Similarities Between DeCSS And The Connectix VGS Case? 132
bahamat dropped this interesting tidbit into the inbox: "Has anyone compared the DeCSS case to the Connectix VGS case? The facts surrounding both are very similar: A company produces content on disks and provides an expensive player on which to view the content; then another company reverse engineers the player to produce a software version for very cheap. The big company sues the little company. In the case of Sony vs Connectix, Connectix won, the court ruling was that Sony can't bar someone else from producing compatible player. It seems to me that this case has already set a precedent for the DeCSS case. Really, what's so different about the two? Has the DeCSS legal team approached the case from this way?" One thing to note: the win in the VGS case is on patent grounds, the two copyright claims in the suit are still undecided. It was copyright law, namely the DMCA, which the decision on the DeCSS case is based. Still, are there any similarities between the two that may make a legal difference to the 2600 case when it is appealed?
Maybe I'm wrong but.... (Score:2)
Anyway, as a Mac User, I use CVGS to play on my iBook. It ain't a tv, but it plays real nice, I have all the memory cards I want, plus screenshots of cool game sequences make great backgrounds. All Connectix has to do now is make a version for the DVD Macs for the PlayStation 2. I think that'll work out real nice....
Not really... (Score:3)
The DMCA applies to the DeCSS case because there was encryption envolved ("access control"). Nothing of the sort in the Sony case.
It didn't have to be good encryption, they just had to try.
Lame, but true.
Here's a difference (Score:4)
You can sing [slashdot.org] DeCSS.
You cannot sing the Virtual Game Station.
You hit the nail on the head-- (Score:4)
A case that I think *does* apply to this is the Sega v. Accolade case (hosted on www.eff.org in their case law section, so they're already aware of it, I'm not sure if the defense brought it up however..). In that case, Accolade reverse engineered the Sega Genesis to create compatible games for the console. After releasing some titles for the system, Sega made a change to their hardware to display the Sega logo everytime the system booted (or rather, whenever code from the cartridge issued a specific, BUT REQUIRED, initialization instruction).
The similarities here are that Accolade was reverse engineering the console for compatibilities sake. Really, the case of DeCSS is the same-- except in this case, the end result desired was a piece of code/software which could decode and play the content. (Although it could go both ways, couldn't it? Now that CSS's algorithm is known, you could (if you desired anyway) encode your own content.
But back to the Connectix case; I admit, I wish it could be applied, but for the reasons you stated, I just don't think it can. Maybe the appeals judge will be more inviting of case law and the idea that the motion picture industry is basically trying to create their own monopoly. (And HOPEFULLY the appeals judge will be more mindful of the 1st amendment!)
I doubt it. (Score:1)
It was mentioned in the trial a lot (Score:4)
I wonder if this does apply to Server Emulators to (Score:1)
I've got couple of cease and desist letters from Verant (sub company of Sony), but ignored them all.
Re:Maybe I'm wrong but.... (Score:1)
At least, that's the way I think it is. I may be wrong. The level of caffeine in my bloodstream is dangerously low.
Differences (Score:4)
Has anybody looked at how intertwined the music industry is with the "traditional" news media?
DeCSS vs Emulators (Score:2)
Speaking of internet piracy on the net, why the hell are the MPAA so up in arms about DeCSS because of the quality it allows (good rips more easily), when it hasn't been any worse than bootlegs taken in theaters with video cameras? Jeez, been on IRC, lately? Hardly anyone bothering with DVD rips, compared to all the movie-theater bootlegs. The quality doesn't seem to bother people, because the experience is already pretty degraded watching it on a computer screen. (So long as it isn't absolutely terrible)
Really, has DeCSS made a practical difference to internet movie pirates (like me?)
Copyright or Patent infringement? (Score:3)
Actually, from the article:Sony brought suit to suspend sale of the product claiming copyright infringement and tarnishment of the PlayStation name and other marks. After the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal rejected Sony's claims, Sony subsequently alleged that Connectix infringed eleven of its patents, seems like Sony lost 7 of their 9 copyright infringement suits, and afterwards they withdrew their patent infringement suits. That's not the same as they losing their case.
So, to clarify things a bit, I think this was the way things went (feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken!):
- Sony launched 9 copyright infringement suits.
- Court of Appeal rejected 7 claims.
- Sony then started 11 patent infringement suits.
- Just before the Court of Appeal decided wether to dismiss Sony's case, Sony voluntarily dismissed their case.
Let's hope Sony got wise and saw the monetary logic on getting more consumers to play their games (in their PCs), and while they would not make mroe money selling PlayStations, they'd probably recover by the increase in PlayStation games.
*Sigh* And all I've got is just a lousy Nintendo...but hey, I've got Unreal Tournament in my PC.
Re:Not really... (Score:1)
It didn't have to be good encryption, they just had to try.
Lame, but true.
Ah, I see. So if I applied rot13 to protect my new commercial data distribution media and someone used
In the eyes of the DMCA, a lock made out of tissue paper is a lock nonetheless.
Legal steps (Score:1)
Encryption AND copying, and all the rest. (Score:3)
First off, PlayStation games were formatted bizarrely, but noone ever argued that this was "encryption", nor that it was covered bythe DMCA's "effective access control" wording. I'm not sure if this is fortunate or not... it could be that had Sony gone this direction, they could have had as much success as DeCSS, but I think that's unlikely.
One of the reasons Sony would have a tough time fighting under the DMCA is because nothing was being copied by Connectix, or its software. They wrote an emulator, plain and simple. The problem with DeCSS, not that people ARE using it to copy, but that the prosecution has managed to convince the courts that it is a tool for copying.
There's a fine line there, but it matters a lot. After all, the "C" in DMCA stands for copyright. Sony wasn't worried about copying (publicly), only about emulation. The MPAA is (right or wrong) crying about copyright, so, I imagine the two are legally unrelated.
As usual, IANAL.
Clean Room (Score:3)
Now, i am certainly not an expert on DeCSS development (and someone please fill in the details or correct me where wrong), but my impression is they obtained certain 'keys' from officially branded DVD hardware/software decoders. And in turn, use those keys to decode/emulate a DVD player. If so, then DeCSS is not a 'clean room' environment, per se. And MPAA could argue that this key was stolen IP.
