Slashdot Mirror
DVD Hearing Today - Are You Ready to Rumble?
Leading up to Today's Hearing
- by Emmett Plant
Emmett Plant is Slashdot's newest author.
Monday, DVD Copy Control Association, Inc. filed for a restraining order in a California court. The targets of this cease-and-desist order were individuals and organizations who had made DVD decryption source code freely available on the net, by hosting the code themselves or linking to a website that did. Commmunity response has been fast and furious, with a deluge of Slashdot comments and submissions, and the immediate organization of Open Source community members to attend the hearing this morning.
Technically, the argument boils down to the issue of reverse engineering. Ideologically, the argument challenges the ideals of free speech, freedom of information, and the ability to innovate on behalf of computer users, hardware engineers and software developers all over the planet.
On Monday night, I spoke to a gentleman who had received the order just minutes prior, and although he didn't want his name mentioned, he provided with me with his thoughts.
"It should be legal when you've got people reverse engineering this kind of stuff. But a small minority in the business community want to lock down the information, citing that it's a trade secret. It's sort of like being busted in math class for passing answers around. [The code] is basically a mathematical equation that decrypts poorly encrypted DVD data. I support the free human right to freedom of thought. That's how civilization has gotten to where it is today, without lawyers heading innovators off at the pass."
Would he be willing to go to court to defend himself?
"Probably not. There are a lot of sites that are mirroring [the code], and they'll keep the program alive. I'll sleep easy at night knowing I did my part."
In many ways, the cease-and-desist only made it easier for people to get their hands on the code. As soon as the community heard about the order, many people posted the code on their websites as a sign of protest. Many community members have made the code available on overseas servers that don't face the possible legal repercussions associated with sites located in the United States.
Another interesting point of this case is that anyone who linked to a site that contained the information is also being held liable in the case. This is particularly frightening. This means that in the spirit of the cease-and-desist order, almost everyone on the web with a site that links to anywhere else falls into the legal maelstrom, as long as it eventually leads to a site with the code posted on it.
The legal ramifications of the case are extremely influential. The DVD CCA lawyers are fighting a battle against reverse engineering, an engineering process that enables the computer industry to utilize powerful tools like the IBM-compatible personal computer and countless hardware device drivers.
The hearing will take place this morning at 8:30 a.m. Pacific Standard Time in the Superior Court of Santa Clara County, California.
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Funny and Sad at the Same Time
- by Hemos
The particularly humorous section of the lawsuit, at least for me, is that what they are trying to do is make linking illegal. That's right. Linking. Is. Illegal. Once we cross the the bridge of dictating what can and cannot be linked to, than we open ourselves up to a world of people being able to sue whenever something they don't want linked is linked. Without linking, the Web is dead.
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Shaky Legal Grounds
- by Michael Sims
The legal standing for the DVD companies is so shaky it's not even funny. The danger is that they can effectively paint the opposition as a bunch of crooks and the judge will feel that *justice* requires a ruling in their favor despite the law - that can be averted if the defense makes a strong competent showing tomorrow, presumably. The second danger is that they will inflict sufficient costs on the defendants that others will be dissuaded from doing even perfectly legal things. That can't be prevented.
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Planning to Join the Protest in Person?
The best source of information on how to help out at the Santa Clara County Courthouse is this page from Chris DiBona's Web site. It tells you where and when to be, what to wear, and what to expect. Worth reading even if you can't make it. Nice to know that Chris and others, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, are doing a great job for all of us on this!
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Update by Emmett @ 1:20 p.m. EST:
Chris DiBona called me at 8:30 a.m. PST from right outside the courtroom, letting me in on the scene. The Open Source community has about 25 people there, as well as a lawyer or two of their own. The community members present are busy distributing the DeCSS source code on floppy disk as well as leaflet hard copy. No pictures will be taken of the interior of the courtroom, and there wasn't enough time to apply for the permit to record what happens inside.
Chris will be calling me as soon as they let out with up-to-the-minute information and notes from the community members inside the courtroom.
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Links to Other DVD CCA Stories and Sites
Boston Globe
Washington Post
Wired News
ZDNet
siliconvalley.com
Chris DiBona's excellent page
PZ Communications DeCSS Resource Site
CNN.com
Lemuria.org DeCSS Defense page
Dan Gillmor (SV.com columnist)
Santa Clara County Superior Court info
OpenDVD.org
EFF to the Rescue!
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Please send additional links to roblimo@slashdot.org so we can add them to the list. Thanks.
The difference between a trade secret and a copyright or patent is that a trade secret is not disclosed to the public -- but if it leaks, the owner is just SOL. If they're taking the position that their decryption is a trade secret, then they have no case.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/363/business/We
Hiawatha Bray
Tech Reporter
Boston Globe
Perfect place for steaming WEB CAM!
I guess that can't be a "live steaming WEB CAM", because if it got hot enough to actually steam that would probably kill it.
What do you mean?
If the people show up on the court steps and are protesting, then they can get media to show up and get some attention. If they have good spokespeople then they can spin it for the media to show the truth about the whole thing. Hopefully ESR won't show up dressed like Obi-Wan again.
Nascantur in Admiratione. (Let them be born in Wonder)
As for the links, I'd compare that with passing round a list of names of people who pass around lists of pages. I'm sorry, but when you start to get -that- far removed from the source, WHATEVER justification there may have been for the original case is thrown right out the window.
Either that, or I deem the entire Universe guilty of conspiring to cause explosions, as a result of containing links to the Big Bang. If this case ends with sites like Slashdot losing, this case will be precident of links being sufficient to be proof of guilt. More than adequate for me to sue the cosmos for a few trillian dollars.
Anyone want to join in? I don't mind splitting the winnings.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Listening to NPR this morning, I heard a very brief story about "DVD copying software" being posted on the internet and a "lawsuit being brought against dozens of websites". Two points here. First, DeCSS is not "copying software". Second a restraing order is not a "lawsuit". I think it is a pretty crappy tactic to pursuade the news media to report such things. I don't blame NPR, I blame the movie industry for feeding them the story in such a form. BTW, there was now mention of breaking encryption or Linux development, etc. It just sounded like all the posters were a bunch of pirates and thieves.
Criminalize spam and telemarketing!
to have a look at this : http://www.sirius.com/~casp/welcome.html ..it may be possible to get it thrown out without a trial.
SLAPPs -- strategic lawsuits against public participation -- are civil complaints or counterclaims (against either an individual or an organization) in which the alleged injury was the result of
petitioning or free speech activities protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. SLAPPs are often brought by corporations, real estate developers, or government officials and
entities against individuals who oppose them on public issues. Typically, SLAPPs are based on ordinary civil tort claims such as defamation, conspiracy, and interference with prospective
economic advantage.
This is a very frightening case. If this passes through, and reverse engineering is made illegal, then Richard Stallman's story (grrr, cant find
link on Gnu.org! anyone?) about how debuggers
will be allowed only in 'guarded research labs'
will come true alot faster than we'd like.
This is a monumentally important case for our rights to explore and investigate technology, and if we are stopped from doing so, only hackers will be doing it (and if you decide to do it, you are an instant hacker, and now a criminal). [I've given up on cracker/hacker debate, btw. I use words common folk can understand, since thats who Im preaching to.]
Unix and Linux has a long history of being hacked on and taken apart, and if it wasnt for this ability, I dont think we'd be where we are now with Linux.
We should all put in as much effort as possible to make people aware of whats at stake. I can imagine its only a few steps before you're not allowed to fix your own car! THen we'll have the general populace interested.
Math
A copy of the DeCSS software source code for linux and a zip file of the dll's for doze are available here for those interested: http://cubicmetercrystal.com/decss/ Fight for copyright / patent sanity. Perhaps once companies realize that strong arm tactics to silence information will not work on the net, all of these intimidating law suits will stop.
- What if the whole thin is legal in Norway?
- How can a copyright/patent infringement lawsuit issued in the USA can be enforced on a European defendent?
Thanks.I think that slashdot should put all the information in one handy location, so that we can all mirror it on our personal sites... What are they going to do? Sue the world?
--- eman I don't know what it does, but I like the blinking lights.
If DVD CCA doesn't point the finger at someone, then it must be their fault (which I believe it is). Just because you code and compile something, doesn't make it a trade secret. Someone else mentioned Coca Cola's secret formula. If you figure it out, you can use it. Reverse engineering is the same thing.
Didn't this once come up with a case of Ford against a Nissan or Honda. Where the Japanese company bought a Ford and dismantled it to find out how it worked. When Ford tried to sue, the judge ruled that they didn't do anything wrong. Since they bought the car, it was theirs to do what they pleased. I think this is the same thing.
Now as for linking. That is getting out of hand. If you do business on the Web, you should be prepared to be linked to. Altough, this is slightly different, But as for free speech, not being able to link to something is a definite form of censorship. Yes, you can complain about content, but how can you complain about someone else linking to them. IANAL, but if you hear someone that shows bootlegged movies, and tell someone about it, and if someone asks who is doing it, and you tell them, are you just as guilty at bootlegging the movie. Now you are not related in any way to that bootlegger, and did not profit in telling someone about it. You just shared information that you knew about.
Unfortunately, I'm in NY and won't be able to go. I would love to see this trial!
Steven Rostedt
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
Just a query - are they trying to ban mirrors of the actual binary code for DeCSS and the associated links to these sites or is it the underlying algorithm that is the target. If the injunction is against a specific binary application, then would publishing an "abstract" pseudo-code of the core of the binary engine be affected by the ban? If this was done then how long do you think it would be before many, many different implementations of the code in different languages started appearing on the web? Would it be necessary to start a new injunction against each one?
The only Good System is a Sound System
...would be to print out the source code to DeCSS (and neatly bind it, if possible) like they did with the PGP code. It might illustrate more clearly to the judge that the censorship of non-copyrighted material is a violation of first amendment rights.
The judge will probably be highly intelligent, but non-technical. Having a concrete, readable example of what they're trying to censor may help put things in perspective, and bring out the first amendment issues (which I'm sure the corporate lawyers are going to try to gloss over).
// TODO: fix sig
- Robin
Based on what these lawyers seem to be arguing: If the contents of a link changed to something illegal, all the existing links would become illegal.
Were all search engines with links to challenged sites also mentioned?
Technically, the argument boils down to the issue of reverse engineering. :) it.
...without lawyers heading innovators off at the pass."
:) that the "underground" can fight back in this manner - corporate pigs may win the battle, but who is winning the war?
:(
:), I think this may be the chap here...... If it isn't, my apologies... Would the real Emmett Plant stand up...
And still, judges don't really understand this. If a car manufacturer A can take apart say, a competitor B's carburettor, they can reverse engineer it. There's nothing preventing them doing this, in reality, and no judge would hold this case up. Because there are _manufacturing_ considerations to making the carburettor. Exactly the same applies with software- you can see what it does, but you must still figure out how to "make" (pun intended
Ideologically, the argument challenges the ideals of free speech, freedom of information, and the ability to innovate on behalf of computer users, hardware engineers and software developers all over the planet.
Hmm, think you're pushing it a bit there about the whole planet. The USA is mostly a nice place, but there are other continents
Sadly, this is my impression of corporate America these days. If you can't win by market forces, crush them with your legal team.
There are a lot of sites that are mirroring [the code], and they'll keep the program alive. I'll sleep easy at night knowing I did my part."
Yep. And when one gets hit with the Cease & Desist, another will take it's place. I really hope this goes high profile. Once corporations get the message that when it comes to the net, winning in court is not absolute, then they may consider their legal actions more carefully. And I find it heartening (hey, I'm British, I always root for the underdog!
Another interesting point of this case is that anyone who linked to a site that contained the information is also being held liable in the case.
That scares the piss out of me. Where does it end? Say if I link to a site that links to a site with the contentious code, am I liable? Reminds me of a rhyme I was taught as a kid - "Big fleas have little fleas upon their back to bite them, little fleas have tiny fleas, and so ad infinitum...". Surely a judge somewhere _must_ realise the complete and utter stupidity of this... I think it's a plot by the lawyers... If they can sue everybody on the net, then everybody requires a lawyer...
Maybe the soothsayers are right... Maybe this is the armageddon coming for Y2K. A poor decision by the judge here could badly hurt the whole internet...
By the way, if you're wondering who this Emmett Plant bloke is (I doubt he's related to Egg Plant, but I bet he's heard that before...
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
i read most of the legalese the other day, but didn't follow the 1000 or so messages here, so i'm wondering if someone can clear this up for me: why aren't the DVD people suing xing? that's where the breakdown in the trade secrets happened (decss supposedly happened because xing was negligent with their key & from my reading of the legalities of trade secrets, they're the ones negligent in letting it slip out -- they're the ones who signed the agreement, etc.) xing should be suing the decss authors because they "broke" the (bogus, imho) "no-reverse engineering" clause in their license. and that doesn't even start to get into the linking legalities issue...
Excuse me, fellows, but is Slashdot a member of The Press or not? Are these lawyers trying to suppress press activity in bothering Slashdot?
While we're divulging trade secrets, the coke recipe isn't too complicated. The only secret part are the flavors added to it (the "vegetable extracts" as they term it in Europe)...
And those are simple -- they're kola nut extract and coca extract. That's why all the other colas taste like Pepsi, not Coke. Coke is the only company allowed to use the coca plant extract. From my understanding, they purchase it from some company in New Jersey which has an exclusive arrangement with the US Government to import something on the order of 500 tons of coca leaves which are chemically processed to destroy the cocaine. The extract is sold to Coke in some exclusive arrangement.
So there you go, now we all know how to decrypt DVD's and make Coke.
Of course, when you say you can use coke's formula if you figure it out, that's not the case because no one else can import the coca leaves, or you rot in jail for the rest of your life.
since lawyers representating the plaintiffs could be reading Slashdot.org
:)
I hope they are, they might learn something.
As for pulling slashdot, that is as likely as deja.com losing it's domain because of slanderous comments on usenet.
If, in some strange twist of fate that does happen, I would not want to be in the plaintiff's shoes. They would be pissing off a lot of intelligent, computer savvy folks. Not to mention our growing script kiddie population
Finkployd
How many of you really watch movies on your computer?
Maybe I am weird, but I would much rather have the comfort of my couch.
A quality DVD player is available nowadays at $300 dollars... is that outrageous?
While I fully support and side with the individuals being threatened here, I tend to think both sides are over-reacting. Obviously, pirated DVD's are not the advent of a social apocolypse as the industry claims... but neither is this quite the "fight to save our individual freedoms" as many on this site so loudly proclaim.
As someone pointed out yesterday: We could never watch VHS tapes on our computers... what is the huge deal!?
Every article I have read about this makes me grind my teeth. The DeCSS is always referred to as either a "DVD Copy Program" or a "DVD Pirating Program". Never is any mention made of the project to bring DVD to Linux. We all come across as a bunch of evil pirates out to destroy the All-American Movie Industry.
Here is a suggestion to put the Slashdot Effect to good use: everyone write your favorite media outlets. Tell them what this is really about. This has nothing to do with piracy, it has everything to do about freedom. The same freedom that allows them to publish their websites and newspapers.
I think the purpose of this legal action is to frighten everyone into submission. I don't think the DVD Consortium knows what they have stepped into, however
I can't be at the courthouse, but I am there in spirit anyway!
Don't throw your computer out the window, throw the Windows out of your computer!
This is disappointing, if only because it is doomed to fail. How many people here will change their computing habits if a decision were made outlawing DeCSS? Infact, how many people might start a development effort outside this country? The legal system is largely ineffective in dealing with this - witness the huge crypto debate. There is none: the world has crypto, and the US looks like a bunch of jackasses for trying to stop it. They didn't even put a dent in the flow of information out of this country. China isn't doing much better either - and they have thousands of firewalls and even more people dedicated strictly to censoring the internet. Information still gets out. There solution seems to be "kill anyone exhibiting independent thought online!" - history has, and will again, show that such tactics are ineffective.
This trial will be of no consequence to the community at large.... nothing will change except the amount of money exchanged over the matter. however, there is a question of moral obligation: should we help these people? Do we have an obligation to support people who risk their livelyhood to give us our freedom? This is, in my mind, the heart of this matter.
Having read the cover letter and the text of the complaint I was wondering if the DVD CCA peeps have cited themselves in their complaint for producing such an excellent resource for people like us who wish to mirror the source code and other material.
Thank you.
We are not pirates, nor do we encourage the illegal duplication and/or distribution of copyrighted works. We are, however, citizens of a country based on the principles of personal freedom and trust of common man. We believe that it is morally and legally acceptable to have the right to manipulate digital media, media which we have bought and paid for, in the ways we see fit. We believe that it is within our rights, and is morally acceptable, to view and store this media in the ways we choose; be in on a DVD disk, our computer's hard drive or recorded to a VHS tape; from a hardware DVD player, the Windows operating system or the Linux operating system. These are the rights we are fighting for. We believe that the authoritarian acts of the RIAA and DVD CSS should not be stood for, they are immoral and unjust. We do not believe that anyone should be able to tell us that we can only view a movie from a computer which they have choosen, or save that movie only in the way they dictate. We also believe that if there is a tool which allows such freedoms, we should have a right to use it, to tell others about it and to distribute it. We do not believe that someone should be able to command that we cannot tell or distribute this tool simply because it is not within their corporate strategy.
-----
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
How many of you really watch movies on your computer?
That is not the issue here. The issues are:
- Can we legitimately try to implement such a player if we want to?
- Can we talk about that implementation?
- Can we link to it?
By posting about it here, by the way, you are covered in the restraining order. You just involved yourself in the legal fight.
Now do you understand why this is so serious?
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
The mirror list at http://www.humpin.org/decss/ is about twice the size of when this legal fiasco started.
Consider setting up a mirror! I emailed 'humpin@humpin.org' to tell them of mine. One advantage for me is I included the DVD code & mirror in my online class materials at UNC - hopefully this will be a more defensible position, if the poop hits the fan.
...but I still think it's a bad thing when a man is threatened with death for writing it.
In other words, it's about a point of principle. It's about making sure the precedents go our way. It's about speaking out for the DVD people so they'll be there to speak out for us, and establishing now that we want the freedoms they're trying to take away from us, whether we were going to use them for watching DVD movies or for something else.
In that sense it is precisely a fight to save our individual freedom and no scare quotes are needed. It's a little disturbing to see how rare understanding of the very idea of a point of principle is.
--
Xenu loves you!
No.
They don't have a reasonable case or position. They can threaten - they are threatening, but the threat is much more of a bluff than a threat. If you back down the instant that someone says, "Boo", then what value does your right to speak up have?
Sincerely,
Ben Tilly
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
But that's pretty unlikely; the corporate takeover hasn't preceded that far yet. Of course, the bastards want us to fear that it could happen. They want us to be afraid to speak against them, lest we be crushed beneath high-powered legal teams.
In fact, this smacks so heavily of FUD I must question the poster's motives. Are you involved with one of the plaintiffs?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Like most of the people in the world, I do not live anywhere near California. So I cannot go to the court house to protest it.
