Since it wasn't a question that should really be directed at him, I guess we couldn't expect a real answer to the question. Although, if he isn't really a mouthpiece for the Gore campaign, he seems to play one on the Internet. I would have liked to see him at least decide to forward the question to the right person. Just about anything would be better than that lame dodge he wrote.
If I distribute a program, can't I call it whatever I like? As far as I know, the name "DeCSS" doesn't violate any copyrights or trademarks. Why couldn't I name a program that I write "DeCSS?" Why does it have to be plausible?
I bet the government loves people like you...
on
A New DeCSS
·
· Score: 5
Face it danger is not a good thing and I would rather have my pride/honor/respect/and freedom than play DVDs on unsupported OSs.
Yeah, and I'd rather have my freedom than be allowed to drive a car wherever I like without being monitored.
I'd rather have my freedom than be able to view whatever I wish on the Internet.
I'd rather have my freedom than be able to decide for myself what my children should or should not be taught.
I could go on...
Maybe we should all just quit trying to change the things that we think are done for the wrong reasons or that are unjust, or that are just plain stupid. I'm sure it would make things a lot easier for the government if we would all just shut up and do as we're told. Maybe you should get out there and lead the wooly resistance against those who would dare to refuse to let the government or corporations take their rights away without a fight. Baaa! Baaa!
1. Why just 56 bits? the new export regulations specifically exempt encryption used for copy protection from such limitations.
From the look of things in court right now, they don't need to use more than 56 bit encryption. The fact that there is any encryption at all apparently makes it illegal to circumvent it. If the person plans to circumvent it in the first place, then it won't matter much what kind of encryption they use. It won't be good enough. They can just make more criminals out of people this way. We needed a few more jails around here anyway. They'll be full of hackers as well as drug-users soon.
Actually, most of the big-time commercial piracy goes on in other countries like China where the MPAA has no legal recourse. They can't do much about piracy over there unless the foreign governments want to cooperate, which they usually don't want to do in any meaningful way.
That still means that this scheme will do little to stop piracy, but a whole lot to remove the rights of consumers.
I really doubt that preventing piracy is their only or even real goal here. First of all, since this scheme won't do a thing to prevent big copy-houses from pirating, it can't prevent the vast majority of piracy or kill off their illegitimate competition.
The real goal here seems to be the removal of fair use rights from consumers. The movie and music industry leaders must be some kind of evil geniuses. Since they can't have fair use rights completely removed through legislation, and they can't remove them through technology, they were able (with the DMCA) to combine the legal and technological approaches to effectively end fair use. This puts them in a position to make more money through various pricing schemes and pay-per-play style charges. If the customer cannot legally exert any control over the content that he has purchased, then he will be forced to pay more or go without.
Since this flat-out violates the original intent of copyright, it should be illegal. Unfortunately, the original intent is not much defense against the billions of dollars that the movie and music industries can throw at the government. They have effectively been granted monopoly rights to content for longer than any of us will likely be alive, and consumers will receive no benefit from them having this absolute control over the content, even after the sale. We've been sold out by our government. Plain and simple.
I don't buy it. I can't see them passing this thing unanimously. I can see them referring it to a subcommitte unanimously though. It just seems to be the more likely story. Someone said that the bill that the senate passed had an "E" tacked onto the end of its number and that they added language to refer it to committee until December 1, 2000. Then someone else said that it was supposed to go into effect July 1, 2000. I'm not sure who's getting what information from where.
We must have a damn good system in place. We can't even figure out whether a bill has actually been passed or not. There seems to be a lot of conflicting information. Why does one say it's been referred to a committee and another say it goes into effect months before the committee is due to report back?
I guess I should have put rational in quotes. I'm not advocating an irrational approach. I'm saying that this needs to become much more public than it currently is. While there are many specific problems that can be pointed out in the UCITA, that isn't what gets news time. We need to claim that it is anti-consumer and that it should be voted down for that very reason. All the problems with UCITA point to it being anti-consumer, so that's not a false claim. Such a claim is more likely to get news time than someone trying to make a point about how UCITA doesn't adhere to current contract law, or some other argument that is likely to contain much legalese. I'm all for people making those arguments and for them being made visible to the public, but we need to generalize a bit so that people start making the association "UCITA == BAD".
