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DVD Decrypter Author Served With Take-Down Order
the-dark-kangaroo writes "The DVD Decrypter author has announced that he has been served with an order to cease his development of DVD Decrypter. The developer has been forced to hand over all source code and the domain that he was using. It is thought that it could be Sony who have served this notice, as it is rumoured that he broke their new copyright protection within 72 hours of its release."
..to anyone whose country doesn't have DMCA laws. Check afterdawn.com, and do a search for it. They ask you where you live.
libertarianswag.com
" Hello world,
;-) As I"ve recently been made aware (by a letter, hand delivered to my door, last Tuesday), due to some law that was changed back in October 2003, circumventing copy protection isn"t allowed.
I"ve got some good news and some bad news.Let's start with the good.... (tumble weed passes by)Ok, and now onto the badVD Decrypter 3.5.4.0 is the last version you"ll ever see.We hoped this day would never come, but it has, and I can promise you, nobody is more gutted about it than I am.
What started as a bit of fun, putting a GUI around some existing code, turned into something that I can only describe as 'part of me' - yes, I know that's sad
Ok so it has taken a while (almost 2 years), but eventually "a certain company" has decided they don"t like what I"m doing (circumventing their protection) and have come at me like a pack of wolves. I"ve no choice but to cease everything to do with DVD Decrypter.I realise this is going to be one of those "that sucks - fight them!" kinda things, but at the end of the day, it"s my life and I"m not about to throw it all away (before it has even really started) attempting to fight a battle I can"t possibly win.
If 321 Studios can"t do it with millions, what chance do I have with £50?! As I"m sure most of you have already noticed, the site has been down for a few days. That surprised me as much as the next person (slight breakdown in communication), or I would have issued this statement on it directly.
So anyway, from this point forward, I"m no longer permitted to provide any sort of assistance with anything that helps people infringe the rights of "a certain company".That means, no more emails, no more forum posts, no PM"s, no nothing! END OF STORY.The domain name will be transferred over to the company by the end of the week (9th June, according to the undertakings I have to sign) so don"t email it thinking "Oh, I"ll just ask LIGHTNING UK! for support on this". You"ll not be getting the intended recipient and could be landing yourself in sh1t!
With 3.5.4.0 being the last version, it makes sense for everyone to disable the "check for new versions" feature, as obviously there won"t be any. Of course what I really mean is that you should all stop using the program out of respect for the company's rights.
Anyone hosting DVD Decrypter is advised to cease doing so immediately. I"ve the feeling they won"t stop with just me. I"m having to contact anyone I know of that is (at the very least, the "mirror" sites), and tell them to stop. Copies of those emails must also be sent to the solicitors so they can check I"m doing everything I"m supposed to. If I don't, I die.
It is of course down to the owners of those sites to react how they want to. It"s not my job to force you to do anything you don"t want to, I"m just giving you some friendly advice. Maybe it"s just me, but I see this as a bit of an "end of an era". I realise there are other tools, but there"s no telling how much longer they"ll last, and not only that, mine was the oldest! I"ve met loads of great people over the years and I want to take this opportunity to wish them every success for the future - yes DDBT peeps, that includes you lot! : "(I hope you"ve all enjoyed my contribution to the DVD scene and maybe I"ll see ya around sometime.
LIGHTNING UK!
(Author of the once "Ultimate DVD Ripper", DVD Decrypter)"
There are 2 kinds of people in this world. Those that can keep their train of thought,
Thank You Google Cache
For now at least, that's the list of mirrors for the software - most still seem to be hosting it.
Seriouslt, FUCK THEM!!! I was looking forward to getting one of those DVD players with a harddrive. I want to rip all my DVDs into DivX format so that I can just play them from the unit. For me, the application of ripping DVDs to another video format is the same as ripping audio to portable MP3 format.
Fuckers! I will rip all the god damn DVDs I want. I will crack the encryption and encode the files. Go for it, jail me! Next time I get a job, they will laugh off my jailtime because I broke the DMCA law.
Life is not for the lazy.
But just recently at E3, Sony was talking about the Playstation 3 being able to rip DVDs to the harddrive to improve the quality.
