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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.
Unfortunately, with no large corporate backing at the time, legitimate uses such as this would of course be ignored. When large corporates think they are losing money, the government will come down on their side time after time.
Let's hope that uses such as this can be viewed as more legitimate now that the OSS movement has some large backers - IBM and the like.
Mr. Lockyer seems to be confusing the act of Burglary with that of Circumvention. DeCSS is not a tool for stealing or copying DVDs, but a tool for decoding a DVD for use in a DVD player, i.e. one created for Linux.
This would be like accusing someone who breaks into a car, but doesn't take anything, of grand theft auto. I think Mr. Lockyer needs to spend a few more years in Law School or at least read over the criminal legislation.
In C++, friends can touch each others private parts.
The advertisement I got when I come into the comments page was for the Intel C++ compilter.
If DeCSS is a burglery tool, Intel, Microsoft, and other assembler/compiler makers should be charged with "aiding and abetting".
Karma: Food Fight (Mostly affected by Date Plate).
How did this go from stealing copyrights to stealing trade secrets all of a sudden? Exactly what part of the DVD is a trade secret? It can't possibly be the encryption, because nobody's interested in that part, they want the content. The content itself is certainly no trade secret, since it is widely distributed and available to anyone with a Blockbuster card.
Yo... but CSS restricts fair use. Perhaps DeCSS is the slimjim that breaks into your car when you lock yourself out. MM.. make that a rental car even. You don't own the car, but you have the right to enter it (even if you don't have the keys at the moment), so it's hardly breaking and entering. Nor is it stealing when someone uses DeCSS to watch their DVD on a linux box.
The govt shouldn't be trying to outlaw DeCSS. Everyone I know that uses DeCSS owns DVD's. They give the MPAA money. I, OTOH, prefer to watch movies that I download. I give the MPAA no money. Way to go after the bad guys MPAA. Way to stop piracy.
It's not as backed up by law as you think it might be, or there wouldn't continue to be fights about Right of First Sale that the industry kept losing (i.e. sales of used CDs and DVDs.)
The industry can think what they want; the moment they put their product in a retail outlet, apply sales tax appropriate for a consumer good, and advertise using slogans like "Buy it today!" (Blockbuster), they sold it.
Imagine if every purchase you made came with a list of conditions. Imagine how often you'd ignore that list.
--Dan
Yea, sure. Just like the EULA's on software. Oh, wait, those are having trouble being upheld in court.
If the consumer perceives it as being a sale, and isn't told otherwise, then it's a sale. As in, they now own that DVD in the same sense that they own a book they buy.
Not only is their license invalid, and thus it's just an ordinary sale, like the sale of a book, but their license is also completely unenforcible, which means irrelevant. Encorfing their license would mean violating the privacy of millions of Americans and stepping into their homes, to prevent them from watching DVD's on GNU/Linux. No court is going to allow that. So, in other words, the MPAA's "license" is moot on two terms.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Take this with a grain of salt if you will. But on the list of his 2001-02 campaign contributors:
RIAA - $15,000.00
Sony Pictures Ent. Inc. - $5,000.00
Howard S. Welinsky (Warner Brothers Sr. VP) - $4,000.00
MPAA - $2,000.00
Paramount Pictures Group - $2,500.00
The Walt Disney Company - $2,500.00
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation - $2,000.00
Universal Studios, Inc. - $2,000.00
Alan F. Horn (Warner Brothers CEO) - $1,000.00
MGM And UA Services Company - $1000.00
Note that these amounts are only a small portion of about $12 million US in contributions. The largest portion of contributions comes from other big business (Telecom, etc), law firms, and casinos.
-Greg