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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.
DeCSS is a burglary tool just like how I'm actually growing dildos in my vegetable garden.
myselfmusic
Well... shall we ban any tools that can be used for breaking and entering then?
* screw drivers
* crowbars
* keys
* bits of metal
* credit cards
please, cuff me and send me to the bighouse, i've got a tool shed!
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
It looks like the industry is so desperate, they have to resort to name calling and hollow accusations. What a sad state of affairs.
Didn't they use the same exact argument when VRCs came out?
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
That a tool that allows people to copy their DVD's for their own purposes is "a tool for burglary", yet a gun which allows people to kill other people is a "right"? Null
It may break encryption, but entering and stealing? WTF???
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
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.
Gasoline is a tool for ARSON!
If you grow them, they will cum.
I wish someone released a divx of the court procedings.
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.
I can buy slim jims at my local auto parts store.
Best Windows Freeware
California consistently votes Democratic and we get this? Okay, he's sucking on the teat of Hollywood, but still.
sulli
RTFJ.
those bastards got into my house and stole my Do It Yourself Masturbation Kit (tm).
They used DECSS!!!
Wait a minute...
krystal_blade
(I really don't have one of those kits that come in a blue box... Really...)
It will be easy to motivate our fellow man; there is hardly anything people treasure more than not being annihilated.
A crowbar, a credit card, a bottle opener and a screwdriver are also burglary tools, but the legitimate uses are real, which is one darn good reason why the tools are available to the public.
Same with DeCSS -- you can use it to facilitate illegal copying, or you can use it for legitimate purposes, like creating backups, viewing the media on devices lacking a built-in DeCSS equivalent, copy short excerpts you are entitled to for journalistic or educational purposes under fair use, or exercising your public right to copy the works once the copyrights expire.
Nah ... the RIAA keeps chainging their web hosting co - 4 times since november and it's now being run by - get this - an accounting firm.
Ok, so DeCSS is a "buglary tool", fine. And its not legal to make a "buglary tool"? Riiight. If that's the case, then why stop there? How many languages has this thing been written in? Start outlawing the languages because you can make "buglary tools", hell, why stop there, just get rid of computers! Or wait, I have it! Eliminate all traces of human thought, seems to be working well for the California AG.
"Lockyer, who's gearing up to run for governor next year, appeared on the side of the DVD Copy Control Association"
Of course he is on the side of the DVD Copy Control Association, he is on the side of the movie studios... They have deeper pockets and are more likely to win him the election then the technogeeks in silicon valley's burst bubble...
Visualize the world of wine
Computers are a tool for burglary, let's ban those.
...
From Yahoo News:
However, in one indication of the money that is at stake, Lockyer cited estimates that as many as 350,000 movies are illegally downloaded from the Internet every day.
Does this even sound reasonable?
If each move filled a cd at 700MB then they're claiming that 245TB of movies are downloaded on a daily basis. That seems a tad high to me.
Shop smart, Shop S-Mart.
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
..not to live in the USA. And that's not anti-US. It simply means that some parts of the US' judicial system don't fit together with my point of view which are very important to me. Therefor I am glad to live in a country which judicial system is more compatible with mine.
g++ burglarytool.c
./a.out
If the RIAA and MPAA don't want to let their movies and music get copied, then simply don't distribute it enmasse to untrusted sources via 8-track, cassette tape, LP, CD, CD-ROM, DVD, etc! It's as easy as that!
Oh, wait... no one wants to go spend $20 to take themselves and a significant other to the movie theatre for one showing of "The Hot Chick," but they'll rent it or buy it on DVD for the EXACT SAME PRICE for multiple viewings? Guess my idea of "customer value" should have been thrown out a long time ago along with my ideas that are counter-culture to the new socialism: Sue companies to get rich!
Silly me.
Bill "Nightschool" Lockyer is so set on being governor of California that he'll not only carry the Entertainment industry's water, he'll draw it a warm bath and tuck it in bed. Entertainment makes lots of political donations in California.
The argument needs to be made that the tool is necessary to provide backups of data as the physical media will deteriorate before the copyright expires. After all, the purchaser has a license to the copyright material its not just physical ownership of the disk.
Of course the MPAA could argue that copyright expiration is so far in the future that any consideration of post-expiration is ridiculous. And I might agree.
t
"I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone."
--Jack Valenti, head of the MPAA, in congressional testimony.
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?
Too much intellectual property handwaving. Sellers don't have authority over buyer's uses, as some rather racist folks in whitebred towns discovered as their old homes were bought up by upwardly mobile *gasp* minorities.
--Dan
when he confuses copyright infringement with burglary and theft. This is an alarming show of incompetence by this attorney general.
His incompetence in IT matters could have been excused, but seems to be on the same level.
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
It wasn't meant as a flame against guns. It was meant as a flame against hypocrisy.
Null
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).
This ruling will have serious consequences throughout the web and programming communities.
It will open up the flood gates if the ruling is in favor of the defendant. OR it will cause many more court cases and innocent prople jailed if the prosecution wins.
Ernie Dambach
"It is no small thing to celebrate a simple life -Tolkien
Am I right in thinking that there is no need ot use a tool like DeCSS to copy a DVD? I believe you can just make a bit for bit copy of the DVD which is less likely to alarm the punters.
There are contantly stories mentioning DeCSS and file sharing in the same breath as piracy. While both may be in conflict with the law they are quite different and everything should be done to explain the differences between the two. ie
File sharing/DeCSS = personal, between friends, not for profit.
Piracy = for profit, doesn't use MP3s, doesn't need DeCSS, run by gangsters
The case against the latter is much stronger and more legitimate. Confusion between the two is very damaging and widespread.
DeCSS just overcomes a measure designed to reduce free trade in DVDs to allow the maintenance of differential pricing and irritate peole who travel a lot.
Isn't an oxy-moron just a flaming idiot?
"Lockyer, who's gearing up to run for governor next year, appeared on the side of the DVD Copy Control Association"
Governor Davis was elected last year to a 4-year term, so that means Lockyer won't be running until 2006 at the earliest. Unless someone is anticipating that the petition to recall Davis is going to be successful, in which case the recall election would be anywhere from September 2003 - March 2004, depending on when the last signatures are turned in.
It's truly appalling.
sulli
RTFJ.
"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.
Do those statements have anythiong to do with each other? how about this one - "Cheese is smelly and horrible", says Bob Blob, adding that millions of people worldwide are starving.
(hand over one eye)
ARRRRRR-chiving!
