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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"
if people want to keep them...
a ^= b; b ^= a; a ^= b;
MPAA is probably tired of suing people by now.
I wish.:(
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
Slashdot links to News.com article that links to DeCSS.
Seriously, if CNN.com would have originally linked to DeCSS do you think it would have gotten sued? (I know, pretend for a moment that it wasn't part of the AOLTimeWarner conglomerate though, and you'll get my point.)
Hopefully, a court case WILL come of this, and maybe we'll get a Judge with a clue that realizes the DMCA restricts your First Amendment rights.
Here in Norway, DeCSS co-author Jon Johansen has become somewhat of an icon in the fight for rights in the digital age. There's an interview with him here, in which he speaks about how he got involved with DeCSS, and the whole thing about the controversion trial. Also, the EFF has supported him tremendously with legal assistance. Their official Jon Johansen page is here.
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
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.
But given the statement "But when Linux programmers wrote the DeCSS.exe utility to play DVDs on their computers.." with a link to something clearly labelled as a Windows app and the absence of any reference to 2600 or linking, I'd confidently guess that it never occurred to the writer or editor that there could be anything illegal about such a link.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I give it 2 hours until they carefully de-link that DeCSS, max.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
There is no law in the US against linking to DeCSS. News.com is a news organization and is reporting the news as they see fit. If the DVD-CCA decides to bring suit against News.com and got a judgement forcing them to to stop linking, then they would have to remove the links.
But it is unlikely that the DVD-CCA would try something like that. They already have enough bad press in the tech sector, the last thing they need is bad press in mainstream news channels.
This is the same reason slashdot doesn't get raided by some government agency everytime a poster puts a link to DeCSS in a comment. There is no "don't link DeCSS law" and there is no legal ruling (yet...) preventing slashdot from posting DeCSS links in discussions.
Uninnovate - Only the finest in engineering.
I won't be happy until they air commercials on the TV of Illegal Prime Numbers
I hear if you use a lossy compression algorithm the number shrinks down to 42.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Sorry... couldn't resist :p
Got brain?
Perhaps 2600.com could file suit under the 'equal protection under the law' clause. Technically, this sort of double standard is unconstitutional:
Now, a literal reading might allow the federal government to be unfair, while requiring fairness from state governments, but I cannot imagine even our frighteningly corrupt supreme court interpreting the clause in such a fashion.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Its simple: if there are no links to DeCSS, then there is no way to reach it. DeCSS would effectively cease to exist in this universe. (It might still technically exist, like a physical object that falls within the event horizon of a black hole, but that distinction is only of interest to philosophers). Some would argue that you could reach DeCSS via non-hyperlink text URLs. Give me a break - that's comparing apples and oranges. It doesn't count as a valid way to pierce the event horizon.
Now, by placing this valid hyperlink, they've created a huge leak in the carefully constructed containment barrier. We might be back almost to square one.
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.
"Jaszi is talking about a November 2001 decision by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled 3-0 that it was illegal to distribute a DVD-unlocking program called DeCSS.exe."
;)
The "DeCSS.exe" was a hyperlink to a DeCSS W32 executable file.
Gee, think he knew...?
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
news.com gets sued for deep-linking straight to DeCSS.exe.
-S
I'm willing to bet that the reason news.com linked to a copy of DeCSS is because one would commonly expect that it would be all right to do so. Most laws are based on common sense and common morality. The DMCA goes against these tenants and tries to get one to do things that go against human nature and reasonable expectation of sharing of information.
News.com just did what makes sense. The DMCA doesn't.
Has anybody asked Declan yet if he's smoking rock? Maybe he's positioning news.com for a swing at the DMCA...
Whatever happened to JonKatz?
Look around. What do you see? An author that loves freedom, and wants to tell the truth to readers no matter what he needs to do, even if he needs to break the law.
Of course he won't be soon unemployed, if something happen news.com will cover his case exclusively and will push this to the media as hard it can. Then, after all the spreading around this subject, they will use this slogan: "The truth, whatever it takes..."
Realists have the world in his hands. Optimists own the world.
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
Does anyone else find it peculiar that they have a windows (.exe) file linked, but describes it as a program "Linux programmers wrote... to play DVDs on their computers"? What's the deal? Just a non-tech reporter mixing things up? (Sure, once you have the source you can compile it any way you want, but...)
This is like the Napster lawsuit. Napster would be alive and thriving today had it been started by Microsoft or AOL rather than by a college student. No court would ever have held that a major corporation was responsible for copyright violations of its customers/users.
News.com is in no real danger because they are part of the "establishment." If sued, they will go to court, wave the flag, use variations of the same arguments that 2600 did, and, unlike 2600, prevail. Although it sucks, I am coming to believe that the judicial branch has been bought off just like the other branches of government -- or have been stocked with appointees that value the interests of major corporations with much higher regard than the rights of individuals and small businesses. Just look at the 180 degree turn the Justice Department did with regards to the Microsoft lawsuit when the Bush administration came into office.
/. user points to where the source is (and hopes the site stays up for a little bit at least...)
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
Civil Disobedience? As stated above it's not illegal to link to DeCSS for anyone but 2600 (by way of court injunction.
Freedom fighter? Maybe, but links to DeCSS are all over the place as more than one informative /.'er as noted above.
How about:
You think?
blog
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...