Anyways, I see this is an important difference between the two cases.
Tom
Re:Not really... (Score:1)
So if I applied rot13 to protect my new commercial data distribution media and someone used
Yes.
Now, if we could get a case involving THAT kind of violation in front of a court, instead of someone well more than three times removed from the creation of the unlicensed decryption program, and burying the case in half-truths and FUD, maybe we would get reasonable legal decisions.
Really, what's so different about the two (Score:4)
In the Connectix case, the judge had no connection to either party.
In the DeCSS case, the judge was deciding the legality and enforcability of a player market control scheme that his own law firm -- his colleagues -- personally designed for the MPAA.
What a fortunate coincidence for the MPAA!
It seems to me that if it takes a judge 91 pages to make the argument that he should not recuse himself from a case, something is wrong.
main reason 2600 lost... (Score:4)
Wasn't it about timing? (Score:2)
Instead this why the lawsuit is in California instead of someplace else?
Perhaps I should look some of this stuff up. But instead I'll let people cuss at me if I'm wrong.
Another DeCSS question (Score:2)
Erik
Nope, doesn't apply. (Score:5)
DMCA's biggest problem is its inherently split personality. In 1201(a)(2), it prohibits the manufacture or import of devices primarily intended to circumvent "effective" copyright measures. But, in 1201(c)(1), it states, "Nothing [in section 1201] shall affect rights...including fair use, under this title." That's right, boys and girls - you have the right to copy that DVD, it's just illegal to make a device to do it!
So, as usual, this is just folks who haven't actually read the law running off on tangents. Yes, it's a good analogy. But the law very clearly prohibits some things (building a device to defeat an "effective" copyright control system) and clearly doesn't prohibit others (building an emulator). Read the law before you post.
Oh yeah, and for all of you thinking, "Well, if DeCSS can break it, by definition, it isn't effective," the law has an answer to that, in 1201(b)(2)(B): An effective measure is one that "in the ordinary course of its operation, prevents...the excercise of a right of a copyright owner." DeCSS isn't in the "ordinary course of its operation," therefore, it doesn't make the copyright control ineffective! In fact, there is some argument that, if I simply put a bit on my content (much like the copyright bit in the MP3 standard) that said, "Don't copy me," and all the players in the market enforced that bit, making a player that ignored it would be prohibited by DMCA!
There's not any clever legal arguments to get out from under this. Either the Supreme Court strikes it down (which it conceivably could do simply for being so internally inconsistent in stating that fair use is OK but you can't build a device to enable fair use, or perhaps on first ammendment grounds), or We The People get Congress to revoke the law. Us against Disney, Microsoft, the MPAA and the RIAA...Hmmm. I know who's the favorite on this one...
(DMCA information taken from The EFF [eff.org]. Large amounts of legal verbage have been removed from the quotes above in order to make them actually readable.)
Re:Not really... (Score:1)
Just out of curiosity, has this ever been tried? Say the EFF wants to establish a good precendent, so it splits into two organizations, EFF1 and EFF2. EFF1 makes a product and "protects" it with rot13. EFF2 decrypts the product, and EFF1 sues EFF2. They go to court, argue out the case in front of a judge, and get a decent precedent set.
Or is that just stupid?
Connectix didn't win, really (Score:2)
Re:main reason 2600 lost... (Score:5)
s that regardless of the purpose that DeCSS was created for, it *did* bypass the DVD access controls.
That ignores (as the judge did) the legitimate purpose of DeCSS. DMCA does make exception for things which have a legitimate purpose.
Otherwise, they'll have to ban soldering irons, debuggers, and text books on home electronics and programming (especially embedded devices)
Re:Stop that! (Score:1)
Re:Maybe I'm wrong but.... (Score:2)
Remember, personal computers are designed to do many things fairly well. Game consoles very few things, but do them very, very well. The console makers also sell them as loss leaders, and make back their money on officially licenses games -- which means that much of the hardware they include would cost much more than the unit retails for, if you could get it all for a standard computer.
Re:main reason 2600 lost... (Score:1)
Re:Copyright or Patent infringement? (Score:1)
"And they said onto the Lord.. How the hell did you do THAT?!"
Re:Stop that! (Score:1)
Re:Not really... (Score:5)
This is one of the things that troubles me about the DMCA. Well, that and everything else about it. By saying that it's illegal to try to crack encryption--even lousy encryption--they basically make everything potentially encryption. Microsoft gets annoyed at StarOffice being compatible, and tired of changing its format each release? No problem. The Microsoft Word document format is access-control, and anyone caught trying to read it is in violation of the DMCA. Neener neener.
The real Seqram has Slashdot ID... Oh, who cares, who'd want to impersonate me anyway?
Re:Not really... (Score:1)
Getting a judge to laugh out loud in full court is not exactly the precedent we'd like. At the very least, it'd prove that judges are not actually deceased and being strung up by marionettes and controlled by rather large conglomerates. (What? Imply that Kaplan might be a MPAA puppet? GOD, NO!)
Re:Nope, doesn't apply. (Score:1)
But that's just the issue: the encription does NOT control the access! Any player you buy has the key(s) to deceipher and play the work (DVD content). The only thing it '(DeCSS) does is enable similar access on other platforms than M$!
I'm quite sure that no licence on a DVD or DVD player says you can only access it through a Bill Gates systems.
The big issue isn't even in watching the movie... (Score:3)
This is thought control on the source level. Essentially, DeCSS is a war cry against this.
Re:Not really... (Score:1)
Help develop the analogy (Score:5)
Connectix was found to have engaged in infringing copying but won on the defense of fair use. Its temporary copies were necessary to gain access to the unprotectable functional elements of the Playstation BIOS, and its resulting emulator was a transformative use of the copy. Judge Kaplan told the defendants in the DeCSS case that fair use was not a defense to circumvention of access control devices. That's still a major point of contention, of course.
But, it's not over yet.
We need to draw a closer parallel between the cases, to argue that the DMCA did not so change the landscape and thus that the reverse engineering and interoperability endorsed by the 9th Circuit must still be permitted. There's lots of great language in the Connectix opinion [cornell.edu] that claims of copyright infringement can't be used to cut off access to unprotected ideas and functional elements. Can we extend that logic to say that even "access controls" endorsed by the DMCA can't be used to cut off that same unprotected information or fair use of the underlying content? Putting a ROT13 on a work shouldn't cut off fair use.
Join the fight at Openlaw [harvard.edu]!
Re:Encryption AND copying, and all the rest. (Score:2)
So if Sony suddenly claimed that the Playstation hardware was intended as encryption, would they suddenly have a case?
Or what about Dreamcast's "GDROM"s? GDROMs were intentionally designed to prevent copying. Not by encryption at the bit level, but by hoping that someone wouldn't figure out a way to make compatible hardware. That seems to be exactly what Playstation's game plan was.
DMCA allows for devices which allow interoperability. But what happens when non-interoperability is intended as a form of copy-protection?
Didn't Sony drop VGS suit? Connectix didn't win. (Score:2)
Can someone verify this? I could be wrong and i'm at work now so can't spend time looking it up.
Re:Not really... (Score:2)
In the eyes of the DMCA, a lock made out of tissue paper is a lock nonetheless.
Everyone seems to be harping on the fact that CSS isn't a "good" encryption sceme, and therefore should be ignored. What does constitute a "good" encryption scheme? And who gets to decide? Does anything that gets cracked automatically become a "bad" encryption scheme? Is PGP "bad" because it has been cracked? Sure, it took longer than CSS but it was cracked nonetheless. Does it have to take a certain number of days to get cracked before it is "good"? They made an honest encryption attempt, figuring on the fact that is is illegal to crack it. Seems thats good enough to fit under the DMCA, like it or not
Re:The big issue isn't even in watching the movie. (Score:2)
Re:Here's a difference (Score:1)
Unlicensed manipulation of data (Score:3)
DeCSS adds an additional feature which is that the results from the software is a preferable format for any user choosen manipulation of the data. I key aspect of the DeCSS trial was the fact that CSS data is not approbate for recompressing via DivX. Since being able to achieve further compression of the DVD content was note an intended feature of the DVD author, the DeCSS software is considered to provide an unexpected and undesired additional feature.
However, with the rate at which technoligy is going (60+ GB hard drives, Gigabit ether, etc.) it seems questionable as to how long remanipulation is going to be desirable for transfer. Probably withen the next 24 to 36 months their will be a reasonable size number of people with the equipement to easily do byte-for-byte duplication such that DeCSS is no longer desired as part of the pirating process. Please keep in mind that while it is presently not human noticable that the "Divx'd" DVD copies are degraded from the orginial. Once technology catches up with the the size of DVD images, why bother producing a degraded copy? At the that point in time that technology provides for making identical copies preferable the DeCSS will cease to be a popular tool for copyright infingment and will only have a popularized purpose of accomplishing playback. Hence, I believe the present "win" against DeCSS has only short term benfits for DVD publishers and in that regard was probably fairly pointless.
Re:DeCSS vs Emulators (Score:2)
Re:The big issue isn't even in watching the movie. (Score:1)
Personally, I'm waiting for a DVD player for Windows 2000 that will allow you to do screenshots and sound grabs that are not in excess of 45 seconds. Come on! The code is broken already!
Re:Nope, doesn't apply. (Score:2)
But through the encryption, the MPAA/DVDCCA is able to control access. They come up with a proprietary encryption scheme (CSS), license it out ONLY to those who they choose to license it out to, and basically tell the others that they are out of luck (even though they have a right under fair use laws to access the data). You're right in that DeCSS enables access on non-M$ systems, but since DeCSS isn't licensed use of CSS, it doesn't make the MPAA happy.
I'm quite sure that no licence on a DVD or DVD player says you can only access it through a Bill Gates systems.
Then why hasn't the MPAA/DVDCCA authorized any Linux/OSS developers to use CSS?
=================================
You must have missed the discussion about EVs..... (Score:1)
bm :)-~
Re:Encryption AND copying, and all the rest. (Score:1)
Re:Not really... (Score:1)
Re:Here's a difference (Score:4)
The issue is the DMCA took copyrights one step further and not only addressed illegal copying, but made technologies that could possibly lead to copying illegal. [analogy]In other words, not only is it illegal to copy that copyrighted poem, it's now illegal to tell someone how to build a xerox machine[/analogy]!
We were going through a phase in this country where we realized there needed to be some legislation addressing the new technologies, our legislating bodies were a little inexperienced and made some mistakes, and now we're bringing them (or the MPAA is
Re:You hit the nail on the head-- (Score:1)
From MacInStart.com: [google.com]
Sony Sues Connectix (Sony Link)
Sony has sued Connectix on 2 different sets of claims; 9 copyright and trademark claims and 11 patent claims about the popular Sony PlayStation Emulator, Virtual Game Station, which won MacWorld Expo San Francisco 1999's Best of Show award. 7 of the 9 copyright and trademark claims were dismissed by the court and 2 will be reviewed for dismissal possible in early September. Connectix filed a petition to dismiss all of the 11 on the grounds that there were technical complications in Sony's filing, and in Connectix's opinion Sony has not established that they have ownership to the patents.
The day before the hearing on the motion to withdraw the claims, Sony voluntarily withdrew all 11 patent accounts, then the next day Sony brought back 6 of the 11 accounts. Where does that leave Connectix and Sony now? 2 of the original 9 are before the court, and 6 of the original 11 claims are before the court. 12 out of the way and 8 to go. Now the court reviews it and sees if it proceeds in court. I asked the CEO of Connectix, Roy McDonald, if this is keeping him up at night worrying about these lawsuits. Roy observes, "It is a small part of out business. Our main retail is Virtual PC, and the largest amount of development and future growth relates to the application of our emulators to business applications. So the company is growing both in mac emulation retail space and enterprise space, although the console space is the profitable area; and although we love the product we produce there, it represents a small fraction of our business."
So... if you think any precedent has been set, or even that Connectix is actually out of the woods yet, wrong. The Register had a good article on the story as well, if you want to look there for more references...
Re:Nope, doesn't apply. (Score:1)
Slashdotters getting smarter?!?! (Score:1)
The remarkable thing about this article is the number of on-target replies. This is a techie-nerd site, right? But I read post after post making careful distinctions about intellectual property law, weighing obscure precedents, quoting the U. S. code. Certainly, there is still abundant need for "IANAL" around here, but the level of legal sophistication on Slashdot has grown immensely in recent months.
Re:Not really... (Score:5)
Which puts people like me right behind the eight-ball. It's my job to seek out those kinds of vulernabilities and protect my very real production system against them. But under the DMCA the act of seeking out vulnerabilities is now 'sneaky' and 'hackerlike' behavior. Regardless of whether it's to keep ahead of genuine theives or become one myself, the ruling that Kaplan has laid down doesn't differentiate. The MPAA has people snowed on this piracy thing. The fundamental truth is, it is not the problem of the law, the justice system, or the community at large that the MPAA chose such a childish, feeble scheme to protect their works. It's out in the open now and it is not my responsibility or yours or anyone else's to give up our constitutional rights to talk about what we choose to talk about or think about what we choose to think about just to protect their lame-ass scheme. They are left with exactly the tools that they've always had to defend against piracy, which are 1) punishing pirates when they're caught. And 2) punishing pirates when they're caught. Prevention of the means of piracy should not be the public's problem. But the DMCA makes it the public's problem, and in the process stomps on our right to THINK about piracy. It's the beginning of thought control and it's absolutely terrifying.
What really cracks me up is that if they'd just kept their mouths shut they would be having no problems. I predict very confidently that if the prices of DVD's remain at the astonishingly low rates they are now, piracy of DVD's will remain almost nonexistent no matter how easy they become to pirate. For the same reason that videotape piracy is pretty much a thing of the past; it's cheap to buy a videotape and you can be assured that you're getting a good quality copy. When videotapes were $80, they weren't worth buying, but having a friend run off a copy was worth the effort and the relatively minor risk. If DVD remains in the ~$20 range, they will never have a major problem with DVD piracy. But I imagine that just like the RIAA the MPAA is planning to jack prices up on this new format once it's taken over the market. And in order to secure their market, they think, they're doing their level best to make piracy impossible. Except that they don't seem to be very smart about it. I predict that if much more of this goes on the DVD will go exactly where DIVX went -- nowhere. The DVD section in any movie rental store I see is still a small percentage, less than 10%, usually, of the stock, and the selection is truly awful, most of the time. If the stink of what's happening in Jester Kaplan's court gets into the public's face people will stay away in droves from the new formats, and this incredible racket that the MPAA has planned for themselves will evaporate like so much vague speculation. But that's just my hope.
Re:Here's a difference (Score:2)
Actually listening to your song made me think of something else rather frightening. I have spent quite a lot of time and effort 'reverse engineering' the recordings of various bands and artists. In fact I used to get paid pretty regularly for other bass players to come over to my house, give me a tape of whatever they wanted to know, and have me transcribe it for them in tablature. Under the logic being applied in the DMCA, that act may be a violation of the intellectual property rights of (insert lame top 40 artist here). I've 'reverse engineered' hundreds of songs. I wonder if this analogy would make sense if someone took it, inscribed it on a bass guitar, and smacked Judge Kaplan over the head with it. Repeatedly. The fact that I can KNOW and understand how a song was played, and make that knowledge available to others, does not mean I am pirating the work in question or taking away profits from the originator of the work. It's a rarer ability than the ability to, for example, understand the words (at least until the last 10 years or so of music). But that is essentially what DeCSS is all about. Someone with good 'programming' ears transcribed the encryption scheme that was very plain to them in the CSS algorithm and made it public. Just like someone like me can very plainly understand a bass line and chord structure that is so much mojo to even another bass player . . . it's something I think I am going to write to my congressbeing(s) about.
Re:Here's a difference (Score:2)
If computer coders are held responsible for how their code is used, that's like running out and putting Smith & Wesson (or appropriate manufacturer) employees in jail everytime a crime is committed with a gun.
Bill Gates should be in jail. I mean, it's HIS company that writes the Operating System that Napster was (originally) written for, right? He's mass manufacturing "pirate ships"!
Re:Not really... (Score:1)
A good encryption scheme is one that is more trouble then the information it is protecting is worth, but not much more. Which is what really makes CSS an insult on top of injury. The encryption scheme is so bad, it wasn't even worthy of protecting videos on DVD.
> And who gets to decide?
Unfortunetly, the courts. They are the body that decides all cases like this. It is a preception of legality.
> Does anything that gets cracked automatically become a "bad" encryption scheme? Is PGP "bad" because it has been cracked? Sure, it took longer than CSS but it was cracked nonetheless.
Almost. It depends on how much trouble the information is to decrypt. If, once an encryption scheme is cracked, it still takes more effort then the information is worth, then the scheme is still good. CSS is a particularly bad case for this, because the only people who would decrypt it don't profit from it. DVDs can be (easily) copied without decrypting them, and the only real reasons to decrypt it is 1: political statement 2: play it on a system that you can't afford to put a hardware decryptor into 3: prove that you have the technical prowess and 4: build a collection of media you don't think is worth buying. Otherwise, you would either buy a bootleg or an original. The prices are low enough that they are easy enough to afford for the one you really want.
> Does it have to take a certain number of days to get cracked before it is "good"?
It is not a matter of days. It is more a matter of willpower.
> They made an honest encryption attempt, figuring on the fact that is is illegal to crack it. Seems thats good enough to fit under the DMCA, like it or not
Well, that is the problem. The DMCA is trying to do the impossible (namely, providing legal restriction over who can posses knowledge when the people benefiting from the restriction are not willing to implement adequete restrictions themselves), and, by forcing the issue, damaging alot of solical structured assumed and taken for granted, such as free speech. CSS is not an honest attempt, it is a half-assed attempt, and should not be afforded the protection of the courts. The point is that this is not the sort of thing that should be left up to the courts, and you can not legislate the type of activities behind DeCSS out of existence. All it took was someone asking a couple of questions, and a desire to see how the world works. And they are trying to make that illegal?
Re:Here's a difference (Score:1)
Yes, I think your perspective hits the issue right on the head. Perhaps the legislators have decided that laws prohibiting the copy of copyrighted materials just weren't being followed, so they'll "nip it in the bud" or something. Accidentally (?) they happened to infringe on our rights. I think they'll get the clue soon.
Re:Maybe I'm wrong but.... (Score:1)
Or maybe I should just go back to playing my Dreamcast. I think I hear Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 calling me....
I have a question sir (Score:1)
Re:main reason 2600 lost... (Score:1)
Supposedly the next level of court will be more open to looking at the legality of the DMCA itself...
Re:Nope, doesn't apply. (Score:2)
IINM there is such a product in the works. But..it will be proprietary. Chances are, you will have to pay for it like most any other commercial software package. The problem here is that end users will be paying extra $$$ for a CSS "licensed" player -- something they should not have to do. VHS players don't require MPAA licenses and proprietary formats, CD players and Walkmans (Walkmen?) don't require RIAA licenses and proprietary formats, so DVD players should be no different, regardless of whether they are hardware based or software based, and regardless of what OS they run on.
=================================
Re:Nope, doesn't apply. (Score:1)
Chicaco Tribune coverage.. (Score:3)
I 'spose I can use DeCSS legally outside the USA (Score:1)
No (Score:1)
Re:I wonder if this does apply to Server Emulators (Score:1)
Re:Maybe I'm wrong but.... (Score:1)
So what's the problem? They would make even more money.
I expect that sometime not long after the PlayStation 2 comes out, a high-end PC with the latest and greatest video card would be able to emulate it. So, Sony had better plan to make the money on the games and not the console.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Re:DeCSS vs Emulators (Score:1)
bleem, inc. (note the lowercase 'b') had to design bleem! in such a way as to work with PAL and NTSC games. The copy protection hardware in the PSX is the same device that holds the region code for the entire machine. Thus, bleem! does not support region codes, and therefore does support the use of CD-R media.
bleem!'s performance is actually increased when using CD-R media, as the reader in conventional CD readers is of high quality, while using a CD-R in a modded PSX degrades performance. The PSX's reader is a really low-quality part, so Sony makes the CD's black, to reduce reflection/refraction of the laser.
My point is that bleem! will play pirated PSX games out of the box, no hacks required. But it can't be used directly for piracy, much the way DeCSS can't. It's a workaround for not having the right hard/software for the media you are licensed to use.
Re:Copyright or Patent infringement? (Score:1)
Exactly. Almost every console since the Atari 2600 has been either sold to distributors for either a loss or at cost. Guess the people at Sony believe there are exactly zero honest people in the world that would rather own a legit PSX disc than use a pirated one.
I use bleem! and only have legit games. Whoever got money for me buying those wouldn't have that money if VGS/bleem! were killed in court. Those corporate types are geniuses.
Re:Encryption AND copying, and all the rest. (Score:1)
Proofs! FF8 -and- CC work on older versions of bleem! almost perfectly. The issue with FF8 is that saveing didn't work until 1.5a I think, which is unfortunate because 1.4 was much faster than 1.5b, which is the current version.
And whoever said PSX games are formatted wierd, stick one in your CD drive. It used regular 'ol CDFS.
Re:Connectix didn't win, really (Score:1)
Re:Nope, doesn't apply. (Score:1)
Re:Help develop the analogy (Score:1)
Regardless, the reason this got to court in the first place was because of the -violation of the license agreement- of the software player they found the unencrypted key from. The obvious rule would be, in this instance, that "you cannot be bound by any contract that you sign that would limit your legal protections". (Especially in California, where such is specifically prohibited by law.)
Any thoughts?
The MP3 is gone ... (Score:1)
--
Why pay for drugs when you can get Linux for free ?
Re:Help develop the analogy (Score:2)
There is more than one case involving DeCSS and the DMCA. I believe this discussion applied to the New York case, called Universal Studios vs. Remeirdes. The defendant has been dropped and replaced with Emmanuel Goldstein (Eric Corley), publisher of 2600.
The New York case turns not on the license agreement but the "trafficking" in "circumvention" "devices" part of the DMCA, which means it is a case in federal district court under copyright law. The district court judge has ruled that Internet hyperlinks to DeCSS code is in violation of this section of the DMCA. That decision is under appeal.
The California case is in a state superior court and does turn on "trade secret" violations alleged by many individuals on the Internet all over the world. It is possible that the DVD-CCA (Copyright Control Authority--it was set up by the movie studios and some hardware makers) will also claim violations of the click-on license agreement that may or may not have come with the Xing software DVD player.
Reverse engineering is a claim by defense in both cases. You are correct that plaintiffs' charges are baseless, for yours and other reasons. Nevertheless, defense costs a lot of money and time and your assistance is appreciated.
You may learn more about the cases at EFF [eff.org] and in the OpenLaw [harvard.edu] forum at Berkman Center at Harvard Law School.
A four-letter word (or acronym) (Score:2)
Re:The big issue isn't even in watching the movie. (Score:1)
Re:Really, what's so different about the two (Score:2)
Errrrrrrr .... well, pardon my French, but if it "seems to you" this way, then you know fuck-all about the legal system, and your opinions on the matter are of interest only to yourself, your mother, and, bizarrely, five slasdhot moderators.
And, your comment about Judge Kaplan's "colleagues" (here's a clue: Judges Aren't Members of Law Firms) having "designed" the market control scheme is both a lie, and certainly actionable.
The DeCSS case is very certainly damaged by idiotic zealots.
Re:Not really... (Score:1)
Part of the point is that there does not and can not exist a perfect "copy control mechanism."
In the rot13 case... if DVDs had been rot13 encoded instead of CSS encoded, rot13 would have become exactly as illegal as DeCSS, because it allows unauthorized access to a copyrighted work.
Hey, there's an interesting question - is it possible for EXISTING, LEGAL tools to become ILLEGAL under the DMCA if anyone EVER encrypts a copyrighted work with them?
Anyway, good or bad is not the point - there can never be one good enough, and if it's really bad it's still illegal to crack it under the DMCA (even accidentally I would imagine). That's just absurd.
Re:The big issue isn't even in watching the movie. (Score:1)
Zoning was a good idea in theory, because a movie release more or less could go like this:
Of course they were stupid enough not to envision zoneless or multiple-zone players. Johansen in the 2600 trial even said it is common practice to buy zoneless DVD players where he lives. And most European DVD players can play NTSC DVDs, but you have to have a TV capable of displaying the signal. Computer DVD players are often zoneless and play either PAL or NTSC.
And this was also designed before the popular WWW to make it easy to get DVDs interationally, so maybe the MPAA has an excuse for their stupidity
BTW, did you notice there's a zone just for China? All the Chinese government has to do is tell a studio not to produce an objectionable movie like Red Corner or Kundun in zone 6 or forget selling anything in China anymore. Then shoot anyone in China who sells zoneless DVD players.
Re:The big issue isn't even in watching the movie. (Score:1)
2 - Japan, Europe (Bizarre, but hey!)
3 - Aisa.
4 - Australia/NZ
5 - Africa, India
6 - China
Re:The big issue isn't even in watching the movie. (Score:1)
Re:Not really... (Score:2)
Not so. First of all, if MS format was protecting something (say, if Word supported an encrypted read-only format) then it would be protecting the Word document rather than interoperability with Word.
Second, reverse engineering to allow compatibility is explicitly allowed under the DMCA. So it would still be illegal.
Paul.
Reverse Engineering (Score:1)
If someone made a mac clone these days , a la compaq in the 80s, I think somehow the mac scene would be a whole lot better off... except they'd probably get sued before they got anything to the market.......
Re:The big issue isn't even in watching the movie. (Score:1)
//rdj
Re:Not really... (Score:1)
Distinction needs to be made between "code" and (Score:1)
However, the MPAA does not say this. They tell website operators to "remove the circumvention device from your website." IANAL, but what kind of language is this??? See the letter that the MPAA sent cryptome.org [cryptome.org] today for an example of this.
They cannot say "please remove the code that you have published on your website" because publishing involves speech, which the DeCSS is. When it is compiled and executed, your computer becomes a decryption device , placing it under patent laws. Is the DeCSS patented? If it is, then the US patent office has already published it. Then it follows that it is your computer that is the circumvention device not the DeCSS code by itself.
Another thing that gets me is the mishmash of copyrights and patents. Two different things, or two different temporary "granted monopolies". People should not be allowed to use one "monopoly" to increase the power of the other (i.g. dealing in software patents), because that power has not been granted by the constitution. The constitution separates the two because they were intended to deal separately with two different things, not act together. For many years, they had about the same amount of power until "copyright creep" started taking place, continually increasing its power until now you have the DMCA controlling "devices" overtaking the power of patents. Software should either have a copyright or a patent, but not both. If it can be copyrighted, then I should be able to have rights like "first sale" and "fair use" that have been argued the century before last when a publisher put a EULA on the first page of a book. If the software is a patent (i.g. a device that configures a computer), then I expect to be able to copy it in twenty years when the patent expires (and I mean the actual software created by the company using the patent). Just because you flash a contract in front of somebody's face or toss it in with the shinkrap doesn't mean you can usurp somebody's constitutional rights, and I consider having patents and copyrights acting as two separate entities as one of those rights. What we see now is the result of abuse of these two constitutionally "granted" temporary monopolies. Taking a power that was niether "implied" nor "granted", they shaft the public out of their due - the very reason why the constitution grants patents and copyrights in the first place.
What the MPAA is trying to do is extend copyright privilege to devices (even they have to refer to the refer to DeCSS as a "device", otherwise their arguement gets flushed down the toilet where it belongs) all the while basking in the newfound powers of the copyright law/DMCA.
Self-defeating.... (Score:2)
2600 will probably loose - they have been painted as evil hackers in court, the copyright-owners are on a bit of a roll right now, and it's an election year.
What strikes me is that these huge organisations - both the "content creators" like Disney, and the software shops like Microsoft, seem to forget where their ideas come from. Never read a good book, watched a good film, heard a good song, used a good program created by a faceless organisation - to survive, these Intelectual Property-based organisations need one thing more than anything else, and it is TALENT.
The DMCA, the DeCSS and Napster cases - they all serve to turn those talented folks who could be making them rich into sworn enemies. Which self-respecting geek would go to work on a new form of encryption for DVD players ? Which teenage band who have been chucked of Napster is going to sign with a major label ? (well, maybe if the money was right...)
Somewhere in Hollywood, there is high-priced consultant scaring the studios, saying "look at Napster ! In 3 years time, everyone will have broadband access to the net, and the same will happen to your DVD content ! You will have to give up all that you hold dear !". The knee-jerk reaction is instantaneous.
Someone, somewhere is going to figure out a way to get rich from content in the new digital age, where information can not be protected by encryption and still be publicly available and run on cheap hardware.
I bet it won't be the existing powers.
Won't be me either, if I keep wasting my time posting to Slashdot....
MPAA begged for trouble, and got it... (Score:2)
1. Region coding. Why? Because I want to play the films I own, if I moved across regions, if they weren't released in my region, or at least much slower, or I could simply get them cheaper in another region. I'd call it discrimination, but I don't think the UN would hear me out.
2. Force feeding. I know of at least one DVD which has *required* parts, and I'm not talking about the legal section, it's commercials/trailers. Even on a video player you can skip what you don't want.
3. Playability. I don't understand the problem with releasing a software-only binary-only self-encrypting Linux player, like those on windows. It's not like the MPAA didn't have a market, or couldn't afford it. Not that I use it (Win2k actually is kinda ok if getting it to the same price as Linux), but I *know* they could have done it had they wanted. But I suppose they'd rather have you go buy a stand-alone player....
Does DMCA Eat itself? What if . . . (Score:3)
What if a prospective plaintiff "broke" the encryption thereby and obtained evidence of for its own DMCA case?
Would not the plaintiff also have broken the law thereby?
Say the plaintiff seeks injunctive relief under DMCA -- in so doing, would a defendant be coming to equity with unclean hands, precluding an injunction?
In an analogous case under copyright law, where a plaintiff makes copies of a derivative work to obtain evidence of an infringement, the Court overlooks the incidental infringement by the plaintiff as a form of fair use.
But that is the fundamental difficulty of the DMCA -- it doesn't provide for fair use. What is good for the goose -- is it also good for the gander?
This is certainly not legal advice -- I haven't any thoughts one way or the other if this approach could work. But I'm wondering if it points to holes in fundamental DMCA policies. In particular, if there is no fair use as a defense for one side, how can the court rationalize a judge-made defense for the other?
My point is this -- DMCA gives far more than "additional protection" for copyrightable content -- it also permits exclusive rights to the ability to manufacture DVD players, giving patent-like protection to a technology that is not, in fact, patentable. In addition to everything else, this cuts at the heart of more fundamental IP policies. Fair use is necessary to make IP Copyright law tenable. Likewise, the scope of patent law was very clearly defined to make patent law tenable.
Now we have a new body of IP law, putative circumvention technologies, which are not limited by scope or by time or inventorship.
Bleah!
Zoning and such. (Score:2)
The problem is that it doesn't work. I would reckon about 60% of dvd players sold in the UK are either zoneless or have easy hacks to make them so. Some will even resample NTSC dvds to give proper PAL output.
Films in the UK sometimes take a VERY VERY long time to get out. I'm pretty sure I saw EdTV on cabletv in canda over 6 months before it's uk theatre release (that was only 3 or 4 months ago).
The zoning system allows studios to release to a sample audience (typically the us and canada) and if the film fails then they haven't wasted the expense of promoting it globally.
The problem is that UK DVDs are generally of quite poor standards. It is not unusual to see mpeg encoding defects in them. They frequently lack the extended features found in US discs. They often lack multilingual soundtracks. It is not at all easy to buy a disc in the uk with a DTS encoded soundtrack for high end 5.1 speaker systems.
I prefer US DVDs for these reasons alone. Add to that the fact that they are typically released a few months earlier and cost quite a bit less and you can see the problems.
Perhaps the worst UK dvd I came across was that of the film 'Human Traffic'. I thought they had come up with some ultra cunning way of defeating DeCSS only to find that the disc wasn't even CSS'd in the first place
Interestly enough i'm not sure if that film was ever released in the USA since it came from a uk studio (afaik) and was banned in several other countries because of recreational drug use in it.
The MPAA dont want to adapt. They dont want to face a world where they have to do a simultaneous worldwide launch to films. They dont want the profit loss they would have by selling dvds at US prices the world over. Just like the RIAA dont want a world where artist dont need to be signed to make money.
What I fail to see though, as other users have commented, is what a US judgement would do to UK consumers. Perhaps it might set a precedent but we dont have a DCMA. We do however have a right to disassemble software, and also to free speech.
Why dont the UK arm of 2600 take over decss distribution?
Then again they manage to arrest johansen in norway... bastards.
Re:Really, what's so different about the two (Score:2)
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Re:DMCA Does Not Apply (Score:2)
They plaintiffs say that it applies to 2600 because of the "traffic" clause -- 2600 trafficking in a device to cirvumvent. The hyperlinks were prohibited because Kaplan did not have sufficient mental fortitude to realize what the consequences would be if he ruled that linking is trafficking.
---
Re:Nope, doesn't apply. (Score:2)
Then why hasn't the MPAA/DVDCCA authorized any Linux/OSS developers to use CSS?
Actually if you read the DVDCCA FAQ [dvdcca.org] you'll find that Sigma Designs [sigmadesigns.com] has plans and a license to make a Linux DVD player. Non open-source, but it's something anyway.
God bless america, land of the free.
----------------------------
Re:Really, what's so different about the two (Score:2)
Here, in Judge Kaplan's own words, from those 51 pages:
Mr. Garbus introduced a 1996 deposition that drew out some details of this relationship. It reads, in part:Judge Kaplan also admits, that a deposition introduced by Mr Garbus:Warner's relationship with Toshiba is completely at the heart of the case. Judge Kaplan left the law firm Paul, Weiss in 1994. This is right around the time that the intermediate company DVD-CCA was formed, insulating the Studios and player manufacturers from anti-trust allegations by inserting a "not-for-profit" organization between them. The DVD-CCA didn't spring out of nowhere. In fact, the DVD-CCA uses Toshiba-developed CSS technology. The entire legal framework for the Studio/DVD-CCA/Player manufacturer trust was created at that time, and Kaplan's law firm was advising Warner on how to avoid anti-trust problems in it's relationship with Toshiba with regard to DVDs!
Now, six years later, Judge Kaplan finds himself on the bench charged with deciding if the "antitrust-proof" legal framework that his own law firm, in which he was a partner, helped design in 1993 is valid! Judge Kaplan's answer was to completely dismiss any allegations that there were anti-trust issues to be decided in this case.
How convenient for the plaintiffs that Judge Kaplan was unable to find any anti-trust issues in this case. Of course, if Judge Kaplan had found anti-trust problems with the relationship between the Studio/DVD-CCA/Player manufacturers, then he would have bit the hand that had fed him from 1970 through 1994, including 16 years as a partner in the law firm, and would have embarassed his former Paul, Weiss colleague, Time-Warner senior advisor (as of 1996) Stuart Robinowitz.
That's the problem with Judge Kaplan deciding this case.
And yes, I would consider two fellow partners in the same law firm to be "colleagues."
Re:main reason 2600 lost... (Score:2)
The judge ignored those arguments because he decided not to look at the legality/constitutionality/intelligence of the DMCA.
Actually, it's worse than that. DMCA specificly says that tools that have legitimate purposes (such as normal viewing, interoperability, or some completely unrelated activity) are NOT in violation of DMCA even if it CAN be used for an illegal purpose.
Thus, DeCSS SHOULD be OK under DMCA since it is used to view legitimatly purchased DVDs (an allowable thing) in Linux (interoperability).
So, the judge chose to completely ignore an easy to grasp legal use of the tool and effectively declared that it has no use other than piracy.
Re:Really, what's so different about the two (Score:2)
Re:Really, what's so different about the two (Score:3)
There are plenty of other programs that can extract the contents of a DVD, but the MPAA never sued over them, and apparently does not care. The only difference between DeCSS and these other methods is that the other methods are merely hacks to existing licensed DVD implementations, and not suitable for manufacturing unlicensed players, like DeCSS is.
You'll notice that the MPAA is now targeting the livid project -- an open source DVD player, not a copier. Going after 2600 obviously did nothing to stop the distribution of DeCSS, but Kaplan's wildly overbroad injunction does give them legal ammunition to go after and try to kill any unlicensed players that include consumer-friendly features that the MPAA wants no one to have, like the ability to make any fair use whatsoever of materials on DVDs.
The letter the MPAA is currently sending out to sites mirroring DeCSS says:
Copyright law is supposed to allow you to copy portions of works under certain legally defined circumstances. Kaplan's ruling says that no, sorry, but the parts of copyright law that benefit consumers of DVDs no longer apply. Only the parts of copyright law that benefit the MPAA apply.
Garbus dropped the line of defense because Kaplan would near none of it, not because there were no anti-trust issues.
If you can't see the anti-trust issues in this case, then I just don't think we're going to agree on anything.
Even more ambiguous (Score:2)
a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work [...] "effectively" might be interpreted in such a way that rot13, etc. would be interpreted out of the picture
There seems to be an even deeper ambiguity than some unknown criterion for how strong the protection has to be. Does "effectively controls access" mean that it is an effective means of controlling access, or just that its effect is to control access?
If it's the former, then there are the questions the rest of you have been talking about, namely, "How 'effective' does it have to be?" -- and, strictly speaking, as soon as it has been cracked, doesn't it by definition cease to be "effective"?
But if it's the latter, which seems to me to make more sense semantically, "effectively" doesn't mean that it is actually effective, but only that that is what its effect is, i.e., that that is what it is intended to do. The phrase simply refers to any copy-protection or access-control mechanism (the equivocation between copy-protection and access-control, by the way, is an even bigger problem, since that's the part that ignores fair use). So, yes, I guess rot13 (or XOR, for binary data) would qualify, since simply applying it to a standard file format would cause the files to appear unreadable to a standard application and a naive user.
For a similar example, have you ever seen a multimedia CD-ROM on which the media files were in a folder with a "hidden" flag set, so it wouldn't appear on the desktop? To get at the files, you have to copy the entire disk to your hard drive (where the directories are writable), then use a low-level filesystem editor to unset the flag. Now I think that would count as "effectively" controlling access, since to a naive user, or a knowledgable but unmotivated one, its effect is to make it so the content can only be accessed through the accompanying application, even though it is trivial for a knowledgable and determined user to get around it. I don't think that this would make low-level filesystem editors illegal ( at least I hope not [fsf.org]) because this is clearly not their primary function, but perhaps public posting of the technique would be, (uh-oh!) since it makes it possible for people who already have the necessary tools but don't know how to do it. This could be another interesting case, since the circumvention does not require any specific tools, but simply a bit of knowledge.
David Gould
Re:main reason 2600 lost... (Score:2)
DMCA does make exception for things which have a legitimate purpose.
I am not a lawyer, but I've been known to play one on Slashdot, and it looks to me like there are two separate things here: the act of circumventingan access-control mechanism and the distribution of tools with which to do so. The DMCA [loc.gov] does make exceptions for legitimate purposes to the prohibition against circumventing, but not to the one against distributing tools for circumvention:
About circumvention, it says "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title" (1201(a)(1)(A)), and later "The prohibition contained in subparagraph (A) shall not apply to persons who are users of a copyrighted work which is in a particular class of works, if such persons are, or are likely to be in the succeeding 3-year period, adversely affected by virtue of such prohibition in their ability to make noninfringing uses of that particular class of works under this title" (1201(a)(1)(B)).
Then about distributing, it says "No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that- (A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; (B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or (C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." (1201(a)(2)). Note that those disclaimers about other significant purposes sound nice, but don't really help much: A DVD player based on DeCSS (like LiViD) should be legitimate, since it is has nothing to do with infringing copyrights, but it would still be out because it it all about circumventing access controls.
It kind of makes sense (albeit in a Salem-witch-trial sort of way: "If you do drown, you must not be a witch. Congratulations, you're acquitted!"), since in the latter case, the person distributing the tools is not doing any actual circumventing, legitimate or otherwise, so there's nothing to which to make the exception apply. The crime is making the tools available to others, presumably because you have no control over whether or not they use it legitimately.
The catch, of course, is that the tools are necessary in order to perform those legitimate circumventions. The only ways one can do it are to develop the tools oneself or to acquire them from someone else. Breaking CSS is beyond the abilities of nearly everyone, which only leaves getting DeCSS from someone else -- making it illegal for people to distribute it makes those legitimate uses impossible for all but the extremely few people who can do it themselves. The effect is still to eliminate fair use, though indirectly, by making it impossible rather than illegal.
This seems to be where the DMCA's constitutionality needs to be attacked. CSS and, really, all copy-protection (let alone access-control) mechanisms are really attacks by the publishers against people's fair use rights. They can't exactly be called "unconstitutional", because they're not laws -- they're not even done by the government -- but they are dirty tricks. Until now, at least, it was an arguably fair game between the publishers and the community: their best efforts to make strong protection mchanisms against our best efforts to circumvent them. Now, however, DMCA allows them to cheat in the game by running whining to the government whenever we succeed. It "effectively" gives force of law to whatever restrictions the publishers want to put on the use of their works.
David Gould
Copy-protection vs access-control (Score:2)
DeCSS SHOULD be OK under DMCA since it is used to view legitimatly purchased DVDs (an allowable thing)
Sorry, not allowable. Viewing is, of course, a non-infringing use, but using DeCSS, even for that, still involves "circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work", so it's still illegal under DMCA. The real problem is this equivocation between "copy protection" and "access control", since that is where the notion of "fair use" gets forgotten. Even worse, it can cover uses for which you would not even have needed to invoke "fair use" (such as viewing), if the publisher adds a more restrictive access control. This seems to be where the DMCA's constitutionality really needs to be challenged.
David Gould