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DVD Hearing Victory: We Won - For Now
from the I-love-it-when-the-good-guys-win dept.
Open Source community members breathed a sigh of relief at 4:50 PST today, as Santa Clara Judge William J. Elfving rejected DVD Copy Control Association, Inc.'s request for a restraining order.
Robert Jones was Defendant #15 in the filing, and he shared his thoughts after hearing the decision:
"It's good to hear that some sort of sanity won today. I'm sure we're all very appreciative to the EFF and everyone else who showed up to help and advise. I wish to personally thank, especially, all the lawyers who volunteered their advice and services pro bono to the defendants. There is still the hearing on the 14th, so the war is far from over, but the first battle has been won."
In the middle of the day, SVLUG President Chris DiBona called in, letting us know what happened after the courtroom's doors opened this morning:
"The courtroom opened up, we all filed in. we had about 50 people in there, two reporters inside, two waiting outside. [The Plaintiffs are] claiming it's a trade secret thing. They're claiming that to get the Z-key, they had to click on a license agreement. There's no reason why that's true. They inserted their arguments and they said that the hacker in Norway had to use the player, sign the agreement, and therefore it's an illegal thing. There's a law on the books in California that says if you publish a trade secret that is known to be stolen, or could only become available through theft, you have an obligation not to continue with the distribution of the trade secret."
Daniel Silveira, a student at San Jose State University, was also in the courtroom. He said:
"The expression on the judge's face looked rather enlightened when the point was made that you don't need the encryption key in order to make illegal copies of movies or DVD discs."
According to an E-mail we received from Defendant Andrew Bunner, there is no question that Allon Levy, Robin Gross and the rest of the team from the Electronic Frontier Foundation made major contributions to the good fight, but this was a strong community effort. Some of the characteristic playfulness of the community came through during the plaintiff's testimony; when the plaintiff's attorney tried to assert that DeCSS's only purpose was to promote piracy, the gallery laughed out loud.
Hopefully, the community will be able to stage yet another fantastic show on January 14th, the day slated for the hearing during which the DVD CCA will try to get a permanent restraining order preventing Web sites from publishing information about DeCSS.
The time between the recess and the judgment trudged on, as concerned Open Source community members everywhere waited impatiently. Many were hoping for a decision earlier in the afternoon, especially those in Europe who were staying up late to hear the decision.
Fortunately, those who went to sleep before the Judge made his decision will wake up to good news tomorrow. The never-ending war for the recognition of free speech in source code has won a battle today, while championing the efforts of Open Source aficionados the world over.
To be continued January 14th...
Re:Did Showing up Help? (Score:3)
Ryan Salsbury
Did Showing up Help? (Score:4)
I joined the EFF today... you should too. (Score:5)
I paid my $65 today to join the EFF today, and I would encourage everyone else who is able to do the same.
As I was reading about this yesterday and today, it hit me how much the EFF has actually done for the internet community as a whole. From the CDA to DeCSS, the EFF has provided pro-bono legal support for a wide variety of online issues.
Join now [eff.org]. It is the least we can do to say thanks for the way they have supported us in the past.
Re:Thanks to all involved. (Score:3)
1) I do not own any DVD related devices. As a result, I cannot pirate anything related to this DVD junk. I just find it humorous to make that assertment.
2) I have put the files back up at http://www.d.umn.edu/~dchan/css/ [umn.edu]. The Weil guys got it wrong in section 20. (heh)
3) We better have an even better showing on January 14th. If they thought that this was incredible, they should be surprised come the 14th and we have every major media outlet in the nation out there plus 400+ supporters littering the concrete with source code.
"David M. Chan, an Individual;"
Re:Try as I might I can't get worked up about this (Score:5)
I did not speak up, for I was not a Gypsy;
when they came for Jews,
I did not speak up, for I was not a Jew;
when they came for homosexuals,
I did not speak up, for I was not a homosexual;
and when they came for me,
there was no one left to speak up for me.
-- German pastor, Martin Neimmeller
you'd better get worked up...
if you need more hints:
- it is not about DVDs
- even if it were, sooner or later you will have DVD (so you will be influenced by what's happening today) [unless you get lucky and die...]
erik
Explanation (of sorts) (Score:5)
What is more important is where all this is leading, and to understand that you need to look at it from the perspective of a content creator, not a consumer. There may be an argument that consumer rights mean being allowed to keep personal copies- there's also an argument that it's as silly as trying to make a copy of your toaster- either way, it is not a major issue, it's a smallish financial hassle if you have to buy multiple instances of a product for whatever reason.
From the perspective of a content creator, we are rapidly moving towards a world where I (a musician) have no access to the popular media formats at all, unless I go through the DVD or recording industry. This, not the consumer angle, is a serious, serious problem.
I'd just made this point in another thread so with your pardon I'll simply copy over the relevant points...