Yes and no. Often laws work if a small amount of people with a lot of money want to keep them and are willing to fight with high-priced lawyers to keep them around. The laws may be tossed in the end, but the pricey lawyers can manage to keep them around and kicking for quite a few years.
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
And how many degrees of separation is this from Kevin Bacon?
Back in 1999, a whole bunch record companies(including sony, virgin, warner etc.(their Danish departments)) sued two Danish guys for maintaining a list of links to MP3 files from their web site.
The weird thing about this case was that all the focus was on the guys maintaining a link list, none of the sites who actually committed the crimes was sued(meaning the sites who actually did the ripping and hosting of the music).
I can understand why they sued the linking guys, BUT(huuuuge but) they should have went for a site shutdown plus maybe a minor fine. They didn't, they sued them for lost profit. Which is the exact same paragraphs that you would get sued by if you copied/ripped the music.
The whole case was build around they where linking directly to the mp3 files(hosted on various warez sites), and they eventually got them convicted(to pay 100000 DKr(roughly 12500$)) on this fact. This of course, effectively meaning that linking directly to illegal files is, here in little old Denmark, considered as serious a offences as making the files available.
So if CNET was doing this in Denmark, they could be in trouble.
If any of you read Danish, you can find the complete court transcript here:
http://sql.dklaw.dk/vl-dom/
First, the Corely DeCSS injunction is limited to the plaintiffs in that case. Second, the author of both articles is none other than the EFF's Declan McCullagh. How much you wanna bet he's itching to become a name defendant . . . ?
Was it this one?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
If Hillary Rosen ever reads this, she's gonna be pissed.
>
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.
- Posting DeCSS as journalistic material as part of a news article.
- Posting DeCSS as a form of political protest.
- Using DeCSS as educational material.
It's unfortunate that 2600 dropped the case. BTW, personal favorite DeCSS site is here.Support SETI@home
I still have this old DeCSS source mirror online from way back when this fight started.
/.)
I think they have quickly come to realize that the more they persue this software the more it spreads. Remember when 2600 was forced to remove their copy of the software? It immediately sprouted up on hundreds of hundreds of sites, all listed in a number of different forums (including
The DMCS provides some nice protections against liability for ISP's, but the anti-reverse engineering aspects of it relating to copyright content controls are rediculous and need to be nullified ASAP.
uh...... all this speculation as to why news.com posted a link to the DeCSS program is all fine and good. But has anyone bothered to actually email the site, or the articles' author to find out why they put the link into the story?
.....Or shall we just continue speculating?
dan.
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.
Why haven't they been sued/restrained yet?
What if every webmaster created a link to a DeCSS program using "civil disobediance" as the text for the link. It would probably create a Google bomb and it would make a statement about the people not approving of a dumb law. What do you people think?
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
Much better would be to pass out free cd's that let people turn their computers into region-free DVD players without installing anything. Linux bootable discs that only play movies are great things. This lil project seems to be pretty good as a start: MoviX.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I suppose technically it isn't, but practically, it probably is. If you do something in front of a police station and tell them it's illegal, I don't think they can really resfuse to prosecute you.
This makes me think of a pretty winnable (IANAL) DMCA case:
Joe sixpack gets a linux laptop, and uses DeCSS to watch a DVD on the step of his local police headquarters. He tells the first cop that goes by, and if they don't do anything, at the end of the movie, he goes inside and turns himself in.
It's pretty obvious that legal defense and a fair amount of publicity should be arranged before pulling this stunt, but if he's got a reciept for the DVD and lots of witnesses, the case will have to focus on the DMCA. I suppose judges can be hardasses sometimes, but who's going to send this guy to jail for watching his own DVD? But the judge won't have that much of a choice but to convict him, since the law is pretty clear that DeCSS is a circumvention device, but this sure seems like a case that could be appealed to the sureme court and won.
A case like this might just be able to demonstrate to the ridiculousness of the DMCA.
Their case could be made using very simple arguments the would be hard for the MPAA to prove wrong:
The only point it seems the MPAA could argue with is #3. They might try to argue that he should just use another method to view DVDs, that DeCSS is not necessary, because alternatives exist (although not on linux).
But I think point #3 would probably be very defendable. One could argue that the combination of the DMCA and the DVDCCA creates a situation where fair use rights can be/are elimated. If a situation exists where an orgainzation can dictate what you can and can't do with your DVD then the rights given to a purchased of copyrighted media have basically been elimated. An industry group could decide that you may only view each DVD you buy once (or for 1 minute for that matter) and defeating their copy protecting would be a violation of the DMCA. Since DVDs are straight-up purchased, no EULAs, no rental agreements, this puts the DMCA in direct conflict with the doctrine of first sale.
So what do you guys think? Is it do-able? Could this (using a guy with a nice clean background and a lot fo money) topple the DMCA?
Life is too short to proofread.
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.
Where on earth do you live, where it is up to lawyers to keep laws around (even after they've been 'tossed'). Here in the West, we have these things called legislatures, whose job it is to write and to repeal laws. Even though these legislature are nominally democratically elected (ie. determined by Media Barons), if you are amoung the "small amount of people with a lot of money", that wants a certain law kept on the books, or indeed created, you simply do so by purchasing a block of members of these legislatures. This practice goes under the name 'Campaign Financing.'
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke