DeCSS Source Included in Public Court Records

doc_brown writes "I noticed on www.hackernews.com that the DeCSS Source is included in the lawsuit filings. As these are now public records, should the court's and district archive sites now be included in the lawsuits? The lawsuit (with source) is available at cryptome.org " Mirror early, mirror often.

hmm..

what i really dont understand is : [a] To copy a DVD one must be able to authenticate to the drive. decryption doesnt really matter. [b] The authentication code was posted to the livid mailing list waay before the decss code. [c] the 90 day period for DVDCCA to protest has passed for the *authentication* code. [d] DVDCCA is claiming the DeCSS code can be used to pirate DVD's but has not stated *anything* about the authentication code. [e] You must defend *all* violations not just one...so why hasnt the case been thrown out ?

No Subject

This is just great. It's the first time a Slashdot story had my laughting out loud at work.

So now we no longer have to worry about distributing a "trade secret" that was obtained illegally, we are simply mirroring a public court document.
Once again, stupidity has saved the day. Am I wrong in guessing that this pretty much destroys the case against us?

earnestdesigns.com/dvd [earnestdesigns.com]


Finkployd
Bill Gates: "Innovation"

Funny....

Reminds me of Ed Meese's congressional report on illeagal pornography. It was a publc document also, and became one of the most requested publications from congress.

James F. Bickford
Sys Dev Assistant
Electronic Interface Support

Re:This reminds me of Cult^h^h^hhurch of Scientolo

FWIW, it was actually in Sweden. Read all about it here [chalmers.se].

Is prosecuting for trade secret theft risky?

Hmm.. this begs the question: how would you prosecute trade secret theft w/out getting the "secret" into the public records?

Forget about the DVD bullshit for a moment. Suppose Joe Schmoe breaks into my office in the middle of the night, shoots the security guards, blows open the safe, and takes a single sheet of paper that contains the formula for Miracle Ingredient #666. As the cops follow the blood-drip trail back to his secret hideaway, he places the sheet into a copy machine and presses copy.

The cops nab him, and in addition to the various legal problems he's facing, I decide to prosecute him for trade secret theft. If I do that, then is the Miracle Ingredient #666 formula going to end up in the public record? Sounds like maybe I should just let it go.

Suppose he didn't shoot anyone or blow up any safes. What if trade secret theft was the only crime he committed, so that I either had to nail him on that count only, or else watch him go free. What to do?

It's fun to laugh at the DVD jerks, but it sounds like this current problem that they're having, could happen to anyone who has a secret.

---

"We are SlashDot Of Borg. Resistance is Futile."

Did anyone catch the section of the suit where they quote a random (and probably hand-picked for maximum effect) collection of /. articles? I quote:

For example, postings on slashdot.org as early as July 1999 clearly establish the state of mind of the hacker community. The following is a sample of posts made on July 15, 1999:

I like the "state of mind" of the hacker community--like we have only one mind, and we all agree. Further, some of the quotes are offered to show that we all knew certain aspects of the law which frankly I, as a drone in the hive mind, was not made aware of by the hierarchy.

Further, the declaration makes a bunch of assumptions about how individuals must have known certain things, because they were posted by anonymous cowards here on /. Now am I missing something, but part of the give and take here is that you wind up taking what goes on here with a large grain of salt, especially from anonymous cowards. So saying that "it was discussed on /. must necessarly make it true, and thus making individuals criminally liable" strikes me as a stretch.

Ah, well. It's stupidities like this which make me a little, ah, itchy around some lawyers...

Re:a mistake

it's borderline - most computers use a C compiler that produces object code (and yes, it IS machine code, but you can't run it directly) then feed *that* into a linker that adds in standard libraries, puts "how to run me" headers and tailers on as needed, then saves it as a ready-to-run file. you might not see it directly (some compliers hide the passes they make) but most go though this two-stage process.
--

Why submit your secret as evidence?

I think the DVD case is a different matter - this wasn't a case of `theft of trade secrets', rather one of legitimate reverse-engineering of the technology.