If it locks consumers into a licence like current ones, that basically sound more like a slum-lord rental agreement (no guarantee of service, and you don't own it either, and if you [your computer] gets sick because of it, it ain't their problem) then that's an argument I can make.
This is certainly part of it. UCITA would make EULAs much more enforceable. In its current form, it would probably even allow clauses such as those that prohibit criticism or public disclosure of flaws in the software. I would hope that such things would be overturned in court, but why let it get that far if we can fix it before then?
If all it does it prevent the "warez kiddies" from their little pirate cottage industry, as said elsewhere, then how can you be against that.
If that was all it did, then I'd have no problem with it, except that it would be redundant. What "warez kiddies" do is already illegal under current law, so there is no need for further legislation for that purpose. It would only serve to confuse matters.
Sure, some software may seem overpriced, but it is the right of the company to charge what they want for it, and it is your right not to install it. If you did without paying it, UCITA or not, you just broke the law.
The problem is not the price or EULAs in and of themselves, but the fact that UCITA seems to disregard current contract law and current consumer rights. Some of this is explained in the docs I reference below.
There are a bunch of letters and papers written by various lawyers, consumer organizations, industry groups, and others on this site. Might help you out to read through some of them. Most of them seem pretty well thought out and usually emphasize that one of the worst aspects of UCITA is that it is not based on current law and will cause a lot of confusion and expensive litigation. I think this one, this one, this summary, and this article by Lawrence Lessig were some of the most informative.
Are you saying that there haven't been a ton of people out there already opposing UCITA and offering constructive criticism and alternatives?
Did you read this stuff? If all of this has had no effect, then I'd say the rational approach has indeed failed, and that short of realizing an imminent threat to their reelection, there is probably nothing that will deter the various state governments from passing this legislation. Something must be done to make manifest this threat. Otherwise, this will be quietly passed and most of the country will never realize it until the lawsuits start flying and the initial damage is done. I think that the long-term damage will be much, much worse.
That's the small picture view. Is using DeCSS within fair use guidelines? I would personally agree. However, the big picture is one where just about everything movie ever produced can be reproduced and downloaded in the same way we download a tarball today--and pirated just as easily.
No, that's the current situation, and in the here and now, people are being prosecuted for exercising their rights. I don't give damn if it will be possible for half the net users in the world to download a movie five years from now. It has nothing to do with prosecuting people for publishing or distributing the unpatented CSS decryption algorithm. They had reasons that have nothing to do with what will be possible five years from now. Their acts should be entirely legal. If the government wants to take some real action regarding copyright law in the future, then let it do so, but let's have it be discussed and very visible to the American people. After all, its their rights that are on the auction block.
_Sprocket_ posted this quote from the Betamax case that seems pretty relevant to the DeCSS case.
From the Betamax case (US Supreme Court, 1984, Sony Corporation v. Universal City Studios):
The sale of copying equipment, like the sale of other articles of commerce, does not constitute contributory infringement if the product is widely used for legitimate, unobjectionable purposes. Indeed, it need merely be capable of substantial noninfringing uses.
By that standard, I think the DeCSS case should be tossed out.
so I'm thinking there must be some sort of DVDCCA-like group controlling that technology. If so, then how is buying a DVD player for your television any different from buying a VCR?
As near as I can tell, the only difference is that the industry lost a court case involving VHS, so they couldn't pull the kind of crap they're doing with DVD. This time around, they've got the DMCA to help them out and serve as a means to eliminate fair use (although, as someone else pointed out, we've only been granted specific permission to create copies of music, not video, but I think they should be considered to be "content" and the same fair use rules applied to both) by technological means aided by the new law. The only reason they've gotten as far as they have is because someone used some clever wording in the DMCA that effectively nullified the reverse-engineering clause by making it only apply to "software" rather than "copyrighted content". Therefore they seem to be arguing that you don't have the right to view the contents of a dvd just because you bought it. You must also purchase a supported operating system and a licensed hardware or software decoder.
Hmmm...maybe this all will become moot when Creative makes its open-API, licensed decoder card...i'm waiting...
Damn. I hope not. People should not be complacent about this. Just because you've found an alternate means to obtain what you want, doesn't mean that the MPAA is right or that the legal interpretations or laws should stand as they are. I hope we can fight this until we win.
