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."
Trade secret case depends on Norway (Score:5, Interesting)
The "knew or should have known" test should not have been applied to the original trade-secret violation case. It appears that not even Norway's prosecutor "knows", and its court certainly thinks not. How would some kid who's never been there be expected to "know"? The only outcome that would not embarrass California's courts any further would be to decide that there was no remaining trade secret at the time of the original filing.
Re:Trade secret case depends on Norway (Score:5, Insightful)
But the implications are worrying.
Re:Trade secret case depends on Norway (Score:4, Interesting)
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: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.
Re:Trade secret case depends on Norway (Score:5, Informative)
But they might decide to drop the whole case because the possibility for failure.
The case will anyway only (in Norway) be off historical interest since Norway anyway probably will addopt the new Infosoc directive from EU planned to take affect from January 2004.
But the way it is today, Johansen is not sentenced for anything and per se not guilty according to Norwegian laws.
Re:Trade secret case depends on Norway (Score:3, Interesting)
The Clock Is Ticking for DVDCCA (Score:3, Informative)
This is still bad news for the DVDCCA becuase their trade secret is no more. In the dissent, one CA Justice was ready to declare it then and there. The majority of justices thought it better to let the Court of Appeals make that determination. It is appeala
California Supreme Cout Decision & Commentary (Score:4, Interesting)
You can read the PDF version of the California Supreme Court [ca.gov] decision at: DVD Copy Control Association, Inc. v. Andrew Bunner [ca.gov].
The opinion is neatly summarized in its first paragraph:
Prof. Eugene Volokh [ucla.edu] of UCLA Law School [ucla.edu]and the Volokh Conspiracy [volokh.com] has some comments [volokh.com].
Dear California Supreme Court: +1,FairAndBalanced (Score:3, Funny)
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# 531-byte qrpff-fast, Keith Winstein and Marc Horowitz
# MPEG 2 PS VOB file on stdin -> descrambled output on stdout
# arguments: title key bytes in least to most-significant order
$_='while(read+STDIN,$_,2048){$a=29;$b=73; $ c=142;$ t=255;@t=map{$_%16or$t^=$c^=(
$m=(11,10,116,100,1 1,122,20,100)[$_/16%8])$t^=(72, @z=(64,72,$a^=12*($_%16
-2?0:$m&17)),$b^=$_%64?12
=5;$_=unxb24,join"",@ b=map{xB8,unxb8,chr($_^$a[--$ h+84])
The solution (Score:5, Insightful)
There are plenty of other countries that don't have such a crazy legal system.
Re:The solution (Score:3, Informative)
Jason
ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]
Re:The solution (Score:5, Interesting)
That's not so much a 'solution' as a 'quick-fix.'
For how long will it work? Really, with the EU and the WIPO both following the disturbing trends in the US, its not very likely that safe havens from the current American copyright regime will exist for long.
On the contrary, when the issue is lost here, at least in the current international climate, the world has no choice but to listen--and the being complacent and hosting on outside servers instead of fighting it simply gives these absurd copyright laws more time to become 'written in stone' so to speak in US law. Remember Eldred v Ashcroft? During oral arguments, the soon-to-be majority opinion Justices kept bringing up the question, as though it were a justification, of "why haven't copyright extensions been challenged before?" The longer these laws stay on the books, the harder its going to be to find respite from them in any country.
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."
No time now for detailed analysis... (Score:5, Funny)
Ah, shit.
Sometimes, the continued reporting of how our rights as consumers are being eroded makes me want to put slashdot in my barred hosts file. And then move to a cave. I'm sick of this crap, I really am.
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?
Re:No time now for detailed analysis... (Score:3, Funny)
That would be a cave with a broadband connection, right? I mean... for a second there, I thought you were going a little too far.
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, Offtopic)
Now what would lead you to think that's going to happen?
It wouldn't be our current gubernatorial circus, would it?
It certainly couldn't be our collection of fine thrust, subduction, and displacement faults throughout the state.
It couldn't be the current national Administration's "fuck 'em, they didn't vote for me, so let 'em use candles!" energy policy.