So, I want to know: Is there anything the rest of us can do to support the opposition to the repression of the DVD Forum? Can we start an Internet petition to indicate our support? Something along the lines of the Blue Ribbon Campaign of the EFF?
Are people contacting their local news agencies, and explaining why the DVD Forum is in the wrong?
Is there an address (snail mail) at the DVD Forum we can write to complain? (I want snail mail because email is ignored too easily.)
The DVD Forum will only win if this stays small. A hundred thousand angry consumers will fold them right quick.
We need to move on this, people.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Why do people always start off a statement with IANAL? It seems to me that we as a society have become dependant on lawyers to tell us what is right and what is wrong. When dealing with the very technical, aren't WE the ones who know "right vs. wrong"? WE are the ones who know what is best technically.
Now, imagine a government where all people were created equal. You didn't have a class of citizens that had "special powers" within the power structure that is the government. (talking about the lawyers here)
The internet is equalizing these powers by making information FREE and EASILY ACCESSABLE. There are going to be battles (like this DVD thing) between those who want to keep the freedoms of speech and information exchange we enjoy, and those with money and power who stand to loose it by free exchange of information.
My point? Don't be afraid to learn about, interpret and question law. The lawyers hold special power in government because the citizens let them. If smart people (like us programmers) learn how the system works, there is no reason we cannot deal with the system ourselves, rather than having lawyers as an "intermediary" between us and government.
Thank you, I'll step down now...
An article on this subject at EE Times mentions Slashdot and the debate over this hearing. The article also has some good links to the DVD CCA's arguments. You can read the article here
--
Gregory J. Barlow
fight bloat. use blackbox.
Gregory J. Barlow
fight bloat. use blackbox.
Are they named? That'd be way too funny. It was only up there for a coupla days, but long enough for a boatload of people to download it.
Ah, CNet, great distributor of contraband.
What you are suggesting is to play right into the hands of the Thought Police and self censor.
NOT WHILE THERE IS BREATH IN MY BODY!
The battle lines are being drawn for the last great struggle for freedom. The genie is out of the bottle, the internet has connected minds in a way that could not have happened previously in the history of humankind, and the Power is feeling very threatened indeed. They are attempting to put the genie back in the bottle, and kill the internet, kill the (dare I say it) freedom to inovate, the freedom to share and the freedom to think.
Use this freedom now to stop this madness from spreading, and start at home now, with your own thoughts.
This attempt, and a whole lot of WIPO must be resisted, and a large dose of Public Disobedience, coupled with strategic law suits, political lobbying and just plain old Writing Code is needed.
Stay strong.
It talks about the speed of current laws in relation to the speed of the internet and legal precidents.
IIRC, the complaint talks about "improper" means or motives for the decryption. A trade secret is protected if reasonable measures are taken to protect it.
"The protection accorded the trade secret holder is against the disclosure or unauthorized use of the trade secret by those to whom the secret has been confided under the express or implied restriction of nondisclosure or nonuse. The law also protects the holder of a trade secret against disclosure or use when the knowledge is gained, not by the owner's volition, but by some 'improper means,' Restatement of Torts s 757(a), which may include theft, wiretapping, or even aerial reconnaissance. A trade secret law, however, does not offer protection against discovery by fair and honest means, such as by independent invention, accidental disclosure, or by so-called reverse engineering, that is by starting with the known product and working backward to divine the process which aided in its development or manufacture." (from Kewanee Oil Co. v. Bicron Corp., a 1974 Supreme Court case.)
Obviously, the DVD brigade wants to make what has been done an "improper means" under the law as opposed to "fair and honest means." (California Law is California Law, and as Professor Froomkin has pointed out, there may be any number of wierdnesses in it. YMMV.)
Andover owns the slashdot.org domain, and it is not the subject of debate. NSI won't even give the blood-sucking lawyers the time of day if they attempt something like that. At most, 'The Management' will be forced to pull all current posts relating to where the DeCSS code can be found under the terms of a preliminary court order.
As no such order currently exists, we can all post as we wish.
.sig: Now legally binding!
from the PDF of the request for an injunction(http://www.2600.com/news/1999/1227-mot. pdf)
PDF Page 8
"29. DVD CCA is informed and believes, and based thereon alleges, that each of the Doe defendants 55 through 72 operate Internet web sites, at the below address, which provide "links" to other web sites which disseminate confidential proprietary CSS information:"
doe#60 www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=547600297.
so sense deja is just a web interface for USENET are they in effect trying to control USENET?
i mean deja is the closest thing to a sue able entity related to USENET right?
Here's the funny thing about encryption. People use encryption because they want to put the security of their data in their own hands without having to get uncle scam involved, right? Now if the DVD forum had done their job and had a decent encryption algorithm created for DVDs they wouldn't be in this mess right now. But they used an incredibly poor algorithm, and they got bit. Deal with it. If someone breaks into my house with a lock pick, I'm not going to go after the company that made the lock pick, I'm going to go after the guy who used the lock pick to commit a crime. Also, if my version of a lock is a dead bolt that goes into a weak wooden door frame, it's pretty much my fault when someone kicks my door in.
I really don't see how publishing information on how to bypass any security protection is any different than publishing information in say, a lock smith magazine (I'm sure they must exist somewhere) explaining how to open the latest and greatest lock. Sure the information can be used for criminal purposes, but it can also be used for perfectly legal purposes, such as when you lose the key to your house and you want to get in without having to break a window.
-matt
Trade Group Files Suit Against All Identifiable Posters of or Linkers to
Linux DVD Hack
EFF Assembling Legal Team to Defend Targets
The movie industry, through its recently activiated Digital Video Disc
Content Control Association (DVD CCA), a trade organization
controlling DVD patents, has filed a lawsuit in California against
dozens of people around the world. who have published information, or
links to information, about the DVD Content Scrambling System (CSS),
on the Internet. As many as 500 defendants could eventually be named.
The DVD CCA claims that the defendants are violating the association's
trade secrets and other intellectual property rights by posting the
source code of (or simply having links to other sites with the source
code of) a legally reverse-engineered means of decoding DVD discs. An
important hearing in the case has been scheduled for tomorrow, Wed.,
Dec. 29, 1999.
Tomorrow's hearing is on whether the judge should issue a temporary
restraining order against the defendants, who have been publishing
information about the DVD content scrambling system in various
locations in the US and worldwide. Any such order, if issued, would
only apply for a few weeks, while the parties argued in court about
whether a permanent injunction should restrict these defendants from
publishing this information for the duration of the court case.
It is EFF's opinion that this lawsuit is an attempt to architect law
to favor a particular business model at the expense of free
expression. It is an affront to the First Amendment (and UN human
rights accords) because the information the programmers posted is
legal. EFF also objects to the DVD CCA's attempt to blur the
distinction between posting material on one's own Web site and merely
linking to it (i.e., providing directions to it) elsewhere.
These defendant individuals have been publishing legitimate, protected
speech, including software, textual descriptions, and discussions of
the DVD CSS. This speech is in no way copied or acquired from the DVD
CCA's trade-secret documents. Copyrights do not give anyone any rights
in "ideas", only in the exact form in which they are expressed.
Trade-secret law only controls people who agreed to keep it secret and
have been told the secret; other people remain free to independently
discover the secret. The ideas being discussed and implemented were
apparently extracted by having an engineer study a DVD product
("reverse engineering it"), which is a legal activity that is not
restricted by any laws in most jurisdictions.
The DVD CCA is trying to shut these speakers down by starting with the
false assumption that reverse engineering is illegal. It is not. If,
for example, the DVD reverse engineering had been done in Santa Clara,
it would be legal under the 9th Circuit Court case Sega v. Accolade.
See also the 1998 US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which provides
specifically in section 1201(f) that reverse engineering of an
copy-protection encryption system is legal for "interoperability",
which is why it was done in this case.
The case itself is organized as a "theft of trade secrets" case; it
doesn't use the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and doesn't appear to
rely otherwise on copyright law. The root of the case is their
allegation that the original reverse-engineering of the DVD CSS system
was "improper" (paragraph 18), "unauthorized" (para. 20), "wrongfully
appropriating proprietary trade secrets" (para. 21), "unauthorized use
of proprietary CSS information, which was illegally "hacked" (para.
22). However, they provide no proof of these allegations, and they are
unlikely to be true. If the original reverse-engineering was legal,
which we believe is true, then the subsequent republication of the
information is also legal, and the case is merely a tool to harass
people exercising their legal rights.
EFF's interest in the case is to protect reverse engineering as part
of First Amendment protected speech. EFF legal counsel Robin Gross,
and pro-bono counsel Allonn Levy of Huber, Samuelson will be at Santa
Clara Superior Court tomorrow morning to represent at least two
defendants, Chris DiBona and Andrew Bunner. EFF co-founder John
Gilmore will also attend at the hearing tomorrow. EFF will at minimum
provide "stop-gap" defense to avoid a temporary restraining order
against the defendants. Following the hearing, EFF will assess the
situation and the level of our involvement.
EFF is committed to ensuring that individuals rights are protected,
and free speech is a fundamental right. It would be a poor public
policy to allow intellectual property owners to expand their property
at the expense of free speech -- particularly when the speech in
question elucidates how companies constrain the distribution of other
free expression.
