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2600 Appeal Rejected
blankmange writes "Wired is reporting that 2600's appeal has been rejected by a federal appeals court. "The Second Circuit Court of Appeals said in a one-line ruling that it was not going to revisit an earlier decision in which 2600 was found to be unlawfully distributing a DVD-descrambling utility. In January 2000, eight movie studios sued the legendary hacker quarterly for posting the DeCSS.exe utility, which decodes DVDs and allows them to be viewed on a Linux computer." The magazine now has 90 days to file a Supreme Court appeal." The Appeals court did not have to take the case, and they didn't. 2600 can appeal to the Supreme Court, but they don't have to take the case either - it's looking more and more as though Kaplan's ruling will stand.
"the DeCSS.exe utility, which decodes DVDs and allows them to be viewed on a Linux computer."
.exe utility which is made for running under _windows_ and then I can view it on a _linux_ computer? .exe
:)
Now what? an
blargh... when you think you're finally done with the windoze thing, they come up with an
From the article
This is hardly the first time that Hollywood and other DMCA proponents have won in court. A federal judge in New Jersey tossed out a case brought by Princeton University computer scientist Ed Felten, who claimed legal threats made by the recording industry unconstitutionally chilled his right to free speech
Is that something that Hollywood would be celebrating - this smells bad - real bad.
I think a large part of the reason it wasn't allowed for appeal was the great number of protests and courtroom hijinx 2600 brought with them. Its like being the class clown, teachers aren't going to give many favors and would rather send you to the principals office than deal with you directly.
For the Supreme Court, I mean?
-----
Score 3? For what? Being wrong, at length? - smirkleton
Hrmm...firebombs. MPAA. Judge Kaplan's house...
...no, I will not get nasty ideas. I will not get nasty ideas. I will not get nasty ideas...
Well, maybe just Jack Valenti.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
ThinkGeek will sell you a decss t-shirt, and it's not tiny print either. I don't want to be trollish, but it's high time we got some competent judges, or at least another section of judges for tech cases.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
If the supreme court refuses to hear the case do we formaly rebel or something then?
I mean what ARE the options left after both the legislative and the judicial branch have f*cked you in the ass?
Granted it wouldn't be MUCH of a rebelion (well, one way or the other. Not like Nerds / Geeks can agree on anything, getting us all organized would be hell, everybody would start fighting over minor ass stuff), but if we ever did get organized we would rule the world.
(in about ten seconds, heh.)
Somebody else can comment on the irony of the highest potential power being held by people who are unable to get together to use it. ^_^
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
While I believe there are a few more cases pending that seek to gut it, I think we may have to get used to living with the DMCA. It's unfortunate, but this is what happens when you live in a society that is ruled by the media industry. With only a few companies controlling 90% of the TV stations and two or three firms taking control of the radio, it's going to take some serious lobbying to stop these types of bills passing. The Internet is the only thing standing between the media giants and their utter control of free speech. If something isn't done to curb this, we may find ourselves in a society not run by a single 'big-brother' State, but instead run by a few giant media groups. Not that they couldn't - at that point - purchase the State, with all of the media at there disposal, they could do anything. And most people would go along with it, because they saw it on TV. I can just here my parents and grandparents now - "Well, so-and-so on channel 2 said it was a good idea. And then I heard the same on channel 7 - and then the newspaper endorsed the idea. So, it must be the way to go..."
My car is capable of going over a hundred miles an hour. I can also use it to run over hapless pedestrians. Yet I do neither (at least not on purpose)
I own guns. I'm capable of all sorts of mischief. I choose not to.
I own a baseball bat. I don't attack people with it. Sometimes I even hit baseballs with it.
Decss is a nice tool that I can use to store my favorite DVD on my laptop and watch it when I'm on travel without dragging a bunch of extra stuff around. I don't steal movies on DVD... I certainly could, I chose not to.
Just because you can use a tool that has a legitmate purpose to break the law doesn't mean you will do so.
Plus, who has time to download some sucky dvd rip anyway? Life's too short, I'd rather plunk down the $20 or so and have a nice library. It's retarded to spend all that time stealing a movie then pay big bucks for a writable DVD.
Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
No wait... the website has been changed...
The ruling has been reversed? Hmmm. I wonder how that could have been done?
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Well, yes, civil disobediance is the next step. The problem is that now is not the time. There isn't enough consumer interest in what's going on.
The public is still addicted to the media and buy swallow whatever it feeds them. As long as they get what they think they want it will keep on keepin' on. While it does indeed hurt the public, they haven't felt it yet. Before they allow people to feel the pain of having their rights ripped from their hearts, they have to tie us all down so we can't fight back.
Awareness comes first and unfortunately, we have to wait until something BIG happens. Something big like...oh, say another Columbine-style shooting where the people are apparently driven mad by our freedoms being taken from us. Okay, we will need at least three of those events before people start listening... the first one is "some nut" the next one is a "copy cat" but the third is a "movement."
Apparently descrambling DVD is encyption As bad as sabotaging airplanes to crash. Gives you a idea just how much of a clue these judges have to what these programs do.(Granted, this was pre-9/11, but still)
-Henry
"Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
The next step is to elect a new legislature.
And I really don't see how you get from civil disobedience to Columbine. Did you skip out on civics class for crack hits?
I swear, the shit that comes out of geeks' mouths when they start talking politics is appalling.
He correctly pointed out that disputes over the limits of fair use and copyright lie in Congress's jurisdiction, no the courts. The courts job is to enforce the law and interpret it to a given set of facts. The whole First Amendment argument was incredibly weak anyway. Arguing that DeCSS actually made some sort of statement that was political rather then being a tool used by others too make a political statement was akin to the anarchist arguing that bomb making was protected because his political opinions were. If DMCA tromps on your fair use rights then get your butts out on the campaign circuit, contribute time, money, and sweat to political candidates who will promise to change it. Support those that back your view and fight those that don't. This is an election year kiddies, remember? Every single House member and a third of the senate. Don't give me that blatther about Hollywood ownes them, yada, yada, yada. Individuals vote, in election places, on election day, not dollar, not companies, individuals. So start cranking ou broadsides explaining this issue to the voters, start going door to door, start working campaigns and making contributions and get involved. I've been a political activist for eight years, making connections and getting to know folks, and I tell you that most politicians are desperate for grass roots activists, Go to your local political club, introduce yourself, let the local politician know your computer aware and he may come to you for an opinion on these matters. But don't be percieved as an anarchist. Wash your hair and face, dress nice, dump the rightious indignation and be polite considerate and non dictitorial and give of your own time and money to help them and they will listen. In the end it's the Congress that created this mess and it's in Congress it will need to get fixed. So rant here, but get active in the real world. Or prepare to keep getting run over!
This case is being lost because the movement headed by the EFF simply does not have the incentive to win it. The American judicial system did not become conservative just yesterday, it has always been so. Just in fairly recent American history the African Americans after centuries of reverses in the legal system were able to persuade the Supreme Court to grant relief. In this case the African Americans simply were interested in winning above all. So they did everything they could to put forward good upstanding representatives such as Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to represent the face of the movement.
In contrast let's face it, neither 2600 nor EFF are threatened with nonexistence should they lose this case. In fact they are benefitting. Every time the EFF loses a case the movement argues that the solution is to give them more money, this despite a rather suspicious history of the EFF actually being on the wrong side such as the first head of ICAAN being former head of the EFF Esther Dyson. I doubt that 2600 is hurting either from having their name prominently displayed on the Internet news outlets every few weeks.
In this era of dotcom meltdown and competition is it so unlikely that without this controversy 2600 would be threatened with going out of business? What information exactly does 2600 have that's exclusive to them or is even that interesting anymore?
In contrast to the naysayers I think it's pretty clear that the Supreme Court takes seriously the First Amendment, and that is the ONLY reason 2600 even has a chance of getting them to review the case. The Supreme Court has for example repeatedly struck down the attempts by the Federal Government to regulate obscenity on the Internet. The Supreme Court is serious about its duties, too bad 2600 is not.
This hardly just ties into the DMCA, and the music and movies industry. It ties into a far larger picture, that of the decaying public trust in the gov't, and worse yet, the courts.
As Americans, we've liked to think of the courts as a neutral element in our politics, one that cannot be so easily swayed by money grubbers and the bands of lawyers and lobbyists they employ. I still remember how commentators noted that perhaps the most serious damage done in the Bush/Gore election was that a large segment of the population quietly lost faith in the judiciary's ability to stay apolitical--that they too can, and will, play political football.
Here, in light of the DMCA, we have seen how campaign contributions have been used to push a bill thru Congress, ultimately affecting a ruling in court, with the aid of their own high-priced lawyers.
So why should you give a damn? Because perfectly legitimate actions are being illegalized! When this happens, people simple don't give a shit about the law. And when people start with that attitude, the law loses authority, and the government's claim to righteousness is eroded.
In the end, everyday hackers like you and me will simply not shit about what's "right." Because we feel that we've been wronged, everything is now fair game. And believe me, vigilante rule, all of this every-man-for-himself mentality that might spew forth--it scares the shit out of me, cuz we might not win.
I'm bored, lets go break something.
In a sense, I'm not sure that if I were the EFF that I'd want this to be the case in front of the Supreme Court. Don't get me wrong, I've met Emmanuel Goldstein a couple of times and he's a great guy, but to the non-geek straight world he's a Bad Criminal Hacker, not a journalist. You generally would like to have a case with a more sympathetic client before taking it up to the Supreme Court, which is why the Princeton prof or the Russian programmer writing software for the blind would have been better for us. It's too bad for 2600 if it loses, but it's worse if it loses at the highest possible level and screws up a better chance down the road for the Supreme Court to see just how terrible this law can be. Contrary to popular belief, the Supreme Court doesn't reverse themselves all that often (and the most famous time they did-- Plessy v. Ferguson being overturned by Brown v. Board of Ed of Topeka, took 58 years).
