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DeCSS Arguments in CA Supreme Court Case
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.
Again, you dont need DeCSS to copy a DVD, you need it to be able to decode its content.
Making a bit by bit copy of a DVD will play flawlessly in any DVD player, no problem. The problem comes when you want to build your own DVD player, then you need DeCSS.
If you want to "pirate", aka make unauthorized copies, of a DVD, just image it. CSS doesn't hinder you one iota. That's not what it's for. It's for forcing users to use licensed players. And, more over, it's to force users to obey region encoding. Neither of these have anything to do with movie's intellectual property.
:w
Who's burglarizing who? I buy a car, I get the keys. Ford doesn't have the right to tell me where I can drive; I bought the car, and I bought its keys. If they come in and take the keys away from me, am I not the victim of burlary?
The industry's point of view (and backed up by law) is not that they've sold you something, but that you've bought a license. Which means that they get to tell you the terms by which you can use it.
To VIEW your DVDs on your computer generally requires decryption software to view it. THIS was the main reason DeCSS was written, remember? So that people could watch the legally purchased and owned DVDs on their totally legal and legit linux systems.
Copying is also legal and legit for backup purposes. Period. This you CAN do with the correct burner in bit-by-bit manner but such are not in general custody of most users. Copying is peripheral to DeCSS in the first place, just FUD-talk by MPAA criminals and their mob lawyers.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
I believe many, if not all, states restrict the sales of lockpicks and key-cutting machines. So there is precedent. I don't think it's being appropriately applied here, though.
You tell me how "whilst" differs from "while," and I'll stop calling you a pretentious jackass.
Where does the MPAA come up with this crap?
:)
Well, the best part is that copyright infringement is not burglary. It's copyright infringement. That's why there are separate laws to cover each kind of offense.
I do not have a signature
And the DMCA. It passed 99-0 in the Senate back in 1998.
"Lockyer told the judges, adding that the movie studios lose millions of dollars because of piracy over the Internet."
Well, the statistics do not seem to back this statement up. It looks that the movie industry is doing better then ever:
YEARLY BOX OFFICE
In year 2002 they grossed $9,135 millions.
In year 2000 $7,661 millions.
In year 1996 $5,911 millions.
So the number of downloads mast be increasing their profits, and if it is so, I think they should repay some money to the downloading community for advertising and marketing activities.
Actually, all a contract needs is an agreement by two parties. For a good overview of contract law, see the Cornell Law Library's overview.
Briefly, a contract is a legally enforcable promise between two people. The terms of the contract can be pretty much anything, all it takes is both parties' agreement to the terms. If a DVD publisher sells you a DVD with the promise you can play it for your own personal use, with the provisions that you not gain financially by it and that you only play it on previously approved devices, that's fine. Your agreement to those terms is sealed when you promise to pay $20 for that DVD, and then do so.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
After reading the article (!), I stepped over to Google and looked up the law regarding trade secrets.
WHAT FACTORS DETERMINE WHETHER SOMETHING IS A "TRADE SECRET"?
the extent to which the information is known outside the business;
the extent to which it is known to those inside the business, i.e., by the employees;
the precautions taken by the holder of the trade secret to guard the secrecy of the information;
the savings effected and the value to the holder in having the information as against competitors;
the amount of effort or money expended in obtaining and developing the information;
the amount of time and expense it would take for others to acquire and duplicate the information.
Ok, so how does any of this relate to the dissemination of a trade secret? As near as I can tell from my scouring on the web, reverse engineering a trade secret is a complete defense, meaning if the information was obtained by independant means then there is not much you can do about it. With DeCSS, the information was reverse engineered and became common knowledge so there is no basis for trade secret protection anymore. I don't see how the MPAA has any case here for an apparent trade secret that was legally reverse engineered and the information placed in the public domain.
What do I know, I am not a lawyer.