Which doesn't answer your question . . .
ObIANAL, but it seems to me that you don't have to submit your trade secret in evidence - if you're prosecuting for theft of a trade secret, you'd have to completely stupid and incompetent to do so, actually. The court doesn't have to know _what_ was stolen, merely the fact that it was. If the defence tried to submit what was stolen as evidence, then they'd pretty much be admitting guilt - "Hey, we didn't steal anything! And here's your proof - this is what we didn't steal . . . Oh, er . . . ". And you could surely object to the tabling of the secrets - after all, the whole idea of prosecuting the theft is to retain control of your secret, and the court would have to be insane to ignore that.

No, this is a stuffup extraordinaire . . . Someone in the DVD-CCA or their legal team did _not_ think before they wrote this, and will probably be fired quite soon after the head honchos catch on. I almost feel sorry for him/her - it's probably a bored intern (or whatever they call them) who didn't even think about it before writing the document. This intern might even have been a tad sympathetic with the defendants . . . Definitely not legal material, in that case . . .

himi
--

A thought

So what's to keep someone from making a compilable version of these court documents?

Just put all the excess text (lawyer-babble and such) into a comment block, and presto instant compilable court record.

CO$/DVDCCA merger!

In financial and entertainment news today, merger mania continues. Tackhead news services reports that the Cult of $cientology has recently been acquired by the MPAA.

On the cult's side, reasons for the merger included $cieno infiltration into Hollywood for the past 20-30 years in order to provide a sheen of legitimacy for the beleagured cult, as well as a surplus of Operating Thetans out panhandling for money now that org revenues have crashed following the CO$'s "Operation Foot Bullet" and public buggering on the Internet in recent years.

On the MPAA's side, they cited a need for individuals with experience in controlling the dissemination of dangerous information embedded in court documents, and "The Cult of $cientology was the obvious choice; they've got experience in these sorts of things that nobody else has."

The MPAA appears to have already started to put the Cult's Operating Thetans to good use; at least one lover^H^H^H^H^Htrusted confidante of Cult Leader David Missedcabbage was quoted as saying

"Look, Dave's desperate for money for the cult, and snce everybody

knows the story about the volcanoes and Xenu, there's not much point in having most our OT3 through OT7s sitting around in court libraries pretending to read the court documents containing our Seekrit Skript00rz in order to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Anti-Religious Bigots (tm-CO$) who might check the documents out and copying them and spreading them on the 'net.

It seemed only fair that we send our now-unemployed OTs where they can do what they do best - checking out DVDCCA lawsuits containing copies of DVD decryption source code and pretending to read those before Anti-Copyright Bigots (tm-MPAA) start copying the source and spreading it on the net. Besides, it's more fun than trying to levitate ashtrays."

The merger has resulted in a shakeup on the board of the MPAA; the new board will be composed of executives who have all proven themselves "more capable" than conventional executives through $cientology training, which traditionally starts with a "Communications Course", and goes upwards from there. When asked for comment, the new Chair of the MPAA managed to splutter

"Our lawyers now have full control over MEST: Matter, Energy, Space, and Time are ALL OURS! MUHAAHAHHHAHHAHH! The psychiatrists won't stop us! The Germans won't stop us! The anti-religious bigots won't stop us! The open-sourcers won't stop us! NOTHING shall stop us in our drive to Clear(tm-CO$) the planet! And Tom Cruise and John Travolta are straight, goddamnit, STRAIGHT! Anyone saying otherwise will be DISPOSED OF QUIETLY AND WITHOUT SORROW! We are INVINCIBLE! WE ARE THE NEW FACE OF THE CULT OF THE DEAD CLAM!!!"

...before lapsing into complete gibberish for several minutes, before concluding with something about how Scientology saved his life, got him off drugs, and if I'd only take one communications course... whereupon your faithful reporter concluded the interview and got the hell out of dodge.

Members of the Cult of the Dead Cow, opon hearing the latter part of this outburst, are reputedly planning an IPO next week, proceeds of which will be used to sue the newly-merged MPAA-CO$ organization into oblivion on grounds of trademark dilution.

The CdC has neither confirmed nor denied plans to use a portion of the proceeds to purchase a thermonuclear weapon, and in a joint venture with a new orbital technology from Gold And Appel Transfers, Inc., dust off from Occupied Clearwater and nuke the site from orbit.

It's the only way to be sure.

(Background: For those who don't know the story, yes, the CO$ really did send cult members to court libraries, and had them sit at desks all day long, looking at the cover of the library's sole copy of the court documents that contained their sekrit skripturez, in order to prevent "unauthorized" people from reading them, copying them, and posting them to the 'net. The effect this had on the distribution of the court documents in question was, of course, about as good as the effect the MPAA and DVDCCA's suits have had on the distribution of DeCSS.)

Speaking of Public Records..

I got what had to be at least a dead tree's worth of legal papers in the mail from the DVD attorneys about a week ago. (Would've been two weeks ago, but they sent it via certified mail and I refused to accept it)

People here might be interested to know that the DVD lawyers printed out an entire Slashdot discussion (comments and all) and included it in these legal filings.

Couldn't help but laugh when I saw a slashdot forum among all these hundreds of papers full of legalese. :)

Re:Now this kicks butt!

Assuming that you have never been anmed, You would not be in violation of the court order because you are not a defendant. The injunction does not apply to you. I'm surprised that the source is not under seal. Otherwise, it is a public document. Copy it. Note: any use might constitute violation of DMCA or some other fed statute. I don't know

DeCSS was GPLed...

They had to include the source in their filing, DeCSS was GPLed!

"Your Honor, I present plaintiff's Exhibit A"
"Objection!"
"Yes, Mr. Stallman?"
"DeCSS is copyleft, your Honor.
"Copyleft?"
"You know, it's free."
"So what?"
"That means the source must be made available. Here, read the GPL."
"The GNU Public License?"
"No, 'General'."
"Please refer to me as 'Your Honor'"
"Yes, Your Honor, no, I mean, yes... it's the General Public License, Your Honor."
"Oh [reading]..., yes, you're right, it does say the source must be made available. Objection sustained. Plaintiffs? Where can I get the source?"
"We charge for it, your honor."
"But he says it's free..."
"Objection!"
"Yes, Mr. Raymond?"
"He meant 'open', like a bazaar."
"Objection!"
"[wearily] Yes?"
"No I didn't."
"This is bizarre. 'No you didn't' what!"
"No, I didn't mean 'open', I meant 'free'"
"Overruled. Plaintiffs, the bailiff can't seem to get the source from this URL you gave him."
"It's slashdotted, Your Honor."
"What's 'slashdotted'?"
"It means a bunch of people who should be working are listening to MP3s and downloading right now. They came from a free/open advocacy website called Slashdot."
"Oh? Open? Can I get the source to it, too?"
"Damn it, Your Honor, not for another day, now!"
"Your Honor, the Bill Gate, sir, to present this amicus curiae sudsum, a friend-of-the-court [wink] free beer."
"Now we're getting somewhere! Thank you. [grabbing beer] This court will stand in recess..."

There are Procedures for This

It's called sealing court records. When the DVDCCA submitted the printout of the CSS source code into evidence at the original hearing, they asked that the court seal the record. That way, they get it their way. They get the evidence in the court record and they make it so that no one can go to the courthouse and retrieve a copy.

I sincerely doubt that the DVD CCA or MPAA lawyers are so stupid as to allow unsealed CSS source into open court records. I looked at the site where the story came from and all I can suggest is that the people who posted it are misinformed.

Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected

HEAR YE! HEAR YE!

I, the honorable Sen. Wellstone would like to read the following statement:

unsigned int capital see capital ess capital ess tab zero left bracket eleven right bracket equals left curly bracket five comma zero comma one comma two comma three

ad nauseam...

And yes, I know, it doesn't have to be 'Read' but it's a funny thought...

No -- this may still be a trade secret

IANAL (sigh) but there are two important points that I think everyone should consider.

1) It doesen't look (to me) like this is legally "public" yet. The cryptome [cryptome.org] page says that the document is based on hardcopy from an anonymous source. Normally (if I remember from my time as a cop beat reporter way back when) all the documents in a civil case only become public at the end of the trial, if there is one, and still may not be completely released then.

