Slashdot Mirror
Feds Continue To Consider Linux Users Criminals For Watching DVDs
An anonymous reader sent in a link to an article in Wired about the latest DMCA loophole hearing. Bad news: the federal government rejected requests that would make console modding and breaking DRM on DVDs to watch them legal. So, you dirty GNU/Linux hippies using libdvdcss better watch out: "Librarian of Congress James Billington and Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante rejected the two most-sought-after items on the docket, game-console modding and DVD cracking for personal use and 'space shifting.' Congress plays no role in the outcome. The regulators said that the controls were necessary to prevent software piracy and differentiated gaming consoles from smart phones, which legally can be jailbroken. ... On the plus side, the regulators re-authorized jailbreaking of mobile phones. On the downside, they denied it for tablets, saying an 'ebook reading device might be considered a tablet, as might a handheld video game device.'"
So you can jailbreak a phone, but if it's 1" larger and considered a "tablet" you are breaking the law.
They told me if I voted for McCain, we'd see a technology incompetent administration increasingly beholden to media conglomerates... and they were right.
I'm sure hoping for some good changes.
considering the freight train load of criminal activity they perpetrate every fucking day of the year for decades. and just recently what comes to mind is smuggling guns to mexico, drones murdering innocent bystanders in their lame attempt at killing militants & terrorists, bailing out banks after they criminally squandered billions of dollars, and that is just a few recent things, the list could be made so big that even /. wont let it be posted
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
The law is still fucked up, nothing to see here
'ebook reading device might be considered a tablet, as might a handheld video game device.'"
And if some corporation pays enough, it also might be considered a tractor.
May Peace Prevail On Earth
What unlicensed system?
Everybody who's playing DVDs on Linux already has a license, because they have a licensed DVD player in the computer, and already paid the Microsoft tax.
The patent holders can't ask for more than that.
Greetings and Salutations;
America, alas, has WAY too many laws. I think this is a side effect of the recent foolishness that has defined a corporation as a "person", and, the unregulated ability of lobbyists for the industry to flood the government with cash to get laws which hurt the consumer and help business passed. I certainly agree that artists should be compensated for their output - after all, their creativity is exactly what we are paying them FOR. However, the only profitable part of the recording industry is to produce content.
Perhaps the best course of action would be for a groundswell of support by consumers to get the law repealed is the correct answer here.
pleasant dreams
dave mundt
YAB - http://blog.beemandave.com/
I don't see any properly licensed dvd software being offered for sale for linux systems. Seems like it is a market that needs to be filled.
--
It's time to stop buying these game consoles that cannot be hacked and these DVD's they don't want us to watch.
I have resisted setting up the DVD player since we moved (4 months ago) because the restrictions placed on me (Macrovision!) by the manufacturer inconveniences me. If I could buy a DVD without previews that I could have playing within 10 seconds of loading into the drive, I might be interested in spending money, but it just annoys me and I would rather not support an industry that treats their customers this way.
Don't watch DVD, download higher quality .mkv from pirate bay instead.
What license? Why do you need a license to write your own code? Reverse engineering has always been legal. Or are you talking about patent violations? I agree it is not legal in the US to violate patents, and we could be sued for it. It is not criminal though, and not really FBI's job to go after civil disputes.
And FYI, the article is about breaking DRM, not about patents or copyright. Breaking DRM is criminal. But there are exceptions like jail breaking your own phone (god, I am repeating the summary). The question is why is there no exception for breaking DRM to simply watch the content you legally own? These two sound pretty similar to me.
There is... Fluendo DVD Player, made by the same guys behind GStreamer, the same media framework used by GNOME.
I think the point of the post was more about the clueless decisions made by an 83 year old and his equally clueless appointee. In fact there's no mention of the FBI enforcing the law against open-source software users of DeCSS or libdvdcss. To date I never heard of them ever doing so.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
this IS illegal.
