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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.
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
"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.
we should send letters of support to HP and tell them to help rid the US of the DMCA.
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.
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
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.
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
... 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.
how do you explain the merger with compaq?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
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
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.
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.
Bruce Perens should at least give a speech about how it theoretically could be done instead of demonstrating it, or read the presentation Edward Felten was intimidated into not giving, If Felten would be willing to share it. Any one who wants to be sure not to violate the DMCA can read this article, and avoid a senseless blunder that might get them into hot water.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"I may be quite wrong." - Socrates
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)
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.
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
Why don't I? Why don't other people? I don't have the cash to hire a lawyer; I'm in debt. Money wins here. I think it is likely other people are in the same position.
:)
People are very attached to what they have; they are scared to let go of it, even if it is to seek something better.
I must admit that I don't think Perens' idea was very creative. I would be more willing to do something more effectual; to break the law without doing *any* harm. To find many easy ways to break the law without doing *any* harm -- when this is possible for a law, then the law (IMO)is bad.
Showing people how to steal movies is rather silly; what about showing people how to chip their XBox so they can write their own games? Or use a load of cheap $200 computers to serve up their MP3s or home pages or simple databases?
Now *that* would be violating the law harmlessly
Well, for what little the information is worth, yes, HP is a Delaware corporation.
He shouldn't put himself in legal trouble. That just more money that lawyers are able to pocket. Just post it up everywhere on those free web hosting services, and just get Google to cache it. There, the cat's out of the box and the lawyers have no one to go after. Everyone wins.
"I'm confused. Hollywood is winning because they expect to be compensated for their work? And we're losing because we're actually expected to pay for things we use?" So, even after we pay 'Hollywood' money for a product, you think we should only be able to view/use it how they see fit? I shouldn't be able to move out of the USA to Japan, and watch my American DVD's over there? I shouldn't be able to make a video file server for my home, where I have gigs of video on demand of some of my most watched movies? Good thinking buddy. Punish all just to get the bad ones.
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!?
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.
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.
Some of the posters here do not seem to understand the evil absurdity of the idea that the US government, on behalf of Hollywood studios, might ensure that you do not watch Eyes Wide Shut as Stanley Kubrick intended, may not view Orson Welles' film MacBeth on DVD, and cannot see David Lynch's Lost Highway in its correct aspect ratio, backed with the threat of physical force.
If the movie industry insists that some obstacles must exist to keep movies in their intended market areas, or that companies must be discouraged from actively marketing and distributing copies of films in markets in which they do not have distribution rights, that makes some degree of business sense. What is offensive is the idea that governments may threaten physical force and detention of those who would work around the technical measures the movie companies use.
purpledinoz wrote:
> He shouldn't put himself in legal trouble. That
> just more money that lawyers are able to pocket.
It's called civil disobedience. By publicly violating the law and accepting the consequences (arrest, trial, possible jail time), he would have painted a much more vivid picture for the people on just how unfair and stupid this law is. If he was really careful on how he did it, he might have created just the test case that is needed to get the DMCA declared unconstitutional.
> Just post it up everywhere on those free web
> hosting services, and just get Google to cache
> it. There, the cat's out of the box and the
> lawyers have no one to go after. Everyone wins.
You are missing the point by several light years. This isn't about the thing he was going to present. It is about protesting, and possibly stopping, a stupid and unjust law.
Besides, if he did as you suggest, the law might still catch up to him, more privately. If it didn't, it could still take Google and the free web hosting service to court for DMCA violations.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
"Mosura", 1961
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
Your right. I'm SURE Bruce has wads of cash on par with that of the MPAA and other hollywood groups to defend himself. *Snort*
I also suggest that you RTFA as he wasn't going to show people how to "steal" movies, but rather show them how to play a DVD they PURCHASED in another region. This is a was a VERY good way to show how the DMCA violates free speech and harms consumers, yet now we will have to settle for another demonstration of the "chilling effect" that the DMCA has on free speech.
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).
You are right; I forgot about that. Sorry :)
Though it doesn't seem like disabling region protection on a DVD player to get around region encoding should actually be illegal; since regions have nothing to do with copy protection (piracy; if you are able to duplicate DVDs, it should be trivial to remove region encodings from them) and everything to do with control of when and where a particular dvd becomes playable.
So...IANAL...how is removing region checking from a DVD player illegal?
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
Maybe, if only to brag that I'm rich.
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.
These digital protections are in place to protect artists and creators from having their work stolen. Region coding in particular prevents China, e.g., from flooding the US markets with their pirated DVDs and undercutting the whole industry.
How is it stealing from an artist or a content company if you purchase a legitimate Region 1 DVD and play it in Europe? Or a Region 2,3,4,5,6 DVD in the USA?
Region codes do nothing to prevent Chinese companies from flooding the US markets with region-free DVDs.
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
As others have stated, removing the region restriction is circumventing a copyright protection mechanism and therefore violates the DMCA.
The DMCA has a number of parts that violate free speech and ignores the court-upheld right of "fair use." This is why so many are opposed to it. The problem we have is that there hasn't been a good case where someone's free speech rights were violated - this is a prerequisite for a court challenge.
One of the problems with our legal system is that it is VERY hard to challenge a law without a case proving that someone's rights were violated. The courts don't want to hear about what MAY happen, they want to rule on what DID happen. Felton tried to overturn a part of the DMCA due to a "threat" letter, but since no legal action was taken against him, the case was thrown out.
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?
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
As I recall the regioncode is to prevent the sale of the discs outside the region. In Europe movies are generally released for the theatre as in the US the disc come at the same time on the market, a lag of about 6 to 8 months. So it is not theft to play an disc with another regioncode in ypour DVD, it is the protection of the purse of the owner which make it impossible to do so. It is also a means to control the market, because delivery of the discs is now regulated by the distributor, who do defenitly not like self-import of discs.
So is de coding of the contents of the disc. It is to prevent the viewing of the disc when you have not payed your dues to the distributor. M$ pays the RCAA (or the party who collects the duties for playing a CDVD/CD) out of the money they make for their OS, I do not know about Apple's policy, but Linux cannot do this, due to the fact that the OS is free for grabs and who would be the responsible party to pay. I do think that the payment for the player in the PC should be including the payment to the RCAA, so we do not have to use software as DeCSS, because we can then do it legally.
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