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DVDCCA Sues Maker of Luxury DVD Jukebox
McSpew writes "The DVD Copy Control Association has decided to sue Kaleidescape for violating its CSS license. Kaleidescape's crime? They make a super-high-end (~$27k) DVD jukebox system that caches DVD movies onto a server (3.3TB of disk space). Kaleidescape says they've complied with the terms of their CSS license and they're considering countersuing. I want one, but I'm not a pro athlete, rapper or movie star, so I'll probably have to roll my own."
Okay, so instead of going after those evil soccer-mom pirate types, the target is going to be folks who can pay more for a server than the software itself? $27k/(3.3TB/9G) = $74 per title. That a lot of jack compared to a 300 disc Sony changer at $299.
Note: I'm using 9G average, figuring on the odd 2 disc set balancing out the typical 7G on a disc.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
DVDCCA was also tipped off that other DVD players keep extra copies of parts of the movie in something called "RAM". Also, it has been rumored that Pentium-based DVD player software keeps even more copies of the movie in something called "L1", "L2", and sometimes "L3". More lawsuits to be announced shortly.
Karma: -2147483648 (Mostly affected by integer overflow)
The DVD Copy Control Association is just upset that they didn't think of it first.
:)
If they had, they could have made a seperate, more restrictive, more expensive license.
...as long as they pay for all those copies.
Who writes this crap?
Regardless of the legality of the suit, the DCCA seems to be suing a company that caters to the most loyal DVD purchasers in the world. Such a misguided move can only have negative effects upon the DVD industry.
Many Bothans died to bring you this sig.
My media server has a ~1TB RAID5 setup, and I've copied each and every DVD I've legally purchased onto it for instant playback on our HDTV. The original DVDs go back into their cases and are stored away for safe-keeping.
Have I exercised fair use? Definitely. Have I broken some laws? Probably. But I'm not going to give up the fair use as a result.
And yeah, I should post this anonymously, in case the MPAA reads Slashdot comments, but dammit, we've gotta stand up!
With this type of goofy draconian suing going on and the supposed implementation of anti-copying hardware going into production on DVD drives for PCs, how much longer can we expect to have equipment available to consumers that will allow us to roll our own without either
What's to stop people from going to Blockbuster Video, renting a few hundred DVDs and copying them to this device?
That *is* violation of the DVD consortium license. Isn't it?
News to Hollywood: You will bow to the consumer, and TiVo is our God.
The info on their Web site seems to imply that they make an exact copy of the DVD, probably as a disk image. This seems to me that they are missing out on one of the most important benefits associated with ripping a DVD. Can this system skip, the un-skippable commercials that are starting to be added to DVDs? Can it bypass the menus and be configured to just play the movie when you select it, without having to guess what button will play the bloody thing? Has anyone used one of these?
"I want one, but I'm not a pro athlete, rapper or movie star, so I'll probably have to roll my own"
Dude! I think they roll their own too:
Ricky Williams
Snoop Dog
Woody Harrelson
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
yeah, because 3.3TB of disk is so cheap! :P
Q: Does loading a DVD into the Kaleidescape Server bypass DVD copy protection?
A: Most DVDs are protected by the Content Scramble System ("CSS"), a method used to encrypt the video and audio data. Manufacturers of legitimate DVD playback products must obtain a license from the DVD Copy Control Association (the "DVD CCA") to remove CSS encryption. Kaleidescape has obtained such a license, and Kaleidescape scrupulously adheres to its required procedures and restrictions. For example, when playing back DVD content, the System only allows the audio and video outputs permitted by the CSS License Agreement. The System's analog video outputs are further protected by certain Macrovision technology, which was obtained pursuant to a separate license from Macrovision Corporation. The CSS License Agreement does not prohibit the copying of CSS-protected DVD data into memory or onto a hard disk. However, in order to comply with the CSS License Agreement, any such copying must be done without exposing certain types of DVD data (keys or unscrambled audio/video data) on "user-accessible buses," such as the PCI bus in a personal computer. The Kaleidescape System complies with this restriction by virtue of being a closed system comprised of proprietary hardware and software that Kaleidescape designed from the ground up with content security as a major design objective.
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Q: Can I share movies loaded on my Kaleidescape System with other users or other homes?
A: The Kaleidescape System is designed and licensed solely for use in a single-family dwelling. Kaleidescape's security architecture prevents movies from being accessed or transmitted over the Internet, or to computers inside or outside of the home. The movies on a Server are only accessible to Kaleidescape Movie Players that are attached to the same Ethernet LAN.