It's only a matter of time before SCO decides they own the rights to all motion picture technology and tries to sue the RIAA.
Trolling is a art,
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.
He "gets it"
where it=joke
krystal_blade
It will be easy to motivate our fellow man; there is hardly anything people treasure more than not being annihilated.
I think that a huge piece of what's wrong with our legal system is the blurring of facts, charging issues with emotion, and obscuring real issues. By saying things like "burglary tool", Lockyer is taking a piece of software and equating it with something the violates the security of an everyday middle class citizen. Admittedly, this is exactly how you should sway a jury in today's legal system. This is also why today's legal system is so fsck'd up.
The truth of the matter is that DeCSS is no more a burglary tool than a Dremel tool, and a middle class jury, who doesn't sit on media corporation boards, isn't going to give a damn about this case. The only way to make them care is to charge the issue with the illusion that someone is going to be "breaking, entering, and stealing" into their house to abduct their kids.
Unfortunately, although Lockyer is successfully relating the issue to something that the jury may be able to comprehend, he's also hopelessly obscuring the truth, and most middle class people aren't going to know the difference between a codec and a hole in the ground, so they aren't going to be able to discern the deliberate obfuscation.
Judges should be educated about technology before trying cases like this, and then prevent counsel from either side from making misleading statements like this. This would greatly even the playing field in the legal arena, and probably stop many of the misinterpretations of the DMCA. If all judges who deal with technology could be educated to at least being literate with the terminology, they would be able to dismiss legal actions that try to use the DMCA in a way that it wasn't intended (if there is such a thing).
Why should I argue rationally with someone being irrational? I'll just mock them instead.
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.
(Or leaders in other countries do, when they try to overthrow the evil dictators.)
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.
Snap into a slim-jim!
(I'm totally going to hell for that one!)
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
I've wondered about that. The old version of windows update allowed you to agree to the EULA displayed in a box before the text had loaded, so I agreed to an empty EULA. Another version used an editable text box for the EULA. I replaced it with text stating that a 51% share in Microsoft Corporation became my property as a result of accepting the conditions, and clicked Okay. This leaves us with two options. For a contract to be legally binding, it must be legally binding for both parties so either EULAs are not legally binding, or I own MS. If the second is true then Balmer, you are so fired.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Since DeCSS is an implementation of a mathamatical concept, and is not the ONLY way of ripping data off of a DVD, isn't this a way of squashing one's competitors? Main purpose of DeCSS is the viewing of the DVD, not the copy of it. So, if DeCSS is not permitted by the Courts, doesn't that setup a monopoly? Where is the FTC when you need them. Only way this would be a valid argument if the equation was copyrighted and it was a copyright infringement case. (Which makes me think of copyrighting A + B = C.... Hummmmm)
In God we trust, all others require data.
Good post, but it's more muddled than that.
When I buy a DVD, I've bought a DVD. I haven't licensed it.
However, I can't play my property on my Linux-based computer. Enter DeCSS, which allows me to use my property in a way I see fit.
Now, wait for it.. Wait for it.. Here's the problem.
All this digital crap. Perfect copies and all that.
Because you can theoretically make a perfect copy of a DVD, and give it to your friend, while still keeping your current property, DVDs don't fit into old school 'property'.
This wasn't what people were thinking of when laws and precedents were drawn up a century or two ago. Back then, if you bought, say, a can of yams from some farmer, the farmer was confident you couldn't use them and give them to someone else at the same time.
You could give em to a friend, sure, but you wouldn't have any yams. You *could* try to both utilize the yams, and copy them, but humans are analog and made an imperfect, rather brown and smelly copy of the yams.
Yeah, I just woke up. Uh, right.
Let me try to rephrase that. Old School == You couldn't give away your property for free and still hold that property. Thus, no one really cared much if you gave it away. If you wanted that property again, you'd have to buy it again.
New school == "Here's a copy. Go home and watch it, and I'll watch the original here, and we'll make funny comments to each other over the phone."
Or some shit like that. Bah, damn the man, eat more broccoli, carrot juice consitutes murder.
Judges should be elected, not appointed.
It would solve 99% of the idiocy; clowns like this trying to write law from the bench by way of precedent.
They all have big fat egos, and imagine some hotshot lawyer quoting one of their rulings in a case years from now. Their job is to rule according to the law, but they dont. They look for grey areas so they can fill in the blanks. They are also political appointees, and there is no comeuppance for their ridiculous rulings.
So since they're so keen on tweaking legislation, they should be elected like any other legislator. Then when one of these idiots makes a moronic ruling that hurts citizens, he can be voted out.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
The basic reality, and it does represent a problem for the business models of the mediaopolies, is that the vast majority of people don't take the transgression of illegal, non-commercial duplication seriously as a crime.
And this is the thing: I think copyright law is a good thing, by and large, it creates a lot of economic activity and can protect and enrich the artist who is wise enough not to give up that right, but the DMCA is a whole other thing. Controlling access to "burglars' tools" is one thing, but this is more like telling me I'm not allowed to go to the hardware store and get a duplicate key made for my own house.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
Oh, yeah, and as soon as I start suggesting some retrobution for what they are doing they mod me down.
So, would you rather give up your rights and take the fucking lieing down? I certainly won't, and millions of people telling the goverment "hey, you start some shit, we've got guns and DDOS apps" will jog them right back into reality quite quickly.
I'm fucking sick and tired of these corperations deciding what our rights are going to be, I'm sick of our goverment's repeated attempts at massivly silencing "independant", aka non corperate sponsored opinion through the loosening of mass-media constrictions, and I'm tired of these asswipes giving me "standard letters" when I mail them about subjects; "We're sorry you feel that way, but you're only one person and the senatore has whores and other companies to attend to"
I'm appauled at the "settlements" they've done with the RIAA and moreso with microsoft, which neither organization got hurt by. I'm even more appualed at how bush is handling the rebuilding of iraq; instead of letting the people do it and give them money like they did with japan and france, we're going to let corperations come in and make the law. When we protest, we're called terrorists for blocking the streets and told the punishment is jail for life, and then if we don't back down they break out the tear gas and rubber bullets.
And now we've got advertisements from people in high places that technology and systems that have been around for almost 40 years are illegal. Either this dickhead has been bribed or he was ill informed, and I'm thinking the former becuase he wouldn't come out and say it in the public without some cohersion.