There was a time when access to the media (vinyl records, reel-to-reel tape recorders) was pretty costly and inaccessible, but it was strictly a matter of price- if you bought the gear, you were good to go, you could try wrestling with other players for distribution and sales just like you were an equal citizen.
Then it was cassette multitracks and the Philips cassette taking over from records. Suddenly, every musician in the world was flooding record company agents with tapes. Most were ignored- but I'll tell you, I've walked down the street and heard a random car drive by with a tape I've produced blaring out the windows. It's a hell of a feeling, that is. You get to produce art that is _used_ and enjoyed by people. At the same time, if you get tapes from stores, they are taxed and the industry's cheap bulk tape is not- below a certain level, you'd have the deck stacked against you financially. (After posting this I was reminded that in Canada there's a stiff tax on CD-recordable blanks for just the same reason. This is not history, this is now and it continues to get worse)
Then it was the CD. At first this was just as forbidding as the vinyl record to produce- you'd pay a lot to get digital mastering done, you'd have to buy CD pressings in lots of 500 or 1000: but startlingly, the technology advanced to where we can now press CDs on our computers just like making cassette tapes one at a time. Anybody who's had a dual cassette deck running for days making 20 copies of their album will recognize what this means. And again, there's the desire by the industry to tax this- purportedly to recoup losses from not selling you the same music 6 times, but also effectively handicapping 'unauthorized' artists and putting a spoke in the wheels of anyone trying to get a competing organisation started. We've come a long way from when you could save up to get an LP mastering lathe and try to be a record company, haven't we?
And now we have DVD. Now we have an increasing emphasis on 'security'. Whose? Well, considering that the direction is toward a world where script kiddies can still copy anything they want, but you can't legitimately start a record company and distribute media without either coughing up millions to a conglomerate for a 'security key', or pirating one for original material and being liable for stealing that key, we are talking about security for monopolists.
We're not talking about the script kiddie being unable to copy the Matrix and never have been- who will prosecute, the same ones who arrested you for making a mix tape for the car? Instead we're talking about a very intentional spoke in the wheels of anyone who wants to be in the business of media. It doesn't affect you, the script kiddy- or even you, the consumer. (you're out maybe 20 bucks in the worst case, having to buy an extra copy of the Matrix. Oh horrors, call Reuters and MSNBC.) It affects anyone who wants to produce original content, or distribute it, or help people do that. It's a roadblock- the ideal end situation here is to have all the DVD players require truly uncrackable encodings that only licensees have access to.
People hear things like that, follow the logic, and then mysteriously can only see how it affects them as consumers. But the direction is clear as day, and there are certain implications I'm spelling out here.
My question is, what exactly gives the recording/movie/etc industry (who are not a government the last I heard) the right to openly, upfront and with the approval of society, set up a situation where anyone wishing to make media for the public can only go through them, or be forced to become a licensor by spending a comparable amount of money for a security key normally sold to huge corporate conglomerates?
I hope this answers some of your questions, Tom. You're right that it seems a lot of fuss to make just to get to watch The Matrix on a linux box, or make a backup of it. But it's not really about consumer rights at all- the real damage is done by delivering control of the media itself over to the corporations, who then withhold access to media.
As far as I know it is still possible to produce non-CSS DVDs, ones with no encryption, and play them on mainstream consumer decks. For how much longer will that be true?
Smell of victory--DMCA (Score:3)
The DVD Copy Control Association lawyers made a big mistake by relying on trade secret agreements instead of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (WIPO treaty) or other intellectual property law.
But I predict that in desperation (otherwise they go out of business) the DVD CCA will eventually raise the DMCA issue. It is especially pertinent since DMCA enforcement will begin a week after the trial resumes, and the DMCA was passed for the exact reasons that the DVD group is suing, to lock up and control software and all digital property.
I quote from the complaint (emphasis added): "DVD encryption technology was (and is) critical to the adoption and utilization of the DVD format. Without such copy protection, the motion picture companies would not have allowed their copyrighted motion pictures to be available in this new digital video format. Without motion picture content, there would be no viable market for computer DVD drives and DVD players, as well as the related computer chips and software necessary to run these devices. Accordingly, the Defendants' continued misappropriation of proprietary CSS technology will have a devastating effect on DVD CCA and many other California businesses in the motion picture, computer, and consumer electronics industries, who have invested substantial amounts of money and resources in the development of the DVD video format."
It is exactly this sort of logic that Open Source advocates need to overturn. Computers and the Internet were not invented so Hollywood movie studios could have a convenient avenue for e-commerce. We have many other valid reasons for needing high-capacity disc drives and recording devices than to copy Hollywood movies.
The Constitution allows for Congress to establish copyrights and patents, not to protect the private property rights of these studios and the music conglomerates, but to "encourage the progress of Science and the Useful Arts."