The hardware for such a system is only $6,000 or so at the most for a real head-end unit, and maybe $750 for each client unit. If you roll your own using DVD ripping software and something like MyHTPC (and a daemon tools plugin to mount the DVD images), its free in terms of software....
Hardware breakdown
Server:
Case and dual power supplies ($500)
Mobo + Processor + RAM ($600)
DVD Drive ($50)
3Ware RAID-5 12-port card ($800)
12 400GB Seagate SATA Drives ($3600) (10 data, 1 parity, 1 hot spare) for 4TB.
Total: $5550 + SH + Taxes
Client:
Shuttle SFF box ($300)
CPU, RAM ($300)
40GB HD ($70)
DVD Drive ($50)
RF or IR keyboard/mouse ($70)
Total: $790 for each client
So I'm thinking the DVDCCA license is REALLY expensive if they charge $27,000 per unit.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
Strong Bad would kick his ass for such poorly formed sentences (and crap)
Perhaps rich, angry DVD fans will succeed where angry slashdot DVD fans fail. I suspect that anyone who can afford a $27,000 DVD player has more clout than 27,000 nerds when it comes to getting this mess straightened out in court.
Just make sure you don't get too exotic with chemical-dipping or cross-breeding of the commoddity product. I've heard that the formeldahyde can do nasty stuff to the safety factor and cross-pollination can introduce impurities in the final product. And try not to use bleached papers too because the chemicals released could cause damage.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
it already takes a fair amount of obscure know-how to sucessfully copy DVD's to hard disk.
at least it does if you want them in a usable format. the ecoding on DVD's is a nightmare of kludges with a few bad ideas thrown in for good measure.
Lets go back to the days of the video-cd... just one big fat MPEG on a cdrom... that was the way to do things!
To assume that these are being used for piracy is a bit paranoid. You're talking about paying $27k for the ability to "pirate" $6k in software. There's no significant financial incentive to use this device for copyright infringement purposes.
A devil's advocate moment -
For these end users it is a convinience to use this device to "pirate" stuff, not a way to save money. People lend dvd's all the time and if you have this device you can borrow a bunch of dvds and dump them into it - not because you cannot afford it but because a - you do not have to and b - it is easier
Thing is while it makes no financial sense to the so called "pirate", the DVD makers do loose significant amount in revenue. Even if the owner of such device buys the dvd and then gives it to someone else.
-Em
RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
I dont think they have any problem with this perticular system, the problem they have is; if they don't sue these guys off planet, they don't have a leg to stand on when some "cheap labor country manufacturer" comes with an afordable solution.
Is that the latest distribution of Linux? It sounds like Miguel is involved.
At $27,000 at 500 DVD, that $54 dollars a disc. Since $54 per disc is about three times the cost of the DVD, I'm not sure of the advantage.
It's certainly not to save the disc by avoiding using it, because at $54 per disc it'd be cheaper to simply buy a second copy and not open it.
Are we simply that lazy that it's worth paying three times the cost of the disc rather than to get up and stick it in yourself?
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
it already takes a fair amount of obscure know-how to sucessfully copy DVD's to hard disk.
Using DVD Shrink or DVD Decryptor is obscure knowledge?
at least it does if you want them in a usable format. the ecoding on DVD's is a nightmare of kludges with a few bad ideas thrown in for good measure.
RealPlayer, WMP, VLC, etc. can play DVDs with no trouble; how is that unusable?
I think politicians are stupid and should be replaced on a large scale before listened to. Also, less government is a good thing. I'm no expert on this either, but aren't classical Republicans supposed to be for smaller government that benefits business (laissez faire market approach) which in turn passes the buck to the middle guy, and classical Democrats for larger government that keeps businesses in check and maintains helpful social programs, which are then supposed to help the middle guy? How come the government now seems to take the position of obstruction to most everything innovative? How does that benefit the middle guy? Things seem to be getting progressively wierder in the US. The US could use more progressiveness.
And somehow the Libertarians got into this and it seems to me that barely anyone's listening to them...
The heck. Teach these ignorant jerks in Congress about these fancy new com-pu-ters and how they actually work. That "L1" "L2" and "L3" comment was excellent.
Congress: I don't wanna learn puters.
Congressman: Let's make a Dept. of Technology and Ethics! It'll take ten billion in annual funding.
