[FYI] MPAA v. Corley (1.Tag)

["Ralf Stephan" <ralf@ark.in-berlin.de>]

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000717/wr/videohackers_trial_dc_1.html
   
   ...
   The first witness called by the plaintiffs' attorney was Michael
   Shamos, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University and
   co-director of the Institute for eCommerce.
   
   Shamos cited data he had collected off the Internet showing that 650,
   or more than 10 percent of all digital video disks (DVDs) now
   commercially available in the United States, are now available to
   computer-savvy consumers over the Web.
   
   The videos are available in DiVX format, a new compression technology
   developed by an unidentified hacker that allows the billions of data
   bits necessary to store a feature-length movie to be compacted by a
   factor of five or more times.
   ... 
   ``Now that they have got the keys to the kingdom, we can be
   Napsterized,'' said Gold, a partner with the New York law firm
   Proskauer Rose LLP, speaking on behalf of his clients, the studios and
   their trade group, the Motion Picture Association.
   
   Corley and his defense lawyers maintain that the DeCSS software was
   designed for individual computer users to make copies of digital video
   disks (DVDs) for personal use, an action covered by ``fair use''
   provisions in copyright law.
   
   The movie studios argue there are no issues of free speech at stake,
   as the sole purpose of the DeCSS software is to circumvent copyright
   protection and gain unauthorized access to DVD movies. The plaintiffs'
   attorney said they plan to argue that the purpose of the 1998
   copyright law was to prevent such code-breaking and simply needs to be
   enforced in this case.
   
   Outside the federal court building where the trial was in progress, 40
   protesters ranging from local Linux software programmers to teenage
   hackers from Germany staged a vocal rally in support of Corley and the
   2600 magazine.


ralf
-- 
http://ME.IN-berlin.de/~rws/