In the eyes of the gov yes, in the eyes of joe citizen consumer who paid for their media and who thinks its beyond rediculious no to be able to play a dvd movie on a dvd drive in a computer with out breaking a law or watch that same dvd on other devices by extracting the information into another format its not. I'm one of them and I could care less about insane laws that make criminals out of citizens that want to use THEIR OWN PAID FOR PROPERTY as they wish in their own home/residence.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
When I was in high school (early 2000's) I used to wonder how they were going to teach lawmakers and enforcers so they could cope with all the new crap that was being made. Were they going to send them all to schools to teach them how networked computers worked or maybe hire a bunch of IT advisors? I was being way too optimistic, its been a decade of incompetent, ignorant, old people making and enforcing laws without an understanding of what they are making laws about. Why is there now law requiring knowledge and education in the field for which you make and enforce laws?
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
I've bought a dozen retail DVD players (standalone and PC) over the years, each of which came with a license either in the form of internal firmware or standalone software. I have two DVD drives still in use, both in Linux PCs. I should have plenty of licenses - if that's what they in fact are. The idea that I can hold a dozen licenses and yet not be authorized to play legally obtained content on two surviving drives because someone in the MPAA doesn't like my completely legal operating system is an abomination of logic, reason, and ethics.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
There was plenty of demand. They would not sell it retail, but only to OEMs.
Yes, that's technically true.
However, that's only illegal because we invented "better" laws to make something that was already illegal (unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material) "more" illegal (breaking the encryption used to prevent the former).
Politicians need to stop rejecting these "we need better tools" lobbyist-created laws and tell them to use the perfectly valid tools they already have in place. I know this will never happen, but wishful thinking. Being illegal - in terms of the letter of the law - is a pretty binary thing. I think content producers should have every right to sue people for distributing their material, but we don't need to give them stuff to make gumming up the legal system with their stuff any easier.
It's like the arguments claiming that it would be legal to drive high if we legalized marijuana: of course it's not - that's both a DUI* and reckless driving. You don't need to add a new law for driving high because it's already illegal under other laws. Distributing copyrighted content that you're not the rights-holder of has been illegal since we introduced copyright, so adding the DMCA** was completely unnecessary.
* There are slight differences between DWI and DUI, and the meaning varies slightly from state to state. Many places are intentionally vague on the meaning of "under the influence" to (rightly) catch non-alcoholic substances that impair one's ability to safely operate a vehicle.
** The law is fundamentally flawed anyway, as it's outlawing a specific implementation of an undesired behavior. It would be like making murder by bludgeoning someone with a lead pipe illegal. Great - I'll just use a knife instead. You're trying to stop the murder, not the misuse of lead pipes. As such, it'll be obsoleted by the next major round of technical advances.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
That's not how LAWS work.
If the government has declared something illegal you just can't use "But sir, I don't agree with said law" and walk away from the crime without any consequences.
Is the government wrong? Probably, but you should focus on changing the government to change the laws rather than just breaking the law and hoping for the best.
This has nothing to do with copyright. That is a strawman.
This is really about destroying open computing systems, which is an obstacle to building a police state.
The idea is to lock down, data, and technology and only allow it to be in the hands of anyone who has an approved license.
This means ebooks, technology instruction, mathematics or anything with critical independent thinking which is critical to a free society.
Right now they are testing the waters.
They will never stop until they get either everyone dead, what they want or they themselves are destroyed.
Many of these people are at the point of media control and propaganda, including Ted Turner which is one of the most diabolical globalists I can think of in the areas of information control and dissemination/disinformation and programming.
These people are incredibly arrogant and brag that they think you should be dead, and that watching anything else except Globalist News Channels on T.V. makes you a radical and a terrorist.
They continually enforce the ideas of nullification of anying except communism and fascism with constant messages driving home the fact that you cannot own _anything_ you buy, you are not permitted to use _any_ information unless it is authorized by they themselves.
These people have access to military hardware and advanced weaponry to enforce their brutal tyranny with anything from SWAT teams entering homes to execute any who resist if they are found simply copying or downloading DVD's.
They are incredibly dangerous people and they become more dangerous by the hour.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Is the government wrong? Probably, but you should focus on changing the government to change the laws rather than just breaking the law and hoping for the best.