If what you say is true, and I'm not entirely sure it is, then there are a lot of serious legal inconsistencies that need to be resolved. If the courts have ruled that I can make a copy of a CD or tape, then why isn't the same logic applied to DVD or any other format? I believe I also have the right to make an archive copy of a software program, whether this violates a EULA or not. I think I should have this right for any medium, simply because they can all be destroyed relatively easily and I shouldn't have to re-pay for content that I've already purchased simply because the storage media is fragile.
I'm going to have to find someplace where I can read the courts decisions and rationale in cases related to copyright.
That's the real question. I think that since the vast majority of 'net users couldn't possibly download a dvd movie, the primary use must be for simply viewing movies that were legitimately purchased.
The prosecutor was made aware of the violation of copyright law. But the MPAA doesn't control the Noregian government or their prosecutors; they can only lodge a complaint.
If the MPAA filed a complaint, then Valenti was lying when he said they weren't involved with his arrest. Saying they weren't involved is like me firing a bullet at someone and claiming that I wasn't involved in his death. It was just between him and the bullet.
So you do agree that once you've bought the DVD drive and the DVD disk, you have the right to use whatever tools you want to view it on a Linux computer?
Of course. However, you do not have the right to distribute those tools, or to repurpose those tools to violate studio's intellectual property rights by copying the tracks off the DVD for potential redistribution across the 'net.
The simple fact that 99% of the 'net using world cannot download a dvd movie from the net due to bandwidth and/or time constraints would seem to signify that the primary use of the DeCSS software is, in fact, something other than just ripping copies of dvds to trade with friends. It has also been demonstrated that you can't watch dvd movies using Linux without a software player that requires DeCSS. Even if a commercial player becomes available, there's no reason anyone should have to purchase it. There's also no reason that the DeCSS creators should have had to distribute it in binary form only. The encryption algorithm is not protected by patent, and no copyright was violated in its creation. The only reason this thing is still in court is because the MPAA lawyers got the judge to look at the DMCA in some backasswards way that effectively removes a consumer's right to fair use. If we aren't allowed to bypass encryption (even a token encryption scheme that is trivial to break) for the purpose of achieving interoperability (in this case, in order to view the contents of a dvd that we purchased on Linux), then the MPAA has effectively granted itself much more powerful copyright protections than the law itself ever did. Therefore, I believe that DeCSS's use (and distribution) should be allowed under fair use guidelines.
What's the point of having the right to reverse engineer something for compatibility purposes if you aren't allowed to bypass some trivial encryption scheme in order to do it? Sounds like the MPAA is trying to make themselves a nice big loophole in the law to get rid of all that pesky fair use stuff.
I don't see why they should have the right to use technological protections to overstep the protections that copyright law gives them. By using the DMCA, they've managed to secure the right to use technological means, not only to protect the rights that copyright law gives them, but to extend those rights as well.
We've all been hoodwinked by the MPAA lawyers and others who supported the DMCA. Between that and UCITA, we're gonna get screwed good and hard. I, personally, don't give a damn what rights the MPAA thinks it should have. If they want to extend their legitimate rights through technology, then I plan to use technology to take my own rights back.
Cisco has a document up on their website that might interest everyone.
Here's a quote:
In order to facilitate DDoS, the attackers need to have several hundred to several thousand compromised hosts. The hosts are usually Linux and SUN computers; however, the tools can be ported to other platforms as well.
It's no more biased than Microsoft's marketing claims. It's just that Microsoft's marketing makes it into the mainstream press a lot more than Novell's or anyone elses. They are just using their website to try to refute or clarify some of the claims that Microsoft makes. Nothing wrong with that. Take it with a grain of salt, just as you should do with anything carrying the scent of marketing.
I consider this just another attack at Microsoft by another competitor.
I don't think it can be considered an attack. I think it's definitely worth knowing before you make an investment in something that could possibly screw things up. It's nice to know that it is a fixable thing and probably not a big deal for most people. At least they let you know that the problem exists and that there is a solution.
I doubt that Rob wants to act as judge and jury on problems like this. Better to just let it go. People spot things like this pretty quick./.ers aren't a bunch of morons (most anyway). While I would agree that this person is deliberately trying to impersonate Bruce, I don't think I'd want to set a precedent that could lead to more difficult decisions later on that would probably be very divisive and cause more problems than they solve.
Hmm.. this thread would be more on topic if it was under the "cybersquatting" story:)
Slashdot Mirror
Since it wasn't a question that should really be directed at him, I guess we couldn't expect a real answer to the question. Although, if he isn't really a mouthpiece for the Gore campaign, he seems to play one on the Internet. I would have liked to see him at least decide to forward the question to the right person. Just about anything would be better than that lame dodge he wrote.
