# What are the penalties for posessing the illegal number? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 6, 2016, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-penalties-for-posessing-the-illegal-number/754039 "2016-05-06T00:51:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2016, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-penalties-for-posessing-the-illegal-number/754039/21 "2016-05-07T11:36:01Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Certain uses of the number 0 (zero) are, and have always been, illegal, and always will be. I have a buddy who’s doing an undefined time in prison for dividing by 0. ---
**Author:** ![sich\_hinaufwinden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@sich\_hinaufwinden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sich_hinaufwinden)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2016, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-penalties-for-posessing-the-illegal-number/754039/22 "2016-05-07T15:12:28Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > I have a buddy who’s doing an undefined time in prison for dividing by 0. I suggest you not even try to figure out the limit of his sentence. It’s very dangerous and you could hurt yourself badly. You don’t want to end up in…l’Hôpital. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2016, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-penalties-for-posessing-the-illegal-number/754039/23 "2016-05-08T10:48:26Z")
+1 You deserve an upvote for that. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2016, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-penalties-for-posessing-the-illegal-number/754039/24 "2016-05-08T12:48:34Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > Note: there is no illegal number directly involved in DVD decoding. The code- yes, but nothing requiring a number. Except the code can be converted into a number. > > OTOH, for HD-DVDs and Blu-Ray there are actual numbers used whose publication is possibly problematic. > > In terms of “illegal” as in criminal law vs. old-fashioned copyright law (which used to be a civil matter only), there’s several laws that might apply: > > 1. A criminal violation of copyright. This would have required the numbers in HD/Blue-Ray coding to have been officially copyrighted, etc. I don’t believe this was done. In the clear there. Certainly the number for a decoding program could only be copyrighted by the authors. Your code, your number. 1. Criminal copyright infringement is not new, although it is far less commonly pursued than civil claims. 2. The phrase “officially copyrighted” is meaningless in copyright law. A work is protected as soon as it is created. Before bringing a claim under federal copyright law, it must be registered. This distinction would be easier to understand if you refrained from thinking about “copyrighting” as a verb. 3. Copyright law protects a creative and original work of expression fixed in a tangible medium. The source code for computer software had been treated as such an expression. However, a mere string of numbers that is a key or code is not expressive. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2016, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-penalties-for-posessing-the-illegal-number/754039/25 "2016-05-08T16:40:50Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > 1. Criminal copyright infringement is not new, although it is far less commonly pursued than civil claims. > > 2. The phrase “officially copyrighted” is meaningless in copyright law. A work is protected as soon as it is created. Before bringing a claim under federal copyright law, it must be registered. This distinction would be easier to understand if you refrained from thinking about “copyrighting” as a verb. > > 3. Copyright law protects a creative and original work of expression fixed in a tangible medium. The source code for computer software had been treated as such an expression. However, a mere string of numbers that is a key or code is not expressive. 1. Hence the term “old-fashioned”. I was directly drawing attention to the criminal vs. the civil aspect. The latter is what most people are familiar with. The criminal side only got serious fairly recently so not everyone is aware of it. Do you think “old-fashioned” means something else? Or am I using the wrong part of speech again?😛 2. Again??? Good … grief. I mean. Good grief. Just [get over it](http://www.dictionary.com/browse/copyright?s=t), dude. Well past time to _let it go_. You’ve lost this battle before. 3. What? We know that some meaningless string of anything (characters or numerals) is not expressive. But a string that means something is. And it doesn’t matter how it is encoded. If you’re downloading a song, it’s just a series of bits: binary numerals, a number. The RIAA isn’t going to be thwarted by claiming it’s “a mere string of numbers” [sic]. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2016, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-penalties-for-posessing-the-illegal-number/754039/26 "2016-05-09T11:57:54Z")
