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DVD CCA Drops Case; DeCSS Not a Trade Secret
jon787 writes "EFF is reporting that the DVD CCA is dismissing its case against Andrew Bunner. He was being prosecuted under California's trade secret laws for redistributing DeCSS. This means that the DVD CCA has finally conceded that CSS is no longer a secret, something the rest of us have known for a few years now."
SCO to go...
I had a sucky sig.
/* efdtt.c Author: Charles M. Hannum <root@ihack.net> */
,y,s[2048];main( ,n=2048 ,s,n) )if(s /16%4 ==1 ){int /2^j&1
;}}
/* */
/* Thanks to Phil Carmody <fatphil@asdf.org> for additional tweaks. */
/* */
/* DVD-logo shaped version by Alex Bowley <alex@hyperspeed.org> */
/* */
/* Usage is: cat title-key scrambled.vob | efdtt >clear.vob */
#define m(i)(x[i]^s[i+84])<<
unsigned char x[5]
n){for( read(0,x,5 );read(0,s
); write(1
[y=s [13]%8+20]
i=m( 1)17 ^256 +m(0) 8,k =m(2)
0,j= m(4) 17^ m(3) 9^k* 2-k%8
^8,a =0,c =26;for (s[y] -=16;
--c;j *=2)a= a*2^i& 1,i=i
<<24;for(j= 127; ++j<n;c=c>
y)
c
+=y=i^i/8^i>>4^i>>12,
i=i>>8^y<<17,a^=a>>14,y=a^a*8^a<<6,a=a
&nbs p; >>8^y<<9,k=s[j],k ="7Wo~'G_\216"[k
&7]+2^"cr3sfw6v;*k+>/n."[k>>4]*2^k*257/
  ; 8,s[j]=k^(k&k*2&34)*6^c+~y
Background: 28/M/Bi-Sexual; Owner of a Linux company; MBA Harvard 2003; B.S. Comp Sci MIT 2000
I know I'm going to get RTFA everywhere, but does this mean decss is legal?
Full Press release is available here.
so does this mean the varios linux distro's will be able to include a dvd player by default? could be a boon to wider acceptance on the desktop, especially at home
- Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.
...whether or not it is by the company that created it, it ceases to be a trade secret in the case of proprietary encryption schemes?
Does this mean that Xine and Mplayer can now be distributed with libdvdcss included.
I'd just like to take a minute to thank the EFF. You can help them by donating.
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
Good news is always welcome.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
does that basically kill thier argument about anything that copies DVD because if it is public knowledge anyone can do what they want
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
Now if we can only get the Beatles to finally admit that Paul is dead, then that will mean the two most important but worst-kept secrets in the world will have been revealed on one day.
apt-get install deathstar && deathstar alderaan && echo "You're far too trusting"
haven't gotten the damned t-shirt yet. 8(
Ok, thinkgeek here I come!
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Let the mass pirating of DVDs begin!
...what?
I've so far avoided getting a dedicated DVD player just because they have region coding, preferring to use a software-based open source dvd player.
But it's sure not as convenient or as pleasant to watch DVDs on my laptop as it would be on my TV with a dedicated player. For one thing, my laptop doesn't have a remote control.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Does this mean I can finally watch encrypted DVDs on Linux without having the fear of the FBI crashing through my windows?
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
So, if it's no longer a trade secret in the US, does that mean that the Jon Johansen can finally quit worrying about the Norwegian government's appealing the second aquittal? Or can they claim that he's still guilty, if they prove it was a trade secret at the time he "hacked" it?
en francais, aussi...
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
If any of you have some spare dollars or Euros lying around, maybe this article and the fact that you're in a relaxed Friday night mood might convince you to make a tax-deductible donation to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and help save civil liberties in cyberspace.
Andrew Bunner, the man featured on this Slashdot page, was being prosecuted under California's trade secret laws for redistributing DeCSS. If the EFF hadn't stepped in and stood up for his rights (at no cost to him), he very well might be in jail right now.
So please, consider joining or donating right now. It really does make a big difference.
One thing I promised myself back in college was that if I made any money off my computer knowledge gleaned from the Open-Source and computer-loving communities like Slashdot, Freshmeat, SourceForge, etc., I would donate 1% of my salary to various groups such as the EFF. I have kept my word, and I must tell you that it feels great.
I urge you all to think strongly consider it. Who's watching out for us if we don't all chip in?
Thanks for reading this, friends. It means a lot to me.
Background: 28/M/Bi-Sexual; Owner of a Linux company; MBA Harvard 2003; B.S. Comp Sci MIT 2000
Finally, a headline that doesn't make me want to find a rock to hide under.
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
And Elvis....
- - - - - - - - - - -
I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
You're getting closer...
It's not CSS that's the problem--the five-digit player key is a trade secret.
Anyway, let's celebrate!
Tired of free iPod sigs? Subscribe to my blacklist
DVD css was cracked through reverse engineering, which does not equate to stealing a trade secret. I do think that the outcome is important, but it won't really make that much of a difference IMHO (and of course, IANAL)
The Raven
Microsoft releases Office under the GPL Steve Ballmer wins Nobel Price in physics Former Enron executive Ken Lay goes to jail Duke Nukem Forever released
from well, anywhere but the US? :)
Though what's always annoyed me is that they're more expensive, not much, but slightly. So the mass market buys region locked ones. Then again, I should probably be glad there are at all.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
...at the risk of sounding like a "Me too" AOLer, the EFF is an organization that is often overlooked. If any of you are big-time managers of fortune 500 companies, and need a tax-break, I would highly suggest kicking a few million down to them. You would be truly 1337. Think IBM. Think Intel (on the weeks they are on our side), Think Novell. You could be seen as the same, and have linux coders clammoring to make your code/hardware/whatever better.
Just my $.02
This means that the DVD CCA has finally conceded that CSS is no longer a secret
No it doesn't, it means they decided not to pursue this particular case. I dont see where they conceded anything, or shut the door on any future legal action.
Just because the EFF sees it that way doesnt mean it's so, they're a special interest group with an agenda. Agreeing with the agenda doesn't make everything they say/do in pursuit of that agenda right.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
There's still a permanent injunction against them even linking to it. This should be interesting.
The latest Slashdot meme.
They're readying the next format now anyway. They know that DeCSS has made no dent at all in their revenues. But they won't make that mistake (letting the keys out) again.
BC
Does this mean DeCSS is completely, legally, free software. I'm sure this would be good news to the fine folks from Xine, MPlayer, Ogle, and VLC. They could distribute much more fully featured products in mainstream distros.
"Beatles"? Wouldn't it be "Beatle", in that case? Or are John and George hanging out with Elvis in convenience stores?
An article where the corporations AREN'T omnipotent. I agree with above posters: give a few spare clams to the EFF.
Hopefully this is the first event among many where we begin to turn the tide against corporate power. What the Internet gives us is too important to get shackled down by bureaucrats. I want to be able to get news and information from anyone anywhere and with no middlemen but the ones *I* designate. We'll win this war eventually.
Wikipedia says "Okokrim announced on January 5, 2004 that it would not appeal the case any further" (apparently Slashdot will not let me type the O with the slash through it, but it gives me the proper character in the editor area).
Digital Citizen
It sure needs to, like, oh, shrinkwrap laws.
I'd like to be able to bring back DVDs with me when I do travel, because I know there are some not available to me here, and when I do, I want to watch them.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
but what about the DVDA?
Why all of the sudden this was dropped? Considering the recent RIAA actions, the second persuit Jon Johannson, the movements to crackdown on bootlegs, etc?
Why drop this? Makes me wonder what is up the sleeves.
copyleft are finally going to send me my goddamned t-shirts?
To know that you know what you know, and that you do not know what you do not know, that is true wisdom. --Scooby Doo
This is truly a great day for consumer freedom. We should all be thankful for what the DVDA has given us.
...my tapes which I encoded with the C64 version of DeCSS again ?
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
So does this mean that Linux distributions will be able to play DVDs out of the box? or are there still patent issues with that?
-- Knowledge shared is power lost. -- Aleister Crowley
It's been on the first page of hits at google for the query content scrambling system for a couple of years now.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
I dunno about that, but you might find a serviceable 8-track player. Do those need decoding though?
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
*was* a trade secret until it was released into the wild under a half-assed encryption scheme.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
I have to go home and listen to the white album again *sniff*. :)
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
Crashing through windows was more a signature of the Justice Department under Janet Reno. Under John Ashcroft, you just disappear in the middle of the night.
Now how do I get ahold of the guy who does the spices at KFC?
they've realized it's too late for CSS. no law suit will materially change this.
the next generation of higher density DVD is right around the corner. and you can bet it won't use CSS. that means linux is back out in the cold.
