DeCSS Loses Free Speech Shield 613
JohnGrahamCumming writes "BusinessWeek/CNET is reporting that the California Supreme Court has ruled that 'a Web publisher could be barred from posting DVD-copying code online without infringing on his free speech rights.' They also say that 'the state Supreme Court ruled that property and trade secrets rights outranked free speech rights in this case.'" According to the article, this "...overturned an earlier decision that said blocking Web publishers from posting the controversial piece of software called DeCSS, which can be used to help decrypt and copy DVDs, would violate their First Amendment rights."
The solution (Score:5, Insightful)
There are plenty of other countries that don't have such a crazy legal system.
next step - supreme court? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not "copying" (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, what kind of trade secret is it, if everybody knows it?
Re:No time now for detailed analysis... (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know about you but I'm a citizen not a consumer. I do stuff like vote and pay taxes... although I have to wonder why I bother with the former and if there are any good ways to avoid the latter. Got room in that cave?
All DVD piracy to stop! news at 11! (Score:5, Insightful)
Heaven forbid people pump the video from a DVD component output into a capture card and make a DiVX copy that is smaller, almost as good and without copy protection.
IMHO, DeCSS was litigated not because it allowed copying/viewing of DVDs but because it was a major embarrassment to the industry. Their best and brightest were humbled by a kid from Norway. Oh the shame!
DeCSS was written for, and mainly used for, watching legally purchased DVDs on Linux computers. Was the DVD industry ever able to come up with examples of DeCSS being used to pirate DVDs? There are probably more pirate DVDs stamped in China in one day that were EVER made with DeCSS.
Loss of face. A shame the idiots in charge just didn't commit suicide and get it over with.
Hypocritical (Score:5, Insightful)
Can a case be made that posting DVD-copying code and directions on a website makes people more likely to copy DVDs, while there is no correlation to how many people are more likely to build a bomb or murder someone after reading the directions online?
Never Meant to Be Public (Score:3, Insightful)
This doesn't change the fact that the DVD code became public and now is. Being that manufacturers provided discs with the DVD code on them to the public for a small fee, I don't see how it could have been avoided.
In other words... (Score:5, Insightful)
CSS does not prevent people from copying CDs illegally, what it does prevent is perfectly legal uses of DVDs such as playing them in countries other than that in which they were sold, and playing them on operating systems for which CSS decoders might not exist. Now our government wants to compromize the 1st amendment to defend their right to stop us from doing something that our laws specifically entitle us to do?
All laws which seek to limit two or more people's ability to willingly share ideas and information will ultimately be seen as being just as rediculous as witch burning or the Spanish Inquisition. Our right to effectively regulate our governments, which requires that we have free and open access to knowledge, ideas, and information, is being sold off based on the wrong-headed dogma that treating everything as "property" will improve efficiency.
Having said all that, I think we should welcome this ruling - since it is perhaps one of the clearest examples of how the 1st Amendment is being corroded by laws which increasingly serve only to stifle innovation and prop up monopolies to the detriment of science and the useful arts.
Outrageous Outranking (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny, I wasn't aware that propety and trade secrets rights were in the Constitution.
Are trade secrets a constitutional right? (Score:2, Insightful)
- Are property and trade secrets rights a constitutional right?
- Can anything outweigh a constitutional right?
I Denmark we have something called "Grundloven" (translates to something like "the basic law"). NOTHING can surpass what's written in this law. I sure hope that's the case too with your constitution...
Woah, Woah, Woah.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Barn door closed, missing wall not noticed... (Score:5, Insightful)
This lawsuit was specious. DeCSS had/has nothing to do with illegal DVD duplication as described by the plantiffs - the DVD pirates of Asia don't use it, and never had. They didn't need to.
All it's done is solidify a bad law and provide PR for the DVDCCA and MPAA. Large scale movie piracy will continue, untouched by this ruling, in factories all over China, Russia and Vietnam.
But US citizens will now be unable to exercise reasonable fair-use on DVDs they own.
This is *fantastic* news. Sure, in the short-term it looks bad, but in a few years time the consumer backlash will be a sight to behold. It'll happen, once Joe Sixpack realises he has to buy a seperate copy of "American Wedding III" for each media player he wants to watch it on.
Trade Secret RIGHTS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Under the previous ruling, a disgruntled employee might be able to post a company's proprietary code online and claim free speech rights, for example.
Forgive me for being naive, but this incident is already covered by Copyright Infringement laws. No need to bring Free Speech into the picture.
This judgement leads us down a slippery slope to a point where any form of reverse engineering is illegal - just claim "trade secret rights" (whatever those are.)
Your answers.. (Score:5, Insightful)
NO.
- Can anything outweigh a constitutional right?
MONEY.
I refuse to buy a product that.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The point is that the MPAA (and now RIAA, Microsoft, etc.) make it a point in assuming that their customer base is a part of their problem. Fine. Then I won't be a part of their customer base. End of story.
Somehow I don't think I am alone. THe recoding industry started seeing additional losses after winning their battle against Napster, and although most of it is explained by simple economics, I have known many friends who felt very torn whether to buy an album by an artist they liked-- if they buy it, they are lining the pockets of an insdustry they felt betrayed by, but they still wanted to support their artists.
Re:It's not "copying" (Score:4, Insightful)
You can argue about how DeCSS doesn't copy anything, but you all know it, DeCSS is used for ripping dvd's to vcd's and divx. We can keep living in la la land and pretend that DeCSS is perfectly ledgitimate, but it really isn't.
That doesn't mean I support the decision by the courts, I think code is speech too. It's just that i'm not willing to keep beliving in my argument just because the other side doesn't have the wording *exactly* right.
Re:Trade secret case depends on Norway (Score:5, Insightful)
But the implications are worrying.
Re:"Outranked"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mod Parent Down (Score:2, Insightful)
How free is it, if only the majority opinion gets heard? Of course, it's assinine to hear racist literature being read aloud on streets. But to take the right away from them is even sicker.
My criticisms (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly when are trade secrets "meant" to be public ? Does this ruling really place "trade secrets" above free-speech ? Unreal.
Nor did the code itself contribute significantly to a debate over whether DVDs should be encrypted at all, the judges said.
Is the publics' role simply to debate things that they can't do anything about ? DeCSS added plenty to the public debate, because it enabled people to do something that they couldn't previously do. It IS the debate.
Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
While I agree with just about everybody here that reverse-engineering shouldn't be illegal, and you should be able to publish DeCSS, I just want to watch the DVD I bought legally for crying out loud, etc --
Let's keep the first amendment out of this, okay? DeCSS is code. It's not free expression, it's not an Art form. It's simply a useful tool that let's you watch DVDs on your linux box. It should be legal to distribute it, not because of free speech, but because you simply should be allowed to write code that let's you watch movies.
Rather than trying to shove the square peg of technology into the round hole of the 1st amendment, we should be addressing current technology laws. In a way, not calling shenanigans on the DMCA every chance you get implies your acceptance of it. If you fix the DeCSS problem with 1st amendment logic, you've fixed the DeCSS problem. But if you fix it by repealing the DMCA, you've fixed a whole lot of other problems as well.
Decrypt and Copy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Decrypt - yes. You need to decrypt a DVD before playing it.
Copy - no. You can copy a DVD with the encryption in-tact.
This is about licencing fees. Each player must be licensed.
Each time someone tells you it's about copy protection, punch them in the face for me.
Re:No time now for detailed analysis... (Score:2, Insightful)
What the FUCK makes you think that the law should allow every Tom, Dick and Harry to shoot burglars to death?
Give a shout and watch the bastards running away.
Now a Federal Matter (Score:5, Insightful)
The next obvious stop is the Federal Circuit, which is where Constitutional matters such as Free Speech get decided.
Trade "secrets", once released into the retail marketplace, essentially cease to be so, since reverse-engineering is a legitimate practice, and always has been. License "agreements", which are a legal fiction anyway, do not change this fact. The idea that such compromised "secrets" can still trump Free Speech is ludicrous on its face.
Don't think for one nanosecond that this is over.
Oh, and to head off the foolish remarks ahead of time:
Copying a thing is not the same as taking a thing. They are morally, economically, and legally distinct acts. Conflation of the two will merely confuse you and lead you to the wrong conclusions.
See this editorial [vwh.net] for a primer as to why you should view any such "agreement" as highly suspect.
Merely because you can't think of a reason why anyone should examine the unencrypted data on DVDs doesn't mean good reasons don't exist (wacky screen blankers and realtime integration with video games are but two examples). Therefore, cutting off all access to that data shows a remarkably foolish lack of foresight; you have no idea what you'll be depriving yourself of later.
Merely chanting, "It's illegal!" will win you no new followers. There are plenty of foolish, self-serving laws on the books, and many others are violated on a daily basis without threat to the Republic. You must describe why you believe such illegality is a social benefit, not just for you, but for your audience as well.
Copyright extremists like to bleat that creators' rights should be protected, and that creators should have absolute control over their creations. Apart from the fact that this point of view is completely unrealistic, it also fails to take into account that, by virtue of having sold (not licensed) their goods in the retail marketplace, their "properties" are now subject to the whims of a new owner -- namely, the person who purchased it, and who may have very different ideas about what should and shouldn't be done with it. S/he is every bit the legitimate owner as the creator. So who calls the shots, and how do you justify that?
Schwab
Re:Broomstick? (Score:1, Insightful)
Why is it a bad precedent? (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem isn't that trade secrets were ruled protected, the problem is that DeCSS was ever considered a trade secret in the first place.
Re:T-Shirts (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm still going to wear my shirt though.
Re:It's not "copying" (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Trade secret case depends on Norway (Score:1, Insightful)
Coincidence? I think not!
The obvious response: (Score:5, Insightful)
Free speech is a right.
The privilidge of controlling trade secrets is granted to businesses by acts of government legislatures.
The right of freedom of speech is innate, universal, and to inaliable to every member of the human race. It also happens to be among the rights that the architects of the government of the united states decided needed to be explicitly enumerated in the government's charter as something that government legislatures are explicitly reminded they are not allowed to impinge in their actions.
Innate human rights take precedence over government-granted privilidges. Always. And among the functions of the courts in the United States is the task of ensuring that, when a government legislature attempts to put into law a limit on a universal human right despite.having no right or authority to do so, the law which creates the limitation is declared invalid and removed from the body of law of the land. For the moment, the California Supreme Court has failed in their duty.
This rant brought to you by Captain Obvious(TM)
Re:What's next? Arrest Securityfocus folks? (Score:4, Insightful)
In America, Soviet Russia makes jokes about YOUR lack of rights!
Re:illegal prime (Score:3, Insightful)
In the case of this DeCSS code, however, all they did was gzip the source file, then take the huge hexadecimal number that represented that file and convert it to base-10. It just so happens the number is prime. So, DeCSS may indeed be trivial, but you could do the same thing with the source for SSH or MD5 hashing, or even the entire linux kernel.
Re:The obvious response: (Score:2, Insightful)
The court's decision was correct, trade secrets are not protected under free speech, and shouldn't be. DeCSS shouldn't be a trade secret, is all.
Re:Yes, trade secret rights. (Score:3, Insightful)
I believe the chance of independent discovery is the key question in whether to seek patent protection. If your product, like the Coca-Cola formula, is difficult to discover, trade secret law provides an indefinite but uncertain monopoly, as you said. If otoh your product is easy to reverse engineer, patent law provides at least a short term of certain monopoly.
I see (Score:1, Insightful)
Who is to say that alleged drug smuggling is less of a crime than alleged terrorism?
Re:Trade secret case depends on Norway (Score:3, Insightful)
As I understand the code (since last looking at it) there was some code, and some tables. If the data tables were stored on one site, and the code itself on another, is it complete enough to be in violation?
How about two different files on the same site?
Re:No time now for detailed analysis... (Score:4, Insightful)
I was listening to some NPR thing about Martin Luther King Jr. this morning, and I remember that quote. I don't know who said it, but it's true.
It's one thing to be "sick of this crap", but unless you vote, and/or give money to a political candidate, it doesn't matter.
Money right now, while the candidates are trying to get the nomination is especially important. More people who can hear your candidate's message are more people who will vote for him. In that sense, money translates to many many more votes than your 1 vote.
Bush, et al know this, and they are milking all those wealthy supports who can fork out $2000 a plate.
Personally, I am supporting Howard Dean [deanforamerica.com] for president.
Make your own opinions about the candidates, but again
DON'T JUST SIT THERE, VOTE AND GIVE MONEY
(Not to say the poster isn't being active about his opinion, I'm just reminding others who may not be)
Re:No time now for detailed analysis... (Score:3, Insightful)
The burglar could choose safety by staying home. You didn't seek out danger, it was brought to you. IMHO, if there's even a small chance that your safety will be helped by shooting the buglar, it's justifiable. This means, if they're running away, it's too late. If they're coming in, fair game. You could give them a warning, but if they were willing to hurt you all you've done is give away the element of surprise.
And no, I'm not from the USA. I'm from Canada, where we've got almost the same gun laws as in the UK. I simply value the life of the farmer infinitely far ahead of the burglar.
Re:Doesn't the DMCA provide 4 reverse engineering? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't the DMCA provide 4 reverse engineering? (Score:1, Insightful)
Haven't you heard (Score:4, Insightful)
Welcome to the United States of Hypocrisy, a subsidiary of King George Inc.
"Looking out for their own interests at our expense since the day they were "elected" - Bush and company."
Re:It's not "copying" (Score:1, Insightful)
You can argue about how DeCSS doesn't copy anything, but you all know it, DeCSS is used for ripping dvd's to vcd's and divx. We can keep living in la la land and pretend that DeCSS is perfectly ledgitimate, but it really isn't.
Just because something can be used for illegitimate purposes does not make that thing illegitimate itself. DeCSS is used by many thousands of Linux users to play DVD's on their computers like the rest of the world can - and YOU know it.
Besides, the vast majority of DVD recoding to VCD, Divx, etc. is done on Windows platforms (because of it's dominance). It's ridiculously easy to find plenty DVD ripping / encoding software for WinPC (Flaskmpg, virtualdub, smartripper, etc). These programs have no need for DeCSS to do the job.
What stake have you got in this, to be ignoring any legitimate use of DeCSS in your opinion?
Re:The obvious response: (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm not sure why you would bother suggesting this to the largely atheist and naturalistic Slashdot crowd. With no God above to judge us, leaving mankind to do it for itself, then there is no such thing as an innate, universal, inalienable right. In a godless world, the rights we have are only those that our society lets us have, and nothing more. If that happens to include free speech, fine. But if not, there ain't nothin inalienable about it.
Re:I refuse to buy a product that.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sigh...Once again, class:
Theft = I am -1 item, you are +1 item.
Copying = I am +0 items, you are +1 item.
Copyright infringement != Theft.
It just doesn't. Period. Depite what Lars told you.
Re:Trade secret case depends on Norway (Score:3, Insightful)
(Un?)fortunately, as hackers our favorite way to combat this stuff is to a) write a program so slick that it's impossible to stop, or b) shake our fists at the sky with dramatic readings of source code and t-shirts and so forth.
There need to be lawsuits. The ACLU doesn't do everything right, but they'll go all out for what they believe in and they'll do it in court. Unfortunately, that's how it works in the US.