DeCSS, your right to view & the DMCA.

Typedef · 16-01-2003 11:50am #1

First off, my operating systems of choice are Linux and FreeBSD. I own a DVD drive that resides on my computer. DVDs are encrypted media, but, it would seem that if I want to watch a DVD I own, on hardware I paid for and own, using electricity I pay for, that I can not in fact by law watch that on my operating system(s) of choice 'legally'.

http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/d121152.htm

The gentleman who has written the open source code to allow me (or anyone) to watch this media has been charged with illegally reverse engineering the pertinent CSS algorithm.

http://www.acm.org/usacm/copyright/dmca.htm

The motion picture industry also sued Jon Johansen, a sixteen-year-old Norwegian teenager, for illegally bypassing the DVD encryption scheme and then posting the code on his father's company Web site. The father is also being charged in the suit. Special police units and prosecutors raided their home on January 25 and seized the teenager's computer and cellular telephone. Then the police questioned the boy and his father for several hours.

The movie industry declares that the lawsuits demonstrate its determination to thwart online piracy; however, critics respond that control of the DVD player market is the industry's true incentive. Commercial DVD players are able to read CSS-encoded content, and the DeCSS program allows users of public-domain DVD-reading software to use DVDs as well. Linux programmers generally create noncommercial applications for their operating system and, in this case, determined the means to develop a public-domain DVD player. Defendants claim that their discussion about the technical insecurity of DVD players is legitimate, protected speech under the First Amendment.

The DVD-CCA maintains that the DeCSS program was created by reverse engineering in violation of the DVD program's shrinkwrap license agreement. Shrinkwrap licenses do not require licensees to affirmatively provide their consent but rather go into effect upon the installation and use of the software. The defendants respond that the DeCSS enables cryptographers to bypass the DVD security scheme without employing reverse engineering. Free speech groups nonetheless argue that reverse engineering of DVD programs is critical for systems interoperability and that debate about technical and scientific matters on the Internet are essential for the preservation of democracy and the promotion of innovation in cyberspace.

For me I find this an unnecessary infringement of my freedom to use my hardware and software unencoumbered. I should after buying the DVD not 'have' to go and find reversed engineered code to decrypt the content of my DVD. I paid for all the pertinent hardware and I own it, why should I have to acquiece to an ammendum to that purchase agreement, such that I can only watch 'my media' on certain sanctioned products?

To use the analogy, if someone buys a car and pays the insurance and road tax on that car, why should that person be expected to drive that car on private roads who charge a fee, when there are public roads that do not?

I'll elaborate. When I buy a DVD, I sign no agreement that says, I will watch the media only on media sanctioned by the vendor of the media. Therefore the disk is mine to do with as I wish and the DMCA is an infringement of my right to use that disk "after the act of purchase". The DMCA is an infringement of my consumer rights.

The ability to view the DVD is not akin to copying the DVD, therefore DeCSS is not an infringement of the DMCA and attempts to prevent people from using DeCSS code are in my view anyway an infringement of consumer rights.

dahamsta · 16-01-2003 2:26pm

Strictly speaking the DMCA is United States legislation, and does not apply in Ireland. You can't be sued under the DMCA in Ireland, the MPAA and it's ilk have to find local legislation to sue you. This is what happened with Jon. I realise that this is being anal, but I think we should be accurate on this board.

adam

Typedef · 16-01-2003 4:04pm

Realistically speaking though, the fact that the DMCA exists is evidence of the attitude of the industry, which is what my gripe actually is, ie the right to watch the media I own on the operating system of my choice.

Stark · 16-01-2003 4:22pm

luckily jon was acquited. There are still fair use laws around, and watching your own dvds on your own computer counts as fair use. However as we all know these are being eroded

JohnK · 16-01-2003 4:36pm

I find it sickening that the end user of a lot of products like DVDs & CDs are being treated like criminals by the very people who sell them the product in the first place. Once you buy something you should be able to watch/listen to it in anyway that you want and on any platform.

sceptre · 16-01-2003 4:44pm

Originally posted by k.oriordan
There are still fair use laws around, and watching your own dvds on your own computer counts as fair use. However as we all know these are being eroded

Not only "eroded" but Ireland has never had any. No fair use provisions in Irish law. Nor UK law. The only place you'll find a proper fair use provision is in the US Copyright Act from 1976 (which, you could argue has been somewhat eroded by recent supreme court decisions, though the RIAA v Diamond MM decision preserved rights somewhat). Doesn't apply here though (sovereign nation and all that) - currently we've no DMCA equivalent (at least not for another few months) but we don't have a fair use equivalent either.

It's actually quite annoying sometimes that there's very little info or discussion on the Net about UK/Irish copyright law. Ireland also lacks a Jessica Litman to write a good book summarising what we can and can't legally do (and why we probably should be legally allowed do things that we currently can't)

Typedef · 16-01-2003 4:46pm

Absolutely, it is a question of non-State intervention in your law abiding private life.

I'd really just like it if Big Brother would take his boot off of me for a while, I'm not a subversionary, I don't really see why since I have decided to abstain from the M$ cycle of expensive upgrade, I should be considered to be running borderline criminal code, on the operating system of my choice.

The DMCA is a symptom I think. McDowells bill is yet another symptom, of State intrustion into the lives of the ordinary citizen.

leeroybrown · 16-01-2003 6:03pm

Obviously issues such as the gestapo like DMCA application and the use of similar laws to punish those who break "the corporate bunch's" rules is bad.

To the best of my recolection (feel free to correct) Johansen was not the programmer of DeCSS but agreed to put himself in a situation where he could be taken to court as a test case.

They litigated against him under a Norwegian law intended to protect large companies against computer crime Hacking/Cracking ...

His situation purely arose because of the loophole in the legislation which allowed such a suit and the aim was to win and champion the free version.

seanodonnell · 27-01-2003 12:43pm

I seem to remember something like this
is supposed to come into effect in the next few months, does anyone else have any information?

yellum · 01-02-2003 1:38am

Yeah theres some info on the EU version which has only been passed by two countries so far:

Deadline Passes for European Digital Copyright Law

More here:

EC allows music downloading in antipiracy proposal

Finlands told the EU to get knotted thanks to the EFF over there lobbying hard.

EFFI: Finland kills EUCD - for now

DeCSS, your right to view & the DMCA.

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