Congress: Ay!
*sigh* I don't much care for our new Chinese overlords.A-Day
I had to read that a couple times just to make sure that I was seeing what I was seeing. The CSS system was explicitly made to prevent people from exercising fair use backups of their legally purchased DVDs? I thought it was to prevent piracy? Moreover, after paying all those congressmen all that money, they just turn a cold shoulder to their darling, the DMCA.
Kinda seems lazy on their part. At least they could properly cite the corrupt, consumer-hostile law they explicitly created to castrate fair use.
So if you are a poor individual you get sued directly, but if you are rich and can afford $27k systems, then the company that is struggleing to get a product to market gets sued? Well you can't blame them for being smart about the targets.
But I can't do it to my dvd's?
No wonder the DMCA was passed and how Hollywood desperately wants to switch to DVD audio.
Control and setting up artificial monopolies indeed.
http://saveie6.com/
You don't NEED a license to get a knife or gun. You do need one to manufacture DVD players and if you violate the terms of that license, you can get sued in a civil court.
It's ironic that because the company played within the rules of the consortium that they're being strung up by those very rules. There was another company that made unlicensed Nintendo games and won the right to do so in court (though I'm not sure how the DMCA would affect that) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_Tree
The *main* problem is that if the consortium allowed this product out in the market, that would be a de-facto demonstration that it's OK for licensed DVD manufacturers to rip DVDs to hard drives (no matter the cost).
I'm not FOR the consortium. I'm merely pointing out that it's in violation of the consortium agreement.
These units are pretty damn cool. I say units plural because you need three components. 1) Ripper 2) Storage/Server 3) Player
They all look really sleek, black cases with blue lighting. So as the SoCal sales rep was demo'ing the units, I was a bit confused why they seperated the ripper and server, the rep responded with "Many of our clients would prefer to have a slimmer component in their library or den and the server can be in the basement." What? The server is the size of a rackmount case and the ripper is a little bit smaller. Why not save some money and combine them? I asked how much the units cost and for a 1 room set up with 1.5 TB storage was around $27,000. A few people started laughing, and a few others just got up and walked out.
Why so expensive? Well for starters they include something like 50 DVDs already preloaded, which of course you are already paying for, but have no choice in what is preloaded other than 2-3 different packages. You can't buy the unit without the pre-loads. Also, the company decided to design the OS from scratch! Linux would be perfect for something like this, but nope, they said they've spent years developing a proprietary OS specifically for this unit. Stupid decision.
While demo'ing the unit, the rep had a difficult time browsing around, like he'd never used one before! There were also some noticable bugs in the GUI too that one of the company engineers had a difficult time working around. We sometimes sat there for 5-10 minutes while they sorted out these issues. It was really unbelievable that they were charging this insane amount for a unit I could build for around $1,000. I'm in IT sales and this guy was a prety bad salesman so I was shocked that they put him in charge of what should be the territory that has 90% of their sales, Southern California.
In speaking with many other companies showing off their latest media centers, PVRs, etc..., I saw some pretty impressive ones well priced too. Speaking with their reps, Kaliedescape was apparently the joke of the expo. They loved laughing and joking about that company.
Bottom line is it was a cool unit, but waaay over-priced as other have noted before me. What makes it even worse is the reps at the expo included their main sales reps and some engineers, who were trying to sell us to be dealers, were brutal. So I'm not sure what that says about the company as a whole, but it is probably not a good thing. I don't see any way this company survives unless they get a ton of athletes/movie stars buying them left and right. At this point, they've apparently only sold a few dozen and its been on the market for I believe about a year. He seemed rather proud of that but making probably $5,000 per system, that isn't going to cut it to support an entire company.
To answer a question I saw earlier about what's stopping the user from renting blockbuster movies to be ripped and returned. Nothing is stopping them. I asked that same question and the rep snobbishly laughed and explained that their clients don't rent movies, they buy them. Which is probably true. I also asked about how this is legal for them to do, and they said it took years of getting the movie indutry's backing, but they were finally able to do it. Looks like that might not have been the case after all. Now their clients all can be sued. Probably won't happen, but with the MPAA, you never know.
I'm an avid anti-*AA person (DVDCCA is close enough). But in this case, I really don't care. I think it's funny actually. I'll laugh if they sue this company in to bankruptcy. They're going to die off anyways, why not speed up the process.
