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NYT On DeCSS Case 160

Posted by michael from the all-the-news-that's-fit-to-print() dept.
The New York Times has a nice summary of the DeCSS case and the issues at stake with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Reporter Amy Harmon managed to put together the facts correctly, probably because she didn't spend too much time talking to the plaintiff's lawyers. There's a nice picture of Emmanuel Goldstein and Macki from 2600.com (mislabeled as Jon Johansen). See our last story for transcripts and other info from the trial. (Last day to sign up to vote in the ICANN elections!) Update: 07/31 15:32 by michael : The NYT has changed out the single picture of Macki and Goldstein to two separate pictures of Johansen and Goldstein. It's good to know they read slashdot. :)
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NYT On DeCSS Case More

NYT On DeCSS Case

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  • Consider Lessig's argument that "Code is law".

    If code were to be protected as free speech, and law is implemented in code, that opens the door for unjust and unethical laws to be passed (written) and subsequently protected by the first amendment.

    Its the collision of two lawyerly views of code, and the result is quite a mess.

    Oxryly
  • I agree with you whole heartedly and posted nearly the same message last time.

    It is not enough to get a victory under freedom of the press (or even code as speech). The ruling that Free Software, and for that matter the American Public, needs is for the Judge to rule that the provisions of the DMCA can not overrule the right of reverse engineering or fair use because these are constitutional guarantees...every bit as important as a Free Press. He needs to set the DMCA right, and to interpret this vague law under it's correct interpetation. Kaplan is essentially reading this law wrong! Fair USe is protect4ed under the DMCA and if it wasn't, it would be unconstitutional in it's whole.
  • You actually can say pretty much anything you want on tv, but it probably won't get aired. TV networks don't want to loose their advertisers because of any questionable content. It has nothing to do with law.
  • Because. The DMCA *specifically* says that publishing tools or information as to how to break something that effectively acts as a copyright contorl mechanism is *ILLEGAL*.

    Is the DMCA bad? Yes. But it's currently LAW, and that's what they are being charged under.

    It's the DMCA that needs to be attacked...

  • Is this just a non-unique acronym or is this reporter just friggin out of it?

    Yes, it's a non-unique acronym. Divx and DiVX are 2 different things. You're apparently thinking of the failed encrypted DVD product, Divx. The article is talking about DiVX, the encoding method that is being used much like the mp3 encoding method to create video files that are smaller and easier to transfer over the net. As I understand it, and I'm sure everyone can tell that I have only sketchy knowledge of what I'm talking about here, it can take a DVD movie and make it fit on a CD or 2 with some loss of quality.

    I'm going to ignore the rant and skip to the end now.

    Anyways, anyone up for buying out an island, set up our own government with no IP or anti-hacking laws, and filling it with anonymous relay machines? Just to piss these assholes off?

    Wouldn't last long. It'd be declared a "rogue nation" and bombed into oblivion or at least occupied by US or UN troops who would shut down all the servers.

    They are on OUR TURF :-) Computer networks are ours. We design them, we build them, we maintain them. The geniuses trying to figure out how to keep the masses happy are still trying to figure out fucking wordperfect 5.0.

    The problem with your thinking here is the "we" part. Geeks are not of a single mind. They have beliefs that range all over the place, from heavily structured and moralistic to completely anarchistic, and everything in between. Many of them are probably actively working against what you want. They do this because it fits with their beliefs and/or the money is really good.

    This is why you don't see any "geek political party" of any significance. Most geeks are either politically inactive (i.e. they mostly bitch about the government but don't really do anything about it), or have taken up with the existing party that most closely shares their beliefs, or they just vote for whomever they think will do the least damage, regardless of party. It may be possible to get a large enough portion of geeks to agree on a few things and perhaps form a lobbying group, but not a political party.

    As long as one country either doesn't ban or enforce one of these bullshit laws, we're safe.

    Again, same problem as with the island. If you don't play by the big boys' rules, you lose. Of course you lose if you do play by them too, but at least that way they don't beat the crap out of you afterwards. Once the US and EU corporations and governments finish stitching up their control over the masses, they'll be looking to enforce their rules internationally. This will either make it impossible, or at least prohibitively expensive for people to run offshore servers. Countries would be coerced into obeying through the use of sanctions, and possibly the threat of force. The government can always contrive some excuse to bomb someone.

  • It's legal to publicly post instructions for shooting a gun, correct? You might be shooting the gun legally - for target practice or hunting. Or you might want to know how guns are shot for research purposes. But you might be shooting a person, which is illegal. Still, the instructions are legal. (I believe it is also legal to post instructions on how to build a bomb.)

    Source code is a set of instructions. In the case of DeCSS, it's instructions for how to decrypt a movie. Again, you might be doing that for legal or illegal reasons.

    You have avery good analogy there, but you failed to see one thing. The fact is that the DMCA made any circumvention code illegal. A gun is legal and can be used for illegal things as well. But in the law's eye, circumvention code is stricly illegal and has no legal use.

    That is why one side sees it as speech and the other as a tool. I argue that speech is a tool.

    But how could you continue your analogy?

  • Analogies are like when you try to spread jam on toilet paper.
  • I see one flaw in this argument, not all expression is protected by the first amendment! I can not say certain words and broadcast them over the television.
    I didn't think the rules on banned words on television were legally binding (in the U.S.) but rather implemented by the network censors so they don't piss off parents.

    Slander isn't protected speech, but most potentially offensive things on television, including vulgar language, are.

    I'd like to hear from someone else who knows about this though.

  • You are an idiot.
  • Source code is a set of instructions. In the case of DeCSS, it's instructions for how to decrypt a movie. Again, you might be doing that for legal or illegal reasons.

    In the case of the gun there is no law that says explaining how it works is illegal. So it goes to the default state in English Common law of legal. In the case of DeCSS there is a relitavly new law on the books that seems to say it is illegal. The judge must take that law into account. They can decide that that law conflicts with this other law, and is invalid, or that it conflicts with the other law and the other law is invalid. Or that it conflicts with the constuition ("the highest law") and is invalid. Very rarely is it ever decided that the constutition is invalid (WWI or WWII had such a case). They may even be able to decide that law clearly wasn't intended to apply here, and set it aside. They can (must?) also take into account how other courts have ruled in other relivent cases.

    Now if you ask me, it's a stupid law. But I'm not sure what grounds the judge has to overturn it without deciding the free speech protections apply to code, and are compellingly stronger. That just may be a hard road to hoe for this judge.

    Why did the judge have such difficulty finally realizing there might be a reason to protect this form of speech? It's simply a set of instructions, like many others - and it's not even lethal.

    I don't know. It took many years for the encryption case to decide source code was expressave, and protected as speach. Maybe it takes a few months for this judge to realise that an incomprensable (to him/her) string of nonsense words, english words, and oddly used punctuation is really speach, especally when it also has a functional use (i.e. both speach and an action, or at least both speach and a tool). Maybe they are being rightly conservitave in mulling it over before they decide. It is a major deal after all. It grants a lot of pretection to code, and will make it very hard to regulate in the future.

  • I see one flaw in this argument, not all expression is protected by the first amendment! I can not say certain words and broadcast them over the television.

    Except that it's not against the law, as such, to swear over TV/Radio, it's just against (in the US) FCC regulations (Which in theory reflect social values, and so attempt to enforce certain standards of "appropriate" behavior.)