(IAAL, but this is just a prediction. YMMV.)
"If I have a computer with a DVD drive and I want to play a DVD under Linux it doesn't harm anyone."
Not true... you could be hurting yourself and others around you, if that DVD happens to be Tomb Raider or Glitter.
Under the DMCA, the Librarian of Congress has the power to declare whether there are substantial non-infringing uses of a decryption technology. Should we be lobbying that person on the side?
The first rule of Operation Total Chaos is that we do not talk about Operation Total Chaos.
SO SHUT UP!
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
In all probability your laptop already came with some version of Windows which could play the DVDs. It was your choice to wipe it off and replace it with an OS that was incapable of using the hardware. Would it have killed you to have kept Windows in a dual-boot system when you already paid for it in the Windows tax? I read Linux zealots using this logic all the time against FreeBSD exhilarating that the GPL is keeping some driver support from FreeBSD.
I just don't get the sheer obstinancy of some people who seem to think that using computers should be equivalent to Homer Simpson's repeatedly hitting his head against a brick wall. If using Microsoft's products kills you so much why didn't you buy a Mac, a machine that can play DVDs just fine AND whose OS is derived from Unix.
The court rules on the law. It interprets the law. It doesn't change the law unless the law violates the constitution. It can clarify a law, but in this case, the court decided that DVD decrypting software was illegal. I don't think that anyone will disagree that that software is in violation of the DMCA and they have also decided that the DMCA isn't unconstitutional.
If you're still angry about this decision, your next step is to contact your local senator and tell him or her your feelings on the DMCA and what you think they-- as your elected representative, should do. It is an election year afterall. Findout their stance on the issue and vote for someone who accurately represents your wishes!
adam
http://eon.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/DVD/NY/trial/op . tml
This is part of Harvard's Openlaw site, which has an excellent OpenDVD section
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
It is a really good thing that the court has protected the movie studios by stopping people from linking to DeCSS!. I mean what kind of chaos could ensue if people could link to and find a copy of this evil program? I mean even companies like Disney would go out of business if people kept distributing this program! I am so glad that linking to DeCSS is a crime! I feel much safer now.
That's the kind of argument DOJ was trying to make and the MPAA ate up: "DeCSS is a digital crowbar."
In that case, I propose that we apply the exact same restrictions to DeCSS that we apply to crowbars.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Ya know, those nicely dressed folks that come knocking on your door tomorrow --won't be the Mormans. ; )
I think it is safe to say we are all a little pissed. I don't believe, however, that you'd wish death upon many of the worst weasles that cross our path. (Even Mr. Valenti & friends!)
I humbly suggest that a useful way to channel that anger is to design and code. True, RIAA members are powerful and can manipulate the legal system to their own ends. But they are not simply fighting legal battles here, they are fighting technology and that is where we have a huge advantage.
So the next time the RIAA/MPAA members and friends crack open the champagne (and it will happen again), crack open your favourite caffinated beverage and help write something to thwart them, because this is how they will be defeated.
The DMCA is being replicated in Europe and world wide via WIPO. There is no fighting it in the courts when the perceived economic consequences of not upholding it are in the $billions. (just as the economic consequences of the collapse of the horse & buggy industry to the upstart automobile were high too -- but there were not so many lawyers back then.)
In short, one must choose the correct battles to win the war, and the courts are not the best place to fight.
(Dammit! Now the FBI will be knocking on *MY* door too! ; ) )
Cheers,
-b
The media giants just want to keep DECSS underground. Given the intent of the ruling, it has failed. Anyone can find DECSS and the tools to play a DVD they just have to look. Thats the catch. Having to look means that no entity can make commercial use of it. This means that our average joe will not be using Linux to play any serious media.
Funny, I remember during the court proceedings commercial legal DVD players being announced and brought forward as evidence. Ever try to buy one of those? Know anyone that has?
Linux is not something centrally controlled, or closed for that matter. Lots of big players don't like the fact that there is really no way to buy or leverage their technology to gain control. Control is the pillar for most of their business models.
So rather than co-opt the system and compete for dollars, they would rather just not play.
The DMCA has shown its effects, and this ruling is a shining example of legal control where they have no other realistic means.
All of us slashdotters can and will be able to do what we want, but thats really it. If you think about it a little, that suits them perfectly. Most of the money is elsewhere.
Blogging because I can...
Wired even posted the utility
2600 has a shady reputation, Wired has an upright-citizen reputation. The way our courts work, you go after the shadiest perpetrator of the crime you can find first, and try to set a precedent (because, sadly, nobody minds finding disreputable characters guilty). Once you have a precedent set, you can scare the others into submission.
Outlawing DeCSS today, would be like outlawing the photocopier in the 1970's, or outlawing home movie projectors at the turn of the 19th/20th century.
I am very disappointed that the court never addressed whether or not congress had the power to enact the anti-device provision in the first place. Forty-six law professors who specialize in intellectual property, claim that the anti-device provision is exactly the sort of thing that the constitution sought to avoid. The appeals court
I am further disturbed by the court's ban on electronic footnotes. I still have the right to put a URL in a print publication, but if I put it on a web site, I can be thrown in jail. What's so special about the internet that my free speech rights don't apply?
Finally, the appeals court's prophecy that the internet will result in the viral spreading of movies and destruction of the movie industry is without merit. These predictions have been made with every single advancement in media technology, and with every single advancement they have been proven wrong. Even at the height of Napster, with a slumping economy, the record companies were making more money than the did before Napster started.
With this court ruling, it is illegal to make an open source DVD player. And it is impracticle for ordinary citizens to make their own improvements to a closed source DVD player. Why can't churches distribute a script that only plays an edited version of rated R movies? Answer: because I can't make a DVD player that supports this feature. This clearly does the exact opposite of promoting usefulness in the arts and sciences.
I live in a country where I have a constitutional right to publish directions on building a nuclear bomb, or publish a book on how to kill someone and get away with it. But I can be thrown in jail for telling someone how to make a tool that helps blind people read electronic books.
k appeal, everyone there was respectful of the court, save the time the lawyer for the government, when pressed admitted that DeCSS posed not actual harm, but "well, threat of actual harm."
The entire courtroom laughed, judges included.
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
ok kids, just for review, THIS is legal to write:
4 2;if((@a=unqT ="C*",_)[20]&48){D=89;_=unqb24,qT,@5 )&(Q>>1 2^Q>>4^Q/8^Q))<<17,O=O>>8^(E& ; F=(S=O>>14&7^O)= R^=11 0&(S=(unqT,"\xb\ntd\xbz\x14d")[_/16%8]);E@ z=(64,72,G^=12*(U-2?0:S&17)),H^=_%64?12 : ,@z)[_%8]}(16..271))[_]^((D>>=8a [128..$#a]}print+qT,@a}';s/[D -HO-U_]/\$$&/g;s/q/pack+/g;eval
" Hrmm...firebombs. MPAA. Judge Kaplan's house... "
And THIS is not:
#!/usr/bin/perl
s''$/=\2048;while(<>){G=29;R=1
b=map{ord qB8,unqb8,qT,_^$a[--D]}@INC;s/...$/1$&/;Q=unqV , b25,_;H=73;O=$b[4]<<9
|256|$b[3];Q=Q>>8^(P=(E=25
^S*8^S<<6))<<9,_=(map{U=_%16orE^
^=(72,
)+=P+(~F&E))for@
Really puts things in perspective, huh?
How is this NOT surprising? We all have heard the arguments. They're baseless, still knowing idiot judges, did you EXPECT ELSEWISE? If you were, then you're a fool.
Still, the damage has been done. No fucking judge will pull every copy of deCss deritiave program from every computer at the time of judgement. All they are is just a talking head when it comes to the internet. If it's code, we have nearly perfected it by the time it goes to trial. If it's open-sourced, then speed that process up by 10 speed.
All they can do is bitch and moan in part of thier corporate interests. We're waaaaay ahead of them.
And to whet your appetite, here is the introduction:
One irony in all this is that everybody seems to think that 2600 - the magazine, the publisher, and the culture / community created around it - need the US justice system to survive.
Well...
2600 may be first published in the States, but now the culture and those who believe in the freedom to hack - not only on 'puters but hacking ANY system and device - is all over the world.
So what if the US supreme court decides to deny 2600 a right of hearing ?
The publisher may close down the 2600 mag in the States, but heck, the world is NOT YET under the control of US justice system. We can continue to do whatever we do in China, France, as well as Argentine or Uganda.
To hell with the US justice system. 2600 _will_ live on, no matter what those idiots on the bench think.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
If that's what I think it is, it's illegal (in the US) to link to it. Looks like Slashdot will be next in the dock.
The fact that Kaplan took the case shows that he was more interested in helping his friends and getting back at his enimies than in a fair trial.
The whole thing was a pantomime from beginning to end, but stupidity (or the law) had nothing to do with it.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
about the firebomb thing, it's illegal to incite violence.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Notice that this paragraph says nothing about encryption, but talks about the law. Movies that were distributed on VHS were just as much protected by the law as DVDs are today. That is why the next sentence does not make sense:
The advent of "new technology" i.e. DeCSS, did not change the law anymore than the "new technology" that allowed the movie makers to encrypt the DVDs in the first place.
In other words the *law* is about stopping people from unlawfully distributing copies. Decryption is about viewing content.
Imagine going up to someone in the street who new a bit about computers but hasn't heard about this case. If you said to them "I want to watch DVDs on my computer, but it doesn't have windows so I have to make my own DVD player to watch them. Is that fair use of the DVD?" What would their answer be? How could they possibly say no?
I know what someone will say - yes you can use DeCSS for fair use, but you can also use it for illegal use. What are they really saying? They mean "it is easier to stop people producing DeCSS than it is to stop people distributing copies". In other words "we're inadequate to enforce the law as it is, so we're going to make it more restrictive."
Just my 2 pence...
Julian
Some people see the fight against the DMCA as a fight to let us copy video and audio in ways that we want. In some respects that's true, but for some it's a lot more.
The DMCA is offensive because of the submersed way it was passed. Recall the stories about the method applied. The voting was held in a dubious way at a dubious time if I recall correctly. This is law that never had due process. While there was a little bit of mention about it prior to it being passed into law, the DMCA was passed very quickly and very quietly. There are enough people pissed off about that to disallow that tactic from being used again for a while. We should be fighting against that tactic but you have to get legislators prepared to fight that for you... there is no other way.
The DMCA was law written in the interest of one group only. The public's interest wasn't even a little-bit considered. It was already illegal to copy copyrighted works. We didn't need new law to make it 'more' illegal. It was written so that it could be a weapon against due process against the people who are less capable of affording good legal defense. In effect, it gave the entertainment interests "first strike nuclear capability" against anyone they want without good due process involved. The DMCA isn't about making anything 'more' illegal, it's a weapon. Since when should law be a weapon?
Finally, since this is a weapon in the interests of the entertainment media, getting the public's attention will be pretty much impossible without major events. Most people still don't know what Macrovision is and just think there's something wrong with their VCR. (Admittedly, I didn't know what it was either until I bought my first DVD player. Since I have an inexpensive TV and an inexpensive VCR, the only obvious way to hook my DVD player up was through my VCR's inputs... but for some mysterious reason it was all scrambled... most people usually stop there, but I'm a geek -- it's still a rare breed -- which is where my story kinda begins.)
The DMCA and future 'technology law' seek to restrict knowledge and the ability to tweak, tinker and research. This takes such knowledge out of the hands of the hobbyist almost entirely. The ability for me to hack on things on my kitchen table... to learn about the world on any level of my choosing is a very fundamental restriction. The restriction of information and knowledge... just the thought of it frightens me. Speech is just the way knowledge is conveyed. There are things that 'they don't want you to know or even know about!' That's a big problem.
I find it disturbing when there is software installed on my machine doing something I don't want it to do and didn't know was there. That's usually called a virus or a trojan. Now it's also called "spyware" and "ad engines." I'm not alone in that. I find it disturbing when law is passed without public notice, attention or heed... our legislators just looked the other way allowing the first of many up-an-coming measures to begin. Again, disturbing.
And finally, again as the DMCA and similar laws being attemptd are in the interest of the parties controlling the media, it's not likely that any small events will get public attention. If you need a visual, imagine a cute little cartoon boa contrictor surrounding us. It's cute, funny, interesting, colorful... but that's always the approach of this predator. And when we can't get out, they constrict until we can't breathe.
Changes in the way our government runs is no accident. It was predicted and it is happening now. Public opinion is that we do not own our country -- our government does -- and anything happening that we don't like; there's nothing we can do about it.
I resent being called a 'troll.' The point I'm making is that the public's attention isn't being raised and that's no accident. The 9-11 event was not just a 'terrorist act.' It was a very significant "PR" move to get attention. There is a problem with what's going on over there in those distant lands. People never really knew about it before then. Sometimes, that's just what it takes to get their attention. People still don't know why it happened but more people know now than did before. Likewise, people still don't know the value of what's going on here. Right now, the DMCA is only bothering a 'few' individuals and we have 'Larry Flynt' [2600] fighting our battles for us. In the same way people had a difficult time getting behind 'porn' people are having some problem getting behind 'hackers.'
Our Reality is our perception and since the media is our perception, they control our reality.
Well, actually, it's seventy (70! ) years beyond the life of the author. Life expectancy is about 75 in the US. So, if on her deathbed, an author bequeathed her copyrights to the grandson born at that very moment, said grandson could live off the proceeds for essentially his entire life, having contributed (by construction) nothing toward the creation of the original work... Sure, that really encourages creativity.
Why should anyone benefit from copyright once the author has died? The heirs can benefit from the proceeds realized by the author, since those are actual property and logically persist. But why continue to draw benefit from the creation when the creator is gone?
Don't even get me started on corporations having nearly a century to derive benefit...