The technology at issue here is the DVD Content Scrambling System
(CSS), a technical effort to prevent people who have legally purchased
a DVD from making completely legal copies of it for their own use. It
is legal ("fair use") for people to make personal copies of
copyrighted material available to them. (See, e.g., the Supreme
Court's 1984 decision in the "Betamax" case, Sony Corp. v. Universal
City Studios. In that case a movie studio was trying to have all VCR's
banned from the United States because of the potential to "pirate"
valuable movies -- just as in the current case they are attempting to
have all reverse-engineered decoders of DVDs banned. The Supreme Court
ruled that if VCR's have even a single non-infringing use, they cannot
be banned. It is clear that the reverse-engineered DVD CSS has a
non-infringing use, the viewing of DVDs on the Linux operating
system.) The underlying technology is for censorship, for control over
who can communicate what to whom. The DVD CSS prevents people from
making illegal copies -- and also prevents them from making LEGAL
copies, by preventing them from making ALL copies. The publishers are
trying to take away, by technical means, the rights guaranteed to
citizens under the copyright laws of many jurisdictions, including the
US.
The decoder source code at the center of the case, called "DeCSS", was
created (by third parties, not the defendants) to enable Linux
computers to utilize DVD drives and content, since the industry itself
failed to produce the necessary drivers for this operating system. DVD
CCA alleges rather unbelievably that the source code's real purpose is
to enable illegal duplication of DVD discs. The industry association
also misleadingly suggests that the DVD medium is simply a vehicle for
commercial content delivery, when in fact it is a read-write medium
intended to be used as computer storage by computer-using consumers,
just like hard drives or writable CDs.
We believe that the industry is mounting this legal attack merely as a
charade to discourage the widespread adoption of the legally
reverse-engineered information into popular open source software
programs. They knew that their "encryption system" was weak and that
it would not withstand scrutiny, so they kept it secret as long as
possible. Now that it's out in the open, they are wielding legal clubs
against anyone who attempts to write about it or use it, to delay the
inevitable. If they wanted to keep their information secret, they
shouldn't have made millions of copies of it and sold them all over
the world. Instead their tactics have been to follow the inevitable
disclosure by swift oppression, using large bankrolls to send lawyers
against little people. But the little people are part of the Linux
community and the Internet community, which have made billions of
dollars recently, and are not kindly disposed toward oppression.
More information, including case documents, is available at Chris
DiBona's site: http://www.dibona.com/social/dvd/index.shtml
WHAT YOU CAN DO: Show up!
If you're in the SF Bay Area and can make it to the hearing, consider
it "Netizen's Dress-Up Day" on Wed., Dec. 29. Meet at the front of the
Santa Clara County Superior Court, 191 N. 1st St., San Jose, CA, at
8am PST, dressed sharp, to personally attend the DVD case hearing. It
is important that the judge see an unexpectedly large and intent
attendance. The hearing will begin at 8:30 in one of Departments 2, 9
or 12 (uncertain at this time).
We will follow the hearing with a press conference outside the
courthouse, and many attendees will do a group lunch at nearby Havana
Cuba Restaurant.
Watch the wheels of justice grind! Shake hands with the intrepid
lawyers who are working hard to protect our rights! Meet interesting
defendants risking a lot to excercise their rights!
Please make a positive impression on the judge. Don those expensive,
semi-formal duds. Show the court -- by showing up -- that this case
matters to more people than just the plaintiff and defendants.
Demonstrate that this decision will make a difference to society. That
the public and the press are watching, and really do care that the
issue is handled well.
We'll have to be quiet and orderly while we're in the courthouse.
There will be no questions from the audience (that's us), and no
photography there, but the session will be tape-recorded and
transcribed, and you can take notes if you like. Remember that courts
have strict security these days, so don't bring cameras, or even small
pocket knives unless you want them held by entrance guards while
you're in the courthouse.
We realize this is very short notice, and that only locals are likely
to be able to attend, but this case is moving rapidly toward filing
and there is nothing we can do to delay it.
For more information on this gathering, see:
http://www.dibona.com/social/dvd/plan/
DVD Copy Control Association
225 B Cochrane Circle
Morgan Hill CA 95037
EMAIL: john.hoy@lmicp.com
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
The DVD CCA people have picked up one of the best law firms in the business for this kind of thing, from what I have heard. People should not assume that they are stupid or foolish; the default assumption should be that everything is being done for a reason.
;)
Part of this can be seen in the hoops we defendants are having to go through. This sort of temporary restraining order is made to be used in cases where immediate damage is imminent unless the order is passed; this means that it can be rushed through the courts in rapid fashion. The notice of hearing was given only two days before the hearing itself. The hearing was set for 8:30 in the morning there, making it even harder for people acting on short notice to get there in time to defend themselves. This is compounded by the fact that some of the court offices there do not open until 9am; I have been trying all morning to get in touch with the Clerk of Court for reasons which I won't specify here, and have been unable to. Now, I will have to wait to act upon some advice I have received until *after* the hearing has started; and I will not even be allowed to be present in person, because of the short notice given.
Fortunately, we are receiving legal support from numerous people volunteering their services, including one prominent group whom I'll avoid naming here. People are bending over backwards to help us. But it will probably be a long road, as can be seen from the evidence I cite above.
I shall say no more now, to avoid letting something slip that I shouldn't. It's so much fun being under the gun.
I represent the National Weasel Association. My clients are unhappy about being compared to lawyers and are considering court action.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Some 40 years ago, cigarettes were found to be carcenogous and a label was put on the pack saying they were harmful to your health. People ignored the fact and smoked anyways only later to sue saying they didn't know it was bad for them. They won. States sued saying that it cost billions in health care even though they made billions by taxing cigarettes. They sued. They won.
The Second Ammendment protects the right to ban arms, as in military armaments. After trying to nullify the Second Ammendment and failing, the executive branches, federally and locally, are now trying to sue the manufacturers out of business by claiming they make a defective product even though it does exactly what it was designed to do.
Everyone is now seeking to patent everything in sight regardless of how much it took to actually "innovate" it and blatently lying about how unique and "non-obvious" it was to come up with. Now everyone is sueing everyone else over patent infringement involving patents anyone familiar with the area could have thought up in minutes.
If you can't get your way via conventional methods, arm your lawyers and fire away at everything in sight. After all, what do the companies/government have to fear? All of their lawyers get paid whether they bring a case or not... They risk losing quite little in the hopes of winning big... I can't remember the last time I heard of a corporate lawyer being disbarred for bringing a false/misleading case. The corporations government can control public influence with their marketing budgets or by buying up their favorite media outlet( whether outright buying it or making enticing offers like an exclusive interviews). Not to mention our heading towards a plutocracy
Is this what we've come to? Have we become slaves to our corporate masters only to bow down to their orders? How many average people actually understand the gravity behind serious cases like this? Hell, depending on some polls, 20% more people think Clinton should have been impeached last year. A large part of the problem today is the general apathy of the public towards anything that doesn't affect their daily personal lives and the ignorace that the mass have because of their apathy.
How do we get the public at large to wake up and see what's going on around them if they don't care? How do we stop the lawyers from trampling over everyone's rights in sight? How do we remove the bias that the media inevitably has since they're owned by big corporations? What of the precidents these cases set? While important, protesting this single case is just fixing the symptom and not going after the real problem.
Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
Lets boycott the CCA, the RIAA and the assorted other odious associations with similar names. Let us all agree to refuse to do any work for them and to refuse to hire anyone who ever has worked for them. Lets see how far they get with every tech person on the planet refusing to take a job with them.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
So decrypting information that a company wants to keep secret is now illegal? If I send information that I've rot13'ed and someone I don't want to read it rot13's it, can I sue them? Does that mean that I can post a zip file to an anonymous ftp site and specify that nobody unzip it and sue them if they do?
Basically, the consortium is trying to sue someone for creating a tool to read information that they own.
did you ask for the colonel?
Well, if you want the source code, you can't just ask for the colonel. Make sure you ask for "The Colonel's Secret Recipe"
From the complaint, pps. 45, 46, and 47, , for your convenience: "....The DeCSS program ... is a substantial derivation of confidential proprietary information which DVD CCA licenses pursuant to the CSS Agreement....On information and belief, this proprietary information was obtained by willfully "hacking" and/or improperly reverse engineering software created by CSS licensee Xing Technology Corporation ("Xing"). Xing's software is and was licensed to users under a license agreement which specifically prohibits reverse engineering."
This case is not fundamentally about DVD, not about CSS, not about linking, not even about reverse engineering. This is really about the legitimacy of "shrinkwrap" software licenses, and IMO it should be treated as such.
* And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."
Alright, I'm pissed.
My name is splashed over a 20 page legal document stating this and that and that and a whole load of bullshit. DVD cracking will not cause a significant financial burden onto the consortium. They must think these underground crackers have immense resources to market and inform the average consumer of their ability to copy DVDs. Oh wait. People are already doing it anyway. It's called a VHS VCR and an RCA jack. Record -> Play.
What's worse is that since the letter was sent so late (2 days before the legal date!), I was financially unable to travel to Santa Clara, CA to attend said hearing. How the hell am I supposed to get to Santa Clara, CA in 2 DAYS?!!?!? FLy?!? and pay $700 for one-way since it is so close to the day I want to fly??
Second, I never received any hard-copy confirmation of my legal travesty. Hello? Isn't this law somewhere? What if my e-mail account was shut off for the duration of winter vacation? I probably would've had no idea that I might get a TRO against me. They're supposed to send this stuff through the USPS!!!!
Thirdly, I don't know WTF to do! I've removed the files off of my school's site per advice from a friend. And apparently, on the final draft, my name is still on the list of defendants.
Section 2 of DVD CCA vs. McLaughlin, et al. states : "2. The named defendants, and certain Doe defendants, continue their unauthorized posting of proprietary information -- which they either obtained by improper means or knew or should have known was obtained by others by improper means -- despite the fact that cease and desist letters were sent to their web sites demanding that such proprietary information be taken down from their sites..." If this was filed half an hour ago today, and I've had my site down since Tuesday, shouldn't I be exempt from the action?
I don't know what to do. Can someone with a legal background tell me what I _can_ do?