In countries like China $1,000,000 goes a long way to getting what you want.
Sure, why not... it works over here, and that's even more money over there.
If I distribute a program, can't I call it whatever I like? As far as I know, the name "DeCSS" doesn't violate any copyrights or trademarks. Why couldn't I name a program that I write "DeCSS?" Why does it have to be plausible?
Face it danger is not a good thing and I would rather have my pride/honor/respect/and freedom than play DVDs on unsupported OSs.
Yeah, and I'd rather have my freedom than be allowed to drive a car wherever I like without being monitored.
I'd rather have my freedom than be able to view whatever I wish on the Internet.
I'd rather have my freedom than be able to decide for myself what my children should or should not be taught.
I could go on...
Maybe we should all just quit trying to change the things that we think are done for the wrong reasons or that are unjust, or that are just plain stupid. I'm sure it would make things a lot easier for the government if we would all just shut up and do as we're told. Maybe you should get out there and lead the wooly resistance against those who would dare to refuse to let the government or corporations take their rights away without a fight. Baaa! Baaa!
1. Why just 56 bits? the new export regulations specifically exempt encryption used for copy protection from such limitations.
From the look of things in court right now, they don't need to use more than 56 bit encryption. The fact that there is any encryption at all apparently makes it illegal to circumvent it. If the person plans to circumvent it in the first place, then it won't matter much what kind of encryption they use. It won't be good enough. They can just make more criminals out of people this way. We needed a few more jails around here anyway. They'll be full of hackers as well as drug-users soon.
Actually, most of the big-time commercial piracy goes on in other countries like China where the MPAA has no legal recourse. They can't do much about piracy over there unless the foreign governments want to cooperate, which they usually don't want to do in any meaningful way.
That still means that this scheme will do little to stop piracy, but a whole lot to remove the rights of consumers.
I really doubt that preventing piracy is their only or even real goal here. First of all, since this scheme won't do a thing to prevent big copy-houses from pirating, it can't prevent the vast majority of piracy or kill off their illegitimate competition.
The real goal here seems to be the removal of fair use rights from consumers. The movie and music industry leaders must be some kind of evil geniuses. Since they can't have fair use rights completely removed through legislation, and they can't remove them through technology, they were able (with the DMCA) to combine the legal and technological approaches to effectively end fair use. This puts them in a position to make more money through various pricing schemes and pay-per-play style charges. If the customer cannot legally exert any control over the content that he has purchased, then he will be forced to pay more or go without.
Since this flat-out violates the original intent of copyright, it should be illegal. Unfortunately, the original intent is not much defense against the billions of dollars that the movie and music industries can throw at the government. They have effectively been granted monopoly rights to content for longer than any of us will likely be alive, and consumers will receive no benefit from them having this absolute control over the content, even after the sale. We've been sold out by our government. Plain and simple.
I don't buy it. I can't see them passing this thing unanimously. I can see them referring it to a subcommitte unanimously though. It just seems to be the more likely story. Someone said that the bill that the senate passed had an "E" tacked onto the end of its number and that they added language to refer it to committee until December 1, 2000. Then someone else said that it was supposed to go into effect July 1, 2000. I'm not sure who's getting what information from where.
We must have a damn good system in place. We can't even figure out whether a bill has actually been passed or not. There seems to be a lot of conflicting information. Why does one say it's been referred to a committee and another say it goes into effect months before the committee is due to report back?
I was under the impression that the Novell-sponsored test used the same Win2k setup as the MS-sponsored test.
I guess I should have put rational in quotes. I'm not advocating an irrational approach. I'm saying that this needs to become much more public than it currently is. While there are many specific problems that can be pointed out in the UCITA, that isn't what gets news time. We need to claim that it is anti-consumer and that it should be voted down for that very reason. All the problems with UCITA point to it being anti-consumer, so that's not a false claim. Such a claim is more likely to get news time than someone trying to make a point about how UCITA doesn't adhere to current contract law, or some other argument that is likely to contain much legalese. I'm all for people making those arguments and for them being made visible to the public, but we need to generalize a bit so that people start making the association "UCITA == BAD".
