FITUG e.V. Förderverein Informationstechnik und Gesellschaft

ZDNet: Stop wearing our code!

------- Forwarded message follows ------- From: Owen Blacker <owen.blacker@pres.co.uk> To: "UK Crypto list (E-mail)" <ukcrypto@maillist.ox.ac.uk> Subject: ZDNet: Stop wearing our code! Date sent: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 14:20:45 +0100 Send reply to: ukcrypto@maillist.ox.ac.uk

Another DeCSS case item...

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Philip Peace 
> Sent: Wednesday, August 02, 2000 2:18 PM
> To: Programming Team
> Subject: INFO: Stop wearing our code!
> 
> 
> http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/zd/20000801/tc/dvd_group_stop_wea
> ring_our_code__1.html  but it's originally from ZDNet...
>  
> DVD group: Stop wearing our code! 
> Copyleft, the maker of a T-shirt displaying code to a DVD-cracking
> program, is added to a high-profile piracy lawsuit. 
> 
> A geek-chic retailer who printed the source code for a DVD
> decryption program on T-shirts is the latest target of a lawsuit
> claiming defendants co-opted the secrets behind DVD encryption. 
> 
> The DVD Copy Control Association on Monday added Copyleft LLC to a
> California lawsuit alleging misappropriation of trade secrets,
> taking Copyleft founder Steve Blood by surprise. 
> 
> "We've been marketing this since last January," Blood said. "It
> seems a bit late." According to the subpoena he received Monday, the
> DVD CCA had trouble locating him, despite the fact that the
> organization's Web site is easy to find. 
> 
> Lawyers at Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP -- the firm representing the
> DVD CCA -- could not be reached for comment on the case. 
> 
> The lawsuit, filed in December, charges almost 80 defendants
> worldwide with misappropriation of trade secrets. The association
> added more than 400 "Doe" defendants to the complaint; they will be
> named later. Copyleft replaces "Doe No. 74." 
> 
> Each of the defendants posted the code for a program known as
> DeCSS, a program that breaks the Content Scrambling System on
> digital video disks. 
> 
> Cracking the encryption can be the first step to turning a large DVD
> file into a much smaller MPEG-4 or DivX file. A user could legally
> copy the file to a CD-ROM for playback on a PC since changing the
> format of a file is considered fair use under the Audio Home
> Recording Act. A user who trades the same file on the Internet or at
> a swap meet -- or even shares the file with a friend -- violates the
> fair use provision. In its lawsuit, the association claims that has
> already occurred. 
> 
> What is not clear is whether copying the code violates a separate
> law, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The association's lawsuit
> claims it does. 
> 
> "Defendants' posting of the proprietary information licensed by DVD
> CCA on their Web sites has caused the illegal pirating of the motion
> picture industry's copyrighted content contained on DVDs," stated
> the DVD CCA in its complaint. 
> 
> 
> T-shirts speak for themselves 
> 
> The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) -- a nonprofit cyberrights
> group that represents many of the defendants in the DVD cases -- has
> focused less on unproven piracy claims and more on the impact of
> banning the distribution of code. 
> 
> "If you can put it on a T-shirt, it's speech," said Robin Gross,
> staff attorney for the EFF. "To enjoin the T-shirts as a
> circumvention device is ludicrous." 
> 
> Informed of the subpoena on Tuesday, the EFF is currently
> discussing whether to add Copyleft to its stable of defendants. 
> 
> The T-shirts are sold for $15 on the Copyleft Web site and have
> become best sellers, with $4 from each shirt going to the EFF to
> fund its defense, said Copyleft's Blood. 
> 
> "The whole idea of Copyleft is to support various free software
> initiatives," he said, who added that the organization has raised
> almost $12,000 so far.

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------- End of forwarded message -------

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