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.

Comments

Tragedy

[cosmosis]

This is a tragedy, as this case is a clear cut examply of how the DMCA is unconstitutional because it violetes the First Ammendment. Now we may have to wait years before another sufficiently compelling case can be leveraged to bring down the DMCA.

I'm curious

[Mr. Sketch]

In the judges statement, it defines "DeCSS" as:
any computer program, file or device that may be used to decrypt or unscramble the contents of DVDs that are protected, or otherwise to circumvent the protection afforded by CSS and that permits the copying of the contents or any portion thereof.

By this definition, wouldn't anything that could descramble CSS be considered 'DeCSS' such as WinDVD, or any DVD player on the market. In fact, DVD players permit copying, because I could run the output into a VCR, and I'm sure some dual deck DVD players might be coming out soon, and if those will permit copying, they could be considered 'DeCSS'.

This just seems to be an overly broad definition of DeCSS and could mean anything that can decrypt CSS including licensed programs. Maybe the clincher is that it permits copying, but couldn't anything that's not directly beamed to my eyeballs/brain be copied in some way?