It really boils down to control. Will these monopoly giants be able to use the technology we invented to control not only their expression of our ideas, but our very ideas themselves--or will we free software people regain control of our technology in the service of freedom for the people?
If the DVD CAA does not raise the DMCA as a central point in its argument, we should. We should file a suit in federal court asking for relief from enforcement of the DMCA because of this case. The issue of reverse engineering here is too important. It needs to be argued in court and the DMCA should be overturned. The law when passed in October 1998 provided for some discussion of the issues before enforcement began. Have you noticed signs of any such discussion?
We should use this occasion to band together and seek to overturn the DMCA. We will never get a better chance. Note that only a few nations have signed the WIPO treaty so far. If the case goes with us, no others will, since it is intended mainly to protect intellectual property of the rich nations against the poor ones.
MODERATE ABOVE, IMPORTANT INFORMATION (Score:5)
I couldn't follow the links either, but the way that it worked (apparently) was to capture the information put out by the usual commercial program. It would be extremely good if the exact reference could be tracked down and the DVD response (or lack of it) to that situation. This is extremly relevant to the DeCSS case. Particularly since the main thing that DeCSS makes possible which the previous break did not is to run DVD without an official decoder (eg on Linux where there is no such decoder).
So if piracy is the concern, what was the response before?
If it is not, then why are they going after DeCSS?
Sincerely,
Ben
Thanks to all involved. (Score:5)
One must wonder if the lawyers for DVD CCA Inc expected to be stood up to in this manner. You mess with the bull, you get the horns, or somesuch.
We can't relax now; plans must be laid for the next hearing. I hope to be able to be there this time, but I'm not sure it will be possible. We have two weeks to plan, now, so we can be sure to have an even stronger oupouring of support.
Eternal vigilence, and all that.
Anyway, I'm tired and babbling. Thanks, guys.
"Robert Jones, an Individual"
Copying vs Decoding (Score:5)
So the decrypting method is only needed to use the contents of a DVD, while copies can be made without understanding the contents of the data.
This definitely makes my day (Score:3)
God I wish I had been there.
Re: The EFF has other membership levels too. (Score:4)
Re:We won the battle but the war is not over... (Score:3)
I can't quite pin my finger on why, but I really do get the feeling that the word "freedom" is taking a beating here that it is doesn't deserve. Or if not a beating, then at least a stretching and distortion -- a spin. It's as though the word were being impressed into service for a job it was not really cut out for.
This is the kind of talk that gets people shaking their heads in confusion, if not, in fact, in abject disbelieve. Let us not thoughtlessly coöpt so important a word into our service without just and severe cause. There's been more than enough of that kind of despicable word games and devisive spin doctoring in our community already.
Maybe this use it justified. It really does seem extreme, even if the other side is whacked out (and yes, of course they are). But if we use the word "freedom" so lightly, we run the risk that,in the end, it may mean nothing much at all.
Hybris (Score:3)
No copyprotection on a widespread media has EVER lasted for long. Remomber the Copy2PC option board, that could copy the copy-protected PC-games? How many DAT-stations have the copy protection enabled? How hard is it to rip a CD? I am not embracing this tradition, but these are plain facts. All a copy protection can do is slow down pirating, not halt it.
There is nothing usefull to do with the darned program! HOW are you going to fing 5 GB of random access storage that cost less than the 20 dollar DVD you just ripped? Yes, this WILL come, but not for another year or two year. So DeCSS is meaningless today. And when it comes, it won't come in easy to swallow capsules. Only hackers need apply.
Did they really think they where safe? That they could win? That reverse engienering CSS whould be more difficult than rewriting UNIX. There is a word for that. Hybris.
No DVD sales due to encryption (Score:3)
Yes, I have been scattering notes to the film and hardware makers whose products I have considered to let them know of their lost sales.
Wired article reporting the decision (Score:3)
--GnrcMan--
OpenDVD.org (was: Did Showing up Help?) (Score:5)
The battle isn't over. The Open Source community will have to continue showing up. On the Internet, in the traditional media and in the strangest places imaginable.
Our story must be heard and made clear to the press, the general public and everyone else.
At http://www.opendvd.org/ [opendvd.org] the Open Source (OpenDVD) community will continue to "show up" for the next weeks, probably months. Please visit the site and point others at the site. Contact me if you're interested in helping out with the site.
Thanks,
Rik
Deirdre did it! (among other people) (Score:5)
Credit goes to Bay Area Linux activist Deirdre Saoirse [deirdre.net] for noticing that the plaintiff was getting away uncontested with claiming that DeCSS was a tool for copying DVDs (which it isn't) as opposed to playing them.
Deirdre got the attention of defence attorney Robin Gross, during a court recess, and made sure they understood the very vital point that DeCSS has nothing to do with DVD copying, which was possible (but uneconomical) before DeCSS was written using other tools entirely. The defence team then explained this to the judge, who was visibly surprised by the news.
