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Perens Backs Down from DMCA Violation
liquidsin writes "According to this article by Dan Gillmor, Bruce Perens has backed out of his plan to demonstrate how to modify a DVD player to break region coding (and openly violate the DMCA as well) due to pressure from his employer, Hewlett Packard. I wish HP had given him their blessing on this, but I guess they have to worry about shareholders first..." See our previous story for Perens' plans.
(A/C'ed)
Posted on Thu, Jul. 25, 2002
Copyright Law Thwarts Open Source Confab Demo
Posted by Dan Gillmor
Bruce Perens was going to demonstrate a modified DVD player at this week's Open Source gathering in San Diego. He'd planned to show (Infoworld) how a DVD player with its regional coding disabled could play DVDs with different regional codes.
Perens was going to do this in violation, he believed, of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which bans the circumvention of technological methods to protect copyrighted material from uses the owner doesn't want. And the possibility of legal trouble led his employer, Hewlett-Packard, to ask him not to do the demonstration.
HP funds Perens to pursue a variety of free software projects. He was willing to take the legal risks himself, he told me today, but HP worried that it would be "a more juicy target," the kind of deep pockets that might make the entertainment cartel drool. In that context it's understandable why HP would be concerned, though I wish the company would take a stand on the right side of this issue.
So while Perens is going to talk about the DMCA's pernicious impact on things like free software, he's not going to give his demonstration. A shame, but that's how things are going these days.
Hollywood is winning, folks. You are losing. And you'd better start caring.
I still can't figure out how to make my aopen dvd region free!
Karma: Excellent (In Soviet Russia, karma pimps YOU)
so, let me get this straight. he intended to explain DVD region circumvention in order to publicly disobey an authority.... then an authority said "don't do that". so he won't.
just wanted to grab some headlines, i guess...
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
What does giving in to your employer say about your balls, considering you were facing time in jail for what you were planning to do?
"I wish HP had given him their blessing on this, but I guess they have to worry about shareholders first..."
Written by someone who does not seem to be employed in the corporate world. How can you possibly expect any company to openly endorse a law-breaking event? Sheesh!
Cat, the other, tastier white meat.
It's probably not a bad idea that he didn't go through with this.. we could see the whole Dmitry Sklyarov situation over again.. only possibly worse. Something tells me that this would be a little more serious than hacking eBooks.
There's no "I" in Linux.. err..
Maybe he won't do it, but it's only a matter of time before his notes get "misplaced" or someone else simply steps forward.
-- Scientist: You aren't going to leave me here, are you? Boagh! Thump...
Mr Perens now able to walk without wheelbarrow; confirms HP has his nuts in a very large jar.
What would be far more effective and less risky would be for Bruce to figure out a nice cute way to get each member of the audience to violate the DMCA.
If you're not willing to make a public demonstration of violating the DCMA yourself, you have NO RIGHT to call the guy names.
#define sig "Every social system runs on the people's belief in it."
we should send letters of support to HP and tell them to help rid the US of the DMCA.
Where does this guy get off having a job?
A *real* os advocate lives in his parent's basement and eats ramen noodles!
Forget that comments about civil disobedience. I can't believe that someone we credited with having such huge balls could back out of this. I guess no one in this world has enough of a spine to stand up for themselves. I am disgusted.
And HP's probably just crabby because they broke up with Dell.
What ever happened to the open-source and Linux spirit of invention and innovation, improving things, against all odds? Have we all forgotten how important this is? I really hope not.
We're Doomed
It seems to me that I recall from the few law courses I took that when an employee breaks a law during the faithful performance of his duties, his employer is equally culpable and thus open to criminal liability.
Now, whether he was going to be doing this in the faithful performance of his duties is a matter of some debate, but I can fully understand HP's nervousness in this matter.
A better (and more efficient if less symbolic) thing to do would be for Perens to convince HP to use their [considerable] legislative influence to get the DMCA modified. Companies lobbying against laws with which they disagree is a hallmark of the American corporate world.
Zaphod B
When duplication is outlawed, only outlaws will have
This is an excellent example of how the DMCA can have a chilling effect on free speech without even having to be tested in court. People often focus on the law itself as the threat, but as much of a threat can be how companies and individuals behave in response to the law - self-policing can sometimes be the worst kind.
Violates the DCMA
Like it's really going to make a difference? Hell if he broke the DMCA I'd buy stock just in spite of stupid laws.
~ now you know
They don't have to. Corporations like HPQ will do a fine job of abridging freedom of speech without any help from the government.
--
E_NOSIG
Will have to take it from here. Next meetup, invite your friend the policeman, and have a DMCA violating party. Well, actually, the lagal fees could get out of hand.
Also anyone have a hack for the ATI DVD player?
Wise men speak because they have something to say, Fools because they have to say something!!!!
Quit, rebel. Who needs money when you can damn the man with open source.
Couldn't he just rape or murder someone on stage instead, I mean what does HP can possibly say about that?
Je t'aime Stéphanie
What about the DeCSS song so popular a couple of years ago? Why doesn't he just hire a big band and a few backup singers and explain the technique as a broadway musical production?
This guy is worried about going to a 'pound me in the a$$' prison for a DMCA issue when he works at HP? is that one of those oxyID10T things? heh.
g
That's too bad. I was hoping that his demonstration would show the DVD industry how lame their little region scheme is, and how easy(?) it is to circumvent. If they want to continue using the region system they should consider making some DVDs region free, like the DVDs mentioned in the original article (Gladiator was one of them I believe) and other popular ones.
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
Nothing against Mr. Perens, but if he is not going to go thru with it, he should not have made such a big fuss over it.
Michael Loves Me!
Yeah, that wasn't just a desperate cry for attention, now was it?
