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DeCSS Trade Secret Case Comes to an End - Again
Andrew Bunner writes "We asked the courts to rule on our appeal of the DeCSS preliminary injunction (even though the DVD CCA dropped the case) and... we won! No more preliminary injunction. Here's the official ruling (pdf)." This is the last gasp of this case, which we've been following for some years now. This ruling goes into some depth analyzing the trade secret claim, gets the ruling "right", and should be helpful in future cases on similar topics.
DeCSS ok, but not DVD X-Copy. Why is that? Because DeCSS doesn't do anything by itself, but having X Copy demonstrates criminal intent?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It seems that back in the late 1800's in America (mentioning this for non-U.S. /.ers) there was this saloon in the West that was kind of a run-down,
ramshackle joint that was frequented by a few loyal patrons and not too many
others. Basically,
while the saloon didn't go out of its way to publicize itself to
out-of-towners (not much point given that it was in a remote area) it managed
to do a fairly steady trade despite the occasional brawl that caused property
damage and the persistent requests from a particular fellow for free drinks.
More nights than not, the proprietor of the saloon would watch this drunk come wandering in through the doors, sit down, and lay a line on him about how he's trying to pull things together and how he'd just make enough to keep himself in beans and couldn't the bartender just pour him a shot or two to fuzz the edges and whatnot. And again, more nights than not, the bartender would take pity on the poor guy and pull out the whiskey.
Now, mind you, this went on for some time, and while the bartender was an easy mark even he had his limit. So one night, after the bartender already gave the fellow three shots on the house, he decides to cut the guy off.
"Look," he says, "while I'm really sorry to hear that things still aren't working out for you I don't think that I can keep giving you free drinks. I've got to make ends meet too, you know."
So the drunk says, "I don't suppose you've got anything I can do to get another drink tonight?"
The proprietor, not particularly wanting this fellow to hang around all night and certainly not expecting him to take him up on his proposition, says "Well, you see that spittoon over there? If you take a swig out of that I suppose I could give you a drink to wash it down."
No sooner did he finish his last sentence than the drunk walked over to the spittoon and hefted it off of the floor. Before the bartender could stop him, the fellow put the rim to his lips, tipped the bottom of the metal container up into the air, and began to swallow. To the bartender's dismay, the guy continued to slowly chug the thick contents of the spittoon. When he had finally gulped the final remnants of the container, he threw it to the ground, wiped off his lips with his shirt cuff, and gagged, "So, do I get the drink?"
"You can have the bottle!" exclaimed the bartender, immediately pouring the first shot. "But tell me, why did you swallow the whole damn thing? You only needed to swig it to earn the drink."
And the drunk replies: "It was all one long string."
This is why the law should embrace both free enterprise and fair use; the average person will draw from both, the average business can profit from both, and the content creators are encouraged financially to continue to create without becoming discouraged financially by 90-year royalties.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
So does this mean Debian can now distribute libdvdcss in main?
I recall a while back about 2600 losing their case on which they were linking to DeCSS, wonder if they can get it overturned by a judge. Probably won't though, knowing the government (after all, they are evil hackers!).
Bored? Why not join a decent mess
Better to post that as "code" rather than have slashcode b0rk the HTML spaces, no?
/nbsp;/g (I've never read the slashcode).
(In code mode, it seems to preserve spaces (but not tabs for some reason?). I'm not sure if it's the TT tag or whether it uses something like s/
Interesting the decision quotes slashdot. Maybe the people that were saying not to joke about MyDoom were right. (or maybe not)
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
It's foolish, of course. Trying to protect silly "trade secrets" behind a poorly conceived law is the worst thing to happen to digital media (and the internet). It's like being a restauranteur and crying "No fair" and refusing to sell desserts to customers who taste a dessert and ask, "Is that cinnamon?"
If people are going to buy your product, and be exposed to it, they will naturally have to gain some familiarity with it. It's silly to want a food critic taste your food so he could publish a glowing review and then get upset when he writes what he (correctly) believes to be your ingredients.
The DVD-CAA wants the DVD format to be adopted and for it to be widespread and popular, but they complain about anything that comes from people using it and that would help distribution.
It's been said, but if they want their DVD encryption to be impenetrable (and hence popular with the MPAA) they should actually try to make it tough to crack instead of hiding behind a flimsy law that has apparently been dismissed in this particular case.
It's just like any software (i.e. IE) being lackadaisical about security and then complaining about people breaking the law by writing viruses. Yeah, it's a law, and people shouldn't do it, but then some people also don't care.
It's been said, but if they want their DVD encryption to be impenetrable (and hence popular with the MPAA) they should actually try to make it tough to crack instead of hiding behind a flimsy law that has apparently been dismissed in this particular case.
Except, that is theoretically impossible, which is the whole point of the DCMA. Since bullet proof DRM impossible, just make it illegal to create device that doesn't honor DRM, then the average user will never be able to break it, and the minority of people that do, will be small enough to ignore or sue. Well that was the theory until p2p showed that it was possible for the minority to anonymously distribute their cracked works to the majority.
Of course, all this DRM is completely unnecissary, just look at the software industry's experiance with it.
How many of those judges use Linux / some DeCSS derivative to play their DVDs at home and don't want to see that go away?