How I understood it was that the number is that it’s supposed to be illegal to publish, period, due to the DMCA and how it prohibits publishing of mechanisms to defeat encryption. That’s different from something whose illegality depends on the recipient. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2016, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-penalties-for-posessing-the-illegal-number/754039/27 "2016-05-09T13:17:59Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > 1. Hence the term “old-fashioned”. I was directly drawing attention to the criminal vs. the civil aspect. Criminal copyright infringement has been part of federal law since the 1890s. I don’t think the term “old-fashioned” for civil infringement adds any clarity. > [@](#): > > The criminal side only got serious fairly recently so not everyone is aware of it. What do you mean by “got serious”? What do you mean by “fairly recently”? I don’t see criminal copyright infringement as being significantly more common now than it has been in the past. All the prominent copyright cases are civil cases. If you know something about the trends regarding criminal copyright infringement that I don’t, I’d be interested in knowing what you know. > [@](#): > > Well past time to _let it go_. I’m not going to let it go, so long as people like you keep proving that you don’t understand what it means. Remember, I’m not criticizing your usage solely as a matter of grammar. It’s because you don’t understand what it means. “Copyrighted” does not mean “registered.” It means “protected by copyright law,” which happens when a work is fixed in a tangible medium, not when it is registered. I’m suggesting that you avoid using “copyrighted” not because I’m being pedantic, but because you are demonstrating that using it is interfering with your understanding of the matter. I’m encouraging you to help yourself fight your ignorance. And so long as this board is dedicated to fighting ignorance I’m not going to “let it go.” > [@](#): > > 1. What? We know that some meaningless string of anything (characters or numerals) is not expressive. But a string that means something is. And it doesn’t matter how it is encoded. If you’re downloading a song, it’s just a series of bits: binary numerals, a number. The RIAA isn’t going to be thwarted by claiming it’s “a mere string of numbers” [sic]. A sound recording of a musical composition is expressive. A digital key is not. People will use a digital encoding of a sound recording to play it on an appropriate device to experience the expression. They will not do that with a digital key. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2016, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-penalties-for-posessing-the-illegal-number/754039/28 "2016-05-10T21:21:15Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Criminal copyright infringement has been part of federal law since the 1890s. I don’t think the term “old-fashioned” for civil infringement adds any clarity. > > What do you mean by “got serious”? What do you mean by “fairly recently”? I don’t see criminal copyright infringement as being significantly more common now than it has been in the past. All the prominent copyright cases are civil cases. If you know something about the trends regarding criminal copyright infringement that I don’t, I’d be interested in knowing what you know. > > … > > A sound recording of a musical composition is expressive. A digital key is not. People will use a digital encoding of a sound recording to play it on an appropriate device to experience the expression. They will not do that with a digital key. There are a large number of resources availabe on this thing called “The Internet” that will clearly explain to you how US criminal copyright law has significantly changed over the years. With major changes fairly recently. Here’s a [short summary](http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/copy-corner66.htm) that should make it clear how nearly useless the original criminal copyright laws were and what has happened that makes it far more likely someone might be charged now vs. then. It’s not all that hard to find these. All I did was enter “criminal copyright laws” into Google. It’s as easy as entering “copyright” into an online dictionary to find out that it is a verb. Accusing others of not knowing basics of copyrights when you seem significantly uninformed about these matters isn’t helping. As for the last part of your post: Key? What key? What does a key have to do with downloading a song illegally? Note that your posts can be picked apart even further. E.g., earlier you had: “A work is protected as soon as it is created.” No it isn’t. Suppose the work is an article on record temps for Mitchell, SD. It’s not protected as soon as it is created if: It’s created by a US government agency. Or If it is just a table of data taken from some source. No significant text or altered arrangement. And so on. Not everything is born copyrighted. All too often it takes a lawsuit to decide some cases. There are a lot more gray areas than most people suspect. Being weirdly picky while making mistakes is … weird. The OP’s question involves a particularly large gray area. Overly general absolutes don’t help. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2016, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-penalties-for-posessing-the-illegal-number/754039/29 "2016-05-10T22:13:19Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > When this whole debacle started I bought [one of these T-shirts](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/tshirt_back.jpg) which has the actual lines of written code that decrypts DVDs. I’ve never pretended that copying DVDs **or even CDs** wasn’t illegal, I just like the idea that technically wearing one of these shirts out in public could supposedly be considered illegal. I remember the site I bought it off of had all kinds of crazy versions of the info for sale. Audio recordings of the lines of code being read out loud has haiku poetry etc. > > I’ve never once met anyone who had the slightest idea what the text on it meant. Even when I explain it to my non-geek friends they still don’t really get it… bolding mine Copying a CD is not even remotely illegal. They aren’t encrypted at all so they can’t even get you on the DCMA bullshit. What’s illegal is if you then distribute the copied CD without including the original CD. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-penalties-for-posessing-the-illegal-number/754039.md?page=1)