The plaintiffs may well have lost the day, right there.
-- Rick M.Re:Did Showing up Help? (Score:5)
No, we did not have picket signs or a lot of press, but I think it helped in the following ways:
1. The judge and council seemed quite surprised at the number of people in the gallery and interested in this case. Because such a majority of the onlookers were wearing Linux shirts, it gave creedence to the defense's arguement that the DCCS is more important to Linux users than to piraters. (The Linux users felt it was important enough to actually show up en masse and pay attention to even a preliminary hearing.)
2. Whoever was resourceful enough to spend the time passing out the source code on paper and floppies (yes, he sat and copied dozens of his own floppies), rattled the plaintiff enough that they asked to admit this into the evidence for the case. This action will obviously have *some* affect on the outcome of the case. Had he not done this, and had we not been there to receive the code and stand in the hallways, that evidence would not be part of the trial. Do I think this will help us? Yes! It will support the argument of the futility of attempting to regulate the net (because the Court will see, firsthand, how data can spread like wildfire!)
Just my two cents!
Re:One small blow for free speech (Score:4)
Does a private individual have the right to make a program that executes a proprietary algorithm, if they used a clean-room method to find this algorithm?
Yes, unless the algorithm is patented.
Do individuals or companies have the right to keep data formats private?
Yes. They can keep it secret (trade secret). It's unlikely that they could copyright or patent a data format.
Here's an important question: can you sue for damages, a person or group who released a product using your patents, if they gave that product away for free?
Depends. If it's your patent, nobody can use it without your agreement. If they do, you can get your lawyers to point this out to them. With big sticks if needed.
The key points (as I understand them) are these:
A trade secret is yours until it leaks, then it's everybody's. Tough.
You have a copyright on anything you create, without having to register it. But anyone can "clean room" reproduce it. They can't just copy it.
If you get a patent, then it's yours. Your competitors will just have to smile sweetly until the patent expires. If they use your patented stuff without your approval, then they're stuffed. Unless they're richer than you.
Please remember that all court cases are determined by the judge examining the wallets of the opposing parties. The heavier wallet always wins.
Feed the hungry. Save the Whales. free() the malloc()s.
Beating the Arrogant (Score:5)
The DVD Consortium sent in a serious legal strike team...and they struck out, against two EFF lawyers with nothing but 48 hours to prep and a strong sense of justice.
This is amazing.
When I say a serious legal strike team, I'm talking two lawyers flown in from New York, a local lead counsel, and a senior counsel that didn't even speak--she showed up, looked important, and charged a couple hundred bucks an hour. These guys didn't mess around--their level of preparation was astounding, and they attempted to turn every action of the Open Source community against us. Fortunately, their arrogant use of more than a few smoke and mirrors / straw man tactics was likely seen for what it was.
We don't know yet why the judge ruled the way he did--the ruling basically consisted of three large X's through the plaintiff's proposed order and a blunt denial of any such order.
Most interesting thing of the day? Can't tell you. Second most interesting thing of the day? We won over the sheriff's department. I'm serious--not only were they immensely cooperative(though they did request us to move when we were creating a fire hazard by sheer numbers
This was a good day, people. If you plan to come on January 14th, be civil--we stood in marked contrast to the disturbingly insistent lawyers for the plaintiff, and shined beautifully.
A great time was had by all.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Re:Copying vs Decoding (Score:3)
Re:Thanks to all involved. (Score:5)
I don't know what we would have done without the Electronic Frontier Foundation. I am elated with the fact that we have such a fine organization designed to protect the rights of those unable to find representation.
Thanks also goes to the numerous people who spent so much of their time and effort to support the effort. Even though the few of us were specifically named, you many made the effort. (Especially the disks and paper sources)
This comes from me and all of the people named that were unable to represent themselves.
Personally, I hope to make it on the 14th.
David M. Chan, an Individual;
Re:We won the battle but the war is not over... (Score:3)
Wait. I shall redeem myself....
There, is that good enough for you rabid lunatics? Now that I've blathered my absolutions, may I please speak up now?
The word "freedom" is too important to be watered down into a rallying cry for every single cause célèbre that occurs. And thwapping anyone who mentions this fact is about as far from freedom as you can get.
And go read the moderator guidelines.
THIS POINT CANNOT BE OVEREMPHASIZED (Score:5)
One way to make a favorable impression on judges, legislators, law enforcement, and other authorities is by not living up to the stereotypes we've all been exposed to for years.
Just ask anyone from Seattle who tried to raise serious, rational objections to WTO policies and practices a few weeks ago. Acting like an unwashed and out-of-control wacko plays right into the hands of our opposition. Acting like a civilized human being is more likely to get your argument heard where it counts.... as long as the aforementioned wackos aren't drowning you out, that is.
This preliminary hearing was an excellent case in point.
Linux Laptop Player (was Deirdre did it!) (Score:5)
Perhaps for the hearing on the 14th the 'our' lawyers should be provided with a linux laptop that plays DVD's thanks to DeCSS code to show the judge.
(bonus points for also bringing a typical Windows one that tends to give a blue-screen-of-death every time you touch a player control during the movie - as several of the ones I tested did)
And in the might be good but would require thought department, how about a personal backup copy of the DVD on some current technology media, such as 60 zip disks or even 10 CD-roms to show the fallacy of the piracy argument. Along with the sales receipt for the far cheaper bonafide DVD.
The remaining question: what movie clip would be most appropriate?
Ok, you guys convinced me (Score:5)
This victory changed my mind. I guess this was an issue that I cared enough about, and one that I thought for sure the 'bad guys' were gonna squash us here, too, but they didn't. I just took the plunge and joined EFF, and made a $500 donation besides. [don't worry, I won't starve
They are doing good work, they are doing important work, and they need and deserve our support. You don't have to give big $$ - heck, student memberships are only $20 (== 1.5 large pizzas.) And they have lots of ways you can help by donating time, or getting involved in letter-writing campaigns, etc.
Get involved. It affects us.
-(--
Yes! (Score:5)
When we discussed this at lunch, I realized there was more. For Andy Bunner, the one defendant who was able to attend on such short notice, we were a morale boost he really needed. And he was thanking people at lunch just for showing up.
Looking forward to the January 14 hearing on the permanent injunction, I think our support has strengthened EFF's credibility.
But did we have an effect on the judge's decision? In an ideal world, one would hope a judge should be 110% impartial to such influences. And Judge Elfving may have been that impartial. But if it's possible that we contributed in any way, then our presence added some power to EFF's well-researched presentation. After all, as several people there pointed out, there isn't usually much attendance for a hearing on a temporary restraining order!
So let's make sure to be there again on January 14 at 1:30PM.
Let me get this straight... (Score:4)
1. Given sufficient resources, the data stored on a DVD can be copied to hard drives or DVD-RAM discs. However, this raw data is in encrypted format, and it is useless without being decrypted.
2. Ignoring media incompatibilities (i.e. "stand-alone players can't play data stored on a hard drive"), these copies can be played using commercial DVD players (stand-alone players or computer software) because these commercial products include the appropriate decryption mechanisms.
3. No member of the DVD CCA has produced DVD player software for Linux. As such, the open source community began developing open source DVD player software for Linux. In order to play these DVDs, though, they needed to decrypt the data. This decryption portion of the overall project was known as DeCSS.
4. Following a traditional Unix/Linux programming habit, the DeCSS code is "modularized" -- it can be run without the DVD player running. A side effect of this modularization is that it becomes extremely easy to save the unencrypted movie data to your hard drive, rather than just show it on your monitor/speakers.
5. DeCSS developers used published information to learn the encryption algorithm used on DVDs. However, the encryption keys were considered "proprietary" by the CCA, and not published or previously disseminated to the public in their raw form.
6. Xing Technology Corporation was licensed by the DVD CCA to ship software to decrypt and play DVDs under Microsoft operating systems. Xing was under a non-disclosure agreement, barring them from sharing the encryption keys with third parties.
7. Standard practice is to encrypt the encryption keys, to prevent users from copying the keys from legal, licensed applications. However, Xing departed from standard practice when they shipped their DVD-playing software with the encryption keys in their raw format.
8. Users of Xing software entered into a "shrinkwrap license agreement" which prohibited "reverse engineering."
9. Certain users of Xing software found the raw encryption keys within the Xing product. They may or may not have breached their agreement with Xing when doing this.
10. Given this one key, it was extremely simple to find many other keys. These additional keys were found by examining the code on a DVD. DVDs do not require you to enter into a "shrinkwrap license agreement" before using the disc.
Given these facts, the DeCSS people seem to have generally acted ethically, and should be in pretty good standing legally. Potential legal issues therefore include:
A. Should "finding the raw encryption key" be considered "reverse engineering"?
B. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act says reverse engineering is legal for purposes of interoperability. Given the above facts (and the conclusion that DeCSS was therefore designed for interoperability), was it outside of Xing's authority to prohibit this type of reverse engineering? If this is inside Xing's authority, then (for example) Microsoft also has the ability to prohibit Corel from reverse engineering Word file formats to enable WordPerfect to read Word files.
C. Users of Xing software were not asked to agree to the license until after the transaction was completed. Is this even legal?
D. Assume that Doe #200 did not directly participate in the reverse engineering, was not an licensee of the Xing product in question, can he still be prohibited from posessing or distributing keys obtained via reverse engineering?
