The moive industry is not being hurt by it. Where's their argument?
Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam.
I'm not a professional progammer, and I'm not even a good programmer. I don't think I've ever written more than two or three programs that actually intended to achieve some practical goal. Mostly, I like to play around with mathematical puzzles and number games.
The bulk of the programs I've written and studied are learning tools. Page through a CS textbook or something similar, and it becomes painfully obvious that programs often serve no function other than to explicate a general algorithm or concept. To that end, source code makes up an essential part of academic and scientific expression. It would take pages to adequetely explain sorting algorithms to a reader in plain English, while a few blocks of code do it better and faster. Plus, code can demonstrate concepts that regular language just doesn't seem to be equipped to handle.
At that point, the question really becomes an issue of whether the academic discussion of copyright-dodging technique merits protection--because without the source code, that discussion is crippled. And regardless of what the DCMA says, the US Constitution does protect such speech. If we're free to post articles on making bombs, defrauding credit card companies, or similarly illegal and dangerous activities, we are most certainly free to take on copyright infringement. Use is another matter, entirely, of course.
Any individual or group interest, from Joe /. to the MPAA, will seek to minimize the costs and maximize the benefits that government may grant to it. Every January, I spend hours thinking up tax deductible items that will save me a few bucks to Uncle Sam. And every time a new technology appears, the "landed interests" of intellectual property will spend millions of space-bucks on lawyers to preserve their profit margin. The important thing is that the rest of us (in spirit, mostly) keep an eye out for those who would push it too far.
If I'm not mistaken there are two different meanings of the word expression being used here. One is attributable to all code, the other is not for a judge to decide.
There are people who 'understand' C code and people who don't. The difference? A person who can read C can tell what any arbitrarily small fragment of well-formed code 'means'. The code DOES mean something, else what could the person be understanding. Most C code is a list of imperatives, such as "Put the value of 2 in the memory address symbolised byt the letter 'x'." There's a reason why this is called a command, or an instruction. By writing the code we are communicating our wishes. If the receiver (computer or human) doesn't understand the language then nothing will be communicated to them.
I think this is an unambiguous example of how code can have a meaning, and thus express that meaning.
The other use of the word 'expression' is to indicate the existence of some non-literal 'artistic' meaning that is being expressed. I think that DeCSS probably has very little artistic merit, but then neither do the majoritory of of movies I've seen, or the majoritory of newspaper articles, or the majoritory of modern art as far as I'm concerned.
I will not, however, rule that modern art is expressionless just because I don't understand what it is trying to express. I think that this would be just as ridiculous as ruling that FORTRAN expresses nothing (in the first sense of express) just because I don't understand it. C and FORTRAN and Welsh and Swahili all mean something to someone. Therefore I cannot rule out the possibility that they might have 'artistic merit' to someone either. Maybe I'm just not sophisticated enough to appreciate DeCSS in all its glory.
The fact is that you will not find a description of the artistic merit of C in any manual. Nor will you appreciate the full meaning of Welsh poetry by looking up all the words in an English-Welsh dictionary. But someone sees it. The two meamnings of 'expression' are different but inextricably linked. You can't admit the one and rule out the possibility of other. C is a fully fledged, expressive, meaningful language, used frequently in communication between people and computers. Noone can prove that it cannot be 'artistically expressive', no judge can rule that it isn't.
1. Why and how is a computer program expressive speech? What does it express?
2600's lawyers are entirely familiar with Touretzky's Gallery, so forget about those.
Assume you have some C or perl staring at you, any random block of code in any
random print-out. What does it express? Why should that code be protected expression?
A computer program can be defined as a set of instructions telling a machine what to
do and how to do it. One can build upon that idea, logically, and say that a better
program will have better instructions that allow a machine to work more efficiently;
and a poor program will have a machine going around in circles to accomplish simple
tasks. Examples of both good and poor programs are very necessary in academics, because
they allow students to learn good programming methodology by example. The challenge then
in the professional world of programming is to write the most efficient code possible.
Just like many other career fields, there is [mostly] friendly rivalry in the programming
world where one programmer tries to outdo another (perhaps similar to one salesman trying
to outdo another for the "Salesman of the Year" title). They may even be working on the
same project together. Programming grows on a person until it feels more like an art form.
When programmers are given a task to build computer instructions for, it is much like
being commissioned to do a sculpture or a painting. In the end, programmers must be
satisfied with their work before releasing it (aside from sales or marketing setting
mandatory deadlines whether a program is finished or not).
Take the word 'computer' out for a minute and think about a person--say, a new
employee being given a handbook of how to file certain documents and how to handle
calls. Or think of the rules attorneys are given as to how to conduct themselves
in the courtroom. Either way, those are a set of instructions that can easily be
viewed as algorithms (or more basically, procedural, routine tasks). These sets
of instructions can be reprinted, spoken, sung, cut&pasted, arranged into a poem, etc.
These instructions were expressed in such a way as to be clear and concise so that
anyone reading them would understand how certain tasks are to be done.
A computer program tells a machine how to do a procedural task. The task is
"assigned" to the machine when someone actually selects the program and runs it. The
machine must "read" the instructions in order to do the task(s). The reading can be
done a couple of different ways (compiled vs. interpreted), but the instruction set
being read by the computer is not the same instruction set viewed by the programmer, in
the visual sense. The actual set of instructions a programmer types must be "translated"
into binary for a computer to be able to read. (A quick statement about binary, for judges
and attorneys who may not know: computers work as a series of "on" or "off" switches. Having
only two signals means that instructions we humans give the computer must be translated
to an arrangement of "on" and "off" signals.) To us humans, binary is just a random bunch
of zeros and ones--so programmers MUST be free to work with the human-readable form of a
program.
If 30 English students are set to the task of writing a paper on free speech you will receive 30 different and unique responses. Each English student will draw from their personal background as well as the resources available to them. The words and ideas contained in these papers are considered to be free speech. If 30 Computer Science students are set to the task of designing a computer program that simulates writing a mystery novel using AI you will receive 30 different and unique responses. Each CS student will draw from their personal background as well as the resources available to them. They, like the English students, are expressing ideas through their chosen medium. The parallels between these two groups are simple and easy to follow. Both groups are given a task, to design a response to a problem and place their response in a form accepted by their collegues. The end result produced by each student will be both similar and functionally equivelant to the other works produced by that group. However, since each item is unique and an original work of art produced by a human mind, it constitutes expression and is therefor speech.
If the objective was to paint a landscape, no artist would paint it quite the same as this painting would be an expression of him/her self- although of course there would be similarities from previous inspiration and similar teachings. You can say that painting was inspired by so and so or they went to a particular school of teaching because it has this feature, or that texture etc.
Likewise a computer programmer has an objective and no two computer programmers go about this the same way and the end result is expression of him/her self. Again there would be similarities from previous inspirations and teachings. It is possible to look at a piece of code and say that he was inspired by so and so because he used this and indented it like that etc.
An example from the book The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll talks about how he tracked down the hacker through the hackers expressiveness in their code - i.e. the hacker was using Berkley style Unix etc.
Some scientific simulations, for example, cannot be fully expressed in either English or with mathematical equations. Yes, you can outline the algorithm in a readable way. You can also summarize the physical principles involved, maybe in a short paragraph. But many ideas are represented by mathematical equations that cannot be solved in closed form. That is, there isn't an equation that sums up the result. So to fully experess the idea itself, one needs computers. (Since you don't always know what the result will be... that's why you're doing the simulation. You have an idea in English, but you don't know what that algorithm will actuall do.)
To obtain a numerical approximation for simulations of some physical phenomena would take a lifetime if done by hand. In this kind of situation, the only way to express ones thoughts and ideas is through code. The only way to fully understand the meaning of the English description or outlined algorithm is to run the program, and perhaps generate some graphic visualisation of the results. (I use Blender to visualize my simulation results, and use Python to do a lot of the animating. If the animated movie itself is protected free speech, then how could the code that generated it not be?)
A single line of this program is no more or less expressive than a single line from a novel. Taken as a whole, both convey a unique message. It could be argued that the program could contain more information, because as a simulation of a physical phenomenon, it expresses information that cannot be obtained in any other way.
