Caltech/Loyola DMCA Mock Trial: MPAA+DOJ v. EFF

Seth Schoen writes "Caltech and Loyola Law School students will argue Friday over a scenario in which a student creates a distributed computing application to crack DRM systems, leading to DMCA criminal prosecution of everyone involved. Those in the Los Angeles area might enjoy attending the 5th annual "At the Crossroads" mock trial (free, Friday May 21 at Caltech in Pasadena). The case will have many realistic touches. A real Federal judge will hear it; the prosecution will be advised by L.A. Federal prosecutors and the defense by an EFF attorney. Expert testimony for the prosecution will be given by MPAA's Brad Hunt and for the defense by EFF's Seth Schoen."

Comments

And distributed is different how?

[TheSHAD0W]

I don't see how this is any different from the prosecution of one person. Either they're all guilty of the DMCA provision, equating them to owning and using lockpicks together... Or the DMCA is judged invalid, and it wouldn't make any difference whether the culprit were one person or many. If something is wrong, it doesn't matter how many people vote to make it right. This is the fallacy of democracy. Personally, I think the scenario was devised simply to create more buzz.

Forget a mock trial...

[Dinglenuts]

One of you more enterprising /.ers could probably throw together a real version of this fictional program in a weekend and dump it in the defense team's inbox. It'd be just like when stupid old Valenti almost crapped himself over a student showing him a printout of the DeCss code.