DVDCCA Claims Patent on CSS

What happens to the world... by czcxmag · 2004-02-14 23:38 · Score: 5, Interesting

..when so many corporations own patents on so many intangible things that a corporate dynasty like IBM can bring anyone in the world to their knees financially.

Even foreign governments.

Intellectual property in all of its various forms is being abused by the corporate world. The madness is the laws supporting this behavior continue to pass, bypassing the individual and wholeheartedly supporting the corporation.

Isn't the government supposed to be working for us? Aren't our rights supposed to be first and foremost in their minds? There is a balance to be maintained, and our rights are not unlimited, but more and more across the entire globe the individual is lost.

Not to be funny but has anyone considered the implications of all these recent intellectual property rights and how it seems more and more that we're being pushed into the draconian future of Johnny Mnemonic and Shadowrun? The only way you get information is to steal it. The only way for another corporation to get information is to hire you to steal it.

I grow more and more distressed at the world my son will grow up in, the conditions he will consider normal, the laws he will break just by trying to think.

--
If you disagree post, don't moderate.

Re:What happens to the world... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-14 23:40 · Score: 5, Insightful

Intellectual property is a myth. You CANNOT and SHOULD not be able to own an idea. I am beginning to think that this may be a real turning point in civilization as we know it. Imagination and the associated innovation based off that imagination is what makes us able to do so many amazing things. Now, you can imagine building something to change the world, you can even imagine how to build it, but if someone has previously thought of it, you are in for a losing legal battle. This may be an extreme statment with regard to software patents, but the premise is frightening in either scenario. This is a legal restriction on free thought and development. Software patents are just one piece of the larger takeover.
Re:What happens to the world... by October_30th · 2004-02-14 23:47 · Score: 5, Insightful

You CANNOT and SHOULD not be able to own an idea.
But of course you should be able have the right to call an idea your own and have it recognized as such. As a scientist I will jealously guard my research and results up to practical applications as my own property. I have patents and will defend those if necessary.
Completely restricting the use of an idea is a completely different thing, though. That's not what patents were invented for - it's only today that the big corporations have begun to see copyright and patents as tools for hoarding and hiding information.

--
The owls are not what they seem
Re:What happens to the world... by Rip!ey · 2004-02-15 00:10 · Score: 5, Insightful

But of course you should be able have the right to call an idea your own and have it recognized as such.

But if I should come up with the same idea through my own research whilst being completely unaware of yours, I shouldn't have the right to call my idea my own and have it recognised as such?

It should cut both ways or not at all.
Re:What happens to the world... by ajagci · 2004-02-15 00:23 · Score: 5, Insightful

But of course you should be able have the right to call an idea your own and have it recognized as such.

And why "should you"?

As a scientist I will jealously guard my research and results up to practical applications as my own property. I have patents and will defend those if necessary.

Yes, I have no doubt that you will be "jealous" and display all sorts of other annoying behaviors so common of academics.

However, what you are completely overlooking is that "your" research and "your" results are based on centuries of tradition and thought by others. Your work has only been possible because others shared their ideas freely.

Furthermore, your patents keep other people from using the idea even if they themselves came up with it independently. It is just an accident that you happened to have filed the patent on "your" idea first. Chances are, in fact, that others had the same idea before but didn't patent it or did publish it.

Let me repeat that: your patent keeps other people from using their ideas that they themselves came up with independently. How do you justify that?

Completely restricting the use of an idea is a completely different thing, though.

That's what patents do: for about 20 years, the patent holder gets nearly full control of the invention. Patents don't even have academic or research exemptions.

That's not what patents were invented for

That is exactly what patents were created for: to give inventors exclusive use of an idea for a limited amount of time. And, at least since the times of Edison and Watson, corporate patent portfolios have been a big thing. It's just that barriers to entry into many markets were so strong for other reasons that they didn't have to use their patent portfolios much until now.
Re:What happens to the world... by Rich0 · 2004-02-15 00:50 · Score: 5, Interesting

However, what you are completely overlooking is that "your" research and "your" results are based on centuries of tradition and thought by others. Your work has only been possible because others shared their ideas freely.

