Bruce Perens Plans On-Stage DMCA Violation

cyber_rigger writes: "From this article at infoworld Bruce Perens said he plans to break the DMCA during a presentation on digital rights management (DRM) Friday afternoon at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention in San Diego. Technically, under the DMCA, Perens' explanation of the technology makes him liable for a fine of US$500,000. You have to admire his spirit."

Comments

You have to admire his spirit."

[phunhippy]

You have to admire his spirit.

Translation: I'm an armchair activist.

I think everyone should go out and opportunities post information about to break stuff like that "violates" the DMCA.. printing flyers.. posting them everywhere.. hehe even sticking batches of flyers next to dvd players in major stores would be a good start.

Re:You have to admire his spirit."

[thales]

I agree that this is closer to evading the law instead of civil disobedience. A good example of civil disobedance in this case would be a 100 Linux users sitting on the steps of the MPAA's offices watching legal (not pirated) DVD's on Linux laptops. For a protest of regional encoding you might have 100 portable TV hooked up to modified DVD players each of which is loaded with a DVD legally purchased on the internet from an out of region vender.

Re:You have to admire his spirit."

[Jeppe Salvesen]

If all geeks were put in jail, vital infrastructure would fail. What keeps us from being a powerful group? All our damn infighting and lack of coordinated effort. Eschelon day must be the best coordinated geek effort for freedom (unless you count the OSS movement as a "geek effort").

That aside, I wish he would make a stronger point than the right to see foreign DVDs. The DMCA also has security implications that potentially can have a much greated impact on our lives than if the DVDs were five bucks cheaper.

Re:You have to admire his spirit."

[Danse]

You do realize that we're not too far from a War On Piracy, don't you? It seems to be getting more likely every day. Drugs were legal at one point too. Then the government decided they weren't. It took some time, but things eventually evolved into the sad state of affairs that we see today. I can see the same thing happening with copyright violations. They just need to convince the government that we need to "get tough" on piracy. Is it really much of a stretch to imagine the current administration to go right along with that?

Atta Boy....

[tanveer1979]

Perens admits, "what happened to Dmitry could conceivably happen to me as well." However, he said he is willing to take the risk.

Thats a spirit... or is it? If he gets arrested and then jailed nothing would have been accomplished. Only if Lawyers can get him off the hook after he's done this, then it will be a victory.

But something tells me thats is being too optimist...such things happen in fairy tales.. or maybe i am too paranoid.. given the situation.

But every law has a loophole... and the day somebody finds it in here... we can all go home :-)

Trial?

[Quantum Singularity]

If he does get arrested for this, which I think he should not, the following trial may prove one thing: The DMCA is (partially) unconstitutional. I think enough people would voice their opinion that it would herald a major change.

Though he didn't really have to be so open about it.
"If you can get away with DMCA violations, why not?"

Why don't more people do this?

[Pooh22]

Disclaimer: I'm from the Netherlands, so the heat is still a few kms in front of me...

What I don't understand is that Bruce Perens is an exception to the rule. Whatever happened to civil disobedience as a way to make unambiguously clear that the government has gone too far and needs to rethink it's policies.

If Americans don't stand up more forcefully, the US will either infect the whole world with their orwellian shite or (I sure hope this happens) they will at some point in the near future be ignored as something that a free country cannot follow without losing essential freedoms.

Three cheers to Bruce Perens and anyone who follows his example!

Simon

Re:Why don't more people do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an American. And you are why I LOVE foreigners and hate Americans. 90% of them are so caught up in their shallow existences they've forgotten they live in a world with other people. This is just my opinion, but a society raised on television has nothing left to shock it. And a society that isn't shocked won't stand up to fight :(

Re:Why don't more people do this?

