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.
Name calling? (Score:2, Interesting)
No surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately, with no large corporate backing at the time, legitimate uses such as this would of course be ignored. When large corporates think they are losing money, the government will come down on their side time after time.
Let's hope that uses such as this can be viewed as more legitimate now that the OSS movement has some large backers - IBM and the like.
Re:Right... (Score:3, Interesting)
Confusing Burglary with Circumvention (Score:4, Interesting)
Mr. Lockyer seems to be confusing the act of Burglary with that of Circumvention. DeCSS is not a tool for stealing or copying DVDs, but a tool for decoding a DVD for use in a DVD player, i.e. one created for Linux.
This would be like accusing someone who breaks into a car, but doesn't take anything, of grand theft auto. I think Mr. Lockyer needs to spend a few more years in Law School or at least read over the criminal legislation.
The irony, as they say, is priceless. (Score:5, Interesting)
The advertisement I got when I come into the comments page was for the Intel C++ compilter.
If DeCSS is a burglery tool, Intel, Microsoft, and other assembler/compiler makers should be charged with "aiding and abetting".
Not a PIRACY tool at all (Score:2, Interesting)
There are contantly stories mentioning DeCSS and file sharing in the same breath as piracy. While both may be in conflict with the law they are quite different and everything should be done to explain the differences between the two. ie
File sharing/DeCSS = personal, between friends, not for profit.
Piracy = for profit, doesn't use MP3s, doesn't need DeCSS, run by gangsters
The case against the latter is much stronger and more legitimate. Confusion between the two is very damaging and widespread.
DeCSS just overcomes a measure designed to reduce free trade in DVDs to allow the maintenance of differential pricing and irritate peole who travel a lot.
so now it's a trade secret? (Score:5, Interesting)
How did this go from stealing copyrights to stealing trade secrets all of a sudden? Exactly what part of the DVD is a trade secret? It can't possibly be the encryption, because nobody's interested in that part, they want the content. The content itself is certainly no trade secret, since it is widely distributed and available to anyone with a Blockbuster card.
Re:Foolish analogies (Score:3, Interesting)
Yo... but CSS restricts fair use. Perhaps DeCSS is the slimjim that breaks into your car when you lock yourself out. MM.. make that a rental car even. You don't own the car, but you have the right to enter it (even if you don't have the keys at the moment), so it's hardly breaking and entering. Nor is it stealing when someone uses DeCSS to watch their DVD on a linux box.
The govt shouldn't be trying to outlaw DeCSS. Everyone I know that uses DeCSS owns DVD's. They give the MPAA money. I, OTOH, prefer to watch movies that I download. I give the MPAA no money. Way to go after the bad guys MPAA. Way to stop piracy.
Re:Not purchase: license (Score:5, Interesting)
The industry can think what they want; the moment they put their product in a retail outlet, apply sales tax appropriate for a consumer good, and advertise using slogans like "Buy it today!" (Blockbuster), they sold it.
Imagine if every purchase you made came with a list of conditions. Imagine how often you'd ignore that list.
--Dan
copyright (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Not purchase: license (Score:2, Interesting)
Different Media (Score:2, Interesting)
There are two types of DVD discs (not talking about + and - here) DVD A and DVD G, which stand for 'Authoring' and 'General use' respectivly. The DVD G media is missing a physical ring on the inside of the disc that hold the encryption key. A DVD G drive won't even write the key. If the key is pysically in the wrong place, guess what? the disc won't work.
Still if they're gonna ban DeCSS (and they shouldn't) they should have a group writting DVD player apps for every platform with a DVD drive.
Hahahahhaha (Score:5, Interesting)
If the consumer perceives it as being a sale, and isn't told otherwise, then it's a sale. As in, they now own that DVD in the same sense that they own a book they buy.
Not only is their license invalid, and thus it's just an ordinary sale, like the sale of a book, but their license is also completely unenforcible, which means irrelevant. Encorfing their license would mean violating the privacy of millions of Americans and stepping into their homes, to prevent them from watching DVD's on GNU/Linux. No court is going to allow that. So, in other words, the MPAA's "license" is moot on two terms.
dumb. (Score:2, Interesting)
A lockpick is a burglary too (Score:3, Interesting)
Geeze... doesn't this sound like basic High-School logic courses? Just because once group uses a tool for a purpose does not make the tool criminal, and does not make other groups using the tool criminals.