E. Is anyone other than Xing allowed to pursue this lawsuit? It seems that the only contract the DVD CCA had was with Xing, and the only contract the users had was also with Xing. Under this logic, the DVD CCA should be suing Xing, and Xing should be counter-suing the users of their product who performed the reverse engineering.
F. Are the encryption keys "trade secrets"? Are they "stolen"?
What do you all think? Have I forgotten anything? Will this summary of facts and legal questions be useful to anyone?
Ryan
Re:Exactly - but there is one detail (Score:5)
However a lot of piracy concerns would be over other formats (eg MPEG) that are more easily copied/downloaded, and you do need to decrypt to put the data into those formats.
Yes and no. Perhaps the funniest thing about this whole story (although with a story as absurd as this, it's hard to choose) is that according to this article [2600.org] over at 2600, a program already exists precisely to save DVD video in other formats. In fact, it's been around since 1997.
Of course you're right that the data has to be decrypted before this can happen. But, of course, the data is decrypted before it's sent off to your video driver, which is exactly where this hack sits. So even without DeCSS, pirates can make both bit-for-bit copies and format conversion copies of any DVD they want, provided they have a licensed DVD decrypting player to begin with.
On the other hand, I can't seem to find a copy of this program (in 5 minutes of searching), but the point is that, just like with all those SDMI proposals to steal back digital music...as long as it has to be sent to open hardware--your video card in this case; your sound card in the case of digital audio--it can be copied. When they start getting closed hardware inside your box--like they have with the advent of DVD players--then it's time to start worrying.
RIAA & MPIA (Score:4)
The MPIA was formed to keep theaters (and other businesses) from showing illegally copied movies. Movie piracy was once as rampant as software copying is today.
Intellectual property disputes are not new. I bet prehistoric storytellers fought over who the rights to tell which sagas. ;-)
- Robin
My View of the Day (Score:4)
Hollywood made their intentions clear today: Your computer no longer belongs to you, but to the corporations that provide "content" for it.
Today, in Santa Clara County Superior Court, Judge William J. Elfving presided at a preliminary hearing in the case of the DVD Copyright Control Association versus... well, everyone. The judge heard arguments to determine if a Temporary Restraining Order should be imposed on the entire Internet forbidding the dissemination of the now-famous DeCSS decryption code.
I woke up this morning at 06:10, an abhorrent waking hour for a software geek. I then proceeded to do something which, if you know me at all, is completely out of character: I put on dress slacks, shirt, and a tie. I hadn't tied a tie in several years, so it took a couple of tries before I got it right. The drive to the courthouse in San Jose was amazingly uneventful. Highway 101 southbound during rush hour is ususally a complete mess.
I was one of the first to arrive at the courthouse. After having my bag X-rayed and depositing my set of screwdrivers with them, I found myself joining a growing group of people waiting for the court offices to open so that we could find out to which courtroom the case had been assigned. Some of the people present were well-known names to most Slashdotters, including Bruce Perens and John Gilmore. I imagine we were a bit of a conundrum for the law enforcement officers present, no doubt used to parades of well-dressed lawyers who, unlike us, know exactly what to do and where to go.
At 08:15, the offices opened, and counsel for the plaintiffs filed their complaint, which was assigned a case number. We then made our way to courtroom two on the second floor, awaiting the doors to open. By the time the doors opened, we numbered about thirty people. Plaintiff's counsel pretty much kept to themselves, while we made a slight racket talking to each other. One individual (don't know who) started passing out copies of the DeCSS code, both in printed form and on repurposed Microsoft Office setup floppies. One such set was handed jovially to plaintiff's counsel.
Interviews were also being conducted by, among others, a reporter from WiReD Magazine, and Tracy Romine for KCBS radio.
Eventually, the doors opened, and we all became quiet as church mice and filed into the courtroom. Once counsels for both sides were ready, Judge Elfving was announced and entered, and court was in session.
Appearing for the plaintiffs were three lawyers from the law firm representing the DVD CCA. Appearing for the defense were two lawyers from the EFF. Of the fifteen or so named defendants and the 500 John Does named in the DVD CCA's complaint, only one appeared in court, summons in hand, whom the EFF were representing.
The hearing was to hear the filing of the complaint, and to consider imposing a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) which would forbid everyone named in the complaint (basically the entire Internet) from further distributing the DeCSS code. If imposed, this order would be effective until the date of the next hearing, at which will be considered imposing a much longer-lasting Preliminary Injunction.
The first order of business was to set the date for the next hearing, and the dates for the filing of notices, papers and arguments prior to that hearing. The next hearing to consider the Preliminary Injunction will be at 13:30, 14 January, 2000.
