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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!
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.
If you grow them, they will cum.
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
Computers are a tool for burglary, let's ban those.
...
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
"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
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).
(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,
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.
It's not as backed up by law as you think it might be, or there wouldn't continue to be fights about Right of First Sale that the industry kept losing (i.e. sales of used CDs and DVDs.)
The industry can think what they want; the moment they put their product in a retail outlet, apply sales tax appropriate for a consumer good, and advertise using slogans like "Buy it today!" (Blockbuster), they sold it.
Imagine if every purchase you made came with a list of conditions. Imagine how often you'd ignore that list.
--Dan
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.
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
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