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New DVD Lawsuits Filed by the MPAA (UPDATED)
from the when-will-they-learn dept.
In the words of MPAA CEO and President Jack Valenti in a press release from the MPAA:
"The MPAA is striking a blow today in defense of the future of American movies. We have filed suit in federal court to stop internet hackers from distributing the software designed to circumvent the encryption technology that prevents the unlawful copying of DVDs."
"This is a case of theft. The posting of the de-encryption formula is no different than making and then distributing unauthorized keys to a department store. The keys have no real purpose except to circumvent the locks that stand between the thief and the goods he or she targets."
Later in the press release, he goes on to state:
"The U.S. movie industry intends to defeat anyone who steals our intellectual property. We are determined to defend the technology that protects artists and intellectual property holder rights... If you can't protect that which you own, then you don't own anything."
Robin offered her comments on this new litigation:
"Clearly, this is how they're trying to portray this. Piracy is their story, and they're sticking to it. Of course, this is a sneaky underhanded attempt to undermine the litigation that they've already filed in California, most likely because they lost at the temporary restraining order hearing. They realize the weaknesses in their trade secrets claim, an so they've decided to file under federal copyright, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. This is also an inappropriate harassing lawsuit, because although the DMCA does provide for a general ban on circumventing technological protection, there are explicit exceptions to that general prohibition for the purposes of facilitating interoperability and computer security, among other exceptions. They've realized that their trade secret claim is not going to prevail, so this in Plan B. Quite frankly, this is what we were anticipating the first time around. We were not anticipating a trade secret claim, because it was so weak."
For those following the news about the DVD CCA lawsuit, this new litigation shows us that this matter will take a very, very long time to work itself out, currently with no end in sight. It appears that in this case, the MPAA intends to blur the line between hacking for interoperability and the intent to distribute until it's no longer recognizable.
This is all rather puzzling. From a Showbiz Today segment aired on CNN on January 11th, Jim Cardwell from Warner Home Video said:
"We expected the source code to be broken. We were surprised it wasn't broken earlier. We believe there is no economic incentive to hack this product. The cost of the blank is more expensive than the cost of the finished product, and the amount of time it takes to download is several hours. There's no real economic incentive for anyone to hack this product."
When the topic of DVD writers came up, went on to say:
"Certainly, all the copyright holders, all of the studios, all the rights holders, are not going to sit still to see that -- to allow this to become rampant. We are going to continue to protect our products."
The issues of interoperability and the right to distribute free software are key issues in the Open Source community, and they always will be. How far will the MPAA and the DVD CCA go? One thing is for sure; no matter how long or hard they're willing to fight, the Open Source community will be there to meet them every step of the way.
Update: 01/15 21:31 by michael : John Gilmore adds that the complaints are available online at http://www.mpaa.org/dvd/content.htm. The links are slightly wrong, though, so you'll need to encode the spaces in the URLs:
...and even after you've done that, you'll still need to View Source on the New York page, since they didn't close a TABLE tag. Anyone named in these suits as a DEFENDANT should contact the EFF (Robin Gross, above) as soon as possible.
And while I'm at it, adric submitted that Copyleft now has t-shirts with the CSS-descrambling code on them. Part of the shirt's price gets donated to the EFF! Buy one now, it's the most painless donation you'll ever make.
Re:Not Piracy (Score:3)
This is the real piracy concern currently, not a bit for bit copy of a DVD.
CSS won't stop that. Just use an authorized window$ player, and grab the frame buffer out of the video card with a driver hooked into the vertical blanking interrupt. From there, it's just a matter of softwere re-encoding into MPEG and re-sampling the framerate (trivial) to exactly reproduce the unencoded contents of the disk.
The only substantial difference is that DeCSS can be used for making DVD movies inter-operate with computers/OSes that do not have official player software (such as Linux).
For large scale bootleg operations, the development cost of that software is unimportant when compared to the profits from sales.
It should also be noted that the framebuffer grabber is not necessarily a piracy only tool. In many countries individual people still enjoy the right to make backups and to transfer content into a more convieniant medium for personal use (fair use).
As an amusing note on the new US law, we have a doctrine of fair use, and a doctrine that makes it illegal to circumvent copy protection even for a fair use of the content. Therefor, the law grants copyright holders the right to be unfair.
Re:We need more Lawyers! (Score:3)
So, what are some good books, websites, and/or other media that you would recommend to start out educating myself about law, defending oneself against a suit, and other such topics?
Thanks in advance for any help you can give.
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Re:Can we sue them back ? ( clarification ) (Score:3)
1st you need to asses what the DVD-CCA and the MPAA etc... hope to achieve with these law-suites. The stated goal is to stop the spread of this software. However after something appears on a thousand FTP sites in a hundred jurisdictions actually making it disappear becomes a fantasy at best. So they have set the goal a little lower.
