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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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Hollywood is winning the ability to use the DMCA to coerce individuals and corporations to bend to their will...
So don't buy their products. It's really not that difficult.
and we are losing the ability to have freedom with the information that we've legally paid to have access to (e.g. the information on a region-encoded DVD)...
We've already lost that ability. That's what copyright law is all about. Also, see above. If you don't like it, don't buy it.
that is why people better start caring... because the day may not be distant when your CD player, your PC, your DVD player, even your car stereo will have to ask permission from the MPAA or RIAA before being able to play a piece of media, even if it's legally obtained...
If you don't like it, don't buy it.
freedom is at risk... I @!$#ing care about that...
Very little actual freedom is at risk, unless you mean the freedom to profit off the copyright infringement of others. How has the DMCA affected your life? It hasn't affected mine one bit. But then again, I'm not profiting off the copyright infringement of others. Go figure.
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.
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.
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Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
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.
Nowadays shareholders own companies about like people own commercial software. You bought it, but someone else controls it.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.