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MPAA Fires Back at AACS Decryption Utility
RulerOf writes "The AACS Decryption utility released this past December known as BackupHDDVD originally authored by Muslix64 of the Doom9 forums has received its first official DMCA Takedown Notice. It has been widely speculated that the utility itself was not an infringing piece of software due to the fact that it is merely "a textbook implementation of AACS," written with the help of documents publicly available at the AACS LA's website, and that the AACS Volume Unique Keys that the end user isn't supposed to have access to are in fact the infringing content, but it appears that such is not the case." From the thread "...you must input keys and then it will decrypt the encrypted content. If this is the case, than according to the language of the DMCA it does sound like it is infringing. Section 1201(a) says that it is an infringement to "circumvent a technological measure." The phrase, "circumvent a technological measure" is defined as "descramb(ling) a scrambled work or decrypt(ing) an encrypted work, ... without the authority of the copyright owner." If BackupHDDVD does in fact decrypt encrypted content than per the DMCA it needs a license to do that."
Legality aside, they must know they will never eliminate this utility. DVD Decrypter is still easy enough to find. And that is something a lot of people might be interested in compared to the number of people who actually own a HD Disc.
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
Going by the 'logic' in the article, *all* AES implementations (i.e. software included on most of the world's computers) are forbidden by the DMCA.
After all, someone somewhere might use any of them, along with a key acquired separately, to decrypt some media for which they don't own the copyright.
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
A man has to run from the law because he wrote a program that lets people watch videos, and you can't find anything wrong with that?
Why is it that when you believe something it's an opinion, but when I believe something it's a manifesto?
"If BackupHDDVD does in fact decrypt encrypted content than per the DMCA it needs a license to do that."
Yep - and the users who are entering keys for encrypted content should do exactly that. The software is no more a violation of DMCA than is the PC it runs on. Oh wait - I guess that's where we're headed, isn't it?
I see what they're trying to do, but I don't understand how that should be legal. If I buy a HD-DVD, they're giving me permission to watch it. To do so, I have to decode it. I signed nothing at the time of purchase promising to watch it only with players they approve of. By all logic, they HAVE given me permission to decrypt it.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
Nah, he'll have some stupid line of code that identifies him. Or they'll reveal something that connects it to him.
By anonymous, I mean without connection or identity, not pretending to be someone else. They get subversives every time by their need to maintain their self identity in some form, be it though personal expression or some other random link that forensics easily trails back like a string right to the perps (which is what you are if you're doing anything creative these days with computers).
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Technically Toshiba has created a device which makes it possible for someone to violate the rights of content creators by playing an HD DVD movie in front of an audience using a Toshiba HD DVD player and a big screen HD TV.
And technically speaking just because a law is passed by the Congress doesn't mean it is constituionally legal.
burnin
I have to wonder why so many post here still talks about how the DMCA do not apply, how the utility is legal, etc.
Isn't it obvious by now that what DMCA and other laws really said never mattered to **AA? Lawsuits, DMCA notices, etc, are simply hammers to beat down any opposition so the **AA members can keep reaping profits with their outdated business models.
As long as the hammers are useful, it will be used. Saying that the hammer is not made to hit people is not going to help. As long as DMCA notices can take down stuff they do not like, it will be used and abused. Saying that DMCA is not applicable here is not going to help.
I don't know what should be done about these **AA tactics. However, I do know that telling a street thug that punching below the belt is unethical will be futile.
Oliver.
I assume you've also never signed anything that says you won't break into houses and crap on the floor.
Yeah, but if I buy a bottle of coke I don't see any reason I shouldn't piss in it.
And what's more, if you sell me a sheet of paper with a code on it and then get pissed when I break it, you're going to have to start prosecuting all us folks who do the crypto-quote in the newspapers. That's illegal, too.
A blog about stuff.
...When the copyright owner has given the user both the encrypted data and the key to decrypt it with? Surely if they don't want people decrypting their secret content they wouldn't do something as stupid as that, would they?
I absolutely agree that if our society had really degraded to the point that it was no longer safe to share information it would be possible for things like this to be posted with complete anonymity. If the world had truly become a horrible dystopian nightmare, that might even be absolutely necessary.
I like to think that we're not there yet, and that it's still safe for people to share what they know with full credit for the work they have done to obtain that knowledge. If the world has really progressed to the point where sharing simple knowledge is no longer safe, then we have a worse problem than simply being locked out of the content of some video disks.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Playing a movie DVD constitutes a performance of a copyrighted work. A license to perform the work in a private residence is concomitant with the purchase of a copy. There is nothing anywhere that says how you must perform the work. The license is relevant only to the performance, not the performer. You may perform the work either in a super-uber high-end jewel-encrusted DVD player, or in a crufty piece of junk you bought second-hand at Salvation Army.