Finally, we got to oral arguments for and against imposing a TRO. At this point my report gets hazy, as I didn't start banging out notes until after the recess. Basically, plaintiff's counsel repeated the main thrust of the complaint arguing that, if left unchecked, irreparable, serious harm would befall the DVD CCA, numerous Silicon Valley firms, the movie industry and, presumably, the American way of life. Counsel also produced the copy of the DeCSS code which he'd been handed earlier, and asked that it be admitted into evidence, and requested that its contents be sealed. This request drew polite laughter from the gallery. The Judge nevertheless agreed to the request, in the interests of not prejudicing the case, and admitted the exhibits and sealed them.
EFF counsel then began, and proceeded to characterize this case as hinging on freedom of speech. They drew upon numerous citations, including a recent decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which found that code is speech. Defense made note of the fact that, in free speech cases, prior restraint of speech is presumptively invalid unless extraordinary circumstances are present.
The EFF also noted that the true original source of the DeCSS code is not known, therefore characterizations about its origins are speculative. Plaintiffs assert that it was obtained illegally; defense asserts there's no evidence or inference to that effect.
The EFF then went on to debunk the plaintiff's claim of irreparable, serious harm. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that sales of DVD discs, DVD players, and DVD encryption licenses have suffered due to the release of DeCSS. Defense made the revealing statement that DVD discs may be copied without the use of DeCSS.
Defense also drew notice to a similar case in Chicago concerning door locks being reverse-engineered by locksmiths; the lock manufacturer attempted to sue for theft of trade secrets, and lost.
Plaintiff's counsel then rebutted the EFF's arguments, claiming that this case had nothing whatever to do with free speech; that in no way were the plaintiffs seeking to quash discussion about this case. They asserted that this was a clear-cut case concerning misappropriation of trade secrets, and that all they claimed they were interested in was halting further dissemination of their trade secrets. They asserted that all parties "know, or should have known," that the DeCSS code was obtained illegally.
DVD CCA's arguments seem to hinge rather pivotally on the license "agreement" that accompanys the Xing player. CCA states that, in order to be able to use the software, you must become a party to an "agreement" that, among other things, forbids reverse-engineering. If the "agreement" is binding, then the Xing keys were extracted in violation of it, and thus the DeCSS code is illegal. (I wrote a long editorial on the subject of shrinkwrap "agreements", and why they are ethically and legally indefensible. It may be found here [best.com].)
The plaintiff then went on to assert that, if a TRO was not granted, a campaign would ensue on the Internet to spread the DeCSS code as far and wide as possible, until it finally reached the hands of an "innocent person" who could not reasonably be shown that they "should have known" the code was illegal, at which point CCA's trade secrets would be lost forever.
The EFF took the floor again, and cited the recent cryptography case in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where it was found that computer code is speech, and thus protectible under First Amendment auspices. They reasserted that there was absolutely no evidence to suggest that the disputed material was obtained improperly.
EFF also made the point that the Xing player may be inspected and analyzed without ever seeing the "license" that purports to govern its use. CCA tried to claim, "Hacking around the license is itself improper," but the EFF lawyer corrected him, saying, "I did not suggest hacking was employed."
Finally, Judge Elfving retired to his chambers to consider the arguments, and court was adjourned.
Our group filed out of the courtroom, and eventually ended up in the courtyard outside. There were some members of the press conducting additional interviews, including Tracy Romine of KCBS [kcbs.com] radio, who interviewed Bruce Perens, John Gilmore, and also snagged a soundbite from me.
Most of the group then wandered off to have lunch at a Cuban restaurant selected by Chris DiBona, which I couldn't find, so I settled for the nearest Hobee's for a very late breakfast. Afterwards, I headed back to the courthouse, made another trip through the metal detector (they didn't take my screwdrivers this time), and went upstairs to courtroom #2 to see if there were any new developments. No one knew if the judge had rendered his decision yet, so I sat down in the hall and started to write this report.
As I did so, at around 14:30, Judge Elfving walked past. I asked if he had rendered a decision on the TRO yet. He said he was still studying the issues and would have a decision by the end of the afternoon.
Sometime later, Dan "Karma Whore" Kaminsky ( :-) ) walked up, and we got to chatting about the case, the Internet, the nature of digital media and its social and economic implications, the legitimacy of shrinkwrap "licenses", and so on. Around 16:30, we were joined by a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News [sjmercury.com], and asked us about what had brought us there.
Dan focused on his desire to play DVDs on his Linux box, asking the question, "Why shouldn't I be able to do that? More important, why should a movie studio have the power to tell me I can't do that?"
I preferred to focus on preserving the freedom to explore. "I taught myself about computers by taking apart other people's stuff, understanding how it works, and using that knowledge to build new stuff. I have a good job today because I had the freedom to make those explorations and gain the knowledge and skills I now have. They're trying to tell me that's illegal. I don't buy it."