Hmmmm.
It seems my report and analysis from August 2001 was closer to the mark than I dared believe. To wit:
I essentially said the same thing in my analysis: That DVD CCA's entire case hinged on whether the end-user "license" was valid and binding.
My opinion remains unchanged: end-user "licenses" are unethical, and should not be allowed to stand. See my old-ish editorial on the subject for more detail.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
He got it wrong anyway.
The correct grammar would be "(i.e., IE)". Furthermore, he used "i.e." errantly. "i.e." (Latin: id est), is used in modern English to abbreviate "that is". What he should have used is "e.g.", the abbreviation of (for) example.
obligatory SCO reference: doesn't this mean the "trade secret" parts of their claim can no longer apply?
--Jim (me)
What'd really be useful is that the person who did the reverse engineering publishes a log of their experience. Therefore, unless that log can be shown as a total forgery... it's pretty clear reverse engineering rather than a secret leak happened.
Their lawyers? Who would that be?
There is nothing illegal about distributing libdvdcss in the US.
DMCA outlaws circumvention, not decryption.
OpenBSD, FreeBSD and Gentoo mirrors in the US have been distributing libdvdcss for a long time.
From your "spottless" comment I can only conclude that you are quite clueless about Debian. Debian distributes software which infringes software patents, as long as the patents are not being activately enforced. You call that "spottless"? Buy yourself a clue.
The only reason Debian isn't distributing libdvdcss is because they don't have any balls.
If Debian is staying true to their founding idealogies, then freedom can't possibly be part of those founding idealogies.
I have come to know on a first-hand basis what effects that ordinary people here on /. can have.
/. community would go with this, but on the whole I'm fairly pleased with what has happened. It has helped to define the attitudes of a whole generation of programmers and set legal precedence that I hope is going to, in the long run make it easier to freely express myself in software. Yeah, my part was real tiny but it doesn't take much to get everything moving. I also deliberately tried to lay low during this entire controversy because I already saw the legal mess that everybody who came in contact with this whole affair went through. I made it through without one single problem.
I posted the original story about deCSS back in November of 1999. It probabally would have been brought up eventually here on Slashdot, but it was amazing to me to see just how quickly this legal action (originally against Jon Johansen) spawned a whole battle cry from readers here on this site. I was an active participant on the LiVID discussion group back then and this was one situation where I knew that this really needed to be seen by a much larger audience. I had absolutely no idea just how far the
My only regret is that similar actions haven't happened against the DVD Consortium (formerly DVD Forum and prior to that... well, does it really matter?) in regards to the DVD-Video specification. Although some of it is patented (mainly the MPEG-2 portions), for the most part that DVD-Video spec is protected by the same trade secret laws that the CSS algorithms were also protected by. The only problem is that the DVD-Video spec is much more complicated and won't simply fit on the back of a T-shirt.
I had the good fortune of actually being able to read the formal DVD-Video specs (as an employee), and implemented a multiplexor/authoring system following those specs. It is from this experience that I am absolutely committed to open specifications. There was so much I wanted to disclose to the other LiVID members information I knew about those specs, but I deliberately stayed on the sidelines and simply said "Yeah you are going in the right direction" or "No, I think you got that model wrong. Try something else."
The full potential of utilizing the DVD-Video still has yet to be realized, and unfortunately I don't think it ever will be. I'm talking a genuine "hacking" of the capabilities of a standard DVD-Video player like you have in your home entertainment system, not just the Linux box that you also want to play some DVD movies on (although knowledge of the spec can also help that effort). The DVD/optical disc format is a totally different medium of delivery from video tape, but unfortunately most movie studios simply treat it as only a glorified version of a VHS cassette (DVD extras on a typical release not withstanding). Worse yet, people who consider DVDs to be just another version of VCDs.
I also wouldn't mind trying to put something together right now, as I'm currently unemployed, but that is another story altogether. I can't afford the current specs even if I was fully employed right now.
Buying a DVD is like buying a book locked in a safe, where the seller won't give you the combination unless you pay him additional money.
(Parent comment is almost as strange as the utterly pointless spitoon comment earlier...)
If you bought a book locked in a safe to which you did not have the combination you would not be able to read it. So the only way this analogy makes sense is if the "additional money" you speak of is the money the DVD forum collects from manufacturers who create DVD playback systems and then presumably pass the cost along to consumers.
This reasoning holds about as much water as complaining that Sega Dreamcast discs can only be played on a Sega Dreamcast. How dare they charge you for the game and the tools to play it!
If you don't like it, then by all means, go back to your books.
Of course, DeCSS lets you copy DVDs. But on the other hand, DeCSS lets those with bad support for DVD-playback view them in their favourite OS.
DeCSS can be compared to this:
If you use a lamp to light through the mail, and see the contents.. is that illegal? yes!
But what if it is your own mail? still illegal? No!
Too many focus on the anti-piracy concept of CSS, but it seems to me that nobody (atleast not many enhough) even conciders that CSS locks out some of the potential users of DVD.
this is probably the most boring sig in the world
While this decision is a very good thing, it's important to recognize that this was a case in a state, not federal, court involving specifically California's Uniform Trade Secrets Act and as such the decision isn't binding on other jurisdictions.