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2600 Drops DeCSS Appeal
Slashdot Chaplain writes "At the 2600 site, you can see today's details about why 2600 is withdrawing from taking their suit to the Supreme Court." So let's recap the case: 2600 published the DeCSS utility on their website. The movie studios filed suit, and the EFF agreed to assist 2600 with their case. 2600 lost the case in District Court, receiving a tongue-lashing from Judge Kaplan, which ordered them not to post or even link to DeCSS. 2600 appealed. They lost. They attempted to have their case heard again, by the full Appeals court rather than a three-judge panel, and were rejected. And although they have the option of appealing to the Supreme Court, they are saying today that they will not: so Judge Kaplan's decision stands. The case in California is still ongoing. No doubt this will be discussed at H2K2 next week.
Laws don't define what is made legal....
Money does.
People who read /. know all about the DMCA. Outside of that, I don't think anyone cares. Windows users buy their DVD-ROM's and WinDVD comes with so they are happy and it doesn't affect them.
If your case is relatively weak (and you feel you may lose), it is often better to not take your case to the last level, else a national precedent is set. Once this happens, it's often difficult to have it reversed.
So, by not appealing, they leave the door open to a future (stronger) case to set the law straight.
It's a matter of picking your battles wisely. Give up this one battle, but not the war.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is an old subject, but I have yet to get a really valid answer to the question: What are you buying when you buy a DVD (or CD or tape for that matter).
By checking the price tag, you can quickly acertain that you aren't buying just the media.
We've all been reminded a million times that we don't own the content.
The whole deCSS issue has elliminated the possibility of buying the right to watch or listen to the content since we can't legally do this on our own. Note: I realize that you can't simply look at a CD and hear the music on it, but the technology required to listen to the music on the CD isn't illegal to post on the internet.
Okay... so maybe we're buying the right (if you can call it that) to consume the content - but only providing that certain conditions are met - like we've bought some software from a company approved to make it. Well, not really, because if we owned the right to consume the content, we shouldn't have to pay full price for a replacement if we lose or accidentally destroy our DVD or CD or whatever.
So we're buying something that we don't own. Right. My favorite way to spend money.
By the way, where can I find the deCSS stuff now?
This is why instead of changing the "under God" portion of the Pledge of Allegiance they should change the last line to "liberty and justice for those who can afford it." Support 2600 and the EFF or the First amendment will be re-written by big corporations.
Americans could not be more self absorbed if they were made of equal parts water and paper towel. -Dennis Miller
Isn't it great to live in the land of the free!
I agree with 2600's decision. The worst thing that could happen here is for the Supreme Court to get the chance to put another nail in the coffin for our rights. The MPAA is doing everything it can to squeeze the consumer, from using anti-competitive region codes to strangling the signal coming out of the DVD player by prohibiting Firewire ports.
I'll bet that when the XXAA starts suing individuals, they'll have done background checks to ensure the defendants are as unsympathetic as possible.
2600's association with hackers, phreakers, and crackers, etc, did not make it easy for them to appear as angels. Though the law shouldn't be biased, it is hard not to be, especially when you don't understand the jargon.
Of course, its getting to the point that judges that do not become technically proficient SHOULD BE REMOVED FROM THE BENCH. If many judges still held racist views, would they be tolerated? I think not.
Judges must become technically knowledgable. Greater effort must be spent on educating judges about technology.
Explaining technology to someone who doesn't understand it is essential.
Tournament Management Online &
I've never gotten the impression that they go looking for trouble. They just do what they always do, but they stick up for themselves.
Perhaps you need to go back and look at the case again. The MPAA put up a weak-as-shit case, 2600's lawyers burned Jack Valenti and other suits on the stand..
And after it was all said and done, the most obvious free-speech case in the last 2 years didn't recieve the constitutional ruling it deserved.
They are totally right, the MPAA went after them because they were the best target. After all, do you see them suing AOL/TW, who posted a link to the code on the CNN.com webpage? Or, perhaps, after all the other news sites that posted to sites that posted to the code? After all, 2600 can't even post to sites that post to code, that's a part of the ruling.
No, the MPAA chose their battle very wisely. Now, 2600 is doing the same in choosing to not do battle.
Very sad that an obviously biased judge (once worked in a law firm that represented Time Warner, one of the plantiffs) is allowed to hand down a horribly flawed ruling that stands because the clique of lifetime appointed, unaccountable Federal judges close ranks...
It is even sadder that it matters WHO you are, not the merits of your case... The RIAA and the courts wanted nothing of Professor Felten, of Princeton, but have no trouble squashing the "eevilll" hackers of 2600, despite the fact that the DeCSS case was far stronger.
Our government is owned by the highest bidder. The DeCSS case proves it. Sooner or later we will either be completely corporatized, or else line some of these buggers up against the wall. One or the other outcome is inevitable.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
I was thinking about this whole problem about Linux users not being able to legally play encrypted DVDs on their computers because DeCSS has been deemed illegal. We all know that the licenses for CSS keys and DVD playback cost money so a free and legal DVD player Linux is not possible, so with that said why don't commercial Linux distros like Mandrake, Redhat etc apply for licenses and sell it with their boxed set versions? It would make playing DVDs on Linux legal and it would provide an incentive to buy the box-set versions rather than just download the ISOs.
aus.music.scrapbook
It is a shame but at least now it's out in the open. There can be no further pretext that the supreme court is somehow interested in the greater welfare of the american public or acts as a check or balance on the power of the executive branch. This court annointed George Bush and has a vested interest in making sure that his policies and wishes get approved. I feel sorry for any registered democrat who has to go before this court they are doomed before the case even starts.
War is necrophilia.