German Court: Open Source Project Liable For 3rd Party DRM-Busting Coding

Diamonddavej writes "TorrentFreak reports a potentially troubling court decision in Germany. The company Appwork has been threatened with a 250,000 Euro fine for functionality committed to its open-source downloader (JDownloader2) repository by a volunteer coder without Appwork's knowledge. The infringing code enables downloading of RTMPE video streams (an encrypted streaming video format developed by Adobe). Since the code decrypted the video streams, the Hamburg Regional Court decided it represented circumvention of an 'effective technological measure' under Section 95a of Germany's Copyright Act and it threatened Appwork with a fine for 'production, distribution and possession' of an 'illegal' piece of software."

Comments

"effective technological measure"

[mwvdlee]

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Doesn't the concept of "effective" mean that code breaking the DRM cannot exist?

Re:"effective technological measure"

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

One would like to think so; but the courts haven't (CSS is how broken now, and for how long?) I assume that the argument is that it's 'effective' because you still need a specially designed tool to break it, not unlike a lockpick. What isn't clear, under that reasoning, is why essentially all file formats of remotely nontrivial complexity don't count as 'effective technological measures', since virtually nothing in digitized form is remotely human readable without specialized software transformation. Your odds of turning an RTMP stream into video with your brain are basically as good as your odds of doing the same with an RTMPE stream, and neither are high.

Re:"effective technological measure"

[Anonymous Coward]

German speaking guy here. You're absolutely right, I have the exact same opinion, but they really use this "wording" (sorry if I didn't get that expression right). It's stupid. I believe that it is written like this deliberately. So they can use any $drm scheme, doesn't matter how cheap, it could be as cheap as, any 12 year scriptkidde can circumvent it, if it says $drm, you can be sued for the circumvention of it. Or the other possibility is, they really just have no idea. Maybe they compared drm to the physical world. Burglers can smash in your window just like that, enter your house and steal everything of value/easily movable. Doesn't mean they couldn't be sued for it, because security doors + windows are an effective counter measure against burglars.

Re:"effective technological measure"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, "wording" is the correct word :)

Re:"effective technological measure"

[advocate_one]

by their definition, ROT13 is an "effective" DRM scheme...

Re:"effective technological measure"

[Anonymous Coward]

Effective == "the judges in charge are too stupid to do something about it"

Re:"effective technological measure"

[Sockatume]

It presumably has a technical legal definition which the article, according to its footnotes, doesn't have available.

Re:"effective technological measure"

[Kjella]

A book written in Greek and a book written in English using a cipher are both gibberish to me, but understanding one depends on a parser and the other on a decryption key. In short the understanding of "effective technological measure" seem to be that the protocol is trying to use a secret (CSS key, AACS key, HDMI key etc.) to protect the content. So if you took any file format and wrapped it in AES with a static key with no memory protection whatsoever then decrypting it in any other program would be a DMCA violation, geeks all get caught up in "effective" but in context it just means a measure intended to have that effect specifically to exclude all other attempts at interpreting a protocol as "cracking" it.

Re:"effective technological measure"

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile in the crypto world, if someone breaks a cipher, the creator will admit defeat like an honorable man, he won't go cry to a judge like a baby.

Re:"effective technological measure"

[sumdumass]

The law is a direct result of the WCT or WIPO Copyright Treaty. The judge is likely interpreting "effective" within respect to that. It is under article 11 I think but i'm on my phone right now and it is a bit hard to check.

Anyways, i believe effective would mean anything non trivial or ancillary at the time of creation. So if a cipher is so easy to break that they teach doing so as part of security lessons, using that couldn't be effective. But requiring something that isn't known or readily done could be if it isn't blatently obvious.

Re:"effective technological measure"

[sumdumass]

Here is how you get around it. Once you reverse engineer their effective device, create an app that uses the effective device and register the copright. Then expose how to defeate your effective device and their effective device will cease to be effective. Their device or measure will likely not be registered or protected as it is a trade secrete. Just don't advertise it breaks yheir stuff.

Re:"effective technological measure"

[squiggleslash]

Well perhaps, but to play Devil's advocate: this isn't a game.

There are two parts to DRM when combined with an anti-circumvention law. The first is the one that exists anyway: to attempt to make it as difficult as practically possible for someone to gain unrestricted access to the raw content. The other - which the DMCA (and its apparent German equivalent) adds - is to add legal liabilities for creating, possessing and/or using the tools, however easy, that break that encryption, should they ever come into being.

Us nerds have a tendency to misread laws and assume that rather than it being a reflection of the intent of the authors, that the language used is arbitrary and written by dolts to be interpreted in the widest possible context. Specifically we look at words like "effective" and rather than interpreting it in the context of the rest of the law, we go off on tangents and ask whether something is effective using other definitions within different contexts.

Is, for example, CSS effective? Well, I'd argue it is in context. It requires you use a specialized tool, designed specifically to break CSS, in order to access the content. It meets the definition in context. It doesn't meet the definition if you change the subject and say "Well, in 1998 it protected content, but does it now? Is it easy to find the tools needed to circumvent it?", but that's not the definition of effective that's implied by the context of the legislation - which is why better lawyers than us are not making that claim when protecting, say, Real Networks.