(And I don't buy the "Well, it encourages one to create so as to pass something on to one's heirs" line. By that argument, infinite copyright would be even more valuable and therefore encourage even more creativity -- why limit it all? Indeed, why not pass it on to the heirs forever? Maybe we can include something to indicate the ownership; maybe an inheritable title. Yeah, that's the ticket.)
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Funny, in one court case the defendant repeatedly played games with the court, pissed the judge off, submitted faked evidence, and when the judge expressed his opinion, he was removed from the case and a new judge assigned.
In another court case, the defendand repeatedly played games with the court, pissed the judge off, and didn't submit faked evidence, and when the judge expressed his opinion, he was upheld on appeal.
Funny, that.
www.eFax.com are spammers
"I don't see any mass uprising against the DMCA or against anything for that matter, so it means that the people approve it, at least by default. Joe Average doesn't care about such basic things as universal health care, a decent public education or a clean taxation system. Joe Average doesn't bother to understand those problems or to vote when all it takes is 2 hours driving to and from the polling station once every 2 years. Joe Average just grunmbles against Washington and "all those corrupt bastards" and doesn't give a shit.
"
That's because Joe average doesn't know about the DMCA and other very wrong laws- nor does he understand what the law being on the books means to him. Once explained, that travesty that Hollings calls a bill, draws very negative reactions from people- they just didn't know about it or what it meant to them. The same goes for the DMCA- it was QUIETLY done and the average person doesn't even know it exists. If they did and you explained to them what was made illegal- they'd more often than not be very pissed off.
As for voter apathy- I'll sum it up for you:
Nobody thinks they can change the system- for better or for worse. The people running for office are more often than not the flip sides of the same corrupt coin. So, if that's the case, why bother voting if the deck is heavily stacked in favor of the people already richer than anyone else and the people in power?
Right or wrong, that's what it seems that a lot of people think these days. If you've got that as a viewpoint, it becomes really hard to make a stand or anything else. It would take something heinous to get them to act.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
...I just don't want to be told that I can't play them on a Linux only laptop, etc. And don't tell me about using a portable or home player either- if I'm on the road, does that mean I need to buy another $500+ player or keep a Windows partition that I don't want (that eats up my disk space, normally not being used) in addition to my $1000 laptop?
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
So this court of appeals decided that it didn't want to hear yet another appeal from 2600. This could mean either one of two very different things:
1.) The appeals court sees no problem with either the district court ruling or the first appeals court ruling. As far as they're concerned, the case is done.
2.) The appeals court sees that there is a few very important issues in the case and feels it would be best to defer the case to the Supreme Court ASAP in order to set a new nation-wide precedent. If this is what happened, then they're very interested in the case in question.
So... which is it? The news articles talk of a one-line ruling. What did the one-line ruling say?
No, the next step is BOYCOTT STAR WARS!!! Those people who go out and see these movies and rent or buy DVDs or tapes and buy CDs or tapes are the ones paying to take 2600 to court. If you don't like what they're doing, STOP BUYING THEIR STUFF AND INSTEAD GIVE THE MONEY TO GROUPS THAT OPPOSE THEM!!!
If you're on this page bitching about the MPAA AND you saw Star Wars or you're planning to see it, then you just don't get it.
The next step is not get a new legislature, and it's not civil disobedience or breaking the law, and it's not to go to the media whining about how mean the media companies are being and expecting the media companies to care. (I hope you can see the irony in that last statement.)
The next step is:
STOP BUYING STUFF FROM COMPANIES THAT TREAT YOU LIKE SHIT!
Get that through your heads. Until you're willing to forego seeing/hearing $BrightShinyThing every time a new interesting thing gets made by the media companies, you're still helping them. All they care about is money. The only way to stop them is to take away their money, and the only way to do that is to decide for yourself that you will no longer give them any money. If your freedom is important, you should be willing to suffer a little by not helping the people who want to take away the freedom. You can do it. It sucks, but you can go through life without seeing movies in the theater and without buying CDs.
All of the other things, from political actions to media campaigns (snicker) to lawsuits won't matter if you keep buying their stuff. Stop giving them money. Tell everyone you know to stop giving them money.
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
Civil Disobedience.
You have a moral obligation to ignore any laws that you do not agree with-- especially laws that are designed to protect the interests of a select few at the expense of society proper.
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/
"What laws has PETA broken? Or, do they deserve to die slowly, simply because you disagree with them personally? That is inhumane...The fact you equate an animal rights group, the music industry, the christian coalition with child molesters and rapists makes you just as bad as the groups you despise."
Actually, anyone who supports the death penalty supports executing people they disagree with personally. Rapists and murderers, for example, can be executed in Texas. They happen to have this view that rape and murder is OK; so we execute them. Ok, not exactly so -- they happen to have this view that rape and murder is OK, and they act on it; so we execute them.
Yes, I do group PETA, CC, MPAA, RIAA, and most politicians with rapists, murderers, and child-molesters. Because they all violate our rights.