Meanwhile... a warrant is out for the inventor of the coathanger, after it was discovered that this device could also be used as a tool for burglarizing vehicles...
Re:Doesn't it seem odd... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not the weapons, it's the training.
If it were Russian soldiers or Viet Cong instead of clueless civilians, the US Army would take such a beating that it cry "wee wee wee" all the way home.
California residents READ THIS! (Score:3, Interesting)
http://caag.state.ca.us/consumers/mailform.htm
and enter a consumer complaint. I said that I owned a DVD player and some DVDs, and that the California Attourney General's office was trying to prevent me from watching the DVD on my Linux computer.
What next, rape and murder? (Score:3, Interesting)
This abuse of words without regard to their meaning (but with regard to emotional effect) is getting alarming. According to them, you can perform B&E in your own house if you do something wrong with a DVD.
It amounts to "A and B are crimes. B sounds much worse, so let's call all the A crimes B crimes so they look like worse fiends."
"The program DeCSS is a burglary tool,"
If this is the case, then I suppose it is a short matter of time before DeCSS is claimed to be a weapon used in crimes of murder and rape.
If this keeps up, sometime next year, some MPAA or RIAA flack will be the first to accuse a disc pirate of committing genocide.
Re:Hrmm (Score:2, Interesting)
The courts have taken, and will continue to take, decisions that are unpopular with the public at the time, based upon what the law states, not on public opinion.
Thank you so much for saying that! I'm glad there are people who understand how essential this is. Do you realise that there are states who elect their Supreme Court Justices? That is such a big mistake. If they have their jobs for life, they can make unpopular rulings. Since they can't be fired, they can even rule against government officials!
Bill Lockyer's Contributors (Score:3, Interesting)
RIAA - $15,000.00
Sony Pictures Ent. Inc. - $5,000.00
Howard S. Welinsky (Warner Brothers Sr. VP) - $4,000.00
MPAA - $2,000.00
Paramount Pictures Group - $2,500.00
The Walt Disney Company - $2,500.00
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation - $2,000.00
Universal Studios, Inc. - $2,000.00
Alan F. Horn (Warner Brothers CEO) - $1,000.00
MGM And UA Services Company - $1000.00
Note that these amounts are only a small portion of about $12 million US in contributions. The largest portion of contributions comes from other big business (Telecom, etc), law firms, and casinos.
-Greg
Re:Doesn't it seem odd... (Score:3, Interesting)
This is a popular view, and makes it more comfortable to accept the idea of domination by powerful police and military organizations. I believe it to be incorrect.
First of all, an uprising in America would not take the form of such Hollywood scenarios as Red Dawn. It would in all likelihood begin in the urban centers. Urban fighting is very different from fighting in open country, particularly if the people in power count the urban infrastructure as part of their assets. In other words, the American government is very unlikely to drop battlefield nukes on Manhattan, because they'd be destroying their own possessions. This scenario applies to many other aspects of a popular American uprising-- from powerplants to factories to transportation. The military would be constrained in its use of overwhelming force by the practical problems of occupying its own country.
Secondly, harassing tactics could prove so expensive that the authorities might be forced to negotiate with the insurgents. This has happened thousands of times in human history-- an inferior force has forced concessions from a superior force because it's cheaper than fighting a war.
Finally, proponents of the "resistance is futile" viewpoint seem to assume that American soldiers are robots who would feel no misgivings about crushing their own people. I think that's nonsense. Members of our military have grown up with the idea that this is a free country, and that freedom is a good thing. A sizable portion of them would, in my opinion, mutiny-- if asked to kill their own people. These mutineers would provide both military expertise and powerful weapons to the insurgents.
History provides numerous examples of disarmed people who were tyrannized by their own leaders. Far fewer examples can be found of this happening to armed people. Remember the American Revolution. The idea that the American rabble might defeat trained British troops and their mercenaries was an idea so ridiculous that few in England took it seriously. Until it was too late.