    I think that the example given in the article more accurately reflects the nature of the DVD code; that is:

    Analogy:
    DeCSS:DVDs
    as
    ability to open up and read a book:books.

    And so telling people how to access information is (or should be) protected speech, regardless of its form.

    My favorite part of the NY Times article:
    [S]ome people in the debate see it as a fundamental change -- as if the law now made it illegal not only to photocopy and sell a copyrighted book, but also to simply tell someone how to open and read that book without the publisher's authorization.

  • Re:NYT violates copyright? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "I cracked the CSS code and all i got was this lousy T-Shirt."

    =)
  • How about "I'm with stupid."
  • The RIAA is after a ruling that they can use as a weapon in future technology that are much more threatening to the old world way of doing business. When everyone in the free world who wants one, has a 2mbit connection to their homes, and reliable DivX2 compression makes it easy to store two movies on a single CD, there will be no stopping people, and the RIAA is petrified of this. I believe strongly that there is no stopping it. The way the world works changes now, and has started changing since the Internet became widespread. Personally, I napster everything I can, I've downloaded a few movies, but for fun. I have a large DVD library and a digital sound system with a 16:9 TV... downloading a movie isn't good enough. And I download a LOT of MP3's, but I still buy my 1-4 CD's a year for the artists I truley appreciate. If you feel really guilty about downloading from Napster, wait until the song you want comes on the radio, and pretend your taping it, then click "GET FILE" ;-)
  • You know, it's almost funny that I pointed out this [slashdot.org]story, at a time just before all this exploded.
    It was a good point then, too. Check it out.
  • I don't think it's too much for the MPAA to say what platforms thier product can (and can't) run on.
    I do .. some of us don't have the money to go out and buy a new computer every time someone decides to force us to use their platform of choice. If I buy it, I expect to have the right to enjoy personal use of it as I see fit.
    If you made a certain line of clothing, wouldn't you want the option of who couldn't and who could wear them? Look at Tommy Hilfiger...he rightfully doesn't want African-Americans wearing his clothings.
    Again, what right does he have to make this judgment? He may have strong personal feelings about who wears his clothes, but once they're sold that right ends, right at the cash register. Almost makes me wish I was black so I could buy a whole TH outfit and email the jerk a GIF of me wearing it .. oh well, I'm a Levi's kind of guy anyway ..
    DeCSS takes away a producers right to control his product.
    There is no such right, or at least not after the first sale. It may upset their delicate sensibilities, but I can use my CD's and/or DVD's any way I see fit (piracy being the sole exception) after I buy them. I can use them as frisbees if I want to. (AOL disks are great for that..) I can smash them to pieces and make artworks with them if I want to. I can stand on the street corner and wave the DVD around and tell anyone I meet that the movie sucks if I want to. Once I buy the thing, they can't stop me. Anything else is bad news for us all -- trust me.

  • Not really an analogy... noting how law applies in other cases is pretty much how the US judicial system works... Basically I am asking why the judge had so much difficulty thinking of a set of instructions as something that would fall under First Amendment protection... ???
  • Naw, but you have to sit throught one of GW's speeches without falling asleep.

    Dag! That's cold. I'd almost rather get the chair.

    Absimiliard
  • "corporations have been enthroned . . . . An era of corruption in high places will follow and the money power will endeavor to prolong its reign by working on the prejudices of the people . . . until wealth is aggregated in a few hands . . . and the republic is destroyed." - Abraham Lincoln

    It's all being masterminded by Honest Abe!

    Seriously though, go read this:

    http://adbusters.org/magazine/28/usa.html

    It should give you a better idea of what motivates the anti-corporate movement (which is not strictly leftist by the way).

  • "what the mpaa needs to focus on is having dvd permeate the media universe: removal of region codes...[etc.]" This is an excellent point. I don't think that it serves the long-term best interests of the MPAA to be trying to maintain such a stranglehold on the software associated with DVDs. The money raked in via licensing of players simply isn't worth the foot-dragging that the DVD industry has gone, and is going, through. Strict licensing policies have never served new technologies well (if the Mac doesn't serve as a clear enough analogy, take a look at Sony's MiniDisc). The goal of the MPAA should be not this "protection" of DVDs, but rather their proliferation. The transition from VHS to DVD holds both pro's and con's for the movie industry; but since they've obviously adopted this as their goal and DVD as their chosen medium, their primary focus right now should be on overcoming consumer doubt in the technology's staying power. Creating such publicized legal issues as this trial has serves only to undermine the faith of the average consumer. One of the first rumors to come out of the DeCSS story, before 2600 got involved, was that the cracking of CSS could lead to widespread piracy and the resultant quick abandonment of DVD by the movie studios. Publicity like this does nothing to further the MPAA's vision of "a DVD player in every home" -- or their probably-more-optimistic-vision of "VHS, DVD, and LaserDisc players connected to every TV in every home." crib
  • I'm not disagreeing with you, but I'd like to point-out that the constitution [house.gov] says:

    "The Congress shall have Power ... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"

    My non-constitutional scholar interpretation is that Congress can pass copyright laws, but is not required to. That is, there's no constitutional right to copyrights. As opposed to, say, free speech, the *ahem* right to bear arms, etc..

    I would agree that copyrights for a limited time are a good thing, but there seems to be a growing opinion among some companies they have the right to make money from copyrighted material indefinitely.

  • DeCSS and the net (Score:5)

    by ndpatel ( 185409 ) on Sunday July 30, 2000 @08:13PM (#893424) Homepage
    what the movie companies are totally failing to realize is that most people aren't going to start watching movies on ther pc's. most people want to kick back on their overstuffed couch, put their feet up, pop a can o' miller and watch a flick on the >19" boob tube, not sit in an office chair and watch a so-crystal-clear-it's sterile movie on their 17' monitor. there's something to be said for the fuzzy overwarm color tones of a good vcr/dvd console player plugged into a regular tv, and i don't think the average consumer has enough time, energy, or patience to rig up a scan converter or start burning VCD's of pirated movies, no matter how much bandwidth they have (where greater bandwidth= more rampant piracy). besides, last i checked, a program like astarte's m,pack for turning mpegs into burnable vcd streams cost $695. the people who pay $695 so they can watch a crappy handycam rendition of the matrix at vcd quality--the mpaa isn't going to ever stop them.

    what the mpaa needs to focus on is having dvd permeate the media universe: removal of region codes so that consumers can purchase and playback dvd's anywhere, sanctioned playback software for every platform, dvd-roms that serves a purpose other than slick self-promotion, etc, etc. allowing dvd to be more widespread will make it the consumer's first choice in media, sidestepping piracy concerns. after all, it's going to be a while before the price of burning a dvd comes down to casual pricay levels, a la cd-r.
  • What about the "seven dirty words?"
  • It's evidence that it didn't happen in the first place.
  • Who cares about the MPAA? their using the DMCA to shield themselves from having to deal with the issue that they should not be the people who decide who gets to play DVD's and who doesnt. I own an APEX, so at first i thought 'this doesnt concern me' but when they sued 2600, they went way too far...anyone who is reading this and agrees with me needs to go to 2600.com, get some "STOP THE MPAA" stickers, and plaster them all over your local movie theater! the MPAA is wrong on this one.....I cant believe that they sued 2600 just for linking to DeCSS! I'll tell you what... if you dont have DeCSS, send E-Mail to Netranger9@aol.com, and I'll have NetBoy mail u a copy! Fight the MPAA!!!
  • Sure reverse engineering isnt the fairest way of doing things, but if you create a product which is better than anything else out there your sales should reflect this. Or the product may not have to be the best, just have good marketing, ie M$.