I've always been annoyed by the academic "first to publish" game. How many grad students end up having to slave night and day in the lab to try to be the first to discover something novel, and being a week behind another group is the difference between getting your Ph.D. with lots of recognition and having to pick some other project and work a few more years. It also brought us such wonderful concepts as holding up the full publication of discoveries so that a scientist can publish just enough information initially to establish priority and get recognition, but hold up enough information so that only they can get additional publications on follow-up reasearch (for an example of this, look at the tradition where crystallographers would publish glossy photos of their proteins on the front page of Science and then only release their coordinates a year later - I believe that this is fortunately and finally falling out of favor (though I haven't been current in the crystallography field for a few years now)).

Knowledge is furthered the most when people work together, and it should be recognized that all modern discoveres are merely the result of standing on the shoulders of those who went before us. Actaully, this is one thing that I like about the GPL - it basically says "I made my contribution to the world public, and if you're gonna stand on my shoulders you had better do the same".

In a day and age where automation has made neither food nor labor scarce society shouldn't be running in a mode where everybody is compelled to try to be king-of-the-hill just to life a modest life. It seems like we've turned into a society where either you are one of the few people who reap the benefits of modern technology (ie you own the capital), or you are one of the people displaced by it (ie it you work at Walmart).
Re:What happens to the world... by mrbuttboy · 2004-02-15 03:18 · Score: 5, Insightful

First off, the Eolas patent is a terrible example of a patent. Mentioning it alone shows how broken the system is. The number of bad patents issued in recent years is more then a bit scary.

But, let us ignore the merits of the Eolas paten itself. Instead let us examine what Microsoft has done and can do. MS has enough lawyers to comfortably fight any patent is chooses. If they see a patent they don't like (and can't buy) the can challenge it. Can you afford to challenge a patent? What about 10? What about 1000? MS can.

They can also afford to ignore a patent. They can do whatever they want, ignoring what the patent holder wants now, and pay for it later. If I thought I would have to pay a multi-million dollar settlement for ignoring a patent I wouldn't do it - I can't afford it. MS can.

Money DOES equal power and pretending it doesn't in a civil arena is disingenuous. Nobody "Rules the world" but corporations of MS's size can afford to abuse the system - almost anywhere they want.

Many anti-corporation people are just "wacko" - they will make claims that make no sense. However with size comes privilege and if there is one thing Microsoft has it is Size.

--
What do you say to the man that has nothing? Cast it away!!
Re:What happens to the world... by krunk7 · 2004-02-15 03:44 · Score: 5, Insightful

Implementation should be patented, not ideas. Any half-wit can dream and any "think-tank" can come up with scores of ideas to patent as "intellectual property", but it takes true innovation and talent to make it real.
The laws as they stand today ignore this distinction and, as such, directly inhibit the creativity they are designed to protect. If the mouse trap were invented today, the inventor would not only be able to patent his design but the very idea of "catching mice". Than the world would have had to wait 20 years before someone could propse a better way.
We are in the very first dawn hours of modern technology and though our ideas may seem extremely special to us today they'll be nothing but the the wheel of tomorrow.
Re:What happens to the world... by Dun+Malg · 2004-02-15 04:07 · Score: 5, Insightful

You sound like a communist: "property should be free", wake up and realise that in this capitalist system that property is not free.
Don't be a dope. He didn't say that property should be free, he said that "intellectual property" isn't property. He's also quite correct. The term itself was concocted in the 19th century to make the ownership of ideas sound less absurd. Ideas can't be property, as their very nature fails the definitions of property. First and foremost, they cannot be scarce; i.e. if I you express your idea to me, we both have the idea-- sharing doesn't diminish it. What we have currently is a system of [patents/copyright/etc] that allows intangible things like ideas, music, and stories to be treated as if they were property. This is provably true: when one buys song from its writer, what you're transferring is the copyright-- you likely already have the song. Same thing with patents. This isn't about capitalism vs. communism. It's about free market vs. gov't granted monopolies. There has to be a balance and currently the USPTO isn't doing a good job.

