CSS of DVDs Ruled 'Ineffective' by Finnish Courts

An anonymous reader writes "The CSS protection used in DVDs has been ruled "ineffective" by Helsinki District Court. This means that CSS is not covered by the Finnish copyright law amendment of 2005 (based on EU Copyright Directive from 2001), allowing it to be freely circumvented. Quoting the press release: ' The conclusions of the court can be applied all over Europe since the word effective comes directly from the directive ... A protection measure is no longer effective, when there is widely available end-user software implementing a circumvention method. My understanding is that this is not technology-dependent. The decision can therefore be applied to Blu-Ray and HD-DVD as well in the future.'"

Comments

All Over Europe?

[GuldKalle]

The conclusions of the court can be applied all over Europe since the word effective comes directly from the directive.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but afaik the meaning of directive is that each member-country has to make their own law, based on these directives. So they must make their own interpretations if the directive, and therefore court rulings cannot make a direct precedence across borders.

Re:All Over Europe?

[David Off]

I think you are right. In addition, in France at least a district court ruling would not constitute jurisprudence. Only a ruling by the Conseil d'Etat (supreme or high court) would do. The ruling could possibly be used in arguments though.

Re:All Over Europe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, in Finland they still have two more court levels to grind through, guess it'll take at least year each.

Even though Finnish supreme civil court might come in the future to same conclusion, it's still local precedent applicable in Finland only. Granted, supreme court decisions are as applicable as laws, but it's still country-level judicial decision, not EU-wide. Wait and see.

Nice...

[Kjella]

...but just a note on law. Even though EU passes directives, each country must pass their own laws in parliament. The EU does not make "federal law" like in the US. They may also apply different exceptions and such. So the law is not the same and even if it were, precedents do not legally apply. However, this goes straight to the core of the directive so if other countries read "effective" the same way... The precedent sounds rather strange to me though, it's like saying "if enough people are breaking the law, the law doesn't apply". Somehow I think they meant "to the effect of" meaning "however they do it, as long as it protects a copyrighted work". Not that it matters since the actual law is probably in Finnish anyway.

Re:Catch-22?

[quantaman]

That might have been true in the past. In the age of the Internet, cracks can almost instantly become widespread. I don't know the precise wording of the law but I'm guessing that while it's legal to break already ineffective protection the person who made it ineffective in the first place can still be prosecuted.

In other words you can beat a dead horse, just don't beat the horse to death.

Re:I think extending this to BR and HD is a stretc

[Hatta]

I like this ruling a lot. I notice that the DMCA includes similar language.

Sec. 1201. Circumvention of copyright protection systems

        `(a) VIOLATIONS REGARDING CIRCUMVENTION OF TECHNOLOGICAL MEASURES- (1)(A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. The prohibition contained in the preceding sentence shall take effect at the end of the 2-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this chapter.

What are the chances of us getting a similar ruling in the US?

Re:But...

[Hymer]

You have misunderstood something... this doesn't allow you to copy and distribute copyrighted material.
This makes it legal to play your DVD's on a Linux box or whatever else and it makes it legal to make backup copies of your own DVD disks to any media you like (both these things were previously violations of the DMCA).

Re:Catch-22?

[syntaxglitch]

I'm sorry, but I am a stranger in a strange land. What is "Catch-22" ?

A novel, for starters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-22

Idiomatically, it means an especially perverse, circular no-win situation. The "catch" in the novel refers to a policy where a soldier may request to be relieved of duty for reasons of insanity; but to wish to avoid war is, the novel notes, the desire of a sane mind. The soldier would have to be crazy to fight, but to attempt to avoid it proves him sane and forces him to fight anyways.

Re:Catch-22?

[icsx]

You are missing the point. The CSS protection is _weak_ and it can be bypassed easily with a free prog from internet. The whole CSS is _said to be strong_ while it is not according to this court (and my personal opinion).

Re:Horray for Finland!

[Anonymous Coward]

Note:

This ruling was about whether of not CSS as a DRM is effective, since circumventing an effective DRM is illegal in Finland since 2005. It is still illegal to _copy_ the content and spread it around etc. (as it was before 2005 aswell).

Re:software licenses too?

[catprog]

Does this mean that since product keys are widely available on the internet for licensed products, like MS office, XP, etc.. that product key use-protection is ineffective, and therefore it's ok for me to use them as much as i want?

If you had a legally obtained copy then yes you can do what you want. If you got a illegal copy then it is still illegal

How about buying a widely-available automatic pick gun to break into someone's house? It's not trespassing then, right?

Using the pick gun is not illegal. Going into the house is.

All this ruling does is allows you to break the access control. It does not give you the right to COPY materials.

Re:Of course you know this means:

[Hymer]

The quoted article is very interesting... it effectivly says that

• InfoSec does not apply (in Denmark) to personal use of a digital media (you are allowed to break encryption for personal use)
• that the copyright holder has to provide a player for any platform the users choose to use (if the holder want to be protected by the InfoSec directive)
• that copy protection should allow you to make functional copies for personal use but prevent illegal copying (and that copyright holders should provide this functionality)
• that it is allowed to develop and distribute Open Source software wich allow use of encrypted media as long as the use is as intended by copyright holder (you may make a player but you may not make a copier)

They sidestepped the issue

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue here wasn't the circumvention of DRM. The Finnish DMCA, passed in 2005, makes it illegal to hold an open discussion on bypassing DRM, which is ludicrous in a society that claims to value free speech. A couple of brave activists risked themselves to test the new law by holding an IRC discussion about bypassing DRM and reporting themselves to the police with evidence (IRC logs) afterwards. The objective was to get the judical branch to overturn the law because it violates the right to free speech. Unfortunately, instead of tackling the free speech issue once and for all, they ruled that the DRM scheme they discussed wasn't covered by the law. End result: discussing the bypassing of DRM (except for CSS which isn't now covered) is still illegal, and the law violating the right to free speech still exists.