...Or, in a DVD player program you wrote yourself.
I don't need "permission" to write a program, I don't need "permission" to run a program, and I don't need "permission" to have that program crunch on data in my lawful posession. The End. There is nothing inherent in the statutes or the Uniform Commercial Code that grants copyright holders the right to constrain the method of performance, nor can it be reasonably argued that they should enjoy such a right.
As for the DMCA, well, that needs to be repealed yesterday.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
That's all well and good, but it seems borderline illegal for them to give me something and then require that it only be used with other products they approve of. It's like car manufacturers putting special-shaped gas nozzles on, saying you can only fill up at licensed gas stations, and then suing you if you modify the nozzle to work with other stations.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
The problem is they are correct that this IS illegal. The DMCA is a law and it prohibits this activity. Now of course the DMCA itself is illegal as well which means they'll just use it as a club against someone but drop the case before it can be proved unconstitutional.
I would say (and IANAL) that when a customer buys a DVD (s)he also obtains the implicit right to view it. It's not the consumer's issue how that technology is licensed.
It is illegal for the consumer to access the work, if there is an access control, if the consumer lacks authorization. The studios never give consumers authorization (and the implied authorization argument has, so far, fallen flat). Rather, they authorize devices, which can be used by people who themselves lack authorization. That is, the authorization is an attribute which flows through the player, rather than the disk. (Though it's still attached to the player -- the owner doesn't have authorization, save for with regard to that player; a possessor of the player has authorization with regard to that player, even if he isn't the owner, etc.)
From the programmers' point of view, as long as the code that they write isn't taken from a licensed user of the software, they're not violating copyright -
This conversation is about access and circumvention. We are not talking about copyright, which is a different, though related subject.
and as long as the primary purpose of the code is simply to view the DVD, then I think that that (at least arguably) keeps them on the good side of the DMCA.
That argument has been tried, and it has failed. Feel free to keep trying a loser argument, but don't be surprised when it keeps on being a loser. I'm not suggesting how I want things to be, I'm describing how things are. You'll have better luck coping with this, and in changing things for the better, if you deal with reality, rather than pretend that things presently are how you wish they would be.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Trade secrets don't apply since the document describing AACS is released to the public. Hard to claim something as secret if you've told everyone about it already.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
The important phrase is "without the authority of the copyright holder". If you own the disc, you are entitled by sole virtue of ownership to use it for its rightful purpose -- which (assuming it is just an ordinary, home-viewing sell-through disc) is to watch the movie stored on it, in private. The copyright holder cannot prevent you from doing that, without rendering the disc unfit for its rightful purpose (and therefore owing you a refund of the purchase price you paid).
Go ahead and decrypt. Either you do have the authority of the copyright holder, or the disc is unfit for purpose and you are owed a full refund. In either case, you will find your purchase receipt very helpful.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I'd be surprised if, in most cases, the DVD made for retail differed at all from the DVDs made for rental. In fact, they even tend to hit shelves at the same time. And in any event, it's also legal to rent any lawfully made copy of a DVD without special permission, so it would only matter for the big chains that could negotiate early access anyway. Also, the warning wouldn't need to be there for the distributor -- they would have a contract that would lay out all the terms.
No, it's there to be read by end users, who will hopefully not question the strong wording.
What I don't understand is why, if I've encoded something using AACS, that I own the copyright to, why I'm not entitled to give permission to any and all to use an AACS decryption program to decrypt my copyrighted work. Wouldn't that basically make possession and distribution of such a decryption program be unaffected by the provisions of the DMCA (since it would be "with the authorization of the copyright owner")?
Or, in the world of regular DVDs, if you made CSS-encoded DVDs, couldn't you authorize people to use DeCSS, which would legitimize it? Feel free to give it a shot, but I doubt a court will go for it in the real world.
Doing so doesn't automatically make any 3DES or AES decryption program a DMCA violation, that would be silly!
A lot depends on the reasons for which someone distributes a copy. If RSA distributes a general-purpose decryption program using 3DES, then they'll be fine, even though it could be used against 3DES encrypted movies. If Doom9 does it, then they're not going to be fine, since they really only ever distribute anything for it to be used in conjunction with movies. That they might even be identical programs isn't relevant. Intent isn't something that is found in the bits of the program, but the law can still recognize and infer from the circumstances.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.