They accept that any savvy SlashDot reading netaholic will be able to find install and use this software on all "unsupported platforms". However that defeats the purpose of making money selling players. This lawsuit is looking farther ahead to the day when Linux box makers are shipping millions of PCs per month to home users. If each of those clueless users who can only make KDE run because it doesn't ever "break" was faced with the choice of a download and install from something other than a "name brand" site then another DVD player is sold.
You see this software is only a danger to Sony and the like if it's an option in the RedHat install and Mandrake updates lists the latest version. It doesn't matter if Sunsite, ftp.cdrom.com, Downloads.com and freashmeat.net all have to stay away to avoid the legal implications.
In that light the concept of getting a court somewhere to say that "the very existence of this software is a criminal offense" should make some kind of sense. Even if it's only banned in one small state the logistics of ensuring that your products with it don't officially go there costs too much.
Re:Shooting themselves in the foot (Score:3)
That's a load of bull and you deep-down know it. Piracy is, surprisingly enough, more rampant on the Windows platform that you're writing to. It's not due to things you think it is. Outrageous pricing of media and applications is a motivating factor, but it's because there's a lot of people out there that just don't give a damn about you making money- they just want their "stuff" and they'll do just about anything they can to get it. A substantial portion of this crowd on computers, use, you guessed it- Windows . Please don't use "piracy" as a cop-out; it's not very believeable these days.
Oh, it also sounded like you were trying to imply that it was the technically oriented crowd that's more inclined to pirate with that statement; I'd be working to be much more careful in the future about statements like that- you represent your company even when you make unofficial statements about something. You could very well alienate a LOT of people that are reccomending your product to those so-called end-users that you're selling the stuff to.
Re:I just dont get this.... (Score:3)
And to the best of my knowledge, even if you have the encrypted data, DVD-R drives will not allow it to be written to a blank in such a manner that a normal DVD Video player can handle it.
However, if you negotiate with the DVD-ROM drive, get the bits, decrypt them, and THEN write to a DVD-R, you will have an unencrypted copy. Of course, you've now spent more money than an original DVD movie costs.
But what the studios are afraid of is that the media prices will eventually drop to under $2, just as happened with CD-R.
Legal Defense Fund? (Score:3)
There are many legal cases out there, DeCSS vs. MPAA, Napster vs. RIAA, and others that I can't think of off the top of my head. Their outcomes will all affect the path ot technology, and most importantly, open-source technology.
Can and does the FSF offer legal help to authors of GPL'ed software? Are there any other groups that offer legal help to authors of free software?
As the open-source movment moves into the main-stream, we need a group to represent our interest in court. We need a voice in the legal system so people like the MPAA and RIAA can't walk all over free software by getting laws passed and getting court decisions to favor them.
Movie productions have the MPAA, the Music Industry has the RIAA, who do we have? If there is a group out there that supports OUR interest(the interests of open-source), they need to have legal counsel there in each courtroom in both sates.
If there such a group, they need to post where we can send donations to. If not, we need to start one. We can scream all we want, but if we aren't in front of people such as congressmen and judges who have the POWER to change laws, we are wasting our breath.
Re:They use a bad analogy (Score:3)
You are wrong. You don't understand how a DVD drive reads a DVD disk and consequentially you don't understand that this method does not return all of the data on the disk. The keys to unencrypting the data will not be read with a dd and so your carefully preserved file is worthless.
Re:Not Piracy (Score:3)
The consumer own his or her copy of the DVD. Copyright law already allows the owner of a copy to make copies for personal use, including copies necessary TO VIEW THE MEDIA.
Exactly. Well said; this is the entire point.
Anyone can copy encrypted DVD media to a blank DVD and play it anywhere.
It's worrying me that everyone has this impression, since it's just not true.
Commercially available DVD hardware will neither directly read nor write the section of the disk which holds the decryption keys. So, prior to DeCSS, it was not possible for consumers to copy encrypted DVDs.
Re:An interesting question... (Score:3)
The analogy doesn't hold up completely.. and can't be taken at face value. Whereas the key to a department store is a very tangible, physical thing, encryption keys are intangible.
Decryption is not a criminal act.
Now.. as for the keys, I can relate a similar story, though I don't know how it bears on this one.
In the late 80's (or was it early 90's? I dunno.. I think it was late 80's..) a similar thing happened in the satellite decoding business. This was very grey-area in Canada, I don't know about the US of A. At any rate, what it consisted of were two steps.
1) the modification of the standard satellite decoder board.. this involved basically new proms, and a new software load that allowed the manual (or later automatic, via modem) entry of decryption keys for the various audio streams (only audio used encryption, though video was scrambled in ways similar to TV, ie: by moving the sync pulse around...)
2) Black market for valid keys. Keys were obtained by an assortment of methods, one being the acquisition (usually illicit purchase from a legal owner for a fairly nice sum of money) of master chips, containing master codes, and then custom software to scan the satellite channels and discover the acutal decryption codes (I may not have this exactly right.. I never got that involved, but it was roughly like this).
