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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."
Full Press release is available here.
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?
It's not CSS that's the problem--the five-digit player key is a trade secret.
Anyway, let's celebrate!
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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
It means that you can now legally play your legally purchased DVD's on your legal Linux platform.
Btw, IANAL.
you can already play DVDs with mandrake 9.2. Dont remember the app's name though. Is this feture really missing in most distros?
IANAM, is there a mathematical term for the shape of a Pringle?
Yes, it's a saddle point, specifically one for which d^2[f]/dx^2 and d^2[f]/dy^2 differ in sign, where the surface is described by z = f(x,y).
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
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
The entire point of a "trade secret" is that it is secret. Trade secrets do not enjoy copyright or patent protection: both of those require that you disclose that which you are attempting to protect. I mean, you can't tell the patent office "I've got this way cool invention that will make me a billion dollars and I want patent protection but I don't want to tell you or anyone else how it works." Full disclosure is part of the process: your invention may be trivial , totally unoriginal, or absolutely brilliant, but you do have to disclose it in your patent app.
If you choose to NOT seek patent or copyright protection and choose to protect it yourself, you are SOOL if the secret gets out anyway. For example, Coca Cola takes extreme measures, both within its' organization and without, to prevent anyone from learning the actual formula for Coke, because they've never patented it and if it does get out they would lose their monopoly on the Coke taste lickety split.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
As far as I understand it, they exist always under threat. Again, I might be mistaken, but I really think mpeg2 is patented.
Ah, yes, yes it is patented.
You say
Errr, why? What form of intellectual property is holding it back? (Other than the mpeg2 issue mentioned elsewhere.) If it *was* a trade secret, it can't have been copyrighted. Trademark law doesn't seem applicable, and I haven't heard of any CSS patents....
That's actually not a simple question which reading the article would fully resolve.
What it means is that the DVD CCA acknowledges that the keys and algorithm of CSS are no longer secret and thus have no protection under law as such.
In effect it means that said keys and algorithm can be published under certain circumstances without risk of action.
But that isn't exactly the same thing as saying that DeCSS is legal in the US.
KFG
I'm not sure, but my guess is no. US distros would still not be able to distribute it because of the DMCA (CSS may not be a trade secret, but the movies are still copyrighted, and therefore covered). Other non-US distros may still have a problem because of royalties on MPEG-2 decoder patents (at least in countries that recognize software patents).
So, to be squeaky clean, NO--you'll have to wait until the MPEG-2 patents expire AND if you're in the US, you'll have to wait until the DMCA is repealed/amended. The fact that the copyrights on some movies will (may) eventually expire means nothing, as there will always be new copyrighted movies which libdvdcss will still allow you to watch.
If you're lucky enough to live in a country without software patents, then you're fine. You're actually free to do things with your computer.
This is somewhat simplistic, but copyright covers the implementation of the idea, not the idea itself (that's where a patent would come in).
So if a trade secret is released, I can implement it in my own way, and not run afoul of copyright laws.
-- Joe
First, you are correct inasmuch as your post implies that copyright applies regardless whether a creator has sought its protection. Unlike a patent, copyright protections attach as soon as a creative work is set into a tangible form.
Second, though, the original poster is correct that copyright cannot apply to unpublished or unrevealed works. That is, a story that one creates and recites without fixing to tangible form is not protected by copyright, but the same story published in text (or even recorded into some other tangible form) is protected.
Trade secrets do not enjoy copyright or patent protection.
I don't know what kind of dope you're smoking, but it must be good stuff. Copyright always applies, published or not.
The word "secret" refers to the content, not the "tangible" form. Let's say you have a secret; "Dear diary, last night I robbed the 7-11." If I find your diary and rephrase that secret - as in "The 7-11 was robbed by taustin last night" - that's bona fide freedom of information right there.
Obviously in the case of CSS the DeCSS implementation wasn't a direct lift of any existing code; it was reverse-engineered, and not copied from existing code.
Freedom of information(gathering) is one of the basic tenets of democracy; without it, there is no free press. Of course, there are always companies looking to infringe upon it, even to the extent of pushing for laws that establish so-called "database rights" or pretending that trade secrets are secret when they're not secret any more.
Also note that the US government has a lot of files that are secret, but not copyright protected.
IANAL but I belief this is a case of "cattus ex sacculo est". (the cat's out the bag)
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
Well, it does matter, and the secrecy of that formula is why Coke is able to spend those billions and get a return on the investment. If it became known that the precise formula used by Coca Cola Corporation to make their product were common knowledge, said product would be come significantly less valuable. Someone may very well have already hit upon their formula, but they'll never, ever, admit it.
I don't drink the stuff anyways. Like you said, it's basically colored, flavored sugar-water. Not healthy.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
for the Americans reading - NZ (and Oz) were both included in a primarily spanish speaking region (South America - go figure) - there's lots of english language stuff that just isn't released for them
The deal goes like this: In order to produce a DVD player that's worth buying, a manufacturer must license CSS (until now, anyway). However, a license stipulation imposed by the CCA for licensing CSS is that the players that use it also impose region encoding. Outside of the US, region encoding almost certainly violates basic competition laws, which is why manufacturers routinely flout the license there; however within the US, there are fewer competition laws to allow these kinds of get-outs.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Mpeg1 and 2 (including layer 3 a la MP3) are covered by patents for encoding.
If the decoding process IS patented, it does not carry a royalty. That is how mp3 became popular, because it was free to download the players. mpeg1 and 2 are the same way when it comes to video.
Two infinite things: your stupidity and mine. But I'm not sure about the latter. If my sig offends you, I'm sorry.
Not a "tax", no. Taxes are levied by governments. And I have no idea what you mean by "imports to its country" unless you're making some very peculiar pun on the meaning of the word "tariff". But yes, Fraunhoffer does have the legal right to set a tariff for users of its patented technologies, and it does.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.