-- adraken
I think a stronger argument is that you really don't need DeCSS to copy DVD's. This is what they are aledging by calling DeCSS "DVD Copying/Pirating Software".
You can copy the DVD by downloading the raw data from the drive to the hard disk. Don't need DeCSS for that. Need DeCSS to read the file.
If we had burners of sufficient capacity, we could just burn the raw image to the drive with the encryption entact.
This shit really pisses me off. I'm normally pretty restrained when I'm posting here, but these are just fucked up tactics that were used on us in like 2nd and 3rd grade. I'd like to think that as a society we've gotten past them, but things like this keep getting dragged out again and again. "The hackers and/or crackers are ruining things for you. We will single them out and you won't get your new media format as quickly." This way the uninformed (which is the vast majority of the American populace) will believe that they're missing out on something, and distrust us.
The thing that really burns my toast here (ow, quit scraping) is the idea that we're somehow missing out on something by waiting for DVD Audio. Great, another digital audio format, just what we've all been begging for.
This gets into the real reason why MP3 and digital music in general scares the crap out of the music industry -- they can't ream us for new media anymore.
I have a couple of CD's that I also have on cassette and also on Vinyl. Hell, I even have a couple of 8-tracks that match other formats. What does this mean? It means that every 4 or 5 years the recording industry gets to sell you the same product *again*. The electronics industry gets to sell you an expensive player for a new format as well. Big, repeatable, mass-industry bucks for changing formats every couple of years.
The delay of DVD audio, to me, is a good thing. It gives the rest of digital formats time to mature, and may even be delayed long enough for the first DVD audio devices on the market to be recordable.
The first ones won't be recordable, though, since selling player-only units for a few years will generate revenue, then everyone will have to replace those units with recordable ones. That should keep the revenue streams pretty solid for a few years while the latest, hottest new formats are developed and we have to start all over again.
Meanwhile, for decent quality digital audio files we've got MP3 and SHN... And look, these data files don't become obsolete... "You mean I can archive this stuff? I won't have to buy a new cassette/CD when this one gets scratched? How will the recording industry survive?"
Well, their greed is limitless, and they'll never starve. They'll manage to bleed billions from the actual artists who create the recordings and the fans who enjoy the sounds.
YAMS (yet another mirror site). http://everest.debian.net/dvd. Get the bits while they're hot. I'm not afraid of lawyers.
Andrew G. Feinberg
I understand that there are agreements on such issues between countries, however, I can imagine that they must include provisions for fairness of trials. And how can it be fair when the suing party files the suit in California, for example, and the defending party is in Austria? Besides, in criminal cases, I know that most countries won't extrade (sp?) the convict if he's a national.
I get an itchy feeling at the base of my skull every time I see trade secrets mentioned in these discussions.
I went to look at The EFF's Announcement and they, too say that "The DVD CCA claims that the defendants are violating the association's trade secrets and other intellectual property rights...".
The distinguishing characteristic of a "trade secret" is that it is a secret! The only protections for trade secrets are that a company may require the signing of a non-disclosure agreement before giving someone access to information that contains trade secrets. All this does is provide a mechanism to penalise that signatory if by overt act or negligence on his/her/its part the information is disclosed and therefore no longer secret.
The "owner" of the secret information has a cause of action in this case against the party who violated the NDA, but it ends there. There are other mechanisms (copyright, patent) designed to allow information to be publicly disclosed but still protected. Once a company chooses to go the route of trade secrets, they have to accept that in the case of breech, they have no lasting claim on exclusive use of the information.
So, if the DVD CCA pushes this aspect of their case, they should fail miserably. As to their "other IP rights," they'd better have patents or be able to demonstrate copyright violation if they want to get traction.
A failure of the judicial system to uphold the partitioning of IP protection schemes that has been put in place (as would be the case if the DVD CCA prevails) would be a serious breech of public trust, and would have far-reaching implications for IP in the USA in general. Since much of law is based on precedent-guided interpretation, a judgement in favor of the DVD CCA would essentially destroy the old meaning of trade secret and install in its place a new tool that behaves like a trade secret until/unless illegally disclosed and then behaves like a combination of copyright/patent thereafter. Very dangerous, indeed!
I believe it was said elsewhere on Slashdot, but it bears repeating here: The only trade secret defendant the DVD CCA should be permitted to pursue is the company that did not take reasonable steps to keep the information secret (presuming that can be demonstrated).
perl -e 'srand(-2091643526); print chr rand 90 for (0..4)'
Has anyone noticed that the media keeps referring to those who wrote this software as "hackers?" Yes, this does meet our definition of hacker, but at the same time portrays them in a bad light. Last night I spoke to Mike Mussgrove, the Washington Post reporter linked above. His article is no better than any of them, even after we discussed the whole reason for the software existing. Even after we agreed that it was not for piracy but for watching DVDs with Linux, he only stated that at the end of his story after numerous references to "allowing people to copy DVDs" and "cracking the encryption that prevents piracy". How can we trust the media if they always spin the story against us?
Andrew G. Feinberg
You sound like some gun loving wacko spouting off what some dead white guy said.
All that stuff isn't revelant in today's world. Safety is the most important thing we can have. I'm refering mainly to safety from ourselves, not oppressive govermments (that way we can dismantle the armed forces and still sell weapons to countries that hate us)
Besides, if you are trying to claim some "essental liberty" it's only because you have something to hide.
Finkployd
And if you've bought a new car recently, you hear such things as "You have to have the oil changed here, because the local grease monkey can't do it right without our company training" and "don't be tempted to give anyone a jumpstart - a power surge could destroy all your onboard computers causing thousands of dollars of damage".
Soon you won't even be able to lift the hood without the special company certified and distributed key. Reminds me of the special "case-cracking tool" Apple/Mac repair shops had to use to open the one piece beige toasters of yesteryear.
The Courts need to be made aware of the true motivation behind this lawsuit, which seems to me to be about protecting the regionalization of DVD, and keeping a stranglehold on who is allowed to manufacture a DVD Player, and not about copying at all. After all, all it takes to copy a DVD is to burn the exact same bits onto another disk. But, then you'd need an approved player for it to do you any good. What DeCSS is doing is allowing anyone to manufacture a DVD player (most specifically in software, for Linux) without the permission of the Powers That Be.
This needs to be made clear. The reason that DeCSS is being targetted, is that it would destroy the monopoly on DVD playback Hardware and allow people to obtain DVD players that would play back DVDs made for any Region. This would, of course, force down DVD prices, as cross-region competition would be possible.
Had to comment...
People will only wake up, I'm afraid, when it's far too late to do anything. It may be past that point now. Big business has such a foothold in government (even on the international level -- look at Chevron) and is so, so good at manipulation of the public, the media, and public officials now that the situation seems almost hopeless. How can people be made to know of what's really happening when they're conditioned to accept as canon what they read in the newspaper and see on the local and national news programs? Will they really believe the ramblings of some kooks on the internet, no matter how many of us there are? Hell, even I take everything on the Web with a grain of salt, and I consider myself an open-minded person. What the vast majority of people that will only ever put their faith the old-fashioned media?
The revolution will not be televised, because it isn't going to occur.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
...The DeCSS program ... is a substantial derivation of confidential proprietary information which DVD CCA licenses pursuant to the CSS Agreement....
This is why DVD CCA cares about DeCSS. They don't really care about copies of DVDs, or whether a few Linux geeks meddle with DVD content. They care that DeCSS hits them where they live: their licensing fees.
Admittedly I'm speculating here, since I have no particular knowledge of how the DVDCCA licenses that weak cryptosystem to the DVD player manufacturers and DVD content providers. But let's assume that they get some (per copy?) royalty - or certainly at least some annual licensing fee - from the manufacturers and media companies. Now appears on the scene compatible encrypting/decrypting software that is free of DVDCCA's encumbrances. Kiss those licensing fees goodbye.
The company is going after the hackers, web site owners, et alia now because (a) they're seen as a softer target and (b) to preempt any abandonment of licensing by their existing customers. You can bet that if they waited until clients started switching to DeCSS code to sue (possibly for violation of contract terms?) they'd have a much tougher time of it (or think they would -- I don't think this is going to be as easy as they thought).
I don't know if this angle has been considered by anyone yet, and the hearing is going on right now, but it helps to have a good idea of your opponents real goals when getting involved in something like this.
-- Alastair
Directive 91/250/EEC approved May 14, 1991 contains explicit provisions (look for "Decompilation 1", the document isn't formatted nicely) stating that reverse engineering is absolutely legal when done:
So, it seems that reverse engineering that XING player in order to ensure interoperability with Linux was perfectly legal (in EU), and all the obscurity called for by DVD CCA was just a means to make it difficult for anyone to exercise this right.
As for all European Directives, 91/250 had to be accepted by the various national parliaments before becoming effective. The Italian variant of the directive, D.Lgs. 29/12/92 n. 518, is quite explicit on this respect (see Art. 5, modifications to Art. 64-quater -- in Italian!); I don't know about Norway, though.
Moreover, any contractual clause seeking to limit the rights to "observe, study, and test the software in order to understand its working principles" are deemed void by the law, so even calling that the original license agreement prohibited reverse engineering should not be a valid defense line. This, obviously, holds for Europe. I doubt an US court has any jurisdiction on the people writing DeCSS...
CNN Link: /TECH/ptech/12/28/dvd.crack/index.html
t ml?chkpt=zdnntop
http://www.cnn.com/1999
ZDNet:
http://ww w.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2414488,00.h
These actually are not bad stories.. They don't say what NPR did (that DeCSS is a means of "copying" DVD's and so on). Instead, mostly they say that the suit is BS, since they're nailing sites that reported the news. Not bad reads.