In order to combat this, and I wish I could site the case, but I don't know it, the industry tried to claim copyright on their keys (these were rougly 32 byte keys... I think...), so they could prosecute anyone shipping them around for copyright infringement. Didn't work. Judge said no way, you can't just blanked copyright 32 byte hexadecimal strings. Period.
Re:We need more Lawyers! (Score:3)
There are no "what do I do if I get sued" books - obviously this would have to include every area of civil law imaginable: it depends on what legal rights of the other party you are purported to have traversed. (The answer is always, by the way, "consult a lawyer"). It's also never obvious to the layperson (or even the lawyer) precisely what legal area or discipline is raised by a given legal conflict. Take this one, for instance, it raises copyright issues, trade secret issues (both independent branches of intellectual property), remedies, etc. As one professor said the other day: "your client never comes to you and says 'I have a Rule Against Perpetuities problem!'".
So to educate yourself about the law isn't easy, because you'd never really know where to start. HOWEVER - In Canada there are a number of good book series on various topics. One is an 'essentials of Canadian law' series of books (Tax, Intellectual Property, Trusts, Evidence, Computer Law, Criminal, etc.) Some of these are quite good, and quite accessible to the intelligent but legally inexperienced reader. My guess is that there are such series available at US bookstores.
I.
Re:So what do we do about it? (Score:3)
Buy a T-shirt! Not only does it donate a few bucks towards The Cause, but the T-shirt also comes with the source code on the back. I got mine, in XXL.
Now if we could just get everyone who reads
Re:They use a bad analogy (Score:3)
But this makes it easy to copy DVDs on Linux, which is, of course, the only reason a person would want to use linux, right? I can't possible see why somebody would not want to reboot their computer halfway through watching a movie inorder to see the other half - a superb feature provided by everybody's favorite OS......Winblows!
Re:Shooting themselves in the foot (Score:3)
So do I.
"We determined that it would not be viable at this time because:"
Same here. Except for different reasons. Number one is paranoia of management. Number two is lack of experienced people to actually do the porting. Number three being that we would have to overhaul our tech support staff and systems to include linux. Number 4 and last being market size, as you had already stated.
"b) the linux community is generally open source oriented. We predicted that piracy would be more prevalent"
That's a stupid comment to make. Any commercial software that people like will be pirated to some degree. Just keep the price within reasonable limits, and you might reach better economies of scale.
"c) constantly changing systems that would be hard to support"
Yep, we've been monitoring for profit closed source software developers such as Lokisoft for a while. The cycle of change is slower than you think.
"There are also potential technical support nightmares helping new linux users through a non-standardized system."
Yes this is true. Although, you can take the stance of only supporting more prevalent distributions. Even IBM does this.
"There is potential in the future -- but I don't see it being soon"
Just wait for XFree86 4.0 and specialized multimedia interfaces. They will be here soon.
Re:All about piracy?? (Score:3)
I doubt that they're stupendously dumb, but my bet is that your conspiracy theory is true. Of course, I think there are probably additional reasons as well.
Undermining fair use precedents is probably a big goal. You know, I know, and they know that there is always a way to make a pirated copy (whether it's an exact duplicate or not.) Maybe they've just been waiting for an excuse to go to court to make sure that the Digital Millenium Copyright Act would be able to be used to circument those pesky rights we've been given that allow for fair use copying. At any rate, I wouldn't be suprised if they haven't been planning for a case like this since before the DMCA was passed into law.
ESR has a nice essay on this case as well; avaiable here [opendvd.org]. Here's an excerpt:
Why is the DVDCA lying? That's easy -- because the lie sounds a lot better than admitting that DVD is a fraud designed to line the pockets of a few selected players in the consumer-electronics industry. The DVDCA's real issue isn't protection of the market for DVD films, it's control of the market for DVD *players*.
numb
Re:Legal Defense Fund? (Score:3)
Re:Not Piracy (Score:3)
This is very true, but there is a lot more to piracy than just making copies of DVDs. There is a growing market on the internet for downloading movies. These are usually in MPEG format. Currently, most of the movies come from people sneaking a camcorder into a theater and recording the movie as they see it, which returns a fairly poor quality video. Now imagine if you could rip the movie directly from the DVD into MPEG format. It would be almost flawless quality, which would make the "market" for pirated movies on the net huge. Sure a movie is a large download, but with cable modem and DSL becoming more and more prominent, a 500 Meg download isn't all that big of a deal. This is the real piracy concern currently, not a bit for bit copy of a DVD.
Question about DVD streams: (Score:3)
Example...Mulan DVD has both widescreen and standard versions on one disc. They make you pick every time you initiate playback. There is now way to set it to default to one or the other (since DVD players all seem to forget everything the second you eject a disc). Nor can you start playback in one mode (like widescreen) then decide to switch to standard half-way through. You have to stop playback and then start over with the new stream.
Is this a limitation with software or with the DVD design? The main reason I ask is that one of the features being advertised back in the early DVD days was the idea of having several different ratings on a single disc. You could have a movie with both "R" and "PG" ratings.
