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CA Supreme Court Saves LiViD, Pavlovich
joebeone writes "The California Supreme Court has suprisingly ruled that Matthew Pavlovich is not within their jurisdiction in the DVD-CCA's suit against his posting of DeCSS in relation to the development of the LiViD DVD player for open operating systems. What's surprising? It's surprising that they held that his posting of DeCSS was not actionable... (however the use of the program by users to circumvent CSS could be under the DMCA)."
I couldn't be happier to hear this. Congratulations to Pavlovich and his legal team.
This is another important step on the long road to overturning the DMCA.
Even Jesus hates listening to Creed.
What does this mean exactly? That Posting DeCSS to the internet isn't bad enough to be sued or whatever? Or is it something more specific to this case, like his posting to the internet doesn't put him under the jurisdiction of Cali courts?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I find it disgusting that the only legitatment DVD player for PCs is for Windows, and that there is no open source alternative, for those who don't wish to spend money for a bloated operating system that makes my purchases obsolete in a week's time.
So how are we to play DVDs in our *nix Operating systems? We're not, we're suppose to buy Windows, and shell out extra money for a DVD player. This makes a purchase of a DVD drive useless for an open source based PC.
I do believe that I have seen a CSS plug-in for Xine, is that also illegal? I really would like to watch my DVDs on my laptop when I'm on the road. But with out a proper CSS plug-in am I going to be breaking the law, every time I watch Fight Club?
Who cares if its 'legal' or not. If you aren't using to steal movies (or view stolen ones) then go do it anyway. It's called civil disobediance, it can be a very powerful force.
X(7): A program for managing terminal windows. See also screen(1).
Is it just me, or does it seem like this whole lawsuit to stop DeCSS became a moot point the second the DeCSS code hit the net?
Once the code was published, Pandora's proverbial box was opened. They can never shove it out of view again.
Today, DeCSS based players abound aplenty. And there are rippers and other tools based around the code. Even if they win the case in court, they've lost in the court of real life.
Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
While I always hate to see soem "bad guy" get off on a technicality, here's a case where one of the good guys squeaked by for similar reasons.
The key to winning the case was that Pavlovich did not know that DVD CCA is based out of California (until after they sued him), and because he did not know this, certain legal tests fail, and he cannot be pursued as the suit was filed.
Yes, there were many other deep, legal issues, but thisone appears to be the main reason.
Maybe he learned something from Bill Gates, who did a fabulous job during this legal battles to convince the judge that he could not remember a single thing. What lessons are our higher courts teaching us?! I thought learning from the past was a good thing, but apparently forgetting the past is much safer.
Yes, it's true. This man has no dick.
Sure, everybody knows that. The litigation however was about DeCSS, which happened to be the first.
The decision today isn't even on the merits of DeCSS with respect to trade secret law. It is just a matter of who gets to decide. If you post something on the net in Texas/Indiana that allegedly causes damage to a trade secret in California, can you be taken to court there. The Court said "yes, but only if you target the damage toward California, and knowledge of the general industry that might be affected is not sufficient to meet this criteria".
So Pavlovich can defend his action in the 5th Circuit where the DVD-CCA can suck on Vault v Quaid which says even if state law prohibited reverse engineering, reverse engineering is legal because Federal copyight law preempts state law.
Unfortuneatly its a long way and it has not ruled that the use of DeCSS is legal.
My point is I paid for a DVD drive. I also paid to watch a movie unlimited times (hence the purchase of a DVD movie on a disc). However I am restricted at watching the movie legally, because I use an open source Operating System. With copy protection, we are slowly losing our rights as a group of consumers, for the interests of the movie industry that claims they have lost money. But their estimated profits for the year are just that, estimates. Piracy has been a blamed since the invention of video tape (in terms of video) for the industry not achieving these estimated figures.
Civil Disobediance is rapidy becoming a moot point.
Throughout the paper, Samuelson assumes that the "New Economy" will be stifled by the "unpredictable, overbroad, inconsistent, and complex" anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. Clearly, Samuelson is trying to appeal to the economic interests of her to combat the restrictive nature of the DMCA. It can be seen, then, that in "Intellectual Property and the Digital Economy" Samuelson is positing a conflict between the interests of the "New Economy" and those of the "Old Economy", i.e., the media interests backing the DMCA
The problem with this approach is (of course) that the so-called "New Economy" is widely precieved at present to have been something of a bust, thanks mostly to the feeble state of the stock market, in particular the 60 per cent plus decline in the NASDAQ. Therefore, the "Old Economy" has a leg up in Samuelson's conflict of economic interests, which does not bode well for future instances of anti-copyright legislation.