As for ROT-13.... well, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. My guess is it wouldn't, because ROT-13 doesn't require knowledge of any secrets beyond the fact it's being used to begin with, and the "tool" used to decrypt it is already built-in to a billion email, USENET, and so on clients. At the very least, if SuperdooperRayVD 4K discs in 2020 are encrypted using ROT-13, they'd have great difficulty persuading judges that millions of pre-existing USENET clients from the 1990s are illegal.

Re:"effective technological measure"

[nospam007]

"Here is how you get around it."

Save the tool to a thumb drive an slip it in the judge's pocket.
Sue him for possession.

Re:"effective technological measure"

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I assume that the argument is that it's 'effective' because you still need a specially designed tool to break it, not unlike a lockpick.

Actually, in many cases, the "lockpick" is the original key.

Re:"effective technological measure"

[KozmoStevnNaut]

I'm pretty certain that by "effective" they mean "something that is in effect", not "something that is very good at its function".

Re:"effective technological measure"

[Kat M.]

Section 95a (2) of the German copyright law defines specifically what an effective technological measure is. It specifically includes "encryption, scrambling or other transformation". It does not require that the encryption etc. need to be unbreakable, just as a physical lock does not have to pose an unsurmountable barrier in order to make breaking it illegal.

Re:"effective technological measure"

[bluefoxlucid]

Pretty much. It's ineffective.

Re:"effective technological measure"

[Sloppy]

No. Obviously German courts are free from US precedent and could theoretically use a layman's definition of "effective" but it's likely that the US lobbyists who wrote the German law, had their shit together and knew how German courts would interpret that word.

In the US, we had the matter of "effective"'s meaning settled way back in the DeCSS case. It doesn't mean what you think it means. It means what they want it to mean, and judges have agreed. That battle is over (or at least until people start taking an interest in their governments and bother to vote against Republicrats).

Don't ever buy (or subscribe to) DRMed content or things that are nearly dedicated to working with DRMed content. Every dollar you spend on DRM, will have a large fraction used to keep the government corrupt, and keep laws like DMCA from being repealed. If you know someone who is thinking of buying a Blu-Ray player or an Xbox or an iPhone or a Roku in the next couple weeks, try to talk 'em out of it.

Re:"effective technological measure"

[Gr8Apes]

And yet, I can easily hook up a camera and video the TV and hook directly into the sound pickups, and voila - a copy is made without circumventing anything. Depending upon hardware, it may actually be a reasonably good copy. And if I wish to go one step further, I can hook into the screen's display and record the raw video directly too, resulting in a perfect copy. Again - no circumvention required of anything the DCMA protects digitally. IOW, it's ineffective and only causes harm to those that wish to use things legally anyways. Those that wish to do illegal things will never be stopped by something like the DMCA, and as just stated, the DMCA doesn't even need to be circumvented to create a perfect digital copy. That implies that the DMCA itself is ineffective.

Re:"effective technological measure"

[TangoMargarine]

Confucius says, "The programmatic equivalent of waving my dick at it and having it decrypt doesn't work if you're a woman."

Re:"effective technological measure"

[bill_mcgonigle]

Doesn't the concept of "effective" mean that code breaking the DRM cannot exist?

The very concept of DRM is a form of corporate welfare. It's as 'effective' as the enforcing government wants it to be.

Re:"effective technological measure"

[Wootery]

And if I wish to go one step further, I can hook into the screen's display and record the raw video directly too, resulting in a perfect copy.

Not easy to do. HDMI's 'HDCP' scheme requires that hardware frustrate attempts to defeat the content protection requirements. Can never be bullet-proof, of course, but it'd be a hurdle.

Re:"effective technological measure"

[Wootery]

If it is anything but a plain text format and you don't know that it is encrypted with ROT13 you could have a very hard time decrypting it

Not really, certainly not in cryptographic terms.

Re:"effective technological measure"

[UnknownSoldier]

Sweet. ROT26 here I come, and can sue the pants off anybody who (sic.) "hacks" our system!

Re:"effective technological measure"

[vux984]

Not easy to do. HDMI's 'HDCP' scheme requires that hardware frustrate attempts to defeat the content protection requirements. Can never be bullet-proof, of course, but it'd be a hurdle.

Point a good camera at a good TV under good lighting in a controlled environment. HDCP defeated. You lose a bit of 'fidelity' during the digital analog digital conversion, but its a one time loss. Future copies of the copy won't lose anything further, and only one person has to do it once. That's not much of an obstacle.

Re:"effective technological measure"

[Holi]

No, not at all.
I am effective at coding, does that mean all of my code is perfect?

Re:"effective technological measure"

[Gr8Apes]

And if I wish to go one step further, I can hook into the screen's display and record the raw video directly too, resulting in a perfect copy.

Not easy to do.

HDMI Hack For those with the time and skills, not too hard.

Re:"effective technological measure"

[Wootery]

Ha. I didn't think it'd been defeated that roundly.

Does the copyright need an owner?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it legally possible to author and licence an opensource project without disclosing your identity? All the licences I've see have a place for the copyright holder (the person or other entity that is granting the rights detailed in the license). I presume its possible and legal to do this without including your actual name right? If you don't care about getting credit for it (or suing for damages), you can avoid this potential liability by having the project copyright controlled by some nameless entity. As long as you don't need to re-licence it in the future, I think that is safe.

