Seth Schoen Reveals Himself Author of DeCSS Haiku

TrinSF writes "The anonymous author of the DeCSS Haiku has written an article revealing his identity and explaining some of the background. The haiku has been featured in the Gallery of CSS Descramblers and attained some notoriety when it was published in 2001. I'm glad to have played a small role in the article; my comment on /. is included in the text." Apologies to Seth for dropping a "c" from his surname.

Getting kinda slow..

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm herrvinny, posting anon so I don't karma whore, link was getting slow. I lost the links copying this, though

The History of the DeCSS Haiku

by Seth Schoen

Works like Hesiod's Theogony are not just spoken poetic entertainment; they delineate the world view of their culture. In the same way, the DeCSS epic instructs the "listener" in the world view and cultural values of those opposing [censorship of] DeCSS.

Leigh Ann Hildebrand, slashdot comment, February 25, 2001

we have only words against

John Dos Passos, "The Camera Eye (51)", in The Big Money

I wrote the poem known as the "DeCSS Haiku" three years ago, in 2001. (The poem's full title is "How to decrypt a / DVD, in haiku form / Thanks, Prof. D. S. T.") The 456-stanza work, sometimes described as an "epic", was an anonymous contribution to Prof. David S. Touretzky's "Gallery of CSS Descramblers", which collects a variety of ways of expressing technical information about the decryption of DVDs. My poem has now become a part of the folklore of the Internet.

The poem includes a traditional opening invocation to the Muse:

Now help me, Muse, for
I wish to tell a piece of
controversial math.

It proceeds to describe, using only haiku-like verses with lines of five, seven, and five syllables, all the mathematical steps required to convert an encrypted DVD into a usable form.

Prof. Touretzky created his Gallery shortly after U.S. movie studios began their quest to suppress the publication of such information. The studios had filed a lawsuit captioned Universal v. Reimerdes (later known as Universal v. Corley). Touretzky was concerned about the free speech implications of the case, and the purported distinction between computer software and other forms of expression. As Touretzky explains:

If code that can be directly compiled and executed may be suppressed under the DMCA, as Judge Kaplan asserts in his preliminary ruling, but a textual description of the same algorithm may not be suppressed, then where exactly should the line be drawn? [The Gallery of CSS Descramblers] was created to explore this issue, and point out the absurdity of Judge Kaplan's position that source code can be legally differentiated from other forms of written expression.

Touretzky set about collecting a remarkably wide variety of descriptions of the DVD decryption process, with the aim of promoting critical thought about what expression people are prepared to censor, and why. This process resulted in an outpouring of creativity from the Internet community, with the DVD CSS algorithm described and redescribed from an assortment of scientific and artistic angles. Most contributors seemed to view the creation of each new adaptation of DeCSS as a form of political protest. As Touretzky's correspondence with the Motion Picture Association of America made clear, each adaptation was also a thorny new legal question: could this version be called a "circumvention device"? Could the courts suppress its publication? Nobody seemed able to offer a clear answer; a studio lawyer was later willing to opine to the Wall Street Journal only that there were practical limits to the industry's willingness to spend money fighting these works. So when the studios asked Touretzky to take his Gallery off the Internet, he put the question to them directly: which versions did they object to? They told him that they would consider the question "and respond appropriately at the proper time". Professor Touretzky is still waiting.

Impressed by other people's contributions to the rapidly-growing gallery, I decided I had to make some kind of effort of my own. I had particularly admired Joe Wecker's song "Descramble (This Function Is Void)", and I imagined that my contribution would have to be in the realm of literature rather than of visual art. I toyed with translating a description of the algorithm into Latin (on the theory that this might appeal to lawyers, who readily recognize that Latin is expressive and meaningful

Mirror available

[Anonymous Coward]

The original is already slashdotted, so I have created a mirror:

http://myweb.jhu.edu/bananas/haiku.html [jhu.edu]

Seth Shoen?

[r_glen]

Not that I really care, but it's spelled Seth Schoen

Re:I'm Spartacus

[mamba-mamba]

There is no way they are going to go after him. He didn't violate copyright, since the poem is original. The poem isn't a circumvention device since it is not executable or compileable. And the algorithm is no longer considered a trade secret.

So on what basis would they go after him?

MM
--

Re:Attention economy

[thinkninja]

Jon Johansen went free because there was "no evidence" that he used DeCSS for illegal purposes (links [theregister.co.uk], thanks [cbsnews.com] google [aftenposten.no]). Just because DeCSS could be used illegally, the code itself, and it's creation, could not be deemed illegal according to the court.

"The appellate court holds the opinion, as did the first instance court, that there has not been offered any evidence for anybody else having used DeCSS for illegally acquired DVD movies..."

Secondly, the DVD CCA sought dismissal in their trade secret case against Andrew Bunner after they were told that it lacked merit by the California Supreme Court. So, CSS isn't a trade secret, either.

Silly sciolist.

Re:I'm Spartacus

[davincile0]

He's Chief Technologist at the EFF. Bring the pain.

Re:What happened to the other DeCSS?

[ikkonoishi]

Actually DeCSS(the css remover) was named that to troll for the MPAA.

http://www.pigdog.org/decss/