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
This is what had to be done with SSH. Why not make this the de-facto standard way of handling crap like this?
My point being: it's not illegal, apparently, to *download* the software in the U.S.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Just how big are the core bits of DeCSS? I remember when the "Munitions T-shirts" with a perl implimentation of DSS came out (Still have mine) some guy went so far as to tatoo the code on his body.
:)
I'd love to see them put a restraining order against someone's tatoo
--- Juggle juggle@hitesman.com
ABC News has a similarly slanted story on the DVD lawsuit.
Read the article, and then go complain about it.
Finding God in a Dog
I know it's been done alot already, and I'm probably to late to make a difference, but you can find decss here, tastefully mirrored from cubicmetercrystal.com.
--BlueLines "The cost of living hasn't affected it's popularity." -anonymous
For instance lawyers cannot be made to testify about conversations with their clients. That is not generally true. For instance a number of priests are today in jail because they refused to repeat what was said in confession.
Cheers,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
Let's see if we can wrap up the essential arguments.
Here's what the DVD CCA claims:
The DeCSS writers used Xing drivers, thus agreeing to a license agreement that specifically forbids reverse engineering, to illegally break into the encryption scheme, thus making DVDs copyable. Since the only reasonable use of DeCSS would be to copy DVDs, they have acted against the DMCA prohibition on devices that circumvent copyright protection. Further, the defendants that provided sites and links were providing those sites and links for the sole purpose of encouraging the circumvention of copyright protection, also in violation of the DMCA.
Did I miss anything? Does the DMCA also stipulate situations under which TROs must be issued on *suspicion* of violation?
Here's the defense argument:
1. The Xing license agreement is not enforceable, as it asks every member of the general public to effectively participate in a non-disclosure agreement, as it was not explicitly negotiated during the purchase, and as it consigns rights one-sidedly to Xing. This license should thus not prohibit reverse engineering.
2. The action of cracking the encryption scheme is reverse engineering, not theft of trade secrets, as the DeCSS writers were not privy to any information not available to any consumer of the DVD player. Reverse engineering has been repeatedly upheld as a fundamental means of ensuring competition, and as inducement to patent.
3. Once the reverse engineering had been accomplished, the trade secret had been revealed, and any claim to ownership of that secret forfeited, so no one who disseminates DeCSS is guilty of industrial espionage, either.
4. Although DeCSS itself was written for copying DVDs in Windows, the secrets obtained (the cracked encryption scheme) and disseminated (as source?) by the DeCSS writers, makes it possible for the first time to *use* DVDs under Linux, which is a legitimate, non-copying use of the technology. Thus, any TRO should not prohibit use of the encryption scheme for driving DVD players in Linux.
5. Most of the defendants were largely interested in the legitimate Linux-player use of the technology, as the logistics of storing, trading, and "printing" DVD images currently makes it inconvenient for a casual copier, and unprofitable for any would-be pirate. Thus, these defendants should not be punished or restrained from disseminating the technology.
6. The untested DMCA prohibition on creation of a copyright-circumvention device is a breach of the precedents of fair use, which allow copying for purposes of backup and convenient use, and should not be enforced.
7. Some defendants only reported on these technologies and the means to obtain them. As these defendants' acts were in keeping with their broader editorial goals, any restrictions on their actions would constitute undue restraint on press activity.
8. Some defendants only provided an unedited public forum for discussion of these technologies, and cannot be held accountable for the expressions of participants in the forum.
In short, the DeCSS authors had the right to reverse engineer, the right to make a copying device, the right to make it possible to create a Linux-based player, and the other defendants had the right to disseminate these technologies, derive other technologies from them, provide infomation about them, and harbor discussions of them.
Did I miss any arguments here?
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
Do you plan to set up IP blockades of whole nations (an act of war)?
All of these produce the same effect; however, only type two is a direct link. The others will ultimately result in you having the same information. So, how do we decide which of these functionally equivalent forms is the illegal one?
And to ask a broader question, where the hell do they get off trying to ban reverse engineering anyway? If it weren't for the reverse engineering of computer technologies, the California economy would still be where it was was in in 1977.
--
This is not my sandwich.
CNN has set up one of their polls. Let them know what you think.
http://www.cnn.com/19 99/TECH/ptech/12/28/dvd.crack/index.html
Pork is not a verb
I propose a new acronym:
IANASM
I am not a smart man.
eg.
IANASM, but I do know what love is.
IANASM, but maybe Bill Gates isn't so bad.
IANASM, but I prefer the GPL because I don't want this software I've created to ever becom proprietary.
IANASM, but I believe the benifits of BONOBO (sic? IANASM) are worth the extra wait.
IANASM, and therefor, I still use Windows exclusively.
An alternative would be TWBMDB.
This Will Be Moderated Down But
TWBMDB I prefer the BSD license. It's more free.
TWBMDB I like KDE. I prefer the OO approach to the desktop.
TWBMDB I like karma and I don't care if you don't.
an internet petition is pointless. Who are you going to be petitioning? The DVD forum? the film association? why would they care? any petition would be operated and signedby consumers. The DVD forum and the film association have made it abundantly clear by everything they do that what consumers want does not matter one iota to them. And why should it? They have a monopoly. If the consumer wants a decent-quality copy of The matrix, there is no alternate source. Therefore whether the consumer likes or is directly hurt by any actions of the DVD forum is completely irrelivant.
Following the blue ribbon campaign is a _much_ better idea, but should be done along slightly different lines: instead of placing a simple GIF image on all pages, place the GIF image _and_ a copy of the DeCSS source on all pages. Think about it. Set up the "ribbon" so that underneath it is a link "download DeCSS from this mirror location", and have it mirrored on that server along with the webpage.
If this got any amount of support, it would make the efforts of the DVD forum to prevent people from having the right to the free speech (source code) of _describing_ how to go about performing the action of decoding CSS-- not doing it themselves, not distributing a tool to do so, but _describing_ the method-- pointless. If a sufficiently large number of people are mirroring the CSS code in an organized manner- and in the process linking back to some page explaining _why_ the DVD forum has no right to complain-- they will be powerless.
The DVD forums only weapon is to put people in court knowing that the other side cannot afford the expense of hiring a lawyer and being placed in court, that simply being sued is more effective than losing a lawsuit. But if the number of defendants is sufficiently huge, then the DVD forum will be unable themselves to handle doing this to all of them.
What this problem needs is visibility to the general public, not a large show of support. People-- people in general, not just slashdot readers-- need to know _what_ the DVD forum is doing and _why_ it is wrong. If we as a community do _anything_ about this, it must be something to get this issue into the light, to make it visible so that the legal system cannot any longer ignore the ability of corporations to win any battle simply by threat of lawsuit.
start shit.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
guys, /. but if any of the guys concerned want to send me a copy of the injunction (restraining order) I'd be interested to see how shaky their legal grounds are. It is not as clear cut as some people here think, the issues are broad and revolve around the extent to which an innocent third party can be restrained from publishing research.
/. or net!)
for the most part I lurk on
The position in the UK is different to an extent in the US from the UK but I may be able to provide some input/advice.
Any takers?
(sorry if the info is already published - I dont have time to rest of
Dave
-he who laughs last, is a bit slow.
journal
Simple senario:
Some guy's standing outside a bank, saying he'll tell you (if you want) the combination to the safe in the bank. You say you want it, and he gives you the combination. You go inside the bank, use the combination to open the safe, and you take the money. Who's at fault?
First of all, the guy stealed from the bank (obviously). He's definately at fault. Now, the big question is what about the guy who had the combo to the safe?
Here's the legal standpoint: if the guy passed around the combination with knowfull intent that it would be used to rob the bank, he is involved in the crime and is therefore part of the guilty party.
So, was the crypto found with knowfull intent that it would be used for illegal purposes? I don't know, but in most hacks, that's the case, especially when the key is made public and passed around the internet.
Yes, it was quite ignorant that the key was left open with very light encryption, but even so, the fact that the key was encrypted means that CSS had no intent of showing this off to the public, aka, a trade secret. Legally, forcefully breaking an encryption is the same as theft (aka breaking into) when it comes to trade secrets, patents, and copywrites. I'm sorry, but it looks as if things are weighing towards CSS.
The person who posted the code in Norway was a minor. He's not even competent (in the legal sense) to enter into a contract (such as an EULA). As a result, he can disavow the contract at any time.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
The usual industry solution to muddled claims of "trade secrets" (and copyright, BTW) is to run a clean-room exercise. Now, as I understand it, CSS is so insecure that a brute-force crack based entirely on published (as in indisputably legit hardcopy) data would only take hours to days on modest hardware, and once one key is available all keys are readily obtained.
Kewl.
What say someone undertakes exactly that? Work up the brute-force crack code in a clean room, then be prepared to actually crack the sucker right in open court or at least before witnesses. Publish the keyfinding code right in the Court's own transcript. Let 'em censor that!
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Actually, I didn't even know about it. I just thought the whole coca leaves thing was interesting... and a very non-widely-known fact.
So now we're even closer to the recipe... Pretty soon even the soft drink companies will quake at the mention of Slashdot!
That said, what's up with Madacy? That's the 2nd time you mentioned the shoddiness of their films. Something I should know about?
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
This is not a case of reverse engineering! Reverse engineering is where you take something created and break it apart to find what it's made out of. If I owned a Pizza shop and had a recipe for a pizza of mine, and someone from another company ordered my pizza, found out the ingredients, and made his own pizza with the same ingredients, that's reverse engineering.
The key was encrypted. It was forcefully broken. Encryption is just like a safe. If it's broken into, it's forceful intrusion, not "reverse engineering".