    Has someone managed to reverse engineer the .doc format properly yet? Last I heard they are still trying, it aint a good format but it could have been intentionally been made that way deliberately making it hard to reverse engineer.

    Reverse engineering aint fair but you can do your best to prevent it.
  • (c) A character from "Hackers", the best film ever made about hackers and the information age!
  • Has Warner Brothers or any other company released movies on VCD? I haven't seen any. I don't know why they would either. Even VHS is better quality than a VCD.

    The again, I'm from Australia so I guess it's possible that they released them in the States and they never filtered through here...
  • Actually, I don't even think they care about piracy all that much. I think it's more of a kneejerk "They stole our Intellectual Property (DeCSS). Kill 'em!" This is the mindset of most CEOs and lawyers.
  • I hain't no lawyer, so I can't tell you if it is a right to look under the hood of a car. I do believe it is the responsability of a company to disclose exactly what they send back and forth between computers and any changes that it makes to any file it does not create, and I think this should be law. I don't fully understand reverse engineering, so I won't say anything about it. I do know that it is possibly a very bad thing to allow people to see your source code. Looking under the hood of a car and source code of a program are completely different. Seeing how an engine works does not allow you to build a nearly free version of the car. It also does not lend itself to instant duplication. Companies should have the option of close-sourcing their code. If they want to open source it, that's fantastic. If they don't, fine. They spent money building it. They can charge for it. You do have a right to know exactly what the code does to your computer and info, but if you want it bad enough to get it, as opposed to writing it yourself, chances are that it was not obvious code, and it cost them lots of money to develop. They should not have to reveal it to people so that they can copy it for free without any real effort. Sorry for this post. If anyone bothers to moderate it, it will probably be down. I'm sure no one really cares though.
  • Hmm, when I saw that picture, my thought for his quote was "DeCSS will starve the movie industry!"
  • I'm sure a little photoshop magic could bring it out.

  • Gotta love those pictures: Punk Kids vs. Fat-Cat Big Business. Perfect.
  • I have no problem with reverse engineering. What I meant by not being able to build a free copy, is that even if one company sees how an engine was built and does it the exact same way, they would still have to charge almost the exact same amount. If you copy someone's source code, alter it slightly to avoid patent infringment, as was done with VTEC, you can give that product away infinately many times, with no cost to you. The company that wrote the code is then screwed real bad. If you reverse engineer something and build a similar product, that's fantastic, but taking someone else's code is wrong. If everyone had to open source their code to show what info it sent out and altered, there would be thousands of slightly altered clones flooding the market which would not benefit the designer of the program at all, assuming it was a valuable program. Even with the VTEC thing, that was mean. You shouldn't take the work of others without their permission. It should be legal, but people should choose not to do it.
  • Ok, explain to me how this is flamebait. Yes, I did respond to an obvious troll, however it was a generally funny (to me anyways) response, ultimatly my post goes on topic and asks what I think is a really good question: Is anyone planning anti-MPAA/RIAA protests for the Democrat's Party Convention in LA that is happening in 2 weeks? That is the real content of my post, and it is clearly ON TOPIC and is NOT FLAMEBAIT. If you're going to use your moderator points at least learn how first.
  • but if i had an "mpaa-legal" option to choose from every time out, be it when i was dl'ing a movie or buying a player, i would take that option, not only to avoid trouble, but because i know that the "official" version of most things probably is of better quality than some random bootleg.

    now if the mpaa and the manufacturers concentrate on putting dvd everywhere, then all of sudden you've got a situation where not only is something like deCSS not an issue, but the mpaa is actively promoting efforts like it--why should they spend the money and time on porting the ~500 lines of code it takes to watch a dvd when they should be rightfully be using those resources to release their back catalogs in dvd form?

    most people, and maybe not the slashdot folk, or your average college student, but most people like to stay on the right side of paying for media--witness the price-gouging that takes place at nearly every movie theater, or the fact that $17.99 cd's still fly off shelves. if the mpaa were to allow a format that admittedly is as powerful as dvd to really establish itself, it would make a lot more profit, and still control things like release dates, and market placement--just not where i watch the thing: be it pc, 61" projetion tv, or my dreamcast plugged into a watchman.

    i just don't understand why this industry is so blind to the enormous profits it stands to make, when they're usually so in tune with the flow of money.
  • Go Here [nytimes.com]

  • There is a difference between trolling, which is merely annoying, and posting someone's physical location online. Expect not only to be bitchslapped, but to be fed to the legal hounds as well.
  • FWIW, I read the entire transcription of the trail. I have a new respect for Judge Kaplan. Lawyers on both sides were inarticulate and the judge often had to stop them and ask the questions for them (he has more freedoms to do so since it isn't a jury trial). He also has an interesting sense of humor and he often explains this as analogies, and they are usually pretty good.

    With that in mind, his job is to uphold the law and the new law is DMCA, like it or not. He even mention that, if the DMCA conflicts with prior laws, like anti-trust laws, then the DMCA must take precedence in those areas since it is newer.

    My prediction: He'll rule that 2600 violated no laws by posting the code under freedom of the press and speech, but that any use of code that gets around CSS is a violation of the law, therefore any use of DeCSS is actionable, including putting chunks of it in any LIVID software.

    He'll then sternly warn the MPAA that they better make licenses available for LIVID if they intend that the appelate courts take them seriously.

    The one thing I didn't see that was missing was any testimony about the importance of "free" (speech) software. Those of you who hate the FSF better stand up and notice. Binary-only DVD players may end up being available for our fave free *NIX distros, and they may even be free (beer), but they won't be free (speech) and there won't be any free (speech) DVD players available, at least in the U.S., without breaking the law -- and that issue didn't come up in the trial.

    Then we'll all be further split into factions and have further arguments about whether DVD players should be in any *NIX distro, why Debian is anal, and on and on. Then we'll see even more binary-only releases or even more "open source" with restrictive redistribution agreements due to license agreements to comply with patents and DMCA issues.

    Then again, I could be wrong! :)

  • Apparently thy're popular in Asia. The only Asian country I've been to is S. Korea, but I can confirm that they are available there at least (Although they're not as common as VHS).
  • Is your sister really that hot? Also, in response to people who ask why there was no bad affect on Adam and Eve's children's children: Adam lived to be almost a thousand years old. Life spans were halved every few generations. Although that means nothing if you don't really believe the Bible.
  • Incest can cause severe damage to a population's gene pool. Generic defects, such as sickle cell anemia, that would ordinarily show up a limited percentage of society occur far more often in a small group that interbreeds.

    Yes, I am feeding the trolls.
  • Gulliver had a lot to say about this. Enthusing about how case law over the legal owner of a cow would not relate to who had the greatest right to the cow, but previous case law involving how long the cow had been in possesion of one of the owners, the colour of the cow, and the age of the cow.
  • Two I can remember off the top of my head that came out _very_ early in the format's life:

    Naked Gun 2 1/2
    Star Trek ... er... 6 I think.

    The liked the idea of cheaper manufacturing. CDs cost pennies, but video cassettes are a pain to make. Moving parts, after all.

    It never really took off in this country (UK) but they tried.
  • ...DeCSS is a BadThing.

    I don't think it's too much for the MPAA to say what platforms thier product can (and can't) run on.