Should you? It is unlikely that you will succeed, copyrights and patents have support from both sides of the spectrum. Right wingers think "people are taking stuff for free" and left wingers think "people are ripping off artists".
Meanwhile, no one is likely to prosecute you for watching a DVD you own. What exactly do you gain from not doing that?
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
“ebook reading device might be considered a tablet, as might a handheld video game device.”
I can sort of see the logic of an ebook reading device, but a handheld video game device? No.
Smart Phones are Mini tablets. They can run the same OS, same Apps. (IOS & Android). This is only shows how stupid the people in charge are.
Be seeing you...
IANAL. But selling you a locked box you cannot open is self contradictory. The idea that you sold me something (not licensed...sold) and I can't access any part of it runs counter to every principle of private property. What if I sold you a suitcase and said, "By the way, dude, there is a locked compartment in it to which I have the key. You can't open it to take the brick out of it. So you will have to carry my brick wherever you go or I will sue you and have the authorities arrest you for theft if you break into my private compartment in your suitcase and remove my property. It is a complete fallacy to contend that I would retain any claim to that compartment if I sold you the case. And you would be well within your rights to break the box and take out the brick. To say otherwise runs counter to the very nature of the process of 'sale'.
The DMCA is beyond a miscarriage of justice it's a coat-hanger scrape job on the lady herself. Has this absurd provision ever had a constitutional test? I do not think any US Attorney has brought a case against a person for watching a DVD with unlicensed encryption software. Or for backing up a DVD. They went after the hapless dcss coder with a vengeance as I recall. But a schmo watching a DVD on Linux? Can anyone recall a case? I can't. Please correct me if I am wrong. IMHO a law no one can or will prosecute is no law at all.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
I really hate to agree with the copyright holders on this one, but...
DVD players arn't licensed. And even WinXP didn't come with a license: http://www.pcworld.com/article/166586/cant_play_dvds.html
Also, I don't buy crappy computers...I build my own and run Ubuntu
The media you paid for isn't owned by you, you just paid a fixed amount for the right to use it for an undetermined period. The media-player you just paid for isn't owned by you either, you have paid a fixed amount for the right to use... blah blah blah. Basicall: spread your legs further for this big corporate d**k, please.
That's why all media I "own" is served by the Pirate Bay and other torrent sites.
No revocation possible, I can pass it to my heirs. They can use whatever system they want to watch the content etc... Paradoxically if you want to own content don't buy it. Get it from the pirates, the benefactors of humanity.
The RIAA/MPAA is never going to see another cent from me ever again. Should the artists start selling directly to consumers with none of this DRM bullshit I'll bite. Otherwise I'll walk towards the pirate bay never to look back again.
It's my property. I bought it. It is a thing. There is no license.
THAT was adjudicated for books over 100 years ago.
Me using my own personal property should not be considered illegal or immoral.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Thanks to a little known case against GE, it is now legal to break DRM to watch a move or play a game.
http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/07/23/29099.htm
>Merely bypassing a technological protection that restricts a user from viewing or using a work is insufficient to trigger the (Digital Millennium Copyright Act's) anti-circumvention provision," Judge Garza wrote for the New Orleans-based court.
"The DMCA prohibits only forms of access that would violate or impinge on the protections that the Copyright Act otherwise affords copyright owners."
This referred to GE cracking a hardware dongle to use software. If that's not a violation of the DMCA, then nothing that simply enables use is a violation.
How does one gain being right or lawful? Since when is the law always right?
I'd rather be right and unlawful then lawful and wrong. History has many examples of injustice where people have upheld the law now matter how much suffering it caused mankind.
liddvdcss never paid the license fee and reverse engineered the rather crappy css encryption. I know that isn't what slashdot wants to hear, but the FBI is there to enforce these kinds of laws, and this IS illegal.
This has nothing to do with license fees or with reverse engineering. You have the right to reverse engineer CSS and write your own DVD playing software. You are only a criminal if you tell me how to do it.
