DeCSS Arguments in CA Supreme Court Case 531
scubacuda writes "According to News.com, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer called DVD-cracking software DeCSS a tool for "breaking, entering and stealing" during a hearing before the California Supreme Court on Thursday. "The program DeCSS is a burglary tool," Lockyer told the judges, adding that the movie studios lose millions of dollars because of piracy over the Internet. (CopyLeft offers this "burglary tool" on a t-shirt)" If you've forgotten what this case is about, see EFF's page about it.
Hrmm (Score:5, Insightful)
* screw drivers
* crowbars
* keys
* bits of metal
* credit cards
please, cuff me and send me to the bighouse, i've got a tool shed!
This again??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't it seem odd... (Score:4, Insightful)
Breaking, entering, and stealing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Likewise.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Just to spite them... (Score:2, Insightful)
Slim Jims (Score:5, Insightful)
Fuck you, Lockyer. (Score:3, Insightful)
So what? (Score:2, Insightful)
Same with DeCSS -- you can use it to facilitate illegal copying, or you can use it for legitimate purposes, like creating backups, viewing the media on devices lacking a built-in DeCSS equivalent, copy short excerpts you are entitled to for journalistic or educational purposes under fair use, or exercising your public right to copy the works once the copyrights expire.
Re:Hrmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Despoite being wrong IMO (and most of yours too I imagine), DeCSS is still seen by the masses as being solely for the purposes of theft.
I love this "logic" (Score:3, Insightful)
Politics, duh. (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course he is on the side of the DVD Copy Control Association, he is on the side of the movie studios... They have deeper pockets and are more likely to win him the election then the technogeeks in silicon valley's burst bubble...
Logical Conclusion (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Name calling? (Score:3, Insightful)
I expect this kind of nonsense from "the industry". What's terrifying is they have a DA doing their name calling for them!
Number of daily downloads (Score:3, Insightful)
However, in one indication of the money that is at stake, Lockyer cited estimates that as many as 350,000 movies are illegally downloaded from the Internet every day.
Does this even sound reasonable?
If each move filled a cd at 700MB then they're claiming that 245TB of movies are downloaded on a daily basis. That seems a tad high to me.
Re:Hrmm (Score:5, Insightful)
He's a whore for Big Entertainment (Score:3, Insightful)
Its a necessary tool. (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course the MPAA could argue that copyright expiration is so far in the future that any consideration of post-expiration is ridiculous. And I might agree.
The Boston Strangler Returns (Score:5, Insightful)
--Jack Valenti, head of the MPAA, in congressional testimony. [edgecity.net]
Who's burglarizing who? I buy a car, I get the keys. Ford doesn't have the right to tell me where I can drive; I bought the car, and I bought its keys. If they come in and take the keys away from me, am I not the victim of burlary?
Too much intellectual property handwaving. Sellers don't have authority over buyer's uses, as some rather racist folks in whitebred towns discovered as their old homes were bought up by upwardly mobile *gasp* minorities.
--Dan
He must have missed some of his law classes (Score:3, Insightful)
His incompetence in IT matters could have been excused, but seems to be on the same level.
Actually, you got my point exactly... (Score:2, Insightful)
Null
Re:Doesn't it seem odd... (Score:2, Insightful)
Accusec by a female reporter of training the boys to be killers, he observed
she was equipped to be a prostitute...
If we simply boycott all of these products, they won't afford sharks (lawyers), and the whole non-argument will eat itself.
Sure, I own some DVDs, but would gladly give them all all away if it would get these idiots to shut their pie hole.
Re:Doesn't it seem odd... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Number of daily downloads (Score:3, Insightful)
Take all the irc channels, ftp pubs, kazaa, usenet. Say 1000 sources with 350 downloads per day.
It sounds about right. No doubt he also includes legitimate downloads like divx.com in his math.
Also realize, though that 99% of that is porn. The number gets pretty realistic, conservative even.
Re:Hrmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, I'm guessing most of these same judges have themselves or had one of their children download Kazaa, and therefore they've seen that the primary use of P2P seems to be copyright infringement... and then to top that off, they're going to link things like DeCSS as a necessary first-step in that infringement chain. The real question is: can the pro-DeCSS lawyers overcome this impression?