I suppose you could have the copyright in some arbitrary name (your friend's dead pet, whatever), but still require the license to credit you. A lot of opensource projects really don't care who holds the copyright, so if its a liability, the developers shouldn't hold it. GPL type projects have to be careful, since the copyright holder could use it themselves however they want, or reissue it under some other license. This approach makes much more sense for permissive licenses like public domain, or MIT/BSD.

Re:Does the copyright need an owner?

[mwvdlee]

Open source licenses use copyright.
Only the owner of a copyright can enforce it.
If somehow copyright would be assigned to a non-existant entity, nobody could enforce it and it would effectively become public domain.

Re:Does the copyright need an owner?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Section three of Article 7 of the Berne Convention states:

"(3) In the case of anonymous or pseudonymous works, the term of protection granted by this Convention shall expire fifty years after the work has been lawfully made available to the public. However, when the pseudonym adopted by the author leaves no doubt as to his identity, the term of protection shall be that provided in paragraph (1). If the author of an anonymous or pseudonymous work discloses his identity during the above-mentioned period, the term of protection applicable shall be that provided in paragraph (1). The countries of the Union shall not be required to protect anonymous or pseudonymous works in respect of which it is reasonable to presume that their author has been dead for fifty years."

Virtually everyone is a Berne Convention signatory; but actual implementation in domestic law has been both spottier and more...complex... than the convention text itself. It seems unlikely that something of clearly recent authorship would find itself presumed to be uncopyrighted merely because an author could not be found; but I'd imagine that, in practice, the more risk-averse would be very, very, jumpy about taking 'anonymous coward' at his word that they are authorized to use a given piece of code under the terms of whatever license, that he is even the author, and so forth. That might hinder adoption.

Re:Does the copyright need an owner?

[WWJohnBrowningDo]

Easy, public key cryptography. Instead of using "anonymous coward" as the pseudonym, use "anonymous coward who posses the private key to the following public key.

-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----

MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQCqGKukO1De7zhZj6+H0qtjTkVxwTCpvKe4eCZ0

FPqri0cb2JZfXJ/DgYSF6vUpwmJG8wVQZKjeGcjDOL5UlsuusFncCzWBQ7RKNUSesmQRMSGkVb1/

3j+skZ6UtW+5u09lHNsj6tQ51s1SPrCBkedbNf0Tp0GbMJDyR4e9T04ZZwIDAQAB

-----END PUBLIC KEY-----"

Oh who am I kidding, we're talking about law makers who criminalized a piece of software. "public key cryptography" probably sounds like "thermonuclear weapons" to them.

Re:Does the copyright need an owner?

[mwvdlee]

Only the owner of a copyright can enforce it.

Please don't post legal advice without appropriate qualifications. The above isn't the whole story in many jurisdictions, as there are other factors such as exclusive licensing to consider.

You understand the exact same applies to what you just said yourself?

It doesn't change the simple fact that, even when exclusively licensed (which is pretty much never going to happen with open source licenses, but let's entertain your line of thought here), the entity it is exclusively licensed has to actually exist in order to be able to enforce copyrights.

Using open source licenses with absolute anonimity is still impossible.

Re:Does the copyright need an owner?

[hawkinspeter]

I am a lawyer, and I am your lawyer and this is legal advice.

I advise you to not post your "legal advice recommendations" in an online forum meant for people to hold discussions about relevant topics. Please don't post to Slashdot without appropriate qualifications (an MSC should suffice).

Re:Does the copyright need an owner?

[ImdatS]

As I understand, you can actually create something and immediately put it into Public Domain. You may need to use the right wording (ask a lawyer) such as "non-revocable", "unlimited", "unrestricted", etc., but your lawyer may be able to help.

Also, you could use something like this if you don't want to put it into Public Domain:

Copyight (c) 2013 by "KJDFOIQWEPOSODKFLKWE)(#I$KJLKDSFMNCVK" (GPG-Encrypted)

This could be use for situations where you might consider keeping certain rights (i.e. not putting into Public Domain) for future use. And the text in quotes above could be something like your name encrypted using your public key... (or such).

Just some thoughts...

Re:Does the copyright need an owner?

[VortexCortex]

Is it legally possible to author and licence an opensource project without disclosing your identity?

What's a more pertinent question is: Shouldn't it be legal to distribute source code since end users that have to compile and run it to break the law themselves?

To put it another way: Shouldn't it be legal to distribute data, even if it's executable, because distribution and analysis of information shouldn't be a crime?

To put it another way: Shouldn't it be legal to publish books without going to jail for their content?

To put it another way: Shouldn't it be legal to have public discussions without going to jail for their content?

To put it another way: Shouldn't their encounter with the Stasi have taught Germans that laws like these are a bad idea?

Re:Does the copyright need an owner?

[VortexCortex]

the more risk-averse would be very, very, jumpy about taking 'anonymous coward' at his word that they are authorized to use a given piece of code under the terms of whatever license, that he is even the author, and so forth. That might hinder adoption.

That's why SQLite and other programs have so many problems with adopting a "public domain"
license: For all intents and purposes the public domain can not contain new works. Even if I say my code is in the public domain, I can change my mind at any later point and sue you. MIT, GPL, etc. is needed because you must expressly permit use to assure the users they won't be sued.

From SQLite copyright:

Even though SQLite is in the public domain and does not require a license, some users want to obtain a license anyway. Some reasons for obtaining a license include:

    You are using SQLite in a jurisdiction that does not recognize the public domain.
    You are using SQLite in a jurisdiction that does not recognize the right of an author to dedicate their work to the public domain.
    You want to hold a tangible legal document as evidence that you have the legal right to use and distribute SQLite.
    Your legal department tells you that you have to purchase a license.

If you feel like you really have to purchase a license for SQLite, Hwaci, the company that employs the architect and principal developers of SQLite, will sell you one.

Yay! Open source you need to pay a license fee for to cover your ass! Public Domain? No thanks. Note that to contribute code you have to jump through a bunch of legal hoops too. It's just dumb.

GP:

Is it legally possible to author and licence an opensource project without disclosing your identity?

Talk about fixing the wrong fucking problem. Gah. Source code by itself is language. Punishing folks for language is evil. I agree we need a way to drop rights to works, and to anonymously publish -- You can publish code on a paste-bin fairly anonymously through TOR. Promoting and Maintaining it is another ball of wax.

Re:Does the copyright need an owner?

[lgw]

As I understand it, public domain does not imply that derive works are public domain.

You create a game, and make it public domain. Someone modifies your code and sells it as commercial software, then sues anyone distributing the original for violating their copyright. This is more or less what happened with some crappy Unix game back in the day to push RMS over the edge.

Re:Does the copyright need an owner?

[mwvdlee]

I've noticed in your post history you've also commented on security, computers, language, comedy and physics.
Am I correct in assuming you have appropriate qualifications in these areas?
Anybody following legal advice from Slashdot is a retard, especially because it isn't legal advice at all.
Anybody following legal advice from somebody on Slashdot claiming to be appropriately qualified to give legal advice is an even bigger retard.

Re:Does the copyright need an owner?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

You understand the exact same applies to what you just said yourself?

No, it doesn't. Firstly, you are objectively wrong on this. Secondly, my comments here are based on formal legal advice as it applies in my jurisdiction (the UK).

What is not objective legal knowledge but merely my personal opinion is that posting bad legal advice, and in particular posting incorrect information about copyrights to a forum with a tendency to be less than respectful of copyright, could actually get someone who believed you in trouble. And if you don't think anyone reading Slashdot would believe you, please consider that your objectively wrong post is currently at +5, while my warning citing a specific and verifiable counterexample is currently at 0.

Re:Does the copyright need an owner?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I advise you to not post your "legal advice recommendations" in an online forum meant for people to hold discussions about relevant topics.

This whole discussion is basically about copyright law. How is challenging objectively wrong information about copyright law not relevant to the topic?

Re:Does the copyright need an owner?

[mwvdlee]

Okay. Well then; please explain how you would go about, in your jurisdiction, setting up an enforceable copyright without any way of tracking down the copyright owner?
I'm saying it can't be done, you're saying I'm wrong. Prove it.

Re:Does the copyright need an owner?

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay. Well then; please explain how you would go about, in your jurisdiction, setting up an enforceable copyright without any way of tracking down the copyright owner?
I'm saying it can't be done, you're saying I'm wrong. Prove it.

Copyright (C) XYZ4196bitpublickeyworkabc

The owner of XYZ4196bitpublickeyworkabc can decrypt messages posted to that title. The ability to decrypt those messages is confirmation of ownership of the private key for that public key. The owner can't be tracked down but can choose to self-authenticate.

Next question?

Re:Does the copyright need an owner?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

We seem to be having different conversations. I didn't express any opinion about what you just asked. I just said that your statement that "only the owner of a copyright can enforce it" was wrong.

Re:Does the copyright need an owner?

[HiThere]

IIRC, in Germany anyone can bring suit to enforce a copyright, not just the owner. In fact, I seem to recall that they can even do it when the owner of the copyright declines to enforce it. And that they can claim a share of the winnings for enforcing it. And that there are some companies of lawyers that do almost nothing else.

It was a few years ago, so the details are hazy, but I read about it on Slashdot, and I seem to recall that they were enforcing one of SuSE's pattents against the will of the company.

Re:Does the copyright need an owner?

[hawkinspeter]

It's not off-topic, but I think that people shouldn't be afraid to post opinions in forums like Slashdot. By all means challenge wrong information, but it sounds too much like an argument from authority to declare that only opinions backed by qualifications should be allowed.

Re:Does the copyright need an owner?

[hawkinspeter]

Nope, I don't have appropriate qualifications in most of those areas. I was being ironic in my reply to someone stating that posters should have relevant qualifications to post legal opinions.

I totally agree with your statements about legal advice and I was hoping that my post would highlight the stupidity of following legal advice from strangers.

Re:Does the copyright need an owner?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

In general I would agree with you, but on subjects like law or finance or medicine, there are good reasons that formal advice is restricted to people with sufficient qualifications, and those reasons make just as much sense on-line. I'm not objecting to offering an opinion or sharing personal understanding with good intentions, I'm just objecting to presenting these as if they were statements of fact.

Re:Does the copyright need an owner?

[hawkinspeter]

Fair enough. I was just making the point that Slashdot is never formal advice and should never be thought of as such.

contributions to open source products should be

[Chrisq]

contributions to open source products should be just like posts to websites. If someone posts something illegal then the authorities should issue a "take down" notice to the project. If they remove it then only the original poster should be liable.

Re:contributions to open source products should be

[Anonymous Coward]

You're presuming law based on reason. German lawmakers are firmly in the pockets of publishers. The occasional win of the MPAA or RIAA is nothing compared to the systemic level of corruption in that country.

Re:contributions to open source products should be

[JaredOfEuropa]

Illegal in the country where the site is hosted. If you host software in Germany that is illegal in China, nothing happens unless the illegality is covered in some treaty between the two countries. (What do you think the hubbub over ACTA was all about?)

Re:contributions to open source products should be

[shentino]

But that would reduce the leverage of the big boys to shut out competition. This whole scheme of being liable for the acts of outsiders is specifically to discourage them from contributing, or the projects from accepting contributions. They WANT projects to be paranoid about accepting outside contributions.

Re:contributions to open source products should be

[malvcr]

There is a basic problem with your recommendation. If your software is designed to accept "independent loadable components", then each component could have a legally bounded identity that can be separated as not being part of your software (also you need to choose the right type of license).

If the contribution becomes part of your software "genes", then it is extremely difficult to proof that the resulting product is not infringing any type of legal definition. How can you say the line 300 and 450 is not our responsibility?

Obviously this is a combined problem : "design" and "code management". Maybe when we define these types of things on new projects, we need to think in possible future legal issues and work according with that reality.

Re:contributions to open source products should be

[X0563511]

What do you mean "was all about?" I think you mean "is all about."

They have not given up, they have just been using different acronyms.

Re:contributions to open source products should be

[Chrisq]

There is a basic problem with your recommendation. If your software is designed to accept "independent loadable components", then each component could have a legally bounded identity that can be separated as not being part of your software (also you need to choose the right type of license).

I am not totally sure what you mean by this, but I think you mean someone could submit or utilize a reusable module from another product. If so I don't see how that effects legality any more than a contribution to a web site. Someone could post an illegal poem (e.g inciting racial hatred) that could also be part of an anthology, maybe legally published in a different country. The site owner still has to remove it when notified.

If the contribution becomes part of your software "genes", then it is extremely difficult to proof that the resulting product is not infringing any type of legal definition. How can you say the line 300 and 450 is not our responsibility?

I think this is a genuine issue, but not in the way you describe. If there is a single line or module (like decrypt RTMPE in the example) this can obviously be removed, and other streams left in tact. There could be a project where the whole purpose of the software becomes the illegal activity - it is listed as an RTMPE downlaod utility, other options become unsupported etc. If this happens then it does become difficult to say "we are not responsible". I see this as the same as when a web-site becomes a hate site or pirate site. In most cases it will be clear cut - but there are bound to be some difficult ones

Obviously this is a combined problem : "design" and "code management". Maybe when we define these types of things on new projects, we need to think in possible future legal issues and work according with that reality.

I would hate to have to have things designed so that they couldn't be used illegally. we don't go to that extreme outside software though so it shouldn't really apply here. Why do I not trust the legislators though?

Hamburg regional court

[dunkelfalke]

is known for its cowtowing to the intellectual property holders. That is why they try to go to that particular court if they sue for copyright infridgement.

Re:Hamburg regional court

[qbast]

What property holders do with all those cows that court towed to them? Making hamburgers as side business?

Re:Hamburg regional court

[Hypotensive]

Copyright infridgement is where the copyright has a cooling off period, amirite?

Re:Hamburg regional court

[Anonymous Coward]

You must feel very smart for criticizing the linguistic skill of someone who doesn't speak English as their native language.

Re:Hamburg regional court

[hawkinspeter]

And I feel very smart for criticising the critical reasoning of an Anonymous Coward who doesn't understand a joke when he/she sees one.

Re:Hamburg regional court

[couchslug]

"is known for its cowtowing to the intellectual property holders. That is why they try to go to that particular court if they sue for copyright infridgement."

How wonderfully American of them. (barfs)

Re:Hamburg regional court

[Anonymous Coward]

Or to put it differently: Hamburg is the East Texas of Germany.

Re:Hamburg regional court

[lennier1]

Pretty much.

Re:Hamburg regional court

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Actually, typos have nothing to do with anyone's linguistic skills. If you want to improve your linguistic skills, you buy something like this, not a spell checker.

Re:Hamburg regional court

[dunkelfalke]

Heh, fair enough, my English was particularly bad this morning.

good decission

[SuperDre]

Maybe it's not great because this time it's about busting DRM, but ofcourse it shouldn't be like an opensource project wouldn't be liable for any illegal activity while a closed source project would be fined.. Open source doesn't mean it doesn't have to obey laws..

Re:good decission

[N1AK]

Your exactly right. Unfortunately far too many people on here have already decided that anything open source is perfect and thus anything negative being reported, happening to or being linked to open source must be attacked.

Being open source isn't an excuse for breaking the law. Open source advocates will often highlight the fact that the code is available as meaning that it can be checked to ensure there's nothing hidden in there after all. You wouldn't have people on here defending Microsoft if they got sued for including a piece of freely distributed software in their product containing illegal functionality even though there's no difference (except they don't like Microsoft and love open source).