    If you made a certain line of clothing, wouldn't you want the option of who couldn't and who could wear them? Look at Tommy Hilfiger...he rightfully doesn't want African-Americans wearing his clothings. DeCSS takes away a producers right to control his product.

    GNU/Linux - The nigger of the movie industry.

  • love that caption (Score:4)

    by SEAL ( 88488 ) on Sunday July 30, 2000 @08:18PM (#893448)
    The caption below the picture states:

    Jon Johansen, above left, of Norway, helped develop computer code to crack encrypted DVD's that Eric Corley, above right, posted on his Web site.

    Nice of the reporter to use the English language in an ambiguous way. I wonder if anyone checked 2600's site for DVDs? :)

    Best regards,

    SEAL

  • NYT violates copyright? (Score:4)

    by Jett ( 135113 ) on Sunday July 30, 2000 @08:18PM (#893449)
    Anyone else notice the picture of the t-shirt with the DeCSS code on it... Looks like the New York Times is doing what 2600/Emanuel Goldstein is being taken to court over. Funny how that works.
  • Consider Lessig's argument that "Code is law".

    Ok. Good enough so far.

    If code were to be protected as free speech, and law is implemented in code, that opens the door for unjust and unethical laws to be passed (written) and subsequently protected by the first amendment.

    Here is where your reasoning is flawed. Laws are written in a particular style of English that is intended to be as disambigous as possible while still retaining some semblence of clarity. Even if laws *were* implemented in code, how would that cause any problems? Laws can be reviewed --- They would just be more difficult to review in code. I doubt any legistlative body would accept code in law, however.

    Besides, one can take the view that law is already a type of code. :)

    Its the collision of two lawyerly views of code, and the result is quite a mess.

    That, at least, I agree with.

  • hehe, it's you again. login, moron! man I hate fawking AC's.
  • No, the bible *itself* contradicts itself on incest. The church chose to interpret that in a way that gave the most power to the third estate.
  • YHBT. YHL. HAND.
    [fawkoffspazzdot.com]
  • The t-shirts have the source code, not object code. This is one of several errors in the NYT article.

    Visit the Gallery of CSS Descramblers [cmu.edu] to learn more.

  • There's nothing wrong with biased reporting, as long as you can identify the bias and interpret accordingly. Not only is a completely unbiased mews source a rather rarely achieved goal, it's a relativly new concept, if you think about it.

    Slashdot reports what it reports wonderfully. If you want the other side of the MPAA dispute, or the RIAA dispute, i suggest you check their web sites, or the sites of their contingent organizations. Once you have propaganda from both sides, it's a lot easier to start striving for the truth.

    --Colbey

  • thanks. we're correcting the caption on the web. (fwiw, it's correct in the paper).
    amy

    At 08:29 AM 7/31/00 -0400, you wrote:
    >In your article, "Free Speech Rights for Computer Code?" located at
    >http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/07/bizte ch/articles/31rite.html
    >there contains an error in the caption of the first picture. You
    >incorrectly
    >identified the gentlemen with blue hair as Jon Johansen while it is in
    >fact
    >the very talented webmaster of 2600.org, Macki.

  • Re:Why doesn't Warner Brothers sue the MPAA? (Score:4)

    by wendy ( 42400 ) on Monday July 31, 2000 @04:20AM (#893457) Homepage
    If I could advise her, I'd tell that those copyright holder then just should refrain from producing digital material.

    You can advise the Copyright Office: submit a comment in the upcoming discussion of first sale and archival copying and the DMCA. The EFF has a copy of the Request for Comments [eff.org]. Comments are due this Friday at 5 p.m.

    The first sale doctrine (17 U.S.C. s 109) [cornell.edu] states that a copyright owner cannot prohibit resale of a copy of a work he has sold, and has traditionally been read to imply that copyright owners cannot control the uses of those sold copies. Does the Digital Millennium Copyright Act give publishers persistent, after-sale control of their works, or should first sale still limit that power?

    FWIW, I argue that the loss of control on first sale is an integral part of the constitutional copyright balance that that DMCA cannot abrogate. In exchange for copyright protection on published works, the copyright holder must give public access. (And yes, if they're not willing to give us that access in digital media, studios should keep publishing in analog.)

    Join us at Openlaw/DVD [harvard.edu] for more discussion of the DeCSS cases and these broader copyright issues.

  • The 9th circuit court of appeals have ruled. See BERNSTEIN v. UNITED STATES DEPT. OF JUSTICE, 176 F.3d 1132 (9th Cir. 1999) [findlaw.com]

    Since this is an appeals court case, I would think it has some influence on other circuits. In a circuit that has not ruled on similar issues, the courts commonly look at decisions from other circuits. If the circuit has ruled on the same issue, they will usually rely on their own decisions.

    But in all cases, the courts will do what they want. If they feel their previous decisions don't hold anymore, they will ignore it.

  • Wow... now that it is a very cool argument for freedom of expression! I must say that is clever indeed. C as a preferred means of expression.

    Okay. I agree that Touretsky was pretty clever for equating binary code with C code with the Engligh description. But let's look at this from a different perspective.

    I'm thinking of the analogy that it's legal to describe -- in exacting detail -- how to make a nuclear bomb, but it's illegal for a civilian to posess one of those in America. Right so far?

    So, it seems to me that putting the DeCSS source code out there is ok, compiling it is even okay, but as soon as you run it, to watch or (god forbid!) copy a movie, you've infringed! I realize that this is contrary the DMCA (which wouldn't even allow you to generate the code), but it seems that using that speech to infringe on a copyright would still not be protected.

    Keep in mind, I don't like the DMCA either, but this seems like a reasonable (legal) argument against dashing it all in favor of "free speech."

  • damned
    <BR>
    <BR>(=

  • 1) they didn't mention that css DOES NOT actually prevent copying at all!!!

    2) they missed that before decss anyone that wanted to play a dvd had to buy dvd player from a company that bought a license from css in order to reproduce the the css algorithm. this licensing scheme is what the mpaa is really trying to protect by claiming css is copyright protection.

  • The wild card may be Professor Touretzky's testimony, which Judge Jackson said was "extremely persuasive."

    Judge Jackson? Wrong case, lady.
    --
  • ok...
    Emmanuel Goldstein is a character from the novel 1984 by George Orwell, Eric Corley [Emmanual Goldstein from 2600 Magazine] took his nick from this book.. and the movie "hackers" based their Emmanuel Goldstein on Eric..

    *sigh*

  • Re:express yourself (Score:3)

    by Royster ( 16042 ) on Monday July 31, 2000 @04:39AM (#893465) Homepage
    I see one flaw in this argument, not all expression is protected by the first amendment! I can not say certain words and broadcast them over the television. Granted, posted to a web site is not the same as broadcasting, but it's getting awfully close (esp. with the ongoing convergence)

    The web is different from broadcast media in one important way. Broadcast media is limited by the number of available channels. As a result, channels are allocated and licensed to serve the public good (that's the actual wording of the statute). The FCC will yank a license for repeated obscenity.

    The web does not have the same limitations. As the Supreme Court recognized in upholding the unconstitutionality of the CDA. The web allows anyone to step up and publish their opinion. It is like a streetcorner where you can set up your own soapbox to express your opinions.