Quit whining about "but it's like making a math problem illegal!" That's a bunch of bullshit. Encryption isn't a simple "math problem." If someone broke into a bank safe by logically figuring out the combination, can he say it's just a simple "math problem" and walk away scott free?
You will not find the spin you want from the TimeWarnerTurners, ABCDisneys, and Viacoms of the world because they are precisely the people behind the DVD consortium. They are content producers on a mammoth scale, and they control the major news outlets. Conflict of interest? Sure, but you'll never see THAT reported.
/. so regularly - even the narrow demographic it attracts provides a greater spectrum of opinion (via the comments) than one EVER sees from the traditional "media outlets" (hence the term, OUTLET).
This doesn't excuse the Washington Post or NPR getting it wrong (given that they're both quasi-independent newsgathering organizations, not owned by the same parent companies as the large studios), but how often do you see them seriously take a different viewpoint on a given story vis-a-vis CNN or ABCNews or MSNBC?
That's why I come to
I wonder what Noam Chomsky would have to say about this...
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Please just remember, that all material you send to them can and WILL be used against us - if possible! During the $cientology wars the $cn-lawyers have used many time for their benefit Usenet flame-messages with rather vulgar language which looked very bad in courtroom...
Scn court file archive
"$cn vs. Net"
How to support the fight
V, just my 2 euro-cents..
.signature not found
If we had burners of sufficient capacity, we could just burn the raw image to the drive with the encryption entact.
This is not true. The drive will not physically read all of the sectors present on the media until it has been authenticated. The resulting files are encrypted with no means to derive the key necessary to decrypt them.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
(See the link under recently completed)
ufdraco
"
Yeah, It's all over. There's a lot sold around 12th and Main.
first man:
You're busted."
I don't know if you're being hypothetical here, but there are plenty of people in prison for telling an undercover cop where they might be able to get drugs. A few have gotten "mandatory maximum sentences" and are fairly well known cases.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Here the link to that article.
If someone broke into a bank safe by logically figuring out the combination, can he say it's just a simple "math problem" and walk away scott free?
That is a terrible analogy, in order to 'break into' a bank, requires physical trespass. Cracking an encryption code does not require any sort of physical entry. Despite all of the mumbo-jumbo on license agreements, most people who buy CD's, videotapes, DVD's, etc, believe that they physically own the media when they buy it. Telling people they can't do a brute force crack of encryption keys on a DVD they own is like telling someone who buys a bank building that they can't open up the bank vault.
Your analogy is also weak by the point that if someone physically removes valuables from a vault, the owner physically loses them. In the case of DVDs, if someone cracks the code on a DVD they own so that they can view the contents, it is not denying the owner of anything. The owner would only lose if someone who owned a DVD gave a copy of the contents to someone who would otherwise have paid for them. While cracking DVD encryption may technically make that easier, it certainly is not a necessary outcome of it, nor is it the only way that such a 'theft' can occur.
I think that's closer to what the DVD hackers are attempting to do. AFAIK, they're not copying or altering licensed Windows players; they're creating their own from scratch, using decryption keys obtained by other people who looked at the Xing player for Windows.
Number one, you don't have a "right" to determine whether something is wrong.
That is a very frightening belief, my friend. If I don't have the right to determine whether something is wrong, who does? Do you hold that power?
Bravo! Absolutely. I always have to right to determine if I believe something is wrong or not. That is one of the core principals of being an adult is about. Children are told what is right and wrong. Adults reason out why something is wrong or not. I don't know about you, but I'm an adult. Anyone who tries to tell you you can't decide for yourself what's right and wrong is deranged, stupid, or selling you something.
I just got back from the hearing. During the hearing I did a head count. There were 40 individuals in the spectator area of the court-room, and it appeared (from conversations, T-shirts, etc.) that all were showing support for the good guys. In addition, there were a gaggle of lawyers for the DVD-CCA (I counted five, but they were flitting about so much it is hard to be sure), two lawyers for the defendants (one from the EFF), and one named defendant.
The judge said he'd try to make his decision by this afternoon. Keep your fingers crossed.
-Steve
Democracy is a poor substitute for liberty.
If the encryption is in the CPU, the key would have to be tied to the processor.
Some 'Smart Card' processors do exactly that now. It's done so that nobody can read it's data/keys off by probing the data lines on the bus while using the card. They could get around the upgrade issue by having a couple of generations of keys stored in the CPU.
In the case of the smart card, it's justifiable for security reasons, but if a CPU manufacturer comes out with such crap in a general purpose CPU, I sincerely hope that marketing and sheeple can't overcome sane resistance.
If I read the injunction correctly, some of the defendants are not US Citizens, nor US residents...
How can this filing be relevent to them? Surely there should be a filing in each defendants own country?
This sig left unintentionally blank.
The drive will not physically read all of the sectors present on the media until it has been authenticated.
That is only true for consumer units. Professional units can read/write anywhere on the disk. The content had to be put there somehow in the first place.
The upshot is, the consumer gets no fair use, and the professional pirate just has to be sure to sell enough bootleg copies to make back the $30,000 cost of a professional unit (unless it's stolen).
Sorry to say, it may be as bad as you say. Just the passing of the DMCA, the allowance of software patents, and the auctioning of the wireless spectrum speak to that.
But...
Actually, I think there's a race going on, and it's quite an interesting one, between the free and nimble and the big and powerful:
Access to global communications has made it possible to disseminate information, evade censorship, and achieve impressive results with decentralized orgnizations, but...
That same technology has made it possible to send a unified message to everyone in the world, to wield power with greater reach, to consolidate power more thoroughly, to deliver the resources of power to tackle greater obstacles and enemies, and it has allowed the well-situated providers and enablers of the technology to become the most powerful.
Access to capital markets and market information has empowered individuals to hold greater sway over corporations, and has made it possible to directly translate damage to a company's reputation into financial damage. Also, concerns over profitability and growth potential has caused large companies to shatter themselves into networks of independent, competitive suppliers. But...
The leveling of barriers to foreign ownership and investment have made creation of worldwide conglomerates possible, and the capital market's demand for market share has driven unprecedented acquisition. And the development of the virtual corporation has made intellectual property the most vital, all-powerful, asset of large corporations.
Global trade provides unprecedented access to markets by the smallest companies, but it allows unprecedented abuses by the largest.
It's an odd paradox: the awesome potential unleashed by decentralized cooperation and communication is making powerful central institutions even more powerful and centralized.
The question is: will the most powerful use their power to change the rules in the middle of the game, or will they refrain from killing the goose that lays the golden egg long enough to become powerless?
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
Regardless of the number of laws and restraining orders and judgements one acquires. The item in question will still be legal somewhere on the planet. Can we agree on this? And since a site in Brasil/Taiwan/Nauru whatever is *just* *as* *readily* *accessible* as any other, how can the DVD consortium have any *reasonable expectation* of stopping distribution of DeCSS and its ilk?
/. posting can prevent the extraterritorial application of IP law where permitted. Conduct, even though it may have been legal abroad, may result in an action or criminal cause domestically in many cases. This is a deep and complex body of law -- do not try to do this at home. Though the data may live abroad, always ask this question, where's the beef?
No number of asterisks in a
At the end of the day, you can move your data anywhere in an instant, and serve it from anywhere you like. Nevertheless, serving that data into (or exporting it from) the U.S. (and its damned hard to avoid doing that) creates a basis for liability if jurisdiction can be obtained, whether by treaty or otherwise. If any of your property or body (the beef) lives in the U.S., they'll have you for lunch.
There is quite a bit of case law in copyrightland, in particular, concerning whether a defendant can be liable for authorizing infringing activity abroad from some transaction (like a phone call) made from inside the U.S.
EVERY scenario in this arena is highly law- and fact-dependent, and there are some things that can be done that may avoid liability or criminal responsibility. But most people don't want to export their meat (and any property they'd want to keep) as well as their data. Failing to do at least that, it would be highly foolish to undertake any such conduct without solid advice of counsel. And even if you did, it would still be a fine idea to get advice to make sure you are liability- and responsibility-clear.
Sigh.
I wasn't talking about legislative rights. I was talking about being a functioning human being. Sure if I decide killing people is a great idea, and go on a killing spree. That's a 'Bad Thing'. And since it against the law, you will be locked up/executed/whatever for it. But I have the right to do this anyway, no one can take it away, and no one can grant it. There is a large difference between making a decision in my mind about how I feel about something, and picking up a gun and blowing away.
Every day you make moral judgements all by your lonesome. Some people get all there rules by adhering to a religious code, other's read kant, whatever.
There is no "right" written anywhere that says you have a "right" to play DVDs on Linux.
Actually it would seem to me that the fair use clause would apply here. I own the disk, no one said I had to use their exclusive players to look at it. Of course there's no constitutionally protected right to 'watch dvd's on linux'. But there is no damn reason I should not be able to (except corporate greed/stupidity).
Just link to the court documents! Let their lawyers do your legwork for you. They cannot make it illegal for you to post a public document of the court!
I think I agree. They accessed the crypto key somehow, and most licence agreements disallow disassembly, which I presume was used at some stage in the process. Anyone using the crypto key could therefore be handling stolen intellectual property, so they may be able to make a case. Telling someone where drugs can be acquired has many precedents for convicton, so if all the above are true, then slashdot may have a lot of maintenance work to do.
The key was encrypted. It was forcefully broken.
No, I don't think it was, someone forgot to encrypt their key.
So there's a chance that another company can legally release CSS information now. (In fact, Creative may have done this. I know their Dxr2 drivers had some CSS-related files - did these include the full algorithm, and did they originate in any way from DeCSS? I'm pretty sure the Dxr2 does CSS in software...)
