Slashdot Mirror
News.com Links to DeCSS Program
zorglubxx writes "In less than a week News.com has published 2 articles ([Oct 3] and [Oct 7]) talking about copyright law and the DMCA where they LINK to DeCSS. Not source but compiled Windows version called DeCSS.exe. News.com know that 2600 lost their fight for linking to DeCSS so I wonder why they are doing this. Trying to make a point? Civil disobedience? An honest mistake?" Update: 10/08 02:51 GMT by T : An anonymous reader writes "In the time between when I read the first and second referenced articles, the links were updated to point the DeCSS gallery rather than DeCSS.exe"
Because News.com.com has more resources/clout than 2600?
Because the author didn't know better?
Because the author loves freedom? (and will soon be unemployed)
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
It is civil disobience, via exercise of the 1st amendment people. Its one publisher supporting another. If every new organization does the same whats gonna happen...I doubt everyone one of them is going to court. /. become an acessory because they link to a story that links to DECSS?
AT least I hope thats what their link is all about. I suppose we shall see if it disappears later or not.
Hey does
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
I give it 2 hours until they carefully de-link that DeCSS, max.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
An even fight where one party is backed by a law (even one as shifty as the DMCA) and the other is backed by...?
;)
;)
A financially-even fight is a losing fight if one party is backed by legislation. It's dubious that News.com would want to fight that fight, unless they're seeking to overthrow the DMCA. The "Freedom of speech" argument wouldn't really fly here, as they could have just as easily made that link into one that leads to a page DESCRIBING DeCSS. (I would have actually found that more appropriate. I clicked on the link in my needing-caffiene stupor, and was quite surprised to find out that I had just downloaded the software. Imagine my mother following the link.
Either way, it's a bit inappropriate for a mainstream publication to provide a direct link to software and not specifically state that it is a direct link to software, and not just a link to a page describing software. Particularly when the software performs an illegal activity. Imagine the panic that someone could feel when they're reading the article, click the link, and are confronted with the fact that they just downloaded something that the article clearly identifies as illegal, and (like most computer users) cannot figure out how to remove it from their system.
-Sara
Being that the author, Declan McCallugh, has extensively covered the 2600 and similar cases, I would say that he did know what he was doing.
As for the actual reason, I'll leave that for others to speculate.
An honest mistake?
I think it's pretty clear that there is one thing this is not: a mistake. Even if they only did this once, I don't see how it could be a mistake. I mean, when was the last time you saw a news story from a legitimate news outlet that linked DIRECTLY to an executable file?
News.com is, perhaps, setting up for a court battle ('cause they want to challenge the DMCA) or this guy is trying to make some sort of point.
I couldn't tell if you were experimenting with poor-man's cryogenics or looking for the orange sherbet.
Too bad DeCSS doesn't even work on newer DVDs. Look for DeCSS Plus instead.
DeCSS is just proof of concept code. libdvdcss accomplishes the same end-result, and it actually works. It's embarassing how many people involved in the DeCSS issue don't realize this fact. libdvdcss is just as illegal (according to the MPAA's gestapo) as DeCSS was/is. Maybe it's a good thing that nobody realizes it...
If we could get this is enough "physical" magazines or newspapers it would be a lot more effective. I know some magazines do provide URL's, I'm not sure about newspapers. If the RIAA sends them a "cease and desist" then what? They can stop printing, perhaps even pull copies of the article, but by then it's already out. It's a lot harder to stop something in live print than in online news, too bad it's probably not going to happen.
Every time an article mentions RIAA it should be linked, slashdot them every chance we get! - phorm
It's silly nitpicking, I suppose, but you're wrong. The RIAA is well-funded by all the fools who buy the over-priced CDs. The distinction seems important, because it shows where to attack their funding: not by going after the CDs or the ``artists'', but by educating the fools.
HAH! So much for hope on that front ...
See what I've been reading.
Could it be that news.com is simply pointing out the obvious double standard given to "hacker" sites like 2600.com and "reputable news sites" like news.com?
Absolutely. The judge in the 2600 case said as much. 2600.com was not viewed as disseminating free press, or providing a link point for people interested in fair use, or providing a service for linux people who wanted to view DVDs on their computers.
Instead, the judge saw them as anarchists who thought movies should not be protectable simply because someone somewhere cracked the crypto. He then ruled accordingly.
Defendants, on the other hand, are adherents of a movement that believes that information should be available without charge to anyone clever enough to break into the computer systems or data storage media in which it is located. Less radically, they have raised a legitimate concern about the possible impact on traditional fair use of access control measures in the digital era.
Lewis A. Kaplan
United States District Judge
Almost, but not quite.
/.ed regularily. Very clever.
News.com does a whole lot better if there's controversy happening somewhere in the IT world. IOW, if it's getting boring, nothing new happening, same run-o-the-mill Microsoft announcements on the front page, most people spend less thatn 30 seconds looking at it. Now, if they get sued, they get to play hero to the geeks and "stand up for user's rights", and in doing so become the centre themselves of a big (they hope) news story. Traffic galore - including getting
IMHO, it's a case of the news reporters manufacturing news. I say let them whore all they want. I'm sure they can bring some bigger legal artillery to a court case - hopefully thier journalistic bretheren. I'll be happy when the DMCA is smacked down no matter who, what or how it's done.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
Keep in mind that Declan McCullagh is the author of this article. He isn't exactly a spring chicken in tech news reporting circles--he's been writing for Wired for quite a while.
Declan--savvy writer that he is--very likely did this for a particular reason. Keep in mind that people who make a living out of (hopefully) careful observation of a situation, as well as grammar, do not make "mistakes" like this.
I'm guessing that most of you have the DeCSS source already, if not the t-shirt, but if you truncate the link, you get a source tree for 1.2.
There's also something about WMA in there. I have not looked at it, but I suspect that it's a way to circumvent the DRM that's built into the WMA format.
I mean... Most authors can't even handle their own proofreading. Who says they create their own links?
Actually, most authors do handle their own proofreading. Editors (whose time is usually spent doing far more administration than "galley slavery") love writers who submit clean copy. It saves them time, and it makes the author in question look like a real pro who actually knows what they're doing, instead of yet another no-neck yahoo who thinks they can write.
Likewise, a lot of authors can and do create their own links. I should think that Declan McCullagh, with his tech-related tearsheets as thick as the average encyclopedia, would be better-suited to defending his ability to write a simple hyperlink (and to opine on the deliberateness -- or not -- of the DeCSS link) than I, but I'm here.
Also, low level process note: For any web-based print medium for which I've written (several, by now), the author generally includes his or her own hyperlinks, if not actual markup. Editorial commentary and/or low-level drudgery only come into it if the links don't work for some reason, in which case the author usually gets an e-mail from the editor advising him or her to change the link and resubmit the revised version. YMMV, especially if the link leads to actionable content...
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
A .EXE file *is* source code - for the language known as "Intel x86 machine code" (linked to a Win32 library). Sure, it's a bitch of a language to understand by just reading it, but it still IS a langauge. So exactly what definition are they using of "source code" when they say you can't post DeCSS source code? Did they ever bother getting a legal definition so you can tell, because after all, the algoirithm implemented in Intel x86 machine source code is distributed all over the place in DvD software. My PC from IBM came with a tool that had DeCSS in x86 machine code inside. Most PC's sold today do. Is the definition that the code must be in it's executable form to not be "source"? Then what about Perl, or python, or any other such interpeted language where the human readable source code IS the executable form?
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
...particularly APC, have had libdvdcss on the cover quite a few times now when they've included Linux DVD players on their cover CD.