Re:Doesn't it seem odd... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wouldn't it be nice if the ACLU was as politically powerful as the NRA?
Disclaimer: I am a Canadian.
A huge piece of what's wrong with our legal system (Score:5, Insightful)
The truth of the matter is that DeCSS is no more a burglary tool than a Dremel tool, and a middle class jury, who doesn't sit on media corporation boards, isn't going to give a damn about this case. The only way to make them care is to charge the issue with the illusion that someone is going to be "breaking, entering, and stealing" into their house to abduct their kids.
Unfortunately, although Lockyer is successfully relating the issue to something that the jury may be able to comprehend, he's also hopelessly obscuring the truth, and most middle class people aren't going to know the difference between a codec and a hole in the ground, so they aren't going to be able to discern the deliberate obfuscation.
Judges should be educated about technology before trying cases like this, and then prevent counsel from either side from making misleading statements like this. This would greatly even the playing field in the legal arena, and probably stop many of the misinterpretations of the DMCA. If all judges who deal with technology could be educated to at least being literate with the terminology, they would be able to dismiss legal actions that try to use the DMCA in a way that it wasn't intended (if there is such a thing).
Re:Doesn't it seem odd... (Score:5, Insightful)
If faced with creeping tyranny, wouldn't you want to be armed, just in case?
Re:Hrmm (Score:2, Insightful)
Not necessarily.
CSS is an encryption system, designed to ensure that DVDs are played only in players sold in the intended market.
The MPAA and the DVD consortium make no secret about CSS's existance and their region-encoding scheme, and anyone competent and aware enough to run Linux has no excuse to not know this.
If CSS is a legitimate tool, and region-encoding / player certification are legal business tools, then DeCSS is not a legitimate use. Even if it's found to be legal and legitimate somewhere, it may still be illegal somewhere else.
And, AFAIK, public perception is relevant to legal decision. If a noticable majority percieved DeCSS as a free speech issue, few courts would treat it as something else.
Re:Hrmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hrmm (Score:5, Insightful)
It's really simple. I buy a DVD. I own that DVD. I thus have the right to watch that DVD, however fucking damn well I please. Let's not let MPAA double-speak confuse the only relevant issue, which is my right to watch a DVD I've purchased on the platform of my choice, using the tools of my choice.
Re:Good point. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Hrmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, however, in order to VIEW an encrypted DVD you MUST bypass the copyright protections. This is true by definition for any player/platform. DeCSS has a legitimate use for this particular purpose. The fact that it CAN be used to decrypt DVDs for the purpose of copying them is another matter altogether. I'm sure 99.9% of the time DeCSS is used it's used for VIEWING and not COPYING.
<rant>
Now that that's said, I think it's pathetic that the MPAA relies on encryption for DVDs. History has shown over and over that ALL encryption that is decryptable is breakable by definition. They should stop this nonsense and start prosecuting when they find copyright theft. Anyhow, most DVD copyright theft is probably a straight rip, encryption included. So in effect, the encryption is utterly useless anyhow.
</rant>
Re:Good point. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Foolish analogies (Score:2, Insightful)
When I buy a DVD, I've bought a DVD. I haven't licensed it.
However, I can't play my property on my Linux-based computer. Enter DeCSS, which allows me to use my property in a way I see fit.
Now, wait for it.. Wait for it.. Here's the problem.
All this digital crap. Perfect copies and all that.
Because you can theoretically make a perfect copy of a DVD, and give it to your friend, while still keeping your current property, DVDs don't fit into old school 'property'.
This wasn't what people were thinking of when laws and precedents were drawn up a century or two ago. Back then, if you bought, say, a can of yams from some farmer, the farmer was confident you couldn't use them and give them to someone else at the same time.
You could give em to a friend, sure, but you wouldn't have any yams. You *could* try to both utilize the yams, and copy them, but humans are analog and made an imperfect, rather brown and smelly copy of the yams.
Yeah, I just woke up. Uh, right.
