You get absolutely no protection if you assign you copyright to the FSF. The reason is that it's no longer your code. You no longer need the protection. This is like saying you can protect yourself from deadbeat tenants by giving the deeds to your property to someone else.
It's the best protection available. Let me demonstrate: "Here's my grenade. It's yours now. Oh.. and did I mention I seem to have lost the pin?"
When something (like the pinless grenade or cpcrack) is a severe liability, it's always best if you can manage to give it away.
A computer program is protected by copyright because it constitutes a literary work under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.[2] From a purchaser's point of view, unless there is some agreement with the owner of the intellectual property in the program, it is almost impossible to use software without infringing the copyright. This is because, in order to load and run a program, the program has to be copied from its permanent storage medium, into the computer. Legitimate use of software therefore depends on having the permission of the owner of the copyright.
That's pure fiction. There's no legal basis for such a conclusion. Even if it could be argued that the copyright owner didn't grant you an implied license to run a computer program by giving you a copy, it's obvious that execution, or any similar operation which requires the production of an intermediate copy to enable your use of a lawfully aquired copy is considered fair use. Copying a program from disk to memory is no different than copying a DVD onto VHS so you can watch it in a place where you have only a VCR, or photocopying pages out of a book onto 11x17 paper so you can read them with your poor eyesight. All these operations are perfectly legal.
So how could someone downloading the beos.tar.gz from an ftp-server know he acted legal unless he finds a text inside giving him the permission to do so.
He already had permission to download that was granted when the file was placed on a publicly accessable FTP site.
It was stated that the linux-package wasn't announced on beos.com. Perhaps I'm ignorant, but downloading something isn't legal just because you can.
If it's on a publicly accessable site, a member of the public is not breaking the law by downloading it.
According to the CONTU Final Report, which is generally interpreted by the courts as legislative history, ``the right to add features to the program that were not present at the time of rightful acquisition'' falls within the owner's rights of modification under section 117.
Note that, since it's not copyright infringement for you to apply a patch, it's also not copyright infringement for someone to give you a patch. For example, Galoob's Game Genie, which patches the software in Nintendo cartridges, does not infringe Nintendo's copyrights. ``Having paid Nintendo a fair return, the consumer may experiment with the product and create new variations of play, for personal enjoyment, without creating a derivative work.'' Galoob v. Nintendo, 780 F. Supp 1283 (N.D. Cal. 1991), affirmed, 22 U.S.P.Q.2d 1587 (9th Cir. 1992). See also Foresight v. Pfortmiller, 719 F. Supp 1006 (D. Kan. 1989).
You can't modifiy the painting because the IP law says you must keep the integrity of the painting.
The moral rights provisions only apply to public exhibition and public performance - and only in a limited set of circumstances. If you want to deface a painting in the privacy of your own home, that's your business.
Nothing in the AHRA takes away the rights you have under the fair use doctrine. Just because the AHRA doesn't apply to a given case doesn't mean you don't have the right to record. The fair use doctrine still lets you make a working copy or a backup copy. Courts have also interpreted it as allowing time-shifting (recording TV shows to watch later) and space-shifting (recording music onto a portable device like the Rio).
The RIAA's web page on this matter is pure propaganda. Compare it to Nintendo's "emulation is illegal" web page which is still online despite the recent contrary precedent set by Sony v. Connectix. They're just trying to deceive and frighten you.
When I open a.deb package with my web browser, I'm prompted for my root password. Then the package is installed and a menu item is added to my WindowMaker destop menu automagically.
Once the RSA patent expires then other people in the U.S. may write and release code implementing the RSA algorithm without requiring a patent license from RSA. However the code supplied by RSA Security will still be proprietary. What the expiration of the patent will allow is creation of an alternative RSA implementation which is open source and can be freely used with the Mozilla source base.
Such code already exists in a library called OpenSSL. It also implements TLS with DSA / ElGamal.
BTW that code was not obtained under a warrant so is now inadmissible in court.
You don't need a warrant to collect publicly accessable evidence. If you steal a car and leave it in your driveway, which is visible from the street, the police don't need a warrant to see that it's there - and they don't need to prove they had one in order to present that evidence in court.
Slade's files were in a world-readable shared filesystem on a public network - ie, publicly accessable.
I have a Seagate 10,000rpm disk that pulls 27mB/sec easily on the bonnie test. And that's with a tagged queue depth of only 8 on a UW controller. The drive supports LVD and much deeper queues, so I'm sure it can go even faster.