And the most appualing thing of ALL is the fact that when it comes time to re-elect, all of this wonderful information is going to be buried under mounds of Bull Shit that each side is flinging at the other because as we all know; there are millions of americans who have internet access and don't know how to use it becuase the channel-5 news is all the information we need.
So fine, mod me into oblivian you dipshit, mabye in a few years when you have no civil rights left and corperations own everything, then ask you to sign your rights away via contract to make a meager living you'll understand.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
Just because A is the first letter of the alphabet, doesn't mean that Apples are green!!
Of course, as any Randroid will tell you:
A is A!
Crap.
CSS has not a whit to do with piracy. Piracy is the bogey man that the MPAA trots out to camoflage its agenda. CSS is about control of when you can watch a movie.
Without CSS the DVD consortium wouldn't have "officially licensed" decoders. And without those licensed decoders they couldn't carve the world up into zones. Those Intl zones keep a European DVD from playing in the US. More importantly, from the MPAA's point of view, it quashes the possibility of an Int'l gray market. Everybody has to by the disks in their own zone. No one can send them to their relatives "back home" and expect them to play.
CSS is there purely as a legal manoeuvre: "See, we have encryption!" The real point is to keep as absolute control of every disk and, ultimately, every viewing of that disk as is humanly possible.
Disney's decaying DVDs are the next step. You can expect the price of regular Disney DVDs to go way up once the decaying ones hit the market.
The closer you are to the code, the happier you are. - Ancient Geek Proverb
Actually you can do a bit by bit copy, but not with an off the shelf DVD burner, and not with off the shelf media.
There are two types of DVD discs (not talking about + and - here) DVD A and DVD G, which stand for 'Authoring' and 'General use' respectivly. The DVD G media is missing a physical ring on the inside of the disc that hold the encryption key. A DVD G drive won't even write the key. If the key is pysically in the wrong place, guess what? the disc won't work.
Still if they're gonna ban DeCSS (and they shouldn't) they should have a group writting DVD player apps for every platform with a DVD drive.
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
Absolutely it's a burglary tool - being used to steal the next governorship ! Does this constitute the use of a tool as a tool by a tool ? ( British Slang - tool Noun. 1. A penis, implying its supposed usefulness. [1200s] 2. An idiot, a contemptible person.)
Viewing the source html to a webpage is theft, Microsoft owns all code written with Visual Studio, and NO ONE own anything that they purchase. OPen Standards? HAHA, whatevers made with those is owned by the standard bodies. What is up with this though? Why does everyhting have to be someone's IP, or a threat to it? Just get off the boat if you can't take changes in the marketplace!! (And let someone else take your place.) Additionally, if piracy goesup, it is not because of these tools, it's because of the economy. Economy goes down, people have less cash to spend on recreational activities. IT"S THAT SIMPLE!! (same goes for music)
Tyler: "Did you know that if you mix equal parts of gasoline and equal parts frozen orange juice concentrate, you can make napalm?"
...
Narrator: "No, I did not know that, is that true?
Tyler: "That's right. One can make all kinds of explosives using simple household items."
Narrator: "Really."
Tyler: "If one were so inclined."
Narrator: Tyler was full of useful information.
- Fight Club
Carthago delenda est!
Please, somone put a stop to stupid anologies, comparing OS to cars and bikes and what not??? ;)
Its my experience that ignorant people tend to use anologies, like a toiler on the sea, trying to unlock a hole
Anyway, stupid people not knowing what the talk about trying to make up stupid anologies as if the subject was to complicated to adress directly...
Nah, it's that the presidency before the current one already did everything possible to destroy the second ammendment, nothing left to do there really.
And who says the ACLU doesn't have power, heck, I'm afraid to say *anything* about my personal beliefs, for fear of getting sued by them for infringing on somebody else's right to not hear my beliefs.
So let me get this straight. I can sit in my home, with a DVD I purchased in full, and by the act of playing that DVD on my Linux computer, I have forcibly invaded the private premises of the media industry and stolen their property?
We've known for years that words like piracy and theft are intended to have an emotional effect, (unless, of course, groups of Scandanavian teenagers are storming container ships on the open sea and stealing DVDs) but burglary?!
The only support for the application of the concept of burglary is phrases such as "hacking into mechanisms to protect trade secrets". Does this indicate that the man who may one day be governor of California believes that a copy of a DVD is to be considered the private property and premises of the MPAA?! And what trade secret is violated by skipping the forced commercials at the beginning of the video? It is shocking that someone would walk into a courtroom and have the gall to suggest that a DVD in my own home represents homestead rights and privileges of the MPAA! Regardless of the outcome, I have to wonder about a world where someone would even attempt to make a point so utterly devoid of reason.
Can somebody please tell me that he is just being stupid? Please, someone post something about attributing to evil that which can be explained by incompetence. I really need something like that to get me through the day.
Doesn't decss do the same thing your dvd player does to decrypt dvds? How can it be an illegal tool then? - unless of course any company making and selling a dvd player is doing something illegal...
Its doubtful the jury is concerned about their kids, but the thought of someone using DeCSS to break into their house and steal their property. That's cause for concern.
What fascinates me is how we use money and expensive first class resorts to help educate our judges about our capitalist legal system. 5 years ago I didn't know anything about my country. Now I know too much.
This Monday, FCC Chair Michael Powell will hold his vote on media
consolidation. There's nothing special about that date -- it's totally
arbitrary. The vote will conclude a process which has shown deliberate
disregard for the views and opinions of the American
people. Powell has refused to even release the actual language of
the rule change -- it won't be known until after the vote. And he's
only held a single meeting to hear the views of the public. Even when a
bipartisan group of Senators requested that he give Congress some time
to discuss the impact of this change, Powell brushed them off.
Chairman Powell still has the power to delay the rule change and allow
time to have a democratic debate about its consequences. Please call
him today and ask him to allow a real public debate on an issue of such
massive importance.
You can reach Powell's office at:
(202) 418-1000
Once you've made your call, please let us know at:
http://moveon.org/fcccall.html
"Moving through the masses like a fish through water." syrup
Somewhat O/T.
Education is a very sticky subject. Who would write the textbooks, and who controls what goes in those textbooks? As things are now, you can bet Microsoft would play a big part in it, and, for example, Linux may end up nothing more than a chapter in a 1000 page book - that chapter discussing how it is used to circumvent the economy or some such nonsense.
We'd be better off educating the public. Granted, the US is not a democracy, so we cannot vote for or against laws like the DMCA, but if enough of us want something and we tell our representatives there's at least a slim chance we can get it. Better yet, perhaps we could convince the Big Evil Corporations(tm) not to do big evil things.
What? er... nevermind.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Pffft. So we have registration and limitations on some KINDS of weapons. (In general, ones which ARE specifically designed not simply to kill people, but to kill large numbers of people, as quickly and as messily as possible.) Big deal. Hell I don't trust most people with sharp objects. Clinton didn't weaken the Second Amendment. You still have the right to keep a weapon, unless you're a felon or have been diagnosed with mental illnesses that make you prone to violence. In that case we're entirely within our rights to not trust you with the means to kill.
And who says the ACLU doesn't have power, heck, I'm afraid to say *anything* about my personal beliefs, for fear of getting sued by them for infringing on somebody else's right to not hear my beliefs.
This says more about right-wing propaganda than anything else. Unless you're highly placed enough to force those beliefs on others, (such as employees) you have nothing to worry about. Pat Robertson, however, would have people believe that there are ACLU lawyers hiding behind every tree waiting to persecute good conservative Americans for 'speaking their minds.' Well if 'speaking your mind' involves faux-optional bible study groups at work, pushing a particular political opinion at your employees, (or students if you're a teacher) workplace racism or homophobia, or other things of that nature, then expect a call from the ACLU. If not, you have nothing to worry about. It really is that simple.
Your fear of the ACLU's 'power' says more about how effective the other side's propaganda has been than about the ACLU itself.
Lot of whining going on here... When I was a lowly 2LT in the Army, my boss, a grizzly Major who I still have tons of respect for, used to say "Don't bring me problems, bring me solutions."
So... I don't have a solution, but I hope some of you do. I would like to see some suggestions that I might be able to take action on. Does anyone out there have an organization for educating judges on technology... I'll volunteer to teach a class.
Judges should be hired for a job not elected or appointed. The should have performance reviews by a panel of their peers. And these reviews should be a matter of public record. It's foolish to elect people to do a job that is not, at it's core, a job about politics. Perhaps the Supreme Court should be elected, but none below that.
Right now in most states Sheriff and Corener are elected positions. This is an stupid situation. These positions have jobs to do and actual credinatls would be nice. Why should the most politically sauve person get the job? How about the best police officer or necrophiliac?
I can't believe so many people have replied to this, and not pointed out -- DeCSS IS NOT ABOUT COPYING DVDs!!!
DeCSS is about watching DVDs that I paid for on machines not approved by the MPAA, for example my two linux machines.
It also gives you back the fair use rights that the movie industry is trying so hard to steal, but the primary use for DeCSS is to watch movies on linux.
The only way DeCSS even helps DVD copying is that it allows you to do lossy compression you couldn't otherwise do. DVD "copy protection" doesn't in the least keep you from copying a DVD. I can easily copy a DVD and view it without using any unapproved decryptor.
If something is breakable by definition, then the breakability is self-evident, and can at most be confirmed by history.
-- My comment is above.
even when they try to overthrow other evil dictators.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Better analogy: you buy a car [DVD], but the key that the dealer gave you doesn't work. So you get a locksmith to make you a working key [DeCSS], and now you can drive your car in the usual fashion.
If you happen to use your car as a robbery getaway vehicle [illegally copy and distribute DVDs], that has NOTHING to do with whether the original seller's key did or didn't work.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
There are no juries in a state Supreme Court. He was making the argument to a justice, who can be expected to understand issues enough not to fall for such rhetoric.
The "middle-class jury" you so disparagingly reference is not making any major policy changes; they're deciding on findings of fact and leaving the actual legal maneuverings to the trial judge. Beyond that, most sweeping decisions are appealed.
Judges should be educated about technology before trying cases like this, and then prevent counsel from either side from making misleading statements like this.
To a large extent, judges ARE educated about technology before trying cases like this. And why should they "prevent counsel from either side from making misleading statements like this" when they could simply RECOGNIZE them as misleading and NOT BE MISLED?
Yes, the system may have its faults, but the ignorance of your post makes it abundantly clear that you're not one to prescribe fixes.
Cleary the concept of truth isn't applicable in the USA legal system.
Did anyone notice this:
"Well the inevitable has happened, Copyleft is now named as a defendant in the DVD-CCA case in California. "
Just for selling a shirt with the code printed on it?! I can't compile a shirt!
'Begin lameness
I know the shirt is soft wear, but this is ridiculous
Not a good idea.
(1) MPAA and RIAA will need to bribe (excuse me, make political donations) many more politicians (which are what the judges will have become under this system)
(2) The cost of CDs and DVDs will inevitably rise as the trade groups recover the additional expense of bribing this new multitude.
(3) Sales of these items will drop as the price rises (imagine that!)
(4) This will of course be blamed on piracy, spawning yet another generation of special-purpose legislation.
Anyhow... um, yeah. I'm not fond of the idea of electing judges anyhow, although I think something needs to be done. How about keeping the system of appointing and confirming (in legislature) as done in most states... but ballots include the names of existing judges and you can vote to fire them?
Drunk driving is a crime, and causes more financial harm than pirated movies, but I don't see alchohol being outlawed (again) anytime soon.
Oh look, he has a website ...
some public information:
Mailing Address:
BILL LOCKYER
California Department of Justice
P.O. Box 944255
Sacramento, CA 94244-2550
His Phone, well, you may have to ask for him:
(800) 952-5225
Runnin' On Empty
There is no such thing as an absolute right. You have the right to keep a weapon. As a society we have the right to limit your access to specific types of weapons that you have no particular legitimate use for and that are designed for purposes that in civil society can only be considered nefarious.
If you think that having an assault rifle makes you somehow more manly, that's your issue. The rest of us have a right to not have to deal with the results. People who want to defend themselves can. The weapons banned under these laws aren't defensive, and were never intended to be.
What about the tax I pay on recordable medium?
I pay for my right to back up my Movies, and now they take that away from me too.
0110100100100000011000010110110100100000011000100
And locksmiths use lockpics, or other special devices to open up locations where keys have been lost, etc. But, lockpicks are used by burglars, burglars are criminals and locksmiths use lockpicks, so that must mean that locksmiths are criminals.
Geeze... doesn't this sound like basic High-School logic courses? Just because once group uses a tool for a purpose does not make the tool criminal, and does not make other groups using the tool criminals.
Meanwhile... a warrant is out for the inventor of the coathanger, after it was discovered that this device could also be used as a tool for burglarizing vehicles...