Re:good decission

[Anonymous Coward]

No it's the law's fault.
Either you let people host forums, open source repos, and stuff, and if something bad enters you first NOTIFY, and sue only if they not comply, or you first proclaim "Sorry people, from now on you can't host other people's stuff", make one big state ISP, and then you sue.
You can't proclaim you defend freedom and democracy while acting like a terrorist (because the threat of legal action towards people outside the top earning 10% is plain terrorism). It may be lawful but it is not right.

As for the rest of your post, please cite where somebody says open source is perfect and without negatives, because I sure don't read about such concepts very often.

Re:good decission

[jklovanc]

Lock picks are a bit different in they have the legitimate use of opening locks when keys are lost. The streaming decryption has no use other than decrypting information the user has not paid for. Therefore its only use is for copyright infringement. Also, in some jurisdictions, B.C., Saskatchewan, and Alberta for example, one must have a license to carry lock picks.

Re:good decission

[xvan]

The concept of "legitimate use of a tool" isn't inherent to the tool... A tool has a purpose: a weapon kills , a lock pick opens doors, and stream decryption software decrypts streams.

Legitimate use is subjective: Being able to access the decryption key, means the user had legal access to play the content.

Stream decryption might not only be only used to infringe copyright... It may be used to play the content with whatever combination of hardware/software that the user wants to use.

If the content is deleted after being viewed, it wouldn't be morally different from the several temporary copies made in different memory levels of the computer, and thus, should not infringe copyright...

TOS might limit how and where the content is displayed, but without signing any legal contract, a TOS infraction isn't a legal infraction. The content provider has the right to deny their stream, but not to determine what is or isn't the legitimate use of their stream.

Re:good decission

[stenvar]

If the law makes source code illegal, it's a bad law.

Re:good decission

[king neckbeard]

True, but unjust laws should not be obeyed by either FOSS or proprietary code.

Re:good decission

[Rockoon]

I wonder if you would feel the same way about what the "concerning bit" is if the program they were distributing included a rootkit and keylogger instead of a DRM circumvention.

Clearly the real concerning bit is that these clowns accept arbitrary code into their source tree, and then distribute it in binary form.

Re:good decission

[jklovanc]

The content provider has the right to deny their stream, but not to determine what is or isn't the legitimate use of their stream.

Do you have any legal precedents to back up this opinion?

Re:good decission

[cheekyjohnson]

Drug dealers think laws against selling drugs are unjust.

I think they're right.

CEOs think laws against insider trading are unjust.

I think they're right.

Nerds think laws against breaking DRM are unjust.

I think they're right.

Does that make it so?

It does to the individual.

Society is the ultimate decision maker on unjust laws.

Every single time someone mentions unjust laws, someone such as yourself swoops in to talk about how the "real world" works. I don't know about anyone else, but I find you people highly unnecessary. I think just about everyone knows how the "real world" works, and that's what they're complaining about to begin with. Begone.

And no. The ultimate decision maker is the individual, as it's a subjective matter. The ones who decide to take action are usually members of the government, and if you think the government often listens to the people (who are mostly apathetic), you're truly naive.

Re:good decission

[cheekyjohnson]

I wonder if you would feel the same way about what the "concerning bit" is if the program they were distributing included a rootkit and keylogger instead of a DRM circumvention.

I would. As far as I'm concerned, government thugs have no business taking action against such things.

Re:good decission

[jedidiah]

Quite right. It sounds like enforcement here was handled by a bunch of jackbooted thugs. The "perpetrator" here should have had a chance to remedy the situation without it getting escalated. They should have been given the chance to "cease and desist". That's just being civilized.

Otherwise you end up with a slightly dressed up version of drive by shootings and gang wars.

The project/corporation should have been given the chance to fix this, revert it, and to revoke repository access to the offending party.

Re:good decission

[jedidiah]

> The streaming decryption has no use other than decrypting information the user has not paid for.

That is simply bullshit. Streaming decryption allows me to archive anything that I have paid for. It's just like DVD decryption. All it does is allow archival and playback. It has squat to do with piracy.

In this regard, a stream decryptor is EXACTLY like a set of lock pics.

I have some "streams" that I've PAID for that I would love to decrypt for my own personal use at home and on my own devices for when I'm away from home.

Re:good decission

[HiThere]

That's a real problem when different areas have different laws. It means that you are responsible for knowing all possible laws that might affect you in every country of the world, and that's actually impossible. Because you don't know what a law means until a court decides what it means....and the next court may decide something different.

Re:good decission

[chilvence]

That's brilliant. Speaking as someone else, I've always thought of it as 'patronising', but 'highly unnecessary' sums it up completely. Surplus to requirements. Superfluous. Redundant. Inconsequential to the matter at hand. As if it never occurred to the person that one has to understand the real world intimately in order to criticise it in the first place. If only there were some way to make these people realise how stupid they are and they would leave us alone.

Not 3rd party code

[Anonymous Coward]

It stopped being 3rd party code the moment Appwork accepted the contribution and started spreading the code itself. That is the moment they became liable. If they do not like that, they should not spread "just anybody's code" without verification.

We may not like it, it makes the life of open source projects more difficult, but that is the way it works. For good reasons.

Re:Not 3rd party code

[3247]

How is that different from hosting a web forum where anyone can post content.

If I post illegal content here, should Slashdot become liable because it "accepted the contribution and started spreading the [content] itsself"? Shouldn't Slashdot stop spreading "just anyone's" content "without verification"?
Even worse, Slashdot allows posting as "Anyonymous Coward", and thereby facilitates such abuse.