Let me try to rephrase that. Old School == You couldn't give away your property for free and still hold that property. Thus, no one really cared much if you gave it away. If you wanted that property again, you'd have to buy it again.
New school == "Here's a copy. Go home and watch it, and I'll watch the original here, and we'll make funny comments to each other over the phone."
Or some shit like that. Bah, damn the man, eat more broccoli, carrot juice consitutes murder.
Re:Doesn't it seem odd... (Score:5, Insightful)
Disclamer: I am not against the 2nd amendment, it is just that that argument is freakin' weak...
Rhetoric (Score:3, Insightful)
The basic reality, and it does represent a problem for the business models of the mediaopolies, is that the vast majority of people don't take the transgression of illegal, non-commercial duplication seriously as a crime.
And this is the thing: I think copyright law is a good thing, by and large, it creates a lot of economic activity and can protect and enrich the artist who is wise enough not to give up that right, but the DMCA is a whole other thing. Controlling access to "burglars' tools" is one thing, but this is more like telling me I'm not allowed to go to the hardware store and get a duplicate key made for my own house.
Re:Again, you dont need DeCSS to copy a DVD (Score:5, Insightful)
If that's true, then why was there ever a problem in the first place? Surely this was brought up so many times back when this first started with 2600. Even the MPAA must realize that DeCSS is not necessary for copying DVD's. So while the MPAA and their bribed politicians are claiming it's a burglary tool in court, the reason they went to court in the first place is probably something else. Like that fact that with DeCSS you can watch a movie on an UNLICENSED player.
For the MPAA (though they won't say this in court), this has nothing to do with copy prevention, but everything to do with the when, where, and how you watch a film you paid for. Obviously this is important to them or they wouldn't have dreamed up Region Codes.
How the hell do you get to be a State Attorney General and not have the mental ability to see straight through this?
Re:Hrmm (Score:5, Insightful)
More to the point (AFAIC), it's an expression of an algorithm. It's simply a description of a mathematical process.
Come to think of it, the *source* to DeCSS is not really a tool at all. You can't use the source to watch DVDs. I could maybe see justification for classifying DeCSS binaries like lockpicks and slimjims, but the source is more like the description of how to make a lockpick.
Re:Foolish analogies (Score:2, Insightful)
CSS has not a whit to do with piracy. Piracy is the bogey man that the MPAA trots out to camoflage its agenda. CSS is about control of when you can watch a movie.
Without CSS the DVD consortium wouldn't have "officially licensed" decoders. And without those licensed decoders they couldn't carve the world up into zones. Those Intl zones keep a European DVD from playing in the US. More importantly, from the MPAA's point of view, it quashes the possibility of an Int'l gray market. Everybody has to by the disks in their own zone. No one can send them to their relatives "back home" and expect them to play.
CSS is there purely as a legal manoeuvre: "See, we have encryption!" The real point is to keep as absolute control of every disk and, ultimately, every viewing of that disk as is humanly possible.
Disney's decaying DVDs are the next step. You can expect the price of regular Disney DVDs to go way up once the decaying ones hit the market.
Re:Hrmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Arrogance, insanity, or both? (Score:3, Insightful)
So let me get this straight. I can sit in my home, with a DVD I purchased in full, and by the act of playing that DVD on my Linux computer, I have forcibly invaded the private premises of the media industry and stolen their property?
We've known for years that words like piracy and theft are intended to have an emotional effect, (unless, of course, groups of Scandanavian teenagers are storming container ships on the open sea and stealing DVDs) but burglary?!
The only support for the application of the concept of burglary is phrases such as "hacking into mechanisms to protect trade secrets". Does this indicate that the man who may one day be governor of California believes that a copy of a DVD is to be considered the private property and premises of the MPAA?! And what trade secret is violated by skipping the forced commercials at the beginning of the video? It is shocking that someone would walk into a courtroom and have the gall to suggest that a DVD in my own home represents homestead rights and privileges of the MPAA! Regardless of the outcome, I have to wonder about a world where someone would even attempt to make a point so utterly devoid of reason.
Can somebody please tell me that he is just being stupid? Please, someone post something about attributing to evil that which can be explained by incompetence. I really need something like that to get me through the day.
Re:Hrmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe they should hook up w. SCO. Look at the commonality:
Re:Hrmm (Score:5, Insightful)
- A signature by both parties
- An expiration date or term
When I goto the store and buy a DVD with cash, I didn't sign a damn thing. No contract, NADA. Othewise, I could write contracts on the bottom of rocks that say, "If you picked this up you owe me your first born son."Re:Doesn't it seem odd... (Score:5, Insightful)
>If faced with creeping tyranny, wouldn't you want to be armed, just in case?
To paraphrase a jurist I heard on the radio recently, the 2nd Amendment isn't our great bulwark against tyrany, the 1st Amendment is.
The upcoming stealth FCC media consolidation deregulation poses a far, far greater threat to democracy than the most rabid gun control advocate.
-dameron
AAAARRRGGHHH!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
DeCSS is about watching DVDs that I paid for on machines not approved by the MPAA, for example my two linux machines.
It also gives you back the fair use rights that the movie industry is trying so hard to steal, but the primary use for DeCSS is to watch movies on linux.
The only way DeCSS even helps DVD copying is that it allows you to do lossy compression you couldn't otherwise do. DVD "copy protection" doesn't in the least keep you from copying a DVD. I can easily copy a DVD and view it without using any unapproved decryptor.
Re:Hrmm (Score:5, Insightful)
The only reason DeCSS could be illegal is the circumvention portion of the DMCA. The only thing protected here is copy prevention schemes. Congress specifically got rid of the access prevention protection.
You can still use access prevention schemes, of course; but it's not a violation of law to bypass one. And CSS only prevents access.
Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
There are no juries in a state Supreme Court. He was making the argument to a justice, who can be expected to understand issues enough not to fall for such rhetoric.
The "middle-class jury" you so disparagingly reference is not making any major policy changes; they're deciding on findings of fact and leaving the actual legal maneuverings to the trial judge. Beyond that, most sweeping decisions are appealed.
Judges should be educated about technology before trying cases like this, and then prevent counsel from either side from making misleading statements like this.
To a large extent, judges ARE educated about technology before trying cases like this. And why should they "prevent counsel from either side from making misleading statements like this" when they could simply RECOGNIZE them as misleading and NOT BE MISLED?
Yes, the system may have its faults, but the ignorance of your post makes it abundantly clear that you're not one to prescribe fixes.
Re:Hrmm (Score:4, Insightful)
words are legally very meaningful here, really what you meant to say is that you must 'bypass the COPY protections'
Copyright is a legal right to copy and should have nothing to do with ones ability to copy.
Most of us here are arguing that one way or another we should be allowed the ability to copy content, while understanding that we don't have right to copy, until the copyright expires, except maybe for personal use once we have purchased a copy.
This should be a simple case of reason, copyright law gives us a right to copy content after a certain period of time... this right cannot be realized unless we have the ability to copy that content. So, in a very real and basic way copy controls deprive people of their right to copy. The laws that prevent people from circumventing these copy controls are inherently corrupt.
Corrupt doesn't mean that people were paid off to push these laws through, which may or may not have happened, but they are corrupt laws because they contradict the very basis of our understanding of Copyright. Creators have a time limited right to legally control and profit from the distribution by copy of their work. After this period of time it is part of the public domain and we have a legal right to copy it and distribute it if we please.
A consistent and equitable law would ban copy controls all together, not seek to outlaw their circumvention.
Re:AAAARRRGGHHH!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Before you cry foul, the "feature" was intended to prevent the viewing of a DVD on an unauthorized system (one which has no macrovision or region encoding, for example, which is TRUE for region 1 DVDs based on current law, AFAIK).
Nonetheless, you have purchased a product - not a licence. If your DVD breaks in five years, they will not replace it for a nominal media cost, nor will they send you new media should your system change (OTOH, microsoft used to send you 3.5" floppies if you licenced their software and you got it delivered on CD).
Once you've bought it, you should be able to do anything you want to with it, as long as the product (physical disc and information therein) stays with you and, arguably, your immediate family. You can even use it to shim up that door frame that's a bit out of whack. Of course, if it doens't work to shim the door frame, you won't get your money back, as it's not the intended use of the product. If , even with DeCSS it doesn't work on your PC - once again - you won't get your money back. If you put it in your DVD player and it doesn't work, you can take it back and get a replacement, because that IS the intended use.
Try this analogy: you may purchase a lock from Quickset, sit on your living room floor, and pick the lock all you want. You are circumventing their mechanism without a licenced key, but it's your lock and your home. The law has not been broken.
Re:Hrmm (Score:5, Insightful)
The important point in your statement is the word CONTRACT. You see, I never signed any contract, nor entered into any agreement with anyone when I purchased my DVD. I gave 20$ to the guy behind the register, he put the DVD in a bag, and I left with it. I didn't sign any agreement saying I wouldn't watch the DVD on linux, or smash it with a hammer, or anything.
So unless I'm actually performing an already illegal act (Like sharpening the edge of the CD/DVD and stabbing people with it, or making copies and selling them) then there's nothing that can stop me from doing what I want with the DVD.
There is not a legal prohibition against watching DVDs on linux. There is not a law that says I am performing an illegal act. So, since there was no contract, I've violated no contract law, and since it's not illegal to watch a DVD on Linux (I promise you, it's not. I've checked with quite a few lawyers and judges), I'm not doing anything illegal.
No copyright infringement is taking place as I'm not copying the work nor am I purchasing an illegal copy of the work. No breach of contract as I never entered into any contract, no legal issue at all.
The only POSSIBLE legal issue is the DMCA issue. And I'm pretty sure it doesn't actually apply to home viewing of a video in this fashion though that hasn't been established by the courts yet.
Kintanon
Re:So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with this is that it can be argued you don't need DeCSS do any of this. Let's look at each one, one a time.
Creating backups: The MPAA and DVD publishers can argue that you do not have the right to make "backups", which are really just copies of their content. You can't make a "backup" of a book, same thing with a movie or TV show.
Viewing on non-CSS compliant devices: It can be argued that these devices are not properly licensed, therefore viewing DVDs on them is illegale according to the terms of the contract you have with the DVD publisher (see my previous comment [slashdot.org]).
Fair use copying by journalists or students: Most providers will provide at no or little cost (usually just the shipping cost) excerpts of their content for editorial purposes. It may not be as convenient to write to a publisher for excerpts, but since they provide an alternative this use doesn't have much of a leg to stand on.
Copying works after copyright expires: Haa-ha-ha-ha! Copyrights expire?? Yeah, right. <wipes tears of laughter from eyes> Seriously, though, when the copyright on a work expires, the previous holder of that copyright is under no legal, or moral, compulsion to make it easy, or even possible, for you to make copies of the work.
You might think DeCSS is a harmless tool that only allows people who have legimately purchased content to view that content, and I'm even inclined to agree with that, but the truth is there's no way you can spin it to win in court. Every "legimate" use of DeCSS can be too easily countered in front of the judge.
Improper analogies (Score:2, Insightful)
DeCSS:DVD::Crowbar:House
Close, but no cigar. We presume that for this use of a crowbar to be legal you must own or have rights to access the house. It is unclear which is meant simply because a house bears no resemblance to intelectual property. In other words, this house is real property...it can only be in the hands of one person at a time, that person has the right to access his property.
DeCSS:DVD::Criminal:Victim
Not even close. Besides the fact that DeCSS is a process and Criminal is a person, A criminal's victim is presumed to have rights. What rights does a DVD posses? None. As with the previous one, this analogy *also* fails because of the differing nature of intellectual property and IP crimes to real property and real property crimes (theft).
Hmm, so what *are* the properties of the items with which we want to relate?
IP:
the property held by IP owner (the content)
protection method:
CSS, a protective wrapper around IP stored within a DVD.
circumvention method:
DeCSS, a utility to allow access to "wrapped" IP
content media storage:
DVD
content access method:
DVD player
the DVD represents two distinct things. Both the protected media and the right to access it are conveyed by the ownership of a DVD. This is an important distinction. No, i'd go so far as to say it is *the* important distinction. Consider the implications of it being otherwise.