    Judge Kaplan appears to be struggling with the speech aspects of DeCSS. In the transcripts, he admits that he dosn't have a category of speech that has been dealt with before. Shouting "Fire" in a crowded theatre, burning draft cards, burning flags, the Pentagon Papers are all speech issues where the courts have attempted to balance the First Amendment with public interests. The result of those cases is the "compelling government interest" test. If the government has a "compelling interest" in the speech, it can regulate it but only if it does so in the least intrusive means possible. By those standards, it is impossible for the DCMA to be constitutional if it means what the MPAA claim it means.

  • impartial journalism (Score:3)

    by acidtree ( 217103 ) on Monday July 31, 2000 @12:18AM (#893469) Homepage
    This is slashdot, and I guess that means we can't expect article posters like michael to be the picture of impartial journalists. However, we shouldn't condemn them as such, because we should expect them to be slightly biased in certain ways and the fact that there is discussion about the articles offsets that. The discussion offsets the perils of less than completely unbaised journalism in kind of the same way I felt about running into an old friend of mine at her place of employment today. She hasn't heard much about the DMCA but thinks it's still a good idea despite the way it's being used as a legal baseball bat clobbering relatively harmless programs like DeCSS.

    Would you have forseen the proliferation of FREE music as has been the case with mp3s? The MPAA is just looking out for their future, and the DMCA is really the only legal option they have to prevent them from having to wage a legal war against piracy on many fronts like the RIAA is up to now. I never want to take my dog for a walk in the middle of a good movie, but I'd gladly hit the pause button on an xmms session with a playlist chok full of hundreds of both legal and illegally obtained mp3s. I don't have any mp3s that are freely downloadable except for a few songs from a local band, but I do have some mp3s that I copied myself from CDs (so I would have my music in a more convienient format for me despite a decrease in quality). Those are legal under fair use. However, the DMCA might also be used to render even this as illegal as one might see that even an audio CD has some properties that might be seen as anti-copying features. I still might not even take the dog for a walk even when I'm just listening to Abbey Road (I wouldn't want to interrupt that).

    It is also interesting to see FreeBSD get mentioned in the mainstream news. It doesn't seem to exist in the eyes of the mainstream press who seem to love Linux like RMS himself. Doesn't anybody realize that DeCSS can be used with FreeBSD as well? The whole non-existant stature of FreeBSD with the general media is much like the way things don't exist in the real world to some people unless they're archived in text form somewhere on the internet to be burried in the bowels of google.com somewhere.

    What is important here is that people who buy and watch DVDs are aware that they may soon be in danger of losing some of their rights to watch those movies. Even people who don't have DVD players on their computers must realize this. I would like to have a DVD player in my car for when I spend hours driving on boring endless featureless freeway (read "Michigan").

  • Re:express yourself (Score:3)

    by Nicolas MONNET ( 4727 ) <nicoaltiva&gmail,com> on Monday July 31, 2000 @12:38AM (#893477) Journal
    Ah come on, everybody knows that real doctors and nurses never swear. "Doctor, the patient just had a copulating hear attack!" "Excrement, we have to do something about it! Give me the sanguinolent electric shock!" "Doctor, it's intercoursing broken! " "Shame on it, who the non heaven broke it? Call me that penetrating intern!"
  • You might be content to have your opinions pre-formed for you, but personally I would rather hear the facts and then come to my own conclusions. Just because most printed media is incapable of impartiality does not mean that we can not strive to be better than them.

    --

  • Michael lauds the writer for not researching one side of the story too closely (but it's OKAY to not do research when it's not the side you're on right?), and then he admires the pretty pictures. Welcome to the web revolution.

    Sometimes Jon Katz doesn't look that bad eh? At least he doesn't pretend to be an impartial journalist type.

    sig:

  • Re:Making a point of law with computer code. (Score:3)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Sunday July 30, 2000 @09:13PM (#893485)
    > I'm writing a script in Perl (using RecDescent) that translates C code to English sentences that correctly describe what the original C code does.

    You should also write an "English compiler" that translates the resulting English back to C, or better yet straight to machine code.

    Indeed, it should be possible to define a subset of English as a "structured English" that works as a programming language. Most programmers would not like it because of the extra keystrokes (e.g., "times" or "multiplied by" for "*"), but it would be a fun exercise (for a sufficiently warped geek), and it would make a nice point about code-as-speech.

    Heck, COBOL isn't too far from what I have described.

    --
  • I think Lingo very close to the language you're talking about.

    I've been working with Lingo a lot recently. It's Macromedia's scripting language, used in Director. I understand Applescript looks about the same.

    Lingo is very wordy, using English word structure instead of more concise notation in many cases. For instance, what in many languages would be stated as "mySprite.visible=0" is stated in Lingo as "set the visible of mySprite to false". (There are shortcuts, though. The "set" may be omitted, the "to" may be replaced with "=", the "false" with "0", and in the most recent version of Director, the dot notation is recognised as well so "mySprite.visible=0" is valid lingo code now.)

    Lingo is meant to be easy to pick up by people with little or no programming experience. I thought I'd hate it because of the wordiness, but I actually didn't. The large number of characters you need to type to express your intent is offset by the fact that they're mostly alphabetic and your typing isn't slowed much. I imagine a good typist (which I'm not) will actually type Lingo code much faster than the equivalent C or perl code, even if they're used to typing C or perl.

    It would be interesting to know how the code-is-expression debate would have turned out if Lingo had been the reference language instead of C.
    --

  • My point is, you *should* know what Slashdot's editorial line is, it's not like it's a surprise it's been the same for years now. So don't act like a spooked virgin, keep in mind the fact that Slashdot is pro-free software and against the IP industry, and adjust as needed.

  • Plaintiffs don't even respect the law they cite (Score:3)

    by coyote-san ( 38515 ) on Monday July 31, 2000 @05:48AM (#893490)
    One statement stood out as demonstrating the contempt the MPAA lawyers have for the very law they are trying to use as a weapon.

    (Paraphrased) The plantiff showed three pictures - of source code, a binary representation of object code, and a tee-shirt with the same source code. The plantiff's lawyers asserted that if the judge found any of these three presentatives non-expressive, he must find all three presentations non-expressive.

    The problem, of course, is that programmers rarely work in object code. That work is usually reserved for *very* old systems where source code OR COMPILERS are no longer available.

    Emphasis added for a simple reason: OBJECT CODE IS A DERIVED WORK. Nobody (except the MPAA, apparently) claims that a work can only be conderered "expressive" if every possible derived use is equally expressive. Needless to say, I'm sure that they will argue that this rule doesn't apply to their own product. (Visions of various "derived uses" of videotapes and MPAA lawyers running through my head...)

    To ask an obvious (to any programmer) rhetorical question, let's assume that the MPAA lawyer is correct. Let's now take the tee-shirt and obscure a single semicolon with pizza drippings. Are we to believe that *poof* the First Amendment Fairies have now touched the shirt and made it expressive since the code no longer compiles into object code - and that the other coders in the room will suddenly turn in shock to the sloppy eater and gasp as they suddenly understand the message?!

  • Easy to tell journalistic bias (Score:3)

    by HenryFool ( 212855 ) on Monday July 31, 2000 @01:13AM (#893495) Journal
    Without reading the story, you can tell what side the NY Times is leaning towards-- just by looking at the pictures. Photographers take pictures from below looking upwards when they want to imply that something is powerful or dominating.. If you look at the picture of Emmanuel, that's exactly the position they took the picture from. Then on the other hand, you've got Mr. Gold frowning and pointing. Not a very flattering picture, eh? I'm not complaining, though...
  • My prediction: He'll rule that 2600 violated no laws by posting the code under freedom of the press and speech, but that any use of code that gets around CSS is a violation of the law, therefore any use of DeCSS is actionable, including putting chunks of it in any LIVID software.