[alwaldauer]

Although I disagree that 90% of Americans don't care about anyone but themselves, I do agree with the testament that a society that isn't shocked won't stand up to fight. Unfortunately, Mr. AC's statement that a society raised on television has nothing left to shock it is untrue. In the 1970's America was shocked by live pictures streaming in from the Vietnam war. Pictures of thousands being deported from Bosnia shocked the nation into reacting. I think the reason so few are reacting about laws like the DMCA and the Telecommunications act of 1996 is that few people see the negative long term effects of those legislation until it is too late. Fewer still congressment and legislators step forward to challenge these laws (some congressmen didn't even know what they were voting on... they just passed the law knowing that doing so would mean more bucks for the next campaign). I think now that the results from the Telecommunications act are beginning to surface (WorldCom's collapse can be contributed to the rapid and unregulated expansion that the Tel. Act allowed), maybe it will spur enough people into action to take a look at what their elected representatives are doing to their country, and then hopefully the problems will fix themselves. I have to admit, I have my doubts, but to return to the parent poster... Foreign countries have their problems too. France has recently taken dangerous leanings to the right and the rest of Europe appears to be ready to follow (even England is shifting to the right beyond America). Italy still remains among the only modern Democratic states to convict those guilty of blasphemy (a legal term not used in the United States history).

Re:Why don't more people do this?

[thoughtcrime]

Don't speak for me. Just don't. You want to measure your newly-trendy patriotic wang next to mine, fine. Just don't try to speak for me. Don't use the royal 'We' when you speak of your own narrow troglodyte views. You are the reason many otherwise decent Americans are hated and loathed abroad, because you are merely perpetuating the awful stereotype. Speak and write as much as you like, but don't be so wussy as to try to cloak your personal bigotries in the stars and stripes we all have to wear. Okay? Okay.

Why is it illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why in the hell is it illegal to modify property that you already own? That just doesnt make sense. If I build my own DVD player from scratch and it can play any region, why should that be illegal? So does this mean I am not allowed to alter my microwave to play DVD's?

Re:Why is it illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it illegal? Because that DVD player is not really completely your property. You don't have any rights to the way the board was designed, the way the chips and other components are interconnected, the software in that device, right down to the twelve dozen patents on that laser diode. In short, what you do own is the mass of carbon, silicone, and assorted metals, but NOT the way it is organized.

On a related side note, you do not even own any rights to your own genome. If we find a useful gene sequence in your DNA we can patent that and turn it into a profit without you ever seeing a dime. No buddy, no tampering no modifying no trying to get around the system.

Is it really illegal?

[smiff]

I do not think Mr. Perens will be breaking the law. The law forbids trafficking in a circumvention device. Speech is not a device except when that 'speech' can function, such as with software (or so the court ruled in the DeCSS case). Simply telling someone how to circumvent region coding does not violate the DMCA, unless you 'tell' someone by providing software that can do it.

It is true that Felton was threatened with a law suit if he were to present non-functional speech on weaknesses in SDMI, but the RIAA would have gotten no where with a law suit, because Felton's speech would not function on its own.

Sklyarov was not arrested for speaking at DefCon. He was arrested because his company sold a copy of its DMCA violating software in the United States, and because he held the copyright on that software.

You can read section 1201 for yourselves. It says:

No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that -

(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof;

By the same token, you can publish specs on how to circumvent macrovision. You just can't traffic in the device itself.

I am not a lawyer. If you plan on taking my advice, talk to a lawyer first.

Re:Is it really illegal?

[shaldannon]

Bruce is a lawyer so I figure if he says he's violating the DMCA, he should know. Other than that....you might pay some attention to the fact that the MPAA seems to like to haul people into court who are only linking to information about "violating" the DMCA, let alone actually doing so, so that technical consideration doesn't matter anyway.

Nice stunt

[xidix]

Yeah, okay. It's a nice stunt. Like watching Evel Knievel jump over a flaming school bus. We all get to watch as the daredevil makes the jump and we are torn between hoping he makes it and hoping he goes barreling into the bus and gets burned alive. What a spectacle.

But what exactly does it accomplish?

I don't see Perens' stunt accomplishing anything except for boosting Perens' own notoriaty. All this does is create an image that "open source advocate == pirate." This is the political equivalent of a bunch of kids driving past the principal's house with their asses out the car window, honking the horn. It is entertaining in a juevenile sort of way, but it doesn't lower the price of pudding in the cafeteria.

If the Open Source community wants to gain respect from the powers that be, we need to stop acting like children. Check your "H4X0RS RULE!" t-shirt at the door.