Mr, Pavlovich has gotten off, as it were, on a technicality. Given the provisions of the DCMA, however, had he been a California resident, his fate may have been grim indeed, and given the advantages presently enjoyed by the "Old Economy" pro-copyright forces, it appears we will all have to deal with the DCMA for some time to come.
Civil disobedience also means that you are willing to accept the consequences of your illegal or potentially illegal activities. Would I be willing to get a fine or go to the bad place for playing a DVD on Linux - hell no. Not that I would get caught anyways.
What we see depends on mainly what we look for. -- John Lubbock Now search for that bug slave!
It's always easier to sue where you are than have to send your lawyers to live in a hotel room in a distant state for a month. This is why any business you deal with online has a TOS that includes a choice of law clause that picks the state they're in, which means they get that home state advantage.
To reiterate the comments of previous /. members, this is not a win on substance, but on procedure. The Court outlines classic law school cases of personal jurisdiction. Personal jurisdiction is simply "does the defendant have enough contacts with the state for the court to have jurisdiction over them." One of the cases in law school casebooks is Zippo v. Zippo, where the court introduces a "sliding scale" of what level of interaction on the internet will meet the minimum level of contacts necessary to "avail himself of the forum's benefits." On one end, a simple ad does not amount to a minimum contact with the state. On the other end, "interactive" sites may be seen as meeting the "minimum contact." Accordingly, this case was properly decided in the "passive" site and does not meet the level of contacts prescribed by the courts. That's why the words that the Court uses, "The site only provided information; it did not solicit or transact any business and permitted no interactive exchange of information between its operators and visitors." is very important. It affirmed the Zippo v. Zippo ruling. To be honest, I'm surprised the Court of Appeals applied the verdict the way they did.
Again, as mentioned before me, this simply dismisses the case due to lack of personal jurisidction. It does not prevent the Plaintiff from trying again in TX. And worst of all, it doesn't prevent a huge company like the RIAA from suing in TX.
Would I be willing to get a fine or go to the bad place for playing a DVD on Linux - hell no
You always have to weight the consequences with how strongly you feel.
What if kissing was illegal? Or dancing? You know in your heart it's not wrong to do either of those things. Would you risk kissing or dancing because you felt it was your right; because you wanted to make a statement?
If you aren't using to steal movies (or view stolen ones) then go do it anyway.
Two things:
First, there is no such thing as stealing a movie. It's information and its properties are governed by information physics, not classical physics. You can steal the DVD from a store, but all you're doing is stealing a piece of metal and plastic that carries a representation of the data that, when decoded, gives an approximation of the movie. (Remember mpeg2 is lossy.)
Second, if you're not using LiViD (or any other computer software for that matter) in a way that costs or could potentially cost the (RI|MP)AA money, they really don't care. Remember that when they buy congress or the president they do it so they'll make more money down the line. When they sue Joe Average because he's downloading movies online, it's not because he's costing them a large enough sum that it really matters. It's because they expect that if the case gets big publicity other downloaders will be scared away from filesharing programs. If nobody stopped downloading and sharing when the ??AA sued someone, it would cease to be worth their time and they would stop doing it -- but that's another matter.
The bottom line is, as long as you're only playing DVDs that you've bought legally (not ripping or sharing them), the ??AA doesn't care. Sure, they might be upset that you're using a free operating system or free software because people exposed to that community just might gain enough knowledge about how information works to figure out that their business model is outdated and needs to be changed, but I have no idea if they're even thinking on that level. To them, their business model is the right one, and people are costing them money by obtaining copies of movies online.
Sounds good - but can I create my own distro of Linux and include/distribute the plugin? Something tells me I probably can't, because I wouldn't be the original purchaser of the license. This same idea seems to indicate that the major linux distros couldn't group together - they would probably each have to pay $10,000 to license a copy, and only they could distribute it (as soon as you copied your Mandrake and handed it to a friend, you would be breaking the license agreement)...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
While I didn't read the entire DVD Forum specs, etc. I went through most of what is publically available.
In order to get the books with the specs, you must sign and NDA that you aren't going to share the info in the books.
They explicitly state that there are no per-unit royalties and once the NDA & book fees are paid, there is no more money to pay in.
The main focus is on hardware manufacturers -- they don't give a damn about copying software as they only make money from the NDA/License agreement.
So YES you could redistribute the BINARY code, just not the source. Source would violate the NDA. NVidia has already proved there is a Linux market for binary-only drivers. That is all this would be -- a binary plugin.
However, no one but the original licensee could use the official DVD logos -- that is part of the agreement. If you don't use the logos (and there is a FAQ question on that, but it deals with hardware), then all is cool.
Damn it! I need to hit a small lottery payout. I'd buy the darn license and pay whoever could write such a plugin a fee and release it as a freely redistributable binary. $10K isn't a lot to a company, but I don't have that laying around.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Remarkably, the judges never mentioned any of the following key facts that should have completely changed the nature of the (original) proceedings:
- The DeCSS was already posted on hundreds of
web sites all over the world long before it was
posted on the LiViD site. Posting it on the
LiViD site cannot reasonably be claimed to have
had any substantial effect on anybody, beyond
minor convenience for LiViD developers.
-
Nobody has shown that the CSS was illegally
reverse-engineered. It's specifically allowed
to reverse-engineer in Norway despite any
contractual agreement. In any case there was no
contractual agreement, just a click-wrap button
which there is no evidence anybody clicked.
Once a trade secret is out, it's out, and anybody
is free to use it. DVDCCA likes to pretend, and
seems to have confused the judges into believing,
that something illegal occurred in Norway. The
worst anybody has come up with is that nobody
knows (despite what Norwegian law says)
what a Norwegian court would actually decide.
-
These judges insist that LiViD was "aimed at"
the movie and electronic industries, despite that
it has been explained that it was,rather, aimed
at benefiting legitimate owners of DVDs, who
have a Uniform Commercial Code right to watch
the movie they have bought. That some movie or
electronics companies might have been affected
was of no interest to the LiViD project.
-
Nobody has shown that these companies have been
affected in any way. Certainly lots of movies
are being released on DVDs, and lots of DVD
players are being sold.
I don't know whether to chalk up these omissions by the judges to malfeasance or incompetence. (Might as well assume both.:-)CA Supreme Court Saves LiViD, Pavlovich
ahh, LiViD... DVD player, I think...
The California Supreme Court has suprisingly ruled that Matthew Pavlovich is not within their jurisdiction
sounds interesting
in the DVD-CCA's
boo, DVD-CCA
suit against his posting of DeCSS
whoot, DeCSS
in relation to the development of the LiViD DVD player for open operating systems.
Wait, does this mean...
What's surprising? It's surprising that they held that his posting of DeCSS was not actionable...
Yes, yes, I think it means...
(however the use of the program by users to circumvent CSS could be under the DMCA)
Fuck. Alright, nevermind. Back to whatever you kids do.
This opinion really isn't very helpful. Others have pointed out that it only means the DVDCCA won't be able to sue in California, and that's correct so I'm not going to revisit the issue. However, there's a more important point that seems to be going unnoticed.
The Court went out of their way to note that it's only the DVDCCA that's being effected by the ruling; something that quite rightly should be done when the ruling is premised upon personal jurisdiction. In addition to saying that the DVDCCA probably can sue (just not in California), the opinion also says (although not quite as directly) that the movie studios probably could sue in California. And they could get not only Pavlovich, but pretty much anybody that posts DeCSS.
DVDCCA couldn't get jurisdiction because they couldn't prove that Pavlovich knew (or should have known) his actions might: 1.)hurt them, and 2.)hurt them in California. This is certainly right, as the DVDCCA didn't even exist as an entity when Pavlovich posted the code and they were never able to show that prior to the suit he had any idea where they were based. However, major movie studios in Hollywood did exist, and I doubt the Court would be willing to accept the notion that Pavlovich didn't know that Hollywood studios just happened to be located in Hollywood, CA. Had the plaintiff in the suit been a major studio (like Universal or Disney), you can bet the decision would have been the other way around.
Tuck
Tuck's Journal.
Civil disobedience also means that you are willing to accept the consequences
Yeah, but don't forget what the penalties are on the DMCA, up fo $500,000 and 5 years in jail, or $1 Million and 10 years in jail if you get hit a second time.
You're almost better off killing someone in protest.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Even more than that. Civil disobedience means that you explicitly break a law that you consider wrong, and do so in public or with a maximum of publicity and turn yourself in. The point is you want everyone to know that you broke the law because you consider it wrong, because you want it changed. This means you are ready to accept any actions (prison, etc.) on the authorities part.
Read some books about Gandhi to understand how the principle works.
Idempotent operation: Like MS software, wether you run it once or often, that doesn't make it any better.