Home

Circus trial of alleged DeCSS "hacker" underway: CNN

Fri, 12/13/2002 - 08:56 — charlie.collins

Jon Lech Johanson is on trial in Norway for writing DeCSS and he faces prison time.

Johanson says he just wanted to watch DVDs on his Linux machine and nothing was available. Prosecutors say that was a violation of the CSS encryption and apparently Norways laws. In fact the indictment states: "The access was a violation because the DVD films were sold on the condition that the user would use authorized playing equipment and respect the copy protection".

This is amazing. Amazing bullshit. Respect, I got your respect right here! Johanson OWNED the DVDs he viewed, he just had to enable his own viewing because of the CSS crap that is put on the DVDs in the first place.

What exactly is "authorized playing equipment" and where on the DVD does it provide a list of those devices. IF it DID I WOULD NOT BUY A DVD EVER AGAIN. In fact just having CSS and Macrovision on them is enough to often make me reconsider. What if the industry caught on and scrapped all this crap, saved the money, and sold the DVDs for cheaper?

What about Johansons intellectual property rights? Its his program, he should be suing them for royalties because of all the people using it to view DVDs.

Yeah I know the industry is trying to prevent piracy and protect their own property but I just happen to think this is the wrong approach. I disagree with strong-arming people and think that rather making the product affordable prevents piracy. How much is a blank DVD to burn it, how much does bandwidth cost? There is a point where buying it makes more sense. Besides that many people are honest in the first place and WANT to buy it and WANT to make a copy, as they should be allowed to do once they purchase it.

In addition this is a kid that is smart and wrote his own software to view his DVDs. This is not some guy distributing pirated DVDs all over the place. Yes others have downloaded and distributed his DeCSS program but that does not make him responsible for what happens with it. What are they upset about? The kid outsmarted them and did it in a few hundred lines of code and it pisses them the hell off.

This one is outrageous. Yes the trial is in Norway but the truth is that the authorities there did not pursue the case until the Motion Picture Association of America put the pressure on to begin the witch hunt.

Write the DVD CCA and tell em what a bunch of crap this is and how silly they are (couldnt find any "contact" info on their website: dvdcca.org, but I did happen to notice that a few of the PDFs contain this email address: selection.interest@dvdcca.org).
Also write the MPAA and tell them what you think (could not find any contact info their either: mpaa.org, but Jack Valenti is the president and postmaster, webmaster, jvalenti, etc probably work). Note that the MPAA has an entire page devoted to DeCSS and the cause, see in via their site.   Hacker hero, Hollywood nemesis on trial: CNN

Comments

Fri, 12/13/2002 - 11:28 — Bwaha (not verified)

Re: Circus trial of alleged DeCSS

This from http://www.mpaa.org/anti-piracy/

"The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and its international counterpart, the Motion Picture Association (MPA), estimate that the U.S. motion picture industry loses in excess of $3 billion annually in potential worldwide revenue due to piracy."

Now let us all take a minute to consider "potential" shall we? You may walk right up to a bomb which has the "potential" to explode, then walk away without a scratch on you. Now what did that "potential" mean? Nothing!

There ain't no such thing as potential. Either it is, or it ain't. Potential does not mean a blasted thing. You can not have the potential to make money. Either you make it, or you don't.

Does this potential nonsense mean that I can walk into a store and walk out with something saying to the clerk on the way out that they have the potential of getting paid for the product from me at some later date? That makes about as much sense as the quoted statement from the beginning of my post here.

And I see no sense in that at all. But far too many people put real value onto this potential issue, and others.

Now I'll give the MPAA a real number to work with. They have made exactly $0 from me with DVDs and shall continute to do so into the forseeable future. And with the crap that they make, and how they behave themselves it'll be a cold day where they came from before this $0 figure changes.

They play a dangerious game of flim-flam financing and we all have to pay for it. Sorry Jack, you and your cronies can pick up the tab on this one. I mean cry me a river with the 6th paragraph. Where they explain in gory detail how they waste money. Just because actors can't act, and directors can't direct today. So they must rely on expensive special effects, and "stunts" to carry the day on the dreck they know how to make today.

Why it's all poor Jon's fault that the movie industry cannot make the profits that they think that they should. NOT! As I read the page URL from above it is just one paper tiger after another marched out and paraded in front of me. Has anyone here seen a film captured on a camcorder? Let me tell you it leaves a lot to the imagination. One may get the impression that what they are seeing may be a good film. But seeing a camcorder filmed movie is hardly a replacement for seeing the movie itself. OK OK maybe the production values of a hand held camera in a theatre could have beat out Blair Witch project...

I am usually a hard facts kind of guy but just this once I will take a moment out to speculate here. Here's a "potential" future as I see it

Eventually we will all own the computing horsepower to make our own content. Many are working with what we possess now. But someday it will be an accepted practice for everyone with a vague idea to make their own digital entertainment along the lines that they imagine.

The digital divide is narrowing at Moore's pace. When that day comes we can all enjoy a little reality TV watching Jack and his crew pissing into ripple bottles on Pike St. Real justice is always served. Right and wrong are not simply vague concepts but labels placed on what is self sustaining and what doesn't stand a snowballs throw in hell.

That snowball had "potential" too.

Well until utopia arrives all I can say is avast, ahoy maties, shiver me timbers, and ho ho ho and a bottle of rum over here ;)

Hoping this crude digital transmission was of some entertainment value this is Bwaha signing off for now. Feel free to copy in whole or part, and use for any purpose, any of this content.

http://www.machinima.com/

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.