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
Frankly, I can't see the point of just breaking the law in public. In my opinion, a better course of action would be to set up the conditions for a test case that could be won in the courts. That will likely require some public lawbreaking, but will also require there be something about the lawbreaking that demonstrates how the law in question isn't reasonable. Simply showing how easy it is to violate said law isn't going to do that.
One of the best things about Bruce Perens is that he's so active in the actual community as well as the upper-echelons of aforementioned community - he's so active here, on the Slashdot forums, lending a great dialogue to any article about him.
Well, if HP doesn't like what Bruce was going to do, and Bruce *really* believes in it, then the answer is simple: Bruce should quit HP and do it anyways.
I find it kind of ridiculous to portray oneself as the white knight in shining armour that will do an act of civil disobedience only to pull back when it becomes obvious that this act of civil disobedience would, in fact, have consequences.
By looking at this from a jaded perspective it seems that the great 'civil disobedience' Bruce was planning, was planned because he thought there wouldn't have been any consequences. When HP made it clear that they were displeased, Bruce backpedaled.
If Bruce, as the article said, was willing to take the legal risks on himself, he should have simply resigned from his HP position before making his stand instead of looking like somebody who is along for the ride only while there are no risks.
I wish HP had given him their blessing on this, but I guess they have to worry about shareholders first
Why would you wish anyone to break a law and possibly go to jail? I think if anything, HP should be applauded.
Of course we all know the reason HP didn't back him up to cover their own ass. HP as a company is known for it's damn near scientologist corporate culture, it's lack of workplace safety in both domestic and foriegn sweatshops, and since carly's reign of terror, some of the worst corporate decisions to keep the executives paid. Fuck everyone else and the shareholders, that's the new HP.
You know what folks? Fark HP those fargin bastages.
yes I was laid off once by HP, only once you fargin bastages!
--toq
What do you think ever will be accomplished if people are afraid to act?
... is the backing of a company big enough to handle the potential legal expense, and not afraid of (or already aligned with) the media giants. They should be on at least speaking terms with the open source community, too.
Apple springs to mind. Anybody else?
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
Now, if he wanted a legitimate fair-use claim, he would pull a film professor up there on stage, and have THAT individual use DECSS or an equivalent tool to perform a screen capture of a single frame for the purpose of criticism or education.
err, sorry wrong discussion.
how do you explain the merger with compaq?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I don't believe Bruce Perens had any intentions of violating the DMCA in the first place.
Sounds he just wanted to attract media attention to the issue.
Why didn't he get his employers (HP) permission in the first place?
This sounds like he planned this stunt from the get go.
GG Perens, you've made OSS a bigger mockery than it already is.
1 - 0 Corps!
enough people breaking unjust laws until they're repealed like prohibition. Hardware modifications need to become mainstream, especially the ones that are slightly more subversive, but still have legitimate use. The difficult part is the nerd/geek demograph is small, and rarely addressed by any political figure.
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
It came across to me more like this:
Perens: "The DMCA is bad law. I'm going to show why by breaking it. Let them come after me."
HP: "Umm... they could sue the shit out of us if you do that. Probably will. We have money, and you know how much they love money."
Perens: "Shit. I don't want HP to take the fall for my demonstration. Lets think about this some more."
Nieve? Maybe. But with HP saying they are the "bigger fish" that seems to be the case to me.
jello.
aka aron.
Good, finally a company doing what is right for the people that OWN the company.
I guess Enron, Worldcom and a few others should have done that too.
The theory seems to be that HP pressured Perens to withdraw his plans for fear of liability... if their employee breaks the DMCA, and they knew he was going to do it, and they did nothing to stop it, etc...
But if they tell their employee not to break the law, and he publicly agrees, then goes ahead and does it anyway, that's a different story, isn't it? HP would be able to say that they did what they could, but this crazy Perens guy just couldn't be stopped.
It's not as if he's a director of the company... there has to be a point at which their liability for his behaviour ends.
My theory is that there is a very careful game of due-diligence charades going on here, and that we will see some DMCA-busting after all.
He wasn't worried about going to jail but was worried about his job? Could he work from jail? Something is up with this. HP is beginning to smell funny.
Only a naive individual would say that.
The last thing that the entertainment cartel wants to do is to force a large, respectable corporation with deep pockets into a position of having to defend itself against a DCMA violation. A well-funded legal effort by a respectable defendant could possibly result in the DCMA being found unconstitutional. The entertainment cartel will continue to hand-pick its legal challenges to be sure they do not take on any they might lose.
tato (and tato only)
This post is strictly opinion, including the spelling.
Nobody had the balls to stand up to the bastards.
Well, HP's customer support is nonexistent and their products are quirky as hell, so nothing lost on that front.
Hic iacet Arthurus, rex quondam rexque futurus.
A prudent move would have been to clear this with his boss (HP) prior to the announcement.
BTW where is the T.C. server?
AREDUBYAESS
Perens, that's lame - some phoney baloney excuse about corporate sponsorship when you know full well it was never possible in the first place.
as if we didn't know. DVD REGION PROTECTION IS UNBREAKABLE! mark yourselves -1 TrollBait if you thought he was actually going to go through with this. everyone knows that dvd region coding is right up there with the speed of light.
ah, Perens, subtle! you've clearly illustrated the absurdity of a law against the impossible. you would have publicly demonstrated the impossible, but it's against the law.
i guess we'll never know what crazy scheme you dreamed up for circumventing dvd region coding, or FTL travel for that matter. and you'll never tell, since even discussing it is against the law!