So, designing my own version of this system, I've got an Apple Xserve single-proc system with two 80GB hard drives (software RAID-1 for protection of the system,) a Combo Drive and Fibre Channel controller, plus an Xserve RAID maxed out with 5.6TB of space (4TB usable after making it a RAID-50 with hot spares.) This comes to just under $17,000. A few free programs, such as DVBackup or MacTheRipper, and I have the 'backup' capability. Add an Elgato System EyeHome, and voila! (Heck, if the EyeHome could control an EyeTV connected to the server, this setup would be a great DVR as well.)
Or program your own custom interface that uses an iBook or iMac as the client. Add a computer-accessory IR remote, and you're all set.
Total cost $17450 with an EyeHome, and two AirPort Express base stations (one connected to the server, one to the EyeHome, for wireless transmission.) Add $330 or $350 for an EyeTV (SD or HD, respectively.)
Total cost $18190 with an iBook as playback/control and an AirPort Express to connect to the server, and a Keyspan Express Remote to control the iBook. (Custom interface software not provided, and would have to be written.) Again, add $330 or $350 for an EyeTV (which could be connected directly to the iBook, in this setup.)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
a few lazy nitwits renting movies from Blockbuster and making copies of them
I'm going to post anonymously for obvious reasons.
You are overlooking the fact that once enough common citizens have the capability to make perfect digital copies a revolution in the distribution of content is underway. These unauthorized reproducers of content have the power to liberate content from the distribution channels into which it is locked.
Here's my real world example. I have been using several programs--DVDBackup, Miraizon's "Cinematize", DVD Studio Pro, and occasionally Nakasuji Associate's "MPEG Append"--to make full, lossless copies of DVD material. I get the original copyrighted material from my University library, but a public library would do.
Now, I'm not redistributing these copies, yet. But in the future, when bandwidth is cheap and 7GB can be uploaded in say, 5 minutes, you can bet that someone like me is going to upload their cache. These movies are still copyrighted under the interminable Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act, but that Act means nothing when people can make perfect digital copies.
Via Epia MII - $200
Case & PS - $70
128MB RAM - $50
keyboard/mouse - $20
HDD - none (netboot it)
DVD - none (that's what the server is for)
Total: $340
And why do you think Microsoft wants to write their "secure" Bios? To make things "safer" for Linux and Windows users?
Nope, to move the flash chip security from the software level to the hardware level and to stop all those evil Linux hacker people from using dd to copy their precious!
--
Am I supposed to feel sad because some stupid rapper asshat can't steel the movies anymore?
--
No you're supposed to feel bad because you don't know the difference between steel and steal.
OK, this is a bit of a generalisation, but how is it that the people with the money tend to be college drop out-types. Even Bill Gates who is/was the richest guy in the world dropped out. What do they do to our brains in there?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Roll your own with Myth TV
I rip all my DVD's to disk. Sure I don't have 3.3 TB, but I do rip tot Xvid onto 3 250Mb disks (0.75TB) So I guess I can store more video. HA!
Cost? less than 300$ (not counting the surpluss PC)
$29k? That's just stupid!
I can foresee a day in the near future where CVS logs are used as court records to go after infringers...
The Kaleidescape is simply awesome. I've set one up and used it a few times, and it's incredible. The interface is so smooth, easy and fun to use, it's just a really cool DVD system. Paired with a high-end Vantage, Crestron, or AMX touchscreen for control, it has got to be the best movie experience around.
It does skip the ads on the disc, and allows you to go straight to the movie, but it also lets you navigate through the DVD menus.
I think this lawsuit is a load of crap, because the copy made of the disc is an exact copy, it doesn't store a decrypted version, the decryption happens all within the player at the other end of the network, just like a normal DVD player. Also, not that it couldn't be hacked, but the server doesn't provide any way to get into it's file system from the network to get at the stored copies.
This could potentially be used to *steal* copies of a friends DVD or of a rented movie, but, as mentioned by others already, the people that would use this aren't the type to steal movies, or even to borrow or rent movies. It would be a pity and a shame to see the DVD industry come down on such an incredibly well-built and useful product.
Pity we couldn't help the little guy in this case, merely just to help them win and set a precedent, whether or not you like (or afford) their business model.