When they dropped the case, did they actually admit that it's no longer a trade secret? The second is much, much stronger than the former. If they admit it's not a trade secret, GNU/Linux DVD players are completely legally in the clear. If they simply stop prosecuting the case, it would certainly weaken the trade secret (since they are required to take active measures to keep it secret under trade secret laws), but they could potentially still prosecute others. It would still have to be struck down as a trade secret in a court of law, or openly admitted to not being one...
It hasn't been a legally enforcable trade secret for a while, but they could still throw enough legal $$$ to harass most people not to distribute it. If they admit it's not one, they won't be able to do that anymore (it'll get struct down in court in 5 minutes and 0 dollars, rather than months or years and hundreds of grand).
It'll also mean they're no longer bad guys, and I'll be able to stop undermining them in every way possible. Or at least with respect to DVDs... I'll have to investigate whether they are doing anything else evil first...
The content of the DVD is copyrighted and the DMCA is still in effect. So you are no longer violating trade secrets but you are still bypassing copy and access controls. Even though the access is for perfectly legal and understandable purposes it is still illegal. Such is the crappiness of the DMCA.
It really didn't make the news because it's basicly a one-liner. The deadline for appealing to the Supreme court passed without an appeal filed. The ruling is final, there can be no retrial.
They've suffered two straight losses in court, and chose not to appeal it. Unlike the US, the fact that they could have appealed but didn't is setting precedent.
The previous rulings were so clear, the prosecution didn't even want to try arguing that the law should be interpreted to their favor before the Supreme court.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
hopefully this will mean a real reliable DVD application for linux.
Crisis is the rule, not the exception.
It's still trafficing in copy control circumvention devices which under the DMCA is illegal. Also, the version you posted is possibly a trademark violation, though you could possibly claim protection as it wasn't commercial speech or because it is political commentary. And, of course, IANAL.
If they concede on a Trade Secret case, it's over. They can't pursue anyone over that subject again.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Now if I can only get my soundcard to work in either 2.4.22 or 2.6.0.
0xB315AA8D852DCD3F3DCA578FD2E0BF88
You know why they are conceding, that's because the new HD DVD standard will have a different kind of protection, and this time they will get it "right" by patenting some part of it (hopefully not).
The above may be interesting, but only because it's interesting to gawk at a trainwreck. Because something is not secret does not mean "you can do anything you want with it." See copyright law. See trademark law. See patent law. See the DMCA.
I'm in New Zealand (Region 4). Roughly 50% of my DVDs are from the US, and 10% are from Europe. This is out of a collection of a hundred or so DVDs.
So, yep, region free is definitely important for me.
Either it's a Trade Secret and they vigorously pursue the violator- or they completely lose the ability to pursue anyone with regards to the secret in question (as it's no longer one...).
For the DVD CCA to decide to no longer pursue the case means nobody will be harassed by them in this regard- if they do, they can and will face harassment or misuse of procedure countersuits that they'll lose.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
That's a DMCA related decision. It'd have to go before the appeals court for that circuit to be removed- or the Judge who made the decision changing his mind about the order in question.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I here by nominate you for the troll of the year award.
Try ogle.
You can make mpegs from dvds with transcode
Don't forget to share them on your favorite P2P network.
I thought that was mine.
Quack, quack.
now my copyleft t-shirt isn't cool anymore :(
WTPOUAWYHTTOTWPA
What's the point of using acronyms when you have to type out the whole phrase anyways?
I don't think so. More likely because of the HD DVD stanard.
Quack, quack.
This is true of trademarks and trade secrets, but not of patents and copyright. You can selectively enforce those till the cows come home, or until the sufficiently unlikely circumstance of your choice.
distros. Its libdecss that you need to install in order to view DVD. If there is a problem with distributing mpeg2 libraries it hasn't stopped anyone.
Quack, quack.
You just needed to buy one DVD player per region you wanted to watch.
I don't think any DVD players are incapable of playing DVDs from other regions. They just lock you into a region after certain criteria are met.
So really, this whole exercise didn't prevent anything it was intended to prevent and just lined the pockets of DVD player manufacturers.
With players comming down to $50 or less, there's less and less incentive to not purchase an additional player for other regions.
And there already are DVD players out there that can be hacked to be region free. You just have to hunt for them.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Ya Bastard. I hope you don't think of Pink Elephants.
