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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)."
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.
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.
MHO. YMMV. Any resemblance between this post and real persons, or reality in general, was accidental.
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!
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?
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.:-)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.
> > This is another important step on the long road to overturning the DMCA.
> No... no, actually it's nothing of the sort. As the majority's concluding words said, Pavlovich may still have to face the music, just not in California.
This has a significant impact on the logistics of DMCA suits. It means that these plaintiffs in similar actions will have to determine the appropriate jurisdiction for for their suits and will not always have the home court advantages (mostly of pushing up the costs of defendants who have to travel from other jurisdictions). While not a major victory over DMCA, this is a definite victory in constraining DMCA's implementation.
I don't know how widely this ruling will apply. IANAL, but my understanding is that this would only definitely apply within that specific jurisdiction, but that other jurisdictions would be very likely to accept the same argument when it is presented to them.
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.
If you steal something then someone else is deprived of the use of that object.
Calling copyright violations theft _is_ a wordgame. Illegally copying a movie or music is not theft. It is a copyright violation. A copyright violation is a violation of an exclusive right of a state granted temporary monopoly. It is not depriving someone of their property.
The ??AA's want you to think it's theft. They want you to think it's their real property. They want these terms for two things; to scare people away from illegally copying of copyrighted materials and (which is far worse) to indoctrinate the public and new generations into believing that IP is real property on equal footing with physical property. Because if people think it's real physical property then it's much easier to garner support against any proposals to reduce the length of copyright. After all, it's easier to argue against a government seizing their property than to argue against the government reducing their monopoly.
Dont call it theft. Dont call it property. Copyright violations are copy right violations, not theft.
(I certainly agree that there is no moral highground in copy right violations either, but there is a moral highground in arguing for the reduction of state granted monopoly time as opposed to arguing for seizing property after a certain time.)
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.
See how easy it is to fall for that? You're _still_ not stealing. If you steal an orange it's theft. You are denying the store the due profits they would get for that property which they had purchased. If you steal a CD, same thing. You are denying the store the ability to sell that CD to someone else.
If you copy, you _may_ be denying them income attributed to their government granted temporary monopoly, if you had planned on purchasing that item rather than copying it. Since the very income they are counting on from _you_ depends entirely on _your_ intent, it becomes an impossible construct. They are not prevented from selling it to someone else just because you committed a copyright violation (they may be if you mass-distribute it, which is why, while still not theft, that is even more frowned upon in law tho).
It is technically a copyright violation. A copyright violation and nothing else. Not theft, not murder, not piracy, nor arson. It may have factors in common with any and all of them, but it is _not_ any of them.
It is a violation of a government granted exclusive monopoly, granted for a limited time to promote creativity, it is not depriving someone of property, not even property they would otherwise have obtained.
A violation is a copyright violation, period.