If it locks consumers into a licence like current ones, that basically sound more like a slum-lord rental agreement (no guarantee of service, and you don't own it either, and if you [your computer] gets sick because of it, it ain't their problem) then that's an argument I can make.
This is certainly part of it. UCITA would make EULAs much more enforceable. In its current form, it would probably even allow clauses such as those that prohibit criticism or public disclosure of flaws in the software. I would hope that such things would be overturned in court, but why let it get that far if we can fix it before then?
If all it does it prevent the "warez kiddies" from their little pirate cottage industry, as said elsewhere, then how can you be against that.
If that was all it did, then I'd have no problem with it, except that it would be redundant. What "warez kiddies" do is already illegal under current law, so there is no need for further legislation for that purpose. It would only serve to confuse matters.
Sure, some software may seem overpriced, but it is the right of the company to charge what they want for it, and it is your right not to install it. If you did without paying it, UCITA or not, you just broke the law.
The problem is not the price or EULAs in and of themselves, but the fact that UCITA seems to disregard current contract law and current consumer rights. Some of this is explained in the docs I reference below.
There are a bunch of letters and papers written by various lawyers, consumer organizations, industry groups, and others on this site. Might help you out to read through some of them. Most of them seem pretty well thought out and usually emphasize that one of the worst aspects of UCITA is that it is not based on current law and will cause a lot of confusion and expensive litigation. I think this one, this one, this summary, and this article by Lawrence Lessig were some of the most informative.
Are you saying that there haven't been a ton of people out there already opposing UCITA and offering constructive criticism and alternatives?
Did you read this stuff? If all of this has had no effect, then I'd say the rational approach has indeed failed, and that short of realizing an imminent threat to their reelection, there is probably nothing that will deter the various state governments from passing this legislation. Something must be done to make manifest this threat. Otherwise, this will be quietly passed and most of the country will never realize it until the lawsuits start flying and the initial damage is done. I think that the long-term damage will be much, much worse.
That's the small picture view. Is using DeCSS within fair use guidelines? I would personally agree. However, the big picture is one where just about everything movie ever produced can be reproduced and downloaded in the same way we download a tarball today--and pirated just as easily.
No, that's the current situation, and in the here and now, people are being prosecuted for exercising their rights. I don't give damn if it will be possible for half the net users in the world to download a movie five years from now. It has nothing to do with prosecuting people for publishing or distributing the unpatented CSS decryption algorithm. They had reasons that have nothing to do with what will be possible five years from now. Their acts should be entirely legal. If the government wants to take some real action regarding copyright law in the future, then let it do so, but let's have it be discussed and very visible to the American people. After all, its their rights that are on the auction block.
_Sprocket_ posted this quote from the Betamax case that seems pretty relevant to the DeCSS case.
From the Betamax case (US Supreme Court, 1984, Sony Corporation v. Universal City Studios):
The sale of copying equipment, like the sale of other articles of commerce, does not constitute contributory infringement if the product is widely used for legitimate, unobjectionable purposes. Indeed, it need merely be capable of substantial noninfringing uses.
By that standard, I think the DeCSS case should be tossed out.
so I'm thinking there must be some sort of DVDCCA-like group controlling that technology. If so, then how is buying a DVD player for your television any different from buying a VCR?
As near as I can tell, the only difference is that the industry lost a court case involving VHS, so they couldn't pull the kind of crap they're doing with DVD. This time around, they've got the DMCA to help them out and serve as a means to eliminate fair use (although, as someone else pointed out, we've only been granted specific permission to create copies of music, not video, but I think they should be considered to be "content" and the same fair use rules applied to both) by technological means aided by the new law. The only reason they've gotten as far as they have is because someone used some clever wording in the DMCA that effectively nullified the reverse-engineering clause by making it only apply to "software" rather than "copyrighted content". Therefore they seem to be arguing that you don't have the right to view the contents of a dvd just because you bought it. You must also purchase a supported operating system and a licensed hardware or software decoder.
Hmmm...maybe this all will become moot when Creative makes its open-API, licensed decoder card...i'm waiting...
Damn. I hope not. People should not be complacent about this. Just because you've found an alternate means to obtain what you want, doesn't mean that the MPAA is right or that the legal interpretations or laws should stand as they are. I hope we can fight this until we win.