In looking at over 5000 DVD titles, I have NEVER seen a single disc that does this...I would love to be able to have my younger siblings watch certain movies with me, but I often have to wait for them to come out on TV with badly-editted patches and scene cuts.
So, my question is...are multi-rating discs simply not being sold, or is it technically impossible for a DVD stream to switch right in the middle (to cut out a nude scene, for example).
- JoeShmoe
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WTF? (Score:3)
Before we get all knee jerk-y and pissed, how do we know they are not genuine bootleggers being sued and instead of hackers like the DeCSS folk?
According to this C|NET article [cnet.com], they were advertising the software on their website as DVD cracking software...This Wired article [wired.com] names sites like krackdown.com and dvd-copy.com which sound like piracy sites to me. It seem they advertised the DeCSS software as DVD copying software. I expect this to be fodder for the DVD-CCA's lawyers next week.
Re:We need more Lawyers! (Score:3)
Good luck, and remember don't ever back down, even if you aren't sure. One thing you always have to remember is that nothing is black and white in the courtroom. Everything is in shades of gray and if you can convince someone you are 51% right, then you'll probably win.
We need more Lawyers! (Score:3)
Stand up for your rights! Stand up for your rights!! Don't be afraid of Big Corporations! Tell them to go fuck themselves and then study the laws yourself because YOU really fucking do more than them or their fucking lawyers!
Here we go again (Score:3)
Here we go again. This is just as weak as the first go 'round. Remember all the yada yada yada that the movie industry put out on the VHS and BETA tapes when they first became popular. It's the same argument, just different media.
The MPAA/RIAA's reasoning (Score:4)
True, the MPAA is going after the wrong ideal here. They do want to create a monopoly here. They have every right to do so, because no other motion picture association exists to help promote and defend the motion picture industry in this fashion. Think of the MPAA as the EFF of motion pictures.
Just as the EFF protects online users' freedoms online, the MPAA protects the business and industry of movies. The EFF's clients are pretty much anyone online, which is primarily endusers and casual browsers. The MPAA, million/billion-dollar businesses.
So here's my valid point, on behalf of the MPAA. If the movie industry and businesses lose their hold on the ability to charge fees for their "encryption" technology, which they push, even in this lawsuit, as a means to keep people from copying the media. Those who do not know the technology of DVDs, will not realize that the encryption technology just keeps DVD-ROMs with computers and unlicensed DVD players from playing their discs.
But to do this, they must crack down hard on those who wish to create new methods to play these discs. The MPAA doesn't own the patent on DVDs nor digital media, and can't enforce anything on their behalfs. So they promote a simple "encryption" method in which movie makers can enjoy "piracy-free" home use. Sounds more like a rehashed Macrovision.
So here comes some people who "decrypt" the CSS technology, and make it available as an interoperability tool. Perfectly legal, and definitely good for the computer community. The MPAA, though, sees this, perhaps, as a threat that now anyone can make DVD console players able to play CSS-encrypted discs, without paying a fee for it, and have computers all over the world play DVDs without licensing the software or technology that so many others have invested money and time in developing and licensing.
So just like EFF protects the rights of people online, the MPAA is out to protect the investments and money of the businesses they are assisting. They can't do it through patent infringement or unlicensed technology, so they're out to provide a "case" that says this will promote piracy. Those who are unsure of how things work for the open sourcing of this technology, might believe this. What other reason is there to provide this but to easily crack discs?
Now, onto the other side, the side that most everyone reading this is on. Now that "DeCSS" exists, it's possible that that DVD-ROM you have can play these discs. Regardless of who made it and the platform your computer runs on, you can now enjoy these discs. What's the use of copying them? I've seen DVDs that are 2+ gigabytes. Even with a very fast SCSI burner, it may take several hours to burn a single copy. Or to take the information on the disk and put it on the web, that's still GIGABYTES of info. I hardly have the want to download ISOs of Linux to burn onto CD, let alone want to burn DVDs.
Plus the cost. A normal DVD costs $30, $40, sometimes a bit more. Blanks, that I've seen, cost about just as much. And I don't see the cost of these going down for a few years, due to the extremely high chance of misburns and the new technology.
So the threat of piracy should be near-nil. A software CD that costs $50 is easier and more wanted to copy, because CD blanks cost mere dollars, and take half an hour on slow burners to copy.
My point, then, is that DeCSS is actually doing the movie industry more good. Much like MP3s help the music industry by allowing small bands and indie labels to produce music without much cost, DeCSS will allow more people and software companies the ability to play DVDs.
Which means more sales for DVD movies. DVD movie sales equals profits for the movie companies. But to those who spent time and money researching DeCSS, and those who paid for the licensing of it, it's a loss of money if others get it for free.
But promote it as piracy, and the movie industry, which would profit from the explosion of DVD players, both software and console, fear loss of sales, where there would actually be an increase in sales.
If you were the MPAA, I think you'd attempt the same thing. Protect your money and licenses any way you can, or you lose business and money. I say we let the movie industry know exactly what DeCSS does. If everyone who buys a computer gets a DVD player and the ability to play DVDs, one would think most of them would wany to buy DVDs to try.
Anyways, sorry for the long wind, but often people don't see both sides of the problem. I don't agree with the MPAA, because I'm an enduser of DVD movies, but if I were the MPAA, I'd certainly try tactics like this to protect my business.
Re:They use a bad analogy (Score:4)
NO! In 1997, 2600 reported a driver intercept crack for DVD. Replacing the graphics driver with a spoofed driver, one could captured the decrypted stream. There is no way to get around this, unless you add DVD decryption in EVERY graphics card!
The suit is bad...but the law is worse (Score:4)
From the Connecticut suit [mpaa.org] (emphasis added)
This is a provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act [loc.gov] enacted in October of 1998.
The choice of this section of the law is important. There is a parallel provision (1201(b)(1)) covering actual harms to the rights of the copyright holder, but this was not chosen, since allowing a user to view a DVD they have purchased clearly does not harm the copyright holder.
I believe 1201(a)(2) is unconstitutional since it restricts free speech and limits the options of fair use without clear harm to the copyright holder. It also makes any distributor of any decryption software, reverse engineering system, or security bug information vulnerable to malicious lawsuits.
That being said, as the law stands I believe the DeCSS creators and anyone else that distributes their code is in violation of 1201(a)(2), since their code allows access to 'effectively controlled' copyrighted material. Note that here 'effectively controlled' only means that there is some attempt at encyrption or scrambling, not that the encyrption is strong in any way. In fact it appears that this section is specifically designed (with the input of the MPAA and RIAA no doubt) to criminalize the distribution of third party viewers for weakly encrypted digital media.
Whatever the MPAA says about piracy, I doubt that is their main concern since there are many other avenues for piracy. I suspect that they are mainly concerned about royalties on viewer sales and control of the ease of which a user can exercise his fair use rights, such as buying a DVD and viewing it in another country.
This will be much more important when we start to get one to one encryption. It is within fair use to purchase a CD and lend it to a friend, but what if an EvilCD (TM) will only play on your EvilCD player. This law makes it illegal to tell somebody how to modify the EvilCD (or the friend's EvilCD player) to play the EvilCD on a friend's player, even though it is legal to modify the EvilCD or the player under fair use. It's an end run around fair use and a clear violation of free speech. I hope the courts will see it for the farce it is...and soon.
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OpenDVD.org (Score:4)
Help the DVD defandants, help defend your consumer rights! Spread awareness of the OpenDVD.org campaign!
http://www.opendvd.org/ [opendvd.org]
We *are* doing something. We're stopping them. (Score:4)
Have you read your ISP's Terms of Service contract? Check out this passage from RCN.com's Service Contract [rcn.com]:
Note: Proof is not necessary; suspicion is all that's required to get your account pulled. If you've just bought a year's worth of DSL service, you could be out a few thousand dollars.
Then they're in it for the wrong reason.
If you're in this solely to make money, then you're a mercenary, not an artist.
We cannot offer them that assurance. The fundamental nature of digital media will thwart all attempts to do so. It was designed to copy bits infinitely and cheaply. Welcome to the real New Economy. Deal with it.
Uh, no. Those two guys in Norway wrote the software. The DVD CCA created the keys. But keys are not protectible under IP laws (nor should they be).
Absolutely correct (you get a cookie). We will have to develop new foundations for compensating people for their work. I encourage people to start thinking about them.
You are conflating concrete property (my bank account) with sales projections ("We might have sold this many DVDs if it hadn't been for those Commie-pinko pirates!"). Analogy fails.
Forgive me, but what utter nonsense. DeCSS is absolutely no threat to the sales of DVD players or discs. Even if you had a T3 into your home (at $5K/month), unsanctioned copying of DVD movies over the Internet is not going to happen; do the bandwidth math to see why. "Piracy" is simply not a problem.
Inaccurate. The appeal of DVDs to movie studios is that:
At the risk of completely torpedoing my credibility here, would your theorem apply to slavery as well? There were a lot of businesses in the American South 200 years ago that relied on slavery. Those businesses were killed (or, as it finally turned out, completely restructured) in the name of "freedom".
150 years ago, real people spent a lot of money digging holes in the ground looking for gold. None of them labored under the delusion that, just because they had invested a considerable sum into a hole, they were entitled to find gold at the bottom of it.
If you walk into the Digital Universe and honestly think you can prevent copying, then you've failed your fiduciary duty to yourself and your shareholders by not doing your homework.
Digital bits are -- and forever shall be -- easily copied at zero cost. Period. It is possible to do healthy business within this reality (NASDAQ:RHAT). Denying the reality only makes you look foolish and sets you up for one heck of an ulcer.
Schwab
Re:They use a bad analogy (Score:4)
Actually, piracy isn't an issue at all, as has been said many times.
As has been said incorrectly many times.
You don't *need the key* to do a bit-for-bit copy of the DVD media.
No commercially available DVD players will allow you to read or write the section that holds the keys. So, your copy will not have the keys, and other normal DVD players can't play the encrypted contents.
The fact is, DeCSS does make DVD piracy easier. Repeating otherwise over and over again doesn't make it any less true.
Let's not cloud the issue with the piracy issue. Whether or not DVDs are easy or hard to copy has no bearing on this case, which is really about our rights as consumers.
They use a bad analogy (Score:4)
A better analogy would be "someone making keys to a department store that locks their doors and only gives keys to whites (because they are the majority!)"
Lawsuits don't sub for good encryption (Score:4)
Since it is not illegal to sell "glass water tobacco" pipes, even though *nudge, nudge. wink wink* they are obstensibly used for currently, illegal recreational purposes, this case should be tossed.
It is not, in my mind, the responsibility of the public to give any quarter to industries who have failed to insure their own well-being.
That said, I think a lot of this comes down to public posturing, since the industry feels they have to say *something*. Judge tosses first request, message of "Just say no!" still not strong. Refile with new claims.
Though I'm happy to see the defendents crack a fairly crappy algorithm in the name of Linux interoperability, I'm shocked the industry hasn't taken action against Xing for having the crappiest implimentation, and allowing the work-around to take place.
Now, if only the industry can get past those pesky First Amendment issues. . .
Re:They use a bad analogy (Score:4)
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All about piracy?? (Score:4)
I'll say again, for the slow-witted. You don't need DeCSS to copy a DVD.
To *any* format.
Think about it. All DeCSS does is unencrypt the data on the DVD.
The same thing every DVD player in existence already does before it sends it to your video card drivers.
Before it sends it unencrypted to your video card drivers.
Or alternatively, before it sends it to one of several hacks which have been available for the past two years which sit at the video card driver level and save the damn stream for you. In plain old VCD, exportable to any format you want.
This suit has nothing to do with piracy, and everything to do with control over DVD player licensing. Yeah, you may say, maybe that was what the earlier lawsuit, brought by the DVD Consortium, was about. But why does the MPAA care if anyone can make a DVD player without paying silly licensing fees?
Glad you asked. Answer: export zones.
As y'all may or may not know, every DVD player around these days only includes the key to decrypt DVD's made for a certain "export zone"--a geographical region, like North America or Europe. The point being, this way the studios can release a movie on DVD in America before the film has come out in theaters in Europe, and not have to worry about Europeans mail-ordering the DVD from the states and therefore not paying the extra cash to see it in the theaters.
So, if DVD CSS works, then the only way you can make a player is by doing it according to their rules, which means only including the key to one export zone. Of course, now that DeCSS is out there, anyone can come along and play a DVD--a DVD they buy, that they pay good money that goes to the studios and all--encoded for any region, right on their computer.
Furthermore--and this is where my conspiracy theory of the night comes in--any company can look at the source code, copy it to firmware, and make a stand-alone DVD player which will play DVD's for every region. Probably won't make too much of a difference in the States, but over in Europe/Asia, where DVD's will regularly be released up to a year behind their release in the US, lots of people would want such a player.
So, my theory is (this is assuming that the MPAA isn't just stupendously dumb...which is a rather large assumption), the reason they're suing now isn't to get DeCSS taken off the net, because they know that it's quite a bit too late for that. Instead, it's to get a legal precedent, so that any company thinking of making a "universal" DVD player like the one I described above would know that they'd lose in court.
Or maybe not. Best I could come up with, tho...
Anyways, it's been said before, but if you haven't already, make a donation to the EFF [eff.org]. This is important.
An answer ...... (Score:4)
If they come after your mirror - shut it down - make a big stink - remember there are an awfull lot more of us than them (DVD lawyers) - we're angry - and they get paid a lot by the hour.
The parallels between this case and the Scientology vs. the net cases (see www.xenu.net [xenu.net]) are amazing .... who's going to be the first person to have the source read into the record in the Swdish parliament? or have it published in the LA Times classifieds?
It's very hard to force a large group of people to keep a secret - esp. if they don't want to
PS: the MPAA page is full of broken links to the legal documents - does anyone have a copy they can web?
Does DeCSS only extract content? (Score:4)
They used to be a minor irritation back in the VHS days because you had to fast-forward through them, but now it seems that part of the requirement for being a licensed DVD decoder is that you block people from fast-forwarding or skipping these #@$@!#$ notices. The worst offender is Disney, who makes you sit through about five minutes worth of crap in both French and Engligh EVERY TIME YOU USE THE DISC. My Toshiba player automatically shuts off after 20 minutes (as do many others) so I have to sit through this crap every time I turn on the player (since it autoplays discs).
Can DeCSS pull out just the A/V content and leave all the copyright/menu crap behind? If so, that's another reason to use DeCSS. There is not damn reason why I should have to endure that for the "privaledege" of watching a movie I paid $30 to own.
Thank god Warner Brothers movies just go right to the main menu when they turn them on. Bravo!
- JoeShmoe
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Don't bend over! (Score:5)
Regarding the quotes above:
Ok, I've seen swiss cheese with less holes in it that this bullshit theory. I should be an attorney, yes indeed...
"This is a case of theft. The posting of the de-encryption formula is no different than making and then distributing unauthorized keys to a department store. The keys have no real purpose except to circumvent the locks that stand between the thief and the goods he or she targets."
This is NOT a case of theft. First and foremost, nothing has been "stolen". Nobody is being prosecuted for stealing a DVD. That would be theft, and this is NOT what the suit is about. Nobody is being prosecuted for copying a DVD, or illegally distributing a movie. This is would be a grey area; the law says it's theft, some people feel it's not. Either way, this is NOT what the suit is about.
Next, the above analogy is piss poor. I've seen middle school students do better. If this analogy were considered valid, then another valid analogy would be "By making tools to remove car stereos from the dash, Crutchfield is in effect making and distributing keys to department stores." Sure, one CAN use a Crutchfield tool to steal a car stereo. But it's primary intent is to make installation and removal of systems easier for the owners. Mark this: primary intent of a product is vital. If someone can *shudder* "prove" that decss's primary purpose is pirating, we're screwed twice over, and three times on Saturday. BUT, there is NO evidence of decss's primary purpose being pirate activity. None. Not a bit. Not a single site has a "377373 h4x0r guide to DVD ripping". Look at the author's pages. They say "Hey, use this to watch your movies in Linux!" This is not a pirating tool. One does not sue Crutchfield for making those awesome stereo tools. One should not sue the decss folks for making theirs.
"The U.S. movie industry intends to defeat anyone who steals our intellectual property. We are determined to defend the technology that protects artists and intellectual property holder rights... If you can't protect that which you own, then you don't own anything."
Oh, I like this. A lot. I completely agree with that last sentence. Furthermore, how about this: If you can't use that which you own, then you don't own anything. If I purchase a DVD legally, I have every right in the world to do with it what I will, so long as I don't redistribute the contents. If I want to put it in my toaster oven and cover it in peanut butter and mayo, dammit I should be allowed to. If I want to watch it under Linux, then dammit I should be allowed to. Make no mistake; if I own something, I have every legal right to do with it what I please, however I see fit. This has been established time and time again (see the backups-of-nintendo-cartriges cases, for one). So long as an individual doesn't use decss to pirate, they are free and clear.
Basically, this whole thing reeks of bullshit. The DVD folks are making every effort to shift focus from the real issue of right-to-view-what-you-own to this pirating crap. I really hope the EFF attorneys don't allow this to happen; precident has already been set - once you have bought something, you can do what you want with it. I can copy my CD's to tape. I can back up my copy of MS-Office. I can put my DVD in a toaster oven, use it as skeet, or anything else I want - including play it under Linux. So long as I own the disc, I have every right to view the contents, and decrypt them. I'm not supporting any pirating here (because it's not a cost effective move at all, as the DVD folks admit), but if I've got money to spend, and I'll keep hoarding it until the day I can do whatever I wish with MY movies.
In summary, don't bend over. They have no case, and they seem to know it. Fight.
--
Most likely you'll fight your way (Score:5)
I don't buy that at all. Invalidate their position by becoming their worst nightmare and the fullest possible justification for their most psychotic excesses? Somehow I miss the logic in this action sequence ;)
Do what I do, what I am doing. GET THE TECHNOLOGY and then work for free with other geeks and artists who are in line to be cut off from access to media. Make CDs and work for free with artists who will release mp3s. Make video and movies and start an indie movie subculture, get the 3DSMax guys and the owners of linux rendering farms into it. CREATE. Spend your own money and your own goddamn sweat and blood and CREATE and get the work out there into the underground! Do it for free, give it away because the alternative is equally to make no money but to not have access to the media the world runs on!
I'm still waiting on my next-gen ADAT but I've been putting the rest of my studio through its paces, the hopped-up mixing board, the vast monitors, the custom low-capacitance shielded-strand snake, and I remain convinced that I can (cartman) club the industry's quality levels in the head and make it cry like Nancy Kerrigan(/cartman) >;)
Furthermore, I will not only record open-source oriented geek musicians (i.e. mp3-liking unsigned rebel sorts), I will not only do it for free, but I will provide the tape on top of that. I'm debating whether my next buy should be electronic parts for building submixers and hopping up the adat, or a Color Quickcam for showing pictures of the studio to you slashdotter rugrats ;) The more the media industry follows this scorch-the-earth path, the more determined I am to say 'hell with it!' and simply dump everything I have into an all-out assault on the status quo, using the popularity of formats like mp3 and the irresistable appeal of the free as weapons.
I consider cries of 'pirate everything the studios do!' to be pathetic wussy childish attempts to 'fight'. Exactly how does your redistribution of THEIR MEDIA! help matters? Exactly how brave do you have to be to take something at no cost to you, and give it to someone else? Unless the MPAA literally beat down your door you're risking absolutely squat. You're not DOING anything, except being a 'bad consumer' instead of a 'good consumer'. Either way you are a luser. You are sacrificing nothing and creating nothing.
If you want your fight to matter, CREATE media and get it out there as free data, to underscore the idea that in the 21st century data is too cheap to meter! Create AMAZING media. Do the most amazing music, the most incredible movie, outdo the industry at its own game and then have the guts to stand up for your convictions and keep that data free, make it possible for people to buy T-shirts or some damn thing so you can get by, so it can subsidize what you're doing. Apply for grants, I don't know- the point is, if the traditional media (being progressively concentrated in ever-fewer hands) is a magic circle, we need content creators outside the circle. We need _genius_ outside the circle. And we need it now, and we need it fast. And we can get it- if people are ready to face the situation and start pulling together.
"The revolution will not be televised" - Gil Scott-Heron ;) tell the people you meet offline about the great band you found, and how you found them, and then tell them 'It's free, this is the digital underground. It lives.'
Isn't it ironic- now that digital globalisation has made any person techically capable of expressing their message to the world, surprise- the revolution will still not be televised- because MS owns this television station, AOL/Time Warner owns that, and so on, a merry game of media restriction with no loopholes! There will be no shortcut to the real digital age- so we will just have to actually do the work. Cry me a river- then roll up your sleeves. If you can't actually sing or play or create media of some kind, then go forth and scour mp3.com or some such place (it is one huge 'slush pile', but no worse than what the industry has access to), and hunt down some band, some artist who is committed to a future of mp3 and free data. Buy one of their t-shirts. If they don't have any, buy them _a_ t-shirt
I will confess: I have wanted to be the great breakout hit from mp3-land. This, without even having stuff up yet, while still building and assembling the gear (in some cases, literally building it out of parts). And not breakout as in 'crossover', not as in getting signed with a major label- breakout as in making it completely separate from the labels, the industry, making it big enough and hitting hard enough that you wind up on the cover of Rolling Stone or Time because the story _cannot_ be ignored any longer- and still remaining a completely free-data, internet phenomenon, with no ties to the standard distribution chains. The money or lack of same isn't even important- I think done right you could be quite upper-middle class with all the tech toys you wanted, but I'm talking about being a massive breakout hit as a paradigm shift, about changing people's expectations of where you get music/movies/etc. Only that can truly fight the studios. Only that will win the war.
I still want this- who wouldn't? But I'm becoming increasingly convinced of one thing- it's not about who does it, the important thing is that someone must do that, must break the paradigm, for the benefit of all us artistic types who want to be able to control our own destinies. If it's not me, and hey, it wouldn't have to be, then it will just have to be somebody else- and I mean to throw everything I have behind that person, whoever they might be, if I get the chance. I'll record 'em for free. I'll give them the benefit of 20 years of audio hacker experience and producer savvy. I'll coax their ultimate performances out of them... anything, everything, to get someone who can break the paradigm.
When your 'wares people' are finally spending most of their time copying off free data with the blessings of the artists to distribute among the consumers... because nothing the recording or movie industries produce is anything near as good... THEN we will have won.
Can we sue them back ? (Score:5)
These lawsuites are being filed in a maner which sugests they can't realy stand on merit and the idea is to spread the limited resorces of the defendants as thin as posible in order to get somebody "convicted" because they simply culdn't put up a defence.
That wold then become a precident to wave at RedHat and Caldera. The real targets of this lawsuite dispite all the bullS##t from everyone.
Now what if a lawsuite is filed on behalf of the many plaintifs with a stipulation of damages to be awarded as folows.
10,000,000 to be shared betwean the legal teams in all the suites on an eaven basis ( no negotiation or puling of rank ).
15,000,000 to be shared betwean the plaintifs on similar even terms.
100,000,000 to be kept in the EFF's kity and invested so we will have a war chest the next time something like this hapens.
Not Piracy (Score:5)
There is a very big difference between encrypting an application on a demo CD and encrypting DVD media. In the first case a legitimate intellectual property is being protected. It is a demo CD and the application has not yet been purchased. However, in the second case, rights to the DVD media have already been purchased. The consumer own his or her copy of the DVD. Copyright law already allows the owner of a copy to make copies for personal use, including copies necessary TO VIEW THE MEDIA.
If the movie industry had implemented a security system that prevented unauthorized copying that would be one story. But they don't even attempt this. Anyone can copy encrypted DVD media to a blank DVD and play it anywhere. This encryption does nothing to stop bootleggers. What it does do is stop authorized viewers from accessing the media in a legitimate manner.
Imaging if you purchased an ordinary paper and ink book, but discovered that you could only read it by the light of a specific light bulb. You would be pretty upset at the publisher. It's no wonder that people are upset at the MPAA for doing exactly the same thing.
Source code is now on T-Shirts!!!! (Score:5)
I am think I am about to make my first purchase from them. I wonder will a cop bust me if I walk down the street with this T-shirt on
By the way part of the profits from this go to the EFF for their defense.