DeCSS Trial Begins Today.

July 17, 2000 12:00 PM

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 (10 comments total)

Interesting twist: Friday the EFF moved to disqualify Judge Kaplan over a pair of recently discovered conflicts of interest, at least one of which (advising Time Warner on antitrust issues related to DVDs while in private practice) seems pretty flagrant. Text of the motion, as well as Garbus's affidavit in support, are available courtesy of the EFF.
posted by tingley at 12:41 PM on July 17, 2000

I heard about it on NPR this morning (I knew about it beforehand though), and thought it was a good avenue for the general populace to get to know about the copyright issues being discussed in court (the guests on NPR painted a bleak picture if DeCSS loses today, and they did a great job explaining how DeCSS was programmed for playback, not piracy).
posted by mathowie at 12:42 PM on July 17, 2000

yeah, it's actually funny that they started the trial by showing a clip of the Matrix pirated, when DECSS isn't used for pirating dvd's, which has been available since before DECSS. Also, went to H2K this weekend and saw Jon Johansen, the kid who cracked CSS, and it was just great. These huge corporations scared silly by a 16 year old skinny norwegian.
posted by Doug at 2:39 PM on July 17, 2000

Doug -- I certainly hope the acutual trial went something like the mock trial. [Except for the part of Eric in hand cuffs!]
posted by chiXy at 8:59 PM on July 17, 2000

This is the most profoundly silly court case I've seen in months. So they sue 2600 for linking to illegal material. That's like suing High Times for saying, "You can get weed from your neighborhood pusher." Linking. To illegal material. Ha, ha.

posted by fable at 12:08 AM on July 18, 2000

Actually, I think they originally took 2600 to court for posting DeCSS, and received a preliminary injunction to that effect back in January. 2600 responded by posting a list of links; the MPAA then tried to increase the scope of the injunction to include linking as well.
posted by tingley at 6:41 AM on July 18, 2000

chiXy,

Yeah, well, the part with Jack Valenti handing out the money seems like it pretty much might be real. I've always hated that bastard. Besides being a evil in this case, the MPAA is also responsible for rating movies, which in our corporate world is pretty much censorship (try getting an nc17 rated movie in Blockbuster).
posted by Doug at 6:42 AM on July 18, 2000

Declan McCullagh's day 2 coverage from WiredNews, for those of you following along at home.
posted by tingley at 2:20 PM on July 18, 2000

> "There are copies of decrypted DVDs being offered on the
Internet and in hard copy,"

Ok.

If these lawyers don't catch on *real* quick that just because you *can* murder someone with a tire iron does not make tire irons "criminal tools for murderers"...

I'm gonna go get a tire iron and kill em all.

:-)
posted by baylink at 3:54 PM on July 18, 2000

Well, soon enough the UCITA is going to come along, and then it really will be illegal to things like reverse engineering and making use of broken trade secrets. Perfectly legal things that help drive innovation. Thank you, Congress! Thank you, Microsoft!
posted by snarkout at 4:03 PM on July 18, 2000