If what you say is true, and I'm not entirely sure it is, then there are a lot of serious legal inconsistencies that need to be resolved. If the courts have ruled that I can make a copy of a CD or tape, then why isn't the same logic applied to DVD or any other format? I believe I also have the right to make an archive copy of a software program, whether this violates a EULA or not. I think I should have this right for any medium, simply because they can all be destroyed relatively easily and I shouldn't have to re-pay for content that I've already purchased simply because the storage media is fragile.
I'm going to have to find someplace where I can read the courts decisions and rationale in cases related to copyright.
Thanks. I like that quote. I think I'm going to make it into my .sig.
Primarily?
That's the real question. I think that since the vast majority of 'net users couldn't possibly download a dvd movie, the primary use must be for simply viewing movies that were legitimately purchased.
The prosecutor was made aware of the violation of copyright law. But the MPAA doesn't control the Noregian government or their prosecutors; they can only lodge a complaint.
If the MPAA filed a complaint, then Valenti was lying when he said they weren't involved with his arrest. Saying they weren't involved is like me firing a bullet at someone and claiming that I wasn't involved in his death. It was just between him and the bullet.
So you do agree that once you've bought the DVD drive and the DVD disk, you have the right to use whatever tools you want to view it on a Linux computer?
Of course. However, you do not have the right to distribute those tools, or to repurpose those tools to violate studio's intellectual property rights by copying the tracks off the DVD for potential redistribution across the 'net.
The simple fact that 99% of the 'net using world cannot download a dvd movie from the net due to bandwidth and/or time constraints would seem to signify that the primary use of the DeCSS software is, in fact, something other than just ripping copies of dvds to trade with friends. It has also been demonstrated that you can't watch dvd movies using Linux without a software player that requires DeCSS. Even if a commercial player becomes available, there's no reason anyone should have to purchase it. There's also no reason that the DeCSS creators should have had to distribute it in binary form only. The encryption algorithm is not protected by patent, and no copyright was violated in its creation. The only reason this thing is still in court is because the MPAA lawyers got the judge to look at the DMCA in some backasswards way that effectively removes a consumer's right to fair use. If we aren't allowed to bypass encryption (even a token encryption scheme that is trivial to break) for the purpose of achieving interoperability (in this case, in order to view the contents of a dvd that we purchased on Linux), then the MPAA has effectively granted itself much more powerful copyright protections than the law itself ever did. Therefore, I believe that DeCSS's use (and distribution) should be allowed under fair use guidelines.
What's the point of having the right to reverse engineer something for compatibility purposes if you aren't allowed to bypass some trivial encryption scheme in order to do it? Sounds like the MPAA is trying to make themselves a nice big loophole in the law to get rid of all that pesky fair use stuff.
I don't see why they should have the right to use technological protections to overstep the protections that copyright law gives them. By using the DMCA, they've managed to secure the right to use technological means, not only to protect the rights that copyright law gives them, but to extend those rights as well.
We've all been hoodwinked by the MPAA lawyers and others who supported the DMCA. Between that and UCITA, we're gonna get screwed good and hard. I, personally, don't give a damn what rights the MPAA thinks it should have. If they want to extend their legitimate rights through technology, then I plan to use technology to take my own rights back.
Cisco has a document up on their website that might interest everyone.
Here's a quote:
In order to facilitate DDoS, the attackers need to have several hundred to several thousand compromised hosts. The hosts are usually Linux and SUN computers; however, the tools can be ported to other platforms as well.
It's no more biased than Microsoft's marketing claims. It's just that Microsoft's marketing makes it into the mainstream press a lot more than Novell's or anyone elses. They are just using their website to try to refute or clarify some of the claims that Microsoft makes. Nothing wrong with that. Take it with a grain of salt, just as you should do with anything carrying the scent of marketing.
I consider this just another attack at Microsoft by another competitor.
I don't think it can be considered an attack. I think it's definitely worth knowing before you make an investment in something that could possibly screw things up. It's nice to know that it is a fixable thing and probably not a big deal for most people. At least they let you know that the problem exists and that there is a solution.
I doubt that Rob wants to act as judge and jury on problems like this. Better to just let it go. People spot things like this pretty quick. /.ers aren't a bunch of morons (most anyway). While I would agree that this person is deliberately trying to impersonate Bruce, I don't think I'd want to set a precedent that could lead to more difficult decisions later on that would probably be very divisive and cause more problems than they solve.
Hmm.. this thread would be more on topic if it was under the "cybersquatting" story :)