Sure, faster disks are going to be nice. But they're going to be pretty demanding on the bus. If a 15,000rpm disk is even 50% faster than a 10,000rpm disk, there's not room for many neighbors on a LVD bus. Forget UW SCSI - it'd be a bottleneck with even one of these disks. Looks like it's finally time to break out the fiber...
"DVD piracy already existed in the far east long before DeCSS. It was used by shady characters who had spent considerable time developing special equipment/software for that purpose."
Please don't use the word piracy in this context. It's an emotionally loaded phrase and doesn't accurately describe what you're talking about. The people you call "shady characters" in the region your refer to as the "far east" are participating in what's better called copyright infringement or counterfeit. The word counterfeit very accurately reflects what's going on, since the copies these criminals make tend to be packaged to look like the original and then illegally misrepresented as the original at sale time.
For $50, a counterfeiting criminal could get a Macrovision filtering box that would let them produce counterfeit VHS videos from a DVD master using VCR recorder banks they may already own for VHS counterfeiting. If our criminal is tooling up from scratch, he can get some new decks with S-VIDEO inputs that record macrovision protected programming just fine. For $350, one can get a JVC VCR with S-VIDEO inputs and a TBC that will make near perfect copies of DVD's (except for the soundtrack, which must be downmixed) without any additional equipment. Since we don't see widespread infringement using these decks, nor are their manufacturers being sued by the DVD industry, we can assume that the ability for the average person to copy and illegally resell DVD's is a non-issue, since it's just not happening.
"DeCSS has nothing to do with that. The function of DeCSS is to provide an easy vehicle for any computer user to do the same, without need of special equipment or software. A nice friendly red 'record' button on the player software suite, for example, would facility much more widespread illegal copying"
We've already established with JVC's HR-S7500 deck that the average individual has the ability to press that "nice friendly red 'record' button" for only $350 - far less than the cost of a computer and DVD recorder. The average consumer, by and large, chooses not to use these decks at all - and when they do it's primarily to produce copies for personal fair use.
DeCSS is useless for running a counterfeit disk business like the ones you describe in the "far east." Producing a counterfeit DVD with a computer and DeCSS is more expensive and time-consuming than producing counterfeit VHS copies or purchasing the original DVD video because blank recordable DVD media is more expensive that pre-recorded DVD media. DVD drives are also slow and several times more expensive than VCR's. And each recorder would need to be connected to a PC. Furthermore, recordable DVD media may not work reliably in all players. At $1000 per PC, plus over a thousand for each DVD recorder drive, plus $20 for each recordable DVD disk, expensive commercial duplication equipment starts to look all the more affordable to our counterfeiting criminal while the counterfeit disk business appears all the more unfeasable and unprofitable to the normal individual.
While it's possible to copy DVD disks with the help of DeCSS, it's also possible to install railroad spikes with a tack hammer. Simple practicality demands that a sledge hammer is used to install spikes just like expensive dedicated use hardware and software are used for large scale duplication of DVD videos. Your argument that DeCSS will bring large scale "far east" style DVD counterfeiting to the masses is flawed.
Enlight ATX mid tower cases are almost exactly 17" tall, which means that they will fit sideways in a 19" rack if you add the appropriate mounting ears/rails. These cases run around $65-80, made entirely from metal, and have good cooling.
Confusing word choice: steal, theft, stole
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Otto Says:
"Your honor, this guy stole a song from us and gave it to... errr.. well, 3 people.. costing us a total revenue of.. umm.. $3.95... errr...."
The word "stole" isn't appropriate in this context unless the person speaking that quote had his physical copy of the song taken away by the defendant. If that's not what you meant then you should say "infringed the copyright on our song" instead of "stole a song from us."
Diplomat says:
Be very careful with your comments, or you could lead me to assume you're advocating theft. This discussion could benefit from a slightly higher moral tone. If I broke into your house, bank account or whatever and stole $3.95,
Copying information or art is very different from stealing physical goods, so the words "theft" and "stole" are inappropriate for use when referring to copying or copyright infringement. If I stole Otto's $3.95, he wouldn't have it anymore. I'd have it instead - meaning that I've deprived Otto of his $3.95. Otto would have to get a new $3.95 or beat me up and take his $3.95 back. But if I make a photocopy of few pages in a book Otto owns a copy of - or a make an MP3 of a song he owns a copy of, he can still read that book and listen to that song. He has no reason to buy a new book or CD - or to come beat me up. Using the words like "theft" and "stole" is almost as confusing as using the word piracy to talk about copyright infringement.
I'm sure you'd be incensed! Just think about it.
I sure would -- but that's because you violated the privacy of my home and deprived me of property that was rightfully mine. That's stealing. Photocopying pages from a book I own or a book Otto owns is not stealing. Depending on the circumstances, it's not even copyright infringement.
So let's get things straight here. If you mean copying, say copying. If you mean copyright infringement, say copyright infringement. Reserve words like like steal, theft, and stole to for discribing situations where theft has actually occured. By avoiding emotionally loaded language, you'll help promote more rational discussion.
Re:Strong Security Possible w/ Hashes
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It looks like it does a challenge/response with an md5 hash. As far as I can tell, it doesn't hash the random data from the track, it asks the client to send it outright. And I've seen it request up to 203 seconds from a random offset...
I think the challenge-response is used for logging in. Sending 203 seconds of audio data outright would consume 35,809,200 bytes of bandwith and take around 20 minutes on a 28.8 modem, so I doubt it uses such a method to determine what CD is in your drive.
As for the method I described, it would offer pretty good security, but I don't think they're doing that either because it would involve keeping a lot of uncompressed CD data live in their datacenter.
Strong Security Possible w/ Hashes
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If the system was properly designed, it would be very difficult to spoof your possession of a CD without actually having some sort of access to a complete copy of it.
For example, mp3.com could keep a sizable portion or complete copy of the unencoded track around at their site. Then they could ask you to take a random number of bytes at a random offset, append a random key string they specify, and hash it with a strong hash algorithm. On their end, they would do the same, and you'd be denied access if the results did not match. In this case, you'd need to have the sizable portion of the unencoded track on hand to answer their responses - or act as a man in the middle with a friend actually having the CD.
The connection wouldn't need to be encrypted as hashes obtained from sniffed connections would be useless because the key string would be specified by the server and change on every attempt.
As for the so-called "pro-choice" people - don't get me started. Who could be "anti-choice"? If I ever had any sympathy for their cause, their selfish and narrow-minded attempts to monopolize our perception of the truth have turned me off them forever.
You can't just substitute names here and expect to make a convincing argument. The anti-abortion crowd's attempts to monopolize our perception of the truth often involve violence, including violence against women seeking abortions and the people that staff clincs where abortions are performed.
While it'd be difficult to get everyone to agree on the morality of abortion or if a fetus has the same rights as a born human, we can all agree that the assault and murder of women and their doctors is morally wrong. If the so called "pro-lifers" can't respect rights of the born, how can we give any credibility to their argument that the unborn also have rights that we must respect? This is likely among the issues ralphclark is getting at when he calls the so called "pro-life" movement anti-life.
1. I find the terms "pirate" and "piracy" offensive, you should be more cautious in your word choice so as to be inoffensive. Thank you!
I said much more than that. As well as the defamatory connotations that "pirate" and "piracy" have, these words also have defamatory denotations. Using the words "pirate" and "piracy" to describe copyright infringement is propagandist and manipulative misuse of emotionally loaded language. Using the words "pirate" and "piracy" to describe my fair use is libelous.
2. Oh, by the way, if you disagree with me about abortion rights, you're an idiot!! Moron!! Dork!! Loser!! (hee hee)
I did not disclose my position on abortion rights.
p.s. generally the media says "pro-abortion" and "anti-abortion," so neither group really gets called what they want to be called, but, oh well.
I tend to hear the news media use the labels "abortion rights activists" and "anti-abortion activists" more often than anything else. I think these words describe the situation accurately and emotionlessly.
THE INTERNET. (January 15, 2000) - On January 14, 2000, in response to the reverse engineering of the weak DVD encryption system intended to prevent fair use of DVD movies, called "CSS," and subsequent Internet distribution of a cryptanalysis of said system, the major motion picture companies attempted to bully members of the Free Software community into silence by filing injunction complaints in the Southern District of New York and District of Connecticut against four defendants. The victims in New York are Shawn C. Reimerdes, Eric Corley A/K/A "Emmanuel Goldstein," Roman Kazan and Jeraimee Hughes in the District of Connecticut.
The plaintiffs are Universal City Studios, Inc.; Paramount Pictures Corporation; Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.; Tristar Pictures, Inc.; Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.; Time Warner Entertainment Co., L.P.; Disney Enterprises, Inc.; and Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.
Announcing the court action, Jack Valenti, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), made the following statement (as translated by Babelfish's corporate halftruths -> reality mode):
"The MPAA is sucker-punching the small guy today in defense of the future of the American Movie Industry's profits. We have filed suit in federal court to stop Free Software developers from distributing the software designed to circumvent the encryption technology that prevents copying and fair use of DVDs. We'd make a lot more profits if you had to buy separate copies of your favorite movies to accomodate the different places you want to play them and the different players you own. If you didn't have to buy a DVD for your living room, and another copy for your bedroom, and a third for your vacation home, as well as a VHS copy for the VCR in your RV, we'd only make 1/4th the profits we would otherwise."
"This is a case of theft. The posting of the de-encryption formula makes it possible for end users to make full and fair use of the videos they've purchased! Now they won't have to buy multiple copies. They can even play the movies on their PC's without buying expensive player software and costly proprietary operating systems! The Industry will sell less licenses for our proprietary player technology! We'll make less money! The DeCSS and Linux DVD player people have stolen these profits from us! Waah!" said Valenti.
Under federal law, it is illegal for anyone to traffic in any product that is designed to render useless encryption devices that protect copyrighted material, thus reducing the Movie Industry's profits by making it unneccessary to purchase multiple copies of movies in order to play them in different places and on different players owned by the same person. In 1998, Congress passed and President Clinton signed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to protect the creators of copyrighted material from not being able to sell multiple copies of the same movie to poor suckers who can't understand how to get around the copy protection.
The MPAA strongly supported the DMCA precisely because of concerns about profits. The defendants' brazen trafficking of the utility plainly violates the profit maximization provisions of the DMCA.
"The U.S. movie industry intends to defeat anyone who steals our profits. We are determined to defend the technology that protects our profits." vowed Valenti. "If you can't protect that which you own, then you don't own anything."
"The Free Software community intends to defeat anyone who interferes with our fair use of information and artwork we've rightfully purchased. We are determined to defend the technology and organizations that protect our rights to fair use," retorted Brian Ristuccia, advocate of the Linux DVD Player Project (LiViD) and operator of a DeCSS mirror site on the Internet. "If you can't use that which you own, then you don't own anything at all," he said.
Additional information on this case may be found on the OpenDVD web site at http://www.opendvd.org/.
Piracy is a perfectly acceptable word to people who feel that the act carries pejorative connotations. Not to be rude, but no propensity of corrections will ever change minds.
The terms "pirate" and "piracy" have defamatory connotations to which I take offense -- especially when the terms are applied to my fair use of things I own.
What you're asking is akin to informing "pro-life" activists that they should really call themselves "pro-government-mandate."
So-called pro-life activists are not really pro-life. They're anti-abortion. This is especially true of the so-called pro-lifers who try to enforce their beliefs on others (such as abortion clinic workers) by killing them. Even the generally clueless news media has started to use the term anti-abortion instead of pro-life.
If you make a copy, that is theft - pure and simple - you have taken something which is not yours. You can try and hide your actions by cloaking it in phrases like 'making a backup', or it 'they won't notice' or whatever, but there can be no argument that it is theft.
Copying information or art is very different from stealing physical goods, so the word "theft" is inappropriate for use when referring to copying or copyright infringement. If I steal your bong, you can't use it to smoke anymore. But if I make a photocopy of few pages in a book you own a copy of - or a make a MP3 of a song you own a copy of, you can still read that book and listen to that song. Using the words like theft and steal is almost as confusing as using the word piracy to talk about copyright infringement. Furthermore, making copying impossible takes away my right to fair use of information and art that I have purchased.
Why do you think people have this opinion of young computer people being pirates? Could it possible be because they hear comments from pirates trying to defend the undefensible?
The of the word pirate sin this context is confusing. Consider alternatives like "those who infringe copyright" or "those who share information and art." See http://www.fsf.org/philoso phy/words-to-avoid.html#Piracy for details.
keep in mind that xerox actually invented the pc. this is kinda minor compared to what they could do. they do deserve some credit for their work anyway.
Preventing people from communicating goes beyond giving Xerox credit for their inventions.
Unless they simply re-sell the original Palm units I think they'd qualify as a 'clone'.
No. The word "clone" implies reimplementation. See the following definition from the jargon file:
clone/n./ 1. An exact duplicate: "Our product is a clone of their product." Implies a legal reimplementation from documentation or by reverse-engineering.
The Handspring visor can't really be called a clone, since the hardware and software were licensed from Palm Computing rather that reimplemented.
Other than the times I instinctively jot down graffiti strokes on a stickie note, I don't see too many people writing letters to each other in graffiti alphabet.
After extensive use of my Palm organizer, I've developed this problem too. It seems Xerox's patent would prevent others from legally reading my sticky notes because they would be employing Xerox's patented system for recognising unistroke characters with their eyes and brain. Allowing such a patent would be silly.
Slashdot Mirror
You get absolutely no protection if you assign you copyright to the FSF. The reason is that it's no longer your code. You no longer need the protection. This is like saying you can protect yourself from deadbeat tenants by giving the deeds to your property to someone else.
It's the best protection available. Let me demonstrate: "Here's my grenade. It's yours now. Oh.. and did I mention I seem to have lost the pin?"
When something (like the pinless grenade or cpcrack) is a severe liability, it's always best if you can manage to give it away.
A computer program is protected by copyright because it constitutes a literary work under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.[2] From a purchaser's point of view, unless there is some agreement with the owner of the intellectual property in the program, it is almost impossible to use software without infringing the copyright. This is because, in order to load and run a program, the program has to be copied from its permanent storage medium, into the computer. Legitimate use of software therefore depends on having the permission of the owner of the copyright.
That's pure fiction. There's no legal basis for such a conclusion. Even if it could be argued that the copyright owner didn't grant you an implied license to run a computer program by giving you a copy, it's obvious that execution, or any similar operation which requires the production of an intermediate copy to enable your use of a lawfully aquired copy is considered fair use. Copying a program from disk to memory is no different than copying a DVD onto VHS so you can watch it in a place where you have only a VCR, or photocopying pages out of a book onto 11x17 paper so you can read them with your poor eyesight. All these operations are perfectly legal.
So how could someone downloading the beos.tar.gz from an ftp-server know he acted legal unless he finds a text inside giving him the permission to do so.
He already had permission to download that was granted when the file was placed on a publicly accessable FTP site.
It was stated that the linux-package wasn't announced on beos.com. Perhaps I'm ignorant, but downloading something isn't legal just because you can.
If it's on a publicly accessable site, a member of the public is not breaking the law by downloading it.
Anyone have any ideas how to prevent this from happening again in the future?
Assigning your copyright to the Free Software Foundation will afford you some degree of protection.
According to the CONTU Final Report, which is generally interpreted by the courts as legislative history, ``the right to add features to the program that were not present at the time of rightful acquisition'' falls within the owner's rights of modification under section 117.
Note that, since it's not copyright infringement for you to apply a patch, it's also not copyright infringement for someone to give you a patch. For example, Galoob's Game Genie, which patches the software in Nintendo cartridges, does not infringe Nintendo's copyrights. ``Having paid Nintendo a fair return, the consumer may experiment with the product and create new variations of play, for personal enjoyment, without creating a derivative work.'' Galoob v. Nintendo, 780 F. Supp 1283 (N.D. Cal. 1991), affirmed, 22 U.S.P.Q.2d 1587 (9th Cir. 1992). See also Foresight v. Pfortmiller, 719 F. Supp 1006 (D. Kan. 1989).
You can't modifiy the painting because the IP law says you must keep the integrity of the painting.
The moral rights provisions only apply to public exhibition and public performance - and only in a limited set of circumstances. If you want to deface a painting in the privacy of your own home, that's your business.
Nothing in the AHRA takes away the rights you have under the fair use doctrine. Just because the AHRA doesn't apply to a given case doesn't mean you don't have the right to record. The fair use doctrine still lets you make a working copy or a backup copy. Courts have also interpreted it as allowing time-shifting (recording TV shows to watch later) and space-shifting (recording music onto a portable device like the Rio).
The RIAA's web page on this matter is pure propaganda. Compare it to Nintendo's "emulation is illegal" web page which is still online despite the recent contrary precedent set by Sony v. Connectix. They're just trying to deceive and frighten you.
When I open a .deb package with my web browser, I'm prompted for my root password. Then the package is installed and a menu item is added to my WindowMaker destop menu automagically.
Once the RSA patent expires then other people in the U.S. may write and release code implementing the RSA algorithm without requiring a patent license from RSA. However the code supplied by RSA Security will still be proprietary. What the expiration of the patent will allow is creation of an alternative RSA implementation which is open source and can be freely used with the Mozilla source base.
Such code already exists in a library called OpenSSL. It also implements TLS with DSA / ElGamal.
BTW that code was not obtained under a warrant so is now inadmissible in court.
You don't need a warrant to collect publicly accessable evidence. If you steal a car and leave it in your driveway, which is visible from the street, the police don't need a warrant to see that it's there - and they don't need to prove they had one in order to present that evidence in court.
Slade's files were in a world-readable shared filesystem on a public network - ie, publicly accessable.
I have a Seagate 10,000rpm disk that pulls 27mB/sec easily on the bonnie test. And that's with a tagged queue depth of only 8 on a UW controller. The drive supports LVD and much deeper queues, so I'm sure it can go even faster.
Sure, faster disks are going to be nice. But they're going to be pretty demanding on the bus. If a 15,000rpm disk is even 50% faster than a 10,000rpm disk, there's not room for many neighbors on a LVD bus. Forget UW SCSI - it'd be a bottleneck with even one of these disks. Looks like it's finally time to break out the fiber...
"DVD piracy already existed in the far east long before DeCSS. It was used by shady characters who had spent considerable time developing special equipment/software for that purpose."
Please don't use the word piracy in this context. It's an emotionally loaded phrase and doesn't accurately describe what you're talking about. The people you call "shady characters" in the region your refer to as the "far east" are participating in what's better called copyright infringement or counterfeit. The word counterfeit very accurately reflects what's going on, since the copies these criminals make tend to be packaged to look like the original and then illegally misrepresented as the original at sale time.
For $50, a counterfeiting criminal could get a Macrovision filtering box that would let them produce counterfeit VHS videos from a DVD master using VCR recorder banks they may already own for VHS counterfeiting. If our criminal is tooling up from scratch, he can get some new decks with S-VIDEO inputs that record macrovision protected programming just fine. For $350, one can get a JVC VCR with S-VIDEO inputs and a TBC that will make near perfect copies of DVD's (except for the soundtrack, which must be downmixed) without any additional equipment. Since we don't see widespread infringement using these decks, nor are their manufacturers being sued by the DVD industry, we can assume that the ability for the average person to copy and illegally resell DVD's is a non-issue, since it's just not happening.
"DeCSS has nothing to do with that. The function of DeCSS is to provide an easy vehicle for any computer user to do the same, without need of special equipment or software. A nice friendly red 'record' button on the player software suite, for example, would facility much more widespread illegal copying"
We've already established with JVC's HR-S7500 deck that the average individual has the ability to press that "nice friendly red 'record' button" for only $350 - far less than the cost of a computer and DVD recorder. The average consumer, by and large, chooses not to use these decks at all - and when they do it's primarily to produce copies for personal fair use.
DeCSS is useless for running a counterfeit disk business like the ones you describe in the "far east." Producing a counterfeit DVD with a computer and DeCSS is more expensive and time-consuming than producing counterfeit VHS copies or purchasing the original DVD video because blank recordable DVD media is more expensive that pre-recorded DVD media. DVD drives are also slow and several times more expensive than VCR's. And each recorder would need to be connected to a PC. Furthermore, recordable DVD media may not work reliably in all players. At $1000 per PC, plus over a thousand for each DVD recorder drive, plus $20 for each recordable DVD disk, expensive commercial duplication equipment starts to look all the more affordable to our counterfeiting criminal while the counterfeit disk business appears all the more unfeasable and unprofitable to the normal individual.
While it's possible to copy DVD disks with the help of DeCSS, it's also possible to install railroad spikes with a tack hammer. Simple practicality demands that a sledge hammer is used to install spikes just like expensive dedicated use hardware and software are used for large scale duplication of DVD videos. Your argument that DeCSS will bring large scale "far east" style DVD counterfeiting to the masses is flawed.
Enlight ATX mid tower cases are almost exactly 17" tall, which means that they will fit sideways in a 19" rack if you add the appropriate mounting ears/rails. These cases run around $65-80, made entirely from metal, and have good cooling.
Otto Says:
"Your honor, this guy stole a song from us and gave it to... errr.. well, 3 people.. costing us a total revenue of.. umm.. $3.95... errr...."
The word "stole" isn't appropriate in this context unless the person speaking that quote had his physical copy of the song taken away by the defendant. If that's not what you meant then you should say "infringed the copyright on our song" instead of "stole a song from us."
Diplomat says:
Be very careful with your comments, or you could lead me to assume you're advocating theft. This discussion could benefit from a slightly higher moral tone. If I broke into your house, bank account or whatever and stole $3.95,
Copying information or art is very different from stealing physical goods, so the words "theft" and "stole" are inappropriate for use when referring to copying or copyright infringement. If I stole Otto's $3.95, he wouldn't have it anymore. I'd have it instead - meaning that I've deprived Otto of his $3.95. Otto would have to get a new $3.95 or beat me up and take his $3.95 back. But if I make a photocopy of few pages in a book Otto owns a copy of - or a make an MP3 of a song he owns a copy of, he can still read that book and listen to that song. He has no reason to buy a new book or CD - or to come beat me up. Using the words like "theft" and "stole" is almost as confusing as using the word piracy to talk about copyright infringement.
I'm sure you'd be incensed! Just think about it.
I sure would -- but that's because you violated the privacy of my home and deprived me of property that was rightfully mine. That's stealing. Photocopying pages from a book I own or a book Otto owns is not stealing. Depending on the circumstances, it's not even copyright infringement.
So let's get things straight here. If you mean copying, say copying. If you mean copyright infringement, say copyright infringement. Reserve words like like steal, theft, and stole to for discribing situations where theft has actually occured. By avoiding emotionally loaded language, you'll help promote more rational discussion.
It looks like it does a challenge/response with an md5 hash. As far as I can tell, it doesn't hash the random data from the track, it asks the client to send it outright. And I've seen it request up to 203 seconds from a random offset...
I think the challenge-response is used for logging in. Sending 203 seconds of audio data outright would consume 35,809,200 bytes of bandwith and take around 20 minutes on a 28.8 modem, so I doubt it uses such a method to determine what CD is in your drive.
As for the method I described, it would offer pretty good security, but I don't think they're doing that either because it would involve keeping a lot of uncompressed CD data live in their datacenter.
If the system was properly designed, it would be very difficult to spoof your possession of a CD without actually having some sort of access to a complete copy of it.
For example, mp3.com could keep a sizable portion or complete copy of the unencoded track around at their site. Then they could ask you to take a random number of bytes at a random offset, append a random key string they specify, and hash it with a strong hash algorithm. On their end, they would do the same, and you'd be denied access if the results did not match. In this case, you'd need to have the sizable portion of the unencoded track on hand to answer their responses - or act as a man in the middle with a friend actually having the CD.
The connection wouldn't need to be encrypted as hashes obtained from sniffed connections would be useless because the key string would be specified by the server and change on every attempt.
As for the so-called "pro-choice" people - don't get me started. Who could be "anti-choice"? If I ever had any sympathy for their cause, their selfish and narrow-minded attempts to monopolize our perception of the truth have turned me off them forever.
You can't just substitute names here and expect to make a convincing argument. The anti-abortion crowd's attempts to monopolize our perception of the truth often involve violence, including violence against women seeking abortions and the people that staff clincs where abortions are performed.
While it'd be difficult to get everyone to agree on the morality of abortion or if a fetus has the same rights as a born human, we can all agree that the assault and murder of women and their doctors is morally wrong. If the so called "pro-lifers" can't respect rights of the born, how can we give any credibility to their argument that the unborn also have rights that we must respect? This is likely among the issues ralphclark is getting at when he calls the so called "pro-life" movement anti-life.
Do you realize that you just said:
1. I find the terms "pirate" and "piracy" offensive, you should be more cautious in your word choice so as to be inoffensive. Thank you!
I said much more than that. As well as the defamatory connotations that "pirate" and "piracy" have, these words also have defamatory denotations. Using the words "pirate" and "piracy" to describe copyright infringement is propagandist and manipulative misuse of emotionally loaded language. Using the words "pirate" and "piracy" to describe my fair use is libelous.
2. Oh, by the way, if you disagree with me about abortion rights, you're an idiot!! Moron!! Dork!! Loser!! (hee hee)
I did not disclose my position on abortion rights.
p.s. generally the media says "pro-abortion" and "anti-abortion," so neither group really gets called what they want to be called, but, oh well.
I tend to hear the news media use the labels "abortion rights activists" and "anti-abortion activists" more often than anything else. I think these words describe the situation accurately and emotionlessly.
THE INTERNET. (January 15, 2000) - On January 14, 2000, in response to the reverse engineering of the weak DVD encryption system intended to prevent fair use of DVD movies, called "CSS," and subsequent Internet distribution of a cryptanalysis of said system, the major motion picture companies attempted to bully members of the Free Software community into silence by filing injunction complaints in the Southern District of New York and District of Connecticut against four defendants. The victims in New York are Shawn C. Reimerdes, Eric Corley A/K/A "Emmanuel Goldstein," Roman Kazan and Jeraimee Hughes in the District of Connecticut.
The plaintiffs are Universal City Studios, Inc.; Paramount Pictures Corporation; Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.; Tristar Pictures, Inc.; Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.; Time Warner Entertainment Co., L.P.; Disney Enterprises, Inc.; and Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.
Announcing the court action, Jack Valenti, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), made the following statement (as translated by Babelfish's corporate halftruths -> reality mode):
"The MPAA is sucker-punching the small guy today in defense of the future of the American Movie Industry's profits. We have filed suit in federal court to stop Free Software developers from distributing the software designed to circumvent the encryption technology that prevents copying and fair use of DVDs. We'd make a lot more profits if you had to buy separate copies of your favorite movies to accomodate the different places you want to play them and the different players you own. If you didn't have to buy a DVD for your living room, and another copy for your bedroom, and a third for your vacation home, as well as a VHS copy for the VCR in your RV, we'd only make 1/4th the profits we would otherwise."
"This is a case of theft. The posting of the de-encryption formula makes it possible for end users to make full and fair use of the videos they've purchased! Now they won't have to buy multiple copies. They can even play the movies on their PC's without buying expensive player software and costly proprietary operating systems! The Industry will sell less licenses for our proprietary player technology! We'll make less money! The DeCSS and Linux DVD player people have stolen these profits from us! Waah!" said Valenti.
Under federal law, it is illegal for anyone to traffic in any product that is designed to render useless encryption devices that protect copyrighted material, thus reducing the Movie Industry's profits by making it unneccessary to purchase multiple copies of movies in order to play them in different places and on different players owned by the same person. In 1998, Congress passed and President Clinton signed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to protect the creators of copyrighted material from not being able to sell multiple copies of the same movie to poor suckers who can't understand how to get around the copy protection.
The MPAA strongly supported the DMCA precisely because of concerns about profits. The defendants' brazen trafficking of the utility plainly violates the profit maximization provisions of the DMCA.
"The U.S. movie industry intends to defeat anyone who steals our profits. We are determined to defend the technology that protects our profits." vowed Valenti. "If you can't protect that which you own, then you don't own anything."
"The Free Software community intends to defeat anyone who interferes with our fair use of information and artwork we've rightfully purchased. We are determined to defend the technology and organizations that protect our rights to fair use," retorted Brian Ristuccia, advocate of the Linux DVD Player Project (LiViD) and operator of a DeCSS mirror site on the Internet. "If you can't use that which you own, then you don't own anything at all," he said.
Additional information on this case may be found on the OpenDVD web site at http://www.opendvd.org/.
Piracy is a perfectly acceptable word to people who feel that the act carries pejorative connotations. Not to be rude, but no propensity of corrections will ever change minds.
The terms "pirate" and "piracy" have defamatory connotations to which I take offense -- especially when the terms are applied to my fair use of things I own.
What you're asking is akin to informing "pro-life" activists that they should really call themselves "pro-government-mandate."
So-called pro-life activists are not really pro-life. They're anti-abortion. This is especially true of the so-called pro-lifers who try to enforce their beliefs on others (such as abortion clinic workers) by killing them. Even the generally clueless news media has started to use the term anti-abortion instead of pro-life.
That player sounds great. I asked them if the player implemented Macrovision on the composite outputs. If it doesn't, it's the perfect player!
If you make a copy, that is theft - pure and simple - you have taken something which is not yours. You can try and hide your actions by cloaking it in phrases like 'making a backup', or it 'they won't notice' or whatever, but there can be no argument that it is theft.
Copying information or art is very different from stealing physical goods, so the word "theft" is inappropriate for use when referring to copying or copyright infringement. If I steal your bong, you can't use it to smoke anymore. But if I make a photocopy of few pages in a book you own a copy of - or a make a MP3 of a song you own a copy of, you can still read that book and listen to that song. Using the words like theft and steal is almost as confusing as using the word piracy to talk about copyright infringement. Furthermore, making copying impossible takes away my right to fair use of information and art that I have purchased.
Why do you think people have this opinion of young computer people being pirates? Could it possible be because they hear comments from pirates trying to defend the undefensible?
The of the word pirate sin this context is confusing. Consider alternatives like "those who infringe copyright" or "those who share information and art." See http://www.fsf.org/philoso phy/words-to-avoid.html#Piracy for details.
Your use of the words "pirate" and "piracy" in this context is confusing. Consider alternatives such as "making unauthorized copies of" or "sharing". See http://www.fsf.org/philoso phy/words-to-avoid.html#Piracy for details.
keep in mind that xerox actually invented the pc. this is kinda minor compared to what they could do. they do deserve some credit for their work anyway.
Preventing people from communicating goes beyond giving Xerox credit for their inventions.
Unless they simply re-sell the original Palm units I think they'd qualify as a 'clone'.
No. The word "clone" implies reimplementation. See the following definition from the jargon file:
clone /n./ 1. An exact duplicate: "Our product is a clone of their product." Implies a legal reimplementation from documentation or by reverse-engineering.
The Handspring visor can't really be called a clone, since the hardware and software were licensed from Palm Computing rather that reimplemented.
Other than the times I instinctively jot down graffiti strokes on a stickie note, I don't see too many people writing letters to each other in graffiti alphabet.
After extensive use of my Palm organizer, I've developed this problem too. It seems Xerox's patent would prevent others from legally reading my sticky notes because they would be employing Xerox's patented system for recognising unistroke characters with their eyes and brain. Allowing such a patent would be silly.