It wouldn't have anything to do with corrupt local politicians in every major city, would it?
It doesn't have anything to do with chr
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 wi
Still a shot (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Here's what the court really wants ... (Score:3, Informative)
Revealing a trade secret is only illegal if you either obtained knowledge of the secret by illegal means or if you are breaking a contract (NDA or similar) by revealing it.
The big question in this case is whether reverse engineering is obtaining a trade secret by illegal means. It is fairly obvious that it shouldn't be (and earlier cases have confirmed this), but there is a risk that courts may decide that under current legislation (DMCA etc.) it is.
next step - supreme court? (Score:5, 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:Why is it a bad precedent? (Score:3, Informative)
Absolutely nothing. But what does this have to do with this case?
Your analogy is not apropos. The author of DeCSS did not break into anything, nor steal anything, nor copy anything. He did a bit of clever reverse-engineering, nothing more.
Now, could this still constitute revea
T-Shirts (Score:5, Funny)
Re:T-Shirts (Score:3, Funny)
Re:T-Shirts (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm still going to wear my shirt though.
Mr. Cox (Score:3, Funny)
Does this mean that DeCSS isn't protected under "fair use" either? Bastages.
What's next? Arrest Securityfocus folks? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What's next? Arrest Securityfocus folks? (Score:4, Insightful)
In America, Soviet Russia makes jokes about YOUR lack of rights!
Err... trade secret rights?? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Err... trade secret rights?? (Score:5, Informative)
For this reason trade secret law is, in many ways, much more powerful (and restrictive to the general population) than copyright.
Re:Err... trade secret rights?? (Score:3, Informative)
The encryption was broken because of the stupidity of a particular company. One key was found because of the stupidity and the rest were figured out because of the low-strength of the keys. (40 bit?)
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:The obvious response: (Score:3, Funny)
Privilegde is a spelling error!
grib.
Re:Yes, trade secret rights. (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, that doesn't change your point that trade secrets are valuable (your Coca-Cola formula example is, actually, a good one... it's a trade secret, not a patent), however, one must not allow corporations to trump the rights of the public in order to protect their bottom line (a disturbing trend these days).
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 engin
Re:Yes, trade secret rights. (Score:5, Interesting)
Patents are essentially nothing more or less than one particular method for creating monopolies. Monopolies have, except when relatively weak, a net negative impact on society. Thus when an individual owns a patent, there can be an argument that the net impact on society is positive. It distributes the power base, and thus strengthens democracy. But when some centralized agency, say an employer, owns or controls the patent then net benefit on society becomes negative because it acts of further strengthen already unusually strong elements. And thus weakens democracy.
Note that while a republic does not depend on being egalitarian, and often isn't, a democracy does so depend. Thus as centralizations of power accumulate the country becomes less and less democratic (small d). Not, however, necessarily more republican. If the power is quite centralized oligarcies are more likely. Or even some sort of virtual feudal system (with, e.g., people being forbidden by contract from changing masters [perhaps employers?])
It's not hard to copy DVDs (Score:5, Informative)
That's balogna, and everyone on Slashdot knows it. Just because the orginization is called the DVD Copy Control Association doesn't mean that the encryption used has anything to do with copying the DVDs. I can easily and full "cp /dev/dvd ~/copied-dvd.iso" without DeCSS. But you need DeCSS to access the content, which has nothing to do with copying (well, permenantly), only playing.
As I explain to my non-techie friends (Score:4, Informative)
Re:It's not hard to copy DVDs (Score:5, Informative)
I'm glad someone else caught this. It's a bit disturbing when even the Slashdot posting describes DeCSS as "DVD-copying code". DeCSS would not be necessary to make exact copies, and while it could be useful for other types of copies (like downsampling), its main use is not for copying, but playback.
Obviously, this is not the way the RIAA wants people to think of DeCSS. It's much harder to demonize a DVD playing program than some kind of copying tool used by Nasty Evil Pirates. The fact that when DeCSS is mentioned the latter comes to mind, even for a Slashdot poster or tech journalist shows just how effective the RIAA's propaganda really is.