    I agree with you that he has to rule that 2600 is in the clear for posting DeCSS. But wether its use is a violation of the law is still open to interpretation. The law says that any device used to break an "access control" measure. That term is still very ambiguous, but in my interpretation CSS is not access control, it is use control. What is access control? Access control is the sharp-eyed clerk who makes sure you don't walk off with the DVD from the store, the fancy security systems. It is the scrambling of pay-per-view cable channels. It is NOT the encryption of data on a DVD that has been purchased. The DVD is in my possetion - I paid for it! I already have "access".

    I sincerely hope they will find that access is better defined as above, and not the overbroad way the MPAA seems to think.

  • Re:express yourself (Score:3)

    by Beevis ( 194188 ) on Monday July 31, 2000 @01:32AM (#893500) Homepage
    This boggles me.

    Free speech allows anyone to learn how to conduct biological warfare.

    where to find anthrax.

    how to collect it.

    how to cultivate it.

    how to "distribute" it: suggestions on what quantities to use, how to adjust given the weather conditions.

    need to make a pipe bomb?

    Freedom of speech will put humanity on the line but is waived protect the CSS code.

    this isn't even the decss code, but the code that allowed decss to become.

    well ... too bad humanity doesn't have the lawyers that the dvd coorporations hired.

    now where do i insert this bacteria?

  • I see one flaw in this argument, not all expression is protected by the first amendment! I can not say certain words and broadcast them over the television. Granted, posted to a web site is not the same as broadcasting, but it's getting awfully close

    There's also the matter of what a set of words does. Using words to commit a crime (by trying to bribe an official, say) is illegal. Similarly, using code to commit a crime (by distributing, but hopefully not by writing, viruses) will not fall under the 1st amendment.


    My mom is not a Karma whore!

  • It's legal to publicly post instructions for shooting a gun, correct? You might be shooting the gun legally - for target practice or hunting. Or you might want to know how guns are shot for research purposes. But you might be shooting a person, which is illegal. Still, the instructions are legal. (I believe it is also legal to post instructions on how to build a bomb.)

    Source code is a set of instructions. In the case of DeCSS, it's instructions for how to decrypt a movie. Again, you might be doing that for legal or illegal reasons.

    Why did the judge have such difficulty finally realizing there might be a reason to protect this form of speech? It's simply a set of instructions, like many others - and it's not even lethal.

  • What about the "seven dirty words?"

    I think it's just an informal guideline. Every once and awhile they break it, like one episode of "ER" said sh*t. If you just go around spewing profanity the advertisers will stop buying ads from you though, not to mention getting flamed by moral people (they're so cute!). All the channels that do spew profanity, like HBO, don't have any ads. Maybe some states have laws about the dirty 7 though, probably Texas.
  • You should also write an "English compiler" that translates the resulting English back to C, or better yet straight to machine code.

    That comes next.

  • Hmm? (Score:3)

    by Lally Singh ( 3427 ) on Sunday July 30, 2000 @09:30PM (#893511) Journal
    Two things.

    Firstly, what do they mean by "The movies would be sent over the Web with new data-compressing software known as Divx?" Is this just a non-unique acronym or is this reporter just friggin out of it?

    Alright RANT mode on.

    Secondly, between all this legal bullshit over computer software use on the internet, snooping with carnivore, and basically the constant harassment of geeks by the pools of the ignorant, how long do they expect us to take this? We are the ones who created this network.

    Whenever these fools find some little problem, some hype pusher^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hreporter goes buck wild. Porn shown to little kiddies? Give me a fucking break. Welcome to the real world assholes!! But, if you want a solution, try Content-Type: text/html-adult. (That's the jist of an idea I had on the top of my head with no thinking. Please don't try replying with too many plusses/minuses.)

    What's going to make me laugh the hardest is when ISPs start realizing the easiest way around this carnivore bullshit is SSL atop of SMTP :-) Or, it'll just push crypto into the MUA. Whee! Way to go fools, you just made your job harder. Don't push us, you don't know what's going on and we do. End of story.

    When the gloves come off between the free speechers (who are the most american at the end of the day over these big brother information invasion nazis), and the clueless paranoid (unfortunately the most dangerous and common), do they really think we don't have a solution?

    What really gets me is how intellectual property must be protected at all costs EXCEPT when it's private. My email is free territory but I can't store a copy of santana that's played on the fucking radio? OH FUCK YOU.

    Ok.. RANT mode off

    Anyways, anyone up for buying out an island, set up our own government with no IP or anti-hacking laws, and filling it with anonymous relay machines? Just to piss these assholes off?

    If not, remember this my fellow geeks: They are on OUR TURF :-) Computer networks are ours. We design them, we build them, we maintain them. The geniuses trying to figure out how to keep the masses happy are still trying to figure out fucking wordperfect 5.0.

    Oh, and we are GLOBAL. Laws passed here do not apply everywhere else. Welcome to the land of offshore servers. As long as one country either doesn't ban or enforce one of these bullshit laws, we're safe. Luckily, there is much chaos out there and big brother isn't that big.

    --

  • One of the few reports on this that I have seen that is mostly factual.

    One side claims that these hackers will be making movies available on the internet. The otherside makes it look like no program will be able to work anything.

    The t-shirt and other images of the code was a good trial trick.

    I thought that the protectability of computer source code was established with the PGP case.

  • The reporter mentioned that DeCSS or other programs could be used to rip DVDs. I wish that it had been made crystal clear to the lay audience that programs had existed for quite a while before DeCSS that could rip the content and put it into another format.

    They worked by stealing the decrypted content as it was being sent to the video card.

    So the main thing that DeCSS adds to the mix is that it allows more fair use. The infringing uses of DeCSS were already possible prior to DeCSS!

    Why didn't they go after the earlier programs?

    Cheers,
    Ben

  • express yourself (Score:3)

    by purefizz ( 114470 ) on Sunday July 30, 2000 @07:44PM (#893521) Homepage
    "I see this as having a chilling effect on my ability as a computer scientist to express myself," Professor Touretzky said. He was referring to the court's preliminary injunction that barred a Web site from posting the underlying, or source, code for the cracking program. "If the court upholds this injunction, what would happen is that certain uses of computer language -- my preferred means of expression -- would be illegal."

    Wow... now that it is a very cool argument for freedom of expression! I must say that is clever indeed. C as a preferred means of expression. I see one flaw in this argument, not all expression is protected by the first amendment! I can not say certain words and broadcast them over the television. Granted, posted to a web site is not the same as broadcasting, but it's getting awfully close (esp. with the ongoing convergence)

    kick some CAD [cadfu.com]
  • The thing that I found intriguing in the article was the mention of the object code printed on the T-shirt. If 2600 really wants to emphasize the free-speech aspects of this whole issue, they ought to start selling T-shirts with the DeCSS source code printed on them, along with the URLs of the sites offering DeCSS. Let the MPAA try to get that stopped under the DMCA.

  • A History Lesson (Score:5)

    by eagle_grinder ( 204905 ) on Monday July 31, 2000 @02:13AM (#893526)
    Ms. Peters has been weighing arguments by copyright holders who contend they will have no incentive to produce digital material without the assurance of such protection


    Conversation between Big Media and their programmer consultant, circa 1990

    Big time Author / MPAA bigwig / RIAA fatcat :
    "We'll produce digital material if and only if it is protected by the first amendment and copyright law."

    Programmer:
    Sounds good. But isn't it hypocritical that YOUR media, when changed into 1's and 0's, is protected, but MY media, which, in the form of .h, .c, .java files, and binary executables, ISN'T protected?

    But that would also mean that the digital algorithm used to encrypt your format ISN'T protected, meaning anyone can flat out copy it and distribute it. Rampant piracy wound ensue.

    Big time Author / MPAA bigwig / RIAA fatcat :
    You're right. All digital media should be protected.

    Programmer :
    In that case, The "hackers" will just reverse engineer your algorithm under fair use and as before, distribute it.

    Did anyone guess what the industry fatcats said next?
    If you said "Buy legislation that eliminates fair use from digital media" You've correctly identified the DMCA! BOB, TELL THEM WHAT THEY'VE WON!

  • Incentive to produce Digital Material (Score:3)

    by DestructioN ( 163267 ) on Sunday July 30, 2000 @08:52PM (#893530) Journal
    According to the article the companies keep complaining they would have no incentive to produce in a digital format. It occurs to me, after only taking a year of economics, that their incentive isn't protection, but consumer demand -- even if they're not afforded protection, if consumers demand it, the company will fulfill that need or die. They shouldn't need protection incentives, in fact they don't, this is merely a rouse under which to hide from the truth -- they want movies played on players THEY sanction (and probably own a portion of and/or license the technology for). Just my two cents.
    --

  • Making a point of law with computer code. (Score:3)

    by Apuleius ( 6901 ) on Sunday July 30, 2000 @08:55PM (#893532) Journal
    I'm writing a script in Perl (using RecDescent)
    that translates C code to English sentences that correctly describe what the original C code does.

    Here is an early version [mit.edu], which at the moment I am abandoning since it became unwieldy by my neophyte knowledge of Perl. Run it against whatever code you feel like. Set STDERR to /dev/null.

    [mit.edu]
    Here is my currently worked on version. (Not even close to running just yet).

  • Why doesn't Warner Brothers sue the MPAA? (Score:5)

    by rheise ( 22794 ) on Sunday July 30, 2000 @08:55PM (#893533)

    "Without the guarantee of that protection, a Warner Brothers executive testified in court, the industry would never have begun releasing movies in digital format."

    Then why doesn't Warner Brothers sue the MPAA (or dvdcca) for selling them a dodgy protection mechism that could never have worked? They did get that "guarantee" they're talking about, right?

    No matter how hard you try, you can't prevent people from making perfect copies of digital data. You can however prevent people from reading it if you have a brain to use encryption properly (why the heck are they making keys available before people are allowed to use them?)

    http://www.progsoc.uts.edu.au/~rheise/ [uts.edu.au]

  • Re:DeCSS and the net (Score:5)

    by jafuser ( 112236 ) on Sunday July 30, 2000 @10:07PM (#893537)
    It's true that most people will not watch net-copied movies on their computers, or go through the effort to have their computer project the movie into their home entertainment system. But that's just because these things haven't gotten easy yet. Eventually our computers will be connected to our home entertainment systems to do this easily, and many people will have internet connections which are fast enough that it takes less time to download the movie than to play it.

    This is what worries the MPAA - not that people are doing it now, but that *lots* of people will be doing it later if it is left unchecked. And what they are worried about most is not the piracy itself, but their loss of their control. They have spent a considerable amount of time (perhaps decades) refining their marketing and distribution techniques to maximize their income. They can predict fairly well how much money they will make if they create a movie, put it in theatres, then wait x number of months and sell the videos for y number of dollars. They have mastered their marketing art into a finely-tuned equation of x's, y's, and dozens of other variables to make the maximum profit possible.

    If the free excahnge of movies hits the mass public, they will have to change their method of distribution. Suddenly, their established marketing equations will not work anymore. There will be hundreds of variables instead of dozens.

    If or when this happens, they will still make enormous profits. People will still go to theatres, people will still buy the videos. If the movie companies keep their present set of distribution restrictions without any flexability, then the pirates (most of which are fans) will continue to be large in numbers. Since these fans they can't put their money down for what they want *right now*, they will take time to find "alternate sources". To minimize the piracy, the movie companies will have to make all of their material available in as many formats as possible as soon as possible after the movie is released. They won't be able to place as many of their profit-motivated restrictions on their content. No more "waiting six months" for the christmas season to release videos.

    But they don't know what will happen if they switch to this system, so it's just best for them to just stomp out anything else which threatens their legacy. It always comes down to companies losing a small amount of control when the 'net clashes with these companies. Aged businesses are afraid of losing their long-running legacy of marketing and distribution, which they have embraced for so long that they just can't imagine risking themselves to something completely different; so in the end, they wind up fighting and winning batters while losing the war, rather than embracing the internet and putting the pirates out of a job.

  • I think Napster is about this reflex: to me it looks like the RIAA
    are: (a) in the right, and (b) stupid to try to win this fight. The
    RIAA are desperately trying to fight any change in the way the
    industry works, but beating Napster won't stop that change from
    happening.

    DeCSS *is* about control of intellectual property, and it makes
    more sense. Here I think the case is exactly the other way about: the
    MPAA are (a) in the wrong, and (b) smart to try to win this fight.
    The MPAA are looking at changing the product they are offering the
    viewer, and they've invested a lot of money in the DVD solution. The
    MPAA are not threatened from smaller independents in the way that
    the big music companies are: the revenue is concentrated in the big
    releases in the movie industry to an extent not true in the music
    industry. The centralised control of the product makes all the
    difference: they really can control the industry if they get control
    of the DVD players.

  • You should look at: http://www.verkkotieto.com/~lm/c2txt2c/ [verkkotieto.com] this was refrenced it the trail as being used to convert the blowfish encryption algorythm to english so that it could be "exported" and then converted back to "C".

    I've been reading the transcripts for the whole trial and the expressive speech argument seems to be the only thing that has phased Judge Kaplan truely. I also agree with previous posters that both sides have seemed to be very inept durning the trial and the judge has been frankly very irritated with that.

    subsolar

  • Copyright on the in-expressive (Score:3)

    by BeBoxer ( 14448 ) on Monday July 31, 2000 @08:02AM (#893544)
    It seems that the judge and others in this case have a hard time thinking of code as being expressive. It seems to me that the courts and the law have already overwhelmingly decided that it is expressive. Why? We allow copyright's on computer programs. Do we allow copyrights on objects which are purely functional? No. Copyright is reserved for things which are artistic or expressive, correct?

    If the court feels that code is simply a tool, like a hammer or a screwdriver, why is it that code is deserving of copyright protection when hammers are not? And isn't a DVD just a program? Why does it get first amendment protection, even though by the judges own logic it isn't artistic or expressive?

    The simple fact is that virtually 100% of the market and legal realities surrounding computer code treat it as expressive content deserving of both first amendment and copyright protection. It's only when a powerful interest decides to do something just plain wrong for it's own benefit does this stupid argument come up. Last time it was in the case of export restrictions on encryption. Now with the MPAA trying desparately to eliminate fair-use.

    If code in non-artistic and non-expressive, I'm sure the MPAA won't mind me distributing an mpeg decoder source which #includes "matrix-vob.h", right?
  • He'll rule that 2600 violated no laws by posting the code under freedom of the press and speech, but that any use of code that gets around CSS is a violation of the law, therefore any use of DeCSS is actionable, including putting chunks of it in any LIVID software.