When NYLXS had it's Business Demonstration at the Graduate Center of CUNY in Manhattan, one young man challenged us when he asked if we should be doing more with IBM on the front of Free Software advocacy. We replied to him that IBM can not be trusted to protect the interests of Free Software, and digital property rights, because IBM is mandated by it's charter as a corperation to protect the interests of it's share holders.
So while it is true that businesses need freedom to compete in a fair and open market, businesses can not be depended upon to protect that freedom, nor should we expect them to. This is not their function.
Only through Free Software and political action to protect individual property rights to their computers and media, can we assure a future with Free Digital communications, which will be the foundation of political discourse, education, and social interaction in the future.
We must have a Free Digital infrastructure if our people and government will remain as free. This can not be trusted to IBM, HP or MS, but is in the hands of the people.
Join NY Fair Use to pass the Fair Use bill, and turn the DMCA on it's ears.
http://www.mrbrklyn.com/amsterdam.html http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Looks like Mr. Perens might be able to make a better case for prior restraint now.
Or maybe he caved, as most of us do that have to live and work in the real world.
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Teach him to eat and he will fish forever.
DeCSS already doesn't care about region encoding. Not to mention it is the right of the MPAA, or anyone else to say who can use what DVD where. If it wasn't their right to do that, then I have the right to modify the linux kernel, and sell it, without distributing the source.
Just because you don't like what they are doing with their IP doesn't mean you have the right to steal it. It also doesn't make any efforts to aid in this theft honorable.
These people don't want some movies viewable in Japan, and some Japanese movies viewable here. If you bought a Japanese movie, too bad for you, you should have read the license... Oh yeah, you did, and you still bought it, thumbing your nose at the owner of the property.
When NYLXS had it's Business Demonstration at the Graduate Center of CUNY in Manhattan, one young man challenged us when he asked if we should be doing more with IBM on the front of Free Software advocacy. We replied to him that IBM can not be trusted to protect the interests of Free Software, and digital property rights, because IBM is mandated by it's charter as a corperation to protect the interests of it's share holders.
So while it is true that businesses need freedom to compete in a fair and open market, businesses can not be depended upon to protect that freedom, nor should we expect them to. This is not their function.
Only through Free Software and political action to protect individual property rights to their computers and media, can we assure a future with Free Digital communications, which will be the foundation of political discourse, education, and social interaction in the future.
We must have a Free Digital infrastructure if our people and government will remain as free. This can not be trusted to IBM, HP or MS, but is in the hands of the people.
Join NY Fair Use to pass the Fair Use bill, and turn the DMCA on it's ears.
http://www.mrbrklyn.com/amsterdam.html http://www.brooklyn-living.com
More of these kind of 'stunts' should be done at gatherings where it seems more at home (H2k2, Defcon,..)and more of these gatherings should be held in CANADA (or other places out of the reach of the DMCA).
I haven't seen anyone market a non region-free DVD player in Denmark in at least 2 years now, so in the current situation it would seem to be very good to live outside of America.
Region-free DVD drives is another matter, though. For some reason they do not seem to be so common.
As far as I know, though, no law here says anything about you not being allowed to *make* it region free.
Honestly, I wish the DVD consortium would just let the regions slide. What's so bad about people in region 2 playing region 1 DVDs? Or any other region for that matter. Most people in Europe bye the Region 2 DVDs anyway, but it seems ludicrus to expect people to only be able to view other regions than their own a set number of times before it's all over.
I hope they realize at some point that all they gain is bad publicity and most likely very little extra capital.
Most of us in Europe like titles subtitled in our own language, which is doubtfull would be on the DVD region 1 media, unless they finally decided to make one big region 0 disc...
Regards,
I think, the result from this could be quite serious and doesn't change an otherwise very scary future picture of Internet use in the US.
The entire fiasco sets a very bad precedent for DMCA observance.
First of all, Mr. Perens I don't believe acted intelligently, in behalf of the Open Source community, by legally attempting to challenge the law while being employed by someone who has no choice but to observe it.
I would have thought that would have been common sense, readily realized by Mr. Perens.
Secondly, this could do some serious damage to the credibility of what Open System Engineering/Source attempts to do:
That is to free the market place from corporations attempting to garner complete control over every single piece of equipment, professional occupation, or ideas that are produced using a computer, and making it legal (Required by law actually) to tax it at ANY price they see fit.
If you don't pay that price you can't:
1) Create Software of any kind.
2) Own a Computer of any kind.
3) Access any sort of information of any kind.
4) Create ideas using digital technoloy of any kind.
Unless...you pay said corporation a fixed sum, or give up rights to everything you create to said corporation and ONLY use thier products to do so.
Congress has legislated a DMCA that will destroy this countries IT economy as it tries to compete under those conditions with countries that do not recognize such draconian practices on its populace.
It will be virtually impossible, for the US to compete in the world economy if patent laws, DMCA laws are allowed to stay in place. How can you produce computers for example when half the cost of the computer is locked in a monopoly market driven software industry in the USA, and hope to undercut local distributors as such in China for example, who are building thier own OS's or preloading Linux on the same computers for 50% less?
All of this of course is a monpoly that has been legislated by a collusion between industry and government that is making the IT industry in this country extremely ill, running amock with corruption, bad products, and close to ZERO innovation now for the past 4 years.
Hang on to your Devils and Penguins boys in girls because very very soon, THE MAN will be knocking at your door asking why you are web serfing on a UNAUTHORIZED piece of STATE equipment NOT endorsed by COMPANY X who RUNS THE INTERNET.
Don't you KNOW SILLY MAN, we need to control what you information you access, use and pay for because you MIGHT BE A TERRORIST.
Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
In other news today, the Bush administration finally got the bill it has been seeking. Under current law, any contributor (as long as they are incorporated) of $200,000 or more to a government leader such as a Senator or President may get unconditional control of the U.S. military for 3 months. Supreme Commander, the High and Holy Hollings has announced that Commander Gates has paid for a millennia of U.S. Military control with Peter Pan and Mickey Mouse as Generals. Gates gave the honorary title to S.C.H.H. Hollings for his efforts in passing a bill that would allow MicroDisney to raise and use an elite paramilitary unit to raid and kill evil software/IP pirates with no fear of prosecution or oversight. Not surprisingly, there was little upheaval to this bill. One lady was quoted as saying, "Well, I don't pirate." The software pirates themselves had little comment considering that they were dead.
Bush, after receiving his check quickly cashed it only to find that there were insufficient funds for payment and realized that the check was actually made in an EZ-Bake oven. Bush, upon complaining to the Supreme Court was found to be a software pirate and killed. The Supreme Court, coincidentally, was also found to be software pirates and killed also.
Under new leadership the United States of America is now called the U.S.A. Inc. and Subsidiaries.
In unrelated news, a software glitch at Offutt Air Force Base and Space Command launch a small nuclear attack on China killing 900 million and wounding 150 million more. Gates responded with the offhand remark, "shit happens, don't pirate."
...And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me." - Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)
Hollywood is winning, folks. You are losing. And you'd better start caring.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
I do find it quite surprising a huge company such as HP didn't stand up against this. That's sad and disturbing. Come on HP!
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
"If you're not willing to make a public demonstration of violating the DCMA yourself, you have NO RIGHT to call the guy names"
Um, last time I purused the constitution, I didn't see that clause. Could you please expand a little? Or maybe you should GET A FUCKING CLUE about our "rights", jackass.
Jason
Let's hope that HP has a little more sense than to let shareholders dictate their entire company policy out of their self-interests (what about HP's customers?), whether or not Perens ever goes on stage. Still, I thought it would have been interesting to see.
Legal issues aside, I'm not sure how Perens' planned demonstration would affect HP customers...
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
Bruce supports the GPL - something that 'stops the EVIL capitolist' from 'stealing' code.
Bruce is willing to disobey the DMCA - a law bought by the 'EVIL capitolists'.
But when the HP master yanks on his leash and says "HEEL", Bruce falls in line quickly.
Yea.... "Linux will never be destroyed because no company controls it". Right. All the talk of revolution is pure BS. Because as soon as the boss cracks the whip, the 'fight' vs 'the man' is over.
Personally, I'm supprised his wife would have let him do it. "Gee Bruce you could loose your job, then how will the kid be paid for?"
The problem here, as has been meentionned in other posts, is that Perens is at this conference as a representative of HP. As such, HP could be held liable for whatever "illegal" acts he does at this conference.
It's not a function of the DMCA, it is the way general liability is construed to function by the courts in the USA. Otherwise put, you'll be hard pressed to find *any* company terribly eager to sponsor you directly or indirectly for your civil disobedience. When you're on somebody else's coin, they have a big say on what you do.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
....before anything can be done about the DMCA. lawmakers arent going to just repeal it one day because they finally figured out that it is completely wrong. before anything is going to be done about it, someone has to take it to court.
i suggest someone out there with balls prepare your legal defence (it will be a hard fight, but a very noble cause) and then go out and do what this guy couldnt.
Gentlemen...BEHOLD!
-Dr. Weird
Isn't region coding some sort of geographical discrimination?
-S
We Apprentice Developers and Designers
I pretty much expected some lawyer at MPAA/DVDCCA to call HP's legal department and warn them that an employee might be exposing them to liability. Whether there really is any liability or not, it's easiest for the company to put the brakes on.
And that's probably what happened.
Similarly, Cadence contractor James Hanna was fired for involvement in pro-Palestinian activism.
Alright, so Bruce can't do this because he's threatened with poorness. Who among you can stand up and take his place? He knows what he wanted to do, you know what he wanted to do. Hell, why not a dozen... or two dozen people show up to violate the DMCA at the conference? Things like this are the reason the DMCA's of the world stay in power, nobody will stand up.
In the original story yesterday, Bruce posted at least 3 comments (that were all modded up to 5 almost instantly). Where is Bruce today?
/. ruin the party for you? What happened?
You said you knew some good lawyers, Bruce. Did they tell you something new? Did
Humpty Dumpty was pushed.
Only thing lamer than doing something dumb is threatening to do something dumb and then backing out at the last minute.
Why don't you do this?
If you think that Parens should quit a really good job in which he does rewarding work and helps the community in order to make a public point about the DMCA, you should be willing to do the same. You could hire a lawyer, break the DMCA publicly ("posting decss source code on slashdot" is not "publicly", i mean in a way that attracts publicity-- umm, and it has to be good publicity, writing a new napster and saying you're doing it to "stick it to the man" just makes things worse, you have to be doing something purely ethical), and become a test case. Why don't you? It would cost some of your personal money, but then, what the hey, Parens quitting his job would do the same to him. Why should Parens have to be the one to do this?
Parens making his employer unhappy just to prove a point is not going to help anything. Publicly breaking the law on stage in hopes of getting a bad law repealed is patriotic; however, doing it in bad or ineffectual circumstances just because You Said You Would isn't patriotic or "principled", it's just bullheaded stubborn and stupid. This story discussion is one of the most hypocritical i've seen on slashdot. What the hell is with people like this? They can do the public civil disobedience thing just as easily as parens, even if they don't have a slot registered at a big convention.
Getting back to "true patriots", in the 60s we had mass sit-ins and LARGE SCALE instances of civil disobedience; why is it that we can't get the slashdot/open source community to do things like that? Why does the OSS community just demand that "someone who's famous, and stuff" do the dirty work, and sit around at home?
