CSS of DVDs Ruled 'Ineffective' by Finnish Courts

An anonymous reader writes "The CSS protection used in DVDs has been ruled "ineffective" by Helsinki District Court. This means that CSS is not covered by the Finnish copyright law amendment of 2005 (based on EU Copyright Directive from 2001), allowing it to be freely circumvented. Quoting the press release: ' The conclusions of the court can be applied all over Europe since the word effective comes directly from the directive ... A protection measure is no longer effective, when there is widely available end-user software implementing a circumvention method. My understanding is that this is not technology-dependent. The decision can therefore be applied to Blu-Ray and HD-DVD as well in the future.'"

Catch-22?

[drinkypoo]

A protection measure is no longer effective, when there is widely available end-user software implementing a circumvention method. My understanding is that this is not technology-dependent.

What this would seem to say to me is that in order to get to the point at which the protection measure is considered to be ineffective, you have to go through a point at which it is not widely available, and you're breaking the law.

Does that seem a bit wrong to anyone else?

Re:Catch-22?

[BosstonesOwn]

Not really , think civil disobedience.

I took from it that if it's widely hacked and in use then it's deemed useless.

Sort of like when everyone started decrypting dv... oh my bad.

But...

[a-zarkon!]

If the enforcement technology is ineffective, does that make violating the copyright OK? Weak analogy: A stop sign in an intersection is easily circumvented, does that mean it's OK for me to blow right by them? No, I'm not on the side of the mafiaa - just not sure I agree with the logic here. I'd rather see some discussion of the copyright laws themselves rather than CSS technology to "enforce" them. My 2 cents.

Re:Catch-22?

[TripMaster Monkey]

On the other side of the coin, does this mean that all that is required to make it legal to crack a protection scheme is to crack it and make the crack widely available?

Re:But...

[gerrysteele]

Well your logic is askew... There are specific laws that deal with the use case of a stop sign denoting exactly what to do. There are no specific laws relating to the use of CSS on DVDs.

Re:All Over Europe?

[icsx]

The directive gives instructions how to implement it to the law of each country. There is some leverage but the main concept is to be kept the same. Each country dont have to agree 100% with the directive but they have to obey it from the most parts. Good example is that copyright law directive. Officially you cant copu a CD which has a copy protection, even for your own use and they implemented that 100% here so officially, if i own a copy protected CD, i cannot transfer its content legally to my iPod. Thats how stupid these directives are. They are made up by jackasses who dont know the real meaning of them.

"effective" means "used by copyrightholder"

[Husgaard]

There is a problem with this ruling, as it only takes local law into account, and not the directive. According to the EU "solidarity principle", the interpretation of local laws made because of EU directives should be in line with the directive.

And the InfoSoc directive [eu.int] actually defines "effective technological measures" in article 6.3.

The definition is contrary to common sense. Basically the directive defines "effective technological measures" as "technological measures" used by copyright holders:

3. For the purposes of this Directive, the expression 'technological measures' means any technology, device or component that, in the normal course of its operation, is designed to prevent or restrict acts, in respect of works or other subjectmatter, which are not authorised by the rightholder of any copyright or any right related to copyright as provided for by law or the sui generis right provided for in Chapter III of Directive 96/9/EC. Technological measures shall be deemed 'effective' where the use of a protected work or other subjectmatter is controlled by the rightholders through application of an access control or protection process, such as encryption, scrambling or other transformation of the work or other subject-matter or a copy control mechanism, which achieves the protection objective.

You can only get such perverted definitions if you let the copyright holders write the law! I'm glad that Finland will not take part in such a perversion.

Re:This is nice, but...

[maxume]

What if the packaging were required to notify you that the product contained encryption that may interfere with your fair use rights?

It isn't the current situation by any means, but I don't really want laws that force me to always pay for fair use; every once in a while, for stuff I want to watch once, encumbrance is just peachy. (and I realize that this is a hypothetical, as no such price differentiation currently exists)

Re:Catch-22?

[flyingfsck]

If you crack the protection before the product is released, have you broken any law?

Re:Catch-22?

[guruevi]

The catch is to make it simple enough for everyone to use it. Like include it in the VLC decoder set and distribute it. It's not just distributing code and expecting people to patch it. It's making it simple enough that the average Joe Sixpack can just get a download and doesn't have to jump through hoops to (in this case play) use their legally bought product.