In essence, it all comes down to the EULA that accompanied the software that Jon Johansen reverse engineered in the first place.
The DVD CCA was succesful in the Supreme Court of California in establishing that the provisions of the EULA that prohibited reverse engineering were enforceable and constituted discovery by "improper means".
There are other serious precedents, namely that no one may reverse engineer a software product for the purpose of interoptability where the EULA strictly forbids it, that the EULA of any software product is enforcable and most distressing of of all, that trade secret law trumps the First Amendment (under very narrow circumstances, granted).
Even with the case dismissed, these precedents stand in the State of California, do they not?
Both Ringo Starr and Pete Best are alive. Once a Beatle, always a Beatle.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Sun has announced that CSS will be added to their line of Java-cooling(tm) systems. So now geeks can have their DVD decoding, cool CPUs, and the ability to drink it too ;)
Perhaps its because they have come up with an encryption scheme that is even better (from the industry standpoint) and tougher.
This is frightening because it may mean that all movies after a certain date are going to require newer dvd players.
I don't know (absolutely 0 connections in the field), but it is a frightening thought.
"We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
Awesome birthday present!
Damnit, you made me breathe manually. Fucking trolls.
If you would, please post a bit more detail, as this is something I'd like to do. I've had very good luck with DVDShrink, but the only thing is I haven't been able to figure out how to keep the menus intact.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Actually, it's just a ploy at immortality. If even Death him/herself played the record backwards and thought that Paul was already dead, well...
You can't 'resecret' a trade secret. You can sue the person who stole it if they stole it illegally, and you can, in theory, prohibit the thief (the person you are suing) from giving it out or using it as part of the suit judgement, with the threat of more punishment if they do.
What you cannot do it get some magical 'back in the bottle' judgement when it's already been given out to anyone else. You cannot stop people who did nothing illegal from using or giving away your trade secret, even if it was 'stolen'.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
One of the reasons that DeCSS was ruled as violating the DMCA was that the software was actually a windows program that was able to extract the contents from a DVD and save the unencrypted contents in a file on the hard drive. The MPAA argued how this would allow anybody to make copies and that the hard drive copy itself could be considered and illegal copy. The Linux port of DeCSS was basically identical and saved DVD contents to the hard drive as well. Both versions where programs that ran as standalone applications.
Now compare this to a separate piece of code called libdvdcss. This library was originally created using some code from DeCSS and some other sources, but much of the code was created from scratch using analysis papers on the CSS algorithm. I believe almost all the original code is long gone now. Now that the algorithm is no longer a trade secret, it should not be illegal to use these analysis paper and other information about CSS. Now the question is should the DMCA and the DeCSS ruling be applied to libdvdcss as well.
One thing it is not even proper to call it a program. It is a library. If you compile it or even if you receive it as a precompiled binary and install it, it is perfectly useless without another program. Another thing is that if you look at the API for libdvdcss there is nothing in the design that supports copying. Decrypted information is placed in memory and not on the hard drive. This is to allow the data to be passed on to the decoding layer in other programs or libraries. When the library is used together with a player such as Xine you still do not have a the ability to copy the DVD. The only way for libdvdcss to be used in a way that violates the DMCA is for someone to write a separate program that uses libdvdcss to write the data to disk. I think I have heard of such programs. Maybe the MPAA should use the DMCA to go after those programs instead. They are the ones the are enabling copying and not the authors of the libdvdcss library. I am sure the MPAA would argue that libdvdcss makes it too easy to write a copying program, but I think it is a silly to say any set of libraries that can be abused should be illegal.
Another thing is Lindows use of libdvdcss in there own forked version of Xine. The DVD CCA allowed Lindows to buy a license that grants them permission to play DVD in their own player. If indeed libdvdcss is a "cracking tool" under the DMCA, then the MPAA should be going after Lindows and even the DVD CCA for using the code, regardless of licenses. If not and libdvdcss can be considered legal for Lindows then it should be legal for everyone now that the trade secret issue is gone. I guess the DVD CCA is now saying that it could try to claim some patents but I didn't think that the CSS algorithm was patented.
libdvdcss does not have DeCSS code in it.
So I'm the "Bunner" in DVD CCA vs Bunner. If you could look in my out-box today, here's what you'd see:
Friends and family,
My fifteen minutes of fame are over. The DVD CCA is dropping their case against me. For those that don't remember, I was sued in late 1999 for posting the source code to a software DVD player on my web site. The plaintifs included Sony, MGM, Panasonic, Microsoft, Warner-Brothers, and most other corporations in either media or electronics.