Re:Nice stunt

[altgrr]

I don't see Perens' stunt accomplishing anything except for boosting Perens' own notoriaty. All this does is create an image that "open source advocate == pirate." This is the political equivalent of a bunch of kids driving past the principal's house with their asses out the car window, honking the horn. It is entertaining in a juevenile sort of way, but it doesn't lower the price of pudding in the cafeteria

Perens has a point. He is not showing that OSS advocates are pirates. There is no reason why someone who buys a DVD from overseas should not be able to play it in their DVD player at home. The media attempted to exert control on buyers by limiting what area of the world they could buy their DVDs from, but of course there are many ways to circumvent this, and region-free players are widely available in the UK. This is how it should be.

To my knowledge, a number of DVD players can be made region-free by entering codes with the remote control - although this is never publicised by the manufacturers, because it'd land them in trouble: they'd be the ones breaking the law, not the end users.

Ultimately, what is being pointed out here is that the DMCA achieves nothing of any positive purpose. Manufacturers, it has been shown, are not in favour of such limitations (DVD player manufacturers; Philips in the case of protected CDs) - and rightly so.

Time for the American media industry to stop feeling all self-important, and realise that, if it wants to remain successful, it should stop behaving in such a childish manner, and start facing up to the fact that if it makes its products inaccessible to the world, the world won't be buying much of it.

Would this cross the line enough?

[nurb432]

Well what if he offers the explanation of how to use a marker to defeat copy protected audio CD and then gives out a box of them?

Wouldnt that fall under trafficing?

Re:My question for Mr. Perens

[warpSpeed]

Hopefully they will arrest them....

If "they" don't arrest him, can future arresties argue selective prosecution?

We have a problem here...

[Andy Dodd]

Bruce is merely region-unlocking. Its not even necessarily illegal, as it often involves simply hitting a few menu buttons. (Admittedly secret ones, so it COULD violate the DMCA) - Unfortunately, it's such a minor violation that the MPAA probably won't care - They're smart and most likely realize that trying to arrest Perens is silly and will just get their precious law overturned on them for... Nothing.

Now if he plays a DVD using one of the Linux DVD players - THAT is a different story, as all of them are illegal and based on DeCSS in some form. It should be clear that he is using the DVD EXACTLY as intended (Playing a Region 1 disc in Region 1), yet still breaking the law. Since it's based on DeCSS, it'll attract more attention from the MPAA since that's their pet peeve. Also, since he is using the disc exactly as intended, it makes his case that much stronger.

An interesting story: A friend of mine found a lawyer willing to help him with defense against an ITAR violation. (Read: Exporting strong encryption before the government eased up on regulations.) He then implemented RSA on his HP48 calculator. Calculator is now a munition. Justin lived in San Diego, so drove down to Tijuana. In the process of crossing the border, he carefully explained to the border guard/customs officer the exact manner in which he was breaking the law and should be arrested. Customs officer basically told him to fuck off, leave him alone, and go do his business in Tijuana.

Re:We have a problem here...

[Bruce Perens]

I do have to leave some time for my talk, so I will probably limit the number of demos. But maybe I'll try the Celine Dion and a black marker thing. So far, I can't get either of my DVD-equipped laptops to work with DeCSS. Maybe someone else should bring one.

Bruce

Re:More then just technology

[sielwolf]

The problem here is not about a single law, but it is about a whole system that is showing signs of unrealibility, the so called Democracy.

Actually I thought civil disobedience (and this example) shows the strength of Democracy.

The problem is that, no matter how much bureaucracy you make, it is still possible to get an unjust law passed. So trying to improve the system won't work.

The key is that Democracy allows for grass-roots reevaluation of legal precedent (through intentional civil disobedience or unintentionally [Scopes Monkey Trial]).

How many important US laws have been passed due to activism? Women's sufferage, Civil Liberties Act, etc etc.

Demonstrations are the most legally protected and peaceful. Civil Disobedience comes right after it.

The problem is when you decide that the system is beyond repair and so you take to illegal action with little interest in federal procedure. If Perens was just going to hand out a thousand Region-free copies of the Matrix or if he was going to assassinate the President, then he would only be breaking the law for his own self-interest. He isn't and that's why I wish him the best of luck.

Considering the penalties...

[Inoshiro]

Wouldn't it just be better to murder someone in front of all these witnesses? Less jail time, less of a fine.

Or he could embezzle a few billion from HP, and only have to spend 5 years in a white-collar resort prison.

Nothing will happen.

[Pig Hogger]

He will not be arrested for breaking the DMCA, since region-breaking is not circumventing a copyright-protection device, especially if he owns the british license to whatever flick he's gonna show.

Perhaps he could get in trouble for either

• Having a public performance of the movie he'll be showing (verboten under consumer movie licensing).
• Breaking the terms of the DVD-CCA license.
• Importing a non DVD-CCA compliant DVD player.

All this, perhaps, but most probably not for breaking the DMCA.

Turn the lecture into 'performance art'

[LittleGuy]

If you're going to use 'free speech' as a legal defense, why not turn it into performance art?

(Of course, if you can get {insert favorite attractive celebrity} to perform it, it would be an added bonus.)

Well, I did it...

[Tom7]

I did. http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/~twm/embed/dmca.html

Picking their battles...

[Danse]

Everyone remember Edward Felton? The Princeton professor that was being threatened by RIAA/SDMI? They threatened to prosecute him for a DMCA violation, but backed down because they knew it wasn't a strong enough case for them. They'd be suing a professor for giving a lecture in an academic setting. That wouldn't go over well, and could end up weakening their position significantly. These organizations know which battles they should be fighting. They've done a good job so far of picking only the ones they are likely to win. I doubt they will go after Perens. It's just too risky. Of course it will probably become obvious at some point that your social standing has a lot to do with what you can get away with. When some dirty hacker does the same thing Bruce does and gets arrested, we'll see that quite clearly.

Re:Civil disobedience and money

[Gleef]

Bruce Perins wrote:
I did not discuss this with anyone at HP. Most of my Free Software activism is done representing myself or SPI, and not HP.

Fair enough, and pretty much what I expected. HP is a public corporation beholden to its shareholders, and shareholders generally do not like their companies taking activist stances.

I would say chances are pretty good that no legal action will come from your demonstration, but if legal consequences happen, just wanted to make sure you and others were aware that it might become a fight on two fronts, the direct legal battle, and a battle with HP over wage garnishment, even though HP is uninvolved in the demonstration.

Since I have your ear, a small idea: If you want to make extra sure that the trafficking clause is triggered, you could sell the hacked VCR to a member of the audience.

Best of luck, and I admire your courage in this matter.

Mind the Sex Offense

[Jon Howard]

...but for Christ's sake, don't get caught taking a leak behind a tree off to the side of a road. Having your genitals exposed in public is enough to qualify you for Sex Offender status in many states.

Imagine having to go door to door and explain that you're a registered sex offender and how you really just took a leak behind a tree and it's no big deal... how many people would believe that coming from a known sex offender?

Of course, public breast-feeding is an upheld right for mothers in many areas... it's a "natural bodily function".

my email to hotline@mpaa.org

[timothy]

The MPAA has a special email address for reporting "piracy" -- though I don't know of any planned piracy, it seems like the place that they would like to be told about violations of the DMCA as well, so I sent them this note:

- - - -
Dear Sirs:

I work for Slashdot (http://slashdot.org), a Web site concerned
primarily with free software, electronic freedoms, computer hardware and
other things of interest to computer enthusiasts, as well as to those
generally interested in online freedom. The DMCA (and the MPAA's
involvement in that and similar laws) are frequent subjects of the
postings and discussion at Slashdot.

I guess that someone at the MPAA is aware of Bruce Perens' demonstration
Friday afternoon of (mostly trivial) circumvention techniques which allow
consumers to view DVDs in contravention of the Digital Milenium Copyright
Act. If not, here is a URL which links to both a discussion of this
planned demonstration and an Infoworld article on it; several of the
comments made in this discussion come from Mr. Perens himself. (The text
of this note will be posted to the discussion as well, and you are invited
to respond to it there, if you woud like.)

URL: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/07/24/041525 6

Will the MPAA be pursuing action (filing a complaint) against Mr. Perens
for this public demonstration? If not, does this mean that other people
may also use similar techniques to enjoy their own DVDs without fear of
prosecution? I would also like to show people how to defeat annoying
region locks and encryption standards which make it dofficult to watch the
DVDs I have purchased.

I look forward to hearing from you; if the @hotline address is not the
right place to address this inquiry, I would appreciate hearing from you about where I should direct it instead.

Sincerely,

[signed, etc.]