Actually, the MPAA has sued several distributors of DeCSS and won a restrainting order forcing them to stop distributing it. The judge ruled that DeCSS appeared to be violative of federal law - NOT copyright law, but the so-called Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 1202.
Admittedly, this isn’t a precedent-setting ruling – yet. But so far as I’m aware, this is the first time the courts have looked at it. And the score seems to be MPAA 1, would-be-pirateers 0.
Foul, the last post was below the belt. The judge has shown his incompetence in his ruling and will probably reverse himself. He did not understand what CSS did.
What are the limits a manf can impose on a “contract by sale” agreement?
Also, I seem to remember some cases where part of the consideration was how to enforce a law and that if peeping into peoples windows was about the only way to enforce a law that was good enough to be part of a reason for deciding against the law.
In this case since, at least to me, there is no clear violation like trying to defeat copyright laws or trying to overcome the older laser burn holes in floppies with intent to duplicate. That given the defeats are in place the only way to enforce stopping people from using DeCSS would be intrusive as in break into their homes and catch them in the act of skipping over an ads while watching a movie. It’s too bizarre
True, the judge did refer to CSS as “copy protection” in his opinion. But that wasn’t the point on which he based his ruling, so it was not a material error.
In what other way do you suggest the judge was incompetent?
None.
The judge was addressing the larger copyright issue and not the more specific case of skipping ads. The “how you view it” of your initial post was not addressed specifically but by default is allowing CSS at least for now with the restraining order.
There is:
http://legal.web.aol.com/decisions/dlip/DVDCCA.html
This only addresses the OP indirectly.
http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/indepth/docs/dvd011000.htm
[quote]
Elfving two weeks ago refused to issue a temporary restraining order against the sites. To get a preliminary injunction, the industry will now have to demonstrate a likelihood that it will prevail on its claim that the Web sites are knowingly disseminating protected trade secrets. Legal experts say the claim in the end may rest more on facts than the law.
The DVD Association is attacking Web sites that post the software as well as sites that provide links to the decoding scheme, and insists an injunction is necessary to prevent the illegal copying of DVDs.
In many respects, the complaint is an attempt to stop alleged copyright piracy without using copyright laws. It relies solely on California trade secrets laws. Perhaps most important, it does not invoke the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, a new federal law backed by companies worried about the very conduct at issue in the DVD case.
[QUOTE]
And a snippet from the same site:
http://www.ct2600.org/dvd-info/dmca-rfc.php3
[QUOTE]
The Copyright Office is seeking written and reply comments from interested parties in order to elicit information and views on whether noninfringing uses of certain classes of works are, or are likely to be, adversely affected by the prohibition against circumvention of access control technologies.
ENGLISH: The Copyright Office needs your opinion on the DMCA and the DVD/DeCSS issue.
[QUOTE]
Sorry - missed the slashes again. ?Don’t know how do after post editing.
Excuse me, but the cases are not the same. The California judge didn’t rule on the federal law issue embodied in 17 U.S.C. § 1201. There were no “trade secrets” at issue in Universal Studios et. al. v. Reimerdes et al., which is the case I’m talking about.
Right, not the same and the Calf judge won’t be ruling anytime soon on any federal law issue. I dropped McLaughlin to show not all CSS cases will get blown over easily and I did note by quoting that it was not a Digital Mellennium case.
DMCA and the Copyright Office part were really dropped in for related info. I’m not arguing “trade secrets” through Universal v Reimerdes but at what was outlined at the 9:32 post. If the Calf case wins to the pirate side then the industry will probably fire up again with Millennium. I think there was some cost savings if the industry pursued the pirates in Calf first. Anyway if the pirates win for the moment in Calf you can turn down the volume and skip over ads.
Let’s see, the requirements for a contract are:
1.Mutual Consideration
All parties must offer something to the other parties. In this case, the manf is offering a DVD, and you are offering to watch their ads.
2.Valid Object
The contract may not require any party to violate a law or otherwise abridge a nonsignatory’s rights. Note that while a contract can’t require you to adbridge someone else’s rights (it can’t require to kidnap your neighbor and force him to watch ads), it can require you to allow the adridgement of your own rights (you can be required to watch the ads yourself).
3.Valid Consent
All parties must be fully informed of the terms of the contract, all parties must agree to those terms, and all parties must be competent to make that agreement (most contracts involving minors, mentally retarded, etc. are invalid). Thus, the manf must not only inform you that they require you to watch their ads, you must agree to this requirement.
4.Non-coercion
No parties may use force or the threat of force to secure agreement to the contract. I suppose one could argue that by refusing to release the movie to anyone that doesn’t agree to their requirements, they are coercing buyers, but that seems like a weak argument to me.
There may have been other requirements that I have forgotten, but if so I don’t think that they are relevant.
See number two.
See number three. I suppose the agreement could be oral instead of written, but that would be difficult to enforce.
Bricker posted 02-13-2000 10:20 PM
So, as a clarification, is this the case that you discussed in the OP, or a different case? If you’re talking about a different case, then it seems irrelevant to me. And if is the same case, then I don’t think “would-be-pirateers” is the correct term. “Pirateers” refers to people who use people’s intellectual property without their permission, not people that use other people’s intellectual property in a way thatisn’t quite the same as how the owners wanted their property used. Are people that record programs off TV and then FF through commercials “pirateers”?
Found, “circumvents technological measures”, in The Digital Millennium Copyright Act,
at http://www.educause.edu/issues/dmca.html, but not the full quote.
But nothing similar in, “Memorandum Order, in MPAA v. Reimerdes, Corley and Kazan” which uses the DMC Act. I think MPAA v R etc. is the same as Universal Studios et. Al. V. Reimerdes et. al Bricker mentioned at 10:42.
Anyway, nothing similar out of the other thread.
The OP states that there are more than one cases where the quote would apply and restrict the, “how you view it”, mentioned in the OP. May be Bricker can give us the references?
I’m not a legal expert (obviously), but I would think that a movie vendor might have the (moral) right to say “this is how I want you to watch my movie.”
For example, couldn’t the director legitimately argue “I filmed this scene in slow motion to express (insert concept A here), and when you fast-forward through it you are destroying my artistic vision?” Shouldn’t an author be able to have that much control over their creation?
Extremely valid catch. It is the same case, and my use of the word pirateers (which probably should have be privateers anyway) was at best misleading. I agree that “pirating” usually refers to wholesale copying, not the ability we’re discussing here.
My bad.
The opinion in Universal Studios et. al. v. Reimerdes et. al. mentions that phrase several times. Were you reading the opinion or the order? See http://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/courtweb/pdf/00-01149.PDF for the opinion that the judge issued explaining the order.
This is the only case I’m aware of right now under this law. Since there have been two rulings, at least, issued in this case, I said “rulings” in the OP. I apologize if this gave rise to the inference that there were multiple cases. A ruling is “an official or authoritative determination, decree, statement, or interpretation” (see Black’s Law Dictionary). The opinion and the order thus both qualify as “rulings” and both stand for the same proposition, viz., that distributing the CSS-beater known as DeCSS is violative of federal law.
Since CSS does not purport to prevent wholesale bitcopying, the consequence of this ruling (if upheld at a trial) is that users do not have the legal right to disable CSS on their DVD systems. Since CSS may be used in the manner I describe in the OP (preventing fast-forwarding, etc) I thought the question was fair and needed no further reference.
I’m not running out of wiggle room though. About all I have to stand on is the overly invasive case I made above so I’ll be FF’ing over the ads and if caught hope the judge sees it my way. That is, an officer sneaks across the lawn, peeps inside the windows (without a cause warrant) and videotapes me FF’ing through a movie ad.
Now comes the enforcement part.
The contract will be stuck at the checkout counter when I buy the movie. The contract will not be a signed contract or validated with an “I agree” mouse click. I thought contracts had to be signed to make them enforceable?
My music CD’s have the restrictions on the inside of the cellophane wrapped case so the “Valid Consent” part will not be met.
Distributors will have to clear space for displays describing the ads inside and explaining the detailed contract for the Valid Consent part. A signing area will have to be setup where I consummate the deal. This would obviously be detrimental to the sales of DVD’s and bad for the industry and used as an arg by the DeCSS side. Worse would be restrictions as per Arnold’s case where a specific restriction for a specific movie would have to be divulged. No end to industry stifling restrictions.
Right by default it’s defeated. So if restrictions are not applied at sale time then a modified DeCSS driver which does not permit copying could be made for FF’ing over ads. Messy
Actually, I am contending that the word “access” in the DMCA means “controlling the means, type, and manner that the copyrighted material is viewed.” If it does, then DeCSS is illegal on its own merits. The judge doesn’t have to listen to someone peeping in your window to know that the law’s been broken. The person selling, giving away, or using DeCSS is breaking the law.
DMCA addresses prohibitions of “manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part”,……Etc. of programs which defeat CSS with the intent of making it harder to steal someone’s work, not how something is viewed. You’re seeing an implication that is not specified. DMCA’s intent is to address access in relation to circumventing copying/access controls not usage controls.
Your extending access to cover the “manner that the copyrighted material is viewed”, is your take and not the law. Your view would make 3 party drivers illegal so can’t be right. It is also conceivable that a 3rd party driver does not “defeat” CSS but enhances its output for viewing only so there is no modification of the CSS code directly. These non-CSS defeat drivers could be distributed.
DMCA just became active and does not address millions of copies of DeCSS currently distributed. It also cannot prohibit something like the following link in Sweden.
http://www.kodfri-dvd.com/download/dvd/dvd_download/dvd_download.html
The link is to PSXCARE’s English version web site. You can find a DeCSS download there and a link to their official site, which is in Sweden. Distributing DeCSS is legal in Sweden and an easy download here. I’m not saying its right but who’s to say people got a driver before or after DMCA? The currently distributed copies of DeCSS would be legal. It’s one thing to prohibit DeCSS with DMCA from here out but the legal system will still have to deal with someone who when arrested by peeping tom police claims he has a legal copy of DeCSS he got pre-DMCA.
And what makes you say this? Does the law provide a grandfather exception for previously-distributed copies?
Right, no grandfarthering.
There is still enforcement which I think is problematical given these programs are in the public domain and widely held.
If DMCA lists what’s legal I missed it. It seems like all drivers are illegal. How can 3rd party vendors write drivers with DMCA? It almost seems like I can only use Universals drivers with a Universal movie, assuming its even legal for Universal to decode their own movies under DMCA.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. Undoubtedly the goal of the DeCSS folks was to get their code into enough hands that stopping it would be impossible.
As I understand CSS, a legitimate CSS decoder contains a licensed “player key”. Possessors of this key may legally play CSS-protected movies under the law. 17 U.S.C. § 1201 (A)(3)(a) provides in pertinent part, “To ‘circumvent a technological measure’ means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner.” (emphasis added). So if the controls are being used in accord with the owner’s wishes, no violation lies.
On looking at DMCA again it seems that if your allowed to write a decoding driver at all then you could legally buffer your output and make it available to non DeCSS code which manipulates the buffered data. The FF and other usage control options would work on the buffered output not involve CSS segment code. This even might be considered a “copy” but might be allowed via a caching format. If that’s even disallowed then possible the ad output could be a stream that’s discarded in a FF algorithm.