(If anyone can find a better link or direct quote to what the Sony drone actually said, please post).
As a result of their heavy-handed actions against DVDDecrypter (which I had no desire to obtain until I read this article and I now have copies of from two different sources), Sony should expect to be sued into oblivion if they have ANY sort of ripping ability in the Playstation 3. Hell, it makes ME want to sue them.
Cory Doctorow explained it very nicely (in his talk to the Microsoft Research group to be found here):
When will they ever understand?Its pretty simple. Its illegal to create ( and distribute ) code that can be used to break DRM. However, its not illegal to build a crowbar.
Is this morally right? No, of course not. But its how the laws that the media bought are written.
Sometimes its easier to comply then go to jail or be sued into oblivion. You may be against it morally, but you still have a family to feed and have to cave in to 'the man'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
no, we don't have the DMCA. we have the UK implementation of the EUCD - European Union Copyright Directive. Under it you can break any copy protection mechanism you like. what you can't do is tell / show anyone else how to do it.
Amen to that. I too have seen the dark side of Sony music hardware; namely, the horror of SonicStage SimpleBurner. Why does that thing require Admin privileges to run? What does it write about my activities and where? Why does it not work with dual-boot configurations? What kind of way is that to run a piece of software for listening to and managing music? And why they hell are they worried about people swapping music with it when the thing only rips to ATRAC-3, which is a bloody awful codec anyway?!
Personally, I use HandBrake (the best ripper/transcoder in my opinion -- works on OS X and *nix, can rip high-def, transcodes to H.264 among others, Open Source). Why did they target just this one utility? It seems that they do this every so often; take out a single app among dozens. Thoughts?
107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use38
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include --
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.
RTFA. This take-down was in the UK, under a DCMA-like UK law.
Except that it is not illegal to have this software installed. Even if the author is forced to remove the software it is still innocent until proven guilty. They can't force people to uninstall software from their own computers.
Because breaking the 'old' copy protection is also violating the DMCA.
Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com
It's already all over the place. There's tons of copies on eDonkey 2k, Gnutella2, and FastTrack. You can also get it via a torrent released today.
This thing isn't going away just because the main website went down. Development has stopped, which is too bad, but it's still available. Who knows? Perhaps somebody can convince the author of the program to "accidently" release the source code into the GPL or something. If it did go open source then at least it might continue a little longer.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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please open source ur code before it's too late... as you see your product's future is not only in your hands, but the hands of corporations. ps: I prefer GPL
"Persistence is annoying success." - ghee22 11:28:1999 - 10:53:PM
This was so fast I didn't even see it come down.
e ntdetails&id=323316
http://www.torrentspy.com/directory.asp?mode=torr
For those who don't want to search through Google Cache, here's a direct download link:
. 5.4.0.exe
http://www.qcs-rf.com/uploads/SetupDVDDecrypter_3
Enjoy!
Pardon me if I mis-interpreted, but it appears to me you are posing a rhetorical question to the effect of: if sueing the people making a tool is OK, who is sueing Smith & Wesson?
If so, this isn't a rhetorical question. The answer is: The US Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, usually known as "HUD". At the time, S&W was owned by a British company, who thought it was a good idea to settle:
http://www.hud.gov/library/bookshelf18/pressrel/gu nagree.html
The results were disastrous for S&W. The "agreement" required S&W to impose additional burdens above and beyond federal law on dealers. As a result, many dealers dropped S&W products altogether. The remaining dealers found themselves unable to sell an S&W product to anyone that was familiar with the HUD fiasco.
S&W was nearly bankrupted, even after massive layoffs. Tompkins LLC finally sold S&W for a small fraction of its value to an American company. They are turning a profit again, but only after the US Government has effectively repudiated the agreement.
I personally think that they are trying to drive the consumer back into the theater, where they can make fat cash off of stale popcorn and swimming pool sized soda sales.
The only people who make money off the concessions in theaters are the people who own the theatres. Seeing as how (in the US at least) movie studios are barred from owning movie theatres (old anti-trust case that goes back at least 50 years), the studios aren't making money off the concesions.
