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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.
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.
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
They stole your hand? That's got to hurt...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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).
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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
Unfortunately, both the Democrats and Republicans brought us the PATRIOT act.
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.
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
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
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...
And the DMCA. It passed 99-0 in the Senate back in 1998.
What? er... nevermind.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
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.
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.
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
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...
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.
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.
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
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
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.