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DeCSS' Continuing Saga

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the hanging-int-he-balance dept.

blankmange writes "Newsbytes is carrying a followup on the DeCSS and 2600's court cases: "The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the First Amendment Project today asked the California Supreme Court to uphold a lower court's decision to permit publication of the source code for DeCSS technology, which circumvents digital copy protection systems." Maybe it's not over yet..."

10 of 226 comments (clear)

  1. It's on tshirts, bumper stickers, why not sigs by sanermind · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why not put the deCSS program text in your email signature, so everytime you email a friend you 'polute' their spools, servers, backups, with yet another offending copy.

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    the pen is mightier than the sword, the sword is mightier than the court, the court is mightier than the pen.
  2. things are only getting worse... by sixSecondsOfDefeat · · Score: 2, Interesting

    DeCSS is only going to come under more and more attack. Senator Tom Daschel was already quoted as saying that he would be "behind legislation agaainst any DeCSS propaganda or code whatseover". This apparently was stated after it was rumoured that hos own son had brought the DeCSS song on MP3 to school, where it was confiscated by his teacher. (http://routers.com).

    The irony in this is funny, but it is plain to see that this trend will just keep continuing.

  3. Re:Will this kill Slashdot? by Kingstrum · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm sorry, could you phrase your question in the form of a virus ?

    *wink wink, nudge nudge*

    Wouldn't it be a pity if some wretched soul were to send out a virus whose sole purpose was to leave a copy of DeCSS in every computer it touched? Maybe buried 12 folders deep in some random spot on half the world's Windows boxes...

    The MPAA's own servers hosting a pop-up ad with the minimal Perl script showing up every now and then...

    Seems to me the "troublemakers" in our midst have been laying down on the job...so let's get going, boyos and girlos!

  4. the saving coup de grace by js7a · · Score: 3, Interesting
    If it weren't for the fact that felt-tip pens, through the most hilarious twist of fate in a long time, have been outlawed as circumvention devices by the DMCA, then there would be little chance of exposing the absurdity and abject unconstitutionality of the DMCA to nontechnical men and women on the street -- and in the jury box.

    As of last week, this was too close to call. Now the DMCA doesn't have a chance.

    Thank you, Sony, for the copy protection scheme that outlawed the sharpie! Humanity can not thank you enough for the amount of wasted time you've saved. Somewhere on Sony's recently pensioned retirement roles I just know there is some Japanese engineer chuckling silently to himself. Too bad he can't tell his countrymen how he saved the U.S. from the corporate media monopolies.

  5. Correct me if I'm wrong.. by warpSpeed · · Score: 3, Interesting
    "No stolen trade secret can survive if the courts are powerless to enjoin its widespread disclosure," the brief said.

    Hasn't DeCSS already experience wide spread disclosure. This is kind of like closing the barn door after the horse has left the building.

    It is the RIAA/MPAA that are becoming powerless...

  6. The DVDCCA have a point by Rupert · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If you have a trade secret, and someone posts it to, e.g., Slashdot, that does not give every /. reader the right to republish it on their personal websites.

    Now, if you have 400 trade secrets, and you burn them all onto a shiny metal disk, and you sell 20 million copies of that disk, and someone works out from one of those disks what the secrets are, your case is a lot weaker. Independent discovery is, AFAIK, a defense against trade secret violations (and copyright, too, but not patents or trademarks).

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    E_NOSIG
  7. Great thought...maybe the real fight is elsewhere by johnlcallaway · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How can it be a trade secret if every DVD manufacturer knows it?? Isn't a trade secret is something makes one company more competetive than others in the same or similar field. Even www.dictionary.com (via American Heritage) defines a trade secret as:
    trade secret n. A secret formula, method, or device that gives one an advantage over competitors
    What is it about the DVD encryption algorithm that gives DVD manufacturers a competitive advantage over, say putting a movie on video tape? If I learn the secret formula for Pepsi, I can make all the Pepsi I want for my own use, and there isn't a damn thing Pepsico can do. But I probably couldn't market a similar brand without paying fees. Isn't using the DeCSS algorithm the same thing?

    Now, if I found a secret to making a DVD with less costs or faster, that would be a trade secret. Or if I found a way to improve the quality of the image or put more data on the disk, that would be a trade secret. That is, until everyone found out about it. Then it becomes common knowlege.

    Maybe we are fighting this, and other things like DCMA, the wrong way. Maybe it is time to bring unfair trade practice laws to bear and be the plaintiff for a change.

    The disadvantage of being a monopoly is you have to play even fairer. Well, maybe in theory anyway.
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    I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
  8. slashcode saves the day! by mister+sticky · · Score: 3, Interesting
    ...76f723a7 a322f6a2...

    looks like the annoying space that slashcode throws in really long strings has come to the rescue: this probably won't compile correctly.
    That raises the question though, what if 2600 had originally posted the code with a small bug in it that could easily be seen and removed. On its own the code would not do anything illegal, since it wouldn't compile. However, by using simple debugging (i'm not talking about more than one error, or a complicated one) it could be made to do something that they could attack.
    Or maybe i'm way off, because I haven't really been following this issue too closely.
  9. "Stolen" trade secret by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I wasn't aware that a trade secret had been "Stolen". I thought DeCSS was a clean room reverse engineering job. Even if not, then the use of the DMCA is aimed at quashing such reverse engineering and treating it as trade secrets.

    If I were to post a photo of the insides of my car's engine on the web, would I be violating the manufacturer's trade secrets? Car manufactures go out an buy competitors cars just to take them apart and see how they work. Why is software so magically different?

  10. mpaa = cool by igottheloot · · Score: 1, Interesting

    you know what's really cool about the mpaa? they control the movie industry pretty much by their rating system, yet none of the mpaa "judges" are publically elected into the position, or placed into "office" by anyone in the movie industry. and it is not required that these people's names be publicly none. how nice is that? faceless, nameless morality judges censor the entire u.s. movie industry. how american.