The owner/admin is (broadly) responsble...

[Stolpskott]

In the world of athletics, the athlete is responsible for verifying beforehand that any substances entering their body are free from performance-enhancing drugs and a range of other substances. In this case, that same rule seems to have been applied to software - the admins are responsible for code entering the body of the application.
Aside form anything else, my opinion is that someone on the project should have oversight of new code submissions before they are committed to the main codebase. If that is not happening here, then this is a lesson in stupidity for the admins. If it is happening, then the admins really are facilitating, because they have explicitly allowed that functionality into the application. Flipping the coin again, if the admins explicitly allowed the content without realizing what it does, then they have commited code without understanding the purpose or impact of the code, and we are back to the lesson in stupidity again...

Re:The owner/admin is (broadly) responsble...

[Sesostris III]

I did wonder about this. How does any code get into the release branch of any project (Open Source or not) without some form of code review or understanding of the functionality behind it? How is it tested? (I assume it is tested!). This is not a problem of Open Source, this is a problem of poor Configuration Management!

To compare - I expect nothing gets into the Linux kernel main branch (as maintained by Linus Torvalds) without being discussed, agreed, reviewed by someone, tested, and signed off.

Re:The owner/admin is (broadly) responsble...

[ChromaticDragon]

A gross, high-level summary would be that jDownloader automates "interesting" data file extraction and retention from the World Wide Web. In essence, a file ripper from websites. But it automates a lot of the "nonsense" you have to go through (click-thru this, wait for that timer, etc., etc.). It's this automation that makes this advantageous over wget, for example.

But, there are TONS of websites that all work slightly differently. So there are literally hundreds or thousands of modules customized for a slew of different websites.

Almost certainly this offending code is in one of these specific modules. The article/summary states "3rd party". It might be more appropriate to think of it is as User-Community provided. The main developers maintain the base code and a host of players are creating/adding the modules.

unreviewed code

[feds]

Actually this is worrisome for the open source community not because they ended up in court but because Appwork accepted code without reviewing it and actually without even knowing what it does. How can they assure users that installing the application they don't become part of a 15 million users botnet?

Re:unreviewed code

[Anonymous Coward]

Did they actually accept the code? Is it a fork? We don't seem to know and I suspect that this was more along the lines of code being submitted, not yet reviewed by core contributors, etc. But because it was public... the court decided to convict. The code probably would not have ever gotten into a binary or official / stable release of the code.

Re:unreviewed code

[king neckbeard]

It's not bad code. It might have been reviewed by someone who knows security and someone who knows functionality and stability but doesn't know arcane laws.

Re:unreviewed code

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

Actually this is worrisome for the open source community not because they ended up in court but because Appwork accepted code without reviewing it and actually without even knowing what it does. How can they assure users that installing the application they don't become part of a 15 million users botnet?

I'm betting that they knew exactly what the code did and this is a legal excuse to try to get them off the hook because they know they can't pay the fine. I know nothing about the German legal system, so I can't comment on how likely this ruling is to stand, but I am sure that they are just trying to get out from under the ruling by claiming ignorance. That excuse wouldn't work in the USA, but again, I don't know how the German legal system works. By the way, we have a rather infamous court here in the USA in Texas where patent infringement cases like to be filed because they have a very high degree of success.

Re:ho humm

[clickclickdrone]

Silly, the land of fascism is Italy

You forgot the US & UK.

" any movement, ideology, or attitude that favors dictatorial government, centralized control of private enterprise, repression of all opposition, and extreme nationalism"

Yep, sounds about right although some definitions mention merging of state and corporate power which is possibly more pertinant.

Hamburg Court

[Tom]

he Hamburg Regional Court decided

You can stop reading there.

This particular court is the laughing stock of the german legal system, and its decisions are routinely overturned at the higher courts. They are famous for "creative" interpretations of the copyright laws.

Source: I live in Hamburg, Germany and I've been following copyright-related civil rights matters for more than a decade.

Re:Hamburg Court

[Anonymous Coward]

That is interesting. A friend of mine, German lawyer specializing in defending people that got attacked by automatic copy right knights told me few things about such cases of which none was actually comforting. It seems legal entities hunting for IP criminals often send letters demanding a fine or be treated in court. He claimed that often it is not beneficial to fight such cases because some of the companies using legal system to get money sucked out of citizens can actually sue and then they chose their jurisdiction which is often in friendly court. I did not what he meant but he said Hamburg is such a place where a citizen has hardly a chance.

Re:Hamburg Court

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that would be Hamburg, Cologne and Munich. They could sue wherever they want, because the infringement happens "everywhere in Germany," when you "commercially" offer some recent, still commercially exploitable (i.e. 6 months old tops) work. That is, in the view of some Cologne court (AFAIR) downloading something like this via torrents (without capping your upload at 0kb), is commercially distributing it.
However, recently a law came into effect supposedly capping the cost for "first-timers" to 124 Euros.

Re:Hamburg Court

[Tom]

Most of that is true. We have a principle called "flying court" in Germany where you can basically choose your court, based on certain circumstances. For Internet-related cases, those were usually true.

However, due to this being abused massively, courts have started to refuse cases from outside their own jurisdictions, so this practice is coming to an end.

