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Jon Johansen Interviewed
wuzfuzzy writes "Depending on your point of view, Jon Lech Johansen is either your hero or adversary. To the copyright industry, Jon Lech Johansen has been a detriment to their policy of control since the advent of DeCSS (Decrypt Content Scrambling System.) To those who cherish freedom, he has been a pillar of hope in an age when DRM (Digital Rights Management) threatens to overtake mainstream media. After two trials, the courts finally ruled in Jon's favor. However, there is much more to Jon Lech Johansen than DeCSS. In this interview, Slyck hopes to bring to light the many facets of Mr. Johansen, and the numerous projects he is involved with."
Seems a reasonable enough feller. I thought the university comment was quite interesting.
From the interview:
People who claim that the iTMS DRM is a "good compromise" have naively bought into the impending doom propaganda.
He has a point - the DRM that comes with iTunes is already creeping up in restrictions from the point at which you first agreed to it. Perhaps you should take another look and think again if it is really worth it to you?
I remember all the comments here about how no one would buy anything with DRM attached... but then it turns out that yes, most of Slashdot indeed would buy it willingly. How very dissapointing.
Beep beep.
the most interesting thing he's done recently in my opinion was hacking the VC-1 codec from SMPTE into VLC. Something that provides real hope for linux and mac users trying to view WMV9 encoded video content
not to belittle the rest of his accomplishments, but I feel this one has the greatest possible advantage in legitimate terms
Business Voyeur
Aren't you required to view the FBI copyright warning?
I'll go further: any DVD I buy is ripped and burned as a backup with menus and dubbing removed. Menus can actually be worse than advertisment when they are too long and prevents you from changing the settings while watching the movie.
Because it's not a feature, it's something that is specifically disabled.
The point isn't that they should be required to or not, the point is that MY RIGHT to view the content how I want should be absolute. I shouldn't be committing a crime by not wanting to watch some segment of a video I BOUGHT.
Why should tracks I buy from an online music store be more restrictive in what I can do with them than ones that come on red book Audio CDs?
That's a good question. Perhaps you would like to start an online business offering just that. Tell us how that negotiation with the RIAA goes.
MORTAR COMBAT!
Well, I think the question he is asking is if we are going to use the word "stealing", then this brings in the concept of "property". Well, Ok, if it's property -- what kind of property is it?
Is the key an invention, that could be covered by a patent? No.
Is the key an expression, that could be covered by copyright? No.
What the key is, is a secret. Unless there is some specific law, secrets can be "stolen" in a vernacular sense but it's not legally theft. Secrets are not property. Trade secerts are sometimes referred to as "intellectual property", but they aren't really treated as property except by those who contractually agree to treat them so.
That said, this is in part because the law hasn't caught up to the last century, much less this one. For example most people believe that individuals have a kind of proprietary interest to confidential information about themselves. The idea of people trafficking in confidential information about them without their knowledge or consent seems to them a violation of privacy rights. But there is, at least in the US, no legal recognition of any such rights, which makes identity "theft" so easy. It's sophistry to say that because something is legally not property, that it cannot be stolen. When people say "stealing" in this situation, they are talking about misappropriating or misusing something that you have no moral right to.
Personally, I think that a person who duly pays for a DVD should be able to play any place he wants and any time he wants. It's like my old leftie uncle Ivan used to say years and years ago: "Kid, nobody really believes in capitalism, nobody believes in socialism. It's socialism for me, capitalism for you." The replace "capitalism" and "socialism" with "free trade", and it's still true. If workers have to compete in the global market for wages, they should benefit from price competition too.
So, I think that breaking CSS is the right thing to do. But not because you can't steal what isn't legally property. It's because accessing something that is completely within your rights isn't stealing in any sense of the word.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
So what. I wrote an entire BBS when I was 12 [going on 13 at the time] in pascal while teaching myself C, I was reading TAOCP and understanding quite a bit at age 17 ...
... these are all things you do in high school and college.
By 2002 [when I hit 20] my LibTomCrypt library had already international attention behind it. I've since traveled the to europe twice, been to california twice on various work related contracts because of the attention I got.
He's not the only kid with "neato hobbies".
What makes him so special is he got sued. I'm sure if RSA or something tried to sue me that would make me "uber slashdot cool" and you know what... I'd still go to college.
Cuz despite all the bitching and moaning you do learn things. Sure a good 30% or so of my teachers were clueless, but you still pick up things you wouldn't on your own in an unstructured environment.
Does JJ know calculus? Alegbra? Chemistry? Literature?
Sure you can teach yourself math [for instance] but the likelyhood of missing key concepts is much higher [and it takes longer to learn the basics in my experience with crypto for instance...].
If anything he should have leveraged his fame to get scholarships or something. At least that would be productive...
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Before you go off on me, yes they are similar, in that you buy a movie in a format that is chosen by someone else. You can't control the previews, nor can you control the commercials.
This is where you are wrong.
I can control them via not purchasing them. If enough of us had the self control/will power to do the same, things WILL change. Especially if you voice your view/position to those that own the theater.
I have not been to a movie theater in around a year because of the forced previews and commercials (well, mainly the commercials -- I like seeing what movies are coming up, but some people may not).
As for your rant about purchasing a license to view a movie, not the movie itself. There is no written agreement in the packaging or displayed on screen (even accessable via the DVD's menu!) that states what my rights are with regards to how I view the movie. The ONLY agreement displayed is that I may not rent it out myself, charge others to see it, or copy and distribute it to anyone. PERIOD.
bork bork bork!
You're doing it wrong. It's not the media that's preventing you from fast-forwarding, it's the player.
The media tells the player "you *should* not allow FF here", but it's up to the player to comply or not - thou I haven't seen one that allows you not to comply, I know my current sony won't, and it's a PITA!
Is this. Now what do you think about him? An asshole? That's what I thought.
Joe Connard
1. Put in movie, wait until it queues up 2. Press Stop 3. Wait 3 seconds 4. Press Stop again 5. Press Play 6. Movie will begin at 00:00:00 Problem solved. Seriously, try it.
If you're required to view it I assume you're also required to read it and understand it, but if that's the case how come they won't let you pause on it?