Considering DVDs seem a bit long in the tooth, this recent foray into the world of DVD ripping seemed a thinly veiled attempt to pick a fight with the MPAA. After invoking the Glaser Doctrine this morning, guess they got what they wanted. [more inside]
posted by shunshine on Sep 30, 2008 - 33 comments

FairPlay is turned about. "DVD" Jon Lech Johansen, of DeCSS fame, has reverse engineered Apple's FairPlay DRM technology, which has thus far prevented 3rd-party digital music players from playing music purchased from the iTunes Store. RealNetworks did something similar in 2004, but Johansen is licensing it to whomever wants it.
posted by mkultra on Oct 2, 2006 - 41 comments

In a sardonic new editorial, the Register asks whether the EFF is harming the very causes that it's supposedly fighting for. This isn't coming out of left field. The EFF has lost numerous cases that could have been won, and in doing so is helping to creating precedents that make fights for civil liberties harder to wage.
posted by bshort on Dec 6, 2005 - 35 comments

The MPAA speaks about Emanuel Goldstein. For a very long time, the MPAA has been suing the website and magazine 2600 for posting the DeCSS source code on its website. This is a FAQ from the MPAA's homepage. The incredible irony in seeing the words "Emanuel Goldstein" mentioned brings to mind (obviously to many of you) 1984.
posted by Keyser Soze on Dec 28, 2003 - 8 comments

It's the equivalent of "You can play the CD on three designated CD players that support the DRM. Like, it will play ONLY on xyz brand cd player and only three of those that you pick. Yes, you have to stick to that brand of cd player (the iTunes player, the supported OS of iTunes, no unix support in sight) and too bad if you have a fourth one in the bedroom. It's not gonna play in your second car's player either. Nor in the kitchen. Nor on your neighbor's player. Nor can you trade it on the used market when you're tired of listening to it. "
"They finally found a way to sell you some wind. Even better, they will restrict the direction and force in wich the wind will blow, how often and where it will happen..."

As "DVD-Jon" Johansen goes to retrial, a backlash is rising in the media & community towards Apple's DRM (digital rights management), a week after this same kid created an open-source program that lets users copy the songs that they bought onto other sources.
posted by omidius on Dec 2, 2003 - 28 comments

Jon Johansen of DeCSS fame has made a program that strips iTunes ACC files of DRM. Here is what he has to say about it. Maybe I will give iTunes a try after all.
posted by epimorph on Nov 26, 2003 - 16 comments

Who says DeCSS litigation is dead? Norwegian court indicts the fellow who cracked DVD protection.
posted by donkeysuck on Jan 11, 2002 - 2 comments

Watch where you link. The recent court findings in the DeCSS case apparently included the ruling that linking to a site containing illegal material -- even if it's just to report that fact to others -- is not protected as free speech (and possibly illegal). [NYTimes link; login: metafi/metafi]
posted by mattpfeff on Dec 14, 2001 - 7 comments

Movie Studios Win DeCSS Case.
posted by solistrato on Nov 29, 2001 - 7 comments

Court of Appeals upholds ban against DeCSS. More significant than the banning of DVD cracking is the edict directed towards 2600, which has been forbidden to post any links related to DeCSS. My concern with this decision is whether the current decision may be interpreted in a broader context, preventing others from linking to sites that aren't as sexy as Mom and Apple Pie to the powers that be. Maybe I'm overreacting. But could we see bloggers forced to remove certain links and led to the Tombs if they refuse? Discuss.
posted by ed on Nov 28, 2001 - 15 comments

Hackers win round one! Feel free to post DeCSS to this thread; it is no longer illegal.
What, if anything, does this mean to the movie industry?
posted by TiggleTaggleTiger on Nov 2, 2001 - 15 comments

The math geeks have done it again. Yet another prime number which, when converted to binary, contains DeCSS: this one's an x86 Linux ELF executable. Only took a weekend of hacking to do, and it's only 752 bytes! You know what they say: when prime numbers are outlawed, only outlaws will have prime numbers.
posted by darukaru on Sep 11, 2001 - 0 comments

What the hell is Martin Garbus up to? Oozing incredulity, a federal appeals court smacked down the injunction barring publication of "The Wind Done Gone", a parody of "Gone With The Wind" from the perspective of a slave, flatly describing the lower-court ban as "an unlawful prior restraint in violation of the First Amendment" -- pretty much what most right-thinking copyright thinkers have asserted all along.

So since when is Martin Garbus, lead counsel selected by EFF to run the DeCSS case, a man who got started by defending Lenny Bruce, a lawyer Feed described as having "a long and unparalleled record as an advocate for first amendment rights", whose free speech bona fides include at one point hiding the Pentagon Papers in his apartment -- why is this man representing Margaret Mitchell's heirs on the definitively wrong side of an open-and-shut First Amendment case?
posted by bumppo on May 25, 2001 - 16 comments

The Dubya Administration backs the lawsuit against distributing or linking to the DeCSS utility. What's next?
posted by quirked on Feb 23, 2001 - 15 comments

A modern Dr Bowdler... (yeah, I know it's Salon, but...) A video-rental store in Utah offers "cleaned up" versions of modern films. First thought: is it legal? Post-DeCSS, one would think not: after all, the MPAA has done its best to protect its right to control the manner of reproduction. But are the studios not jumping to litigate, because they're happier to alienate Linux users with DVD drives than the LDS contingent in UT?
posted by holgate on Jan 11, 2001 - 31 comments

Freedom of Speech Zine 2600 cannot link to DeCSS, but CNN can?
posted by Zool on Oct 3, 2000 - 3 comments

For those of you who don't want to violate the law by linking from your website to the DeCSS source code, you can now link to a [semi-]dramatic reading of the source code (3.5MB MP3), and this semi-alternative sort of Dylanesque folk song of the code (6.3MB MP3).

And no, I'm not making *any* of this up. Thanks to Dave at The Stuffed Dog. He can't blog it, but *I* sure can. :-) [Amazingly enough, they're both pretty good, although the song is a bit over driven. ]
posted by baylink on Aug 28, 2000 - 2 comments

Is computer code a form of expression and therefore protected by the First Amendment? That's something being considered in the MPAA's case against Eric Corley and DeCSS.
posted by scottandrew on Jul 26, 2000 - 6 comments

DeCSS Trial Begins Today. Today is 2600's day in court. This trial deserves more media attention than it's been getting.
posted by Doug on Jul 17, 2000 - 10 comments

Is linking illegal? New York Times article about DeCSS linkage fiasco involving 2600. If linking is illegal, the Web is SOL. This is insane.
posted by elgoose on Jun 16, 2000 - 7 comments

Thank god, a judge was smart enough to throw out an injunction against all the web site owners that posted the DeCSS source code. This suit was completely pointless because DeCSS is used for *playback* of DVDs, not copying (which can be done bit-for-bit digitally). The people who should be punished for this are the dorks that came up with the weak encryption in the first place.
posted by mathowie on Dec 29, 1999 - 0 comments