Of course, it depends whether you count IIS as a breaking and entering tool.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
Military issue rifles are not designed to kill "masses of people". The weapons banned by Clinton's administration are not meant to be used for spraying bullets. THOSE KINDS OF WEAPONS WERE ALREADY ILLEGAL.
All the previous administration did was to ban some guns that merely look a little more scary than the average deer rifle.
Actually, it's quite moronic to ban American citizens from owning those weapons they would be most likely trained to used.
Sure, mebbe get rid of AK-47's and Uzi's. However, there is a compelling national security interest in allowing and encouraging competency in the M-16.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Go immediately to:
http://caag.state.ca.us/consumers/mailform.htm
and enter a consumer complaint. I said that I owned a DVD player and some DVDs, and that the California Attourney General's office was trying to prevent me from watching the DVD on my Linux computer.
Pistol grip/bullpup design is included so that the weapon can be fired from the hip as easily (or nearly as easily) as from the shoulder.
Extra capacity magazines are included so that one doesn't have to reload as often.
Trigger and firing mechanisms that are built for rapid fire (this doesn't even get into 'how easy is it to modify the weapon to allow fully automatic fire) are intended to spray large amounts of bullets.
It's not a question of 'it looks scary' however much some people may want to portray it that way.
In the American legal system, IT'S A JUDGE'S JOB TO WRITE LAW FROM THE BENCH.
That is simply the way it works. This is also why American law students study cases that go as far back as 1200 in England. It's all just one long chain of "judges legislating from the bench".
Don't like it? Move to Louisianna or anywhere else that didn't inherit it's legal tradition from England.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
That is a stupid statement; showing that you have no clue what a right even is.
Baseless emotionalist statements. Possibly instead of simply ranting, you could make a point? Such as if there is such a thing as an absolute right, list it?
Societies don't have rights. There's no such thing as a "collective" right under the Constitution. Collectively, governments or "societies" only have powers, and the Constitution is very clear that the only legitimate powers that can be exercised are those that are explicitly delegated to government. The right to regulate firearms is not one of those powers. Again, you don't have the faintest clue what a right even is.
Society is a collection of individuals. As such, the rights of individuals extend to society as a whole, where they apply. Now.... again instead of mindless rhetoric and emotional hooks.... possibly you could explain how you having an AK makes you part of any 'well regulated militia?'
Yeah I didn't think so.
And for the third time, you show how clueless you are. The founders didn't put the 2nd amendment in the Constitution because the were "manly"; they put it there because they were smarter than you, and realized the importance of an armed citizenry. And assault rifles weren't banned by the 1994 so-called law; assualt weapons were (that you don't know the difference again shows how completely ignorant you are on the subject; "assault weapons" that are also rifles are not "assault rifles").
The Founders added in the Second for any number of reasons. For one thing there was a much more level playing field between soldiers and civilians at the time. (A pennsylvania rifle was a pennsylvania rifle, after all. Combat was much simpler.) At the time, an armed revolt against an oppressive state was an option. This was before people developed little toys like RPG's and heavy machine guns. As big and bad as you may think you are, you have no chance at all against a column of armed and armored troops in the modern age. Get over it.
Yes, some non-rifles (with essentially the same features as the assault rifles) were also banned, and for the same reasons. The ban is still commonly referred to as the 'assult rifle ban.' Excessive anal retentiveness about minutae is a sign of a weak core argument. Might want to look into that.
And in addition to being a moron, you prove that your memory is defective as well. It was only the last decade when the Korean shopkeepers in LA had to use these very same weapons to defend their lives and their property during the riots (the same riots where both police and fire departments refused to go into those areas of the city). The large magazine capacity of these weapons allowed those Korean americans to defend themselves against a mob (all without killing those threatening them either, for that matter).
The fact is that the case you cite didn't require such weapons. A pistol and a decent door lock would be more than adequate. In that sense they're like most thieves. If you have ANY gun and look like you have any sort of clue as to how to use it, they'll move on to someone who doesn't.
My commentary is at Bricoleur.
-Alex
The whole question is moot. The DMCA is unconstitutional because it is contrary to the clear intent of the framers in drafting a clause to grant a temporary and embarrassing monopoly to inventors to further the progress of science and the useful arts. Bill Lockyer's comments indicate his ignorance of constitutional law, and the substitution thereof by media industry tripe: DeCSS cannot be "burglary tool" because there cannot be a "theft" of an idea because an idea cannot be owned, not in these United States.
DeCSS my be illegal, but if such proscription is found to be necessary to promote the progress of science and the useful art, no matter how absurd such a conclusion obviously is, it would be illegal as a guerrilla anti-trust tool, not as a tool of theft.
Contitutional law is guided by the writings of the framers of the contitution, which illuminate their intent in drafting. Thomas Jefferson was our third president, our first Patent Examiner, and the author of the Declaration of American Independence.
Thomas Jefferson to Isaac McPherson
13 Aug. 1813 Writings 13:333--35
It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to inventors. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it, but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody. Accordingly, it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England was, until we copied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new an
"breaking, entering and stealing"
This abuse of words without regard to their meaning (but with regard to emotional effect) is getting alarming. According to them, you can perform B&E in your own house if you do something wrong with a DVD.
It amounts to "A and B are crimes. B sounds much worse, so let's call all the A crimes B crimes so they look like worse fiends."
"The program DeCSS is a burglary tool,"
If this is the case, then I suppose it is a short matter of time before DeCSS is claimed to be a weapon used in crimes of murder and rape.
If this keeps up, sometime next year, some MPAA or RIAA flack will be the first to accuse a disc pirate of committing genocide.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
"How did this go from stealing copyrights to stealing trade secrets all of a sudden"
This topic involves (potential) violation of a copyright, not theft. Theft of a copyright is when someone claims a copyright as their own, which is not applicable to this DeCSS discussion.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
The truth of the matter is that DeCSS is no more a burglary tool than a Dremel tool.
I think it is far less of one. During burglary, you can smash windows with the Dremel tool and maybe use it to cut out door locks or safes. It is much, much harder to use DeCSS in burglary... the easiest way would be to use it to distribute a "Burglar's How-To" DVD that was protected by DeCSS.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
The fact is that no contract is established when I purchase a DVD, regardless of what the MPAA wants you to believe. I have no obligation to abide by terms set by the MPAA simply by purchasing a DVD.
"I think so, Brain, but 'instant karma' always gets so lumpy." - Pinky
"Decepticons FOREVER!!!" - Ravage
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
You are simply a clueless moron perpetuating politically motivated lies.