This is important as the argument that the judge is somewhat buying from DVD CAA so far is that, while the code has already been posted a lot of places, the information came from an illegitimate source that should have known better, and was posted by persons who should have known that this was not public information. If this is an otherwise confidential court document, posting it does not defeat trade secret protection for DVD any more than any other posting has.

If this is actually a confidential court document, whoever released it doesn't just have DVD CAA to worry about, they should be consulting a lawyer on what the civil contempt rules are in California.

2) FOIA is no help. The federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) does not apply here at all. "The federal FOIA does not, however, provide access to records held by state or local government agencies, or by private businesses or individuals." [usdoj.gov] This is a civil filing in a state (California) court.

You should've heard them READ from /. in court

When Kessler (counsel for the plaintiffs) started reading the comments at the last hearing it was all we could do to keep from laughing.

"Your honor, we have evidence here that an 'Anonymous Coward' called us 'cocksuckers' on slashdot."

I was reminded of a time when my little sister ran to my mother and said, "Andy called me a poo-poo head!"

Kessler read (from the record) for about an hour and a half in a ferocious speech that left most of us wondering why he had bothered.

-- Defendant #2

Re:There are Procedures for This

I sincerely doubt that the DVD CCA or MPAA lawyers are so stupid as to allow unsealed CSS source into open court records. I looked at the site where the story came from and all I can suggest is that the people who posted it are misinformed

Did you READ the blurb above, or just spout off? I would think that closed court records [cryptome.org] would not be publically available on the internet [cryptome.org]. In fact, if someone one posted the court records containing the CSS source [cryptome.org], I would have to say that either someone is about to be in big trouble, or the court records in question [cryptome.org] are indeed UNSEALED .

In fact, I would say that this [cryptome.org] is the whole FREAKING POINT OF THIS STORY ON SLASHDOT! [cryptome.org]

Thank you, please drive through.

I am 'root at megami dot org' (the one quoted)

The first post they list is attributed to "[e-mail]".

Actually, it's [e-mail].

If it had been written by someone named in the case, it would be quite damning, but it wasn't. First off, www.megami.com is a page devoted to Japanese Animation.

See above, but the .org page serves the same purpose.

Besides that, anyone who posts to /. as root probably isn't the brightest bulb around.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'posting as root'. On /. root is just a nick like any other. How is this better or worse than someone who calls himself CmdrTaco? I fail how to see how this justifies decreeing me to be 'dim'.

At least 50% of all slashdotters have root access somewhere, and it doesn't impress anyone.

"Impress anyone?" Who said anything about that? My nick matches my email address, which gets routed automagically to my regular (non-superuser) account anyway. You're making a *lot* of assumptions here. Lighten up! It's just a nick!

I don't mean to flame [e-mail], but presenting his/her sloshdot post as representative of the entire "hacker community" state of mind is insane.

The lawyer made that tie, not me.

I don't think there *is* anyone who represents the entire "hacker community". We're all going to differ on some issues. As far as my comment, I stand by it. Even if MoRE hadn't came up with DeCSS, someone, somewhere, and regardless of local law[*], would've reverse engineered or just plain extracted the css code from one of the software players and posted it to some public forum. Once that happens, its supression would be impossible. Had the secrets of DVD crypto stayed locked exclusively within hardware decoders, it would probably still be a secret today. Allowing software decoding at all, meant puting the code to do it on every software player sold. That is the true distribution and disemmination of the knowledge that led to DeCSS. MoRE just turned it into something a bit more readable.

[*] It is, of course, this "someone, somewhere" who possesses the "f*** the law" attitude I mentioned, and will rip the css code from some player and repackage it as a module, source, or incorporate it into something like DeCSS, and not an attitude fitting my own personal beliefs. Yes, I'm backpeddling a bit, but if I'm gonna be quoted in front of judges here, I wanted to clear that up. I still do support, and think that it is not too late to do, a proper "clean room" reverse engineering of the css code, just as Compaq did with the IBM BIOS code, that enabled them to produce the first PC clone. IBM sued, much as DVD lawyers are sueing now. They lost. Hmmmm. DVD clone players? Would there be any difference?