If you want the OSS community to have some true patriots, take up the WIDE-SCALE movements from the 60s. What did they do? Well, they did public civil disobedience actions, like walking in and sitting down in segregated bars, that were too large-scale for everyone to get arrested. They boycotted the montgomery bus system until a bad policy was changed. While in this case boycotts and mass civil disobedience are mutually exclusive (you can't break just the DMCA without buying something). The "slashdot community" isn't willing to do either. They just yell at Bruce Parens and demand he do it for them. Some community.
Time to burn off some karma stating the obvious:
HP has been such a conservative company, and getting more so, I'm hardly suprised.
And the cynical BOFH type I'm becoming says think about the following:
Carley could not sell the Compaq merger to HP (had to force it thru).
Bruce could not sell a DMCA violation to HP. (hey, neither could 2600 to a biased MPAA judge)
HP can't sell printers to Dell anymore (or something to that effect).
Bruce has the balls to do it, but HP doesn't have the guts to back him on this one, because, if they did, they'd do what Gateway did to the RIAA, because all the things that made HP great are gone or slipping away.
Think about it: HP was great because the founders were *ENGINEERS*, much like Appl*B**'s is run by chefs. Now HP is run by..., well,... PHB's.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
If you can't tell the difference between Constitutional rights, and moral high-ground "rights", that's no concern of mine.
Furthermore, since I'm not an American, I don't need to know jack about your Constitution. I do understand, however, that it's honoured beside another American document that makes blatant racial slurs against natives (ie., the Declaration of Independence).
#define sig "Every social system runs on the people's belief in it."
Well I don't know how good of an idea this is. But here it is anyways.
:)
Have someone else record the process on video tape, use fake names, and not show the faces... Then play it at the conference. Think about it. He is still not demonstrating how to do it. Someone else is.
Well either way I doubt this will happen. But hey it was an idea!
Why, in the current financial climate of America, would HP do or allow an employee to do anything that may garner the attention of government authorities?
In addition, why would any company that could potentially profit (directly or indirectly) from the DMCA, question it?
I don't know the answer to breaking the stranglehold of the DMCA; nor do I have the answer on how to educate our lawmakers in order to get better, fairer laws. I can only hope that one day open-source companies/projects are the majority and profit-minded, stock-option hoarding, multi-national conglomerate's are the minority.
As much as I dislike HP (and risk losing mod points), I have to say that I understand their position.
Our legal system is so screwed up that there's a distinct possibility that **AA might be able to find HP liable in some way for Perens' actions. Even if they don't, it's worth it to the **AA to try.
HP, understandably, would prefer not to have to spend untold millions of dollars defending itself against this.
While I, too, wish HP was willing to risk the liability for the chance to stand up for what's Right, I understand their position. And I understand that Perens understands their position. And so I understand why Perens is backing out. I don't blame him, and I full believe that he intended to go through with it. But there's no reason/point/honor in exposing your employer to multi=-million dollar liability (or multi-million dollar legal bills) unless the entire company is will to stand behind his actions.
Maybe next time..
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
How in the 9 hells a company can tell an employee what to do on his own time. I would simply stop working for a company like that, whatever I do on my own time is MINE!
The only thing I can see is he was already doing something at the conferance that tied in with HP or he was doing for HP, and he was going to the civil dis. in which case we get into a possible conflict of intrest.
Om, nomnomnom...
He should ask HP's permission to demonstrate how to modify * DELL printers * to accept any non-dell-manufactured-cartridges. (and violate the DMCA as well).
:)
I'm sure they would agree to this.
I thought a copyright act should only protect copyright, or in the case of DMCA, methods to protect copyright!!
Region coding has nothing to do with "copyright" at all, just a lame money grabbing scheme!! Why should the DMCA protect it?
The word in the law is "protect access to copyrighted works".
What "Access"? So if a publisher put glues on the CD cover so it sticks to your hand, is washing the glue off and throwing it away a circumvention and thus breaks the law?
This "Access" thing has to be more unambigously defined! It should REALLY be changed to "protect reproduction access to copyrighted works"!! What's so hard to understand? Let's make a case to change the word in the law!
XXAA vs Hewlett Packard the Honorable Judge Halfaclu presiding
Judge Halfaclu: Call your first witness.
Lawyer: I call Bruce Perens. Mr. Perens, did you have a discussion with Hewlett Packard regarding a possible DMCA violation?
Bruce Perens: Yes. They told me not to do it.
Lawyer: And what did you say?
Bruce Perens: I said "OK", I won't do it.
Lawyer: And then what happened?
Bruce Perens: I changed my mind and did it anyway.
Lawyer: Against Hewlett Packard's specific request?
Bruce Perens: Yes.
Lawyer: So Hewlett Packard didn't know?
Bruce Perens: No.
Lawyer: And even if they had known, was there any way they could have prevented it?
Bruce Perens: "Any way"? Ummm, well I guess they could have hit me with a baseball bat and locked me in a dungeon.
(laughter)
Lawyer: I mean was there any legal way they could have prevented it?
Bruce Perens: Umm, none that I know of... but, ahhh, I am not a laywer. Some of my friends are laywers though.
Lawyer: Thank you. No further questions
Judge Halfaclu: CASE DISSMISSED AGAINST HEWLETT PACKARD. Prosecution may procede against the defendant Bruce Perens.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
It's not can't. It's won't. Big difference.
There are rumors that Dell is going to enter the printer market with Dell-labeled printers ("Dude, you printed!"). So HP stopped supplying printers to a potential competitor. It's all rather stupid.
See News.com article for details.
Hollywood is winning, folks. You are losing. And you'd better start caring.