Consider a theatre. The provision of media and the right to access it are separated (ticket and auditorium). I would expect it to be *clearly* indicated if purchasing the ticket (right to watch) did not also purchase access (access to watch). Wouldn't you? I suspect that ownership under every law in every common law county implies both rights simultaneously. Not doing so probably requires a special contract which specifically retracts the right to access for the property.
Since I have never signed (nor have I even seen) such a restricting contract governing my ownership of my DVD's, I must assume that my purchase of a DVD includes both the right to watch and access to watch.
The owners of the IP contained in DVD's are trying to obscure the fact that they want the courts to revoke an implied right. These IP owners want to separate these two rights, placing the right to watch with the DVD and the right to access with the dvd player. Where did I give up my *standard* (IP) property rights which would allow this?
Lets try a more coherent comparison. We need to find a system where right to access and right to view are separable. I posit that the standard book is a fine example. Suppose:
I enter a book store, pick up a book, read the first page and decide I'd like to buy it to finish reading it. I go to the counter with the book and pay for it, getting a polite "thank you" from the store owner. When I get home, I go sit in my favorite chair, open the book to find that all the pages are blank. In confusion I search the book for the reading instructions. Finding none I call the bookstore, where I am informed that I can only read the book under a special kind of light. The bookstore just happens to have those lights installed. The store owner kindly offers to sell me a lamp so I can read my book, seeming confused at my annoyance. I however look online and find out that a massive tacheon flux through the book causes the ink to become visible for 24 hours. I do a bit more research and find a diagram showing how to create a tacheon emmitter using duct tape and chicken wire. Now, I can read my book. Have I committed a crime?
IP:
the content of the book.
protection method:
special ink
circumvention method:
tacheon emmitter
content storage media:
book
content acc
Re:Hrmm (Score:5, Insightful)
If that's true, then they're effectively licensing the content to you which means that you should be able to make a copy of the content for backup purposes (for which DeCSS may be used as a legitimate tool), and/or the publisher should make available to you that content at cost for the media only should your media ever become damaged or unplayable. As we know they want to legislate against these too. I'm sorry folks, but you're either selling a license or a copy of the content. You can't have it both ways.
- = - = - = -
To the Office of the Attorney General for the State of California:
I am writing in severe distress over what I consider to be an outrage in the State of California Office of the Attorney General.
Recently, Attorney General Bill Lockyer called certain DVD viewing software "a burglary tool", (see http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-1011326.html). This is coming from the Attorney General of a State at the forefront of the Antitrust Trial against Microsoft.
As a consumer, I choose my purchases carefully and exercise my rights to the fullest extent of the law. I refuse to run any Microsoft product on my home computers. Instead, I run Linux. I enjoy viewing DVDs that I have purchased legally on my computer. Software such as DeCSS allows me to do that. By referring to it as "a burglary tool" Bill Lockyer is effectively calling me a burglar for watching my own DVDs, to which I take great offense. I am hereby revoking any support I have of Mr. Lockyer and will be sure to educate anyone I know about his efforts to restrict the rights of consumers.
The MPAA is behaving very much like the software industry did (erroneously) in the 80's and early 90's. They have effectively attempted to enforce a "license" on the consumer restricting where, when and how material stored on media such as DVDs can be viewed. However, if my DVD wears but or becomes scratched and unviewable, then neither the publisher nor the MPAA will replace that media. I have to go out and purchase a new copy (effectively an additional license) at full price.
They can't have it both ways. They must either eliminate the use of the effective license, or they must allow copying for purposes of backup and/or replacement of destroyed media at zero profit to the consumer. Any failure to do so constitutes theft against the consumers of California and this Nation. By supporting them, Mr. Lockyer may be counted among them as an accessory.
Self Serving Language (Score:2, Insightful)
This entitlement attitude really pisses me off, it has for many years.
They didn't lose a dime. They may not have made a dime, but they have no right to assume I'd pay for something just because I'd take it for free.