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The following is a letter that I recently wrote to my elected officials in Washington,
D.C. including the President, the Vice President, the two senators for Ohio, and my
Congressman. I believe it does an adequate job of stating the true nature of the lawsuit
and what the implications are for our first ammendment rights. Please feel free to contact
me if you have any questions or comments. And if you read the information and find it as
disturbing as I do, then do some more research and if you feel like it, write a letter or two
yourself.
UPDATE: This appeals case has been dropped by the defendant (2600.com) and
the EFF.
Dear Mr. President,
I am writing regarding the recent court case in New York in which
www.2600.com was sued by the
Motion Picture Association of America
(MPAA).
If you are already familiar with this case as well as the technical details of DVDs,
their encryption technology, and the open-source Linux operating system, you can skip
to the section entitled "The solution."
Here's some basic information about the case:
- The MPAA developed Digital Versatile Disks (DVDs) to allow the content to
be scrambled with an encryption method called the Content Scrambling System
(CSS).
- The MPAA says that CSS is designed to stop piracy, but this is not true.
Read the section entitled "Why CSS doesn't stop piracy"
to learn why. CSS encryption also includes the ability to enforce "region coding."
This means that disks created for one geographical region cannot be played on players
created for a different geographical region. This is a handy tool for the MPAA to ensure
that DVD profit margins are as high as the local economy will bear. Read
"The real reason for CSS" to find out more.
- The Copy Control Association (CCA) licenses
(for a fee) DVD decryption keys to various commercial hardware and software
manufacturers that make DVD players. Without paying the fee, the manufacturer
can't get a decryption key, and so their DVD player won't be able to play DVDs. There
is only one CCA. If that's not a monopoly, I don't know what is.
- Open-source software is software that is distributed with the source code.
The source code is what programmers write and is later compiled into programs
that are run by the computer. By distributing the source code for any particular
program, others can learn how it works, make improvements, fix bugs, and generally
contribute to the improvement of the software. This development model leads to very
robust software. Open-source developers value free collaboration and sharing of ideas.
- Linux is an open-source software operating system for computers. There is no
DVD player for Linux.
Here is the series of events that led to the court battle:
- Work has been progressing on a project to develop an open-source DVD player
(named LiViD) for Linux. Since the player is an open-source initiative (the source
code is developed by volunteers and is distributed for free), there is no way to pay
the licensing fee to the CCA. Thus, it has been necessary to reverse engineer the
CSS algorithm and develop a method of decrypting DVDs without using keys that
are licensed from the CCA.
- DeCSS is a program developed by a young Norwegian, Jon Johansen, to remove
CSS encryption from DVDs. This program is essential to the success of developing an
open-source DVD player for Linux. Obviously you can't view a DVD movie on your
computer without decrypting it first. (Note that the DeCSS program was originally written
as a Windows program since Linux couldn't read DVDs at all during this period...not
even the encrypted data.)
- When the MPAA learned about Jon Johansen's program, they put pressure on the
U.S. government to do something about it. The U.S. government, in turn, put pressure on
the Norwegian government. This resulted in a SWAT team style raid on Jon Johansen's
home and the confiscation of his computer equipment. Quite a harrowing experience for
a 16 year old.
- Jon described his
experience on slashdot.org, a web site that is generally dedicated to news and
events that affect those involved in the open-source community. Many of his
compatriots were outraged at the bullying, and in the great spirit of "Oh yeah!
Well, take *this*!" they distributed the DeCSS program and source code far
and wide across the internet.
- One web site that did a great job of posting the DeCSS source code, program,
and links to other sites that did likewise is
www.2600.com.
- By this time, the MPAA was really fired up and decided to put Jack Valenti's
plan into action. Jack is the president of the MPAA and has been quoted as saying,
"If we have to file a thousand lawsuits a day, we'll do it." So the lawsuits
began, and www.2600.com happened to be
at the top of the list.
- The MPAA alleged that DeCSS was in violation of the
Digital Millennium
Copyright Act (DMCA) which basically says (as it pertains to this case) that it
is illegal to develop and distribute software whose primary purpose is circumventing
encryption technology. They argued that without CSS encryption, their movies would
be distributed illegally causing financial loss to the motion picture industry.
- The defense argued that DeCSS's primary purpose was to enable the
development of an open-source Linux DVD player. The defense also argued that 2600's
right to post the DeCSS program and source code as well as links to other web sites
was protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution. Another important
defense argument that was not heavily used (I don't know why) is the DMCA clause
that protects reverse engineering. The DeCSS program is a direct result of reverse
engineering the CSS algorithm.
- The court heard both arguments and ruled against the defense. The court stated
that their actions were in violation of the DCMA and ordered 2600.com to remove
the DeCSS program, source code, and links from their site. The defense is
appealing the ruling on the basis that the DMCA is unconstitutional.
Why CSS doesn't stop piracy:
Let's say Arnold Schwartzeneger films a movie in which he says, "I'll be back."
That line might be encrypted with CSS into something that looks like "aPm69W1mqR@x."
That encrypted data is then recorded to a DVD and sold to consumers like you and me.
When you buy a DVD and play it in your DVD player, it takes the encrypted data and
decrypts it using its internal decryption key (which was licensed from the CCA) back into
Arnold saying "I'll be back."
If I were a DVD pirate, I could just copy the DVD...encryption and all. Even though the
data is encrypted, it doesn't stop me from making an exact duplicate of it. Now I would
have the original disk that contained "aPm69W1mqR@x" and a copy that
contains "aPm69W1mqR@x." There is no difference between the two, and
either could be played on your DVD player. Thus, even though DVD content is encrypted
with CSS, pirates can copy disks and distribute them just fine.
The real reason for CSS:
The thing that CSS *does* do for the MPAA is to prevent legitimate consumers from
purchasing DVDs from other areas around the globe. It does this through a mechanism
known as "region coding."
Let's say you find out about a great new movie that has just been released on DVD.
You want to buy it, but every store in your area is charging $40 and you just don't
have the cash. So you search the internet hoping to find it cheaper. Maybe you find
a web site in Australia that sells it for half the price it goes for here in the U.S. You
might think you can buy it online, have it shipped here, and sit down with some popcorn
to enjoy your new movie. Wrong. You will be unpleasantly surprised to find that that
DVD will not play on your DVD player. Thus, the MPAA's use of CSS (region coding
to be specific) forces you to pay the premium U.S. price. This practice seems an
awfully lot like price-fixing which is essentially illegal according to the
Sherman Act and the Robinson-Patman Act. I really don't know how they get away with it.
The solution:
Overturn the court decision that says DeCSS violates the DMCA. Failing that,
overturn the DMCA. Any legislation that restricts free speech should be overturned.
The New York court's interpretation of the DMCA and the subsequent court order to
www.2600.com to remove the DeCSS program,
source code, and links is a clear violation of our free speech rights.
Please reply with what action you intend to take.
Sincerely,
Michael D. Cencula
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