Also note that contrary to the US system, our legal system is based on the "loser pays all" system. While this increases the risk if the other party does have a good case, it also means you can fight baseless cases and have a very good chance to get your costs back. This does reduce the number of total nonsense cases.

Re:this is exactly why commits must be code review

[game kid]

Code review is good, but a need to waste code-review time to whack DRM moles is a symptom of a diseased legal system that supports DRM in the first place.

Ok You Clowns Here is the scoop.

[deviated_prevert]

The warez in question is a java app with binaries available to be loaded at time of install from a script. So the setup starts with a set of jars that get extracted. YOU CAN INSTALL IT TO /HOME and view the entire process which downloads more binaries as the install takes place, at least on Linux if you install unpriviledged it will just install in a created directory and do everything from $ directory without requiring logging elsewhere or so you can easily track everything the software does.

I ran Wireshark on it and it does not do the ET phone home crap that most spyware does so it is what the writers say it is.

If you boot it up and do not leave it in the sys tray it does not leave active processes hanging around. HOWEVER you can run it as a background process to snoop your RTMPE and have them automatically download the vids. On youtube it downloads the whole smash including the webM html5 streams and all available vid size pieces of a vid including any mp3 or other audio files.

Best stream ripper out there IMO. EAT MY SHORTS MPAA, RIAA and all your ill begotten drm bullshit nonsense. This video is a great one and as a result I will order her works online she is one hot guitarist! Fantasia la Traviata a little beyond the reach of most musicians, eat your heart out if you like guitar!

Re:Ok You Clowns Here is the scoop.

[fatphil]

> On youtube it downloads the whole smash including the webM html5 streams and all available vid size pieces of a vid including any mp3 or other audio files.

> Best stream ripper out there IMO.

These two sentences seem in direct contradiction. The best one would only download your preferred media format, not all the poorer-quality, larger file size, or unviewable content.

Re:Ok You Clowns Here is the scoop.

[deviated_prevert]

ok, I've read this post, nothing makes sense, can we have that in English please?

Hmm must be a windows user, you have my sympathy.

Re:Ok You Clowns Here is the scoop.

[deviated_prevert]

> On youtube it downloads the whole smash including the webM html5 streams and all available vid size pieces of a vid including any mp3 or other audio files. > Best stream ripper out there IMO. These two sentences seem in direct contradiction. The best one would only download your preferred media format, not all the poorer-quality, larger file size, or unviewable content.

Have not messed with the default settings, it might be possible to select individual streams. For a java app it seems to not eat up your ram though.

So?

[Murdoch5]

If the original authors didn't put that feature in and never intended to then just show the different in code revisions from version a -> b. Once the court sees the authors didn't do it they are ( or should be ) off the hook.

Player keys, not cipher

[tepples]

In digital restrictions management cases like this, it's usually not the cipher that ends up broken* but the handling of player keys.

* CSS is the big exception, as it was cryptanalyzed fairly easily, but that's from when the United States didn't allow exporting crypto stronger than 40-bit.

Disney

[tepples]

I volunteer Darth Vader as the entity in question.

Do you really want The Walt Disney Company, which represents Darth Vader, owning copyright in your work? On the one hand, Disney was one of the two most prominent supporters of the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, the other being the Gershwin estate. On the other hand, it did release OpenSubdiv, which puts it above, say, Alexey "FOSS destroys the market" Pajitnov's Tetris Company.

Re:this is exactly why commits must be code review

[Sloppy]

His point is that there is an extra problem here, beyond the DRM issue. Even if we didn't have evil laws intended to work against the people and their industries, imagine if the unreviewed contribution did rm -rf ~/* rather than playing video. Time spent on code review is not "wasted," regardless of whatever silly laws you have.

It could have been malware ...

[perpenso]

Code review is good, but a need to waste code-review time to whack DRM moles...

It could have just as easily been malware. Careful review of outside contributions is a good idea.

Cold

[ThatsNotPudding]

That is why they try to go to that particular court if they sue for copyright infridgement.

Man, that's cold.

Hamburg == East Texas

[zooblethorpe]

Hamburg regional court
is known for its cowtowing to the intellectual property holders. That is why they try to go to that particular court if they sue for copyright infridgement.

And Hamburg is known as the birthplace of the hamburger, which is made from beef, which is raised in large quantities in Texas, and the most prosecution-friendly venue for patent lawsuits in the US is East Texas...

Aha! We've found the causal link!

...

But now I wonder what the basic legal trends are for the Frankfurt regional court. :-P

Cheers,

Too bad operating a court without a brain

[ralphaostrander]

Is not a crime.

Waxing cynical

[MrLint]

What I think is most disturbing about this is that a company could seed/pay some fly by night person to upload come code to an OSS competitor and basically bring the project to a close, killing a competing product.

Re:ho humm

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't mistake a mixed economy for one which is consistently bad. The big difference between the US and the rest of the world is we started out free and are working towards collectivism. Most of the rest of the world started out collectivist and is working toward freedom. Generally the US can killed fewer freedoms than the others have respected. First amendment being the most critical, and tending to keep the rest afloat for longer, here. No Internet access (tweets, FB, etc.) for Olympics spectators is one example of how this is different in Sochi vs say a U.S. or Canadian venue, or even China, right?