Yes, you read that correctly: you are a criminal if you explain to someone else how you defeated a copy restriction system. Unless you are a researcher, publishing your work in a journal (no, your blog does not count), because as we all know, scientific journals are supposed to sit around on shelves in university libraries collecting dust. Oh, yeah, and researchers never make their code available to anyone, and should you dare to make a hyperlink to some other person's webpage that explains how to crack a restriction system, you are also a criminal. Or maybe not, because Google has plenty of those links, and nobody has prosecuted them.
Get back to your corporate job, citizen. What the hell are you doing programming your computer without being paid for it, and why the hell would you share your knowledge or skills with other commoners? Why can't you just be like everyone else and separate your work from your hobbies?
Palm trees and 8
Exclusion directly from the DMCA, emphasis (boldface and italics) added:
The purpose of DeCSS is not to infringe copyright. It is in order to be able to use the content one OWNS (yes, you OWN that copy, just as you OWN a book). That some use it to infringe copyright by redistributing works they do not have the right to distribute is beside the point. The primary purpose of DeCSS is interoperability. Period.
What part of running software (the DVD) on Linux-based systems is not interoperability?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Name one.
Intelligent idiots are we. | Evil men do not understand justice.
These are actually steps for the taking over of ANY democracy full of greedy shits and morons, but I've written it specifically for the US of A, reword as necessary for use with some other alleged democracy: (Note, a violent overthrow is never effective in a large, prosperous country, and there's no reason to try, especially when it's likely to be so ruinous to you, and unlikely to be successful in the face of the massive amount of force the military could bring to bear. Also, if you follow these steps, you'll find there's an easier, quieter way, unlikely to get you jailed or killed, AND, more importantly, it doesn't risk harm to the precious GDP the somnambulant populace keeps churning out each year...)
Step 1. Get a bunch of rich assholes together, convince them to form a conspiracy to rule the United States of America. (Or if you're rich enough, and you're enough of an asshole, do this all this by yourself.)
Step 2. Through a program of massive brib^H^H^H^H campaign contributions, buy control over the Republican Party.
Step 3. Through a program of massive brib^H^H^H^H campaign contributions, buy control over the Democratic Party.
Step 4. Attain control over the news media in the country; use it to distract the country from the fact that you now own the government, for all intents and purposes. Have the parties grind the government to a halt, and paralyze public discourse by chumming the political waters with bullshit that doesn't matter, like the use of the word "retarded" or, well just about any other thing, pretending that cultural minutia are somehow a more important topic of discussion than national policy. Bombard people with warning after warning about how much danger other nations' "extremists" present, so you can continue to ensure the cowardly populace will quake with fear and cede their rights to your puppet government if only it will keep them safe, as they quietly piss, not only all over themselves, but also all over the sacrifices made be the great patriots who wrested our country first from the hands of the English, then from those of the Native Americans, then from the French, the Mexicans, the Russians, and finally from the Polynesians. (No, I'll pull no punches here, as you can see.)
Step 5. Use the control you've corruptly achieved to ensure that each party picks ONLY people whom you are okay seeing get elected, to nominate for public office.
Step 6. Have the "elected" officials you own appoint people to the Supreme Court of the United States who will support continued power grabbing by the legislative and executive branches, since the power the "elected" officials have is now really YOUR power, and you want to maintain and expand it until you're not only above the law, but so far above it that you are in effect, a king.
Step 7. Use the legislature you now control to ensure that certain groups of people are continuously disenfranchised, and are in a position either to starve, or have to work like virtual slaves, such as "illegal" immigrants, blacks, and anyone who can't see for himself the value of a good education.
Step 8. Use the court system you now corruptly control to issue judgements that ensure people have progressively less freedom every day, to keep money flowing into the coffers of the corporations you control, such as the movie and music industries. This will also increase the freedom and power you have through your ownership and control of corporations, which are now classed as "people". (Forgetting of course, that these "people" are functionally immortal, and cannot be punished the way a real person can, by being jailed, for instance.) Periodically siphon money out of the system through taking advantage of the poorly regulated financial sector, robbing people of their retirements, and laughing all the way to the Cayman Islands, while they continue to slave away until they're dead.
Step 9. Reduce funding for education, because, AND NEVER EVER FORGET THIS: education is your enemy. By this point, you can do most of this remotely, from som