Today, they gave up. They've withdrawn the case
without prejudice.
Reading between the lines that means that they finally realized they were going to lose and that even if they won, the "secrets" of playing a DVD have been pretty well documented for the public.
To celebrate the occassion, I've asked my lawyers to file a counter-suit alleging emotional anguish and seeking damages of one hundred billion trillion dollars.
-- Andrew
Just think! If you think about the fact that your body holds in your feces involuntarily, then you are forced to hold them in on manually! In fact you are probably reaching for your ass cheeks now to keep the flow of bolus from streaming out of you like bats out of Bob Goatse's cave. In fact, by even responding to this troll you are proving that yet another person has been forced to hold their feces in manually! Yes you!!
A lot of DVD players these days can be region-free, just not officially. Many include a hidden menu that you access through a sequence of remote-control keypresses, that lets you disable region coding. I'm not entirely sure, but it's probably for plausible deniability ("we didn't know our programmers slipped that in there!").
As one option, the LiteOn LVD-2002 (or -2001 or -2003) has such a feature (just google for "LiteOn Secret Menu" or "LiteOn region free menu" or some variant), and plays DivX's burned onto CD-R's as an added bonus.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
It's like this:
A good Christopher Lambert movie is an otherwise unremarkable film which stars Christopher Lambert. It is not impossible to watch such a film. Examples include Highlander, Knight Moves, Subway, etc.
A bad Christopher Lambert is usually completely unwatchable, although sometimes one can manage when campiness is factored in (much the same as with Zardoz). Examples include Fortress, Highlander sequels [1,2], etc.
However, if you get a patent for "encoding sound into this bit sequence", like Fraunhofer has, you can't get around that by doing an independent reimplementation.
In essence, copyright protects the specific expression of an idea. Patents protect the idea.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Last August, I put in 3 orders with Copyleft. The first was for a T-shirt, the second was for some stickers, and the third was for blank CD media with the Debian logo for my .
Two months later, I was still waiting for the orders.
Emailed several times, no answer. Called, got a girl who didn't even work for them. Claimed the guys running it only did it part time now.
Went to their site, cancelled the orders, never was sure if they cancelled, because their script was busted. Never got charged, but never got my gear either.
Sad. I'll be doing business with ThinkGeek or locally from now on.
... so how is it different that reverse engineering a DVD player? If I read a book and make a movie based on it, that would seem less protected than a straight lifting of the idea of a DVD player.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
if you get a patent for "encoding sound into this bit sequence", like Fraunhofer has, you can't get around that by doing an independent reimplementation.
But if you reimplement the invention soon enough after the inventor applied for a patent, it might count as evidence that the invention was obvious, given prior art, to anybody skilled in the art.
You do have to go to some length to figure it out though.
If it takes no longer to brute-force the CSS key than it takes to read and buffer the first twenty megabytes or so of encrypted data, then the CSS key doesn't protect anything very "effectively" now, does it?
We currently live in Germany. My wife is Russian. We watch movies in English, German and Russian. We see Region 1,2 and 5.
I'd still like to know why they thought California state law had jurisdiction over the UK though.
As luck would have it we have a delayed departmental Xmas do tonight (we were all working too hard before xmas to have it then) - look out London, I'm really ready to party now :))
Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
Depending on which part of Asia you buy your DVDs from, region locking may not be an issue. In Bangladesh were almost all DVDs sold are pirate imports from Singapore and Malaysia, there are is region coding whatsoever on the DVDs.
All that will happen is that I'll stop purchasing DVDs, same as I stopped purchasing CDs over 3 years ago.
:)
There's still books and videogames. Of course, the second will disappear as soon as Palladium comes along (out of spite, as usual), and by the looks of it project Gutenbert will run out of books if Disney keeps pushing copyright longer and longer.
You're right, it IS frigtening, I might have to step out of the house one of these days!
---- Take the Space Quiz!
Once they drop the case before going to the Supreme Court, you then turn around and sue them for harrassment and take it to the supreme court arguing they shouldn't be allowed to harrass you with the DCMA for the particular part of the law they are afraid they'll lose on! And make sure you set precident!
You can get custom hacked firmware for your drive, specified by manufacturer and drive-revision. This makes your drive RPC1, ie enables unlimited sone-changes.