An M-16 is designed to be a lowend sniping rifle. It is meant to be fired SLOWLY and for ACCURACY. This is how real soldiers are trained to use it.
It is NOT a tommy gun.
It is a single fire weapon meant to be accurately used at ranges of 500 yards. I have done this myself (USMC Marksman).
All of your comments apply equally well to pistols. After market full-auto mods and magazine extenders exist for pistols as well. However, pistols have the added feature of being easier to hide. There are also various models of pistols with lesser recoil making pistols easier to use and generally more accessable to novices.
The comment about the grip is too laughable for words.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I would gladly pay for a DVD-CCA blessed binary program I could run under Linux so that I can watch 90% of of the DVDs in my collection. As it is, thanks to the version of MPlayer included in Mandrake Linux 9.1, I can watch 10% of my DVDs...the ones without encryption.
The major players in the Windows DVD playing software market all have DVD players ready to go. Yet they will not sell them, for any price, to any member of the general public. Why is this so? Why can't I pay my $50 or so (NVidia NVDVD is $40, actually) to the makers of LinDVD and/or PowerDVD for Linux and get a copy I can install on my computer?
Maybe NVidia might be the ones to make a commercial DVD player for Linux. They've made wonderful binary drivers for their video cards and for the nForce motherboard chipset, maybe they might be the ones to grow a spine and do this.
Until then, it's circumvent, circumvent, circumvent. I don't like it. I don't like breaking the law to enjoy my movies anywhere I want to play them. Using Linux (or FreeBSD or whatever F/OSS operating system you want) should not be a crime.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
There are so many metaphors for DeCSS being thrown around that I hardly know where to start. Most of these seem to be subtlely incorrect, not implying the proper levels of ownership and copyright respect. Consider:
DeCSS:DVD::Crowbar:House
Close, but no cigar. We presume that for this use of a crowbar to be legal you must own or have rights to access the house. It is unclear which is meant simply because a house bears no resemblance to intelectual property. In other words, this house is real property...it can only be in the hands of one person at a time, that person has the right to access his property.
DeCSS:DVD::Criminal:Victim
Not even close. Besides the fact that DeCSS is a process and Criminal is a person, A criminal's victim is presumed to have rights. What rights does a DVD posses? None. As with the previous one, this analogy *also* fails because of the differing nature of intellectual property and IP crimes to real property and real property crimes (theft).
Hmm, so what *are* the properties of the items with which we want to relate?
IP:
the property held by IP owner (the content)
protection method:
CSS, a protective wrapper around IP stored within a DVD.
circumvention method:
DeCSS, a utility to allow access to "wrapped" IP
content media storage:
DVD
content access method:
DVD player
the DVD represents two distinct things. Both the protected media and the right to access it are conveyed by the ownership of a DVD. This is an important distinction. No, i'd go so far as to say it is *the* important distinction. Consider the implications of it being otherwise.
Consider a theatre. The provision of media and the right to access it are separated (ticket and auditorium). I would expect it to be *clearly* indicated if purchasing the ticket (right to watch) did not also purchase access (access to watch). Wouldn't you? I suspect that ownership under every law in every common law county implies both rights simultaneously. Not doing so probably requires a special contract which specifically retracts the right to access for the property.
Since I have never signed (nor have I even seen) such a restricting contract governing my ownership of my DVD's, I must assume that my purchase of a DVD includes both the right to watch and access to watch.
The owners of the IP contained in DVD's are trying to obscure the fact that they want the courts to revoke an implied right. These IP owners want to separate these two rights, placing the right to watch with the DVD and the right to access with the dvd player. Where did I give up my *standard* (IP) property rights which would allow this?
Lets try a more coherent comparison. We need to find a system where right to access and right to view are separable. I posit that the standard book is a fine example. Suppose:
I enter a book store, pick up a book, read the first page and decide I'd like to buy it to finish reading it. I go to the counter with the book and pay for it, getting a polite "thank you" from the store owner. When I get home, I go sit in my favorite chair, open the book to find that all the pages are blank. In confusion I search the book for the reading instructions. Finding none I call the bookstore, where I am informed that I can only read the book under a special kind of light. The bookstore just happens to have those lights installed. The store owner kindly offers to sell me a lamp so I can read my book, seeming confused at my annoyance. I however look online and find out that a massive tacheon flux through the book causes the ink to become visible for 24 hours. I do a bit more research and find a diagram showing how to create a tacheon emmitter using duct tape and chicken wire. Now, I can read my book. Have I committed a crime?
IP:
the content of the book.
protection method:
special ink
circumvention method:
tacheon emmitter
content storage media:
book
content acc
that t-shirt is nice. i own one and it's extremely comfy! buy one and support decss!
I write code.
I'm sorry, but the Kurd would have had their asses kicked so hard without the no fly zone, meaning American and British air power.
Sure, they weren't calling in strikes, but they were not having bombs dropped on them either, and they would have if they had fought With just their own soldiers and their own arms...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
Idiot. Rights are for the exercise of individuals, not "societies". Your collectivist interpretation of "rights" makes no sense; if you need the consent of everyone around you to perform an action, it is a privilege, not a right.
And what is a society?
Oh yeah, it's a collection of individuals.
You have rights in this society. Those rights may be exercised UNTIL they begin to infringe on the rights of others. Meaning, (to put it in terms your fundamentally underdeveloped and hormone poisoned brian can understand) your right to swing your fist ends at my nose.
Clearly you're too stupid to understand this concept. If you think you need these weapons, you can't be trusted with them. These weapons are designed for combat. Period. End of story. No amount of propaganda will change this fact. Some people, (we call them soldiers) have a legitimate reason for this. You do not. ('I wanna look like a tough guy' isn't a legitimate reason from our perspective. Your insecurities about your penis aren't sufficient reason for us to risk allowing you to have a weapon like this.) We as a society DO have the right to pass laws to protect our safety from idiots like you, and we WILL exercise that right.
Idiot. If small arms were not worthwhile in mordern combat, they wouldn't be issued to troops today. You have no clue about the effectiveness of small arms, and their role in an insurgency, even today, would be quite useful. No one would expect a resistance to tyranny to be an early 20th century style battle.
Actually they can be quite effective... if you have specific training in how to use them and have sufficient cover. Oh, and if you AREN'T facing APC's and tanks. News flash.... Rambo's a myth. Yes yes, I know that's hard to understand and totally devastates your self-image.... but it's true. Charge a tank brandishing a machine gun, and you're going to die.