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If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Re:What happens to the world... by Znork · 2004-02-15 04:58 · Score: 5, Insightful

"For example, without patents, companies that develop new drugs would quickly disappear."

Heh. They already have. The remaining ones arent developing any new drugs, they're developing new proprietary versions of aspirins that arent better than the old ones except they're patented. Then they send the doctors on golfing trips so they'll prescribe new expensive versions of the same old shit instead of cheap generics.

Well, except the ones that are developing various organ enlargment pills.

I'd place a bet that we'd get more useful medical research done if we scrapped the patent system, kicked the pharmaceutical corps out and relied on public and charity funding for research.

phew by Tirel · 2004-02-14 23:40 · Score: 5, Funny

for a second there i thought they had a patent on CSS

321 studios by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · 2004-02-14 23:48 · Score: 5, Funny

DVDCCA has filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against 321 Studios

Wow, after seeing the MPAA issue hundreds of subpoenas, it somehow didn't occur to me that DVDCCA didn't actually sue 321 studios, but a company named 321 Studios.

Kudos to these guys for the choice of name. It's almost as if they expected to be sued and wanted to make a good joke out of it. Well done!

--
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash

Re:321 studios by spektr · 2004-02-15 00:01 · Score: 5, Funny

It's almost as if they expected to be sued and wanted to make a good joke out of it.

Remembers me of Douglas Adams, who said that Branwell Bronte "died standing up leaning against a mantelpiece, in order to prove that it could be done".
Re:321 studios by nathanh · 2004-02-15 00:42 · Score: 5, Funny

Wow, after seeing the MPAA issue hundreds of subpoenas, it somehow didn't occur to me that DVDCCA didn't actually sue 321 studios, but a company named 321 Studios.

It was actually only 78 studios, but some of those companies had 8x speed burners.

No. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 00:08 · Score: 5, Interesting

The story doesn't say anything about MPEG, so what you are saying is pure conjecture.
The MPEG licenseholders and the DVD forum are different entities.
MPEG must be *licensed* but due to the nature of the patent sharing agreement that allows MPEG to exist, it is impossible for an MPEG format to be discriminatorily licensed. That is to say, everyone has to *PAY* to use MPEG in commercial products, but everyone has to pay equally-- they can't jack up the prices for people who the MPEG committee doesn't like, or vice versa, and they certainly can't deny use of the MPEG codecs to 321 studios if 321 studios is willing to play.

Devil's Advocate by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 00:13 · Score: 5, Interesting

This is an interesting claim, because since patents are published, something can not be both patented and a trade secret.

It is not generally possible for idea A to be both a patent and a trade secret. But it is possible for one part of program B to infringe on patent C, and for another part to violate trade secret D.

Or it could be that DVDCCA is admitting that their earlier suit was wrong.

(Or it could be that they're full of s**t...)

Buncha Hooie... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 00:25 · Score: 5, Informative

As an Ex-Employee, I can say this: They are fully expecting to get shut down. Many of their internal business practices are "Profit before perfection" and it shows. They plan on getting as much buck as possible before any bad rulings shut them down. looking for the basis of XCopy? check out IfoEdit (freeware!!!). GamesXCopy? look for GameJack (gamejack.org) combined with Daemontools! Step 1: release barely-functional software. Step 2: Step 3: Profit! Nearly everything they have is un-original. Only the transcoder for re-compressing MPEG2 is original. Burning system? why, that is CopyToDVD. Reading? BlindRead, with CSS hacks. They claim that they are fighting for the users, but fire an AVERAGE of 30 people per month. This is from a total of around 180! Fellow Slashdotters, beware! This is NOT a company to feel sorry for. Instead, we need to rally behind the idea that open-source versions being legal. my 2-cents... btw: anon so that old friends don't get the boot too.