Jonathanjk.com
I don't think the parent understands the market for this device. Products that are engineered for the high-end market don't use off the shelf hardware, and they have major hardware and software engineering that goes into them. Everything from the UI to the Audio and Video Hardware to the network protocols has had many many hours of research, design and testing. This is much more than a Dell PC that shares movies to other Dells. Plus, the people who are willing to buy this kind of system aren't the Slashdot-do-it-yourself types who will spend hours screwing around with kernels and config files and daemons and everything. These people just pay their A/V dealers to take the thing out of the box, plug it into the network, and turn it on. That's all it takes, and it works! I've set this one up before, and it is that easy, because the product is engineered to death at the factory, not in some /.er's basement lab. And don't forget that this is designed to be controlled by super high-end home automation systems, like 15" Crestron touchscreens, that also control everything else in the house.
/. crowd will never understand, who will always say "Why would someone pay for that when I could build it?" The answer is, because it's already built much better, it's easier to use, and they have the $$$.
There's a whole hgh-end electronics world that most of the
I must wonder, what is the movie industry thinking with this lawsuit. This device is their friend. Anybody with $27K to blow on a device is going to be buying legit anyway (except perhaps when it can't be bought at any price, but that's their fault there) and having such a device will induce them to buy even more DVDs.
The company has taken big steps to make copying hard and they appear to be in compliance with the license.
Suing them is going to both directly reduce sales, piss off a lot of hollywood people (who are supposed to benefit from copyrights according to the MPAA), and will hurt their credibility in legal circuits and the court of public opinion. Oh, and assuming it actually went to court, they would lose.
More coverage on the topic at LIVEdigitally, including pictures. Click here to read (http://www.livedigitally.com/2004/12/hollywood-su es-their-only-friend.html)
If someone wanted to buy one of these to make copies of rented or borrowed movies, It's not going to work... At $27000 (you'd have to spend more to actually get one that would hold the maximum number of DVDs), and at $20/DVD, you'd have to *steal* 1350 DVDs to break even. The system doesn't hold nearly that many DVDs.
I know this is all about precedence and the "someday there will be cheaper systems that do this", but come on. This system does not INDUCE copyright violation. It does not make copyright violation cost effective. It does not make it possible to share a DVD with other users in different homes. Far from it. The DVDCCA needs to do the math themselves, then realize that the only decryption that ever happens is in the player unit itself, so there's no way to get a copy of the decrypted data.
Could there be a similarity? Robertson boasted about the end of the retail record industry as we know it, and these guys bring out an absurdly expensive machine. Attention getters? Is there an ego at work here? Perhaps success will be won by coming in low and slow.
Gary Dunn
Open Slate Project
Don't get the license, you don't have access to css disks.. which is pretty much every mainstream movie.
No license, no product.
I have no sympathy for someone who gets sued if they are gluttonous enough to spend $27K on a bunch of hard drives with blue lights on the front!
At that price level, we are talking people with tons of disposable income. They may alrady have $50k-$100k AV rooms. It's just a nice, convenient toy that lets them easily keep all their movies in one spot and get at them easily.
Could you DIY for less? Of course, that's not the target market.
Keep these lawsuits coming! I mean it. We'll be back to using stone tablets in no time, and only authorized rocksmiths will be allowed to distribute them to gov't approved customers only. Plus you will be required to register your hammer and chisel with your local publisher. Purchasing any of these tools of mass infringement(TMI's) will require a thrity day cooling off period. Anything that helps the general population understand the folly(tragedy really) of copyright can only help get this kind of corruption off the books, and maybe, if enough people wake up to what's happening, they actually vote some reasonable people into office. Yeah, riiiight! (Insert diety here) help us all.
What?
Network Appliance Filer? IBM TotalStorage Rack?
EMC?
This product will have millions of people buying it for $27,000.00 in order to rip off the next big movie hit that comes out on a $15.00 DVD!
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
<3 Jabberkatz. +1 Insightful!
I have seen an excellent demonstration of the Kaliedescape system, this thing lets you set "bookmarks" anywhere in any movie. you can set up playlists of these bookmarks.
you can watch parts of 3-4 movies, back to back with little more than a quick fade to black and back. you can skip the fbi/interpol warnings and upfront ads
this system also has an elaborate, well designed, and very nicely implemented GUI.
you can even set up a login so that kids can log in and have access the parents deem appropriate..totally seamless.
as far as the $27,000 pricetag, that's nothing.
we were watching this demo on a $130,000 Runco DLP projector on a 14' (foot) wide screen (that's just the width, at 2.35 aspect ratio)
I agree that this will only anger the studios' most loyal customers.
Fair Use still means something, Hollywood will never learn untill they get hit with a huge countersuit (and lose)
the raid server also communicates with the Kaleidescape servers to retrieve the latest cover art, as well as allowing the company to know if you have suffered a drive failure. Then all they need to do is have your local dealer come by with a replacement drive.
You may have never known a drive died untill your dealer calls with a new hdd for you
go Kaleidescape!
At the same time, the licensor clearly intended that this sort of use not be permitted by the license.
So either the licensee failed to read the license correctly, or the licensor failed to write a license agreement that met their objectives.
If it turns out to be the licensor who goofed, I wonder if the system then becomes illegal because it is a restraint of trade that does not meet any valid business purpose?
In any case, this will be a case worth watching.
Squirrel!
Well, I guess I was wrong. Apparently the DVDCCA won't let anyone make a product enabling fair use of dvd's, even if they do pay for a license and player key.
Moderation Totals: Flamebait=2, Troll=1, Redundant=1, Insightful=6, Overrated=1, Underrated=1, Total=12. (not mine)
"Also, the company decided to design the OS from scratch! Linux would be perfect for something like this, but nope, they said they've spent years developing a proprietary OS specifically for this unit. Stupid decision"
They're using Linux, but they don't want to abide by the GPL. So they claim they developed their own OS. Impossible. Or rather, very unlikely.
Think it through for a moment.
In this case, the CAT5 is refering to a standard 100 BaseT IP network. I don't know much about their protocol, but I would think it shouldn't have to be encrypted or anything... the only thing being transmitted is the already encrypted data that's on the DVD. It's not making a copy of the DVD across the network (except when you first import a disc, and even then, it's just going to one place where it can't be shared with any non-Kaleidescape computer).
Playing a movie asynchronously in two locations is possible with the Kaleidescape, and be on the fringes of legality, put that's not what the DVDCCA is up in arms about. Their complaining about the "the wholesale copying of protected DVDs". Wholesale is hardly the word to describe it. This doesn't make DVDs available on a peer to peer network or in any other way to the rest of the Internet. It doesn't even make them available to any non-Kaleidescape devices. The decryption doesn't happen until the data gets to the player unit, just like any other DVD player, so this doesn't make copying a DVD any more feasible than any PC with a DVD-ROM drive. The DVDCCA needs to look at exactly what the Kaleidescape does and what it doesn't do, instead of freaking out because *Oh my gosh!* something gets copied.
So the problem is simply that the right media (truly virgin DVD-Rs with a writeable space where the keys go) is not manufactured and sold?
What's stopping that? Is there some law preventing the manufacture of not-broken DVDRs?
I don't understand what is more important than "the numbers" if one of those numbers is profit. If you have some statistics that say that the studios' effort at control actually have cost the studios a lot more than they could ever gain from it, I want to see the statistics about how much profit they've lost and how much profit they could ever gain from it. If you don't have those numbers, then by posting that sentence you are just making stuff up, which anybody with any belief on any subject can do.
You can't _legally_ use DeCSS without a license from the DVDCCA. Yes it is possible, but you apparently care about the legality otherwise you wouldn't be talking about avoiding patent infringement.
If you want to be legal: you're screwed... you have to go through the DVDCCA.
If you don't care: then copyrights, patents, DMCA, contracts, trade secretes, etc. don't matter.
The DeCSS program was found to not to be an illegal disclosure of the DVDCCA's trade secrets. It was _no_ found to be a legal circumvention of the CSS algorithm. Because of the DMCA you have no choice but to get permission to decrypt the disk even if you already know how and even have code to do it. The DVDCCA will only allow you to get permission if you buy a CSS license and that means signing a contract with them.
I believe that sums up the issue. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
I had always thought CSS served the dual purpose of scrambling the DVD to prevent unauthorized copying (end-user) *and* playback (manufacturer). Let's not revise history and forget that because we have DVD burners and P2P capable of DVD-sharing now that it was so when the CSS was developed. When DVDs first arrived, there were no DVD burners and it would have seemed absurd for anyone to transfer the whole DVD on P2P--having an iron lock on manufacturers also meant having an iron lock on consumers, and in case anyone were to break that, contract law could be used on the manufacturers and the DMCA could be used on the end-users.
The biggest example of the latter 'iron lock' and what it meant to Hollywood? Off the top of my head, how about the MPAA going after Jon Johansen for playing a DVD on Linux and the subsequent DMCA-blocking of 2600's link to DeCSS?