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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.
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)
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.
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
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.
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Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
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...
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.)
The bit that gets my attention is the continued, relentless emphasis on authorization. I mean, in some articles (typically on mp3, naturally) you'll see terms like 'authorized music'! I'm in the process of upgrading my recording studio to record a new album, and at that point I've been planning to release an older album as well, plus some experimental music here and there. I'm more and more convinced I should call the newer album 'Unauthorized Music'! Probably will- there are actually topical songs that would be of interest to slashdotgeeks in there, but more significantly, my releasing this stuff is directly opposed to what the entertainment industry would allow...
And that is where I fit in this equation. It's not about being able to make a backup copy of the matrix (yeesh, as if you can't spring for another copy years down the line if the first one breaks). That's a total smokescreen. What's going on here is a powerplay to control the media, as in physical media. We already pay record industry taxes on blank tapes- purportedly because of copying, but it just so happens that if you're some smalltime musician trying to promote your own music, you're going to pay taxes to the music industry for the privilege of competing with them. Part of your expenditure for tapes goes to the same people you're up against.
This isn't good enough? Apparently not. What I'm seeing with mp3 and the wish for a 'secure' format (and who, pray tell, is to feel this sense of security?) and DVD and the struggles over that 'secure' format (and how secure are they entitled to feel?), is the powerful desire to entirely withhold access to the (hoped-for) mainstream physical media by the 'unauthorized'.
That's me. I am unauthorized.
There was a time when access to the media (vinyl records, reel-to-reel tape recorders) was pretty costly and inaccessible, but it was strictly a matter of price- if you bought the gear, you were good to go, you could try wrestling with other players for distribution and sales just like you were an equal citizen.
Then it was cassette multitracks and the Philips cassette taking over from records. Suddenly, every musician in the world was flooding record company agents with tapes. Most were ignored- but I'll tell you, I've walked down the street and heard a random car drive by with a tape I've produced blaring out the windows. It's a hell of a feeling, that is. You get to produce art that is _used_ and enjoyed by people. At the same time, if you get tapes from stores, they are taxed and the industry's cheap bulk tape is not- below a certain level, you'd have the deck stacked against you financially.
Then it was the CD. At first this was just as forbidding as the vinyl record to produce- you'd pay a lot to get digital mastering done, you'd have to buy CD pressings in lots of 500 or 1000: but startlingly, the technology advanced to where we can now press CDs on our computers just like making cassette tapes one at a time. Anybody who's had a dual cassette deck running for days making 20 copies of their album will recognize what this means. And again, there's the desire by the industry to tax this- purportedly to recoup losses from not selling you the same music 6 times, but also effectively handicapping 'unauthorized' artists and putting a spoke in the wheels of anyone trying to get a competing organisation started. We've come a long way from when you could save up to get an LP mastering lathe and try to be a record company, haven't we?
And now we have DVD. Now we have an increasing emphasis on 'security'. Whose? Well, considering that the direction is toward a world where script kiddies can still copy anything they want, but you can't legitimately start a record company and distribute media without either coughing up millions to a conglomerate for a 'security key', or pirating one for original material and being liable for stealing that key, we are talking about security for monopolists.
We're not talking about the script kiddie being unable to copy the Matrix and never have been- who will prosecute, the same ones who arrested you for making a mix tape for the car? Instead we're talking about a very intentional spoke in the wheels of anyone who wants to be in the business of media. It doesn't affect you, the script kiddy- or even you, the consumer. (you're out maybe 20 bucks in the worst case, having to buy an extra copy of the Matrix. Oh horrors, call Reuters and MSNBC.) It affects anyone who wants to produce original content, or distribute it, or help people do that. It's a roadblock- the ideal end situation here is to have all the DVD players require truly uncrackable encodings that only licensees have access to.
People hear things like that, follow the logic, and then mysteriously can only see how it affects them as consumers. But the direction is clear as day, and there are certain implications I'm spelling out here.
My question is, what exactly gives the recording/movie/etc industry (who are not a government the last I heard) the right to openly, upfront and with the approval of society, set up a situation where anyone wishing to make media for the public can only go through them, or be forced to become a licensor by spending a comparable amount of money for a security key normally sold to huge corporate conglomerates?