Re:Doesn't have to be CSS. by Yosho_Katsuhito · 2004-02-15 00:33 · Score: 5, Informative

ok... now for the FACTS: the XCopy series is ONLY for MPEG2, and Royalties ARE BEING PAID. The recompression that is used in the XCopy programs is a technique known as Trans-coding. This process removes extra MPEG video information that lessens the quality slightly, but does not change keyframes or time. This is actually abusing some of the transport streams damage recovery, and dropping "less important" video information. This, applied in correct amounts at the right times, can shrink a DVD video to the required 4.36 gigs needed for writing to modern DVD R / RW discs. This DOES NOT change the format, as very few players support anything other than MPEG1/2, and the re-encoding process would take forever and a day! Currently, the only program of theirs even using Mpeg4 is CopyPlus5, which does scaled-down AVI files for palm pilots. This feature is broken in current versions of DivX by the way... look elsewhere if you want to do that. chances of an update to DCP5 = slim to none. oh, by the way, MPEG2 is owned by the MotionPictureExpertsGroup I believe, NOT DVDCCA. DVDCCA was created specifically for handling CSS and related tech, and licensing to the various technology companies. Later...

Re:Unrecognized Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-15 00:44 · Score: 5, Informative

Yes, this is correct. If you live in the EU, for example, you can safely ignore US patents and vice versa, since the patent offices are limited in their jurisdiction.

Btw, I live in Sweden. In my country, you are allowed to build a patented device for your own use or research (on the device itself). Specifically, the law says that non-professional use is exempt. (section 3.3.1)

Re: And I thought... by flimnap · 2004-02-15 00:49 · Score: 5, Insightful

I guess when the whole trade secret thing stops working, it's time to patent!

I use Gordian Knot to encode DVDs (uncopyrighted religious movies that just happen to be CSS 'protected' ;), and it takes more effort then I'd like. I have to make decisions, for crying out loud!

The only effective way to stymie the illegal copying of DVDs is to make the purchase price attractive enough that they'd rather just buy it. In my opinion, if you appeal to the lazy in people, you win.

don't sue each othe - sue USPTO by axxackall · 2004-02-15 01:05 · Score: 5, Interesting

They all should stop filing suits againsta each other. Instead they should file the suit against USPTO, blaming it for the unfixable stupidity, for using the broken law system. USPTO bad business practices is a danger to strategic interests of USA in general.

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Less is more !

You CAN Have Both by Compulawyer · 2004-02-15 04:02 · Score: 5, Informative

I am a patent lawyer (in the US) who specializes in computer software (Stand down flamers and read on - you might learn something).

A patent provides the exclusive right to make, use, and sell the invention listed in the claims section of the patent. Generally, claims are drafted so that theyy encompass functions - HOW the software works. The goal of claim drafting is to describe the invention broadly enogh to get the most possible coverage, but not so broadly as to describe prior art.

It is possible for the same claim to cover several (or many) different implementations. Take for example an automotive rearview mirror. If my claim says the following:

I claim a mirror for use in an automobile, the mirror being generally rectangular in shape and mounted in a central position at the top of an automobile windshield.

then everyone knows that if they make a generally rectangular mirror and mount it in the position decribed, they infringe. BUT - if someone makes a ROUND mirror and/or mounts it on the car door (side view mirror), they do NOT infringe.

With software, if you describe functionality that no one has done before, you can get the exclusive right to implement that functionality in your patent. You MUST disclose the BEST WAY KNOWN TO YOU AT THE TIME YOU FILE YOUR APPLICATION of achieving that functionality. There is no way to claim the implementation you disclose as a trade secret.

HOWEVER - let's say that after your patent issues, you develop a new implementation that still performs the same function. You have patent protection for the function itself. You ALSO have the right to protect the NEW implementation (not disclosed in the patent) as a trade secret.

I am not going to argue the policy of whether this is a good or bad thing. I am just here to tell you that this is the current state of the law in the United States. Save your flames for the SCO threads please.

--

Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.

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