Nope. They just want full control of the disks and the playback, that's all.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
- you do not need to break encryption to copy a DVD. You can copy the encrypted bits all you want.
- you doneed to decrypt to play the DVD.
So all of the claimed DMCA violations are complete bull, as the encryption is not actually a copy protection mechanism -- it is a play-prevention mechanism.Any exact copy of a DVD will play in all the same DVD players that the original played in.
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
If it was indeed the fault of one company what right do they have to all of his code and domain? I mean WTF? Since when is scumbag company X able to demand property from people without a judgement from a judge?
Easy, it goes like this:
"Dear Filthy Pirate,
You created an illegal program, according to the DMCA. We know you're wrong. You know you're wrong. We have a near-infinite supply of money and lawyers to demonstrate that you're wrong. But rather than go to court and cost you untold tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees which you can't recover even in the remote chance that you're able to successfully defend yourself, we'd like to propose a settlement. Hand over everything... the program, the domain, the source code, a list of your friends and their email addresses and phone numbers, publish a public apology, and send us three bottles of the best 20 year old scotch... and we'll agree not to take this to court.
Sincerely,
Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe
Attorneys at Law"
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
How are they going to create better copyright protection if its illegal to break it? Don't you generally make somethings security better by cracking it, then fixing what you just cracked?
:)
Perhaps not realistically, but at least theoretically, doesn't the DMCA encourage lazy/passive copyright protection schemes that as time passes will become increasingly easy to hack? Doesn't it give companies a false sense of security what it comes to protecting their valuable copyrighted material?
You're not going to stop people decrypting dvd's by making it illegal, you're going to stop it by making the encryption better... in theory anyways.
Because almost all new releases on DVD use double-layer. Meaning that making an actual copy would currently cost you $10-$15 per disc just for the DL blank, more than you can outright buy a legal copy of most movies on sale.
No, it just means that you rip the DVD, split it into two pieces and burn it to two DVD+-Rs that cost you a tad over a buck apiece. So you have to store two DVDs and change the disk in the middle of the movie. Not that big a deal.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
Any exact copy of a DVD will play in all the same DVD players that the original played in.
You cant easily make an "exact" copy of a CSS-encrpyted DVD on DVD+/-R because the CSS Sectors on the pressed DVD cannot be copied onto the DVD+/-R
Given a replicator, I would be amazed to find a drug that cost billions to develop.
Actually, most of the cost of drug development goes into clinical trials. In order to test a drug, you need 10,000 volunteers. They are not paid. However, their doctors are paid - handsomely. You see, for every company trying to recruit patients, there are three other companies also trying to recruit patients. Doctors sign patients up for the highest bidder (which is to say - the company paying them the most - not the one offering the largest benefit to their patients).
Unless you start replicating the sick people, you won't save much money here. This is one of the biggest problems in the drug industry - the trials are very expensive, and now we're talking about making them bigger to prevent the next Vioxx disaster. The cost of trials really isn't even within the control of pharmaceutical companies - it is up to doctors, who serve as gateways to sick people, who are the only people who can participate in most of these trials.
If he'd set up a one-man limited liability corporation and released DVD Decrypter via the LLC, then the worst that could happen would've been that his LLC went bankrupt. But most of you seem to think corporations are evil, so instead you put your personal lives at stake should an Evil Corporation® ever set its sights on you.
I believe the adage that applies here is: Fight fire with fire. The fight against corporate corruption doesn't have to reside solely in the political domain. It can be done in the market domain as well. Sean Fanning did it that way. He lost, but he now has millions he can apply to any future battles.
Shrek 2. My copy of Shrek 2 has a 8 minute intro for Madagascar. It cannot be skipped.
If you look back at the history of DeCSS, I believe you'll find that he did NOT actually share his source code. He refused to let anyone see it. But it leaked out due to an error on his part... don't recall if he was hacked or it was just unintentionally available by ftp on his site for a while.
But nonetheless, he never intended it to be shared at all, much less open source. But once the genie was out the bottle, there was little he could do.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools