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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.
From the parent: "Well, it wasn't a government authority, it was a capitalist one. Which I suppose says more about his convictions than we'd like to know."
(Implying that Bruce is only concerned with Money)
From the article: "HP funds Perens to pursue a variety of free software projects."
(Explaining the Bruce was concerned with his ability to continue working on your free software)
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,
How can you possibly expect any company to openly endorse a law-breaking event?"
Gee, because its already happened and is happening. Companies that openly endorse breaking the law:
Microsoft (monopoly, unfair competition)
Yes, they spent all the money on their defense because they were openly endorsing that they broke the law.
Nike (child-labor in 3rd world countries)
Yes, they love to advertise this fact. (And I'm not sure what they do is against the law, either. It may not be right, but that's not the same thing as illegal.)
Enron (corporate fraud, embezzlement, cooked books, insider trading)
Global Crossings (corporate fraud, embezzlement, cooked books, insider trading)
And that worked out so well for these companies.
Martha Stewart's company (corporate fraud, embezzlement, cooked books, insider trading)
You seem to have a good deal of trouble distinguishing between endorsing something openly and doing something illegal. Not to mention confusing individuals within a corporation with the corporation itself.
The reason there's such a mess in the market right now is because shareholders are not happy with these actions. People broke the law, and the companies and shareholders got fucked. It's quite rare that a public company is going to openly do an illegal action and not only admit to it, but "endorse" it.
--b.
hot foreign sheep.
In the american legal system, the courts really, really dislike to rule on theoretical cases. It would be very unlikely that any federal court would take a case initiated by Perens of "if I do such and so, is it illegal or constitutionally protected." There are three good reasons for this:
1) Real cases often hinge on the particular facts more than Constitutional interpretation.
2) Taking a non-case makes more work for the judges.
3) There is some history of the Supreme Court stepping beyond the actual facts of a case and trying to express how the principles would apply in other cases. Many of these rulings are now considered aberrant and deplorable (Dredd Scott, e.g.).
And a federal court has already refused to consider one not entirely theoretical case: Dr. Felten, who cancelled a presentation because of a threatening letter from one of the **AA's. By the time he got this into court, the conference was already over, and the **AA was saying they would never have a legitimate researcher prosecuted for presenting his research results - they'd already got what they wanted, but because there was no _current_ case, the court wouldn't look at it.
So, to actually get the DMCA in court, you've got to have a case of someone being prosecuted for an actual violation. If Perens demo & lecture would be a violation, and if the authorities weren't smart enough to ignore it, then this would be the right test case; Perens was merely presenting the results of research into a technical security measure to a conference of researchers. It's a perfect 1st amendment case.
Furthermore, the circumvention Perens proposed is NOT of copy protection, but simply of a dubious technical scheme to restrict the trade of DVD's across borders, which is routinely and legally circumvented in many other nations. Free-trade conservatives ought to dislike region-coding (or at least government action to ban circumventing it) as a restriction on free trade. Liberal judges ought to hate it as another way for big business to screw the consumer.
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.
I don't know about you, but I have been hit with batons and risked jail time for causes I believe in before. Don't project your own indifference and fear onto everyone else.
Thanks
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Bruce Perens.
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Bruce Perens.
Thanks
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Bruce Perens.
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Bruce Perens.