image from http://www.wackyass.org/decss/
image from http://www.wackyass.org/decss/
DeCSS @ URSesquicentennial WeekendLast updated at 12.48 am on Wednesday, October 15, 2003. | |
News | |
Additional links10/15/2003 A lot of the links below have rotted, and rather than revise history, I'm going to give you the new links here: Students Protest DMCA During Visit by Valenti - Slashdot coverage Collegians plan protest during Valenti's visit - Hoss' mirror DMCA Protest - Photos from the event | |
We have photographs!10/19/2000 Hoss posted his photos of the events. | |
Press coverage10/15/2000 There's a story about us on Yahoo! news from the Hollywood Reporter: | |
Post-event update!10/14/2000 Yesterday was the big day. We planned to do three things outside the Palestra before the event took place. First, we wanted to pass out pamphlets [pdf] as people entered the venue. Second, we wanted to be seen wearing our Copyleft shirts, and to give away the shirts that Copyleft had donated to us. Third, we wanted to demonstrate a DVD being played on linux, with the message "We bought this computer, we bought this DVD, but the MPAA doesn't want us to be able to watch it!" We met outside the computer lab at 3:30. Eric brought several thousand copies of the brochure, Seth brought his Debian GNU/Linux CPU. We all wore one of the two DeCSS T-shirts. At around 3:45, we walked down to the site were we had been given permission to set up. Tori and I went to get her 19" monitor. Soon, we were all set up, just in time for the crowd leaving the previous event. We passed out about 800 pamphlets to the crowd leaving the Palestra, and the crowd coming in for UR in Hollywood. Many people were interested enough to stick around for our whole speech, and get more information. A few agreed to wear a free shirt into the event. One of us (I forget who) inadvertantly gave a pamphlet to one of the panel participants: "Sir, are you going to the Hollywood event?" ... "I am the hollywood event!" Many people were reading the pamphlets while waiting to be let into the building, and Eric's mom reported that most people were reading it while waiting for the event to start as well. A few of us, including me, stayed outside to guard our hardware and talk to random people, while the rest went in and sat in a clump. Nothing came up during the "panel discussion", and the Q&A was cut short due to time constraints, so we didn't get to ask any questions in front of the crowd. However! After the end of the event, Seth introduced himself to Jack, and Jack invited us to all come talk to him in private. That was pretty flattering, but I don't think we were really ready to have a long discussion with him. We talked for about an hour, and our conversation reminded be of Jack's debate with Lawrence Lessig at Harvard: us debating the constitutionality of the DMCA, and him using the fact that the DMCA is "the law of the land" as a defense. All in all, the protest was pretty successful. The pamphlets were very effective, and getting to talk with Jack was very cool. We got a whole bunch of good pictures, which will be online soon. We're keeping Eric's mailing list running, so if anyone would like to subscribe, here are instructions:
I'll continue to update this web site, and as soon as we get our photos up, I'll link to them! See you later, | |
InformationSome of this is probably out of date. | |
What's this all about?Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), appeared at UR in Hollywood, an event during Sesquicentennial Weekend. As you may know, the MPAA is suing those people who mirror, link to, or even print on t-shirts the source code for an open source program called DeCSS. DeCSS is a program that circumvents the CSS encryption found on DVDs so that DVDs can be played under Linux. The MPAA is suing under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which is a new law that essentially says that finding or even using ways to circumvent copyright protection mechanisms are illegal. Not only does this law violate freedom of speech, it bends copyright law in favor of big corporations, severely limits fair use, and alters the notion of ownership. Jack Valenti was accompanied by others, namely Barry Meyer '64, chairman and CEO at Warner Bros. and Robert Rubin '77, senior vice president at MCA Universal Pictures. Eric McCarthy | |
Why should I care?The impact of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act stretches far beyond Linux, the Open Source movement and DVD. All three could disappear from the earth tomorrow, and this set of laws would continue to affect your life. Congress never meant for copyright law to grant absolute power to anyone. This is in effect what Section 1201(a)(2) does by banning circumvention technologies without any real exceptions, while at the same time separating this ban from any question of copyright infringement. In effect, 17 U.S.C. 106, which defines the exclusive rights of copyright owners, becomes moot - the copyright owner now has the legal power to technologically enforce any "rights" they wish, and it is illegal to bypass the technological measures enforcing those "rights." In short, fair use stops being a de facto right and becomes a gift from the copyright owner; in reality, absolute power is given to the copyright owner. The upcoming court trials will be an important test for the DMCA. If the MPAA wins this case, a court precedent will be set, and that precedent can and will be used to contract consumer rights in all forms of copyrighted digital media. It is precisely that there are seemingly no limits to how far this could go that makes this such an important issue. As a wise man once said, "Just because you don't take an interest in politics, doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you." | |
Where can I learn more?Thanks for reading about this important issue. If you'd like to learn more, I've collected several links for your viewing enjoyment.
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