PETA (~Al kaida). These are the people that think that animals are more important than humans, and who'd have farmers denied much needed water, to protect some freaking sucker fish. They also blow up buildings which are the sites of scientific research, where animals were being used. Terrorists.
CC (~NAMBLA). I believe the CC already has supported the murder of pro-choice advocates. They may have condemned the Neuremburg files site publicly, but they certainly had a hand in it. Also, there's the Christian-affiliated site which showed a homosexual boy burning, and said he died as punishment for being gay. But that's not directly affiliated w/ the CC. What the CC advocates is forcing women to give birth. In my book, that's as bad as what's done in China -- forcing women to have abortions. Forcing a woman to give birth, or to have an abortion, is an act analagous to rape. This puts the CC on par with NAMBLA (NAMBLA supports raping little children, CC supports raping women by forcing them to give birth).
The music/movie industry. I'm not talking about the entire music/movie industry here, only the people who don't make music or movies (i.e., the Valentini's or Rosen's). Perhaps no single act of theirs is equitable to rape, murder, or child molestment. But over the period of their careers, they screw us out of constitutional rights, which is the same thing rapists/murderers do. The right to life really isn't too great without the right to free speech and privacy, and other "higher rights".
Politicians. Same story as RIAA/MPAA above. Over their careers they violate many rights, and make decisions that unjustifiably cause people's deaths (refer to Janet Reno and Waco).
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
We live in a capitalist democracy. Vote with your wallet. The parent post is so on point that it is scary. There is nothing else worth saying on this issue, really. If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.
Some people are apathetic, and say "well, hollywood movies make billions of dollars a year, what does my $7.50 matter". If everyone who shared the view that the DMCA was a front put on by evil corporations boycotted said corps, they would notice.
On top of all that, have some self respect. Are you going to pay the price of a movie ticket every time the next "blockbuster" comes out? Do you really want to pay for recycled canned music? Of course you don't. But how many people do?
Want to see a real sham: www.starwarstwo.com
Troll Like a Champion Today
Now what? an .exe utility which is made for running under _windows_ and then I can view it on a _linux_ computer?
I think you mean execute.
Get your Unix fortune now!
Movie studios have large amounts of money they could easily bribe a judge. According to Judge Kaplan's logic all of the money of the movie studios should be taken away in case they try to do something bad with it.
... really, it would be unfair to insinuate otherwise) it is the case that Judge Kaplan is old, out of it, and extremely *stupid*.
DeCSS can potentially be used for copying and redistributing digital content (this is often falsely and misleadingly called "piracy" - piracy is actually a form of murder and robbery). So can many other tools (like video cameras for example - we should note as well that cars are often used to murder and steal property). The judge chose to focus on DeCSS and its potential for illegal use.
Since I would never question Judge Kaplan's ethics (it's virtually a certainty that he was not bribed by the movie industry
"What's so special about the internet that my free speech rights don't apply?"
Good one mate!
"...
Mine is a world that begins with school... I'm smarter than most of the other kids, this crap they teach us bores me...
Damn underachiever. They're all alike.
I'm in junior high or high school. I've listened to teachers explain for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I understand it. "No, Ms. Smith, I didn't show my work. I did it in my head..."
Damn kid. Probably copied it. They're all alike.
I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it's because I screwed it up. Not because it doesn't like me...
Or feels threatened by me...
Or thinks I'm a smart ass...
Or doesn't like teaching and shouldn't be here...
Damn kid. All he does is play games. They're all alike.
And then it happened... a door opened to a world... rushing through the phone line like heroin through an addict's veins, an electronic pulse is sent out, a refuge from the day-to-day incompetencies is sought... a board is found. "This is it... this is where I belong..."
I know everyone here... even if I've never met them, never talked to them, may never hear from them again... I know you all...
Damn kid. Tying up the phone line again. They're all alike...
You bet your ass we're all alike... we've been spoon-fed baby food at school when we hungered for steak... the bits of meat that you did let slip through were pre-chewed and tasteless. We've been dominated by sadists, or ignored by the apathetic. The few that had something to teach found us willing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in the desert.
This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals.
We explore... and you call us criminals.
We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals.
We exist without skin color, without nationality, without
religious bias... and you call us criminals.
You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals.
Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for.
I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all... after all, we're all alike."
~will
sig?
Ahem...ever heard of something called the "Patriot Act"? Its time of passage (late September 2001) was as dubious as any law enacted by the U.S. in at least 50 years and has the potential to erode Americans' rights at a rate the DMCA could not in the latter law's wildest dreams.