Apparently Creative hasn't released the same DVD decryption algorithms or keys. I found this in the "css.h" file in Creative's source code:
"And now, a quick note about CSS and this software: Although this program permits playing of encrypted DVDs, there are no "CSS secrets" contained in it, and none were used in it's construction. No decrypted keys/data are handled by this program AT ANY TIME. The DXR2 card does all the CSS decryption on-board, in hardware. All this program does is permit the exchange of *encrypted* keys and *encrypted* data between the drive and DXR2 card's hardware. The authors are NOT connected, in any way, with any of the "software CSS decryption" programs out there, and *DO NOT* endorse their use in any way. Piracy is a crime! Just wanted to make that ABSOLUTELY CLEAR."
Good thought, though.
-Steve
Democracy is a poor substitute for liberty.
That's because the claim being made is misappropriation of trade secrets not violations of the DMCA.
It may appear to you that DCMA is appropriate, but the lawyers filing the claim have chosen to approach it differently.
Go read one of the filings.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
You assert an Internet petition to show support would be worthless. I don't agree. Now, I don't think a simple petition is going to make all our problems go away. But it will serve to do a number of things. For starters, it will give *us* an idea of just how many people actually do care. Such a number is useful in discussions and debates. Any movement to sign a petition will likely raise public awareness -- always a good thing.
Furthermore, a strong showing of support through such a petition might help our cause. It would be useful evidence if "harm to consumers" is a factor in the court, as it sometimes is. If we get a large enough response, it may get some attention in the industry. Large companies do not like to lose customers, and if they see a large amount of consumer awareness and concern, they may reconsider things. You raise the point that the DVD Forum holds a monopoly; a large consumer movement may bring anti-trust scrutiny to bear on the DVD Forum, and that is the *last* thing they want.
Do I know for sure that a petition will cause these things to happen? Of course not. But I think such a petition gives you a good return on very little investment, and would be worth trying.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
a contract is a contract, no matter where it is signed or who signed it
If it is an EULA accepted by a minor, it is voidable by the minor or his/her parents/guardians. I note that the person to first post DeCSS was a minor.
I'm also not sure that it can be proved that the code was derived by disassembling the Xing driver.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
I was at the hearing this morning but I had to return to the office. It's possible that the judge may have issued his decision on the TRO by now but I'll hear the results online like the rest of you. The EFF made a much stronger-sounding case as far as I could tell - citing precedents and pointing out that it's an issue of reverse engineering and freedom of speech, not a trade secret case. (Of course, DVD CCA says it's entirely a trade secret issue and nothing else.) EFF also pointed out how the DVD CCA's claims were *all* hearsay with no first-person confirmations, which was not challenged (nor conceded) by DVD CCA.
At least on those grounds alone, I think there was not a sufficient case made for a temporary restraining order. But it's hard to know how a judge is going to think. People were sounding pretty upbeat when we went to lunch. Andy Bunner thanked the people who showed up for their support.
Reporters were present from EE Times, Wired, KCBS Radio (SF) and probably others. About 40 geeks were present, many/most of whom undoubtedly wouldn't even be up at 8AM much less arriving in downtown SJ if it weren't this important.
At the bottom of this page is the set of three DVD files. Note the .au domain. Nothing in the US. Enjoy. (Please ignore the rubble, this copy was put up rather hastily.)
AFter watching the EFF for a while, I have finally decided to join based on this case. They seem to have decent insight into what cases are important in setting policy, and have a very good response time to such cases. If nothing else, I just spent $35 in the hope of DVD software for Linux ;-)
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
Yeah, the jerk should have put "IANAMC", for "I Am Not A Movie Critic" at the start.
Hi all. I just got back from the hearing in San Jose. There were about 35 of us in a courtroom with 56 seats. The dvd lawyers seemed quite suprised by the turnout. I brought a bag of 60 floppies which included decss, the source, the letter, and pointers to various online news articles (including /.). Everyone got a floppy (or three), including the dvd guys. The dvd lawyers got a few laughs when they requested that one of the floppies be entered in to evidence, SEALED. Apparently they didn't want copies of the floppy available from the county clerk, as that would surely bring about the ruination of the movie industry. Paper printouts were also circulated and were entered as evidence, again sealed.
The judge said almost nothing during the hearing once the procedural bits were taken care of. He'll send his ruling to the lawyers on both sides sometime this afternoon.
There were a couple reporters at the hearing. Chris Oakes from Wired showed up early and sat through the hearing. His story is here. He misspelled my name though, it's Salsbury. I also chatted for some length with Deborah Kong from the San Jose Mercury. I explained the difference between bit-for-bit copying and decryption and why decryption is not necessary for piracy. Her article will probably be in tomorrow's paper.
There was also a reporter from kcbs 740, I don't remember his name.
After dinner we had lunch at the Habana Cuba. Mmmm, bananas and sheep.
##############################
BTW: I forgot my bag of floppies and a blue jacket in the back of someone's car when we went to Habana. If you find it, please email me at stickman AT altavista DOT net. We can arrange a mutually convienent place to meet, like the hearing on the 14th.
##############################
Ryan
Hot off the press (from Robin Gross, the EFF's counsel on the case):
The judge has denied the motion for a temporary restraining order. More to come soon.
Chris DiBona just posted to the SVLUG mailing list that the TRO has been rejected:
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1999 17:14:19 -0800 (PST)
From: "Chris J. DiBona" <chris@dibona.com>
To: "Derek J. Balling" <dballing@yahoo-inc.com>
cc: svlug@svlug.org
Subject: [svlug] Re: DVD
X-Alternate-URL: http://www.svlug.org
X-Mascot: penguin
X-OS: Linux svlug.svlug.org 2.0.30 #3 Thu Aug 14 14:47:34 PDT 1997 i486
unknown
Just heard that the TRO was quashed. PAss it on!
Chris
--
Linux Community Evangelist, VA Linux Systems
http://www.valinux.com
President, Silicon Valley Linux Users Group
http://www.svlug.org
Grant Chair, Linux International.
http://www.li.org
Co-editor, Open Sources
http://www.dibona.com
On Wed, 29 Dec 1999, Derek J. Balling wrote:
> Have you heard anything about what, if anything, the judge decided?
> What
> happened after court was adjourned, since I had to head off to work? I
> saw
> KCBS there interviewing Rick, et al, out front, but was in too much of
> a
> hurry to get to the office to really stick around...
>
> D
>
> -------------------------------------------------
> Derek Balling
> 408-530-5062
> Technical Yahoo Do You
> Yahoo!?
>
--
echo "unsubscribe svlug" | mail majordomo@svlug.org
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
see http://www.svlug.org/mdstuff/lists.shtml
What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
The EFF (the Electronic Freedom Foundation, www.eff.org) is the legal council for this group. ;-)
They have taken it upon themselves to defend cases that they believe sets important policy for computer related law.
Basically due to this action I have decided to join the EFF ($35 donation, or as much as you please
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
The situation here is analogous to that faced by the developers of Wine - they aren't hacking individual applications, they're reverse engineering the overall system in order to bring about interoperability. The difference is that the CSS code can also be used to facilitate piracy (though DVD piracy is uneconomical).
/pub/mp3, /pub/appz, /pub/gamez, /pub/pr0n, /pub/wine directory structure? ;)
;)
DVD piracy is not only uneconomical, but almost lunatic -- who's gonna run an ftp site that carries decrypted DVD's? For the money you put in to something that requires that much storage & bandwidth, you could have not have only purchased a copy of every DVD in existance, but probably have cash left over to spare.
Plus Bandwidth. Who cares about cable modems, DSL, T1's -- the timeframe for copying ONE movie with one of those goes into the "days" range. Considering the fact that most people do not have high speed net access yet, we can only assume that Johnathin Q. 28.8ModemUser isn't goning to be hunting for decrypted DVD movies on ftp sites anytime soon.
You brought up wine -- we can use wine to run warez copies of applications, can't we? Does that mean wine caters to the warez community? When was the last time you saw a
This is unfortuantely what the DVD people want the public to think -- that we're in this to copy DVD's to make our own profit, or to take away their own profit.
Ironically, they could have made a profit, AND prevented this entire fiasco if they would have LISTENED TO US AND RELEASED A DVD PLAYER FOR LINUX!
Okay, I'm done
==============================
"Moderation is masturbation
What is what, and what makes you feel good"
Thank you very much for your statements!
What I was trying to say (and people seemed to not get it) is that the LAST thing you want to do is make remarks that will be used as evidence by the opposition in a court of law against you. People forget one aspect of the "Miranda rights,"--namely that what you say or write can be used in a court of law against you.
If the plaintiffs in this case had gotten their injunction, they could have used the postings on Slashdot.org as proof that this site should be shut down at once in violation of the injunction. Now, the consequences of this potential action are too ugly to contemplate, to say the least.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
The answer to the first question depends substantially on the particulars of each circumstance. There are complex issues of conflicts of law, jurisdiction, applications of treaties and conventions and the like that cannot be summarized quickly or answered in the abstract.
In partial answer to your second question, WIPO's home page has a list of WIPO-administered treaties, including Paris and Berne, and seperately a very up-to-date list of ratification status of such treaties. Regrettably, these lists include just about every place where you might want to locate the beef.
Then again, the licence agreement may never have been part of the equation. If I buy a CD, and just start dumping it out as hex and/or disassembling the contents, have i broken the licence agreement that I haven't read yet? I am not making a copy for backup purposes, but I am copying their copyrighted material. Then again, reverse engineering for interoperability purposes is allowed. Oh well, the DVD lawyers semed to be floundering, and the EFF (which i just joined) lawyers seemed to know their stuff. Go to it, EFF!