Losing what? The ability to play DVDs from another country? It seems to me that the only one losing anything is Hollywood, since I won't buy DVDs which I can't play. Not that it would be a problem if I really needed to play them anyway. I have DeCSS.
n/t
I respect HP's decision. However, I think this shows yet again how much power a corporation has over an individual. Welcome to the United Corporations of America.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Why doesn't he just have a prelude to his speech explaining in detail how what he is doing is not endorsed by his employeer and what he is doing now on stage does not carry back to his profession, that they are two distant things, etc....
the only thing he is doing is excersising his free speech abilities...
Jesus saves souls and redeems them for valuable cash prizes
If HP is incorporated in Deleware, then they have to consider shareholder value first. The law in Delaware allows them no freedom in that. I know this because my employer is being acquired not because it makes sense for the company or its employees, but because a large enough premium was being offered; thereby forcing the board to agree or face shareholder lawsuits!
A heck of a lot simpler than one would think it's the old DataHaven delema:
Percins: I'm going to break DMCA on porpus
Law: that'll cost 50k
Percins:who do I make my check to?
Law:MPAA.com
HP:WOO WOOOO WOOOO hold on their BOTH of you:
That'll cost you your' job, your' interviews
and mr.law we already don't have tight region standards
Percins:I'll not beable to foot the bill you
say? What lines from my speach should I scan and PDF again?
HP:here to here, and thank you for you'r cooperations we understand it as you had a mentalbreak
WHere's he at? He reads AND posts to slashdot. WHy isn't he posting his stance now?
The last time I checked, my employer does not own me. It all comes down to the love of money. If Bruce was truly the advocate he advertises himself to be, he would do the demo. Bruce, you just lost my respect. Enjoy your HP salary, provided by all the ripped off inkjet customers.
Please, send to me his article, I'll proudly publish it here in Brazil.
Or maybe somewhere else in Europe!
You can call me Troll, but DMCA sux!
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
soneone could certainly stand next to him and do the demonstration.
Who is it going to be?
Anyone remember who one of HP's early big clients was? HP equipment was used in the production of _Fantasia_, a Disney film. When I last worked for HP, they had a 50th anniversary celibration and _Fantasia_ was mentioned as being a large part of making HP happen.
I think we all know how interested Disney is in protecting their phoney-baloney jobs, gentlemen... For those who aren't search google for information on how the length of copyright keeps getting increased just as Steamboat Willie (the first Mickey Mouse cartoon) is about to come out of protection.
Sean
Region codes are neither encryption nor copy protection. Ergo, breaking it does not constitutes a DMCA violation.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
Eric Raymond has had the DeCSS source code on his page for a loooong time now. So its not like no one else is doing this.
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/css-auth.tar.gz
I think it was more of a ploy by Perens to get attention to the DMCA (and himself). Did it work? I don't know, /. is the only place I saw the story.
you're right, the poster might have naive. but, at the same time, he raises interesting questions that you dismiss.
"civil disobedience" has a distinguished history in our society as a way for oppressed and aggreived people to gain their rights. why is there not an legal avenue where corporations can pursue similar courses of action?
HP should form a subsidiary and spin it off, one that employs Bruce Perens and stands to get sued.
IANA DMCA violater but did you know that many DVD players have their firmware in FLASH ROMs? And that if you insert a CD into one of these with files named and formatted properly the FLASH will automagically update? This must very convenient for the manufacturer if a firmware bug is found.
I certainly can't imagine that anyone could think of another use for this feature. :)
No electrons were harmed creating this post, though some may have been subjected to electrical and/or magnetic fields.
The last thing that the entertainment cartel wants to do is to force a large, respectable corporation with deep pockets into a position of having to defend itself against a DCMA violation.
The entertainment cartel (or, rather, their enforcers: the US government) would not prosecute HP. They would prosecute Perens personally. Then, once they defeat Perens in court (by hook or crook), the entertainment cartel will pursue HP, using the legal ruling in the Perens case to seek punitive damages in the tens of millions.
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
Why does this have anything to do with his employer? Is Perens employed by HP for the purpose of breaking DVD players? If he is doing it on his own time, HP shouldn't care and shouldn't be liable (of course, they might still want to fire him for violating a law, but that's another issue).
The moment a self-proclaimed hero steps into the limelight to do something we could all cheer him on for, lend support, and actually consider him a socially-motivated hero for, he backs out with a "Just kidding."
Why the hell did he make the claim to begin with without first speaking with his employer, if his employer has that much of a hold over him?!
LAME!
Dear Mr Perens, .
if you don't like a law, work to *CHANGE IT*, NOT to *BREAKE IT*
yours
a sensible guy!
At least it is in some older players. If you're fortunate enough to own a Pioneer DVL-505, 909, or a Pioneer player with similar electronics, Click here for a mod that shows how to make it region-switchable, and another that will kill the Macrovision output on the baseband video side.
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
Both of these companies have huge legal budgets and the NY Times has a legal staff that are just waiting to pounce on a 1st Amendment challenge.
Failing that they definitely have the readership ans csequently the "court of public opinion" on their side. This can be orgainized to financially engulf and devour the enemies...especially with a joint attack along with the WSJ.
Written by someone who does not seem to be employed in the corporate world. How can you possibly expect any company to openly endorse a law-breaking event? Sheesh!
... even those of good conscience put their jobs, and thus their employer's interests, first, and their own liberty (and that of their children) a distant second.
Folks, this is why we live under tyranny.
"When good people do nothing, evil flourishes." and all that. Even when we as individuals are willing to stand up to abuses of our constitution, if our Corporate Masters disallow us (and we obey them, valuing our well paying jobs over our freedom), then in fact tyranny will not be stood up to, and it will continue to thrive and grow unabated.