-another good idea moderated to a 1
Doesn't fair use protect ability to quote? Eg. Making a presentation about what is popular in movies. So long as you do not use more than a certain amount of a VHS copy, you are allowed to use a clip in anything you do so long as you are not distributing a large portion to many others without permission. As far as coding, the style and elegance of code is the measure. There are any number of ways to create the same program. The same with fine art. There are any number of ways to create a statue of a man on a horse, but a better artist will create a better article. Same with movies. The same movie can be created with different actors and similar scripts, but the ability of those involved in its production and creation determine how good the movie will be. Coding has communities built around it (esp. open source and free software, who are doing it gratis and only for the love of code) who write and compare code. That looks to me like competition to create the most elegant, fast code. Another point, a program has to have a user interface. If you have ever worked with interface design or know someone who has, you know that it takes a lot of artistic ability to create a gui that is easily usable and fun to look at. Look at the differences between kde and gnome desktops, at the style of the art and window drawing. If you say that coding isn't an art form, you are saying that one program is the same as the next. However, different programs that have the same function look different and function differently. Oh well, that's my feelings on it. Hope it helps if anyone reads it. Evil Jeff
Some may say that I am giving 2600 too much altruistic credit, but here is my interpretation of 2600's motives, which would fall under an example of source code as expressive content and protected speech. Even if this is not entirely 2600's motives, they could be someones, so the example is still valid.
2600 publishes news articles of interest to "hackers" (define that as you like). A teenager in Norway is put into jail BECAUSE OF A US LAW over a software program that he wrote that was accused of being a piracy tool.
Websites publishing the program are being threatened by the MPAA's vast army of lawyers for violating a controversial and possibly ambiguous clause in the DMCA (after all, if it requires this much litigation, it must require the courts to clarify some issues)
2600 writes a news article reporting these facts and editorializing that these are examples of why the DMCA is a bad law (last time I checked, freedom of the press included politial commentary). They furthermore assert that DeCSS isn't even designed or well-suited for piracy. They include the binary program so readers can see for themselves what it does and if they think it is a piracy tool. Posting or linking to the source code also acheives this goal, somewhat better, although only to those who can read C.
Viewed in this light, posting DeCSS is a political argument. Without it, the public would have to rely on 2600's or the MPAA's interpretation of what the program actually does and what is is capable of. It was a real-world example of the kinds of things subject to attack by the DMCA. Are examples of legally-questionable actions illegal? What if 2600 had posted a hypothetical program (maybe even an algorhythm) of a program whose function was 100% within the realm of fair use, but might be viewed as a violation of the DMCA? What about all the hypothetical situations the MPAA is throwing around? I believed DeCSS to be totally useless in the area of piracy before the MPAA introduced me to DIVIX. What if I was a pirate? The court transcrips instructed me precisely on how to use these tools to commit wholesale piracy. My having these instructions is no more dangerous to their income than my having the source to DeCSS. On the internet, telling someone about something is the same as distributing it. The MPAA distributed information on how to pirate a DVD, just as 2600 distributed information on how to break a DVD's encryption. The DMCA magically makes one illegal and the other not. Just because they may not understand the source does not make it any more of HOWTO on crime than their step-by-step walkthrough and demonstration (which was expressive AND functional).
Meta discussions of law have to be protected speech. They are one of the principle reasons we have freedom of speech. 2600 posted DeCSS for these reasons. Even if you don't trust 2600's motives, the argument still stands. Someone could post some program as part of an argument against a law they felt was unconstitutional.
I purchased a book entitled 'The Big Black Book of Computer Viruses'. It contains x86 assembler code to a great number of viruses. Although most are obsolete now they weren't when I obtained the book. Far from being a script-kiddie's cookbook, it discusses the often-ignored capabilities of computer programs. Personally, it was the best tutor in Assembly I've ever had. The store legally sold the book to me. The publisher legally distributed it to them. If viruses, possibly the most destructive programs, and certainly the most publicly-feared ones, can be distributed legally then why not DeCSS?
I also legally obtained, own and operate three, count 'em (3) crowbars.
How peculiar. So as I've understood it copying a program that may decrypt a DVD should be abolished, while selling a weapon that may kill a human being is permitted. Looks to me that crime is in the use one gives a tool, yes?
The day the government starts to censor copying of programs that shut down fire alarms will be the beginning of the end.
Something wrong there in our society...
The source code submitted to the Obfuscated C and Perl contests bypasses even that shaky argument. That code is not primarily intended to accomplish anything practical. Its primary purpose is to express humor, and said humor is experienced by viewing the unperformed and uninterpreted code itself.
An example of code as expression: the t-shirts on thinkgeek and copyleft. Many of them use code as art, satire, or as a form of protest (such as the shirt at copyleft with the 'qrpff' code on the front and a section of DMCA on the back, or the RSA dolphin shirt on thinkgeek).
Negative, I am a meat popsicle.
I think people are looking at this the wrong way - because computer code is *sometimes* used to solve real world problems, people think of it as a tool. This notion is reinforced by the fact that 99% or so of the general population (all non-programmers) don't understand it. How many examples of 'high art' (such as the famous multi-million dollar painting of a red line on white canvas) do we see where nobody but the artist (and a few art critics) understand it ? Is this not a similar situation ? Isn't it a really sad commentary on human nature that we even attach enough importance to 'movies' that we have to have this much debate about it ? That there's even a chance of losing 1% of our free speech because of something as idiotic as hollywood crap (and "it's" lawyers). It's mostly low-brow entertainment made by people with very small brain/education levels (yes, I know there are exceptions)- just watch & listen when they give interviews.... The USA would be such a better place if hollywood as a whole just went bankrupt & closed down. How many billions of person-hours have been wasted watching celebrity TV shows alone ?!?!? Maybe then we could focus (make them celebrities ??) on people who actually do something important/useful - like medical research, or working to save our freedom of speech, or helping the disadvantaged in the world....
Below is my answer to the first question: What does code express and why it should be protected: You sit down in a theatre to view an emotionally moving movie. Later, looking at the physical film and the projector won't reveal the underlying beauty you just saw. The written screenplay doesn't show it. The sets, the costumes, the design artwork, the sound recordings, don't reveal the whole picture. Yet the components that make up a movie are covered as being expressive works which are protected by copyright law. The MPAA will attest to that. In a movie, there is a wonderous, almost intangible blend of variables that, when combined, produces that touching light on the screen. But the magic only happens at showtime. At showtime. Computer software is very much like a movie in this regard. Like a screenplay, source code is written with a purpose in mind. That purpose is revealed at "showtime" - when the software is run. What transpires at "showtime" is not a simple function of some non-expressive element, but very much a result of the specific expression of the software writer, and is as reliant upon the underlying hardware and media, as a movie is on the film and a projector. Grasp beams of light or try to count bits in silicon memory. Are they expressive? Over time, a collection of photons in one instance, or fleeting bits of electricity in the other, ultimately are expressions with purpose - their very coordination and existance focused into being by design. The underlying combinations of expressions that brought about the "showtime" cannot be removed without a total loss of the final expression. Educational software I have written may look elegant in source code to me, but it's not beautiful until it is run by a handicapped child, who uses it to express herself and touch the world. The smiles happen at showtime whether it's at the movies or using software. P.S. If DeCSS were not expressive, how would the MPAA know what it's purpose was and would it matter to them? If software wasn't expressive in any form, it therefore shouldn't be covered by copyright, as copyright only covers expressive works. Think Microsoft would like that rationale?
The judges were wondering if the ability to video the screen of your TV, or to use a degraded analogue signal, meant that fair-use rights were being preserved.
I would argue that for fair-use purposes, the quality must remain the same. What if the film relies on its visuals? 2001 anyone?
So let's try an analogy, because that's what everyone else seems to be using... I'd argue that we need a whole new paradigm in order to deal with the net, but that's a discussion for another day.
This is an extract from my favourite poem, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Kubla Khan"
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree; Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea.Now, let's "degrade" that...
In Xanadu, Kubla Khan decreed a stately pleasure-dome. This was the same place as Alph, the sacred river, which ran through caves that man could not measure down to a sea, where there was no sun./Would that be a fair alternative for fair-use purposes? No.
Would a degraded version of a film, therefore, be a fair alternative for fair-use purposes? No.
I'm pretty sure the analogy holds; if it doesn't, I'm sure some AC will flame me and explain why.
Rick's World
Consider the Factoral function it can be writtin in the following ways Iterative long int factorial(long int x) { long int h=1 for (;x>0;x--) h*=x; return h; } Recursive long int factorial (unsigned long int x) { if (!x) return 1; return x*factorial( x-1); } The First on is longer but I'm told more efficient after the program compiles. The second one is prettier but waistes memory (granted probally not a lot). I usually will sacrifice code prettyness over run time efficiency. The point though is that is my philosophy. On a major project it might not be praticle to do that. Both codes express a deep philosophy of not only programming but logic. Also look at the error checking. (Not anything serios just so I don't inifite loop) The first on does it in the for loop while the second one does it by Saying that everything is positive. The second one looks prettier but since negative numbers are expressed in ones complement they are actually very big and that loop might cause an error run time. But it is still way cooler looking to write. This is just on example of one function of how code can be art
Speaking to your question, there are few greater expositions upon the craft of programming than Fred Brooks' "The Mythical man Month" (I keep the 1st Edition, 1975) - which is a text of biblical proportion in the programming community.
I shall not type out the whole thing here, but recommend you *run* and get it from any good comp-science bookshop. There are many pages of technique and philosophy...
Chapter 1 - The Tar Pit
Section: The {Joys, Woes} of the Craft
Why is programming fun? What delights may its practitioner afford?
First is...
[...large amount of pertinent material deleted for brevity...]
Finally, there is the delight of working in such a tractable medium. The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination. Few media of creation are so flexible, so easy to polish and rework, so readily capable of realising grand conceptual structures (...)
Yet the program construct, unlike the poet's words, is real in the sense that it moves and works, producing visible outputs separate from the construct itself. It prints results, draws pictures, produces sounds, moves arms. The magic of myth and legend has come true in our time. One types the correct incantation on a keyboard, and a display screen comes to life, showing things that never were nor could be.
Programming then is fun because it gratifies creative longings built deep within us and delights sensibilities we have in common with all men.
There are levels of appreciation of all things; I read a novel and do not extract from it the flavours and nuance that a literary critic may do; likewise I should not expect a lawyer to understand the elegance and significance of:
perl -nle 'setpwent;crypt($_,$c)eq$c&&print"$u=$_"while($u,$ c)=getpwent'
(Incidentally - the above was created as a rebuttal to the stated "extreme complexity" of writing password-cracking security programs as cited in Boalt Hall `High Technology Law Review 10:2' from 1995 - in a paper in which I acted as a resource for an author, and now wish I had not because I consider the rest of the report to be substandard that I would approve.)
Programming is closer to poerty and art than any other engineering discipline, with the possible exception of architecture - but who's gonna believe a bunch of geeks who say this?
Cite Brooks. At least he might have some weight.
- alec
Source code is the language that programmers use to commmunicate with other programmers.
French is the language the French people use to communicate with other French people.
Do we outlaw French?
Then the arguement falls to outlawing the source for this particular piece of code because we (as a society) do not like the content of the language. That is exactly where the First Amendment kicks in to protect the content. Just as the First Amendment protects the instructions for how to make a bomb, but does not protect the making of a bomb, the First Amendment protects the source for DeCSS, but does not protect the copying of a DVD that DeCSS allows. MPAA can go after the people who are using DeCSS to copy movies, but they can not go after people for putting out the source which shows how to copy the movies.
I am posting in hopes this arguement can be of use to the lawyers for 2600.
I agree that dictionaries do give a good starting point, but often they miss the main idea of abstract ideas, such as the purely subjective word "art." Webster's Universal College Dictionary defines art as "the... production...of what is...of more than ordinary significance" as well as a "skilled workmanship" or "studied action." The Advanced Thorndike Barnhart Dictionary calls art "any form of human activity that is the product of and appeals primarily to the imagination." The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language online qualifies art as "the conscious production or arrangement of...elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty..." These, when combined, give the idea that a piece of art must come from the intelligent, intentional, and imaginative thought processes of a human being. No program comes into being without calculated, clever, and creative thinking on behalf of the programmer.
100 programmers asked to write code to perform an identical task will write 100 uniquely separate programs (with the possible exception of simplistic ones like "Hello, world!") The programs will vary in specific language used, terseness, length and attitude of comments or their presence at all, form, and even the specific commands used when programmers have many options. Perl's slogan reflects this. TMTOWDTI. (There's More Than One Way To Do It.) When left entirely to onself, even the kind of program one writes shows the nature of that person. A program reflects a programmer's individuality.
Programmers, like authors or composers, feel pride of accomplishment in the completion of their work. Novels, symphonies, and programs exist on the same plain. The program is the programmer's opus.
"You have not converted a man because you have silenced him."
> What I find more distrubing is that the MPAA
> considers its profits as important to protect
> as "people's lives".
Why exactly is this a disturbing view? Are property rights laws less important than personal protection laws? Sure, we override people's property rights in order to protect people's lives. But we aren't concerned about CSS killing anyone are we? There's no direct connection between the two, so no conflict arises to make a comparison relevant. The original analogy was somewhat flawed, but philosophically, I don't see copyright law as any less important than protecting people from murder.
Many computer programs are written for businesses by employees of the business. In this context the programs express the business' philosophy on doing business. The reason businesses hire their own programmers instead of always buying packaged software is because they believe their way is better than that of their competitors. They believe that by writing their own software they can codify their process in such a way that they are repeatable.