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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.
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.
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
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
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.
Unfortunately, as we see time and time again, Americans are willing to trade their freedom for a bit of money. If Perens was serious about risking jailtime, why isn't he willing to resign from his position at HP before giving the presentation?
A true patriot might die for his country; I'm sure there are more than enough companies and hackers willing to donate a bit of cash if needs be until he finds another job.
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.
... 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.
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 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.
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.
If you are truely so offended, then I humbly suggest that you volunteer to perform the DMCA violating presentation as an introduction to Mr Perens' presentation.
In other words: take up the banner or shut the hell up. The last thing we need is more armchair revolutionary grumbling.
Alternatively, you could take a little time to educate yourself about the actual reason HP asked him not to do the demonstration, and perhaps even explore the actual reason he agreed. I suspect an old adage regarding picking ones battles applies here.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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)
Besides the fact that it's perfectly legal to modify your cassette player, if you could figure out how, to play CDs. That's the real crux of the issue.
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,
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.
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 think they're called Compaquard Bell now.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
Oh bullshit. What have you done?
Because in this case, the actions of the person would directly reflect on the actions of the company?
Plantiff: Your Honor, we believe that HP illegally stole our stuff.HP: That's ridiculous.
Plantiff: Oh? Like your employee Bruce Perens breaking the DMCA and pirating DVDs live, on stage?
HP:
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
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...
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).
Bull. They're perfectly free to say 'if you have a history of breaking the law in our field, we will terminate your employment.'
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
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
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
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.
You don't know how HP "Persuaded" him to back down, maybe they threatened his job?
Actually I do, because I read the article.
He is giving the presentation as an agent of HP. If he breaks the law as an agent of HP, HP is liable for damages. It's pretty clear that Perens has no problem getting himself in trouble, but when it was clear that his actions would get someone else in trouble also, he chose to back down rather than expose that essentially innocent third party to liability.
This is the right and honorable thing to do, and only increases my respect for the man.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
RTFA
He didn't back out because he didn't have the balls, he backed out because performing the demonstration would expose HP, not just himself, to criminal liability. Endangering others, especially those who support you in doing good works, for the sake of a public stunt is decidedly not cool, whether those "others" are helpless children or giant corporations.
If the fact that he deals with his employer honorably makes him a sellout and suspect in your mind, then you are an idiot. Any true leader must be able to consider the consequences his actions will have for his allies, and act responsibly if that ally isn't prepared to accept that risk. Perens has demonstrated that ability, and it only increases my respect for him.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
The answer to this is so obvious that I'm suprised you would even ask this question. As has been posted elsewhere in this topic, Bruce was quite willing to put his own neck on the line, but HP had raised the concern that his affiliation with them could cause HP to be the target of a lawsuit rather than Perens himself. The realistic possibility of this event is what has caused him to back down -- not because he doesn't want to get fired, but because he doesn't want HP getting in trouble for something he was choosing to do. It wouldn't matter whether or not Perens was doing this independantly of HP or not, HP would still be a target, and unless HP decided to fire him before he gave the presentation, they would not be able to prove that they were not somehow behind Bruce's efforts.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
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 ?
They're not infringing on any rights. They're merely stating that if he takes action A, they'll take action B in response. They're not RESTRAINING him in any way. He's perfectly free to do whatever the hell he wants.
Besides, freedom of speech doesn't apply to criminal acts, even if the act should not, by any stretch of the imagination, SHOULD be criminal.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
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
No they are not two different formats. The content is in the same format. The only difference is a few bytes in the disk identifier that mark the region.
Saying Region 1 and Region two are different formats is about as effective as saying two idetical doors are of different styles because one as an "enter" sign and the other has an "exit" sign.
Both (regions and signs) are artificially imposed limitations on the use of the device.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
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.
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