To win this battle, it has to be recast not as a fight for our right to bootleg movies, but put the focus on the legitimate questions that have nothing to do with copying anything.
Re:Something I've always wondered about.... (Score:3, Informative)
My guess is it was a normal copy, not a bit-by-bit copy. Sort of like copying a boot disk; you need to use rawwrite to copy the image instead of just copying because it need each
Re:Something I've always wondered about.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not sure how DVD rippers get around the protection. It's been posted in the comments for this story that the various ripping programs out there don't use DeCSS, and are much more efficient than if they did use DeCSS.
Re:Something I've always wondered about.... (Score:4, Informative)
I dont quite get how DVDs are protected. Its more complex than just saying use DeCSS as I understand it. or maybe I dont understand it.
There are two layers of "protection".
First, the player and drive perform a mutual authentication process [tinyted.net] (although one has to wonder why a player would ever care to verify that the drive is an "authentic" DVD drive). A "proper" drive should refuse to operate until after this authentication process has been performed. Also, after the authentication sequence, the drive will provide the disk key, if asked.
Second, after the drive is unlocked, the actual data streams must be decrypted. Normally (i.e. with an authorized player) the way this works is that the player retrieves a set of encrypted copies of the disk key, one of which is encrypted with it's player key. After retrieving the disk key, it can then decrypt the title keys, which are then used to decrypt the data stream.
However, that's not how most unauthorized players work. They still do the authentication step, but when it comes to decryption they don't bother with using a player key to get the disk key to get the title keys... instead they just attack the data streams and compute the title keys. This is possible because CSS really, really sucks. It's vulnerable to a known-plaintext attack with a trivial amount of known plaintext and there's plenty of known plaintext in the DVD sector headers.
The "just attack it" approach is why open source DVD players are a little slow to play a DVD the first time they see it. Most (all?) of them use libdvdcss which caches the keys so that the next time it sees the disk it won't have to do it again (on my box, the caches are in ~/.dvdcss). However, on modern machines, the crack time is almost negligible, so users may not notice the difference, given that it takes a few seconds for the DVD to spin up anyway.
For example, on my 800MHz PIII laptop, libdvdread (with libdvdcss) reports that it took seven seconds to decrypt all 8 title keys for a DVD I had handy. My laptop actually starts playing a movie much *sooner* than either of my "real" DVD players.
Seven seconds to crack all of the keys on a three year-old laptop. Sheesh. I guess as a user I should be glad the cryptography is so bad, but the security geek in me really wants to slap the creator(s) of CSS around some.
I really, really want to meet the guys who designed WEP.
Re:It's not hard to copy DVDs (Score:3, Informative)
CSS was a way to enforce 'region controls'. Belive it or not this sort of thing is actually illegal in many countries. Now however they positioned it in such a way that it was for 'copyright' control. To keep those nasty pirates at bay. Like they say follow the money and you will find who benifits the most from this system being in place. I can tell you it is not the consumer.
It was never about stoping people from copying. It was about makeing sure they get your last dollar out
It's NOT hard to copy DVDs w/out DeCSS (Score:3, Interesting)
When I bought my G4 it was advertised as being able to play DVDs w/out an mpeg decoder card. They were right, but the DVD software they had written wasn't up to the task. They have since lost a class action suit on this point.
Before the update to the DVD player was released, I found that I could get DVDs to play back properly (no more sound-going-out-of-sync) if I first made a disk image of the DVD then mounted it. Opening the Apple DVD P
It's not "copying" (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, what kind of trade secret is it, if everybody knows it?
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.
Laws laws laws. (Score:5, Interesting)
I really don't understand how it came to be that if you buy something it's still not yours.
Then again, I live in canada so that DeCSS ruling probably doesn't effect me... yet.
Re:Laws laws laws. (Score:3, Informative)
You not only own the disk, but you own the data as well. What you don't own is the right to duplicate that data for most reasons. The reason this is important is that you don't need a license to use something that you own.
It's like a book. They don't put after-sale restrictions on books because the courts ruled that they could not.
As copyright law has special provisions for copying that is required in use (copy a game to the HD, or a movie into RAM and into video
DeCSS Meta Comment (Score:5, Funny)
- I should be able to say/print whatever I want! I am teh 1337!
- The US and all it's USians are heading towards a nihilistic semi-fascist state!
- DeCSS only breaks something that wasn't secure in the first place, who cares!
- Six posts of people willing to host mirrors of DeCSS code
- 4 geeks are going to comment on their DeCSS Perl t-shirts!
- One militant troll is going to suggest we bomb MPAA headquarters
- Someone's going to post DeCSS here on
/. to see if they can get the comment removed. - 3 or 4 trolls who have no idea what DeCSS is are going to ask anyone if they know how to disable regions on their DVD player
- Requisite flames will be posted telling the posters from the last bullet to STFU and RTFA. Or something.
- One or two GNAA trolls (seem to be a dying breed, yay)
- One page widening troll (oh wait, he hasn't shown up lately)
Correct me, mod me, flame me, whip me, beat me. It's all good, you just aren't that important. Should you post something funny/insightful, I might give a shit.Re:DeCSS Meta Comment (Score:3, Funny)
Re:DeCSS Meta Comment (Score:5, Funny)
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?
Re:Hypocritical (Score:3, Funny)
Sad answer to the rhetorical question...
"Outranked"? (Score:5, Interesting)
If this is in fact what they said, it'll never hold up. Freedom of speech is the First Amendment to the US Constitution (for those of you who don't live here). It cannot be "outranked" by property and trade secrets rights. No state or federal law can "outrank" the Constitution of the United States.
The article may have misinterpreted the decision, but if that indeed was the decision, it will be overturned.
Re:"Outranked"? (Score:5, Insightful)
illegal prime (Score:5, Informative)
8565078965 7397829309 8418946942 8613770744 2087351357
9240196520 7366869851 3401047237 4469687974 3992611751
0973777701 0274475280 4905883138 4037549709 9879096539
5522701171 2157025974 6669932402 2683459661 9606034851
7424977358 4685188556 7457025712 5474999648 2194184655
7100841190 8625971694 7970799152 0048667099 7592359606
1320725973 7979936188 6063169144 7358830024 5336972781
8139147979 5551339994 9394882899 8469178361 0018259789
0103160196 1835034344 8956870538 4520853804 5842415654
8248893338 0474758711 2833959896 8522325446 0840897111
9771276941 2079586244 0547161321 0050064598 2017696177
1809478113 6220027234 4827224932 3259547234 6880029277
7649790614 8129840428 3457201463 4896854716 9082354737
8356619721 8622496943 1622716663 9390554302 4156473292
4855248991 2257394665 4862714048 2117138124 3882177176
0298412552 4464744505 5834628144 8833563190 2725319590
4392838737 6407391689 1257924055 0156208897 8716337599
9107887084 9081590975 4801928576 8451988596 3053238234
9055809203 2999603234 4711407760 1984716353 1161713078
5760848622 3637028357 0104961259 5681846785 9653331007
7017991614 6744725492 7283348691 6000647585 9174627812
1269007351 8309241530 1063028932 9566584366 2000800476
7789679843 8209079761 9859493646 3093805863 3672146969
5975027968 7712057249 9666698056 1453382074 1203159337
7030994915 2746918356 5937621022 2006812679 8273445760
9380203044 7912277498 0917955938 3871210005 8876668925
8448700470 7725524970 6044465212 7130404321 1826101035
9118647666 2963858495 0874484973 7347686142 0880529443
extract it with:
#!/usr/bin/perl
use LWP::Simple;
use Math::BigInt;
my $html = get("http://www.utm.edu/research/primes/curios/48
my($prime) = $html =~ m{
Re:illegal prime (Score:5, Funny)
#!/usr/bin/perl
Anyone else see the irony in using Perl to make something less obfuscated?