Take a look at thid dvd firmware page. There are probably alot more pages, but this was the first I found with google.
If you use Windows however, you should beware. Your OS or/and Player might be counting too. Use DVD Genuie.
That should get rid of those nasty zones.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
Yes, but you have to go to an unusual step of decrypting.
You have to "decrypt" MP3 files with Winamp to be able to play them on PCM hardware too.
It differs from a compression scheme, since it has a secret key
A key of that length isn't very "secret". In practical, human-scale terms, CSS is no more "secret" than a Caesar cipher, as it takes no longer to decrypt a text than to copy an encrypted text.
it differs from a modulo add, since that is simply a different way of representing digits.
And CSS is "simply a different way of representing" data.
Watch somebody implement CSS as a stream cipher for one of the popular crypto APIs. Then it'd have a substantial non-circumventing use as required by 1201(b). In fact, any general-use program that brute-forces encryption keys has a substantial non-circumventing use, namely that of research into the strength of the cipher.
So, what length is secret?
According to the tenets of cryptography, a cipher applied to a work is considered secure with regard to key length if it takes more effort to brute-force the crypto than to go about gaining access to the work some other way.
Anyway, I'm not sure it can be reasonably brute forced. At 100 million keys per second, it will still take some hours to break.
Frank Stevenson reports three attacks on various parts of CSS, ranging in complexity from 2^24 to 2^8. For a ballpark comparison, my PC bought in late 2000 running the distributed.net client can run through 2^20 RC5 keys in one second. With such a short time to break, the limiting factor for DVD decryption becomes not the time to brute-force the key but rather the time to read all the data from the optical disc. The user of an app that plays DVD Video discs using a brute-force CSS implementation might not even notice the delay.
I just can't agree that a weak encryption mechanism should be excluded from the law purely because it is weak.
Would you approve of XOR with a constant 8-bit key being called "encryption"?
I will agree that the law shouldn't protect them in the first place.
Judicially narrowing the scope of what constitutes "access control" with respect to the strength of the crypto involved may work toward accomplishing this goal. In addition, have courts determined what constitutes "authority of the copyright owner"?
[The CSS stream cipher] wasn't broken when it was decided on.
Sure it was. The tallest mountain on Earth before explorers found Mt. Everest was still Mt. Everest. A fresh installation of any 32-bit Microsoft Windows operating system has always had bugs, even before black-hats exploited them. Likewise, CSS was always broken, just not known so.
the region code is in the IFO file, set the right value to 0 and it becomes region free.A dvd player reads this to play a movie. Also 2 things make retail dvd larger than dvd r. one they dont use error checking on the file system ( beacuse the mpeg stream already has it) and two they use 2 layers on one side. a dvd platter can have up to four sides.
when you decrypt a movie you have an exact copy when you recompress mpeg2 you loose a little to a lot (depending how big the movie is). If you want to keep and exact copy you could burn a dual dvd on 2 cd -r
also of note mp3 is the audio layer of mpeg. mp3 stands for mpeg layer three. so it would stand to reason that mp3 is under the same license.
the reason we can even decrypt the stream is that the key was only 52 bit or some where around there. When dvd's came out the hard ware was not at a point to decrypt more on the fly. With HDDVD coming out You can bet thats going to change a cheap dsp can easily handle 128 to 1024 or higher.
I know from *personal* experience that the DMCA does indeed claim to make access to a work you purchased legally ILLEGAL if you circumvent a copy or access control in order to access it. It also purports to make distribution (and the courts have extended it to linking) of tools which circumvent copy or access controls ILLEGAL.
:)
In short, you're smoking crack and I'd like to see you back up your statements with some evidence.
Elcomsoft was acquitted by a jury because they thought the law was "too complicated" (which it is) and that the defendant had not intentionally acted in bad faith. Basically the jury said this is crap... let's think up some random reasons which are not supported by law to acquit. That's not case law. Only the judge can make determinations of law in a case. The jury's job is the weigh evidence presented by both sides to make determinations of fact. Why the judge let them acquit when they ignored the law I don't know but it doesn't matter since the case was also not appealed. (Only appealed cases can create case law.)
In summary DeCSS is still illegal under the DMCA but 99% of Slashdot refuses to admit it because they can't be bothered to do a little research. Yes, I'd also like to think the DMCA is not relevant. It may in fact be Unconstitutional. But no court has made that determination yet.
Have a nice day.