    Sorry to comment yet again on this topic, but I was reading this post [harvard.edu] on the OpenLaw forum which says that DeCSS is not a circumvention device after all!!

    As I understand it, a DVD contains 2 pieces of information: the actual movie, or video, which is encrypted with CSS and needs a key to decrypt. The key needed for is called the "title key" which is also stored on the DVD, and encrypted differently. To access the title key, one needs a "player key" such as the one in the Xing player.

    If you recall the wording of the DMCA, it outlaws anything that circumvents effective measures to controll access to a work. But what DeCSS does is it circumvents the encryption on the title key, bypassing the need for a player key, and then uses the title key to decrypt the movie. Therefore, it is not circumventing measures to control access to the work, but measures to control access to the title key. Note how this is not against the DMCA, because it is preposterous to claim copyright over a particular large number... and the key itself is on the DVD, and signals the authorization of the copyright holder to access the work!!!

    Unfortunately for us, I've read most of the transcripts of the case and I don't think this point came out in any of the evidence. It might be useful on appeal, if nothing else.
  • Actually, I lauded the writer for researching both sides of the story. Probably 50% of the stories about DeCSS have been written by reading the Plaintiff's press releases; another 40% have been written by trying to get both sides but failing substantially; and maybe 10% have accurately portrayed the whole story. This story is in that last 10%, and I was happy.

    I should probably avoid these sorts of throw-away one-liners in the future since it seems there's always someone in the slashdot audience who either doesn't read or doesn't parse what I said, or in some other way fails to understand.

    I should note for the record that slashdot has had a number of story submissions for stories whose writers had failed to get the MPAA's side; that is, they were essentially rants and propaganda, but written from an anti-MPAA point of view. I wouldn't want to run those in the same way as I wouldn't want to run something written from MPAA press releases - they're both crap, IMHO.

    --
    Michael Sims-michael at slashdot.org
  • This isn't the news. This is Slashdot. News is presented (and always has been) with a spin strongly tilted towards the Linux-using geeks of the world who generally are supporters of all open source and Free software. Though there are a lot of people who read this that aren't among them, the slant has always been in that direction.

    Regardless of the actual provisions of the DMCA, the spin the plaintiff and attorneys have been putting on the case is one of piracy. Also regardless, the truth is far grayer than that - a point most mainstream media has sadly missed. Is the truth entirely the truth from Corley and the EFF's point of view? No, but it's closer than the MPAA's version, for sure.

    Anyhow, there's nothing wrong with the Slashdot version of the news. Nobody here's ever pretended to be anything but biased.

    - -Josh Turiel

  • Seemed to me that Michael was not that accurate with his statement. She seemed to have researched both sides pretty well. It's just that the arguments are quite simple and don't take a lot of critical thinking to understand. The MPAA needs the DMCA to be upheld as is or they feel they will lose money. Whereas the other side is saying that it's not ok to take away people's rights just because you're afraid you'll lose money. Not too tough, huh?

  • If law is written in code, then law is a specific subset of code (code > law && code != law). While the actual code of a law may be first amendment protected, it may not violate the first amendment itself (or any other part of the constitution) to become law. ie: You can scream it from the hilltops, you can say it over and over again, but it cannot become law because it violates the first amendment.

    -- iCEBaLM

  • Re:Why doesn't Warner Brothers sue the MPAA? (Score:4)

    by Baki ( 72515 ) on Monday July 31, 2000 @02:44AM (#893556)

    No matter how hard you try, you can't prevent people from making perfect copies of digital data.

    In the NYT article, the head of the United States Copyright Office, Ms. Peters, says it is a problem that copyright holder won't have an incentive to produce digital material without assurance of protection.

    If I could advice her, I'd tell that those copyright holder then just should refrain from producing digital material.

    If the choice would really be between ending fair use and harming freedom of speech, or not producing digital material, the choice is easy: the latter.

    No company is forced to produce their material digitally. If the studios are so worried, then they should just stick to VHS tapes.

    Of course, presented with such a choice, they would have to reveal their true motives: They would not want to stick to VHS, since what they really want is to enlarge their influence and control.

  • We need a hardware player that uses DeCSS!!! (Score:4)

    by BeBoxer ( 14448 ) on Monday July 31, 2000 @08:28AM (#893559)
    What would really be great to make the real issues apparent is for some consumer electronics manufacturer to produce a standard DVD player. But, instead of getting a CSS license, they could use the source to DeCSS.

    Right now, the reality is that a program like DeCSS can be used to pirate DVD's. That makes it easy to paint it with the "evil" brush. However, if there was a hardware DVD player that was functionally just like an "authorized" DVD player, they couldn't use that tact. Provide an Apex-like menu to disable the region controls (but NOT macrovision), and the MPAA would be forced to admit that CSS and DMCA go far beyond copying and piracy.

    Let's take the fictional scenario a bit further. Acme Inc makes a DVD player that is just like all the other home players, but doesn't include region controls. It also doesn't have a CSS license. Let's further suppose that the MPAA takes them to court for DMCA violations. What would the arguments look like in this case? If the MPAA said that CSS was an anti-copying mechanism, the question becomes why does Acme Inc. have to use it if you aren't copying the DVD? If they try to claim that the player is a piracy tool, you could point out that it doesn't enable piracy any more than a Sony or RCA DVD player.

    So what would this player be doing that's "wrong"? Nothing. Well, almost nothing. By not having region controls, it's a way around the artificial trade barriers that the MPAA are enforcing to enrich themselves. And so the real issue would come to light before the customers. It's not about piracy. It's not about copying. It's about the DMCA being used as a shelf to place arbitrary rules and restrictions on. If this trial was about the MPAA's right to disable the FF button on your DVD player during ads, and the MPAA's right to restrict free trade via region encoding, the public's opinion of the MPAA and the DMCA might be a little less rosy.
  • Great, I wouldn't mind something like LIVID with a CSS license. It'd be an open source player with closed-source modules. You could remove their closed-source modules and put DeCSS in its place. All the code to play the MPEG stream, etc, would be there, all you'd need to do would be remove their code for decrypting the disks and locking certain controls...

    And because the control locking code gets its information from the decryption code, you'd just not implement the part where it tells the player to not allow skipping this track...

    I got into DVD decryption when I bought The Mummy and Sixth Sense, both of which come with forced commercials. I swore at that point that I wouldn't buy another DVD until there was a player that ignored those restrictions. Until then, I was neutral or anti DVD-piracy, but now, I figure whatever the MPAA gets, they deserve. If they'd made CSS to stop piracy and nothing more, then I'd side with them, but they used it for this stupid zone control, and to force people to watch trailers and adds... Now I'm turning my friends onto things like DeCSS (in the form of Vobdec and FlaskMPEG, etc). The only issue is the freedom to use the media we own in the fashion we desire.

    (If anyone is going to reply and say "You don't own it...", smack yourself upside your head. The only proponents of that belief are the studios themselves. like the only companies saying EULAs are binding are the software companies.)

  • I would make a distinction here. I believe they are legally in the right, but not morally in the right. The real problem is bad copyright laws.

  • I'm not sure any court is going to want to split hairs like that. If the MPAA claims that the title key is part of their "access control system," the court is unlikely to override their claim. Therefore, compromising the title key would be considered circumvention.

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