Re:illegal prime (Score:3, Funny)
This number was patented I believe.
Re:illegal prime (Score:3, Informative)
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
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.
Which came first? (Score:4, Funny)
Right, because you know, since property and trade secrets rights are guaranteed in the Zeroth Amendment to the Bill Of Rights, they outrank the First Amendment, don't they?
Re:Which came first? (Score:3, Informative)
United States Constitution, Article I, Section 8:
Clause 8: 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;
Re:Your order seems backwards (Score:3, Informative)
The Bill of Rights enumerates specific rights not defined in the original 1787 Constitution and are additions. They modify neither articles, sections nor clauses of the Constitution.
The 17th Amendment modifies (actually, supercedes) the text of Article I, section 3 of the Constitution. As an Ame
Re:Which came first? (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps the first amendment repealed that section of the Constitution.
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.
Re:Outrageous Outranking (Score:4, Informative)
Article I, Section 8:
Clause 8: 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;
Meant to be public? (Score:4, Interesting)
If I'm not mistaken, this code wasn't stolen, it was reengineered from scratch, wasn't it? If that's the case, what does it matter if the code was "meant to be" public? It became public the minute its author wrote it. Is the court really saying that the manufacturer's intent bars me from writing original descriptions of a product?
PS I realize that this may be an issue of the code containing "stolen" trade secrets such as keys. If this is the case, would the decision still apply to a truly "clean-room" version of DeCSS?
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.)
Determination by Who? (Score:3, Informative)
Now that there is another trump suit over the right to free speech (I guess that "national security", "libel", "slander" and no "Fire! in a crowded theatre are additional reasons), I have to wonder whether there will be cases where free speech is suppressed for less than reasonable cause.
For example, the Co$ has maintained that certain of its documents are trade-secrets.
Corporations could shield a great deal of signficant information under the guise of trade-secrets, such as advice that Enron executives gave to VP Cheney concering energy policy (the US federal government has already dismissed attempts to release those conversation under the FoIA).
Judges pretty much try to interpret law. What this ruling indicates is the need for legislative review, debate, and possible modification of the law:
If IP is taken to an extreme, there will be issues cropping up where information, as coded in genetic expressions, will become someone's intellectual property and "reading" it by overcoming some supposed obstacle would be a crime.
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.
Re:Good. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Good. (Score:3, Informative)
The issue is about protecting snake-oil. Look at the patterns of these laws - from Felton to Sklyarov - refuting claims of "being secure" is becoming illegal; any business model, no matter how far-fetched, is protected. The people creating the flaws are held harmless; the people who point them out are crucified.
Case and point - find an open WAP in the parking lot of a large retail store. Walk inside, and see the "PC Cash Registers" are using it, broadcasting credit c
Re:Good. (Score:3, Informative)
Source code is protected speech under US law I believe. From Dave Touretzky's gallery of DeCSS scramblers [cmu.edu]:
Software is invention more than it is expression (Score:3, Interesting)
It has always perplexed me how software came to fall under the protection of copyright. It starts with the idea that software is "expression" (not "invention") and should be protected as such.
I mean, I can understand why companies would want such a thing: if software were protected by patent only -- and, provided software patents weren't granted so irresponsibly (i.e. a patent souldn't cover abstract or nonnovel concepts, mathematical formula, etc. but only actual, specific implementations of novel concep
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.
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
The trade secret status is still doomed (Score:5, Informative)
My licensees then start to sell boxes that contain my idea inside of them. The boxes are difficult, but not impossible, to open. They sell these boxes far and wide, to anyone who wants them, without any contractual terms. You can walk into a store and anonymously buy one of these boxes with cash.
Someone eventually opens one of the boxes and peeks inside to see how it works. He happens to have picked one of the easier-to-open boxes, but really, all of the boxes were openable. It was just a question of how hard someone was willing to work.
Did I exercise due dilligence in keeping my idea a secret?