Life isn't an action movie.
No, you dumbass. "Assault rifles" are fully automatic (usually selective fire) rifles. "Assault weapons" are not full auto weapons, they are merely semi-autos that "look bad" (usually based on the same improved ergonomics of true assault rifles). It is commonly referred to as the 'assult rifle ban' (sic) only by ignorant idiots who don't understand the difference or deliberate deceivers who don't want others to understand the difference.
And it's exactly these same ergonomics that make these weapons more dangerous and require specific training and control. As I mentioned in another post, the bullpup/pistol grip, easy modification to full auto, and high capacity magazines are designed for suppressive fire or for shooting into a crowd. You don't need this capability, and we don't want you to have it. (Because clearly you're stupid and hotheaded enough to use it.) Again, focusing on minutae is the sign of a weak argument.
Argh. You IDIOT! They were going from shop to shop firebombing! "A decent door lock" didn't do anything to stop the looters until the Koreans showed they were willing to use force to defend themselves. These people were not "like most thieves"; they were as interested in destruction as they were in looting, and were blaming the Koreans for their economic woes just like 1930s Germans blamed the Jews.
You can show force just as well with a Glock as you can with an AK. If you need 30 shots to kill someone, you can't be trusted with a gun.
As interested in destruction as they were.... isn't it funny how they managed to not destroy anything valuable that they wanted?
Even with the AKs, the Koreans still had to fire multiple warning shots (an option that would not have been available with lower capacity weapons) just to keep the firebombers away. If the brandishing of an AK didn't stop them, showing them a pistol certainly wouldn't have done so.
And your attitude again clearly shows you can't be trusted with firearms. You don't have th
The tommy gun was designed for similar purposes. The 100 round drum you see in gangster movies was rarely used because it was a pain in the ass. Most use (including military use) wasn't all that different from the M16. (Although the M16 is more accurate and gets more sniping use as a result. Natrual progression.)
Yes, full auto and magazine extenders exist for pistols as well.... and are rarely used, (see the previous pain in the ass comment.) Yes it's possible to make a full auto pistol. Sig even makes one for military use. All are rarely used, because to make it worthwhile you have to have a magazine large enough to make the weapon a pain in the ass to use. (And pretty much negates the concealment factor.) Overall, most people don't bother.
Once again, suppressive fire doesn't require much accuracy. Neither does firing into a mob. Give someone a large enough target, or downplay the importance of actually hitting anything specific, and it doesn't matter whether you're firing from the shoulder or the hip. Except that the hip lets you sweep back and forth quickly.
The "trigger and firing mechanisms" of these weapons are just self-loaders ("semi-auto") whose engineering principles have been around for well over 100 years. As far as 'how easy it is to modify the weapon to allow fully automatic fire', BATF regulations already define a firearm that can be easily converted (less than 8 hours of machine shop time; about the time a sub-machine gun could be fabricated from scratch) to full-auto as already being a full-auto firearm.
Yes, and some are made to cycle faster than others, thus allowing someone to pump out more shots more quickly even without modifying the weapon. This is a combat use. Not something one would use to defend against a burglar. You wanna be a soldier? Join the military. The rest of us don't want to deal with your friendly fire.
The "slim jim" is also a burglary tool - yet it can be found in most law enforcement vehicles!
A burglary tool used legitimately by law enforcement? How can that be?!?!
Its only a burglary tool if used improperly.
Here a "lock pick set" is legal to own. Its how you use it that may or may not be legal. The 'tool' is neutral.
As it is to own a brick.. if you build a shed with it then its legal, if you bash someone's head in, then its not..
Oh wait.. now they will try to ban bricks too.. 'for the children'
---- Booth was a patriot ----
-------------
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Pleasew write your representitves, and the AG and calmly explain what this is used for, explain then 'pirates' just make a bit by bit copy(encryption and all), that the AG is trying to remove your right to play a dvd you purchase on a computer of your choose.
Write your paper's editor, get this into the paper, pererably written by a columnist, or a reporter, but even letters to the editors page will help.
People seem to want to know how to stop this nonsence. well there's a road map for you.
If you can get a moment of your officials time, do so. If you can get a moment of time with an executive at a large company, maybe you can get them to make a call to whoomever the give campagn contributions to.
Get librarians involved.
You must act now, or these rights will go away.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You're supposed to cut out your eyes now and kill your father.
"Light is faster than sound." - "Is that why people tend to look bright until you hear them speak?"
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.
This entitlement attitude really pisses me off, it has for many years.
They didn't lose a dime. They may not have made a dime, but they have no right to assume I'd pay for something just because I'd take it for free.
Yep I'm a liberal hippie jew who loves niggas and all humans reguardless of how they look or what they do. I hate their actions. I hate their ignorance. But I love them and I think that is all you need.
But I'm retarded, so go figure this stuff out on your own.
We were all created equal, especially the retards. Why? Does it matter if the person feeling happiness is a scientist or a retard? No. They are feeling and that is all that matters.
You completely missed the original poster's point (one I would have made but he got there first) that CSS is not, and never was, copy protection. There is nothing about CSS that prevents a bit-by-bit copy of the disc. All that CSS does is attempt to prevent viewing on unapproved and/or out of region players. That's it! Nothing more!
Calling it copy protection distorts the entire argument!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
They do own it. Remember, DeCSS was written for Linux!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Only if there are conspicuous terms on the outside the box, is there any case for the existence of a contract other than standard contract of sale. Even with conspicuous terms on the outside it's debatable.
Mail form where you can send your own letter
I would like to comment on statements that California Attorney General Bill Lockyer made in a recent court case where he is quoted as saying that "DeCSS is a burglary tool".
I am strongly opposed to copyright infringement and I applaud the California Attorney General for doing everything possible to stop both large-scale and small-scale piracy of media, whether digital or otherwise.
But I would ask that the Attorney General please make a distinction between software tools, which can generally be used for both legal and illegal actions, and the actions which are themselves illegal.
I should note at this point that I have a Master's degree in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University, I have experience with encryption algorithms, and I have worked in the software engineering field for many years.
DeCSS is a program that decrypts the data stored on a DVD movie. Every DVD player, hardware and software, contains a program functionally identical to the one known as DeCSS. The difference is that all commercial DVD players contain a program (or derivative program) that was originally written by members of the DVD consortium who came up with the format in the first place. DeCSS was written in a "clean room", by talented computer programmers who figured out how the encryption on a DVD works without access to any secret information.