Right now there are a lot of people urging their legislators to fight against this crap, but most in Congress, especially the more junior members, are scared shitless to break from their party line. Why? Because if they do, they'll be embarassed (if anyone spoke out against a bill called the "Patriot Act", he or she would at best become a laughing stock; at worst be branded as a terrorist) and possibly have their political balls chopped off. Right now, the power in Congress is concentrated into the hands of a very small group of senior members. This power imbalance is especially evident in the Senate, where unless 60 colleagues can stop him or her, a determined Senator can block any bill from being acted upon by means of filibuster. Piss off one of these elite members, and forget about ever getting your pet legislation up for a vote.
In the mid 1990's, Mass. Governor Weld was nominated by President Clinton for the Mexican ambassadorship. Weld and Clinton both knew that getting Weld confirmed would be a tough battle with the Senate; Weld in fact resigned as governor to pursue this federal position. Little did they know that the Senate would never get the chance to confirm or reject him. Jesse Helms, the chair of the Foreign Affairs committee in the Senate, prevented the nomination from ever getting to a vote because of a personal problem he had with Weld. Apparently, he pulled a parliamentary maneuver that could not be overruled by the rest of the Sentate, unlike a filibuster. WTF? I thought the Constitution allowed the President to appoint people to executive branch positions with the "advice and consent of the Senate", not with the "advice and consent of the Senate, provided that no prominent members of the Senate object to giving to or witholding from the President said consent." I'm sorry, I think that in all such situtations, the President is entitled to a "Yes" or "No" response from the whole Senate. Period. A "we're not allowed to decide because Daddy Helms won't let us" response should be unconstitutional.
I gave this nomination example since I'm more familiar with it than most other failed legislative exploits (it was a big story in the Boston media at the time), but I know it happens all the time with Congress members' legislation too. I understand that there are only a finite number of bills that can be considered during a two-year term and that of this number, some of them absolutely must be debated (e.g. the budget), but the way the Speaker of the House, the Senate President, and select heads of committees in each house have control over the legislature's agenda more closely resembles a dictatorship than a democracy. I wonder how many times a rookie Senator from a small state has successfully managed to keep a pork bill sponsored by Senator Hollings, Hatch, Helms, or Kennedy off the agenda in recent years? Not many. There always seems to be enough time to debate and vote on those bills for some reason. But then time mysteriously expires when Sen. Rookie introduces his bill...
Right now, members outside of the elite will get run out of office before they can substantially affect the way things are done in Congress. Unfortunately I don't see a way this will change any time soon. Changing the way Congress works would require the work of 300 to 400 members; that is a substantial majority of each house. Considering that this majority will in all likelihood consist of a relatively equal mix of Republicans and Democrats (and possibly a few of other or no party affiliation), there will be a multitude of reforms proposed and debated. Unfortunately, this divided group will end up implmenting very few if any of these reforms, thus allowing the elite members to retain their stranglehold over the legislature's agenda.
Also, the belief that every voter has the power to change this is oversimplified at best. Over 98% of the U.S. population will have absolutely no say over whether Senator Hollings will get re-elected in South Carolina. 99 percent will not get to voice their opinion of Orin Hatch the next time his term comes up. Considering at most a few dozen lawmakers are in this elite group that sets each term's legislative agenda, I would venture to guess that over 90% of eligible voters will have no direct say over whether the present state of affairs changes on Capitol Hill.
The best most Americans can do is vote for outsiders (i.e. against the incumbents) and hope that a critical mass of fresh blood can get together and begin to buck the oligarchy's hold over the U.S. This will take either a miracle or at least several decades to pull off.
Until then, I really don't see how the special interests (including the media) are going to stop having an inordinate amount of influence over U.S. policy. Changing this situation is something that's going to require at least a nationwide (some international pressure may even be necessary) grassroots effort. In other words, try as we might, don't expect any meaningful results for many years from your campaigns. Hell, it took 90 years and half a million wartime casualties to ostensibly eliminate slavery from this country. Many would argue that de facto slavery continued in the U.S. for nearly a century after the Civil War. If that kind of effort is required to defeat an blatant injustice like slavery, it's going to require a lot more than a "FP? I love CowboyNeal" post on Slashdot to eliminate the threats created by the likes of the DMCA and CBPTDA. I think these laws will be overturned or at least their effects will be mitigated eventually. However, "eventually" is a very open-ended term.
Maybe those of us who are in the tech lobby should stop worrying about those old bastards who run our world and start thinking about the people who are prompting this insane legislation. Those people head corporations, they don't hold Senate seats.
What if everyone who hated this kind of stuff bought a few shares of Disney stock, and then used that stock to run the company into the ground? (I imagine it could be done if we owned enough of it.)
Robert A. Heinlein wrote in the novel Friday, "How do you fight IBM?" Maybe it is time to take that question seriously.
Making legal war against a corporation in the realm of economics? Is it possible?
I probably just have too much imagination. However, I remember one of the content lobbies talking heads saying something like, "It's like a religion, they won't let us tell them what to put in their computers." Well, it really is my religion, a belief in Progress. I'd like to think I'm not the only one.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)