Adobe Uses DMCA On Protocol It Promised To Open

An anonymous reader writes "Despite promising in January to open RTMP, Adobe has issued a DMCA take down request for an open source implementation of the protocol. The former SourceForge project page for rtmpdump now reports 'Invalid Project.' rtmpdump has been used in tools such as get_iplayer and get-flash-videos. Adobe is no stranger to the DMCA, having previously used it against Dmitry Sklyarov."

Comments

Copyright law?

[pieterh]

How can a copyright law be used to take down a protocol implementation? What copyrights were infringed? This would normally fall under patent law.

Re:Copyright law?

[Richard_at_work]

MySQL have in the past (not sure about their current stance on it) said that any application implementing the MySQL client protocol is required to either have a commercial license, or be licensed under the GPL as they consider the protocol itself to be part of MySQL and thus under copyright.

Re:Copyright law?

[tepples]

How can a copyright law be used to take down a protocol implementation?

Ask The Tetris Company. It thinks it owns the exclusive right to make video games that incorporate falling shapes made of four square segments.

Re:Copyright law?

[rmcd]

My understanding: Under the DMCA, you can be in trouble for possessing technologies that could be used to circumvent technological protections on copyrighted material So it's not that the technology itself is copyrighted, it's probably that it's part of a copyright protection scheme and thus falls under DMCA.

The EFF's account of the Skylarov case (which is instructive and chilling) is fully documented here.

Re:Copyright law?

[Wrath0fb0b]

How can a copyright law be used to take down a protocol implementation? What copyrights were infringed? This would normally fall under patent law.

It's not copyright law, it's the anti-circumvention provision. The reference RTMP implements various restrictions that the content provider can specify, for instance, marking it as streaming only. The open-source version, however, did not implement those restrictions and was, in fact, used in various projects whose entire purpose was to download media marked only as streamed -- get_iPlayer being the most notorious as used to rip BBC content.

Re:Copyright law?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's FUD on their part to sell more licenses. There is not one case-law which agrees with them and plenty that don't. Additionally, there are many interoperability cases and laws (including the DMCA) on our side.

Re:Copyright law?

[mea37]

Well, I believe you're correct, but it doesn't matter unless someone actually stands up to fight the point.

MySQL or Adobe or anyone else can take whatever legal stand they like, no matter how bizarre. They issue a DMCA take-down notice, and there's a process for conteseting it. But even if the notice is completely invalid, if the other guy compiles and doesn't challenge them, then they get all benefit and no cost for their action.

Unless and until trial, it doesn't matter what the law says; it matters who blinks.

Re:Copyright law?

[Dog-Cow]

Well, based on that criterion, we couldn't include everyone. Think about it. This may be a law from which Congress is naturally immune!

Re:Copyright law?

[Wrath0fb0b]

First, this is an unsettled area of law, so really anything anyone says about it should be taken with a grain of salt the size of a small automobile -- if we knew how the Federal Courts would rule in advance of doing so, we would scarcely need them as an institution.

That said, here's my take. The actual law says (whoa, citing a statute on /.)

[It shall be illegal to] circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work ...

Now, the DRM flags in the official RTMP specification are a technological measure designed to control access to the copyrighted work in question -- specifically, the BBC has the right to say "you can watch this but you can't make a copy"*, which is a power granted to them by their copyright**. Insofar as rtmpDump (or whatever) circumvents that restriction by ignoring the DRM flags in the media, they have violated 12USC1201 et. seq.

One would think there is a difference between a tool used to circumvent copyright, and a tool that fails to enforce the copyright rules.

My reading of the statute is at variance with yours. The statute makes it illegal to circumvent technological measures, which is a breathtakingly broad term. It basically includes anything that controls access.

For example, if a DVD player fails to implement a region code, is that culpable under the DMCA? Or if a FOSS PDF reader does not have the code that checks for unprintable documents, a DMCA violation?

Yes and yes, although the DVD case is much easier since all DVD players have to license the IP and agree to the terms contractually.

I'm trying to get my head around this. If a specification demands certain restrictions, and those are not implemented, then the implementations can be taken down under the DMCA...

So if I make a DRM file system and someone implements a simple compatible version but fails to make the DRM work properly, this is illegal. Thus, anyone opening a MS-Office document with a product that does not respect the DRM rules in there is a criminal.

That was precisely the intent of 12USC120 et. seq. (see ** again) -- to prevent people from implementing versions that circumvent technological measures that control access to the underlying content.

* Yes, I'm well aware of the fact that technologically speaking, such a restriction is impossible to implement. Simply because a right is enforceable does not negate its existence as a right. This is normally understood in the context of traditional property rights -- I have the right to forbid people from littering on my property, but the fact that the wind blows trash around makes that impossible to enforce in practice and yet no one would claim unfettered right to litter onto private property.

** I've tried as much as possible to avoid normative claims for or against the laws in question. This post is a best-effort attempt to describe the state of affairs as they are, not as they should be. I have opinions on how things should be, but it is manifest folly to mix those opinions with a factual question of how things are. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is-ought_problem.

Re:Copyright law?

[Wrath0fb0b]

Its all really stupid because ultimately displayable content is copyable and thats what they refuse to realize.

What support do you have for the notion that because you can do something, you should be allowed to do that thing. The whole point of The Law is to restrict what we can but ought not to do -- passing laws that restrict actions that people cannot feasibly do ("It shall be illegal to eat the moon") is pointless. So, while I agree entirely on the technical point (displayable content is, in fact, copyable), I disagree very strenuously with the notion that this point alone proves that consumers ought to be able copy content marked 'display only' (perhaps there are other arguments for such an assertion, of course).

As an example, let me posit this:

What the GPL writers don't realize, of course, is that any program from which the source code is available can be modified and compiled into a closed source program. Because technological measures to prevent such a thing are impossible, I conclude that people that write GPL code are immoral/stupid/evil for insisting on terms that they cannot enforce by technological constraint.

It's a classic is/ought problem -- you start with a factual statement and then derive a normative statement when the two are utterly unconnected.

Re:Copyright law?

[Alsee]

What support do you have for the notion that because you can do something, you should be allowed to do that thing.

People should not be allowed to commit arson, rape, or murder.
The issue, the notion, is that people should have the ability to commit arson, rape, and murder.

That is the insanity going on in this issue. The confusion of crimes vs abilities.

Say someone owns a pile of logs. They are perfectly entitled to post a "flag" on those logs saying "do not burn". They are also perfectly entitled to cover those logs in fire retardant slime making it more difficult to burn those logs. The insanity going on here is the notion that the "do not burn" flag on those signs will actually prevent those logs from being burned, the insanity is the notion that the flag actually has any effect on whether or not it is legal to burn them, the insanity is the notion that speech explaining how to "circumvent" that slime should be criminal, the notion that having the ability to "circumvent" slime should be criminal, the insanity is the notion that the act of "circumventing" the slime to burn the logs should be criminal.

I disagree very strenuously with the notion that this point alone proves that consumers ought to be able copy content marked 'display only'

I most strenuously disagree with you there.

No, I should not burn your logs. That is arson.

Yes, I should have the ability to burn logs with a "do not burn" flag on them.
Yes, I should have the ability to burn logs with fire retardant slime on them.
Yes, I should have the free speech to explain how to "circumvent" fire retardant slime.

You own your logs, you can put flags on them, you can put slime on them, and you can then go ahead and burn them if you like. They are your logs and it is not a crime for you to burn them. It is not a crime for you to ignore those flags, it is not a crime for you to "circumvent" the fire retardant slime.

You can also sell those slimed & do-not-burn-flagged logs.
Once I buy that log, it is not arson for me to burn the particular log I bought.
Just because you sold it with a "do not burn" flag, does not mean it becomes arson for me to burn it.
Just because you sold it with fire retardant slime on it, does not make it a crime for me to burn it.

Someone can publish a book or a movie with a "do not copy" flag. Yes it is illegal for someone to make infringing copies. However it is not copyright infringement for a student to copy sentences out for a school book report, it is not copyright infringement for someone to make a backup copy of software, it is not copyright infringement for someone to format shift copy music to play on a different device, it is not copyright infringement for someone to copy a movie to edit out violent or sexual scenes for private performance to their children. Just because a movie is flagged "do not copy" does not make it copyright infringement for someone to engage in copying.

No, people should not commit infringement.
Yes, people should have the ability to "copy content marked 'display only'".

Someone can publish a book or music or movie in piglatin in an effort to make it more difficult to copy. Yes, they have publish it in funky super-scrambled-piglatin to make it more difficult to copy. That's all DRM is - a somewhat more complex version of piglatin scrambling up the content.

No, people should not infringe that piglatin scrambled content.
Yes, people should have the freedom of speech to explain how piglatin works.
Yes, people should have the freedom of speech to explain how to descramble piglatin.
Yes, people should have the ability to descramble that piglatin.
Yes, people should have the ability to copy that content.
Copying does not equal infringement.
People should not infringe, but yes they should go right ahead and copy when it isn't infringement.

The intent of DRM-scrambling is to prevent copyright infringement. What

So much for being open-source friendly...

[javacowboy]

These kinds of shenanigans will turn off the open source community for good. Their half-hearted attempt to court the community by open sourcing their Flex toolkit, while leaving the underlying Flash runtime closed, will do them no good.

Here's hoping JavaFX takes off and open sources the remaining proprietary extensions and the open source community has an RIA framework to rally around.

Re:So much for being open-source friendly...

[binarylarry]

JavaFX could great. But Sun has thus far missed a very, very important reason Flash is popular:

It needs an easy to use, artist friendly IDE tool

Targeting programmers exclusively with a programming language is half the reason why applets have failed to catch on.

The plugins for art are a joke really.

Re:So much for being open-source friendly...

[mea37]

"Correct me if I'm wrong"

Ok. You're wrong. PDF is an Adobe proprietary format. There are other readers because (as I noted above) they publish enough spec to let you write readers. Acrobat Reader is the canonical reader implementation, and other Acrobat products are the canonical software for writing PDF.

Because there are other readers, and because those readers presumably don't know whatever magic incantation makes Acrobat Reader recognize linearization (which is a not an extension but rather is a core part of the spec), you could write PDF-producing software that might work 100% well with those other readers. But in the corporate world, that's not good enough; when a business publishes something as PDF, it needs to work wtih Acrobat.

Anyone know where to find rtmpdump 1.6?

[jdb2]

You get get the rtmpdump v1.5a source here, although this is not the latest version. AFAIK v1.6 was the last version to be released but it seems to have disappeared from the Web, even on non-sourceforge-affiliated sites.

jdb2

Not surprising. It was in the license

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this really that surprising? Adobe's press release when they announced the RTMP spec even says, "To benefit customers who want to protect their content, the open RTMP specification will not include Adobeâ(TM)s unique secure RTMP measures, nor will the license that accompanies the specification allow developers to circumvent such measures."

So wasn't the takedown notice sent because they circumvented what the license said they couldn't?

Inaccurate summary

[erroneus]

"Adobe is no stranger to the DMCA..." That part is true. But the rest isn't true enough. It would be more accurate to say "...because they helped write it and pay for its implementation."

And the lesson is...

[mea37]

Regardless of the legal merits (or lack thereof) of their claims, and regardless of the general sleeze factor, there's really one lesson we should all learn if we didn't know it already:

A corporation, legal euphamisms aside, is not a person. You can't rely on its sense of honor, even if you think it believed it was making a true promise. You can't rely on it to have a single, consistent mind on any given issue. In short, a "promise" from a corporation means zero (perhaps less if the "promise" was in a press release). Licenses and contracts (in verifiable form - i.e. written and signed) can mean something, but without one you have no shield from liability if the company decides it didn't really promise what you think it promised.

Get It While It's Hot

[blitzkrieg3]

sf.net may have taken it down, but the other sites are still up and running. Here are some download links:

get-flash-videos
index of rtpdump-1.3a, including source rpms
download page for getiplayer
linux/unix tarball