Note that this "reverse engineering" is very common in the field and is completely legal. It's the equivalent to a Ford technician opening the hood of a Honda and studying how the engine works to see how they got such good performance.
DeCSS has many legal uses. The most obvious one is that it lets amateur programmers write their own DVD players, to play the DVD movies that they already own. Some may want to do this so that they can watch DVDs on their favorite operating system that is not supported by any commercial software yet (like Linux), and others may want to build new innovative portable DVD players.
DeCSS is not even necessary to make copies of a DVD! You can make a perfect copy of a DVD simply by copying all of the data encrypted. It does not require decrypting the data to make a copy, any more than it is necessary to understand French for me to make a photocopy of a book written in French.
It is true that DeCSS can be used to share DVD movies over the Internet in a different format (usually smaller size) than the original. However, in this case, DeCSS is one of about a dozen separate software programs that are all involved in the process. It just so happens that in the special case of DVDs, DeCSS was the only missing piece of the puzzle that didn't exist before. But there is nothing about DeCSS that makes it, in and of itself, illegal.
As a computer programmer, I am very concerned at the idea that a program can be labeled as illegal, when it has many legal uses. This threatens to have a chilling effect on the software industry. It's like owning a knife - it can be used for good or for evil. Owning the knife is not illegal, using it to kill someone is.
[Slashdotters: sorry if some of my analogies aren't that good. Feel free to pick them apart, but if you do, please suggest better ones, and I'll use the best I'm aware of in the future when discussing this with friends. Also, if you're complaining, show me the letter YOU wrote...no? I thought so.]
Holy rusted metal Batman! I think you finally gave me an illustration that I can use when explaining this sort of stuff to friends!
Thanks for the thought and work on that!
robi
Your agreement to those terms is sealed when you promise to pay $20 for that DVD, and then do so.
What if I slip a note an my $20.00 stating "By accepting this money you agree to give me one DVD for every movie produced in the future"
By your reasoning, the agreement of the movie producers is sealed when they accept the money. It goes both ways or no way at all.
Kilroy was here!
You seem to get your firearms knowledge (or rather, the lack thereof) from watching movies. No army now, or has ever, trained soldiers to "fire from the hip", nor would a pistol grip make such firing easier (if anything, it would become nearly impossible with a pistol grip).
Are you stoned, stupid, or just not paying attention?
It ALLOWS you to fire from the hip, which in some cases is an advantage. (Such as trying to make people keep their heads down, or firing into a mob.) Strawmen are easy to knock down, but they don't prove your point.
The other posters are right; you are an idiot. The lock time of semi-autos today are no better than guns more than 100 years old.
When it's intentionally limited, yes. Not all are.
Figures. You're just a damned communitarian who thinks the only time people should be allowed to exercise their rights is when they serve the state. Your kind killed more people last century than the rest of all other tyrants in history.
And you pulled this out of where?
Let me rephrase for those who have trouble hearing through the chip on their shoulders. If you want to play with military weapons, go join the military. The rest of us don't want to deal with the consequences of your incompetence.
If I buy a DVD, I physically own the media that it is printed on. Weather I throw it off a cliff, wear it as a hat or shoot a L.A.S.E.R. at it to read the bits is none of anyone elses biznatch.
Welcome to the land of the free...pay toll ahead...no photography...please open your bag...
A legislative dilemma for the US Congress?
Stopping myself...Abort (core dumped)
If I buy something that the manufacturer has burdened with various unrequested locks and restraints from actually being used by me, is it a crime if I break said restraints? The law today says that it is. But it is the law that is wrong not the action. Hopefully this case will end with this being affirmed. But whether it ends that way or not the truth of what is and is not reasonbale remains.
An unsupervised teenager with a modem is as dangerous as an unsupervised teenager with a gun.
Jory
I won't vote for that asshole every again.
Jory
GREAT! Now that we don't need to follow the laws of reality anymore, let's go CRAZY!
Eminems hair is a crime against humanity.
The last star wars movie was a murder weapon.
Brittany Spears is a used crack needle!
Kangaroo Jack is a tool for Treason!
Princess Mononoke is a terrorist tool used by the CIA to spy on the japs!
It's been a long time.
Most software publishers don't make you aware of these terms until AFTER you bought the thing. So one would think that sales doctrine would apply, and say that since no contract was presented AT TIME OF PURCHASE, than the purchase is NOT bound by any contract.
By reading this post, you agree to mail $500.00 by registered mail to...
Just have your kid by the DVD and install all your software, since you cannot enter into a contract with a minor ;)
By posting comments that I mispelled "buy", you hereby agree to mail $50 to me for being a nitpicking sob....
By pointing out I should've used the preview button, you hereby agree to mail $1000 to me for making me look like an arse....
If DeCSS is illegal because it allows you to watch css encrypted movies, wouldn't that mean that ANY DVD playback software is illegal due to the fact that they can play back ENCRYPTED CSS DVDS. Therefore, ANYTHING that can playback CSS Encrypted movies, is ILLEGAL!
states they are looking for DeCSS which is a "Weapon Of Mass Destr^H^H^Hcryption".
(God help us all if it comes to that)
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Estimated ppl online in 2002: About 600 million. 350K*365/600M = 0,22 1CD rips per person per year. Granted, lots and lots of people are on modem and would be flatlined at 0 CDs. However, knowing how some people with broadband downloads dozens of rips each year, I don't think the number is that far from the truth. Particularly if you count any traffic with a public IP address, such as University and College campuses.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Wouldn't it be nice if the ACLU was as politically powerful as the NRA?
No, because the ACLU frequently takes cases/causes that are based on bogus claims.
Consider one case, where a woman left her church because her son was abused by a grossly misbehaving member of that church. The ACLU then steps in, and a lawsuit is filed for three million dollars, stating that the church did not live up to its responsiblity to keep the man away from her son, also stating that the man was a high official in the church, when he was just another member. In fact, the woman had invited the man to stay at her house! Note that I may be incorrect on some of the details of this case, but the general idea is the same.
Another case: in Salt Lake City, the LDS church purchased a small street that borders Temple Square to create a safer environment for pedestrians visiting the square. The ACLU then decides to argue that the LDS church is violating free speech (!) by not allowing protestors to harass pedestrians while on the LDS church's private property! There is still plenty of public sidewalk outside of the church's private property where protestors can gather.
So you see, while the ACLU does much good, it also does much bad. It is a lot like most other political organizations. No organization should have significant political power over any other.
A solution to the problem with music today