Worse still, those entities which have the means to do something about this kind of thing generally have no interest in doing so, no matter how just or right the cause.
This is an example of precisely the reason people cannot be moved to put up a fight when their freedoms are trampled
Until this changes we will lose, again and again. I for one do not expect it to change until conditions become absolutely intolerable, and as much as it pains me to see the Internet neutered in much the same way the printing press, the telephone, television, and radio have been (take from the hands of the common man and restricted to the elite), I do not think losing the internet or losing general purpose personal computers, and the exponential growth in technology they have enabled, will come anywhere close to the levels of deprivation required for people to, finally, get off their overfed, apathatic, cowardly asses.
This is just the beginning, folks. Get used to it.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Big bad hacker. Please.
as much as it pains me to see the Internet neutered in much the same way the printing press, the telephone, television, and radio have been (take from the hands of the common man and restricted to the elite), I do not think losing the internet or losing general purpose personal computers, and the exponential growth in technology they have enabled, will come anywhere close to the levels of deprivation required for people to, finally, get off their overfed, apathatic, cowardly asses.
... already these regional, and in some cases competing, companies were connecting their networks together. That did not stop the government from putting almost all them out of business, overnight.
In rereading it I see that this probably isn't terribly clear to a lot of people. Historically, government (and entrenched oligarchs, which are essentially one and the same) have moved very quickly to restrict any new medium of communication from control by the common person.
The british crown did this with the emergence of the printing press, creating the first iteration of copyright, which restricted who was allowed to possess a printing press and publish and provided extremely harsh punishment for anyone violating the restrictions (including drawing and quartering, which happened to more than one independent publisher). These restrictions had absolutely nothing to do with artists being compensated, its sole purpose was to create a cartel of publishers answerable to the Crown, whome the Crown could keep under tight control.
In the early days of the telephone there were numerous, competing companies. At the time the U.S. government chose to legislate a nationwide monopoly, granting said monopoly to AT&T (who enjoyed this privelege for several decades). The 'excuse' was that this was the only way to have a coherent, interoperable network. The truth was quite different
Radio and Television are similar. The FCC has been extremely draconian in its regulation of the spectrum, a spectrum which many have argued quite compellingly could have done without regulation altogether, or have been much more losely regulated through civil law ('your signal may not interfere with the pre-existing signal, interference defined by these measurable parameters, otherwise you are free to broadcast where, when, how, and on what frequency you like').
Instead we have an FCC which made it illegal to create your own private radio or TV station almost from the start, has placed the bar in terms of money and equipment so high that no one other than a large company can afford to enter the business, and yet has turned around and given away large portion of the same airwaves to the same, well entrenched, elite interests.
Now we have the internet and open, general computing, creating a revolution in communications the likes of which the world hasn't seen since the printing press or the advent of radio and television. In the historical context I've outlined above it should surprise none of us that a coordinated, deliberate, well financed, and thus far quite effective campaign is being waged to take the internet out of the hands of the common man, and place the tools for publishing and disseminating information back into the hands of the elite.
Essentially the same oligarchs (or rather, their descendents) want to control what we see, hear, and ultimately what we say now as did when the printing press, telephone, radio, and television were first invented. And, so long as we obey our corporate masters and refrain from speaking up on their cue, they will continue to succeed in doing so, with hardly a voice raised in protest against them.
Frankly, by being so beholden to our fat, well paying jobs, and putting profit before freedom, we are getting exactly what we deserve.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Give your presentation as per advised by your employer, which is the smart thing to do.
Also, make your original presentation available on a CD-rom and attach a EULA to it reading:
"By agreeing to this EULA you will not hold HP, Bruce Perens or any attendees of this conference, personally, legally, ethically, morally, physically, mentally, emotionally or any other *lly for that matter.
If you are a member of the RIAA, MPAA, ABA, law enforcement (genus homo sapien or canine), political or judicial in nature, you hereby agree to stop breeding, kill any offspring and other kin you may have and then stop breathing should you have any need, want, desire, thought, inkling or idea to do or be the initiator, participant, party to or of any kind of lawsuit, harassment, annoyance or flatulance against Bruce Perens and HP.
Failure to comply with the above and you will pay the legal fees of the prosecution, defense, judge, jury, state in which you file, donate to the EFF no less than the senator from Disney has been bribed...err...funded per day and sing "I'm a Lumberjack" every hour until the trial (which should not happen in the first place, but you had to be a dick about it) proceedes and co-council will have to say 'bork, bork, bork' every 20th word".
Not only will you challenge the BS that is the DMCA but the EULA as well...because if the above EULA is valid and legally binding, well, somebody needs to lay off the crackpipe, get a sense of humor and be beaten by a clue stick before they can even approach the DMCA violation that they agreed to not to do anything about....and you just know it'll have to be submitted in original form, heh!!
Feel free to add more asinine stuff and legalese up the arse with HP's lawyers... and find one with a mean streak who enjoys fscking with other lawyers.
Now, if you will excuse me, I'm going to rip AC/DC's song "Big Balls" to MP3....JUST BECAUSE I CAN.....muaahahahahahahaha.
.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
shareholders they would have fired that LOUSY CEO long time ago. What they are worried about is the LAWYERS and 400 years of court battles.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Why did you ever think HP would let you 'get away with this', Bruce?
Its quite clear that your masters will never allow you to take such anti-establishment actions while in their employ.
Its quite clear that corporate america and Open Source software / personal freedom just don't mix, and I think your credibility as an advocate of either principle just took a big nosedive.
How long before you'll be rolled out on stage to espouse the benefits to the consumer of the closed-source DRM/DMCA-enforcement kernel modules in HP-Linux?
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
Actually, most people who purchase DVD players and DVDs do not know about the restrictions they are purchasing. Every person I discuss my issues with the MPAA, DVD Consortium, etc is shocked to learn what they cannot legally do.
Most porn is not region coded anyways.
The post says that to demonstrate that would be violating the DMCA. I was under the impression that DVD zones were illegal (by the DMCA) in the first place! I thought I read that here on slashdot.. or am I just too tired?
Perens is being a fantastic shithead here. If he was daring to defy one authority and another, smaller, athority tells him 'no', why back down?
Simply put, he never should have announced it in the first place.
What a complete dumbfuck.
Wussy pansy crap like this is why I gave up on political action with geeks.
Geeks are wimps. Geeks are happy to complain and bitch online, even writing a paper letter on occasion . But face a geek with some serious attempt to go against the grain, and he collapses.
Pressure from society, government, and employers scares the living shit out of geeks. I was laid off about a year ago, and found a new job immediately, but took a month off. I spent the first two weeks doing nothing but trying to motivate people into some poltical work with UCITA and the DMCA. The most I got out of it was a couple guys agreeing to write letters if I brought pens, paper, and envelopes to a LUG meeting because they couldn't be bothered to do it themselves.
We need an event to motivate geeks. Perens has decided not to be the one who does it, although one person being arrested probably won't do much, the last few times it happened people made phone calls, wrote letters, and the the EFF handled the legal stuff. We need something bigger. We need a room full of geeks, or someone like Linus tossed in jail for a very stupid reason. Until that happens, I'll just keep watching like everyone else.
in russia he would wear no pants
"Indeed, the ideal for a well-functioning democratic state is like the ideal for a gentleman's well-cut suit- it is not
May I have your attention please,
.....we're gonna have a problem here.........
...........
may I have your attention please,
will the real bruce perens please stand up,
I repeat will the real bruce perens please stand up
Ya'll act like you never seen a slash poster before
mouse all on the floor
like mom and daddy just burst in the door
and started whoopin yer ass worse than before
they first had endorsed
buyin' ya a crappy computer (aaaaaah)
It's the return of the...
"awww..wait, no wait, you're kidding,
he didn't just say what I think he did,
did he?"
and Mr. Cray said...
nothing you idiots, Mr Cray's dead
he's locked in my bassment
microsoft women love Sig '11
chicka chicka chicka bruce perens,
"I'm sick of him, lookit him
walkin around, grabbin his GNU know what
flippin' to GNU know who"
"yeah, but he's so smart though"
yeah, I probably got a couple of screws up in my head loose
but no worse than what's goin on in your sister's webcam (eheheheh)
sometimes, I wanna get on ZD and just let loose
but cant, but it's cool for RMS to hump a dead GNU
My mouse is on your link, My mouse is on your link
and if you're lucky, I might just give it a little click
and that's the message that we deliver to little kids
and expect them not to know what a free software is
of course they're gonna know what Microsoft is
by the time they hit 4th grade
they got MS-NBC, dont they?
we ain't nothing but omnivores
well, some of us carnivores
who read other people's mail like crackwhores
but if we can read your e-mail like it's available
then there's no reason that a man can't forge spam from your account
but if you feel like I feel, I got the antedote
trolls wave your penis birds, sing the chorus and it goes........
I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so won't the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
cause I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so wont the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
Sig 11 don't got to cuss in his posts to get Karma
well I do, so fuck him and fuck you too
you think I give a damn about my Karma
half of you trolls can't even stomach me, let alone stand me
"but bruce, what if you win, wouldn't it be weird"
why? so you guys can just lie to get me here
so you can sit me here next to Natalie here
shit,Enoch Root's momma better switch me chairs
so I can sit next to trollmastah and Post First
and hear em argue over who modded it down first
little troll, flamed me back on IRC
"yeah, he's fast, but I think he types one-handed, hee hee"
I should download some audio on MP3
and show the world how you released it BSD (aaaaaah)
I'm sick of you little troll and l33t groups
all you do is annoy me
so I have been sent here to destroy you
and there's a million of us just like me
who post like me, who just don't give a fuck like me
who code like me, walk, talk and act like me
and just might be the next best thing, but not quite me......
I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so won't the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
cause I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so wont the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
I'm like a head trip to listen to
cause I'm only givin you things
you troll about with your friends inside you rabbit hole
the only difference is I got the balls to say it
in front of ya'll and I aint gotta be false or sugar coated at all
I just get on the web and spit it
and whether you like to admit it (riiip)
I just shit it better than 90% you trollers out can
then you wonder how can
kids eat up these posts like gospel verse
it's funny,cause at the rate I'm going when I'm thirty
I'll be the only person in the chat rooms flirting
cyberin with nurses when I'm jackin off to porno's
and I'm jerkin' but this whole bag of viagra isn't working
in every single person there's a bruce perens lurkin
he could be workin at Micron Inc., spittin on your SDRAM
or in the printer queue, flooding, writin I dont give a fuck
with his windows down and his system up
so will the real perens please stand up
and click 1 of those fingers till you drag up
and be proud to be outta your mind and outta control
and 1 more time, loud as you can, how does it go?
I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so wont the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
cause I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so wont the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so wont the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
cause I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so wont the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
haha guess it's a bruce perens in all of us........
fuck it let's all stand up
Nasreddin was a Sufi. Supposedly, he was blessed - or cursed - by his shaykh with the highest possible state of enlightenment possible for a human being. But he could only communicate and teach it through jokes.
Nasreddin's tomb is impressive. It has huge barred doors closed with thick iron chains. But it has no walls.
The man who never alters his opinion is like the stagnant water and breeds Reptiles of the Mind -- William Blake