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DeCSS Arguments in CA Supreme Court Case

Posted by michael on from the wheels-of-justice dept.

scubacuda writes "According to News.com, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer called DVD-cracking software DeCSS a tool for "breaking, entering and stealing" during a hearing before the California Supreme Court on Thursday. "The program DeCSS is a burglary tool," Lockyer told the judges, adding that the movie studios lose millions of dollars because of piracy over the Internet. (CopyLeft offers this "burglary tool" on a t-shirt)" If you've forgotten what this case is about, see EFF's page about it.

2 of 531 comments (clear)

  1. Good point. by sulli · · Score: 1, Flamebait
    And it's the Republicans who bring us Ashcroft, Guantanamo, and USA PATRIOT. We really can't win.

    It's truly appalling.

    --

    sulli
    RTFJ.
  2. Foolish analogies by undone9 · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    I can sum up half the posts so far as follows:

    "I have this pencil which can also be used to commit a crime. The goverment ought to outlaw that, by the same logic they use in DeCSS. Now we don't have pencils! The goverment sure is stupid!"


    Okay kids, now I'm not a fan of the way IP is handled in the US either. But seriously...DeCSS is not a pencil. It is a tool designed to remove copyright protection from someone's IP.


    Are guns a right? Yes. But we don't allow people to own nukes, or certain kinds of guns, either. Why? Because they're explicity designed to do Bad Things, as opposed to possibly being used for Bad Things.


    The argument that DeCSS is explicity designed to get around a (questionable) law is CORRECT.