That's about how solid DVDCCA's trade secret is: not at all. The widespread publication of the already-reverse-engineered DeCSS isn't what screwed them. The sale of DVD players themselves is what doomed them. As soon as the first DVD player was sold to an end-user without any contractual obligation to keep the inner workings a secret, the DVDCCA had lost control of their secret. Anyone could have opened their box, even here in USA. Some guy in Norway just happened to be the first to get the glory.
That this loss of control was known about in advance (the whole point was that consumer electronics would implement the algorithm) rather than one of their licensees surprising them by producing a DVD player, is devestating.
If they wanted to keep CSS as a trade secret, they should have made it so DVDs could only be played in theaters, with the descrambling happening on equipment that was under control of people with whom they had secrecy agreements.
Screw that. (Score:3, Informative)
Permission granted to spread this link around.
Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but ... (Score:5, Interesting)
I cannot see how Brunner can be found liable for publishing the DVDCCA's "trade secrets" when Johanssen's code was independently developed in a reverse engineering environment even more stringent than the classic "clean room." I may be incorrect on the facts, but as I understand the Norwegian case, Johanssen did not dismantle his DVD player, download the ROMs and then disassemble the code. Most of what he did involved examining the data on the disk and trying to find the decryption key by means of quasi-brute-force cracking.
I see no violation of "trade secrets" here primarily because neither Johanssen nor Brunner were ever entrusted with the "secret" by the DVDCCA in the first place. Johanssen discovered it by independent reverse engineering, which the US Supreme Court has already determined to be protected as "fair use."
But, then again, I MIGHT be wrong on that.
Prof (Score:3, Informative)
He also has the scientology documents that slashdot censors [theregister.co.uk], which you can read here [cmu.edu]
Dr Touretsky also received a cease and desist letter [cmu.edu] from COS in an attempt to remove the material, but I guess he wasn't more worried about spending his dot com millions than setting a horrible precedent by caving.
Trade secret law (Score:3, Interesting)
From my searching on the web for trade secret law, I have found several nuggets of information:
- Trade secret law is generally State enforced, there is a Federal component, but the States by and large enforce trade secrets.
- Reverse engineering is considered a complete defense, that is, if the trade secret was discovered through the author's own efforts then the disclosure of said trade secret disolves the trade secret protection and cannot be considered actionable.
I did not read the court decision, but I am pretty sure from the history of the DeCSS controversy that whatever trade secret protection for DeCSS that existed was extinguished by the discovery and publishing of the DeCSS keys from the unencrypted Xing implementation. Thus, the reverse engineered discovery was entirely legal and entirely disolved whatever trade secret protection existed. I don't see how this could be considered trade secret any longer, given the method of discovery and widespread nature of the information.
My 2 cents.
Not the final authority. (Score:5, Interesting)
Last time I looked, the US Constitution specifically protects free speech, but only indirectly protects property rights (and specifically limits so-called intellectual property), and says nothing at all about trade secrets.
OTOH, courts -- even Supreme Courts -- have been known to come up with screwy decisions.
Not consistent with EFF's news (Score:5, Interesting)
Check out EFF's release: California Supreme Court Upholds Free Speech in DVD Case [eff.org].
I am misunderstanding it?
History is being written (Score:3)
The net effect of all this is that the average citizen will not oppose his rights being trampled, will not mind his privacy being gone, and will support going to war against anyone, given sufficient amount of convincing by administration officials.
Wake up, Americans!
It's not about Linux, you ninnies! (Score:5, Interesting)
So go on, expend all your political energy whining about DeCSS and your God-given right to watch DVDs on your Linux box, and ignore Ashcroft, the TIA, the PATRIOT act, and a hundred DMCA cases you've never heard of that are the real threats to your freedom.
Flame away, I'll be watching The Two Towers DVD with xine on my Gentoo box...
Re:What is this DeCSS? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What is this DeCSS? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Mod Parent Down (Score:5, Funny)
nope, all ok so far.
your turn: go out into a major city with a broomstick in your hands and shout "allah is great! allah is great" and see how long you last.
Re:Mod Parent Down (Score:5, Funny)
A lot longer than someone preaching Christianity in Mecca.
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: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.