The reporter also asked what possible reason, other than copying, could there be for DeCSS to exist? I tried (probably unsuccessfully) to draw a parallel to that neato display hack, Cthugha [afn.org]. Since the images generated by Cthugha are the direct result of the copyrighted digital data coming off the CD, are the generated images therefore covered by the same copyright? Since the publishers of the CD didn't explicitly grant the right to use their CD in this particular way, does that make it illegal, or even unethical, to do so?
While we were discussing this, around 16:30, one of the court employees emerged from the judge's chambers and informed us that the request for the Temporary Restraining Order had been denied. We got a brief look at the document issued from the judge. No reason was given for the denial; it was simply the proposed order written by the plaintiffs, with the TRO sections crossed out, effectively turning it into a notice as to when the next hearing would occur. Judge Elfving was unavailable for comment.
And thus ended an unusually long and interesting day. The San Jose Mercury reporter left, and Dan and I parted ways. I headed home and finished this report. Traffic on Highway 101 was, once again, astonishingly good for five PM.
The next hearing is at 13:30, 14 January, 2000. It's a Friday afternoon. I expect the session to be packed.
Schwab
Re:Copying vs Decoding (Score:5)
After you both have the hashes of the challenges, those hashes (which are 40 bits, by the way) are combined to make a new 80 bit number, which is hashed by a third related hash function into a 40 bit number called the bus key.
Once all that stuff is done, you can ask the drive for the "disc key", and it sends back a 2048 byte data structure, xor'ed with repeated copies of the bus key.
Once you ask for the disc key, the drive will let you read any sector. This is almost all you need for pirating. Once you can read any sector, you can copy the movie data (/mnt/cdrom/video_ts/*), and you've got it all, baby.
The problem is getting something to play that copied data. Althugh DVD player software access the movie data through the file system, before it gets there, it wants to do that authorization dance. If it can't find something to do the authorization stuff with, it is likely to conclude that you don't have a DVD drive, and not even bother to notice you've got those nice juicy .vob files sitting there ready to use.
The second problem is the second level of protection, which is what the court case was about. The data in the .vob files is encrypted. That 2048 disc key that we got as part of authentication contains 409 copies of the key used to encrypt the .vob files, each copy encrypted by some manufacturers key. To play the .vob file, the player software needs that key, and it expects to get it by finding it in the disc key.
So, what I'm saying, in a long winded and probably confusing way, is that you can make perfect copies, but most DVD player software won't play them.
However, it is not hard to rig up a device driver that pretends to be a DVD drive to the extent of being able to do the authentication dance to pass a disc key to player software. You can then kludge up something so that player software plays out of a directory on the hard disc, but thinks you've got a DVD drive for authentication. When you rip the DVD, just make sure to save a copy of the disc key (and the title key...something I decided to leave out of this post for clarity) so you can feed it back to the player software.
Re:Copying vs Decoding (Score:4)
Perhaps the consumer hardware we can get in the US is crippled thusly.. Does that mean hardware can't be created without this limitation? I believe that hardware to make a perfect copy is avalible now, at a price of $4000 or so. This is quite a bit higher then the $100 or so most DVD drives go, but not out of reach for commercial pirates.
The issue addresed here is that CSS isn't really copy protection, as exact copies can be made with the CSS intact that are indistinguishable from the original to the player, and can be distributed to all. CSS is a limiter on free use of the product, and not an anti-copying device at all.
(the above hardware discussion does not take into account that every time such tricks have been tried with keeping drives from accessing parts of the media, a mod chip has been made avalible to get around it. There are chips to mod DVD players to get around region locking, and chips to mod Playstations to get around the same sort of "you can't access this part of the disk, but I can" garbage. However, the legality of such devices is uncertain.)
Things we need on 1/14 (Score:4)
A 'demonstration' of how to copy a DVD, complete with a source DVD (The Matrix or something popular) and the appropriate hardware to copy it to a blank DVD disk, as well as a commercial DVD player and TV. Keep receipts, to show that the cost is "X dollars" where X is significantly higher than the SECOND receipt, that being for the cost of buying the DVD at Fry's. You might be able to get DVD production houses (ones that bill out their time and such) to loan the hardware, since the long-term benefit to THEM is that the price on future hardware will probably go down if the DVD industry doesn't get to charge huge tithes for the "trade secrets".
To contrast that, we have a Linux machine, which we use DeCSS (on that same movie whatever it is), to "make the DVD disc usable."
The practical upshot of which is:
Now, as I understand it, there is currently no means of directly streaming through the CSS-encoded data watching it in real-time. A coder I am not, but this is definitely something we should, as a community, devote some time to having ready to fly in two and a half weeks.
The psychological factor of us "simply wanting to play the DVD we just bought at the store" and showing what it was intended for can (and will) go a LONG way, I think.
Some things I think did NOT do us any favors today:
I'm sure there are other things we should do, and I'm certain people will add them, but I think this represents a good starting point. We did great today, but this is a minor skirmish in what will probably be a moderately sized war.